October 22, 2011

I’m finally in Japan! I just finished changing my boyfriend’s OS to Windows 7 and now I’m trying to tick more stuff off of my to-do list. The semester has ended and I got through it with minimal damage (by damage, I mean psychological, emotional and whatnot).

I got average grades. A little above average, maybe? But still average.

I had dinner with the boy and his mother at Sushiro and watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes with the boy’s childhood friends. Apparently, they’ve been married for 7 years–since the girl was 18 and the guy, 17. They have two kids. 

I can’t imagine being married at such a young age. What a waste. Kids just kill your social life and you lose whatever freedom you may have. It’s too big a responsibility. Too many people screw it up already–why try? 

October 12, 2011

I noticed that this really old blog of mine still gets hits from some random online visitors. Thank you for the interest even though I don’t really know where the curiosity is coming from.

So after returning back to my country after my year-long exchange student scholarship in Japan, I enrolled for summer classes at once so that I can catch up with the coursework that I left behind. I met a lot of new people who influenced me to take the path that I’m taking now.

Right now, I am an Environmental Science graduate student at the University of the Philippines Diliman. I just finished giving a presentation on the applications of Cluster Analysis for my Computational Methods class. We also had to submit our final take-home exam for that class. 

I’m done with all the requirements for three of my classes!

Just one more class to handle and I’m FREE.

I’m going on a trip to Japan from October 20-November 13 to meet up with old friends, former professors, my host family, etcetc. And I was fortunate enough to be invited by my future academic supervisor to his department’s student meeting. I’m excited about it but at the same time, kind of apprehensive–what kind of questions should I ask them?

Books and Movies 2011

This is a list of books that I have read and movies that I watched for this year 2011. 

Books

Amy Peppercorn: Starry Eyed and Screaming - John Brindley
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia - C.S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - C.S. Lewis
The Silver Chair - C.S. Lewis
The Horse and His Boy - C.S. Lewis
The Magician’s Nephew - C.S. Lewis
The Last Battle - C.S. Lewis
The Marvelous Land of Oz - L. Frank Baum
Spanish Holiday - Kate Cann
Love and other F**r Letter Words - Carolyn Mackler
Diary of a Whimpy Kid - Jeff Kinney
Ramses Volume II - Christian Jacq
Morning, Noon & Night - Sidney Sheldon
Skin Deep - Nora Roberts
PHD Comics 1-940 - Jorge Cham
Shopaholic and Baby - Sophie Kinsella
Lizard - Banana Yoshimoto
Count: 17

Movies

Bad Lieutenant
The Hurt Locker
Kung Fu Panda 2
Shutter Island
Xmen First Class 2011
Inglorious Basterds
Beastly
Annie Hall (Woody Allen 1977)
An Education
The Princess and the Frog
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Hanna
Waiting for Forever
Fast and Furious 5 Fast 5
The Hangover 2
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Bad Teacher
No Strings Attached
Bridesmaids 2011
Never Let Me Go
Midnight in Paris

Count: 22

TV Series

Bleach 26-137
Steins;gate

Glassblowing

I can’t sleep again. The only night that I don’t want to sleep until 5 in the morning and I can’t! Darn.

Just the other day, I got the glass from the glassblowing activity that we did a while back. 

Isn’t it pretty?

I think that I’m about to change my favorite color to something else.

Purple, wanna be my new favorite color?

And BTW! Eyobe’s back from Canada! I went to welcome him home and give him back his keys. You know what that means right? I got my peanut butter!!!! (And maple syrup.) I asked him to help me buy maple syrup so I can give Kenji some. Thanks Eyobe!

Maple candy is weird. It tastes kinda like sugar. Liquified sugar that got hardened. But in a weird way. It’s not really unpleasant — it’s just weird. 

Which reminds me, I need to hit a bookstore some time before Sunday (I don’t know how that reminded me of hitting the bookstore). I’m going to be teaching this guy business English twice a week and he wants me to buy him a textbook. I wonder how that’ll go. 

Like water

So I had dinner with the other exchange students at the lounge. Lin cooked and everything. I’m not exactly sure what the stuff are called but then right before eating, I nagged Lin about cooking faster. Well, not so much as being able to eat at once but more the fact that I wanted to use what little Japanese I know. Guess I better trying to be cute.

The food was okay. I ate ketchup rice and everything. I even bought people ice candy bars and orange juice. Btw, did you know that a prawn — a piece of prawn — costs ¥98? Ouch. 

Lesson learned: don’t hang out with people you don’t really want to hang out with. But that’s gonna be weird cause lately — I don’t want to hang out with anyone. Everything just annoys me silly. And as much as I shouldn’t mind, I just can’t will the bitter taste in my mouth away.