Just something quick before I get the heck outta here.
This’ll be my last post while in Canada for this year – and yes, you can expect to see a bunch of stuffs (incl. pics) once I’m back home in Osaka.
In Osaka in less than 24hrs – here I come yo!
note to self: drinking Red Bull on an empty stomach = bad.
So that was my act of stupidity from yesterday, as I was scrambling through my paper.
Over the past four days, I’ve written at least 6000 words and I’m damn proud of it.
……now, all I can hope for is for the papers to have actually gotten a more-or-less decent grade that’ll get me past the passing line. Better yet, give me at least a B and I’ll be happy =p
Seems I’ve stopped caring about my academics, ever since I hit the point where I have enough credits to graduate with at least one major. Well, “stopped caring” might not be the best term to use – I just don’t care as much as I did a few years back.
It’s somewhat rare that I end up doing a paper that I can actually have some fun with – by that, I mean… talking about PMK, Gintama, and Shinsengumi! (yup, the live-action drama with awesomeness) as forms of adaptive works of a historiography – it’s not really as dry as it sounds. Heck, how can something sound *that* dry when at least a third of my paper’s based on Gintama? (read: crack)
Now, the more amusing one was probably the one for my Tale of Genji course. Again, with concent from my prof, I did a paper focusing on adaptive works. The previous paper was based on historiography of the Shinsengumi, this one’s based on the Tale of Genji.
The adaptive works I chose were the animated movie (from the 80′s), the live-action film (2001), and…… um, ZKC.
Yes, I ended up spending at least a third, if not more of the paper talking about the correlation between Zettai Karen Children, a seemingly unrelated manga, and the T of G. My discussion, in addition to the more academic stuff how ZKC can be legitimately be classified as an “adaptation” and what not, included how the concepts of yaoi and lolicons were embedded in the manga. And I even had enough material from academic journals to back up some of the bs I came up with.
Heck, I even went off talking about how the T of G can potentially be considered a form of dojinshi – alright, let me just hope my prof isn’t going to slap me with an F for that remark……
And so the papers are done, I’m freed from school till January, and I’m outta here in less than 48 hours and will be in mangaland (commonly and officially known as Japan)!
You’ll still probably see me posting often enough, but it’s unlikely that I’ll be online as much – I’ll be busy opening boxes of random merchandise I’ve accumulated over the past year =p
It’s a bit of a pleasant surprise seeing how the WP interface has changed. Updates can be done easier and faster now, saving me time… which also means it’ll (hopefully) cut down a bit of my procrastination time =p
So here I am at work, making an attempt to get through as much of my paper as I possibly can, but failing miserably at it.
……well, maybe not really, I’ve at least doubled what I initially had when I came into my shift 4 hours ago.
Gah, need to work orz
(x-posted to LJ)
As some of you might already know, I live right beside a construction site.
By that I mean, outside my window, I see construction workers doing all sorts of stuff and, of course, making noise on a daily basis. And during the times I don’t hear construction, I hear the lawn mower passing nearby, bright and early at 6-7am.
And did I mention that they don’t bother cutting down on the noise during exam time? Maybe it’s about time I start nagging the housing staff about this.
I’m not *that* sensitive to noise, but on random occasions when I really need to concentrate, it just drives me nuts.
There was one time I really couldn’t stand the lawn mower, so I ended up grabbing a couple of ear plugs from the front desk – that still wasn’t enough to completely block the noise, which is rather disturbing and annoying.
Maybe because of that, my eyes caught this website: LET’S BUILDUP
It was one of those ads on my Japanese SNS, which had the caption “Construction is music!” – yeah right, you mean disruption? =p
But then, the caption wasn’t too far off. Basically, they let you combine construction (and other sorts of) noise into a short tune.
Once you get to the website (and after letting them play their little intro clip and let everything load), click on “LET’S BUILDUP”, and then “BUILDUP MUSIC!” Then just skip the tutorial by clicking the left box (it should say 見ない).
Click and drag the boxes on the left (categorized into 3 groups: “INDUSTRIAL”, “PHRASES”, and “DRUMS”) into the columns on the right (where it says “MUSIC GENERATOR”). You can change the speed by clicking the box underneath “BPM SELECT”.
Once you’re done with your creation, click on “BUILDUP!” Just enter some arbitrary name (for the heck of it), and it’ll then generate a link to your tune so that you can share with other people.
Here’s something I just made right now, in case anyone’s interested: http://www.buildupper.com/#/sound/4mrx8l5s
…well, it’s not like this is going to stop me from getting annoyed by the “real” construction, but it was kinda fun, kinda.
Although I’m technically done with “exams,” that unfortunately doesn’t relieve me from stress yet, considering I still have 2 papers (and they’re long), both for my Asian studies courses.
