focusing is hard, thinking is easy

There are a million and one things I want to do right now.

Writing this paper is not one of them.

One of the worst things about actually living in places with nice weather like California along the coast is that the perpetually nice weather makes it exceedingly difficult to do anything, even if you're spoiled like me and used to having it pretty often. I guess that's why libraries will have the study desks deep in the darkest parts of the basement levels: so you don't know how nice of a day you're missing.

I actually prefer to study next to windows, so I can stare longingly outside at the nice weather that I'm notenjoying. Sigh. Actually, I already enjoyed the weather outside today, cause I took the advice of a website and took a nap around 1:30 because my body just... can't around that time of day. It's actually kind of weird.

I feel like I need to run around the block. :< Or do jumping jacks in this corner of the library or something. Seriously, I am ridiculously restless.

And still not writing my paper.

After this paper, I am basically a thesis away from graduating. That's quite a long road to travel, actually, but I'm aiming to be done by the summer. Aiming. There are still quite a bit of things I need to do because this quarter was the quarter where I don't know what happened, and I lost like... all of my focus. Senioritis?

It doesn't feel like I'm graduating and moving out, but I am. Really soon. My mind is just too sleep deprived to realize it. But I don't know, I think it also doesn't feel much like I'm graduating because compared to last time... there was so much pomp and circumstance. But now that I don't have my mother bugging me to fill out cards and send invitations etc etc I dooon't actually care as much so it doesn't really seem like much and I was really really bad about actually inviting people to come to my graduation.

I kind of want to do forward somersault rolls around on the floor over here. I'm that bored and restless ahaha.

One of the counselors I saw for career advice after I took the *real* Myers-Briggs test (I'm apparently ESTP) was super shocked at my results. Basically, despite getting what I did I got really really close to the center for basically... three out of four of those (I think one of the last two, either thinking/feeling or judging/perceiving I got a "moderate" score instead of the "slight preference" kind of score). I could probably most easily float between ISTP and ESTP depending on how I feel that day.

But basically she said that was the profile that people usually work towards as they grow older so that by the time they're 80, they're not at any of the extremes. So basically, I have the soul and personality type of an 80 year old. Woo hoo. I can swing almost all ways on the chart depending a little bit on circumstance and situation, as well as on current mood. This explains a lot why I've managed to score almost every combination over the course of my (I guess short) life so far, or at least I've managed to get each category at least once. But yeah, she was shocked. It was kind of hilarious.

I also wish they made some kind of machine that captures energy from leg shaking. Crap, I bet you could make a ton of money from that and a ton of energy as well if it was something like one of those bike generators, but with leg shaking like a shake weight strapped to your leg. Or like a weight, one of those ankle weights but instead there's a sensor inside of it that somehow gets energy through the up and down motion. There'd have to be some sort of battery I guess to store the energy you got from that, but imagine, all the leg shakers of the world would actually be doing something useful to contribute to energy, all through some habit I've been trying to unsuccessfully kick since who knows when. It gets worse when I'm studying and when I'm restless like this with a ton of energy. Kinetic energy I guess it's called.

New summer project here I come.

In Defense of Pack Rats

Everytime someone comes over, it prompts a need for me to go into cleaning mode at my place, since let's face it, I'm kinda lazy so when there aren't social expectations from the outside making me clean my house, things tend to pile up and gather.

It's even worse when I'm packing or moving!

But yeah, as I was cleaning I came across so much old stuff that I had stored and saved up. The urge to go into hyper cleaning "throw everything away" mode rose within me. Being called a pack rat and a hoarder has such negative connotations; I still remember when a friend came over unexpectedly to my house to use the bathroom, which he turned into an invitation to take a look at my (post-social gathering) house. What he said still bothers me a little bit, though I'm not sure if he meant it intentionally or not. I think I wrote about this too, but as he was poking around, he made the comment that he, "always throws stuff away because he's not a pack rat."

I understand too, the appeal of not having that much stuff. Makes cleaning and organizing easier. Makes moving easier. Makes your house/space look larger. Not cluttered. Clean. Blah blah.

