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A place write I write things about stuff

Author: Rob

Running out of gas

I’m so awake that Benadryl couldn’t put me down. That’s sad.

Halfway through the second round of tests for this semester. Had a Japanese test last Thursday which I did pretty good on, an east Asian civ. test on Monday which I did pretty good on, and still to come are a Chinese history test in a couple hours, a music history test on Friday, and a comp sci test next Wednesday. The Chinese history test has eaten up the lion’s share of study time as I had to read two pretty good-sized books cover to cover. I guess I’m ready for the test, but I’m not quite sure what the outcome will be just yet. As for the remaining two tests, I’m not worried about them, but I’m not overlooking them either. Beyond that, I have three papers to write this month, one of which is a Japanese research paper and an accompanying oral report. All are due in about four weeks, then it’ll be about time for the last round of tests. I think I can get out of here in December with decent grades, although I suspect there will be a slight drop from last spring.

Last week I had to go ahead and get signed up for spring classes in Lincoln. Even though I’m still planning to study abroad, the application process is taking long enough that we won’t have the final yes or no from the other school until well after registration here has opened. Next time around (and forever onward, I suppose) I’ll be taking a lighter class load. Studying for five tests has cut far enough into my schedule that while it’s technically still possible for me to work, the coursework leaves me not wanting to waste the spare time I do have on further activities which require actual thinking. This a problem considering I need the money to keep going to school, and my overall GPA isn’t quite high enough yet to apply for the upperclass scholarship. At this point it’s almost worth it more to take the path of least resistance and risk setting graduation back a semester rather than drive myself broke (already done) and insane (getting there) just to finish school.

One thing I will be doing starting next spring (or this fall if I somehow end up not studying abroad) is getting an apartment off campus. The convenience factor is starting to lose ground to the desire for things like my own shower and the ability to eat breakfast before 1030 on weekends.

Also, I would like to add that Windows 7 is excellent. Probably even more excellent is the fact that I bought it for $17 at the school bookstore. That’s how you stop software piracy on a college campus – make the product so cheap there’s no reason not to buy it. Too bad the CDs are the bookstore are still way too expensive. I was around here when Napster was a big thing, and if you’re still selling music at the same jacked up prices now as you were ten years ago, even if those prices are technically cheaper due to a decade of inflation (how the hell does a Snickers bar cost a dollar?), you’re pretty much begging for people to not buy CDs you paid money to be able to stock.

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Oops

There are dangers to having just one pair of pants in your arsenal. Namely, when your pants get caught on something sticking out from a couch, and when you walk by that something takes hold of your pant leg and opens a huge hole, like this:

As you can see, the damage is extensive – it’s the size of a CD jewel case.

What’s worse is when this happens an hour before class. I ended up having to throw on some gym shorts, hurry over to Target, and buy new pants.

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Oh Look

I’m up late. Again. Same reason as last time, too.

Well..

Same cause, but different reason.

In the interest of being as vague as possible, I’ll just say I left something undone over a decade ago, and it’s one of those things you think about for years and kick yourself for not taking care of it when you should have. Maybe one of these days I’ll get a chance to tie up the loose ends… or maybe I won’t, and it’ll keep resurfacing every so often to bother the hell out of me for hours or days at a time – long after we’ve all gotten our flying cars. Come to think of it, that whole time frame where this issue originated wasn’t that great for me personally. I was teetering on the edge of being a full-blown basket case, and actually had somebody tell me later on that I came off like I was going to snap at any moment.

Wouldn’t that have been a trip.

Been extremely busy the last week due to the recent round of tests. Had an Asian civ. test last Friday which was a rehash of material from last year, a comp sci test on Wednesday which I’m fairly certain I did good on, and a Chinese history test tomorrow – technically later on this morning – which I’m not entirely sure about just yet. I misjudged how much time I actually had to get ready for the test, and as a result I ended up putting off reading the two books I had to read until last week. In the end I read about 80% of both of them, taking ridiculous amounts of notes along the way. My experience with the tests the professor in this class gives tells me that should be enough. Oh, and there’s a Japanese test next Tuesday.

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I make a bloggings

So, here’s me right now:

This is after an hour of failing to get to sleep. The dumb thing about going to bed with your mind on stuff is when you can’t take your mind off of that stuff and you end up laying in bed forever running over what you’d do/say, or what you should have done/said. Now if only my flux capacitor worked…

Anyways, we’re about halfway through week 5 of the fall semester. Things are a bit hectic this time around as I’m taking 15 hours of actual classes on top of having to work to cover a several thousand dollar gap that financial aid didn’t cover. And then on top of all that I decided this would be a good time to go volunteer to be MC at this year’s Japan Night, so now I’m committed to attending the occasional rehearsal in preparation for the show in November. I’m still finding time to screw around, such as right now when I’m blogging instead of sleeping, but for the most part I’ve been staying pretty busy. Which isn’t altogether a bad thing.

Ok, so here’s my official review of the trip to San Francisco last month, which I mentioned in this post. The school I checked out was on the west side of town, away from the downtown insanity. I’m not sure if I just got lucky or if that’s how stuff happens out there, but the day I went to the campus it was a full 5-10 degrees cooler than the downtown area (where most of my exploring that weekend took place), and it was foggy on top of that. The campus itself was pretty cool to walk around. I had a pretty good feeling about the visit, and as it happens a return trip is just around the corner – I’m going back to San Francisco to take the JLPT in December, and as it happens it’s being held at SFSU.

As for the rest of the city… definitely cool. I’ve lived in a lot of different places over the years but the one common factor is that they were all for the most part smaller cities. San Francisco has more people in one square mile than Papillion does total. I spent some time staring at tall buildings one evening, and I spent the whole trip figuring out the mass transit system. Probably the best part was there no way I could have seen the whole city in four days. I went to Japantown, the Asian Art Museum, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and I took in a Giants game, but I missed Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, Golden Gate Park, and who knows what else.

The most telling thing about the whole trip is that 6 weeks later – long after the initial excitement has worn off – I still want to go back out there on a long-term basis. Even if it means paying through the nose to live there.

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