I know I have a tendency to overanalyze materials a bit too much, to the extent where I end up freaking myself out, but nonetheless, this whole “overanalyzing” is something that’s somewhat necessary for artsies like myself.
And myself being such a geek, here are things I came up with for my papers (and yes, my profs have approved this):
- For my “adaptations of Japanese classics” course, I’ll be writing on adaptations of Japanese historiography seen in manga/anime/TV shows – specifically, the portrayal of the Ikedaya Incident in works of manga/anime (read: PMK and Gintama, and perhaps the live-action Shinsengumi!)
- For my Tale of Genji course, I’ll be writing on adaptive works of the T of G (read: anime version and film version of T of G)
What’s sad is the fact that I’m now considering emailing my T of G prof, asking whether if it would be possible/acceptable to focus my paper on the animated version of the T of G (which was part of my original plan) and on Zettai Karen Children.
……yes, you read it right, I did say ZKC.
Now, I’m sure some people are staring at the screen blankly going “WTF is this girl talking about? How the hell is the Tale of Genji, an epic Japanese classic from premodern times, have any correlation with ZKC?”
Heck, my friend’s first response when I told her what I’m planning on doing was, “So you’re writing a paper on loli-cons?”
Well yes and no… there’s a bit more correlation between the two, other than both stories portraying guys going nuts over girls younger than them (this comment is in no way to be taken offensively, nor should one simply interpret this as a true description/depiction of the plot, without actually reading the works)
The correlation’s actually rather simple. The main characters’ names are taken from characters in the T of G, and the character relationships in ZKC parallels some of the relationships between characters (whom the names in ZKC have been taken from) in the T of G.
Easy example: Koichi Minamoto mirroring Hikaru Genji, Taizo Kiritsubo (Minamoto’s boss) mirroring Emperor Kiritsubo (Genji’s dad).
I know I’m hitting the point where I’m just overanalyzing, but hey, if I’m supposed to do a 10-page paper, I need to overanalyze to keep myself (and my word count) going =p
At least I don’t regret it though =p
So I finally got the paper in this morning, and by the time I was out of the shower, it was time to leave for my orthodontic appointment.
Yes, for those of you who didn’t know already, I’ve been under orthodontic treatment (“getting my teeth straightened”) since summer. I’m not wearing braces, but instead I’m wearing invisaligns (picture a plastic “mold” that snaps on to your teeth; some people might be wearing something very similar to this as retainers), which requires me to get impressions (molds) taken from time to time, especially when adjustments need to be made.
So today was one of those days that they had to take an impression of my lower teeth – which actually isn’t as bad as getting ones done for the upper teeth. I felt more relieved when the lady at the clinic got it done in one try – really, it’s not that fun getting my mouth stuffed with a tray full of paste and having difficulties breathing, and it wouldn’t have been fun getting it done more than once.
After that, I felt the urge to go DT and read manga at Book-Off. Sad thing is that I ended up staying there (and standing) for a good 2.5 hours. Yes, waste of time indeed, but hey, it’s worth it when I get to read as much manga as I want without paying y’know =p
So progress after standing around at B-O for 2.5 hours: marathoned through Vols. 4-12 of Zettai Karen Children
Hell yes I’m damn proud of it =p
After that I didn’t do anything that interesting: went to Chapters for souvenir shopping (and then realized my iRewards membership was expired), had some gelato since I don’t really get to have ice cream at home thanks to my f’ed up freezer (lime sorbet and tiramisu ice cream, yum!), did a bit of groceries, and then got to the bus stop right in time to grab #44 – yay for express buses!
And why am I doing this during exam time? It’s simply because of my crazy (in a good way) exam schedule – 1 final exam + 2 papers, of which the final was done as of Wednesday.
Now back to reading stuff for my papers… *sigh*
It seems procrastination wins every time, which annoys the crap outta me, but that’s just me playing dumb too.
You’ll be seeing me post here more than usual, simply because I need to get away from papers. However… I shouldn’t be leaving overdue papers aside and posting here.
Anyway.
It’s weird how every time I hit my word count, I seem to end up with a combination of consecutive numbers like 678, 765, or 789. I’m sure this probably isn’t hinting anything at me, but yeah, weird.
Nonetheless, the amount of progress I’m making on this overdue paper is disturbing – c’mon Yuuri, you’ve been working on this POC paper for the past several days now, the paper’s only 4-5 pages, and you’re still on friggin’ page 3, and the more you hold it off, the more deductions you’re getting on the friggin’ paper so F***ING GET IT OVER WITH DAMMIT!!!!
At least I should be happy Nicovid’s doing maintenance, that takes away at least one of my distractions =p
I’m sure I would’ve been able to combine this entry with the previous one, if it wasn’t for that lengthy babbling on my winter vacation plans and whatnot.
