mugen_edamame: (Default)
Yu, or Mu ([personal profile] mugen_edamame) wrote2014-04-16 04:12 pm

Tame impalas and wicked ducks.

Heeeeeeey. Sorry for the remarkably long delay, I've been remarkably busy. Just to start things off, if you were at any point worried about how things were going for me re: getting into university and stuff, your worry is no longer necessary! I'll give you brand new worries! For now, I'm about 2, 3 weeks into being a university student (again) and it's just been such a bizarre journey that I spend a worrying amount of time staring at the ceiling and going this cannot be real life.

It is, of course.

So, lads and ladies, let's start with my house. It's lovely and huge, compared to my old place. Getting things connected was a rough ride, mostly thanks to my real estate agent giving me the wrong address on my rental contract. School started a couple of weeks ago, but I've been staying at this new place for a good month now. I still get polite phonecalls from the water company who cannot for the life of them figure out where I am, how much water I'm using, and how long I've been using water for despite the fact that I corrected my details with them ages ago. Still waiting for the water bill, ahaha. The internet connection felt like I was fighting against exclusionist rebels who had made a solemn blood vow to never give an internet connection to foreign pigs, or something. The contract for the internet was made by my real estate agent, which meant they got given the wrong address too. And somehow for you to get internet here, it has to be operated by two companies. One company hands you the modems and cables and stuff, and the other one hands the actual internet, or something. Not only were both delayed, actual internet company blamed me for making a mistake in a contract that I didn't sign. And once everything had actually arrived and everything was switched on, the faint hint of alien expulsion impulses strengthened when, upon being unable to connect with my Malaysian computer, I got told that they can't give Japanese internet to non-Japanese things.

It got settled in the end, but sweet lord it was like pulling teeth (from angry exclusionist rebels).

The welcome ceremony is a really big, really important event in Japan. In Malaysia, if you get accepted then you' re a bit pleased and someone might buy you cake and your friends might smile at you and that's about it. Here, if you get into a good university, the induction ceremony is almost as posh as I imagine being inducted to being queen would be. People were dressed in their nicest suits, shelled out hundreds of dollars to take commemorative pictures with cooing parents, and lined up about five hundred deep to take a picture next to a sign saying Welcome New Students to Keio. It was awfully lonely, because while I don't personally see the necessity in making such a grand affair of the literal start line, it still would've been nice to have my family while everyone else had theirs. We were congratulated for being accepted by literally every person who spoke on stage, including other students who just wanted to say stuff like please wait for your turn before exiting the hall. I know I worked awfully hard to get through the past two years (worked even harder to get through the ones before those, hah!) but the kids must've worked themselves half to death if this is the level of congratulations you get for being accepted. It's kindof a scary thought, because it implies a level of motivation and driven-ness that I in all my flouncy fanfiction writing don't think I could ever have.

And I don't know how other universities compare, so help me out if you do, but the total number of new students for 2014 entrance is almost 7000. Isn't that an absurdly large number?!




Orientation week was like tumbling into Wonderland while being very slightly drunk and quite, quite scared. We had exams for English (which I did appallingly in, and if that ain't proof I'm not a girl suited for exams I lit. don't know what would be), Japanese (better) and maths (failed, but to be honest it was wholly expected). We sat down and listened to the creator of Rakuten talk about the importance of IT, we got told by the head of the faculty that taking longer to graduate is great since it means more time futzing around on campus, we found out that sometimes you can go abroad for a year and come back to find that credit-wise it was worth nothing. Physical education is compulsory (hah!), we had an ECG done during which a nurse left me lying topless and incredibly self-conscious in a bed behind a towel in the gym, we found out how to make our visas and the clubs went all out to recruit people.


Campus is awfully pretty. Walk further in, and there's a lake with ducks in it and on warm days you just see rows of bodies enjoying the sunshine while snoozing. Wind is really really strong here, because we aren't too far from the sea (about 13 kilometers inland, I think), so it makes for a really pleasant place. There's a canteen that serves subpar but cheap food, and a Subways that I am an ardent fan of. The library's sortof small, but exceedingly well-equipped. Also, because this campus was created with High-techyness as the motto, the sheer number of computers available to students is astonishing. There're loads, with all sorts of specialist software so you can do music with the provided keyboard at building A but you can process 3D graphics at building B and go on to 3D print your stuff at the library. Personally, I like that it's not massive. I am after all really easily frightened slash intimidated.

