Juxtaposed in Japan

Monday, September 26th

Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

Current Sounds: Typing, light banter.. library stuff.

Title? Pointless. But Jason's brain am not work no good, so we use a quiote (as I oft do when I'm at a loss for a title). This is going to be horribly short, but I have some free time, so I might as well write.

I started and finished my second Japanese composition (that I technically shouldn't have had to do) last night and shipped it off to have it checked. I now have two edited versions of my paper (along with my original), so I need to read through the changes, figure out what I did wrong, why it's wrong, and rewrite it. I'm just glad that this one came along fairly smoothly. It's technically not due until Thursday, but I'll probably hand it in Tuesday (tomorrow) so I don't have to worry about it. No matter what she says, I am not writing a third Japanese composition this week.

Can't seem to sleep. Stayed in bed for awhile last night, unable to drift off, and then woke up two hours later from a nightmare of some sorts when I finally did manage to get up. Instead of waiting around campus today, I think I'm going to head home and sleep during the break between classes. I should be semi-coherent for my test.. I think.

I believe the door to my class should be open, or will be in a short bit. I'm going to go make a run for it so I can just close my eyes and rest for a bit in the relative safety of the classroom.

So.. I'll post a bit later. I'll also post my Japanese composition then, or sooner.

Off I am..
School on 09.26.05 @ 10:34 AM JST [link]

Friday, September 23rd

Drifting, drifting into the sea.

Current Sounds: Amuro Namie - Never End

Slept for about 10 hours, the first time I've broken 5-6 all week. I'm not sure how it's happening, but I somehow find myself so busy during the week, and I just can't get in anytime to sleep. It's really leaving me quite drained.

As I believe I mentioned in my previous entry, I finished my composition. It was a modified version, of course (great thanks to Junna for editing it for me. Yes, my Japanese does still utterly suck), but mostly just in changing some sentences for greater clarity. I'd post up the new version, but I'm afraid my teacher has it. Speaking of which, I found out that my composition isn't due until next week. When she said "bring it on Thursday", she meant that we can work on it in class Thursday. But it gets even better. Since I finished mine in such a short period, she wants me to write an entirely new composition. Ah, the joys of being the student who actually does the work. You get more work! I'll try to start that this weekend, but I also have a math test to study for, 2 writing papers to finish, and a kanji quiz to study for on Tuesday. Alas, we all know I'm barely going to study, so.. that's life.

Possible composition ideas: The introduction/story of "Super Neko", a discussion of my hobbies, a schedule of what I do in a day, or maybe something else.

Otherwise, today was kinda.. uneventful/eventful at the same time, if that makes any sense. Spoke with the Japanese university student for about an hour and a half at a coffee shop. It was mostly in Japanese, though some English here and there, due to some things just not coming across well (and my iffy language skills). She's really quite nice, and I'd like to meet and practice more often, if possible. Maybe next week, if it works out. I also need to e-mail someone else tonight (I was supposed to last night.. bad Jason!). Not sure what about, actually, but my Japanese teacher told me to e-mail them, so we'll see how it goes. Beyond that, just realized that my bicycle lacks any functional brakes (really need to fix that, as it's quite dangerous), picked up a reserved game ("Ultimate Spiderman" [PS2]), came home, and watched "Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children" and "FFVII: Last Order". Both are really quite good.

Tomorrow.. probably even less eventful. As far as I know, the whole day's free. I really, really should do some of that work that's piled up, but.. I don't know if, what, how, etc. I just feel like walking in circles, wandering and lost in thought over the weekend. Sunday, I'm probably going back to the church. I'd really rather not, but I need to try to keep my Japanese up. Unless I sleep through it, like last week. Let's hope not.

I really do need to apologize about earlier today, regarding a certain phone call (I checked my voice mail and heard the message a bit ago).. I'm really sorry about that. As a matter of policy, though, if I'm talking to someone, unless I know them really well, or don't care to continue the conversation, I usually don't pick up my phone. I find it rude when people do that, so I usually just avoid it (besides, rarely is anything important happening for people to need to actually talk to me). Sometimes this does backfire, though, as it did today. If something's really important, do call more than once. If I don't pick up still, I'm either not around, or the situation really is to a point where I simply cannot answer the phone. If you don't have my phone number, you don't know what I'm talking about, or are just plain confused, just ignore this.

Tired right now, though I really shouldn't be. Gah.. it's only 2am. Still have a full night in front of me (though apparently I have a semi-early phone call to be awake for). Other people, who I was going to do something with, are busy.. blah. Sucks, sucks. So.. I'll just have to keep myself occupied with something for now.

