A Month Left

Hello world!

Today I'm in a rather good mood, despite the current situations at hand. Before anyone gets concerned, they're really not all that bad, so let's just get into it.

First, for those who might keep up on my Facebook through whatever means, you might know that I've been a little sick the last few days. Correction, very sick a few days ago and recovering the last couple days. Good news first, I'm feeling pretty good today, a little sniffly still but I don't feel like someone threw me down some stairs into a patch of freshly cut grass while submerging my ears under water. Yeah... that was Friday, haha. Anyway, I'm feeling a lot better, can smell things, don't have to reach for a tissue ever 5 minutes (just every half hour or more). Whatever I had is definitely on it's way out.

Perhaps the most amusing part of this whole thing deals with my hair, haha. When you're sick the last thing you want is to feel sweaty and irritated, and my hair was in my eyes and making my head itch with sweat and also my ears. I decided to fix that problem with a pair of scissors and a razor, haha. It marks the first time I've ever given myself a haircut, and everything considered I think it turned out okay. I'm sure that anyone could have done the same job as good or much better, (maybe not Helen Keller, and that's a maybe XP), but it's comfortable and that was my goal. Success in my book!

Alright, next unfortunate event is the upcoming weeks of work. Well, maybe not work, but Final Papers around the corner. In roughly 3 weeks I am going to have 3 Papers of about 10 - 15 pages to research and write. Marketing will be a joke, so that one doesn't count, but the other 2 are actually a substantial amount of work. For what it's worth, I only have to pass the classes for my school to count the credit, and my GPA isn't affected, and while I'm not looking for an excuse to be able to slack, it's there nonetheless. It's not my style to blow a paper so I'm not going to do that, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it takes off at least a little pressure.

Being as sick as I was on Friday I decided to tell my teacher I couldn't stay in class and just went home and rested (I'm glad I did, Friday was a bad day), and we had review in class for a test on Monday that I'll probably have to take. Today I've been reviewing, so it's not too bad, and it's a 文法 (grammar) test mostly, so I'm good to go.

Let's see.... ah yes, the last unfortunate thing is probably the worst and in a way not so much the worst at the same time. That is my leaving of Japan in approximately one month's time. The last 3 months have been an incredible experience for me, but the dreams of me being back home leave me with an incredible empty feeling of missing here, and these dreams are perhaps even worse than nightmares where people die because of the impending emptiness. But they are what they are, dreams. As I think about what actually is at home I realize that the dreams are just tearing at parts I hold dear to here and not the truth behind what I really want, and that is my girlfriend. She's the best part of my entire life, and her not being here is the hardest thing I've ever done. For those who aren't familiar with my situation with her, we've been together over 3 Years now and it's not one of those things where it's a temporary thing, I very strongly would like to get married someday and live out my life with her. Having her back home makes the whole returning to America thing easier. In fact, and not to be intentionally hurtful to anyone non-girlfriend related, but if I didn't have Marissa I'm not sure I'd want to go back. This has been the single best experience of my life, and while I might not know the language or all of the culture yet, Japan is a great place. A month's time from now I'll be back in the States, and I promise you that this is not the last time I'll ever be in Japan. Living in Japan for reasons stated above might not be in my future, I couldn't make Marissa live here, I can't even get by with the language, much less someone who's never studied it before, or to my knowledge even particularly likes it. I definitely want to visit again though, if nothing else to share experiences with people that want to have them.

Sorry for the lack of updates as of late, as I said I really have been under the weather lately. Since the last post which was a week ago almost exactly from now, not a lot has changed. I've been playing Pokemon on my DS and that's been fun, the newest one out is great (Pokemon Platinum) and would strongly recommend it to anyone wanting to get back into Pokemon. Other than that I've just been studying Japanese, occasionally going to arcades with two of my Japanese classmates, and been trying different foods. I can't think of anything really, in fact, I don't even remember last week for some reason, haha, but if something comes to mind then I'll share it. I actually remember sleeping until 4:30 PM on Wednesday, the first day I started feeling not so hot, and 4:30 is NOT a time that I'm used to sleeping until, haha. I mean, if I stay up until 9:00 AM or 10:00 AM that morning, maybe, but I actually went to bed around 4:00 AM that night, so ~12 hours, come to think of it, might not be something I've ever done before. Might be a personal record, haha.

In completely unrelated news, I've been listening to a couple different musical groups the last week. Here are some samples!

Nesian Mystik - New Zealand Hip Hop Group : For The People, Nesian Style, If It's Cool. Sorry for the not-so-perfect quality, but you get the point of the group, they're basically a non-violent Hip-Hop group. I love their style, they aren't vulgar and the only thing that makes them sometimes not a family suitable group are their occasionally sexual themed songs. Wikipedia says this about them : "Their cultural backgrounds unite a remarkable diversity of Polynesia by bringing together Māori, Tongan, Samoan and Cook Island ancestry." Good stuff.

Jonathan Coulton - Sings a genre I didn't know existed, and that is that of Nerd Rock, haha. Yes, songs about scientific / nerdy / geeky subjects, like Robots, Monsters, Zombies, Math, and other things. Here are a some of my favorite : Mandelbrot Set (so good, haha) I recommend checking out the full video but that video is so good, his most famous song Re: Your Brains, and some other ones are good but that's good for now.

RSP - What of my favorite J-Pop groups, and this song is so good. It's my current favorite song. 「アンマー～母唄～」 . It's a popular song nowadays here but it's not without it's criticism. First of all, I guess it's a cover song, and since the song is about respecting figures such as your mother, people think it's a dirty way to make money, that is, copying a song of this nature and releasing it to make money. I don't really care, I love RSP and I happen to like the way this one sounds compared to the original which I have heard.

Well, that's all for now, off to review a little more for my Japanese test then probably Pokemon, Supernatural, bed!

Peace Everyone!