For anime_lj_tcg

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Should have put this up in my LJ sooner, but I wanted to let people know that I'm okay. I'm with my mom now, and I've gotten in touch with all the friends I have contact info for. My heart goes out to everyone who's further north from here.

Claire's birthday was the day before mine, so we had a shared birthday thing with our friend Holly, which was fantastic. I went home that weekend, which was followed by a 5-day-long birthday thing filled with fondue, organic cupcakes, TEA cafe and Ocarina of Time. It was magical. I'm glad I got to hang out with Kat for some of it, too, even though it was too bad our dinner plans didn't pan out.

I'm on spring break now, which means I'll be leaving for Dallas for a few days tomorrow. Am hoping to get a chance to go to the Korean bathhouse that's there, but we'll see how that works out. I'll have to spend a bunch of time studying for my midterms and getting my application stuff ready. I plan on doing a lot of relaxing too, though.

But speaking of application stuff...I'm already tearing my hair out over some of it. Even though the classes I took during my year abroad are listed on my transcript, the programs I'm applying for still want to see the official transcript from Ritsumeikan because it has my actual grades instead of using the S/U system, as my school tends to do for classes taken abroad. Unfortunately, Rits is telling me it's impossible to get that to me unless I send someone in my stead. I asked them what the procedure was days ago, but I still haven't gotten a response. Guess I'll call them late tonight if I haven't heard from them until then.

Been meaning to babble about RP stuff, but I'll probably get to that later this week.

Since I'm graduating soon, I've been kicking around my options and trying to figure stuff out.

I thought I'd made up my mind to apply for the FALCON program at Cornell University, which is basically Japanese language boot camp, in which particpants have about 50 hours of exposure to the language a week. You're pretty much guaranteed to be fluent by the end of it, and I feel like it would do me a lot of good to have the language hammered into me like that if I'm serious about becoming proficient in it.

I started making preparations to send in the application, which is due March 1st, by asking for letters of recommendations this week. When I talked to one of my Japanese language professors, though, she told me she didn't think FALCON would be a good fit for me because she thinks there's too much emphasis on speaking, and not enough on reading/writing. To demonstrate her point, she showed me the textbooks FALCON uses, and it was all written entirely in romanji. Yikes!! For someone like me, who wants to be able to pass the JLPT, this is rather problematic.

So now I'm sitting here going, "hurf durf" 'cause I don't know what to do. She recommended looking at universities in Japan if I want a good, well-rounded curriculum, but so far I can't find anything that offers more than 20 hours a week. That's more hours than I had at Ritsumeikan (about 14, iirc), and I'd be in Japan, which should offer plenty of opportunties to use what I've studied, but it still pales in comparison to 50.

There are also application deadlines to consider, though I think I've convinced myself that if I decide to go to Japan instead, I'll be looking at starting in April, rather than September or October. I suppose I could work and save money in the meantime, which wouldn't be a bad thing.

(What's sad is that it's actually cheaper for me to continue my Japanese studies in Japan.)

Maybe it's weird for me to want to continue my language studies like this, but I think that's what would make me happiest at this point. I know that, whatever I do career-wise, I'd like for to tie into Asia somehow, and so this seems like the best course of action for now. At the very least, being proficient in the language will make me a more attractive graduate student candidate if/when I do decide to go that route.

There's also independent study, but, quite frankly, I don't think I'm motivated enough to force myself to do 10 hours of study a week, much less 20-50. I wish I knew what else to do, though...

Hoo, another semester begins. Can't say I'm looking forward to going back, but I had a very nice break in which I got snowed in for a few days, went to Dallas, and even got to visit burningvigor and lacidiana for several days. Thanks for having me over, Court! And thank you, Erin, for being kind enough to drive me around LA, and then letting me stay at your place that last night. ♥

After I got back from my visit, I mostly lounged around and acted lazy. Got a bunch of Tales of Vesperia playing done. I'm still at the final stages of the game, but I suspect I'll be done soon. Then I can work on finishing P4, and then I can start on Kingdom Hearts, lololol.

All in all, I had a fantastic break, really, so I can't complain about going back. Here's hoping this semester won't be as difficult as last year's, hahah. I just have one semester left, so that's good. On the other hand, I just have one semester left, so sometimes it's hard to feel motivated about class. But I've been really good about getting all As the past couple of semesters, so part of me wants to keep that up.