Might as well go, since I'm just rambling now. As usual, I'll write later, when I have a chance.
Jason on 09.23.05 @ 11:23 AM JST [link]

Too bad the day's just begun.

Current Sounds: Chobits - Let Me Be With You

Barely slept last night, and I'm in the middle of something, so I can't really write. But.. I am anyway. Kinda strange, isn't it?

Finished writing my composition in Japanese last night. For some reason, I just can't seem to write anything decent for it. I hate sounding so.. horrid. I also shipped it off to 3 people last night, so hopefully I can get some feedback on it and get it corrected. Anyway, all the information on that (including Japanese and English versions) is found under "more..", which is a link at the bottom of this, to the right of my user-icon and the left of the "comment" link.

Tomorrow, I'm going to go meet with someone to speak in Japanese. Kinda bothered by this, but I think it'll be good to get more experience speaking, and especially nice to be able to try to practice more here in the US.

Otherwise, not much to say. Just waiting for one of my classes to start, reading some articles, and looking at the correction to my Japanese composition. While I have a free moment, I would like to state how much I dislike when people run around and try to pretend to be smart when they throw around publicly information showing that they clearly have no idea what they're talking about. In short, I really don't like the faux intellectual facade so many people seem to toss up. I greatly respect intelligence, and people who truly have unique and well-founded insights into life. But those who just read some poorly written article online, or fight on messageboards, and then turn around and spew out stuff that doesn't even make sense in the hopes of sounding like an intellectual are just stupid. At least check your facts before rambling off on stuff. Make sure that you have your bases covered if you're just going to make stuff up or make broad generalizations. Not everyone falls for the cover of "big words".

I wrote this for a specific reason, but.. I won't go into it. Maybe I'm just an elitest. Nay, I probably am.

Oh, I think I'll be starting another game tonight. Going to impose a 3-4 day deadline (need to pick one) for it, to make sure I keep up a decent pace. Hopefully I'll be able to update the site with content and the game sometime this weeekend. I'll post information about it as I have it (right now, most of the prelim details are in a notebook).

So, that's about it. I'll write sometime later..

Or I'll pass out. We'll see which sounds better.
Jason on 09.23.05 @ 04:30 AM JST [more..]

Sunday, September 18th

'Do you remember the day, when we had a long, long way to go?'

Current Sounds: Nine Days - Absolutely (Story of a Girl)

I make it a note to title nearly all of my journal entries, even if the title doesn't always directly seem to relate to the subject of the entry. I assure you, it does. It's just that sometimes it only makes sense in my own head. For some reason, I can't really compile my thoughts together right now to write anything in there that works, that feels right. So.. whatever winds up being there, I wrote it at the last minute before submitting this.

Not really going to write much. It's 0313PST and I need to be up in 5.5 hours if I'm going to be up and ready to bike down to the Japanese church. Technically, I need some sleep. Alas, I don't even know if I'm going to go tomorrow. Might as well, though.. nothing better to do with my morning, and if anything, I hear hanging through pays off.

I guess this is long in the making, but I'm a bundled up ball of emotions right now. Kinda like a ball of yarn, just a little more twisted and not as easily unraveled. All at such an early hour in the morning. I'm not clear if I'm making any sense right now, but everything is just so.. intensified. All those things I usually hold back, the things I don't say, the feelings I hide, I really don't want to right now, nor do I feel like I should. At times like this, it's really best if I don't have access to e-mail or IM clients. I've been known to write some rather awkward stuff to people who really don't need to know.

I just hope that a paltry amount of sleep will fix this. I need to be up, chipper, and praising god in just a bit. I think somewhere in the bible it says something about "Thou shalt not use the church to findeth someone to teach thyself a foreign language".. but, honestly, I can't remember that passage, so it must not exist.

Hmm.. yeah, I need to go before I make even less sense or, worse, start writing things that I'll later regret. I don't really think I'll be able to sleep right now, but I really think it's my best choice right now. Stare at the roof through the darkness for awhile and hope that clarity comes in the morning.

Oh yes, I ooze optimism and happy stuff right now.

So.. I'll write someone later. Hopefully I'll have a bit of a tighter reign on my feelings when I do.
Jason on 09.18.05 @ 08:33 PM JST [link]

Friday, September 16th

I'm not doing anything wrong, I swear..

Current Sounds: TWO MIX - Naked Dance
Currently Feeling: Jason beez wantering the sleep.

On the school computer in my Japanese language classroom. I'm probably not supposed to be using it, but seriously, that's not a good enough reason to not.

