it's a post, it's a post post post
I know, I'm so lazy that sometimes moving my fingers on the keyboard is just TOO hard!! Well, they have been busy lately.... I finished my law school applications last week, which took a whole load of writing. With that out of the way, freedom is on the horizon!! The writing is nearly done! Oh, except I do have to re-write my Fulbright paper because of the following GOOD NEWS:
I have been accepted to present my research at "The Seventh ETHICOMP International Conference on the Social and Ethical Impacts of Information and Communication Technologies". woo hoo!! I was actually really surprised about this because I thought that if my paper was accepted that I would be notified about it by October 10 (according to the paper submission information). But irony of ironies (this being a conference on computing ethics and all) I didn't recieve notice until 2 days ago (Oct 27). So now I'm all butterflies and the conference isn't even until next April. Oh, did I mention it's in Greece!?! I'm way excited! I just hope I can find good tickets....I checked travelocity which gave me the resulting deal of only $6,000.
In other news, I'm working on a new video: Cat Gone Wild. See.... our sweet little Shisa is a little overly energetic, and she's gone absolutely bonkers on us. Drives us crazy basically. Maybe I shouldn't have named her after a warrior dog. Our monitor died yesterday and we think it's her fault ... the wires were a little chewed. She's currently trying to swallow a chair.
The fall weather here is absolutely wonderful. For the past 2 weeks I've been on a photography kick, so I've taken quite a few pictures. Hopefully I'll have them by next week. Sadly, the wonderful film scanner I was borrowing from Assaf is in London, so I'll have do things the slow and annoying way with our little scanner. Oh well, at least I have time now that the law school applications are over.
Okay.... pictures coming soon..... Until then bye bye :)
I tried to save a draft of a post I was working on last week and I had some kind of error in movable type that really just saved it under 00-00-000. Obviously this isn't a date, and I had no clue where my post went, so I kind of gave up. Well, then I noticed that I had an archive file for this mysterious date, and low and behold there was my post. So, here it is.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
woah it's already nearing the end of Thursday for me. The way my Monday through Thursday schedule works out now, I'm at school most of the day and then have a small break before 2 hours of Japanese. And my time at the schools feels like mini Japanese lessons, so it's kind of a super submersion right now.
I saw some great pictures yesterday at a bar my friend, Erik, is working at. The artist is Kai Fusayoshi, and he has produced several books of Kyoto photos. There's not much on the web about him, but I did find a few things. His photos involving books can be found here. He and I share a common interest in cats, which he has skillfully photographed. Some of those pictures are online with the Kyoto Shimbun. That's about all I could find! I want to buy the photobooks, which I hope are at Maruzen because they're not at Amazon.
ahh it's four minutes into Saturday - how great! We have a three day weekend, and I'm looking forward to every second of it (except for the seconds I spend working on my dang personal statement!).
the toilet, that is. She decided to jump into it directly before Craig had flushed it.... so she got a midnight bath. I guess we've gotta keep the shut from now on!
It's so nice when things start to settle down. Too much routine is boring, but a little is necessary to maintain sanity. I have a GREAT job teaching English at some elementary schools in Neyagawa city. I went in for an interview Monday and started working on Wednesday. Even though I've only been to 3 schools so far, I already know I love it. I'm free to teach what I want, and it seems that no one knows English at the schools, so I'm forced to practice the Japanese I know. I also am taking advanced Japanese classes twice a week. They're at Kawara Juku in Kyoto and if anyone's looking for great private lessons in Kyoto, it's definitely the place to go. The teacher is amazing with a capital A. He even helped me during my little incident with the psychopath from the English conversation school! And I'm continuing to meet with my conversation partner twice a week. Those are fairly routine things that make my life smooth and interesting. I have time to read a ton during my hour-long commute to and from school each day, which I actually enjoy a lot. Although, I do now understand why they have women-only train cars during rush hour (thank you JR, boo to Keihan). It really sucks being crammed into a train with about 1 female to every 20 men. Besides, the women-only cars tend to smell better and the colors are more interesting. The ones crowded with men seem stinky and black because of all the suits (sorry to you men...I don't mean to say that your stinky, but it sure is a noticable difference between the two cars!).
Besides the routine, I also have some things I'm working on. The photography is going well... I hope to take an early morning before work to capture some rising sun shots. It's hard when there are buildings blocking EVERYTHING though. I also need to finish up my law school applications. My personal statement is extremely daunting, and I need to get the move on because those applications can go in as of October first. I just can't think of the one wonderful thing that makes me unique and will convince the admissions committes to let me into their school. And of course, there's daily fun with kitty too!! Shisa's now about 5 times bigger than when I found her - looking more like a cat now than a kitty. I have a feeling she's gonna get huge! Craig and I have a lot of fun doing various activities around here and we are looking forward to the momiji season which starts this month. (For those of you who don't know, momiji is when all the leaves turn flaming red here - great photo ops). The weather is beautiful, and I wish my friends and family could be here. Wow, the count down is starting I guess - 8 more months till we come back to the good ol' US of A.