70 posts tagged “university”

I have one exam left! I finished my paper about Yukiko's Spinach this morning. I ended up writing about consumption of the female form rather than Japanese-gaijin romance. I've beaten that theme to death, haven't I?

I am looking at airplane tickets to Kansai for spring break. I've never been to Kyoto and seeing the beginnings of sakura blooming might be nice...

Some Literary Quotes:

Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.
George Gordon Bryon, English Romantic poet

Heartsick, Heartbroken－ To know love is to know pain. What could be more common? Even so, each broken heart is so singular that with it we probe the divine.
Rumi, 13th Century Persian poet

Well, nearly... I still have exams but classes are finished. My International Studies course ended with my professor giving his final lecture, briefly reviewing the 600+ years of history we covered in class. His class is considered one of the most difficult in the department, and every IS major has to take it, so it was sort of heavenly to feel it come to a close. In the end, he urged us to ask more questions than we answer and he turned a little red and sniffled a bit while the entire lecture hall stared at him... it's the first time I've seen a professor cry in front of his students. There were no tears but I could tell he was a little emotional. Prof is probably the best lecturer I've had and I wish I could be like him someday.

Tonight I am going to Shabbat dinner with Haroon and a Jewish girl from my class. Hanukkah begins tomorrow so it's going to be a big party, I'm looking forward to it. Haroon wants me to help him study before the Arabic final tomorrow morning, I'm glad to do so (I should study too!). He has a learning disability but he is pretty determined to learn Arabic and has a really good accent.

Ryu is taking the Toeic exam tomorrow downtown and I will join him after my Arabic test. He leaves in exactly a week. We spent yesterday together and he says he wants to cook something for me.

I watched Hiroshima Mon Amour this afternoon, it was alright. I am going to try to make some connections between the film and the graphic novel Yukiko's Spinach for my Complit term paper.

Arihito emailed me last night. I was thinking about responding to his last email during my nightly shower but received a new message from him when I returned to my room. After further correspondence, he offered to donate money for me to fly west (to come to Japan). Interesting.

My friend's boyfriend gave me a bottle of Rose wine to have before the party on Friday. It was so nice of him. I was kind of shy to have friends and Ryu together but it was nice. The party was okay... My friends left early and I stayed with him for a while longer. It was nice to be in the loud music and I danced a bit. Cops came into the house with their flashlights and the partiers didn't falter. I lost my watch somehow and we went home. It was freezing cold and icy, I was so glad to be with him for the walk back!

I wouldn't mind staying in with him forever. No need to go out at all... He slept with me until morning, and before he left, let me pick from three Japanese folding hand fans (he had purchased them for his host family but was too shy to present them when he first arrived in America). I took two. They're so pretty and smell nice... I really like fans and have a growing collection!

I slept a while longer Saturday morning and then found out there was second party that night. My friend J kept on messaging me and acting unhappy, so I pleased her and invited her to my house. We passed the afternoon talking with tea and then went out for dinner, then made sugar cookies in various shapes, and finally joined up with Haroon to go to a huge party not far from here.

It was packed when we got there. It was crowded all through the night. It was ridiculous, I heard it was a triple birthday. Dj was good. We found a bottle of Everclear and took some shots. J drank a bunch of straight vodka. I didn't allow myself to get drunk, I had no desire. I wished Ryu were with me. But I enjoyed my time with my friends, we danced in the crowd, though we could hardly move. The police showed up and we left the scene. J and Haroon came back to my house, I showered and slept around 3AM and let them chat all night.

Two weeks left. I want to call Ryu and ask to see him today, but I can't.
Edit: He just called me... :)

So it's the first of December. Bad news first, I had to pay my rent today. damn. I hope I can manage to save a little bit of money this quarter for this coming summer and my crazy plans (yes, so crazy, I haven't even decided on them yet). More bad news, I am having a really hard time getting affordable health insurance. I just applied for medicaid.

Other news... not really good news. I turned in my final research paper. I did it in a rush like I always do, I hope I did okay. I went to the grocery store finally and bought good food filled with iron! I made this tomato and spinach stew that my mom used to make for us when we were kids, and it turned out sooo delicious (I still have leftovers for tomorrow!). I dunno how else to cook spinach, anyway.

