| OH AND |
[28 Dec 2009|06:34pm] |
PANIC
Things have to do:
1. figure out some kind of reasonable sounding proposal so can apply for summer funding.
2. figure out some kind of reasonable sounding budget " ".
3. figure out what am doing with life, viz. dissertation topic.
4. go over notes etc. for TAship that begins IN A WEEK AAAAAUGH
5. finish 1.5 monographs
6. decide which primary source am bringing in for first meeting of research sem ALSO IN A WEEK
7. implode
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| Top 10 songs of 2009 |
[20 Dec 2009|04:16pm] |
1 Just Dance (the venerable Lady GaGa)
2 Tegami~Haikei jyuugo no kimi he~ (Angela Aki)
3 Ogni giorno ad ogni ora (Le Vibrazoni)
4 The Scientist (Cold emo-ass Play)
5 Bad Romance (Ave Dona GaGa Nostra)
6 Like a Prayer (Ave Madonna)
7 Sakura (Moriyama Naotarou)
8 Xin guifei zuijiu [The New Noble Concubine is Drunk on Wine] (Li Yugang)
9 Karenai hana (Full Metal Panic OP)
10 Defying Gravity (Wicked OST)
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| Children of the Revolution |
[10 Dec 2009|11:32am] |
Friends, my next term is going to be hell. I will have to:
-Decide where to go for the summer and get $$$ for it
-Start on seminar paper, which implies having to have Actual Ideas and Actual Sources
-Start thinking up Good Ideas for diss. proposal
-Write up syllabus for S&M Workshop Workshop
-Take 3 classes
-TA
-Implode from stress
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| YES, I AM HAVING A MOMENT. |
[11 Nov 2009|01:57am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
a little ecstatic |
] |
0130 hours: finish studying for vocab quiz. Pull out one of latest haul from E. Asian Library, a tome of summaries, collection info, etc. for "women's periodicals" published in Beijing from 1905-1949. Discover this is absolutely amazing volume. Suddenly all the clouds clear and I remember that I should be at every moment weeping with gratitude for loving friends and family, good health, youth, privilege, a full belly, and a job that requires I READ BOOKS AND TALK ABOUT THEM AT LENGTH WITH OTHER NERDY PEOPLE.
Fucking LOVE MY LIFE.
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| And with a cup 'o' good cheer! |
[15 Oct 2009|05:28pm] |
Since September, my culinary adventures have included:
(nothing special--but I feel like I'm one of the minority to whom whole-grain spaghetti actually appeals)
-mixed vegetable (green beans, carrots, corn, edamame, onion, peas) and shrimp fried rice
*My fried rice always comes out more paella-like than the oily and dark-brown substance served in most Chinese greasy spoons. I really enjoy a dash or two of sirhacha or Lee Kum Kee spicy sauce in there. This time I tried adding a squirt of lemon juice, too. Nom.
-tri-color potato pancakes
*Russet, purple, and white tiny potatoes + a bit of whole-wheat baking mix + oil and fried individually. Nommy with applesauce and lots of ketchup. (Love the sweet-and-salty combos a bit too much.)
-mango-y pancakes with dried pomelo bits
*Pancakes with no eggs but lots of mango juice + some shreds of dried pomelo. The fruit sank too much and ended up in the last batch, but otherwise the mango (with some vanilla extract) was nice.
-whole grain bread with Laughing Cow and cucumber slices
*Very healthy snack, esp. if use light version of spread. Also makes one feel very Bri'ish. Laughing Cow spread may be the new light of my life.
-polenta patties with pasta sauce
*Okay, so neither is remotely handmade, but I was very pleased w/ polenta slices. Yes, I was actually a polenta virgin before this! Shock!
-steamed broccoli with...gyoza sauce
*And a couple dashes of hot sauce to taste. Nooooom. Excellent late-night snack.
-Dr. Pepper Cream terror
*Diet Dr. Pepper + suitable amt whiskey + suitable amount Irish cream => excellent, if slightly nasty-looking, beverage.
-apricot and pear sweet loaf
*It probably would have been a better idea to not use fresh pears, which made the insides a bit puddinglike, but I enjoyed this. Went easy on the sugar so that could eat more without feeling guilty.
ETA: -purple stew concoction of joy
*My red bell pepper was kind of getting sad. So I assembled my usual Japanese box-curry ingredients: potatoes, onions, pepper, carrots, red cabbage. But this time I added some beef for TEH IRONZ. Instead of using curry mix, though, I used a creamy stew mix (also comes in cute box and is from Nippon). Unfortunately this meant that my red cabbage turned the whole pot weirdly purple. The ultimate color was...dark puce. But tasty! One major downside, of course, of cooking vast amounts of food is how many times you have to reheat the leftovers. Still, saved a few bucks on lunch last week.
Next on my list of want-to-attempts:
-beef stew with tomato base (friends bought me like 50 bay leaves...must use them!)