So, my original plan for winter vacation:
- sleep, eat stuff that’s not cooked by me
- open up boxes (literally) of anime/manga merchandise and organize them
- hit up on my usual sources of anime/manga merch
- see family/relatives/friends
The modified plan includes the aforementioned things, plus a new addition: Tenimyu!
Yep, that’s right, I’m now able to go to a PoT musical.
The thing is… the ticket acquisition process itself was rather time-consuming.
If you bothered reading the entire entry last time, you’d know that I went through my mom and my friend in attempts to grabbing tix from “ticketmaster.”
The ironic thing is that I ended up getting the tix “on my own” through alternative sources (ie. communities on SNS, postings on “ticket exchange” website, etc), since our attempts actually ended up failing.
I do give my friends credit for directing me to the websites though.
I’m rather amused and impressed by how organized the people who manage the Tenimyu: Shitenhouji perf. community on the SNS I use have been with making sure people aren’t trolling or acting like retards. Basically, there are threads for ticket sales and ticket exchanges, separated by region. And what I really liked was how there’s a rule “not to sell the tix for anything higher than the original price,” which ensures people won’t get ripped off.
Due to the fact that the tickets are now so bloody hard to get (hint: tix presales – sold out in literally 5 minutes, nuff said), I got lucky when the person selling the tix I wanted “chose” me. T’was great how the first message I see on my SNS page after waking up was “hey, I’ve decided I’ll sell you my extra ticket.”
Anywho, I’m rather content that a) ZOMG I actually got my hands on a Tenimyu ticket, b) it seems I’m actually not gonna be alone during the performance, since I’ll be watching it with the person who’s selling me the ticket (yay for new Tenimy friends ^^), and c) I get to see you-know-who!
Alright, I’ll shut up and go back to paper-ing now =p
I originally meant to post this up a few weeks back (draft saved: Nov. 21 =p), but it would’ve made me look rather… awkward if things didn’t end up working out.
So, at the point in which I first wrote this, I was in a bit of a mixed state of mind: excited, anxious, guilty, nervous, impatient… and anything else synonymous to the aforementioned adjectives.
And t’was one of those days that I felt like doing a really lengthy explanation, when it, in actuality, could simply be put in a few sentences.
Thus I hereby present the short-and-sweet version (aka moral of the day): When in doubt, try tapping mom and see what kind of (pleasantly and hilariously surprising) response you get. It never hurts to try, and it’s amusingly surprising the chances of getting a positive response.
Didn’t quite get the story? Read through the rest of this entry =p
For one, don’t work on assignments unless absolutely necessary, since it’s highly unlikely that I’ll be able to do anything productive. Hell, don’t leave assignments until last minute, especially when I know that taking it to work won’t get me anywhere on it.
As well, don’t leave the office and make my coworkers (or shall I say, the people I was supervising) take care of phone calls, they may end up panicking and not know what to do =p
Another thing is not to throw out potential not-so-great scenarios – they may actually end up happening at a perfectly bad timing (and they did, but I won’t go into detail about that).
Last but not least, do not go on a caffeine overload, even if that means I’m going to be dozing off halfway through my 9-hour shift. Having two caffeinated drinks isn’t necessarily the smartest thing if it’s the case that my body reacts to caffeine fairly “well” – as in, if I’m sensitive enough to caffeine that going on an overdose would make me suffer abdominal pain.
Of course, this wouldn’t have been the case if it wasn’t for me being dumb enough to agree to taking an extra 4.5 hours of work (for the sake of extra income, even if it meant lack of sleep). Not only that, but I wasn’t thinking properly when I got my coworker to grab me a drink from Starbucks (second drink of the night).
By the end of my then 9-hour shift, I was actually starting to feel dizzy with a rather upset stomach, thanks to the excessive amount of sugar and caffeine. Instead of staying up the rest of the night to get through a paper due in less than 12 hours from then, I go straight to bed. Then I get up this morning feeling even sicker than before getting to bed, and I’ve been sick since then. As dumb as it may sound, I was even asking my friend, “Hey, I kinda need someone who’s going in the same direction as me to make sure I get to my next class without collapsing on my way.” My goodness, I really feel like a retard, and trust me, I never ask for stuff like that.
To think that I have another late shift tonight (yes, until 2am once again), an early dentist appointment the next morning (at 8:30am), followed by office hours at my club office, then work, then an appointment with my prof, then class, then work again (until 11:30pm), I’m getting nauseated already. Mind you, I’m only in my second class of the day, which will be followed by an hour of a “break,” then class, then work, then class again. I feel like slapping myself for booking my dentist appointment that early, but sadly enough, that’s virtually the only time I actually have this week, and I don’t want to be doing this during exam time.
……OK, I probably should get back to (attempting to) paying attention to my lecture *sigh*