I'm alone in the classroom right now and just finished up my required homework. I was working on some optional stuff, but I'm really too tired to bother with it right now. So, obviously, that leaves writing in my online journal. This morning, I took off a bunch of games I had on my memory stick and replaced them with mp3s. Makes the bus rides and long periods between classes more enjoyable. Ideally, I'd like to get a full-fledged mp3 player instead of using the PSP. It's a good mp3 player (with full-featured random, something hard to come by on these things), and actually quite nice, but it's.. big. Not so good for an mp3 player. I'd buy one, but that whole "money" thing gets annoying. As it is, I still need to scrape some money together so I can get the kimono I got in Japan shipped to me. Probably going to be quite pricey, unfortunately.

What have I done today? Not much! Slept about 4 hours, stumbled out of bed, ignored the stranger who was in my house (other people were talking to them, so I figure they must've been fine) and got ready. Sat through writing class, wrote a paper on a book I didn't read (that's an interesting story in its own right, but let's just say I take "vague" to new levels. Personally, I think the paper sounds pretty good. We'll find out if the teacher noticed when I get graded), took a bus, and here I am. In three hours, I should be on my way back to the house thing, will get my film developed (I could wait the hour for development, but I don't care, so I'll pick them up tomorrow), then will get online to play some FFXI, assuming my party is around and available (LinkShell name: RCPD). Ideally, I won't pass out inbetween these activities, though I think this is a possibility. In my favor, I can look and sound quite awake even while falling asleep, so I might still be able to wing it okay (unless, of course, I'm crossing a street..).

Today, I want to talk to my teacher about speaking less English in class. This is mostly an immersion class, but she does and will translate if the person doesn't understand after a few tries. I think some things should be translated.. you can't be expected to know everything. But not every word in the sentence and a play by play. Then again, my Japanese teacher's really sweet.. I don't think she wants to ruin anybody. I think that if you can't keep up, you need to study more or try a little harder. And, hey, if you go to any other country, I don't think the local people will translate everything for you. I know they didn't in Japan. It just doesn't hurt to get used to trying to derive meaning from what you hear. Really, it helps.

People are in the class, so I'll get going now. Should probably stare at my homework a bit more anyway.

I'll write sometime later.. most probably.
School on 09.16.05 @ 07:19 AM JST [link]

Wednesday, September 14th

My eyes wander..

Current Sounds: Listening to someone try, and fail, to troubleshoot their computer.

Antihistamine is incredibly helpful, but bitterly evil. I've been feeling mildly sick for weeks now, either from allergies or a stubborn sickness that won't die. Don't know yet which it is. Regardless, I took some allergy relief stuff, and now I feel like I'm going to pass out. As it is, my eyes are closing of their own will as I'm typing this up. Quite horrible. I have no idea how I plan on lasting the next 6 hours, especially as one of them is Japanese class.

I want to sleeeeeeeep!!

I want to try to design the website for my writing class, but I don't have my own comp here and would have to deal purely with the library computer, and that's no good. Could find some decent stuff on Google, but I'd have to make most of the site with MSPaint and Notepad. While I do that fairly often, I still need to work on some images if I want to do what I have in mind.

Will probably go play Lumines or Coded Arms [PSP] for a bit and try to kill some time. Stringing thoughts together in written form isn't working too well right now. I need to wake up somehow, before I fall asleep. Honestly, I just might do it. I hate being this tired.

So, off I go. I'll post later when I have a chance..
School on 09.14.05 @ 03:58 AM JST [link]

Friday, September 9th

People shouldn't talk on phones in the library.. or else, they get killed.

Current Sounds: Library stuff.. oh, and the guy who's talking on his phone.

Have about 20 minutes until my writing class. I don't even have writing class today (instructor's out of town), but in order to ensure that I actually came here and for other odd reasons, I have to go to the library to learn how this "research" thing works. Wow.. research. In a library? Never done that before. Ideally I can just get my paper, sign in, and be done with this as soon as possible. Oddly enough, Japanese homework sounds more fun than this (and now that I mention it, I forgot to do my homework assignment. It's really easy, though.. won't take more than a minute. If I ever get really bored, I can always start filling out my workbork). While on the the topic of Japanese, I've been reading through a grammar handbook in my spare time. Not so interesting, but it is helpful (if you know what to ignore and what to listen to.. some of what they say is simply incorrect at times, mostly in instructing you in how polite you must be at all times).

And now I only have 5 minutes. See what MSN does to you?

I have to run. I'll write l'll write later when I have a chance.
School on 09.09.05 @ 04:43 AM JST [link]


September 2005
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