I never mentioned that I hadn't been feeling well for over a week - or maybe I had? I would have these weird fevers that only come out at night. I think it might be because it gets colder at night, and very suddenly - so I couldn't really handle it well. In any case, last night topped it all off - was so warm I felt like I could burn anything I touched. I slept 10 hours... which is a lot to me right now - since I haven't really had much decent sleep lately. And I slept really well, too. I felt so refreshed, and relieved, when I woke up this morning without a fever, finally. But I've still got the sniffles. Geh.

Have I ever mentioned that my normal body temperature first thing in the morning is 35.7 degrees Celsius? Pretty low, isn't it. LoL -

I also never mentioned before that - I have 4-day weekends 2 weeks in a row, starting this week! Hehe. It's Golden Week, and if not for 2 days of classes I wouldn't have to go to Uni for over a week! ... As it is, I still do have 2 days of classes (this week's Wednesday and Thursday) and then another 4-day weekend. A nice break - and then downhill again will I start to roll. Haha.

There's a birthday dinner for one of my friends tonight and I'm planning to go - I still don't know what time they'll be starting though. Hmm. ... ... Well. It's not even 5 yet and I'm ready to go any time so I don't really need to be in any hurry.

Hope some of you are catching the 2nd season of xxxHoLic (called xxxHoLic Kei)! I really really like this series hee.

The Devil really did come on horse back... er... camel-back?

Anyway, I had a nightmare last night. I slept pretty late - and thought I had completely knocked myself out from work - until I woke up this morning. The nightmare felt so real... in an odd way.

I watched that documentary on Darfur last night... and thought to lighten the mood up by watching some D.Gray Man. It didn't work, unfortunately. But I turned off the computer anyway - since I was really tired, and slept.

I was enjoying the warmth of my comfy futon when - the next thing I knew, I was running through the desert, barefoot. It didn't feel hot and I wasn't tired, even though I felt as if I had been running for hours. There was this horrible noise behind me and even though I couldn't bring myself to look around - I knew someone was there, chasing me. That's when it came. Two shots to my right shoulder and I fell down. Though, there was no ground - everything was black, and my shoulder was hurting (really hurting!).

The next second I was in the International Court of Justice - how did I know? There was this huge-ass sign behind some judges saying "International Court of Justice". LoL. I was giving testimony and... well everything here was a fuzz and the next thing I realised, the Court granted Not Guilty to the guy I knew who shot me. ...And that's when I shifted off my right shoulder.

My shoulder stopped hurting. I woke up and realised that all that was because I had probably slept on my right for too long. LoL.

Funny how things in real life can incorporate your dreams.

I DLd The War on Democracy - a documentary on the US. I wonder what kind of dreams/nightmares I'll be having next.

Monitoring a ceasefire

"What does monitoring a ceasefire really mean?" were the words that have now just hooked me to Darfur - The Devil Came on Horseback. Another documentary. I left it on pause for the moment because I know I won't get another urge to write for some time and I want to take advantage of it now.

I just had a kind of small - epiphany - the other day. I realised that I can't answer if anyone asks me "What do you major in?" - I would go as far as saying that I study in the Faculty of Cross-Cultural Studies. But what does that really mean?

There was a welcome party for the new 2nd-years now in my Department (Cross-Cultural Communication), and I had this relatively long one-way chat with my professor. (He was so nice to just listen to me. ^_^) I was telling him that I wanted to start working on my graduation thesis this summer so I could finish by early next year and then prepare for the examinations to extend my stay for 2 years. Yeah. (For those who have only just heard this - I'm seriously thinking about extending my stay through to Masters.)

Then we, or I should really say, I, realised that I didn't really know what to write it on. I technically am supposed to be studying International Relations - but it was only then when I realised that I really am not catching up to my peers at all. I'm way way way behind. I don't really know what to do to amend that - except to throw myself back into books. (Was happy to realise, at one point, though, that an IR book I bought recently - that I have thrown myself into - is a Denmark Uni's Masters course textbook - lol)

Well. I am, on the other hand, happy to report that things are settling down with classes etc. I decided to take only 8 classes - which only total to 2 and a half days of class. Coolness or what?

But I will be dedicating the rest of my time to reading. Said, Marx, Chomsky, Huntington, you name it. I'm aiming to finish reading all my books and then some before the end of this semester. Then I'm starting on my thesis. Hip hip hooray!

