Ikinakutemo Ii Desu Yo
24 February 2009
It's been one of those days where you wish you hadn't bothered getting out of bed. What makes it worse is that it's not even 5 o'clock yet...plenty of time left for more irritatingly annoying things to happen. When I woke up this morning things didn't seem so bad. I got up, had some toast and soya milk, and went for a shower. Got changed, packed some clothes into a suitcase and headed out of the door. I was going back home for a few hours so I could get a couple of documents for my accommodation application. All the crappiness started when I got to the train station. The train I was waiting for was first delayed by 13 minutes, and then 3 more minutes on top of that. To top it off, towards the end of the journey the train inexplicably stopped at a level crossing and waited for the cars to pass. What the hell?! The cars are supposed to make way for the trains to pass, not the other way round. Why is the British rail service so turd?
When I got back home I just so happened to be there when an annoying debt collection agency called. For some reason they had a totally wrong address for me but I stupidly told them the correct one anyway. I should have just hung up at the beginning. They can sod off though for all I care. They aren't getting a single penny from me, not if I can help it. Scum-sucking whorebags! Eventually, I got pissed off with the person on the other end of the line and hung up on them. I put my clothes into the washing machine and set off for the library to photocopy those documents.
When I got back the washing machine still hadn't finished its cycle yet so I had to wait. A short while later I heard the drum stop spinning so I went to get my clothes. Stupidly, I turned the machine off and tried to open the door but it was locked. I turned it back on and it was still locked. There was no other way of getting the bloody door open so I had to put it into a spin cycle again. It was already 2:40PM by this point and I had to be back at university for 3:30PM at the latest, as the office will only take payments until 4PM. The damn cycle took 15-20 minutes to finish. By the time I got to the train station it was 3:05PM and the next train wasn't until 3:20PM. I was well and truly screwed. I have no choice now but to wait until tomorrow to hand in my application form. I hope this one day hasn't jeopardised my chances of a room.
Posted byHocchan at 4:34 pm 0 comments
Mahou Tsukai Desukedo
21 February 2009
It's already getting to that time of the semester when all the deadline start piling up thick and fast. I've got a total of four essays, one presentation, a portfolio, and two exams to do before the end of the academic year. Thankfully, most of the stuff is due in after the Easter break. That leaves me with only one essay, one exam, and the presentation to do this term. I've already made a start on the essay but I haven't really made that much progress on it yet. I really need to get my head down and complete it as soon as possible, otherwise it's just going to add to the workload come April.
I'm not too worried about the presentation just yet. It's right at the end of the term and I've done enough of them now to have a pretty clear idea of what's required of me. The exam, however, might be a cause for alarm. It's going to be very similar to the exam I had for Background to Japan last semester, only this time it'll be worth a lot more. This means that I'll have to revise a lot more than I did last time if I want to do well on it. That's not looking very easy at the moment though, as the lectures we've had thus far haven't followed guidelines. Looks like I'll have to do quite a lot of self-research in my spare time.
Just a shame then that the game industry isn't making it very easy for me to do that. As luck would have it, all the games that I want to play are getting released in the next couple of months; as if to try and make me fail the year. We've just had Street Fighter IV released over here and that's going to take up a lot of time. Then next week we have the release of Oneechanbara and Silent Hill: Homecoming. Although the Silent Hill game isn't meant to be very good, I wouldn't mind playing it through myself just to see how bad it really is. The week after those two games comes the release of Battle Fantasia, and the week after that comes Resident Evil 5. Finally, to top off the gaming-cake-mountain, Star Ocean 4 will be making an appearance towards the last week of Easter break. That's a smorgasbord of games if ever I saw one.
Posted byHocchan at 2:58 pm 0 comments
Reppuu
12 February 2009
After thinking about my finances a little bit more carefully, I've come to the conclusion that it won't quite be as bad as I initially thought. All I have to do is make sure that I save at least £1,000 from my loan payment that's due at the end of April. Of course, this would mean that I won't have very much to spend during the summer, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem since I'll be staying at home during those few months. If I do that, then I can use the extra money to ease the financial burden during the next academic year. I might also consider getting a small part-time job during the summer for some extra money too. Now that that's all sorted in my head I can stop worrying about it so much and concentrate on applying for a room at Trinity. I'm still missing a document from home so I'll go back and pick it up this weekend. If everything goes well I should be able to hand in my application next Monday.
Recently, the Japanese lessons have begun to start getting quite tough. We're finally covering material that I'm not all that familiar with and it's becoming a challenge. This is a good thing of course. I didn't come to university just to revise everything I already knew. I'm looking forward to having to get my head down and actually do some hard work. Of course, I still have the second half of my portfolio to complete and that's pretty tough already. I've still not really thought about what I'm going to do for it. One possibility is that I include a collection of lessons from the Basic Kanji Book as a Kanji task. Another thing that I've been toying with is the idea of making a short role-playing video. I would have to enlist the help of a few friends to pull it off but it should be doable. There's still plenty of time until the deadline so I shouldn't be too unduly worried about it yet.
