jessybxx

The last week of classes for this semester will be starting tomorrow.
Then, there'll be a break until the beginning of April during which there'll be exams (two for me, one oral and one written) and writing of papers (in my case, just one for now).
Most of my English classes finished a week early so I'll be mainly going to uni for the Japanology ones (culture on Monday, history on Tuesday and society on Wednesday.
Can't tell you how much I enjoyed these and even though passing the exam (28 of February) will require a superhuman amount of work, I'm pretty sure my passion for all things Japan will propel me towards mastering all the facts and getting an okay grade in the end.
After that I'll be allowed to take advanced cultural and social study modules and I'm looking forward to that so much it hurts.

However, I'll still be making my long way to uni and back nearly every day during the first week of the break.
For one, I have my Semantics oral on Thursday the 10th.
Also, I'll be attending a workshop about academic writing and research on Thursday and Wednesday. I think that will come in really in handy since I'm about to start writing my first ever paper.
Also, we get a whole credit point for about eight hours of work which is pretty generous if you ask me ;)

Speaking of paper, I talked to Mrs. K. (our geeky and awesome lecturer) about it and I'll be writing about manga after all.
I mean, it makes sense since my minor is Japanology after all and with and me being just about the most passionate female otaku in that class.
Of course it's going to largely depend on the amount (and quality) of the available secondary literature but I hope I'll be able to center my writing around the depiction of emotions in manga and maybe a comparison to how Western comics archive similar things.
Let's see how all this goes, huh? =)

PS: I need Japan/otaku related icons. Several ones, in fact. Well, one thing more on my to-do list XD

On Thursday, me and Julia were waiting for American Realism & Naturalism class to begin.
Some woman from the faculty was setting up a laptop for DVD playback. Apparently, we were going to watch some movie clips this day and since out lecturer doesn't really bother with lowly things such as projectors and cables, he had that woman do all the preparations for him.
Anyway.
When the woman was finished with all the setting up, she ran the video for a bit, asking us whether the sound was loud enough.
Guess what the guy in the second row replied?
That brainless, good-for-nothing piece of trash actually had the guts to shout "Could you switch it to German?"
Y'know, if I wasn't such a peaceful person, I would've jumped from my seat that very instant and strangled him. Or even worse.
I mean, HELLO?! If you expect to watch a dubbed movie, you're very much in the wrong faculty.
But then, how could you follow a movie in English when you're not even able to form two consecutive sentences without making a mistake that would embarrass any seventh-grader to their very bones?
Seems I'm expecting too much of people who are in their second year studying... what was it? ... ENGLISH!!!
But hey, who would voluntarily concern themselves with their subject outside of school? Yeah, that would be weird. Not to mention boring.
We're supposed to hate the stuff we do and avoid it the best we can. Right?
... god, these people make me so sick >_<

Save me, smartass John, save me XDDD

... like I mentioned before, I had tog et up at 5 AM. Actually, I got up a quarter of an hour earlier to switch on the laptop and the internet and to make myself a hot cup of mint tea because for some obscure reason I was freezing my ass off.

( The rest of today, with all the painful (literally) details! )

Crazy and bad-ish day much? I hope this was the last one of its kind for quite a while :|

So, I've been spending the last... uh... three hours trying to piece together a somewhat reasonable schedule for next semester (starting in early October).
After nearly pulling my hair out more than once, I've come to the following conclusions:
- IMHO, they just close the place on Mondays and Fridays, there's next to nothing happening on these days anyway. So much for trying to destroy the cliché of anyone connected to a university being goddamn lazy.
- If you're not a first-year student and one of your subjects doesn't happen to be the most common one in the world (Sorry for wanting to do Japanese studies, I'm such a bad person >:|), you'll end up with classes clashing and having to redo your time table over and over and over. The fact that 95% of all courses are crammed into the three days in the middle of the week doesn't help much.
- You can move, check and re-check all you want, in the end, you'll end up with the most unbalanced schedule in the history of academics. That usually means having to be at uni all day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and having little or no classes on Monday and Friday.
- If you want to know what to do for your obligatory electives, don't try to do something that makes sense. Just select according to what fits into your timetable and doesn't look too horrible or outlandish. The way things look now, I'll end up doing nothing BUT those in my fifth semester just to get those credits coming in. Yeargh.

Sheesh, what a bother. Still, I'm hopeful I'll get used to coming home at 8 PM, it's not like I haven't survived that for a full semester before.
Wish me luck for getting into all the classes I want (especially the comics and media narratology ones, I'd KILL to be able to attend them!), but I'm somewhat hopeful since I'll be getting up at 5 AM on Wednesday because that's when online registration opens. Yeah, fucking stupid, but what can one do ? >_<

Also, somewhat related: It seems that the new subway connection between Düsseldorf main station and the university is finished and was opened today. That means that we can get from Duisburg to Düsseldorf uni without having to change, but it'll quite possibly take twice the time. Wow, that was ONE useful building enterprise there. Not ;P

Got my student ID and things in the mail yesterday. In other words: I'm really in!!!
English and Japanese at uni Düsseldorf starting mid-October. Hot damn, yesh >:D

Already did my online check-in for tomorrow's flight, my boarding ticket and everything else is printed out.
Not really packed yet, but I'll probably do that in a hurry tomorrow morning *lol*

Plane goes at 3:50 PM, back Wednesday night.
Now, there are what'll hopefully be three great days ahead of me.
*bounces*

My happy things for today:

- Took some adorable photos of Jiro and Tenchi to post on their birthday. Wow, who would have thought that our boys will turn three on May 1st? ^^

- Applied online for Japanese studies in Düsseldorf. Just having tried it gives me a good feeling. And even if I don't pass, which might very well be the case, I plan to continue the self-teaching so that maybe, in some distant future, I'll be able tot ake the JLPTs.