But! But but but. I mean, you can still keep stuff and be kinda organized about it. I'm... half organized. I'm not a neat freak, nor am I OCD but generally things have some kind of order (so when people help me clean, things get kinda mixed up ahaha)

Also, the entire reason why I keep these things is because my memory is pretty crappy. The odds of me actually recalling specific bits of memory - unless it's really quite memorable, like when I left my wallet on the bus in Tottori prefecture - are pretty low on its own. However, introduce something - a brochure, ticket, maps - and the thing serves as a kind of mental scaffolding I can use to dig deeper into the parts of my memory that like to remain hidden from me. The memory builds on itself as I remember another thing, which prompts another thing and another. It's amazing the amount of things I can remember that way! It's why I need to take things like notes or memos all the time, since otherwise, for some reason, my brain is quite bad at mental reminders. I guess that's also one of the reasons I write in this blog in the first place! To help me remember things.

I suppose all these things would probably go better in say... a scrapbook, (as far as looks and organization!) but I'm... kind of bad at getting those going. I don't know why either. I think I spend too much time reminiscing to get any actual work done haha.

...then again, there's also stuff here (especially anime/manga/game stuff!) that I have just because ohmigawd I need it. Hahaha. That I have no excuse for.

I also have no excuse for why I'm writing this. This is shameless procrastination from cleaning haha.

I suppose I should get back to throwing away stuff since I need to be moving out in less than three months now. Experience the here and now! All that stuff. Make memories that last. :)

Man, I really wish Pensieves were real! I WOULD SO BUY ONE. That would be super rad.

Maybe I'll just have to work at researching one haha. ...in my East Asian Studies major. Ha!

OKAY SERIOUSLY BACK TO CLEANING.

People talk

Today I'm returning to Okayama! I dunno if typing this in the bus is the best idea (me and buses don't usually play well. Like, I only get motion sick when trying to read on buses) but! What else am I gonna do for 40 minutes? Can't really sleep right now, and I can't read anything (see above) wooo.
Here are some impromptu pictures from my bus ride back! These pictures are brought to you at the expense of my dignity a littl bit, since I was That Person who was taking pictures with their iPad.



I'm sad to be leaving though! Last night I was talking with a bunch of other guests, most of whom were from tokyo. They were super chill, and we had a pretty good time. I think I might have offended the owner a little though, because we were giving people nicknames, and I used his first and last names and came up with Tako... Yeahhhh... Oops.
But other than that kinda faux pax, it was nice to talk and chit chat in a mix of English and Japanese. Mostly Japanese, though I would have to ask the two people who spoke both for a translation sometimes.
Oh, weirdly enough, there was one woman from Santa Monica, the owner dude worked in Newport Beach, and I met a masters student who was gonna work for Foursquare in San Francisco who went to UCSanta Barbara while diving! :) talking to random people is kinda fun. :) hahaha I also bragged a bit about going to Stanford (ohohohoho) since they were trying to think of famous universities in California for some reason (I didn't bring it up!) and they were like "ahhh oh yeah Stanford!" and I was (a little smugly) "actually... That's where I'm going to grad school"
Inner me is still giggling gleefully. Tee hee. That's probably gonna last until I get there and go "YABEI" because it's so hard. ^^;
Oh yeah! There are loads of pineapple fields here. If you saw a pineapple growing for the first time and you didn't know how they were grown... Wouldn't you think they grew in the ground? I did. At first I thought they grew in trees, but when I found out they didn't and I saw this (minus the pineapple), I assumed that you pulled pineapples out of the ground like carrots or something.

Lol yeah.. Did I mention I'm going to stanford? Looools.

Expresso Time

Ugh. I'm jet lagging so badly right now. I know I shouldn't go sleep right now... but I'm just so tired...

I went to bed kind of late, like around 1 am. Then I woke up again around 4 am, and promptly started hating my life. ...I pretty much watched My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic (a surprisingly decent show) until I had to go to work cause I couldn't go to sleep.

So tired... =_=

I gave the staff room omiyage today, in the form of Jelly Belly jelly beans. I think it went off well. I hope. I put them into individual cups since they weren't actually originally packaged that way.

