Juxtaposed in Japan

Monday, July 31st

[ILC/Library] Yay for money!

Current Sounds: Listening to the odd conversation next to me (and I know the people!)

Not sure if I mentioned it the last time I wrote, but it's raining almost everynight now. This is good (rain still somehow impresses me. I credit the "I live in a desert" fact). It also struck me as curious a few days ago that it's raining so much now, but that's because it hadn't been raining much over the past few years. Arizona (and other parts, I'm sure) has what they like to call a "Monsoon Season" (between Summer and Fall). According to some meteorologists, it's different enough that it should be considered a separate season, but that's unrelated. This is where it rains for a long period of time and nearly floods the city, but is still really nice and not incredibly hot for a while (sometimes a few weeks, yay!). Over the past few years, it hasn't really been raining much. Totally pointless!

Anyway, I got my financial aid situation figured out (I don't think I mentioned that either, but I had to go battle it out last week over a fairly significant chunk of money that the school decided they didn't want me to have). Came in with tons of papers, getting ready to yell, scream, complain, and leave in defeat only to be told "Oh yeah, we fixed that last Friday". Soo.. they have my phone number and both e-mail addresses that they use to contact me, and they assumed I'd just figure this out?

Other than that (and including that, considering I have my money back), today's going alright. Only slept 3 hours or so, but I'm feeling fairly awake. So.. that's about it.

I really should write more frequently. Keeps things from seeming so life-destroyingly (that's a word, I swear) catastrophic when I do write.

That's about it.. I'm going to continue to browse online and stare at random websites while listening to the odd conversation going on right next to me.
School on 07.31.06 @ 10:53 AM JST [link]

Saturday, July 29th

A midnight (6am?) surprise

Current Sounds: Rain and thunder

Stayed in bed for about an hour or so trying to sleep, but no luck. I'm not really sure why, since I'm actually really tired right now. After an hour, it started raining, which wasn't all that bad. Hey, sleeping through the rain is always really nice and soothing (even though it actually sounds quite vicious outside right now). Tried doing that for around half hour or so, but the sounds of the kitten trying to break into my room (I guess she's afraid of the rain, maybe?) got to be a bit much and I decided to take a stroll around the house, read some news online, and maybe try to get some sleep in a bit. As luck would have it, it turns out that water had been seeping under one of the doors on the side of the house and made some good headway down the hall. So, to make a long story short.. I spent the past 15-some-odd minutes mopping up water, with a kitten staring at me. At 6AM. Not that it's terribly important, but my current estimate is that it was about a gallon or more of water (probably closer to 2). This doesn't sound like terribly much, but when spread out on the floor, it's amazing how far it can go.

Yay, rain!

Anyway, things aren't all that bad. I'd write something long and detailed, but I'm really quite tired (I went to lay down at 4, and it's already 6). However, this week's been alot of fun, mostly just relaxing and watching television and movies that I haven't seen for awhile. I have to go down and yell at some people at the university next week.. but I'll worry about that on Monday.

Now, why was I up till 4AM? Because I had decided that 2AM was just the best possible time for me to take apart the audio-visual setup in the house, take out a VCR, and replace it with a DVD-Recorder/VCR. This took much longer than I assumed (it was much bigger than the previous device, so I had to cut some holes for the cords, move furniture, etc) and kept me up much longer than I expected. After that, of course I needed to comment in some Japanese person's online journal, which took awhile to compose something witty and sensical in Japanese. Why was I up at 2AM? Well, I couldn't possibly be expected to be in bed before then, now could I?

So, now that I'm not going to float away while I sleep due to the irregular flooding AZ is known for and the kitten is (hopefully) able to entertain herself, I'm going to go for try #2 on sleeping.
Jason on 07.29.06 @ 06:09 AM JST [link]

Monday, July 10th

[Library] Killing time

Current Sounds: Typing, coughing, etc
Currently Feeling: My head hurts. Feel bad for me?

So, I'm here, at the library, killing some time because I don't really see much of a point in heading back home just so I can head out again. I also have a really bad headache for some reason, most likely from the heat. But that's neither here nor there, now is it?

I've been having weird dreams every night, though I don't seem to remember what they are with an hour or so of waking up. But they, at the time, seem so vivid. Most of the time they seem to revolve around conflict, usually arguing with people. I hate having dreams like that, especially for an extended period of time. I'd say it's related to stress, but I really don't know what could be bothering me enough to be messing with my sleep lately. Whatever it is, I'd like to deal with it soon and get over it. It'd be nice to actually sleep through the night without waking up several times. Bah.