I was asked to come for an interview at a new ramen shop that's opening up around here. Heather just got hired there and I think it would be cool to work with her. Hopefully I will get the job otherwise I will go crazy this winter break all alone and end up killing myself or something. I need the money too.

Ryu leaves in 17 days. boohoo. All good things come to an end. I am trying to ignore it. But I think about him constantly, before I go to sleep, when I wake up, all the time. He makes me feel so warm when I am with him, literally. It's so weird. I have never felt my body temperature rise, I've never felt so warm with any other guy. I am always cold, my hands, my legs, but not with him. It's so strange, my blood moves so much more with him, it's an amazing feeling, I can physically feel it flowing through my veins. It flows like a fire has been lit inside of my heart, pumping heat to my face, my fingertips and toes. So different than I am used to. Is this what being alive feels like??

Edit: I can't stop listening to this stupid Nancy Ajram song... someone shoot me.

The days are very short now, and darkness falls quickly on this cloudy city. Wish I could quit school and do my own thing. It's alright though. Today I was sort of inspired by the author of one of my textbooks coming and speaking to our class, she is a professor here. If she could get through all those years of school at Duke and Yale, I can finish my degrees too. It rained so much today. I got home from piano practice hours ago and I still feel wet.

I have a long to-do list. I need to sort out my credit transfer from Waseda. I need to apply to the summer program at Damascus University. I need to talk to the honors advisers and the rich lady about getting the extra scholarship money they promised me to study abroad (I paid for France out of my own pocket, but this year I won't have all that extra income). Lastly, I have about a million pages to read and papers to write in the next 4 weeks. 

Instead of doing these important things, I just play piano like a child and write useless poetry and listen to stupid music and hang out with dumb Ryu. I guess I could start with doing my homework.

I really shouldn't be taking a break from paper-writing to post this (deadline is at midnight, 4 hours from now), but I need a rest from history.

My problem with professors isn't a problem at all, not in the usual sense of the word. I just am prone to falling a little in love with them, the way they speak, the idea of them. I enjoy being in class, listening to them, watching them, paying attention to their habits, cheesy senses of humor, and other personal characteristics. They are human beings after all, not an advanced species or anything, contrary to what I might like to believe.

I think they live/are lost in their minds most of the time, but like the rest of us, they wake up in the morning and have coffee, choose their clothes, and come to the university. I wonder what car they drive, how they feel about coming to school every single day, and how it feels to have been in classrooms for decades of their lives. I am usually quite fond of my professors, especially the older, male ones (but also the older females, not so much the middle-aged women, case by case though).

My comparative literature professor in Paris last year is one example, his lectures on literary theory and criticism were probably some of the best hours I spent in Paris. Other students found him to be wordy and boring, but they just didn't get it. His explanations really changed the way I view art and literature. His class turned me to study further in comparative literature, and I will be forever thankful for that (as I am considering graduate studies in comparative literature). Likewise, my linguistics professor last year was an awesome lady, and helped me to understand and fall further in love with language. She lectured about how to view words objectively and human expression comparatively.

To the point! I am sort of in love with my current International Studies professor. He looks like a stereotypical professor, wears glasses, suits, and sweater vests, lectures to large groups, has a slight accent, but speaks well and softly. I am reminded of him tonight because he is actually cited by the authors of my research sources! He has been doing this stuff for a long time.

I witnessed an atrocity on the way to school today. I was feeling kind of weak, paranoid and vulnerable, kind of lost in thought (I usually feel this way the day after I cut sensitive areas), when I heard a loud group of crows ahead of me. I often hear crows on the way to school, there is a group of them around here, but today it was especially loud. I continued to walk toward school, and when I reached the crows, I saw a pigeon fall out of the sky and land on the grass beside me, injured and struggling, followed by the manic crows. They were all attacking the pigeon and grey feathers were everywhere. I stopped and watched for a while, but I couldn't really do much about it. I continued on my way after the pigeon died and other students noticed.

I suspected that I was anemic so I tested my skin with my mother's gold wedding band. The black lines that appeared were much more distinct than the lines I remember seeing when I was put on iron pills in high school. I am guessing that is a bad thing. Whatever, I am not taking iron again. I hardly ever have the opportunity to eat meat, it's not really part of my diet, I get my protein from eggs and seafood. Fuck iron.

