January 09. 2004 01:07

Writing, writing, writing

Been a while again. I've been busy writing reports. I've surprised even myself by how diligently I've been sitting at the computer and working ^_^ I've finished one, now, and another one is half-way done and a third started. The one I've finished was the one for Issues in manga, the easiest because I could just write anything I wanted about the subjects discussed in class. I wrote about copyright, fan art and doujinshi. The other two I'm working on are History of manga (it's turning out to be about Tezuka Osamu) and Network art (that one is just a pile of notes at the moment, I still have no clear idea of what I should write about...).

I've become so slow at writing essays that require me to actually know something because I'm hesitant about saying things that might not be completely, "plainly" true. Because of that I often stop in the middle of a sentence and think about if I really can say that and then re-frase it several times, which makes writing really slow... And I usually feel the need to do massive amounts of research to make sure I've understood everything right before I can gather the courage to write any of my thoughts down. School reports used to be so much simpler...

Today I was actually forced to take the rest of the day off (though I'm not sure if you can call it "forcing" because not doing work was great ^_^) because my left wrist started hurting out of all the writing. It's not really because I've done too much but because the kotatsu is not very suitable for computer work. The table is too high so my hands (or my arms, to be exact) don't rest well on it. I've tried writing on the floor, but then my back starts to ache because I'm crouching. Besides, then I can't enjoy the warmth of the kotatsu. I hope my wrist will get better now that I've kept this night off and will go sightseeing tomorrow, I'd like to finish those reports while I still have the energy to concentrate on them.

So, what did I do on my time off tonight? I went to visit the boys' dorm of course. (What else is there to do if I can't use the computer? ^_^) There was nobody in when I went there, so I decided to go to Reata for dinner and then went for a bike ride and to read magazines at the local bookstore. (I started thinking by the way, if I were in the same position in Finland, looking for a place to spend time, I'd go to our club office or the office of the role-playing club. The difference is that if there were nobody there, I could always go directly to my friends' houses to see if they were home. It's a shame that there's only one place to look for company here...) After that I went back to the boys' dorm to see if they had returned already. (They had.)

Richard and Dion were watching Macross Zero, so I joined them. It was very interesting and the animation was absolutely beautiful. It had some 3D scenes that I didn't like that much but there were plenty of other scenes that were stunning. I don't basically have anything against 3D (hey, I'm studying it, among others), but I'll be disappointed in it for as long as it doesn't blend in the rest of the animation/movie so that you can't tell the difference. Of course, that outcludes animations that are made completely in 3D, because there is (obviously) no such blending problems. And some of the characters in Macross Zero were pretty nice, too, though they did have all those "cliche" characteristics that you often see. (I think I've become a bit more critical about these things because I haven't seen much anime while I've been here. Don't know if I'll return to being less critical, though, when I'm exposed to more anime again in Finland ^_^)

One of the characters, a culture anthropologist woman, made me vividly think of a role-playing character I have ^_^ My character doesn't have the "nastier" sides of that woman, she strives for pure knowledge only and very very rarely for personal profits, but the softer side of that woman reminds me of her a lot. My character is a bit of an air-head, though, she's too distracted by research to always think of what's practical ^_^ (I love playing her ^__^ I love playing all my characters, even though I always feel a bit reserved about starting a new campaign, or about roleplaying in general. It requires too much "role-playing", francly, I'm not too good at instantly figuring out how a person very different from me would react ^_^;; My wits is too low, I think, speaking in WoD terms :P)

Dion seems to have problems understanding how I can just sit still and not be bored. Big problems ^_^;; I sat quiet for a while, thinking about the plot of the anime after we finished it (it was 5 episodes), and already he was voicing out his amazement at how I could find it interesting to just sit there. What is it with people nowadays? They don't understand peace and quiet, meditative silence and contemplating ^_^;; Or maybe it's just that Dion has a problem with me sitting quiet in his room :P Someone once said that people are truly friends only when they can sit together without saying anything. Well, that might not have anything to do with it, but I think I'm a bit different from any other people he knows. Probably also because I'm a girl, and I have the feeling he's not very used to the other sex sitting in his room like it's nothing out of the ordinary... Or something like that. I'm used to having male friends, I've had them all my life (in fact when I was a child and went to day care to a near-by family with my sis, my sis was the one who played with the girl of the family and I was the one who ran in the forest with the boy), but others might not be as used to things like that.

So, anyway, tomorrow is the Adult's Day, which is the national holiday when the Japanese women and men who turn 20 during the year celebrate their coming to adulthood. That means going to the shrines all dressed up, which means it's a great chance to see some pretty kimonos ^_^ I'm going to go to Yasaka shrine (or maybe Heian shrine, I don't know for sure yet) to try and see some, and I thought I might go see some other places on the way. A girl I met at Laura's birthday party and who's been talking to me every now and then ever since came to me again during lunch on Saturday, and her friend recommended Entsuji temple a little south of here. They said Laura said it was the best temple in Kyoto. So, I thought I might go there, and also to Shimogamo shrine, because I've heard that it, too, is a pretty place. Both are on the way if I go by bike so it's perfect ^_^

Hmm. About womanly things again (so beware): I wonder what it is about my menstruation this month. (Menstruation sounds a lot more "medical" in English than it does in Finnish, by the way ^_^;) It's a bit late and weaker than it has ever been before. It's nothing that should make me especially worried, oh no, menstruation is very fickle and does things like that very often, but I'm a bit surprised because it's been more exact than normal for a while. Now it suddenly decides to act strange just when I got used to it being predictable ^_^;; I don't think it's stress, the reports aren't enough to affect menstruation, and my cycle has actually never been affected by stress, anyway. I don't think my cycle has ever been affected by anything, except for medication specifically designed to affect it. (Though it's never been 100% regular, either.) If this was closer to when I stopped eating the pills I'd say it's that, but an after effect after several months sounds a bit too much. Ah well, it just puzzles me a bit. Writing about it makes it sound more serious than it is (it really is just a normal thing in a woman's life), but I kinda felt like saying it... I bet menstruation is a subject that has been written about too little outside health care books ^_^