Exams

I've put everything on hold until after my exams. My last one is on Friday. I shall hope for good luck, but I will not add into the cult of Testudo. A lot of students make offerings to it during finals week. It's sort of freaky.

On another note, I am currently in the middle of a review of all 350ish kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese) that I know. My exam is at 2 pm tomorrow. Funya. ><

Day 2 - Bureaucracies and Shots

So I haven't hit my goal for water consumption, but that's okay! I'm still working towards my goal. I got my allergy injections and I can honestly say I won't miss them if I get accepted to my program. They do terrible things to my arms (essentially, they're severely bruised every two weeks). I'm supposed to report the swelling, but I don't typically do it. I react very slowly to the shots, so the swelling peaks about 1-2 hours after my injections - I only need to be there for a half hour before they check my reaction. It's usually just redness at that point...If I ever feel the need to tell them (as in, I start dying or something), I will, but until then, I'd rather them not send me back doses for what I consider a normal reaction in terms of my sensitive skin (any sort of puncture or scrape always swells on me).

I would also like to comment on the inefficieny of my university's study abroad office. Not only is my adviser incompetent (as anyone who has him will tell you), he requests you do his job FOR him. I'm not the only one who has sent him an e-mail with a question and he responds with "ask your host institution." Wtf? He doesn't even send me the contact information for the people I should be asking - revision, I doubt he even knows who I should be asking. He didn't know what exchanges we had, when the deadlines were, or ANYTHING of that sort. Furthermore, the office itself requires pointless paperwork that defeats the original purpose. We have to fill out paperwork approving courses we would like to take, which I am perfectly okay with. However, if you're in a position like I am, you don't know the courses that are available to you. So they just have you fill in bullshit as a placeholder (do all the work now and have a box checked, then do it all again later when you actually know the information required).

Enough ranting for now. There is work to be done!

Day 1

Was a failure in terms of water consumption. I even bought more juice. I DID drank 4 thismanies of water (my way of measuring water intake. Every time I drink another thismanie (my hands forming a cup for water), I tick it off. I also got rid of (meaning devoured) the remainder of my sweets and I have no intention to buy more. So my goal is going to be less drastic and more practical. Drink 10 thismanies of water a day; eat more vegetables (I currently eat at least 2 salads a week), and take my vitamin more often.

I just did the basic nerd fitness work out, which is a start. My legs aren't dying, but I think they'll be sorer tomorrow. I really despise crunches, btw. They always hurt my pivot point (usually the base of my spine) because I don't have a mat or anything. Just hard floor. ><"

I finished my speech for Japanese and e-mailed it to my 先生. Let's hope my mistakes aren't terrible.

Twinkle and Water

I'm afraid I still don't know if I was accepted into my study abroad program. Let's hope I know by the end of the semester? (The 18th of May).

On a more lightening note, Soshi (Girls Generation) came out with a new single called Twinkle. I really like the song. It's upbeat but with a sexy flair as they're all of age now (they weren't before). However, I'll say the video focuses a bit much on Taeyeon, Tiffany and Seohyun (although I do think Seohyun is adorable). I just know that if I were part of a girl group, jealousy might flair if a new hit featured just 3 out of 9 members. The other members are there, but it doesn't focus on any of their faces at all...

Also, I like that the Korean groups (Shinee, Soshi, etc) have Japanese versions of their songs (mainly because I can understand it and pronounce it much better), but I typically prefer the Korean version. It flows better. That, and I can hear their Korean accent. They enunciate too much on syllables that using get unvoiced - for instance, if I said, "hey, where did you go?" as opposed to "hey, where'd ja go?". The pronunciation isn't wrong, it's just not colloquial.

I've decided to switch to water in my diet as my main source of liquid. We'll see how long I last, as most of my life, I only drank flavored drinks (milk, juice, soda, etc) and water as a last resort. My main issue is that I don't like the flavor of water - because it takes on the flavor of it's container. Water I don't mind drinking comes from our home's well and I have to use my hands to drink it. If I use a container (glass, paper, plastic), it takes on the flavor of the container. I'm so used to defaulting to juice/soda/milk that everything is going to taste funny...>< I actually find that drinking water with sweets is disgusting, which surprises like, everyone I know. Maybe I'm weird?

But I really need to loose weight and this is the only way I can think of in reducing my caloric intake. I will likely go through sugar withdraw (I've estimated nearly half of my calories come from sugar and it's a miracle I don't have diabetes yet - thank god I have an awesome pancreas and metabolism). The reason for this drastic measure? I need to loose weight before going to Japan. I weigh approx 160 pounds (72 kg), give or take, and simple math says to burn fat, my intake must be less than my output. I've also been conscious of not overeating, which has helped some. My coworker flattered me in estimating my weight at 130 pounds (59 kg), but I'm fairly dense (in terms of both fat and muscle - the only place I'm insufficient is in my arms). It's kind of depressing to weigh as much as my dad and both him and my brother always nag me about it.

That's enough for now I guess.