majutsukai

You know what I just realized?

My last entry in this thing was half a year ago.

And even then it was just a random chatlog dump. It's been nearly a year since my last entry with actual content.

You know what I think? I think life update.

So the schoolyear came and went. Generally speaking, it was a HUGE improvement over the previous year. I was right about risk-taking being the key to building confidence, because on the social side of things, the year went fantastically. Unlike last year, I actually felt sad to leave when it came time to pack up and go home.

Academically, though, it wasn't quite so great. I came to realize this year that I've been setting my performance standards too low-- not just this year, but ever since leaving high school. Letting myself get bored with my classes had a terrible impact on my grades. Unfortunately, it took putting my Major qualifications in jeopardy for me to realize this, and that rude awakening only came about two thirds of the way through the year. I wound up having to retake Phonology in the spring, and I will have to retake Japanese 301 in the fall as well.

The good news is, I picked up the slack, and my grade point average for spring quarter was higher than it has ever been in my life. Including high school. I am absolutely pumped to continue this good streak in the coming year.

Speaking of Phonology, I've made the decision that, in addition to my Japanese major, I am going to attempt a double major in Linguistics. The upper level Ling courses have been such an amazing experience, and have done wonders for my motivation. I'm feeling that same little click that I felt when I began studying Japanese in my first year of high school-- that it just feels right to be in this field.

I'll be doing the Japanese concentration of the Linguistics major, which means that a lot of the requirements will be taken care of just by way of the language courses I would have been taking anyway. In addition to that, it also involves a couple Japanese Linguistics courses that I've been dying to take-- but with the recent budget cuts, these may or may not even be offered this year. I'm told that I can talk to the department head for a workaround in such a case, though, so I'm optimistic.

Summer, though, has been a bit of a different story! I haven't got much to do around here, aside from job hunting-- which, when you haven't got a driver's license or any work experience, happens to be really hard. Doing my best to rectify both deficiencies is my current priority!

My mom got married over the spring. My new stepfather's name is Bob, and he's been an excellent source of support for her, both emotionally and financially, as she's been struggling herself to rectify her unemployment. She's found a few temporary jobs, but nothing permanent yet. I feel absolutely terrible for the financial burden he's signed on for here, considering both of our employment situations, but the man is an absolute saint. I nearly cried tears of joy when I got the news that we finally had medical coverage again. Well... no. Not just nearly.

My happiness for them and my guilt for myself are in an unsteady equilibrium for now. Just another reason for me to sort through my emotional problems and get a goddamn job already, clearly.

But at any rate, wow this has been cathartic. Please excuse the wordspam.

OKAY so hey I should probably post an actual update here or something. 'Cause stuff has happened and I can go into more detail here than on Twitter.

First-- the problem with my loan was that I hadn't enrolled in enough credit hours to be eligible for the money. So I had to take care of the whole getting into Japanese thing in order for my loan to disburse and my expenses to be paid for.

That worked. I finally managed to get into contact with Deguchi-sensei. Apparently he didn't get my first email back in December. So I am LUCKY that I happened to try emailing him the day before classes began to check if he had gotten it.

He gave me a kanji test, which I passed-- sort of. He was a bit dissatisfied with a few things related to the way I wrote-- minor details like which strokes are supposed to cross and which ones aren't, which is a bigger deal in Japanese than it is in English. He agreed to let me into the class on the condition that I meet with a native speaker to get help with the smaller details in my writing. He fired off an email to someone who he thought may be able to help with that, but neither of us has heard back yet. In the meantime, I've been working on it on my own, and I think I've been improving. With luck, I may not actually need it after all.

Small note: apparently my さs are wrong. (They look like that one does; with the last two strokes connected.) According to him, that form of writing (called Manga-ji, apparently) isn't acceptable in a formal context like school, and it has to be written with three separate strokes. But it's perfectly acceptable for some reason to write ち with the strokes connected. Don't even ask me, I don't know. It hasn't been that hard to adapt to, though.

I also have a sinking feeling that my ふs and ゆs are incorrect for the same reason (I write them each with a single stroke), but if that's the case, then there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to correct myself-- my ふs and ゆs look absolutely idiotic when I try to write them with multiple strokes.