Now, the people. I don't even know where to start. After 2 years being surrounded by foreigners like me at a language school, being the only Southeast Asian for what feels like miles is really, really disconcerting. Also, since at language school we were studying stuff in the format of exams, and were being lectured by teachers, my listening skill is pitched towards a formal, neat kind of language. No teen of any nationality, I think, speaks in a formal, neat kind of way. Wild contractions and uses of words that don't show up in dictionaries keep me busy and kindof slow while trying to understand and talk. For example, prior to coming I did not know that

-Yahoo is a valid way of saying hello. I still am not convinced.
- To say that a computer is running slow, you call it heavy. We've got compulsory classes so I've already sneakily used it myself, much to my own delight (it's rare for me to make such an effort, usually.)

among other things. My classmates are hard to understand, but for all that I've been warned that the Japanese tend to have a habit of excluding foreigners, being cold and unwilling to tango with the unknown, everything's gone rather well. Having a smartphone helps, as asking if someone has LINE (a messenger app) comes quite often quite soon after saying hello. I stumble over my words a lot, and fluctuate wildly between being quite polite to sounding like a manga hero, but while I can't say I've integrated so well I'm as good as Japanese, the fact that classmates will call out just to say hello is really, really nice. It certainly didn't happen this early in Manchester, and that was in English. People are willing to help out, and make allowances for my occasionally faulty Japanese, and for some classes I even have people to sit beside.

On the other hand, for a big chunk of them there does seem to be this strong safety-in-numbers attitude. A lot of kids don't seem to have the tightest grip on their own schedule, and the LINE group chats are littered with people asking about class times, dates, schedules, notes, stuff like that. There isn't that solid core of self-sufficiency that I've sortof gotten used to relying on, but let's be fair. Most of the people in my year were born in 95, 96. WEE BABIES. It's weird to see people so heavily rely on other people, but the fact that when someone reaches out a hand for assistance someone else is always there to grab it, that's not a bad thing at all. Who knows, maybe I'll be like that next year (not very likely, hah!).



My stationery. I am a srs college student srsly.

Other odd things I've had a chance to see include kids taking a zillion credits in the first semester, mostly as insurance because should they fail some they'll still have enough to go on. I've never known anyone, myself included, to go into anything with plans pretty much made for assumed failure, and I don't think I want to ever get around to that point. My courseload is heavy, mainly because I need to take Japanese since I'm foreign, and I need to take a lot of maths classes since I suck. Otherwise, it's paced with some lectures I can take in English because it's an option here, and biology because while biology is hard, I know enough and I like it enough that I can sortof power my way through, I think. I'd quite like to be a bright student, yes, but I also want to have a good time and not stress myself into getting sick. As my life systems professor said yesterday, the mortality rate for everybody is 100%, so I'd rather not head for it any faster than I need to.

Lectures are interesting, for the most part, but my comprehension rate is heavily dependent on the lecturer. Some are clear speakers who go at a tempo that's easy to get. Some talk to themselves, while occasionally muttering into the microphone at a pitch only dogs can hear, and those I want to throw a shoe at because I can't understand what I can't hear (and quite often I don't understand even when I do, hear). Even if the contents are okay, I'm totally lost when teachers make jokes. People will burst out laughing and I'm just there, blinking as I wonder what's so damn funny about the recording habits the teacher expects us to have once we work in labs. Half the time I'm not convinced the Japanese students are that much clearer on things than I am.

To date, my favourite class was a history of religion one I sat in on for fun. It was a massive lecture hall with 200 students a quarter of whom dozed their way through the class. The boy sat in front of me was busy shopping for skinny jeans online, and I watched with great interest as be burned through half an hour, stuck between skinny ripped black jeans and skinny ripped grey jeans. Then I just nearly lost my shit altogether when the girl in front of me started shopping for cosmetics on her laptop, pulling out her makeup kit and holding her compact powder to the screen to compare colours. Who wastes more time, the shoppers or the creep watching the shoppers? Answer is most definitely both.

I'm having a hard time, but it's a pleasantly hard time. It's the burn in your muscles once you've been jogging a while, but in my head instead. Tough is as tough does, but as yet it isn't unmanageable, and I've found that much to my surprise, I'm kindof still tremendously optimistic that things are going to go okay.