-stewed tomatoes with mitarashi-style sauce (reduction of soy sauce and sugar)
-shrimp and lemon pancakes
-spicy mango fish filets
-Coca-cola chicken wings
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| Huh. |
[20 Sep 2009|01:54am] |
FAILFLEET
PULLING
INTO
HARBOR!
And, my children, that is all for tonight.
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| Finally, I return |
[12 Jul 2009|11:13pm] |
Unbelievably, it's been another month that I've spent here in Japan! I just got back this morning at 5AM from Sapporo, where much trawling for used media was done and the following was acquired:
-Buck-Tick Symphonic in Berlin (have not yet listened to, should be eye-buggingly awesome)
-Quarts of manga. heaps of manga. enough manga to make me worried about luggage on the way home.
-A photo book of the Takarazuka. Want to be taller and speak better Japanese so I too can be Oscar or friggin' Spartacus.
-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Japanese
-Enzai the novel(purchased 105yen book cover for rather suspect front cover)
-Puruzento for various folks
In addition, I spent the night in a manga kissaten,played Sengoku Basara "Cross"-- a ridiculous fighting game that makes me wish there were a Musou version, rode the night bus home, and took oodles of pictures. Just one more day of "nakayasumi" until the second "term" begins, and I plan to spend it touristing it up in town. I must say, I prefer this town far, far over Sapporo. It is a bit like the difference between Shanghai and Beijing, as far as I'm concerned. One is glitzy and pricey and full of good fodder for people-watching, but the other actually has some depth, character, and unique flavor. For me, it is the gap between mitarashi zushidango bought in a convenience store (admittedly fast and delicious) and mitarashi zushidango hand-pounded and glazed by someone who has been pounding rice into mochi for fifty years.
At any rate, since I am far, far too lazy to actually write coherent sentences beyond what is already above, a list of things I've done since my last entry:
-sung (much worse than I should have)in front of all my fellow students, teachers, and staffers
-worn a yukata three times (once complete with geta etc.)
-worn an uber-formal silk kimono twice
-possibly gained weight, which is just sad since I'm supposed to be in the land of Healthy Food and Skinny-Ass People
-tried some alcoholic beverage flavored like green tea
-jogged past a Nippon Ham Fighters (yes, actual team name) baseball game
-eaten some amazing products of okaasan's kitchen
-gone out to sea in otousan's boat, only to turn back b/c of the huge waves (resisting nausea the whole time by looking steadfastly out the back of the cabin)
-memorized and delivered to the class a terrifyingly boring 800-character speech about...breakfast foods
-danced the ika-odori--"squid dance"--with elementary-schoolers
-got pwned by the "kote" move at kendou
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| Osu! |
[13 Jun 2009|11:04pm] |
Hello from Japan! So far, so $$$... too lazy by far to make a proper post, but suffice it to say I have now:
-$50 worth of new manga [3 vol. of Saint Oniisan--which you can find partially scanlated on Mangafox; 1 vol. each of Koisuru Boukun and Crimson Spell; 1 vol. of Ooku.]
-experienced the joys of a Japanese laundry machine and subsequently being forced to dry socks more completely with a hair dryer (wind socks?)
-had some carb-free Asahi (>>> Miller Lite et al.)
-finally discovered some mitarashi dango, lurking in a Lawson's--umai!
-learned that "betabeta" is the sound of stickiness
-jogged around and made tourists look at me funny
-hiked the mountain for a great view of mountains and sea, some (really really bad) purikura, and a pin with the old Civic Center on it from a gachagacha machine
Unlike Tokyo, this place is extremely quiet. The town is dolled up for tourists, of which there were definitely a few today, it being the weekend now, but the streets are awfully quiet, especially here in the oldest part of town.
Even so, things aren't cheap. We've received a dinner allowance from the sensei and get to eat delicious buffet breakfasts here, but everything is pricey--even though I now live in one of the more expensive places at home and have become inured somewhat to higher prices than from where I was raised. Probably the major reason for feeling the burn is that I have to spend my own money! Tomorrow I may allow myself to purchase a few more comics in the downtown Book-Off, but after that nothing for a while, for sure. Wouldn't want to fulfill certain prophecies about returning with 3 boxes of manga.
Speaking of downtown, another reason for the empty feeling that is so strange especially after being 5 min. away from Shibuya is that this isn't actually the city center, apparently. There have been generational migrations away from this older section toward the east side of town, associated also with the general decline of the fishing and shipping that had once made this place so bustling that it was one of the first ports Perry opened. Of course the issues are actually nationwide--the inversion of the age triangle, the refusal by youth to take up their parents' and grandparents' lines of work. It definitely remains to be seen, however, what wil come of it. Being the child of much bigger nation-states makes me think that perhaps Japan, being so compact and (at least in its own collective memory) tightly knit, can overcome these ills. But maybe things still have to become more polarized between age groups and regions before they'll start really changing. Or maybe this is a cosmopolitanization that really is going to take over the world, and one day soon we'll all end up in Generic Futuristic Noirish Scifi City with the rest of the globe as its hinterland...