Compared to my other classes, my Japanese class is shockingly small-- about 25ish people, which I'd hazard a guess is barely more than a quarter of the size of my Sociolinguistics class. The class size is even more surprising when you take into account the fact that this is a combination of the 201 and 202 levels.

But enough about that! Let's talk about DORMS.

This is a whole new world. And I don't think I can adequately describe how utterly alien this world is to me. I know I'm not new to the whole college thing, but this dorm thing is a whole different animal.

My dorm room is part of a four-room suite with a single shared bathroom. All of my suitemates (7 in total, including my roommate) know each other already, since they started in fall quarter and lived in the same rooms.

I had a hell of a time trying to keep all their names straight, but of course they all got mine straight away (since they only had one new name to learn this quarter-- mine-- while I had seven, plus the various friends and girlfriends that have came and gone over the past couple days. >.<).

The doors between each room and the bathroom stay open pretty much all the time (save late at night or early in the morning when people are sleeping), so it's almost like a big apartment or something, with people moving from room to room fairly freely. The bathroom may as well be a hallway or something (it's long and narrow like one, anyway)-- unless someone's naked and getting into the shower or something.

Which brings me to another thing-- no privacy period. The only places with any semblance of privacy are the toilet (picture a public bathroom stall, only without the lock on the door) and the inside of the shower, which is only separated from the rest of the bathroom by a flimsy little curtain. The closet (which also serves as the passageway between the room and the bathroom) can afford some limited privacy if a) the door to the bathroom is closed, and b) your roommate is either asleep, out of the room, or has his attention fixed elsewhere. There's no door between the room and the closet.

The shower situation is so awkward I can't even tell you. I can only assume you're expected to wander into the bathroom naked or something? because there's no private space to change before you get in. (I opted to solve this problem by showering while everyone was still asleep, and leaving on my underwear until I'd gotten in and shut the curtain.)

Took me a while to figure out how the shower is supposed to work-- I took a shower the first morning, but couldn't figure out how to adjust the temperature. Cold shower for me. That was not pleasant. I figured it out properly the next day, though, thankfully.

Everyone's pretty friendly, but I have absolutely nothing in common with them! I feel like an alien or something. I'm pretty sure they all drink (I'm also pretty sure they're all underage, but it's not my responsibility to police them), they all work out regularly and do sports, and none of them make a hobby of using the internet like I do.

I brought gaming consoles, but didn't even unpack them for like a week because I've been so busy and it didn't seem so important anymore. And I've still yet to unpack the books I brought. I think I overpacked. >_<;;

On the upside: I have a wireless connection that I can use with my Wii (but not my DS). And I've finally made some progress in Persona 3 for the first time in ages. I'm at the point right after you recruit Fuuka.

SO HAVE I TL;DR'D YOU GUYS ENOUGH YET? :DDD

Leaving for Bellingham today. Classes start Tuesday.

I would be a whole lot less stressed out about this, though, if my student loans didn't have to be such a federal fucking issue!

The money from my loan for this quarter was supposed to have been credited to my student account on Thursday. It wasn't.

I waited another few days to see if they sent it in late. They didn't.

So now I'm stuck with a $4893.60 outstanding balance on my student account, and the loan I was supposed to use to pay it is MIA.

Weekend won't work for calling the school, so I'm going to have to call them on Monday. Which is one day before the payments are due.

I am so stressed out about this you wouldn't believe. If something goes wrong? If for any reason I can't get that money credited to my account before Tuesday? We'll have to foot the bill out of pocket. Else I could get evicted from student housing.

I am so sick of these games. There is always an issue. ALWAYS. I have not had a snag-free moment since applying for this damn school.

I should be getting sleep right now. There's no way that's happening.

Sorry for late response, Matt. Do you have a BASIC KANJI textbook or Foundations of Japanese Language? If you have a BASIC KANJI, why don't you submit Exceciese 1 through 24? If not, please submit wrting practice of the Kanji list of the FJL, starting 440 page. There are 210 kanjis in the list. The deadline is one week before winter term starts, but if you are done earlier, it is great. After your submission of this HW, I'll give you a kanji test. If you get more than 80%, I think you are ready to take 202.