It maybe sortof helps that I'm currently doing crazy well at my IT classes by virtue of being both quite fast and quite accurate as a typist. We're doing HTML right now, and if anybody's good at codes and programming and stuff, make yourself known so I can throw myself at your mercy c:


Me in my suit for the opening ceremony. This was after I'd gotten back (the ceremony hall is an hour and a half away from my house, hngggh) so I was a tired mess but I just wanted to include more pictures heh.

WAY LONG entry is way long. In summary, Japan's weird and mystical for reasons you probably wouldn't have expected at first, but I'm doing okay and I fully intend to carry on doing okay. Lord knows, maybe this time next year I can say I've upgraded to doing great. Hope everyone's been well, yeah! And if you haven't yet, get into Haikyuu!! because no one should cry over volleyball all by themselves wheeeee.

Wheeeeeee.

[identity profile] sekitx2.livejournal.com 2014-04-16 10:40 pm (UTC)(link)
NO idea how you're mangaing all that, but so glad you are (ok so not a SMOOTH ride but no derailemnts)!!!

I would not be surviving, especially if can't understand the lectures (screw the jokes).

Getting time in to watch Haikyuu!! to help relieve some stress?

Supposed to be working so not going to type much. Nothing too different with me.

Hope you can report a "GREAT" status by next year or sooner!

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-04-18 01:39 pm (UTC)(link)
to be perfectly frank most of the time i'm still shocked i got to this point, and shocked even more that nothing has exploded in my face!!! lmao thanks bb

aside from the jokes, it's not too bad. my notes tend to be a big mess because i have to scribble down words i don't understand to check later, but for now, head is still above water >w<

yeeeeeeeeeep. started the manga last year and it just speaks to some deep, helpless part of my soul.

nothing too different means nothing got worse, so i'm glad!

aaaaah me too babe me too /)A(\

[identity profile] sekitx2.livejournal.com 2014-04-18 06:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Getting Internet sounded rather irritating :/

And love when you move and you update people and yet somehow, months, year later they still have your OLD info (car dealer where take car in for repairs for 2 years still had our old info even though we gave our new address every time we were in).

Some extra health hiccups past few months (= bit more pain to handle) but nothing nasty like last year's ovary growth scare. -__-

Stay swimming strong!!! (channel Haru (Free!))

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-04-24 04:06 am (UTC)(link)
It was hell on earth, and they are continuing that way by making it impossible to pay the bill any other way accept via bank transfers, which means I need to haul ass to the next town over where there's an actual branch of my bank orz

I'm not convinced the water people I've called at least six times know that I'm at this new place already, honest to god.

/)A( sorry to hear about the pain, but thank god for co-operating ovaries!

lmao if i channeled haru i'd given university life the one fingered salute and run off into the ocean already bb. A terrifying role model if ever there was one.

[identity profile] sekitx2.livejournal.com 2014-04-24 05:58 am (UTC)(link)
Bank transfer... shouldn't you be able to set it up to do that online? Or is that onlywith postal transfers? My JP friend never mentions about needing to go to the bank to do a bank transfer... although I try to keep to postal transfers.

Bank transfer a very common payment method. And utterly UNcommon here.

Damn that sucks. Hope somehow all the companies figure out where you are, what you owe and give you enough time to pay for it!!

Oh sorry, Haru not as a role model per say but you'd said trying to keep your head above water and Haru would be good at that. Also he lets problems roll right off of him as if he were cutting through water.

One finger salute route an option to keep open ;)

Spring anime absolutely disappointing (and has to be a first in 18 years of anime hobby). Usually too many shows to remotely keep up with. Only 5 I like enough to keep watching and even then I might drop a couple. :[ Haikyuu guys don't grab me as much as Free or Kuroko no Basuke or POT.

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-04-24 09:18 am (UTC)(link)
The company wants me to tell them if I want to pay by credit card or bank transfer. I don't have a credit card, and for the banking option they need the bank's seal to confirm that I gave them the permission to do it. Can't get the seal any other way but to go there myself (it is just a bucket of ass)

I'm giving it a couple more days. If I don't hear word of it by Monday I'm calling them to tell them I haven't received any bills. So help me god if they cut my service for this bull crap!

lmao when you put it in such a poetic way! It makes sense! I'll do a Haru and be graceful and not drowning then. While keeping the possibility of one finger sayonara salutes open!