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| Update |
[14 Apr 2009|04:43pm] |
Been busy lately with:
-Playing Persona 4 and gibberingly collecting fanart
-Watching the first two X-Men movies (Storm is sexy)
-Reading
-Living in daily fear of what advisor will have to say about my draft
-Sunning myself on the deck & otherwise goofing off
Currently being wracked with guilt for not trying harder to fulfill my resolution for this year--i.e, get something published. Alas.
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| Wow, Japan |
[08 Mar 2009|08:10pm] |
Just read a few scanlated chapters of "Saint Young Men," about Jesus and Buddha visiting Japan in human form. Possibly the most lols in the last two months.
http://www.onemanga.com/Saint_Young_Men/
Sacrilege has never been more hirarious.
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| Procrastinaaaaation |
[25 Feb 2009|09:13pm] |
Moe ABC's.
At least one word for each letter related to moe you like to see (I'm thinking in literature, film, and visual media).
( A is for... )
Your turn, readers.
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| Après moi le deluge |
[23 Feb 2009|08:50pm] |
Today:
-Got to look at an original 1667 edition of Anastasius Kircher's China Monumentis, complete with foldout maps, flying turtles, person-sized fruits, and a Sanskrit version of "Ave Maria"!
-Was stuck between floors (between the circulation and stacks floors of the Asian library, to be exact) in an elevator for 2 hours. There was a firetruck outside the library! It was incredibly boring and incredibly surreal.
Now I am eating some fro-yo to recover.
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| Unrepentant Nerding |
[17 Feb 2009|09:20am] |
Jeebus. Last night I dreamed of:
-talking about the prospectus for a map project.
-being Pu Yi (except significantly more charming) and escaping from the turmoil of the capital circa 1915 on a mule. Apparently I wasn't so into the constitutional monarchy idea, and apparently I hadn't been made to abdicate yet. I rode across a great big map divided into thirds by Great Walls with gates and, to avoid the guards, somehow managed to climb/leap my mule over the walls. Then I met an older gentleman who, though helpful, turned out to be an enemy of my father's (Prince Chun?...in my dream he looked like my actual father), a wealthy merchant turned-bureaucrat. So of course I had to jail him as soon as we reached the capital again (in full Hal-Falstaff tragic glory). Then I became a constitutional emperor. It was teh sweetz.
-riding in a giant glass elevator in what appeared to be a luxe shopping arcade but turned out to be a combination of Hogwarts and my alma mater (?!). Lots of veined green marble everywhere. There was an annoying young woman with huge blonde curls. Then I woke up because the elevator was one of those horrifying ones that drops very rapidly to its destination (much like the one in said alma mater's math tower, or as I like to call it, Barad-dûr).
And now I have dressed myself like Indiana Jones for good measure. Archaeologist heroes--that's pretty close to historian heroes, isn't it? All I require is a proper hat.
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| Gawd |
[15 Feb 2009|12:35am] |
To the people who edited and contributed to this book:
Thanks a lot for stealing my thunder. Now I will be relegated to a life of obscurity and angst.
Sincerely yours,
-Me.
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| Any day now, bad karma, any day now |
[10 Feb 2009|10:10pm] |
Last week: Spent half of it being indigent after evacuation from bedbug-ridden domicile. Did no work. Spent other half moving. Very stressful. Every single piece of clothing had to be laundered. We own a lot of clothing, apparently.
Today: Nosebleed (recurring), almost lost sunglasses in the bottommost depths of library stacks, huge wads of dry cleaning left with the housing authorities b/c too much to drag home on foot. Got sprinkled on by some clouds. Eye turns out to have mutated bit ("perfectly harmless," assured doctor) in back(!!). Prescription for contacts has gotten twice as bad in left eye.
Tomorrow: Japanese quiz, gym, FLIPPING MY SHIT about the stuff I have to do because of last week's pestilence-induced non-productivity and continued malaise (which I am attempting to assuage by downloading wallpapers and writing terrifying stories).
Thursday: Explosion of busy-ness culminating in, hopefully, a good showing of anime. But first, explosion of busy-ness. Promised to attend meeting w/ advisor with outline in hand. This is pretty funny...
Friday: Explosion of panicking about project that have completely neglected for class that have completely neglected.
I think maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket this weekend. This crap's gotta turn around SOMETIME, right? ...Right?
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[30 Jan 2009|11:50pm] |
After a busy week of reading stuff, I relaxed this afternoon with some manga, including...
the newest chapter of Sakura-gari!
Oh man, just when you thought things were looking totally insane, things get insane-r.
See picture below:
Progress made toward New Year's Resolution, which is to publish something: Not Good.
Progress made toward wanting to write something for a certain bimonthly 'zine of dubious themes: Considerable.
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| And finally, |
[19 Jan 2009|10:01am] |
Un Geste d'Amour, my Becketfic for the New Year's Resolution Challenge, is up. Written for Gehayi.
BTW, this is the only PG-13 rating of the batch; it's also by far the shortest. The others are both NC-17--are you more tempted to read them now? :D
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