YT

So I have to prove I know the kanji before I can register for the class? This will be... tricky.

Still, here we go, I guess.

So. Today. Today was a big day.

Advising and Registration at WWU. Had to get up at four (ugh) and leave at five for the two-hour drive up to Bellingham. Two hours and change, plus extra time to find parking and such.

Tour of the campus from 8:00-9:10ish. It's... a pretty awesome school. A lot to take in, though. But I had no problem remembering how to get around afterwards, so... hooray for sponge-like memory? \o/

Next was transfer student advising. Couple of teachers explaining to the group of us the process of registration and how credits and majors work, etc. Got an awesome notebook and a free book-- an actual book! They were giving them to all the new students. Score.

After that, nothing to do for about an hour or so. Had lunch at the Atrium. It was like the cafeteria at Green River, only with better seating arrangements and atmosphere. I like this place.

Then came a tour of the library. The group was substantially smaller and the tour substantially shorter. After that, we waited 'till the Japanese advisor's office hours.

So this is where the important part came. I had a talk with him about the major requirements. Evidently, my Japanese classes don't translate directly into a placement at WWU-- and you can forget about the high school classes, naturally. In order to declare Japanese as my major, I have to be enrolled in the 200-level or higher; but I have to test into it. Otherwise I have to start from scratch, and that's three years of schooling. Bad mojo.

The qualification consists of, it would seem, a written test and an oral interview. The results of which will be used to place me in a class of the appropriate level. I gotta score a class that's 200-level or higher, else I'm stuck in this school for an extra year.

Appointment for the test is next week, on Thursday. I gotta cram kanji to get myself prepared for the written test, and hell if I know what I should do to prepare for the oral interview. I'm so out of practice, goddamn. I'm really nervous.

Once I get my placement, I'll be able to apply for a loan. The loan form asks for a projected graduation date, which is just not in the cards until I know what my classes will be like.

Registration starts on the 18th. Housing assignments are released in early December, roommates later that month. New student orientation is January 4th, and classes start the day after.

Got a lot to do before then.

But for now... long day. Eventful. Not much sleep. Need to nap.

/dies

So it's official. UW did not reply in time; the deadline for enrollment at Western is tomorrow, so I have no choice but to accept.

Which means... this winter, I'm moving to Bellingham.

Gonna be living in student housing. Gonna have to have a job. And I'll be on my own. Completely and totally, and for the first time in my entire life.

Maybe it doesn't seem like a big deal to a lot of you... but this is basically the opening of a new chapter in my life. I wish I were exaggerating.

I have zero experience being independent. At my age, that's nigh inexcusable, really; I realize that. I'm jumping into the deep end of the pool with no experience to help me keep myself afloat; I can probably expect to make a few mistakes, experience more than my share of difficulties. And yeah, I'll be fixing them on my own or not at all. Yeah, that's kind of scary. Yeah, it shouldn't be. But it is.

Still... if there's one thing I can trust about myself, it's that I produce the best results when I'm under pressure. And if this isn't pressure? Hell if I know what is.

So...

Here... we... go.

P.S., bastards are making me jump through a lot of hoops Re: Measles immunization. How the hell was I supposed to know I would have to have two shots, when standard procedure at the time I was born was for there to be only one? Ffff. Well, I'm getting a shot tomorrow. Cutting it damn close, too.

So I just got word from WWU. And GUESS WHAT I got accepted.

I should be really really happy about this (and it is really awesome!), but I still kind of have my heart set on UW. And going to Western will mean I have to get my own place and/or do student housing, since it's all the way out in Bellingham... and I'll have to have a job before the new year, and I'll be all on my own for the first time ever and holy shit this is scary.

I mean, sure, even if I go to UW, I still have the goal of eventually being on my own. But WWU puts a very sharp deadline on it. And if you know me, you know how I am with deadlines.

So... augh.

But I got into a good school! So... well... yeah, I'm pretty sure not being in school is scarier to me than even that. So I'll have a really good backup in case I get rejected from UW.

Wish me luck?