Whoaaaaaa >A< Sorry to hear that! I think I'm hella biased for Haikyuu! because I came across the manga last year and ran through lit. all the chapters in about 3 days. It was during my exam period, and idk I reckon it really is a great story and I kept bursting into tears from about seven hundred ninety five feels. Any manga that makes me cry works for me. Kuroko I like just because it's sortof basketball meets magic and they're all a bunch of cute losers.

[identity profile] sekitx2.livejournal.com 2014-04-25 01:03 am (UTC)(link)
Ah bugger them. And I guess it's a nightmare to try and get another bank account with closer branches.

Hope the utility bill turns up! Fingers crossed. Can't be without utilities! :[

21 hours of work in 2 days, I'm not too coherent. This day kinda hectic too.

I have to like the main characters to give a damn about a series more so than any other point (plot, genre, etc). Hinata and "King" not doing it for me (yet?). The school's 3rd year setter like best so far. ANN news item the other day had the seiyuu for 3 characters on another high school team and I'm like, damn now going to have to stick around. ^^

Kuroko no Basuke won't stretch the brain cells at all, but good fun and I laugh. Compared to POT, KnB's moves seem quite realistic ^^;

Hopefully the anime will live up to your experience with the manga.

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-04-26 02:17 pm (UTC)(link)
The bank I'm with offers excellent services. I can use lit. any ATM at any konbini, and domestic money transfers are free if I keep it to five times a month. Besides, it's the internet company rather than the bank that's causing me stress hnggggh.

Electricity turned up! No sight of gas or water, though nothing's been cut off.

Good god. Got a break coming up?

The characters are lit all really earnest and idk maybe it's because I'm at a weird fantastic point in my life but seeing so much desperation and dedication just speaks to me. Also the King is an actually hella nice guy when I was p much expecting Sasuke v 2.0, so... pfft Suga senpai's cute too, and I can kinda understand if you don't fall for the series. Let's just say I'm a total loser for it ahahaha *avoids eye contact with haikyuu poster*

KnB is definitely good fun. Read POT manga, but I just didn't feel it. If the setting wasn't highschool tennis but like a bunch of scientists studying cold fusion, it'd be like every character starts with a damn Nobel prize and they're just competing to see who can get as many Nobel prizes over a season as possible. TORTURED METAPHOR IS TORTURED.

The jump animations make me go rrrr so so far so good.

[identity profile] sekitx2.livejournal.com 2014-04-26 08:58 pm (UTC)(link)
HI!

10.5 hours yesterday... got more work to do today. Monday will be nuts. Most of May-June will be crazier. Manager on holiday most of July so one project working on now will be a non-factor. One task I do is very variable since clients are world-wide and the number of clients can vary a lot each month (I can't give details, not trying to be so vague). So one day 1hr another up to 7 hours... I wish my work had a more predictable schedule though.

Yeah, one bill turned up. Hopefully the rest know your address too :) Or at least nothing gets turned off.

Bank has some nice perks!

Anime I almost always know before the manga of it. POT anime grabbed me at ep1 and wasn't as ridiculous as it got to over the years. The manga version never did much for me. Kuroko manga I read ahead after S1 and I like the artwork in the anime better ^^ Haikyuu manga not tried and anime is only 3 eps so far so still a ways to go yet :) Glad to hear "King" has more depth than seen so far of him.

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-04-28 09:17 am (UTC)(link)
Sounds very much like the hell shifts I was pulling when I was working part-time. Your work is computer-related, isn't it? Seeing as how within our weekly 3 hour programming classes I'm often nursing a headache about halfway through, I dunno how you can put in 10 hours. It doesn't sound survivable, honestly. Hang tough?! If you can.

Going to call water and gas people. So help me god if they cut me off I will live like an unloved hermit in the gym of my school.

Me and my sister both prefer the manga, but it's not really fair since for most things I tend to prefer manga to anime anyways. And maybe I'll give POT some practice. Lectures are bad enough, but conversational Japanese among youth is something that I have very real trouble keeping up with. Especially masculine kid Japanese. It just sounds like they're gargling gobstoppers sometimes orz

[identity profile] sekitx2.livejournal.com 2014-04-29 05:07 am (UTC)(link)
Many years of "practice" I guess (long hours in front of computer).
Eyes checked every year. Been same for past 3 years. Checkup past Saturday. Kinda bummed left eye is "2 points" worse. But I wasn't forced to get new perscription.

Hope you were able to reach them and get things sorted out! Hermit in gym school doesn't sound appealing.