Posted byHocchan at 4:42 am 0 comments
Trinity Mahjong Village
10 February 2009
You know how I said that there appeared to be a light at the end of the tunnel in regards to next year's accommodation problem? Well, it seems that it wasn't the end of the tunnel at all. Rather, it was an axe-wielding maniac who happened to be holding a torch. And right now he's chopping my head off...
A few friends and I had decided to stay in some private halls next year so we went to get an application pack today. Upon receiving it I noticed that the rent was a lot more expensive than I had originally thought. I'm currently paying £70 a week for my university-owned room. The rent for the new place will be £86 a week - a whole 18.6% more expensive! The new place would come with an en-suite bathroom but does that really justify such a large increase in price? I know that an extra £16 a week doesn't sound all that much but over the long run it adds up. The total rent for the first semester would take up 75% of my loan and grant. That doesn't leave me with very much money to survive on.
Although the whole situation has made me a little more apprehensive about applying for a place, I don't really have that much choice. A lot of the places have been fully booked already and the ones that remain aren't too appealing. I think the only solution I have is to save up some money from my final term's loan and use that to boost my funds for the second year. I plan to have about £1,000 left by the end of this academic year, so if I save about 50% of that it should leave me with a comfortable amount of money to live on. I will have to be a lot more frugal about my money and not spend it as freely as I have done this semester. That's no bad thing I guess.
Posted byHocchan at 2:50 am 0 comments
Natsu Doki Lipstick
06 February 2009
Despite all of my worrying, it seems that this week hasn't been as bad I thought it would be. First of all, the presentation was finished with plenty of time to spare and the delivery went off without a hitch. I managed to say my lines without sounding too nervous. I did trip over a few words but overall it went very well. The lecturer was also kind enough to e-mail us our marks in the evening. My partner and I were awarded 64% for the presentation, something I'm very satisfied with. Considering that presentations aren't really my strong point, I think that being able to get such a high mark is fantastic. And with only the two essay assignments remaining (my strong point) I'm pretty confident that I'm going to pass this module with at least 70%. Or at least that's how I hope it's going to be.
As for the other concerns that were on my mind, they seemed to have faded into insignificance for the time being. They'll probably resurface again sometime in the future but at least, for now, my mind will be at ease. With regard to the accommodation woes, it appears that there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. There are still a few places at a couple of the private halls available. I've contacted the owners of one of the halls but they haven't replied yet. I'm sure that one of the halls will have spaces. If worst comes to worst, at least there'll be rooms left at Brunel Court. I suppose I could just about manage to endure living there for a year. I hope it doesn't come to that though...
I've managed to progress with Lost Odyssey in between sessions of Mahjong. The game is actually a lot better than I was expecting it to be. I was slightly put off by the character design when I first saw it but it's grown on me somewhat since then. The storyline, however, is very good. You can definitely tell that it's a Sakaguchi Hironobu game. The music is also very reminiscent of Final Fantasy VII. The game itself is a bit tougher than your typical RPG. The first boss, for example, can very easily kill you if you're not careful. Once you've gotten over the initial learning curve it's actually a very enjoyable game.
Posted byHocchan at 8:43 pm 0 comments
Le Sigh...
03 February 2009
I've been sat here for the past ten minutes trying to write an opening sentence but none of them have really been good enough yet. I'm hoping that this attempt to start the post will be more successful. The difficulty I'm having with trying to construct a decent opening is probably linked to the current state of mind I'm in. I don't know why but I've been feeling out of sorts for the last couple of days. I'm feeling a mixture of frustration, stress and depression. There just seems to be a lot of unresolved stuff floating around in my head at the moment. And some of it is stuff that I can't really talk to anyone about. It's probably easier just to write some of it down on here and let it dissipate into a string of binary numbers. I have no idea if it'll be of any use but it's better than bottling them up inside.
The first object of contention is the presentation that I have to do on Thursday. I wasn't that worried about it last weekend but as it gets closer I'm starting to feel apprehensive. It's another joint presentation and once again, I feel like I'm not contributing enough. I don't really have that much confidence in myself. I just need to persevere for another couple of days and then I won't have to worry about it any more. It's just a shame that it won't be the last presentation that I'll have to do this year. There's another one coming up in March for the Background to China module that I'm taking. At least I have quite a bit of time to prepare for that one.
The whole ordeal of trying to find a place to live next year is also causing me some grief. It turns out that the place a group of friends and I had planned on applying for has been taken over by the university for next year's first years. So now we're all going to have to change our plans and find somewhere new. I really don't want the hassle of find a house to share. I'd much rather just get a room in private halls. There's one place that looks quite decent but I'm still waiting on the owners to e-mail me back. Whichever place I choose, I'd better do it quick because places will probably fill up quite fast. I'll also have to spend quite a large amount of money just to secure my booking too - which means added stress about finances.
There are a couple of other matters that I don't really want to talk about publicly. Those are things that I'll have to resolve on my own and in my own time. They're pretty trivial things to worry about but I'm the sort of person who stresses over little things. I just hope that I'll have some peace soon.
Posted byHocchan at 7:08 pm 0 comments