No End In Sight

It's been an unbelievably hectic week, ending only yesterday after running around here and there, getting 3 nosebleeds for, I believe, no apparent reason unless my body suddenly decided it's weak against air pressure (considering the height of the place I live in, air pressure should be greater the more we go up, right?

In any case. After barely being able to sleep as I was trying to catch up with my reading (take note that from this week it's only week 3 of classes), and then writing up my reports, trying to organise my thoughts in class, too, since I can't do them before - I can never seem to be able to present a coherent point during discussion, ... well, basically after all of that, I just dropped dead on my futon and slept a solid 8 hours before getting up and then having to start the preparation for week 3. I still need to organise my time and figure out what I can spend less time on - and the most crucial thing I need for this organisation - I need to find a quiet place to study. How I'll be doing that, I don't know.

The library closed down for this month - it won't be open till next month. (How unbelievable is that?) Everybody was in some form of outrage. Even I don't know how to handle it. I can't study at home. I can't study out in the parks (still too cold for it at times, plus the lighting isn't always good). I can't study in cafes or whatnot because the number of people coming and going make me nervous... . I'm - everybody's just going to have to be patient another 3 or 4 weeks, I suppose. I doubt that it'd open before mid-May. I seriously doubt it. All this ruckus is really putting a strain on even the professors. (_ _) The only quiet place I know where I can go to in the faculty closes at 5. Hmph.

As it is. I'm behind in my reading again so I'll be catching up to it now.

No End in Sight, by the way, is a documentary on the war in Iraq - I recommend watching it. Lions for Lambs comes short after watching this, buy hey. If you really want to know what's going on in this world, you gotta grab a hold of any info you can get, right?

I feel another nosebleed coming on.

First Week of Class

Technically, I only had one day of classes this week. Where does it have me right now? Dumbfounded.

I had European Spiritual(?) Culture first thing. The name of the lecture surprised me but - that's how it is. It's mostly concerned with Culture Crisis and 19th Century Europe. I think. I didn't really understand since the lecturer only took attendance this first class. We'll be watching some work done by Mozart in the next class. Or so he says. There was something of Wagner and Bizet too, I think. I wonder what I got myself into? ...

My second class was a Seminar with Kitamura-sensei who does the literary side of trans(?)cultural cultures. Exophony... I think she called it? It had to do with literary products by immigrants to Japan at least 50 years ago. As well as some contemporary ones. It's not an easy class but since there are few students, the professor dedicates lots of time to go into detailed explanations.

My last class was on Techno-culture. Now, this class is with Tsukahara-sensei. He's... not quite eccentric, but the level of 'professionality' he's trying to bring into the Uni is unbelievably... extreme. He's trying to teach the scientific side to culture. I thought it would be interesting since he'd be doing projects with nuclear bombs/energy sources, WHO, global warming etc etc. But. The class is as difficult as it is interesting. We were bombed down with a book assignment and a 2000-ji report due next week's class and a mini-research project due the week after and another essay for the week after that. I don't believe that I even have the time to regret my choice as it is or even the time to think over since... well it took me an hour to read a tenth of that book! He said it would only take at least 3!! Well... he did offer me a week's extension, understanding my situation. I declined it. ...Why? Well. As much as I wanted the extension, I wanted to know how far I could reach in the class, too. I don't want to be 'the foreigner' in the class forever. Some of the local students don't take it well at all that the lecturers always favour the foreigners... and it bugs me too, sometimes. But I am grateful that we don't always have to ask for extensions! It's a very very thin line.

Well. After that unbelievable day with classes, some of my friends, Eriko, Non-chan and Nazuna, decided to go to karaoke! (Since we thought it would be the last day we could go out without worrying too much about classes - and I'm starting to believe we were right...) It wasn't as enjoyable as we thought it would be - since we were still worrying about the classes we were to take; to cap it off, Nazuna and I went hunting for the book assigned to us in Techno-culture (misery loves company right? That's partially why I think we took this class together). I only found it around 10pm at night, at which point we just bought it, went straight back to our apartments... and slept.

I woke up this morning with a relatively clear head until I recalled that... including the book assignment, I had another book and an article to read by the end of this weekend. And my reports? ... Help!