Hmm... not sure if POT will hit the conversational requirement. Tennis is the main topic most of the time. Something more like Kimi to Boku maybe (5 high school guys much ado about nothing).

Sailor Moon and City Hunter few of the first series I watched which was hardly a good intro to formal/polite Japanese :)

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-05-06 05:16 am (UTC)(link)
My optometrist told me my power would stop increasing after I turned 18 and my hormones leveled out. That has been proven to be a lie.

Water sorted, still waiting to hear from gas man orz

Kimi to Boku's speech is still so much clearer than the boys in real life lmao. I blame Shun and Kaname. They're adorable, but too pure ??? or something pfft.

Language is really really hard hngggh.

[identity profile] sekitx2.livejournal.com 2014-05-06 05:57 am (UTC)(link)
Mine (distance sight is the issue) started after I was 18. Yet my mom's eyes have hardly changed in decades.

POT is quite civil, don't think it'll help you master the street cred lingo.
How about GTO anime or live-action version? That's more thug type guys...

Water sorted, yeah. Guess you'll have to trying phoning about the gas one? :/

Texting "speak" or twitter crap might as well be a foreign language for me -_-

Ganbarre!!

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-05-19 06:09 am (UTC)(link)
I'm very short-sighted too, though my macular degeneration started at the ripe age of 12 lol. And same, mum has surprisingly good eyes for her age and for our family.

GTO is so enormously not fun for me, i find it weirdly unappealing. Guess I'll stick with sports manga for now, and hope for the best. Need to embiggen my vocabulary but it's sad that i don't really have the time to fuck around reading light novels.

Gas, I've paid the bill, so I think we're okay. Probably. I've literally done all that I can lmao.

I have a twitter, but it's literally me and my siblings talking shit so it is p much legitimately incomprehensible

ALWAYS FRIGGIN FIGHTING

[identity profile] sekitx2.livejournal.com 2014-05-19 06:30 am (UTC)(link)
Hi!

How are classes and such? Getting a bit easier (or bit more used to them)?
Glad you're not without utilities!

Kuroko no Basuke manga or YPedal tried if want to sty in sports area?

Weather's gone toasty and is pissing my joints off royally. And the forecast for summer is hotter than normal and much less rain than normal. YADDA.

Free! seiyuu event May 11 (Write up by somen who went who mostly posts on twitter (denkimouse) this is posted to someone on tumblr I know as she's part of group (AHS) that does MXH doujinshi
http://tainted-126.tumblr.com/post/85525277793/sunyshore-free-report-part-2-the

Haikyuu! still not getting me too excited. Ace of Diamond a team introduced past few episodes has quite the seiyuu list attached to it (Kamiya, Suzuki Tatsuhisa, Hirakawa Daisuke, Ono Kensho).

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-06-05 02:27 pm (UTC)(link)
Getting used to the rhythm of school, though I'm still perpetually scared I'm going to screw something up royally (semester ends in two months though!!!)

KuroBasu is more like fantasy lol. And I can't get into YPedal I don't know whyyyyy. Read Ookiku Furikabutte, so I'm trying out the anime!

It's hitting 30 degrees during midday then like 17 at night the weather is hilariously messed up!

If you got the chance, would you fancy going to that sort of event babe?

I'm deep deep into Haikyuu!! but not like I'm deep-deep in DGM with all the vicious fic-ing and stuff. It's sortof become my moral compass I don't know it's really odd/sad/grand. Ace no Diamond any good? Not tried it yet!

Hope you're doing well babe <3

[identity profile] sekitx2.livejournal.com 2014-06-06 02:10 am (UTC)(link)
Hiya!

Glad to hear uni life is going a bit smoother!! Hope it stays that way!
Utlities all sorted out now?

30C so you're feeling warm enough now? ;)
Low 20s here already (BLAH) and the summer is to be hotter and drier than normal the whole time ; ___ :

Joints been more painful alrady (not sure why). Don't like. WHich is not helping with the sleep factor which is making me rather cranky. *sigh*

Ooh, yeah, a seiyuu event where I could see a bunch of seiyuu a like/love would be awesome. The line-up to get in, all the screaming fans... that would hurt.

After POT, any sports anime looks real ^^;;; Kuroko isn't too far gone.
YPedal I'm watching, it's not a top 10 or anything like that.

Haikyu Ep9 was best yet!!

