I'm moving to a new apartment a week from now. As the move was planned two months in advance, I've been making a concerted effort to demolish my TBR pile so that I can send as many books as possible back to the States with Japan's bulk printed material shipping option. I was averaging a book a day, despite the depredations to my free time caused by Doom Thesis. Of course, there are still fucktons of books that I want, so the deal was going to be that I could buy one book for every ten I read, then one more after finishing another ten plus the purchased book, and so on.

Midway through last month, the OM bought two books for me, which set me back two days, but hey! I'm the sort who would rather be treated to books over food, even when on the brink of starvation. And I'd never heard of either of the two series, and as it turns out, they were waaay good. Which was also good, as it provided motivation to read faster so I could buy the next volumes in the two series.

I should probably mention here that I had told No One, including the OM about my read-down scheme. But ( it's as if the universe knows. )

In other news, my oral defense was held to day. I anticipate being the proud owner of a Master's Degree come March.

That will be all.

...one of my profs warranted a mention in the NYT.

Cool!

That will be all.

Yes, I haven't posted a TPic in about two weeks--I've been that heinously busy. I'll probably be posting a good deal of them this week, if not even today. Why? Well, the answer is tied to today's picture: ( Flu Day! )

That will be all.

Is of: ( Read more... )

That will be all.

Long-time readers of this lj will be familiar with my many run ins with Japan's "health" system, of which this example is one of the country's crowning achievements in weirdness.

Of course, being back in Japan again means being health examined again.

So today I dutifully trotted down to the airstream trailers parked on the uni plaza and submitted myself to the same health check I had to take a mere eight months ago in order to be admitted.

Anyway. It turned out to be a lot less invasive than the health checks I'd undergone as a civil servant. No swallowing bromide. No vampire-worthy levels of blood drawn. No (see above). It looked like it would be over in the blink of an eye, but then I made the unfortunate mistake of informing a nurse that I was currently undergoing a certain biological process.

Now, American physicians often just make note of this and carry on, but not, apparently, their Japanese counterparts. The nurse told the head physician on duty, who handed me a plastic cup and urinalysis vial and told me to bring them back at my leisure. I mean, seriously.

This would NEVER FLY in America. NEVER.

So I'm now walking around with a slightly mushed paper cup (albeit one manufactured for actual use in urinalysis tests, not a dixie cup) and (rather paraphanelia-remininscent) plastic apparatus in my bag. Apparently the contamination they will undergo in there is less worrisome than the presense of some extra platelets. I'm having a much easier time getting over this than I'd anticipated, due in no small part to the fact that I was told to complete a urine test...eh, whenever and wherever I felt like it. I mean, doesn't that defeat a large part of the purpose?

Never change, Japan. Never change.

That will be all.

...so far, so good!

That will be all.

...like having to turn in a 25-page research paper, knowing that the professor will cheerfully deduct points from one's grade for every miniscule typo and grammatical faux pas, on the same day for which the assigned readings appear to have been edited by a dumber specimen of the chimpanzee family. I mean, we're talking one to three typos per page.

For example, I give you this little gem, culled from ( one reading's endnotes on HIV transmission vectors in Burma. )





In case you missed what's amiss in this picture, ( here it is again, spelled out for you. )





( To which all I have to say is: )

That will be all.

...my GPA is...

4.0

That will be all.

( ajkd&%! )

( And then there was this tasteless fuck. )

That will be all.

But not for me. I moved into my new place this afternoon, and left again just as quickly for my first aikido class.

Which. Was. Awesome. The sensei is a really positive guy, who's completely into teaching both the forms and techniques, and why one would want to use them. There's also a refreshing lack of "Imma kick your ass punk!" martial arts bullshit. (From him at least; one of the other students seems to have a hard on for MA, and can't stop talking about how many he's studied and for how long.)

And best of all (and for the first time in my collegiate MA experience)--so NOT about the money. Class lasts an hour; the sensei had already spent two hours at a dojo and one teaching a yoga class, but he still extended my class by another hour...just because none of us had anywhere we needed to be and we were eager to see/learn more. AWESOME.

That will be all.