So, like I said, I'm crazy enough to try a third time.
University of Duisburg and Essen, here I come. Yet again *lol*

Alright, so. Details. A lot of them, too. Enjoy... or not XP
The thing is, until today, I firmly believed that my a-level grade average (2.9, with 1 being the best and 6 the worst possible grade) is too bad to get into any course that's not economy, mathematics or natural science. Basically, I was absolutely sure that fun things such as English, German or Philosophy were a no-go.
Well, apparently, I was wrong.
I don't really know why (Maybe because of the new study fees?), but several of the interesting courses don't have any appliciation restrictions at all.
Among them Anglophone Studies and Applied Philosophy.
Sweet Zombie Jesus... *gasp*
Needless to say, that's gonna be my first subject (FYI, I'll need to chosse two).
I'll also apply for German (the full name of the course is "German Language, Literature, Culture and Communication"... wow, what a ginormous title... *pants*") but last time, the passing threshold grade was 2.4, so I don't expect to get in there. Still, I'll be able to study English without a doubt... Gonna show 'em kiddies what an old hag like me can pull off *beams*

Unfortunately, they won't let you start studying in the spring semester, but I guess that leaves me enough time to work and collect a bit of money. The whole deal will cost me 1000 Euros per year after all ;)
I already asked yamasagi to kick his dad's ass so I can maybe get a small job in their company, like designing websites or something. Heck, just a few hundred Euros will be more than enough to buy books (and cafeteria food :D~~~).

And hey, I'm not too old to start over. Other people have done that and succeeded, so why shouldn't I? ^_^

Gosh, the mere thought of going back there is almost too awesome to be true... Needless to say, that's my happy thing for today :D

ETA: Hehe, the Anglistics department's web site introduction is titled "Mission statement". I think I already love them. Dorks XDDD

yamasagi is currently on the way to pick up my stuff.
My stuff, as in both of the Avantasia EPs, the new 'Ray album... and that goddamned Java book *growls at Java*
Anyway, we also bought additional cards for "The Eye of Judgment" so now we can play against each other =) ... and Yama might actually have a chance to win against me. He only beat the computer once out of like, twenty games. I guess you need a lot of experience to get really good at it. Heh. Can't wait to try out my deck (I decided to get the fire element one) against his mixed bunch of cards. Yay! Role playing! We're such utter geeks! ^_^;;; *cough*
Finally, I got "The Order of the Phoenix" which was released yesterday at the price of 9 Euros (O_o). So we'll be watching that tonight (in English, thankfully. I mean, the dubs are okay, but I still prefer the real thing).
Sooo, good weekend ahead even though my cold has somewhat come back. Ah, who cares. Gonna have FUN now ^_^

PS:>/B> I haven't forgotten about writing an entry about my new laptop. And I'll get to that eventually - I just dunno when. But I will, promise!

So, no laptop (Friday, hopefully), and no game (tomorrow, I'm sure of it, shoulda been here today).
Whatev.
In other news: Today was my first "day of the bag" at my new university. What the hell is that, you ask?
Well, it's basically some people giving out plastic bags that contain freebies, free magazines, brochures and such. There's stuff like small tryout packages of food, condoms (!), hygiene products (Did they notice the same thing I tend to notice about certain male fellow students? =_=) and so on. Today, there was a CD-R in it O_o
They also had a new kind of lottery where they take your photo and put it on their website. Then, you have to check for your pic, tell them the number and your name/address/university and you can win some stuff. Unfortunately, I already found mine. Please don't click, I look horrible and sick and ugh. Well, I am sick, but still. Maaaannnn... T_T

Finally, in other other news:
=> Fellow Doctor Who fans identified at new uni: 2
=> Of those, number of students in my year: 1
Not bad for three weeks into it, eh? I guess having a Ten/Jack/Martha wallpaper on Kan-chan does help. Today, after the last lecture, Hendrik, who had been sitting behind me, suddenly asked "So, how far have you watched it?". Hee =)

I hope my voice doesn't disappear again tomorrow. I'm having lunch with Cathi and not being able to talk when we only meet once a week would definitely suck big time. Fingers crossed, eh?

The only drawback to having Fridays off is no cheap but good uno cafeteria food. I mean, I could go there since public transport's free, but spanding almost two hours on buses for one meal? Nah.
Well, to keep myself happy, I can always look at next weel's menues *looks at next week's menues*
XDDD

The kittehs are ripping apart their scratching post. There were several threads hanging down from the top and Tenchi was pulling happily at them. When I noticed he had one of them nearly swallowed, I got worried. Somehow, I wouldn't like my cat to eat string. So I cut them off and threw them away. You should have seen Tenchi's face when I did it. It had "You bastard" written on it ^_~
Also, did you know that Jiro's fur, which is usually a bit gruff, changes a lot when he sleeps and relaxes? Really, it gets almsot softer than Tenten's, which is saying something.
Our cats are weird.