…but thank goodness this wasn’t happening in front of me, I’d hate to get hit by a car driven by drunks =p

Now, I’m sure I’ve said that I’m a geek numerous times. And I still am.
I do have a tendency not to reveal that right away, but it’s not something I’m desperate to hide from people… with the exception of my Japanese family and relatives. The sole exception to “hiding the fact that I’m a geek from family/relatives” would be my brother (also a bit of a geek), and my mother.
After all, I’ve been using my home address back in Japan numerous times for the purpose of getting anime/manga related merchandise sent, and well, guess who receives them – mom!
It’s gotten to the point where my mom seems to have realized and accepted the fact that her daughter does have a slight obsession for anime/manga, based on the fact that a) she ends up spending way too much time shopping at Animate every darn time she comes back home, and b) she also goes off spending tons of money on merch.
What she probably didn’t know was that a) I cosplay, and b) I would go off spending big bucks on costumes.

So I’m getting her to send me a costume that I ordered online, with the hopes that it’ll arrive before the Anime Club’s Valentine Dance.
So I just got an email from mom earlier today with the following:
“Hi, I just got that costume you ordered, but I probably need to open the parcel so that I can make sure everything I’m sending fits properly, do you mind?”
me, without putting much thought in it because I’m in a bit of a rush to grab the costume: “Sure, please do go ahead.”
then her response: “So I see that the costume is a size-(insert size) with the measurements of (insert numerical values), which I think is a bit too large for you, but it’ll probably be alright if you just use some safety pins and such. It reminds me of a decorated cake, in orange and yellowish colors which isn’t too flashy so it seems alright. It’s just that, I realize it is coming out of your own pocket and everything, but it just doesn’t seem like your money was well spent – I mean, I’m sure with this money you could have spent it on much nicer clothes.”
(me: *facepalm*)
me: “Alright, yeah… this is why I was somewhat reluctant to say, ‘yes, go ahead and open it.’ Anyway, I’d only do this if I feel I’m financially stable enough for it, and it’s not as if I’d only use wear this once after having spent all this money. About the size… I’m well aware of what I’m ordering, so like… you really didn’t have to list out everything.”
mom: “Well alright, I’ll send it sometime very soon.”
me: “Oh by the way, I do have a wig on order too and… well OK, once you get it and see it, just don’t say anything, let it through, either pretend you didn’t see anything or just say to yourself, ‘yes, it’s her Halloween costume so it’s more or less OK that she’s doing something really random. …please.”

Yes, I should have known better *sigh*.

to do:
- go to an Animate at least twice, if not more, during your stay
- watch anime on TV (and perhaps take a video recording of it); it’s as legit as things can get, and need I mention its quality is nothing comparable to online streaming websites? *cough*
- go drink some potion. Yes, I mean the drinkable type. Yes, I mean the ones that taste like grapes and grapefruit.

not to do:
- wake up at 3:30am to get to the comiket venue, and then suffer waiting outside and freezing your @$$ off.
- fail to think ahead and fail to reserve a ticket for the return trip from Tokyo to Osaka – tis a biaaaaaaatch standing in the Shinkansen for 2.5 hours
- spend too much money on merchandise to the extent where you start wondering where the money for your return ticket has gone and/or whether you have enough money for it
- buy too much “books” to the extent where you start freaking out whether your shoulder’s going to last

Erm, yes… this is what I pretty much did over the past 3 days in Tokyo.
I should be glad I made it back alright from Tokyo, considering that:
a) today’s one of the peak days for people from Tokyo to be returning to their hometown, which means that there are thousands of people who will be fighting over spaces (no, not even “seats”) in the non-reserved cars of the Shinkansen – fortunately, I was able to get on the train at a fairly OK time, but ended up standing for a good 2~2.5 hours
b) of all days that this could have happened, there was an accident by one of the stations, which caused a delay in the Shinkansen schedules/timetables – fortunately, my train passed that station *before* the accident happened
c) I was rather exhausted after yesterday (day 2 of comiket), and sure enough, I’ve acquired quite a bit of merchandise that I had to carry back here – fortunately, my body isn’t really suffering from it anymore

More on the whole comiket stuff to come later, but I probably should sleep for the time being…

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

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