I have my first piano lesson tomorrow, looking forward to playing some songs. The first draft of my research paper is due on Saturday, so I need to focus. I have been having trouble with that lately. Too much procrastination.

All those who have left,
have left,
white sun,
high at noon,
the bell rings,
warming my body,
my ashy skin,
and I'm not sure,
if we will meet again.

I am not sure if I should be proud, but I wish I didn't feel guilty. I ditched Tuesday, who has been wanting to see me for a few weeks. Problem is that Tuesday wants to meet on the early weekdays, when I have the most reading to do. I have made excuses the past couple weeks and this week Tuesday asked if we could spend the night together since there is a national holiday on Wednesday. I said that it would be perfect and got excited about the date, reassuring him that I would be able to make it, he hinted at big plans and inviting people.

That was Saturday morning. Saturday evening Ryu also asked me about the upcoming Tuesday. I told him I already had plans and that I couldn't see him. He accepted this without questioning further. But I really enjoyed being with him that night and realised that I would rather spend Tuesday with him.

What to do, what to do? One thing about me, I never ditch people; even if I am sick and sleepy, I never skip class. Even if it costs me something, I will be there if I promised you that I would be. I am offended when people are late, and I take pains not to be. So, I am not the type to switch plans like this. I struggled all day with the decision. But I called both parties in the evening after much mental struggle.

Ryu said that he had accepted that he would not see me on Tuesday, but now was so relieved. I felt like such a loser telling him that I wanted to see him and that I had changed plans. But it was the truth. I had to lie to Tuesday though.

Tuesday knows I am seeing someone else, I mentioned it on Saturday. I refused to give details about who it was. I don't think it matters to Tuesday, it just makes my excuses about school seem less credible.

I won't get into detail about the phone call, but there were lots of plans for us on Tuesday. Difficult arrangements were made, people were sent away, people were invited and dinner was arranged. All this preparation for me, I felt so selfish when I lied straight into the phone and said that I have too much work to do.

Ryu better be extremely worthwhile tonight.

P.S. I hung out with a bunch of CIA agents at the Deca Hotel (bad memories of that place!) last night, they were recruiting from my university. They invited Jackson school students for an analysis game, testing our analysing skills and showing us what it's like to work as an intelligence analyst. In the end, I decided it would be kind of boring and tough to be an analyst, but being a spy and getting the intelligence would be interesting. I am still considering applying to the CIA.

I have so much to read and so little time... Books piling up for school and for my personal reading. I wish I could read faster.

I read a poem last night at Revolution Books, I really like being there. I love having a space downtown where I can escape the university environment I am beginning to hate. It's hard to imagine my goal of being in graduate school for several more years. I am very tired of the institution and the focus of it all, the goals of the university. I feel like it is turning most of the students into useless office workers that will be victim to the oppressive capitalist system. I want to escape it so badly, but each day it gets harder and harder to see beyond the dollar signs. A creative career is a terribly rare thing.

Sometimes I just want to shut myself up into my room and forget the rest of the world. Well, sometimes I do exactly that.

I promised I would spend next Tuesday night with someone who destroys me and drains me, so I am about to face a trying week. I am spending tonight with Ryu, looking forward to seeing him, but I have some things to do in the meantime. I am preparing myself, reading and getting ahead before Tuesday and the subsequent empty days it will cause.

It's the sixth week of the quarter, which means classes will become more demanding, work will start piling up, and I will have less time to do all my favorite things (i.e. sitting around reading websites/books without direct application to my studies).

Dug through the university library catalog for sources for my research paper this quarter, social reform and nationalism in the Ottoman empire. I found some good books!

Had the "what are your life plans" talk with Ryu. It's simple. In two years he will be working twelve hours a day for some Japanese company and I will be beginning my master's degree somewhere on the East coast (if not farther away). He didn't seem very excited to hear about my uncompromising ambitions. And I told him I will be too busy this week to spend much time with him.

Signing up for piano lessons. My goal is to be able to play the first movement of Moonlight Sonata by the end of the school year. I've (re)taught myself how to read music and some of the scales and chords.

Also planning to read a poem at the second Revolution Books open mic this Friday.