I was working at the school (teaching English) today so I had time to read between breaks and on the train. But as it is... I hope I don't tire myself out before next week starts. At which point, I have to see what the rest of my classes will be like. I'm only taking 9 classes this semester. (As opposed to the 13 to 17 I usually take per semester? - It's like heaven!) I arranged it so I have 3 classes a day, on Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays. Minus my Fridays for work, I still have Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays as a weekend! In the beginning I thought that it would be great~ but now. ... It might actually be justified with the weight I'll need to pull.

That said, I need to return to my book. Later!

It looks like a gloomy start to the new semester. The weather forecast said rain for tomorrow. How depressing is that?

It was 10am when I finally woke up today. I intended to go down to Sannomiya to look for this other textbook I had to get for one of my general lectures. Of course, as I thought would happen, I only actually woke up from zombie-mode around early afternoon so I decided to postpone my outing. I'm so not a morning person. I wish shops were open later at night so it wouldn't matter even if I left in the evening. As it is.... ... well.

Instead I watched the Indiana Jones films the whooooole day - all three of 'em, and I'm wondering why I did it, right now. The first film ticked me off so bad. I hated the female characters. It was like James Bond, the cheesy version! But... I can't say that I don't understand why people like it. Maybe it's just not my kind of humour. The Last Crusade was above all, the least painful. It was interesting to see Sean Connery play such an... odd character.

In any case. I need to go and have some solid sleep today - else I'll never wake up tomorrow. It's always so much harder to wake up on rainy days.

My koto teacher was in Kobe today the whole day. Aurelie and I had decided to show her around. She'd lived in Osaka for so long and had barely been in Kobe except for on special events, so it was really interesting to see her reactions on the differences between Osaka and Kobe.

We tried to be very flexible with our route and yet at the same time, cover a big area. So what happened was that we took her to the imported goods shops which she found very interesting because shops like those were/are pretty hard to find. We passed by the Kobe Mosque, went up to the old Ijinkan area (foreigners' residence one or two hundred years ago), went back down to Sannomiya, walked all the way to Chinatown and then Harbourland. Then we went back to Rokkomichi to karaoke to end the day.

It was really interesting because she was so interested in food culture. Like what I eat or what Aurelie eats, how we eat it, what kind of desserts we have etc. It was kind of enlightening in a way, how she said that food we eat is shaped by the culture and lifestyles that we have.

Anyway. My professor just sent a mail through to the mail-list and sped up the schedule for our first class. I'm going to be sooooo busy this semester!

Dusted off my textbooks today~~

The weather is soooo nice today! It's not hot; it's not cold. It's not even chilly - it's just... perfect! I had originally planned to go take a walk at the zoo but then... it closes at 5pm... which is about... now. Haha. I spent the whole morning and afternoon reading manga, downloading manga, reading a textbook (????) while waiting for my manga to download... which was actually kind of fun?? I didn't get too far with my textbook though; I need to brush up my kanji.

I've settled my schedule for this coming semester already. I basically have Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at Uni. I'm teaching on Fridays, but even so, my weekend stretches from Saturday to Monday! Life is good! (^_^) Of course, I did join the gym... and have officially started playing koto. As long as the weekend seems, I'm probably going to be so busy studying that my flatmate's going to see my brains splattered all over the place regularly. Even though her schedule this semester seems even tighter and even more unforgiving than mine! (I swear! At least I have time to breathe!)

When I was arranging my schedule last night, I checked the ones I had to registered for online at the Uni's pages, and I realised that I accidentally registered for Wednesday's 1st period and not the 2nd!!! I felt so stupid.... I mean, what was I thinking?! My record with 1st period classes is not good at all. Not only that, when I checked the teacher's name - it was the same professor who gave a lecture at the symposium with Paul Gilroy last summer! (Even more shocking!!!) This teacher is nice, but I'd really have to face it, I have no idea what he's thinking about at times. I can't get neither heads nor tails from his speeches. ...I have my work cut out for me.

On the plus side, I was dropped from Ogasawara sensei's lecture (because the computer chooses, and at random, lectures that come under general education), which is a good thing because I was accepted into Sakai sensei's lecture - which is the teacher for my Seminar! His seminar is on the same day, too. (Deja vu.... I think I took his lecture and seminar which were on the same day, too, last semester... what a laugh he'll be having.)

This Spring holiday was much shorter than last year's, considering all the stuff I had to do for my seminar till the end of February. March was cut short too because I'd accepted a lot of days to teach at that (tuition?)school I'm working in. I'm so glad classes start on the 10th. An extra one or two days really makes a difference.