Ookiku Furikabutte anime ep1 I said no and never went back.
Ace of Diamond (anime) I like. Sawamura is a total loud jackass but some other characters make up for him. Miyuki = Sakurai = plain aweseome! And the next team they're playing has all fab seiyuu. Quite a lot of Kuroko overlap ^^

Kanda's birthday!! Doubt any LXK fest this year :[

***** HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGS *****

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-06-06 02:37 am (UTC)(link)
Took the better part of three months, but yeah, all the utilities and payment methods finally got sorted out!

I can stand heat and I can stand cold, but I can't stand the massive temperature gaps! Because I wear light clothing to school and still end up soaking with sweat, but by the time I go home it's pretty much frigid. Welcome to the Eternal Summer of awful weather >A<

Sorry to hear about that. I think being used to hot and dealing with cold is easier than being used to cold and dealing with hot, so your joints are probably just decidedly unhappy. Maybe the pool is the way to go?

lmao good point. Just curious! I like shopping for goods, but events just seem way too daunting for me. You can tell, been here two years and haven't gone to a single Comiket yet. Though! If you've bought doujinshi you'd like scanlated, since my exams for midterms are over I can totally do translations for you >w< Especially since our OTPs are in alignment wheeee.

With KuroBas, I really like Kuroko, but particularly in the more recent chapters Kagami's legit treated like the messiah and I kinda feel bad for the little shadow boy. YPedal is insane on tumblr, and I don't know really know why. Tried the manga, just never got invested in it.

!!!! Up to date on manga, running a bit behind on the anime. Starting to find more merchandise for Haikyuu now, and it gives my soul wings I can't even.

Ookiku I've made a few attempts to get into it. It seems more like a study on the human psyche than a sports manga, and sometimes I kinda like 'em depressing lmao.

Shit I totally forgot, Dem's not said a word about it and usually she's the one doing stuff. I've got fic stashed up, if I find any I can finish up quick I'll put it up! Didja know, DGM's 10 years old today. My younger sister is less than twice DGM's age how mad is that.

*PASSIONATE EMBRACE* i hope your aches feel better soon! wish i could give you a treat, but i live in the middle of farming land and I don't think cabbage is a good stand in for goodies orz take care of yourself!

[identity profile] sekitx2.livejournal.com 2014-06-06 05:33 am (UTC)(link)
I will be sending an e-mail

[identity profile] lavenderscarf.livejournal.com 2014-04-22 10:52 pm (UTC)(link)
*glompsquishes!* I'm so glad you're doing well, and yay for getting into university and being a college student, and yes, enjoy everything for all it's worth! (because completely killing yourself really does only get you dead :p) I hope things keep going well and more good things keep coming your way because you totally deserve all of it, bb <33 I know what you mean about being shocked that nothing's exploded yet (I keep shifting between utter amazement at my new job being so much better and bald terror that it's all a fluke of some sort), but I'm using all of my mental mind powers to root for you having upgraded to doing great by next year, too! <3

(Ahh, I should get back to work and finish up ^^;; Hope there are no more problems with your utilities and stuff. Getting all that stuff set up is a giant mess in the first place; I don't even want to think about how stressful it would have been doing so in a foreign country with the companies in charge of such things being their usual unhelpful selves >:E)

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-04-24 04:10 am (UTC)(link)
I SPEND SO MUCH OF TIME WILDLY BEWILDERED but i have to say it's not bewilderment in an unpleasant way, so i really don't want to complain too much. more so than tough lectures i'm just concerned i won't be able to keep up with the phys ed classes orz also! CONGRATULATIONS ON MOVING TO A NEW JOB! what are you doing where is it does it pay better how're your co-workers! hope for the best, i'm hoping it's me and everyone i know that can say things have gone from good to great from '14 to '15 yeahhhhhh.

(it's the end of the month and i still haven't gotten my utilities bill yet. if they suddenly cut off my gas and water i will weep like a baby >A< and yeah, doing this in japanese is about 400 times harder than if i could do it in English. it's hard to tell if it's me or the company at fault a lot of the time hnggggh)

[identity profile] lavenderscarf.livejournal.com 2014-04-26 03:46 pm (UTC)(link)
D'aww! I know what you mean. I spent a while freaking out, then feeling bad about freaking out, then freaking out about not freaking out, but none of it in a bad way. My tiny brain cells must just not be equipped to deal with stuff ^^;; And hee! My undergrad university was very big on the whole phys ed thing, too (probably partially due to holdover from the Japanese occupation during WWII), so at least one phys ed course was required for every semester unless you were graduating. Luckily after the first two required "general phys ed" classes (pretty much everything I ever hated about PE; track and field, trying to hit or catch tiny flying projectiles with oddly shaped blunt instruments, "let's test how well you fit our standards of physically fit!" tests), we got to pick more specific/specialized courses for the rest of them. So I did a lot of dance/yoga/martial arts intro type classes, and took archery one semester. Maybe there'll be something like that where you are?

