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.

Work and Life

Today I discovered the unpredictability of life. My employer, who has been trying to sell his establishment for some time, finally sold his restaurant. Meaning after Saturday night, I will be out of a job. And it's virtually impossible for me to get a job before the middle of June after all the stuff that's going on. I'd actually prefer to work Mother's Day, if it meant that I wouldn't be completely out of a job that I was depending on. So that literally means 6 weeks of absolutely no work. I will try to find other ways to earn money, but it's not like I can work at home doing odd jobs or anything.

I was told by a friend to take the time to relax. But I can't, especially if I get accepted to the program. This flips all my plans upside down. One should be able to combat these situations, but I dunno...I was really depending on the money that I would be making over the summer.

"Kara" among other things

Things are about to get rather busy for me, so I'm not sure if I will update in a timely fashion when I find out about my acceptance/rejection. I have a short paper due Mon, but first I have to visit an art gallery to do it (which is sort of BS, because I'm a believer that field trips should be optional in college as, despite it being free other than transit costs, you do not go as a group). Following that, I have to read two novels by the 10th (shouldn't be too difficult), write a speech by the 3rd and memorize it by the 7th and write a paper on one of the novels by the 10th. On the 12th I have my first exam, the 13th is Mother's Day and despite my having another final the next day (Monday), my employer insisted that I work (it's an important day for restaurants). I shall hope I am able to find enough time to get all my studying done. Final on Mon and then final on Tu, with my last final being Friday (the 18th).

After that, (Saturday the 19th) I head out on surprise over night trip with my boyfriend to celebrate our 5th year together. The date itself isn't until the 27th, but I'm going to Ireland with my dad and brother on that day. The trip will be approximately 10 days long, with our return on the 6th of June. Then, starting the 11th, I have Jury Duty (joy). I was able to differ it, as it would have been this past week originally but I have school that is nonrefundable so I requested to be granted an exception.

On another note entirely, have you seen "Kara"? It's very interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-pF56-ZYkY
I doubt we'll get to this point within a hundred years, but who's to say? As for language, it shouldn't be particularly difficult once we have translating and such down (if you've ever used Google translate, you'll know it has it's flaws). You simply need the signifier (the word) to correlate with the signified (the idea behind the word). For instance, if I say "cat", the signifier is the word "cat" and the signified is the image or idea of a cat that surfaces when the word is said or written.

I don't know what else to say right now, so I'm just going to end it.

Update for the sake of Updating

I hate doing this, but it's been almost two full months of updating. Well, the good news is that I've finally switched back to my old medication and so far things are going great. I don't feel as moody and I'm generally more positive. It's still cheaper than it used to be, but I'm not sure if it's because I'm buying it in the three month packages or not.

The scariest thing is - is the synthetic hormone altering my personality OR am I naturally a calm/pleasant person and the natural hormones destroy my moods? Everyone reacts differently, but in my experience, I have a four day time frame of emotional instability on YAZ (two days before and two days after my cycle starts) as opposed to a constant instability on natural hormones.

BTW, I'm now part of a freelance translation group. I'll post more about it when I have a few chapters out. It's rather tedious, but not as tedious as the project I tried previously (almost no furigana and I don't know nearly enough kanji, so I had look each one up in the dictionary).

I still don't know if I was accepted into the exchange program or not. I have a strong suspicion I'll find out about my scholarship (the Bridging Scholarship, which informs applicants by the end of May) before I find out about the program itself! I've found a rather decent place to live, but the company still hasn't returned my e-mail (it's only been a couple days though, so maybe I'm getting impatient?). I'm just worried I'll get accepted and not be able to afford the cost of living because I can't get into the housing that I need. X/

My friend who had applied to JET is now in limbo - they placed him as an alternate, so as people decline their acceptance, he has a second chance. It just means more waiting, but he seemed fairly optimistic. I hope it all works out for him. If he's able to go, I'll know at least 2 people from my university overthere, maybe 3 if another friend applies for the 2013 summer program. And another is teaching in Korea. Emergency contacts are always good - no matter where you are.

At the end of May, my dad, younger brother and I are going to Ireland! We're still in the air about some of the finer details, but we're likely hitting up Dublin, Limerick and Belfast (yes, Northern Ireland). The Cliffs of Moher, Kilkenny and Bru na Boinne are some of the little side trips we plan on making. Listowel castle in County Kerry is also on the list, mainly because it was raided by a very distant ancestor. >>"""

That's enough for today, I suppose.