Arg, I still need to eat lunch but I don't know what to eat. It's already almost 1 pm. Sigh... Not having classes is throwing my schedule off, because I don't really keep time well on my own. I'm a structure kind of person; I need it otherwise I'll just kind of laze about until it kicks in that, oh yeah, I should be doing XX or whatever. Then I'll do it. I've gotten pretty good at self imposed deadlines, and those for the most part, keep me on track but for some things... and some times (like now) it's just so... hard.

HOORAY FOR EXPRESSO COFFEE CONBINI DRINKS. I have energy again, can't you tell?

I was going through my pictures and videos of California, which has mostly just made me pine with longing for things like Farmer's Markets and ridiculously cheap fruit. I keep having to tell myself that I'm in Japan - Japan! - and that it's kind of awesome. Because it is. I'll be able to go back to cheap fruit some day. Really... it's not that bad...

My personal goal, now that I've returned to Japan, is to eat more fish. Tuna fish from a can doesn't count. I'm talking like the fish that they sell at the supermarkets because it's supposed to be cheaper (I think?). The seafood section of our grocery stores are kind of amazing. They're more like Ranch 99 (the super huge Chinese supermarket chain) in that sense, without the live bits. Which, now that I think about it, is a lot of it. They don't have any live fish at the supermarket here, but they do have a spectacular amount of dead marine life, from whole squid and whole fish to fish steaks and scallops. My goal is to start buying and cooking the things like salmon... so long as they're cheaper than meat. I haven't actually looked at the prices (I keep getting distracted by the omg whole squid or other interesting selection they have there).

This is kind of a random, ramble-y post. Moreso than the others.

The librarian at our school is super awesome. I can have conversations and stuff with her, and she's super super nice. Plus she doesn't mind if I occasionally go up there to study or whatnot, so I don't have to worry about nodding off in the teachers room. I don't do that very often, but sometimes the day is just so. freaking. boring. This is usually during the break periods between actual class. Like now. I don't have classes because it's summer vacation, but, I still have to go in to work. Some of the students (ie, all the academic ones) have summer classes that they're taking, or club activities they continue to do during the summer, so it feels like there are always students here. To fill the time, I'll study Japanese, or look through my lesson plans and brainstorm different ideas. But that only lasts for so long during the day. Eventually, after a couple days/hours of just doing that, I either get sleepy or stir crazy. It's fine when it's in the winter, since you just go outside and walk around a bit and BAM you're awake. But in the summer... it's pretty awful gross. I go outside only when I have to, or when the staff room gets too cold. (I suppose I should be thankful it gets too cold at all, since that's much better, in my opinion, than not being cold enough. Also, I happen to sit in the path of the air conditioner, so it blows straight over our row of desks, providing good weather-esque conversation when everyone around us is freezing cold).

My vice principal continues to amaze me with the topics that come up in conversation. Today was the etymology of Japanese words. Hajimemashite はじめまして, which is translated as "nice to meet you" has a much deeper meaning, I found. The way my VP explained it, you're saying something that literally translates to something like, "for the first time." You say this when you first meet someone. In essence, he explained, it means that this meeting and introduction was not a work of fate, nor of destiny; it was a completely random accident. When you say "hajimemashite" you're conveying something like, "I'm lucky to have met you" since, after all, it was complete happenstance that out of all the billions of people in the world, you meet each other. It conveys, I'm told, this sense of gratitude of this random accident occurring.

It made me like the greeting a lot more, that's for sure. It's so... poetic and kind of almost philisophical, all rolled up into this "nice to meet you" phrase that we have translated so clumsily. Etymology is pretty freaking cool.

He also asked me why we call them "tank tops" because we were talking about how he had a difficult time understanding the phrase, "the market tanked." I had to tell him that honestly, I had no idea. Actually, I'm looking it up now, since I'm curious. But my internet is ridiculously slow (though, at least the signal just *barely* stretches up this far).

UPDATE: Ha! My original guess - that it had come from the soldiers and marines wearing tank tops inside of tanks - was completely off. ね、知ってる？ Tank top comes from "tank suit," which was the word for a one piece bathing suit. The tank part of it was because it was worn in a swimming pool, or, as it was known back then, a swimming tank.

NOW YOU KNOOOOOOOOOW.