I'm getting paid to do research that I actually want to do, with people I like working with, which is like the best thing ever to me right now ^^;; It's not a forever-type job (postdoctoral position, which is that odd place between being a trainee and actual staff), so I'll still have to keep my eyes open for what the next step is going to be, but I finally have a boss that is supportive of people checking out their options instead of just trying to squeeze every last drop of blood out of them while they still can, so I'm cautiously hopeful. At the very least I won't have to sneak around when I want to check out a career-related seminar or something like I used to to avoid lectures about "wasting the lab's time and money" :p I'm still at the University of Michigan, so if you're ever at a conference in the area or something, let me know! Though there aren't very many big international events around here, there's not much going on nearby ^^;;

(Aw man, I hope the rest of your bills come through! *fingers crossed* Urrgh, you'd think there would be a better system in place to keep this stuff from happening by now >:E)

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-04-28 09:26 am (UTC)(link)
It's amazing the lengths the human mind would go to to freak itself out. And the fear of Phys. Ed. isn't so much that I dislike violent physical activity. I like being outdoors and moving my body and sweating vigorously and bonding with people via shared muscle strain. Just the whole knee-in-recovery thing, and being fat and unfit as a result of the knee-recovery thing, I'm perpetually in fear that I'm going to shame myself in class and no one will love the floppy flappy me. In short, more of my brain being an ass to miiii. And to be honest the Phys. Ed. classes are hella weird and hella funny. Some weeks we're running laps, then some weeks we're doing trust exercises where you hold hands and lead your blindfolded partner around campus. It's weird but I'd be lying if I said it didn't have it's appeal. Once I'm in my second year I can start picking what sports I want to do, and my goal is to be strong enough and to have recovered enough that in my 3rd year I can take up volleyball or something equally cool as hell.

What's your research topic! I'm so happy for you, I get the impression that pretty often the research themes you get is whatever the uni can be bothered to throw at you. How long can you expect to hold this position for, anyways? Maybe once you're done you're going to decide to be a lion tamer anyways, so while you're looking around keep an open mind for what future So wants to do, yeaaah! Also, university of Michigan, isn't that hella prestigious? How dare you be even cooler and smarter than I already thought you were??!?!?! Also I advise you not to tempt fate. I have a remarkable gift of happening to show up where I have online friends, and then you'll be stuck with excitable me freezing my ass off in wonder for, like, at least a week 8'D

(can't lie I blame a fair amount of my current trouble on my real estate agent and my bleeding landlord giving me the wrong address. so far, though, nothing's gotten cut off even though i reckon I might be behind)

(also if you have a smartphone and you use LINE hit me up because sometimes I get awful sick of speaking and writing all in Japanese all day hngggghghhghghg Plus First World Problems I am a terrible person)

(Congratulations again on the job!)

[identity profile] lavenderscarf.livejournal.com 2014-05-01 11:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Aww!! *pets your brain and tells it to be nice* (But yeah, knee recovery first! *snugs!*) It sounds like at least they're trying to keep the curriculum varied and realizing that not everyone will be good at the same things and PE doesn't just have to be about making it onto one profitable sports team or another though, so that's good =) Good luck on recovering and playing volleyball, and maybe they'll have a beach volleyball game at the end of a semester of something and it will be full of sunshine and energy and seagulls and flying sand and all very sports-manga-cover-esque =D

We're studying how the brain is set up and how that affects how it works, pretty much. I'm lucky that my boss is new, so he hasn't set into or gotten roped into the rut that more established people oftentimes get into due to being established and on the radar with more to lose. He's still brave enough to come up with and want to try out what other people would consider completely crazy research ideas, and I am so along for the ride =D Hoping to stay here at least a couple years, and it'd be really cool if some of the stuff we are trying to set up actually works, because then I could be a lion tamer that got stuff to work =) Hee, you are welcome to suddenly show up at any time! There's not much to do around here, but I'm sure we can come up with something. At the very worst we could go on some kind of American Midwest Deli Sandwich Tour or something unless you hate sandwiches, in which case we could do an Ice Cream And Cookies Tour =)