As for the rest of today, it's been alright. I came to the campus to meet someone for lunch (first day of summer classes, so I came to meet up with them, though I'm not taking any summer classes this year), then I have about an hour and a half until I need to head out again to meet another person. I'm not sure if I'm going to go home in the mean time or just head to the new meeting place from here. It'll be more walking through the sun if I head back, but I'm not really sure what I'd do here if I wait. Decisions, decisions.

Also, before the night is through, I need to find two people to state that I'm not a crazy bankrobber so I can get my student loans for school. I'll be sending some e-mails off tonight and asking if I can use some people as references. If you're reading this and I did e-mail you.. well, this seems really awkward to read about it ahead of time. But.. yeah! Random, random.

That's about all I have to ramble about for now. I know I had some more prophetic/important-sounding things I wanted to talk about earlier, but nothing comes to mind right now, and my head hurts too much to put these thoughts together. I should go drink more water or somesuch. Remember, kids: you can't drink enough water in the desert.

Off I go.. I'll write again sometime soon-ish. I always come back with more exciting news. Oh yes.
Insecure on 07.10.06 @ 12:29 PM JST [link]

Friday, July 7th

Raining..

Current Sounds: Junko Iwao - Marshmallow Yakero

Have I mentioned how much I like the rain? Of course, all in moderation. Being locked inside and having the streets flooded isn't really what I look forward to, but I find it really calming and peaceful to watch the rain hit the windows and hearing it fill puddles on the ground.

Rain always seems so sad, but I think that's what makes it so calming. To quote someone who is no longer alive, "We need to be sad sometimes, or else happiness doesn't have any meaning." I think they were right. There's also a certain sophistication, a level of detail to the dark atmosphere when the water comes falling.

Yes, today is a rainy day. Couldn't be more fitting, I guess, and I appreciate it. Today started off on a strange note, being contacted by someone I thought I had lost all contact with (and who pretty much stated that they hate everything about me).

Anyway, now that I rambled about weird, hardly-sensical things, I'm going to head off and play a game for awhile. The forecast says it should rain till Tuesday. I hope it does, but it'd be nice if there are breaks inbetween. After a day or so locked in a house with constant rain, I'm not the happiest person.
Jason on 07.07.06 @ 02:14 PM JST [link]

Monday, July 3rd

The lonliness of a whisper

Current Sounds: Utada Hikaru - Sanctuary
Currently Feeling: "The world's a copy of a copy of a copy..." Tired and distant.

When I was young (which I guess I still am, depending on how you look at it), I used to think of voices like colors, and whispers were black and white. Everyone's voice is different and you can fairly easily tell the difference between one and the next. But when someone whispers, almost everyone sounds the same. It's devoid of their individuality, of the "color" that the person has. I don't know why it is, but I've always thought of whispers as something lonely and distant.

I'm not really sure why that came up, but it's something that seemed relevent a few days ago.

Since it's still summer, not terribly much of interest has happened lately, I guess. Most days blend from one into the next without much note. As horrified as my younger self would be to hear me saying this, I actually just want to go back to school. I rather enjoy having the schedule and doing something productive with my time. That's not to say that it's all been bad, though. I've gotten a fair bit of work done with my website, finished another translation project (I need to start a new one soon), been able to play through and finish alot of games, watched a bunch of movies, and have had some time to review/study/read some new Japanese books. I'm currently reading "13 Secrets for Speaking Fluent Japanese", which isn't too bad. I don't suggest it to someone who doesn't know any Japanese, as it's not about teaching you Japanese, but about teaching you how to use it more effectively. I'd like to read something that's not based on learning soon, so I'm thinking about picking up "Jarhead" (the book that the movie was based on) soon, if I can find it. I like reading and learning more things, but it gets tiring after awhile. Sometimes I just want to read for fun.

I've also managed to relearn that there's a very good reason why I prefer to not get too close with people sometimes. I like knowing people, I like getting closer and having people around to depend on, talk to, and not be so closed off all the time.. but it also means that the person is now closer, they mean more, and it's easier to get hurt. I rather don't like getting hurt. I don't like seeing something happening, knowing it's going to be bad, and letting it happen anyway. There's a certain problem with the system here.

I should get going, do some reading, play a game or somesuch.

Hopefully I'll get some sleep tonight. We'll see how it goes.

I'll post again when I have a chance/something to say.. yes.
Jason on 07.03.06 @ 10:36 PM JST [link]


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