I need to start my application for the FALCON program really soon, wow.

BECAUSE I'M PROCRASTINATING.

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omg what, I never post anymore. Mostly 'cause I feel like there's nothing new to report besides "baww, why did I sign up for four upper-division history courses this semester, this blowwws". I just finished writing one of my two papers due on Thursday, but I think I'm gonna call it a night and make a mad dash to finish my second paper tomorrow. 8D;;;

Normally I don't put off papers to the last minute like this, but we weren't even scheduled to finish the books we're supposed to write about until today, and I honestly have too much to read to finish this stuff much further in advance. /)_(\

So while I wait for myself to get a little sleepier, I'll fill out this meme that I was tagged for by the lovely burningvigor.

FIRST: If you've been tagged, you must write your answers in your own LJ and replace any question that you dislike with a new, original question.
SECOND: Tag eight sexy people. Don't refuse to do that like a pansy.

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Aaannd tagging aqua_karen, dreamcager, famira, geminion, melting, raining_chairs, starlite_gone, and windy_lea. SORRY IF ANY OF YOU HAVE ALREADY BEEN TAGGED LOL.

SO this week has already been kind of eventful. I got a thing in the mail saying I owe the Japanese governemnt, like, 740 dollars for their pension system. Which, uh, is a huge mistake since I'm just a student here. ;;; When I tried calling the office that sent it out, they just kept stubbornly insisting that their records show I owe them all this money. I was, like, freaking out and on the verge of crying, but the school says that, legally, I'm not supposed to send any money to the pension system, and that the whole thing is a mistake. Technically, they can't do anything to me if I don't pay it, but I'd rather not have this hanging over my head if I can avoid it...

I guess we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, I'm waiting for the clinic with an X-ray machine to open so I can have my foot looked at. I think I must have done something weird to it while climbing Daimonji last week. It's all swollen and keeps hurting if I walk on an uneven surface or stairs, or if I sit down after being up awhile. The campus health center said there wasn't anything they could do for me since I waited a week before going in, which is why I have to go to this other place. Hopefully I'll find out what it is and they can do something to help keep it from getting worse.

SCHOOL'S CLOSED DUE TO SWINE FLU.

No. Really. I literally have nowhere to be until, like, Friday. People here really seem freaked out about this flu business. Health inspectors boarded my plane and scanned everyone on board. They even quarantined a group of people!! Thankfully, I passed the test and got a yellow certificate proving I didn't have it, lol. I had to show it to the health inspector in Osaka in order to get through customs.

Anyway, the head of the program is coming to meet with me personally to go over orientation materials and stuff, but...yyyeahh. My mom is kinda upset, although my dad's just like, "lolololol vacation!!" I'm kinda worried, though, 'cause this might mean they'll have us work doubly hard to make up for lost time, and then I won't have time to do weekend excursions or to play or anything like that.

Guess I should probably play this week while I can. 8|;;

Speaking of which, I've been having a fabulous time with burningvigor the past couple of days. She showed me a ton of SO stuff for me to buy, (I'm gonna have so much crap to carry back now T_T;;) and then we ate delicious ramen and a tasty chocolate parfait. We also secured ourselves some awesome bus maps, and all was good.

OH AND THEN SHE GAVE ME AN ADORABLE APOLLO CELL PHONE STRAP FIGURE THING. ♥ ♥ And then I went to the capsule toy machine she got it from and wound up getting a Klavier to go along with it, heehee! x3

I couldn't really sleep so well last night, even though I stayed up heinously late. I might take it easy today since I've been sort of going non-stop the past four days, but we'll see.

Hope everyone's doing well!

Ganked this from somewhere I don't remember, orz.

Here's what you give me:
1) one of my characters (Monkey D. Luffy, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Claude C. Kenni, Apollo Justice @ damned)
2) another character played by you or me or anyone else

Here's what I'll give you:
1) a letter of some sort written to that character

You can choose a love letter, an advice with how to deal with another person, a venting letter about another character, whatever. If you want something written about a third character you will have to name that individual.

Because memes are the best way to procrastinate homework, yayyy!