(Ugh, that part is totally their fault, and whatever it is with utility companies everywhere always taking forever to actually correct information. Fingers crossed that they don't cut things off without a reasonable grace period and until they've tried contacting you some way that's made sure they've located an actual human being =/)

(Aww! That's totally understandable, I imagine I would be so frustrated way too often, especially by the end of the day ^^;; I've got a tablet that sometimes connects to the wifi that I /think/ I managed to install LINE on way back when, but then I couldn't figure out how to use it ;-; Maybe I should poke at it some more...)

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-05-06 05:21 am (UTC)(link)
The university does feel like it's trying awfully hard to help us get along with each other, and get fit and get smart. Sortof feels like a fond but fussy aunty, or something. Since I think I like being fussed over, it feels kinda pleasant?!?! I don't necessarily know how to explain it heh. And a sports-manga-esque school photo is something I am desperately dreaming of, yeah, don't even joke with me (the beach is very near).

Oh, whoa. Are you more into neurology or psychology or are you dabbling in both with cognitive? There're some psych units available here, and I've been eyeing them with great Interest. And wheeee wheeeee for having a ballsy new boss. I hope he's cool. I hope he's sport's manga ace level cool. I HOPE YOU HAVE THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE. And thanks for the offer (that I suspect I will eventually make you regret). I don't think it's actually possible to hate sandwiches?!?!?!? and as such I'm down for Sandwich Ice Cream and Cookies tour of the midwest, where all I can imagine is wheat and cowboys.

(Water's sorted, just waiting to hear back from one-half of the internet peeps and the gas!)

lmao IF you ever start getting back into it, my username's spacecaptainzura and my picture is my face (short dark curly-haired and heavy-cheeked wheeeee)

[identity profile] lavenderscarf.livejournal.com 2014-05-13 10:28 pm (UTC)(link)
That's prolly a pretty good way to describe it =) I think I like being fussed over too, but not fussed over too much, and only when I want it, and only by certain people, and only about the things I want to be fussed over about? But I don't really want to talk about what I want to be fussed over about, so the people I want to be fussing over me need to be able to read my mind about the right level of fussing at the right time and place? In conclusion, I am a fussy fussy hedgehog that is emotionally stunted on the subject of cuddles ^^;; (Yay beaches! Yay summer!)

We do mostly development stuff and some genetics (so probably more neurology and less psych, though I've always found psych utterly fascinating), though there's a lot of overlap with cognitive diseases due to the part of the brain we focus on. All of this is brand new to me (it's all quite unrelated to what I used to do), so mostly I do a lot of pretending to know what I'm talking about when other people ask, and clinging to the people who know what they're doing in lab for help, haha ^^;; I would think there's probably at least one kind of sandwich out there for everyone (sandwich soulmate?), but maybe someone might have been traumatized by evil ones when they were younger or something and haven't given them a chance since?

(Almost there! Or maybe better yet it's all been completely sorted by now, and from now onwards you can just pay them money and they will keep giving you utilities, and all will be as it should have been~~~*fingers crossed!*)

Hee~that's a great username! I don't remember setting up a username...either I've forgotten it, or I've failed at this whole keeping up with evolving technology thing three steps earlier than I thought I did o.0

[identity profile] mugen-edamame.livejournal.com 2014-06-05 02:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Hedgehogs are pretty easy to cuddle, I think! Porcupines, now... I've made a couple of pretty good friends at uni who look out for me, and for all my complaints I know if anything happens my sister's got my back all the way in Kyoto >w< so far, so good. did i ever ask if you had siblings?

Just finished my second biology exam for mid-terms! Did okay at both! (which is code for better than expected). Are you working as a lab tech, babe, or a post-grad or a post-doc or some grand combo of the three? Still having a hella good time, I hope! I've seen on TV where in the US they have sandwiches where before you put the stuff on, yeah, you dip the bread in some sort of soup/stock thing?! Holy crap it seemed like literal perfection?! (Looking into study abroad programs so I can have fun in my remaining youth aaaahaha)

ALL BILLS ALL SORTED. I think the water company messed up or something, but my first month's water bill was made gratis, and I for one am not complaining.

Pfft do your best if you can, babe. My names are all anime all the time 8'D Hope you've been well?!