Darlo's World

With one more day of lessons left, conveniently a day with just one lesson, it’s pretty fair to say that the Winter break is just around the corner.

Just around the corner by ~xXxFucked-UpxXx on deviantART

It seems I’ve been spending a lot of random time in London lately; participating in the UK Rock Paper Scissors Championships, handing in my application for a job in Japan, taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. But, much to my parents pleasure I’m sure, I wasn’t involved in the recent ‘student’ activity in the capital. It is unfortunate that the cost of going to University will rise, but at least loans and grants are still there for us poor saps, and I’m just thankful I’m supposed to graduate this year.

So what are my plans for the long awaited winter break?

Well to be honest I’m not planning on venturing out an awful lot. Going out means (generally speaking) money spent. I will be heading back to Telford at some point for a few days, but will definately be venturing back up to Leeds before New Year.

On Sunday I have a Poker Tournament at the Alea Casino, something I’m really looking forward to. As normal my game plan will simply be “don’t be that pillock who’s out first”, though I guess I’ll have to wait and see on that one.

There are many project that need my attention aswell so I want to be able to spend a bit of time on those.

Of course studying and preparing for the January exams will be high on my list, as well as making a start on my dreaded dissertation. 8,000 words to write, give or take 10%. So I guess I’d better get off my arse and make a start on something. Catch You later.

Ok, let’s start out with some music. First Love by Utada Hikaru.

Been a while eh. What was I up to last time I jotted stuff down, oh yes, I’d just finished writing about my Summer Road trip, and was getting ready to start the final year of my degree.

Since then I’ve managed to successfully get a job. I’m working at FAB Cafe in Leeds, which is a pretty awesome place. I’d gone there many-a-time during my first couple of years up here. The hours can be pretty late, but it’s a good place to work with good clientelle and a good atmosphere.

We’ve just started week 5 of classes, and if I’m to speak frankly I’m struggling. No be fair I’ve struggled my way through pretty much every year, but still managed to pass through onto successive years. Last year being the first time I’d done it without any exam resits. However, I’m still feeling the pressure of a seemingly ever increasingly difficult course, but let’s be fair we were told in the first year that we would be pushed harder than previous years. And even though we finished the third year on par with the fourth year students, I know that I have to just try and keep up.

Dissertation! With the final year comes a nice long piece of written work. After my 5,000 word hikikomori report last year I haven’t really been feeling anything negative from writing an 8,000 word piece, mainly because we got to write it about anything we wanted. Or so I thought. The dissertation needs to obviously fit within the range of ‘East Asian Studies’, so I drafted up a list of 12 or so ideas that I might write about. Unfortunately, every dissertation idea needs to meet the aproval of the departments dissertation co-ordinator, and this is where all of my ideas came to pop.

Given my interest history, a couple of my ideas were in regards to anime and/or manga, but unfortunately these topics seem to have been black-listed from this years dissertation criteria. That knocked me back a step, considering the only dissertation I’ve ever read was about manga and anime.

I’ve had a couple of other niggly-little problems that have also been causing me extra unwanted stresses, though I won’t chat about them so openly. Maybe I’ll try and find a Japanese version of it and pitch that as a dissertation idea.

At the moment my free time feels like it’s being pushed to the brink of extinction, and I’ve been having pain and twinges in my back for some time (like a trapped nerve-like feeling I’d imaging), so I guess things will need to change.

But so that I don’t sign-off on a negative note, here’s a cute little one who saw something she probably souldn’t have.