Oh bologna

Never seen that movie but now I really want to... but that's not really surprising. I'm really behind in watching movies. Really behind. I feel like I've missed out on a lot of "cultural capital" as my sociology teacher would say. I understand why it's important to be apart of social happenings as they are "happening", but frankly, I just don't care. Not yet anyway; I'm still in a perpetual state of not giving a fuck. I believe once I can liberate myself from the underlying nazi control I find myself in... I can freely express myself exactly how I feel... which I believe will contribute greatly to my overall happiness.

Or something like that.

Do you study the yapaneez? (if so let's chat ;))

So this last few weeks I've been busting my ass for Japanese harder than anything I've ever busted before. And I've busted a lot of shit! My class meets four days a week Mon-Thurs from eleven o'clock to noon. Were using the Genki textbook which I've found to be very helpful compared to some of the other ones I've used. It's more difficult I think but the ideas are explained better. The class is comprised of mostly of college students around twenty years old, which is nice and a pain in the ass at the same time. I love college compared to high school, but you still find the certain individuals who never seem to have moved on...

Depending on the size we can run through a chapter in the Genki book in about two weeks, or eight class sessions, give or take. Every chapter we learn about.. oh... fifty vocab words and something close to 25 kanjis. We have a conjugation quiz almost every day where we have to conjugate four words between te form, short form, short negative, short past, and short past negative, in three and a half minutes. I haven't done the math but I haven't totally grasped short form yet and if I don't get a good start on the quiz it usually doesn't  end well. This break I hope to do some massive studying to get it under control... considering a lot of the new things were learning depends greatly on short forms.

Every week we have a vocab test, a kanji quiz, two or three conjugation quizzes, and every other week a chapter test. I think I've gotten more homework in this fall term's Japanese class than I did in all my classes my senior year in high school put together. Duh!!!

Right after Japanese I'm taking an intro to sociology class, which is misleading to say the least. Two hours long, two days a week. I thought we would be engaging in massive amounts of argument and debate over the class issues "popular culture", giving differential points of view and comprising new and interesting theories. Holy fuck was I wrong, but then again I guess I shoulda figured that coming from an introduction class "the sociological imagination". My teacher claims to be an "old hippie" from Oklahoma, but everyone knows hippies didn't come from the mid south... which supports her attitude of faux-hippiness. Its easy to tell she's full of it, otherwise. 

But don't get me wrong, she's a sweet lady. She's just really distracted and likes talking about herself and her point of views on things... without giving much room for class discussion. She also loves giving attention to how she's a part of the "upper-middle class" and likes doing things like wine tasting, while reminding us she came from a poor family. It's really hard to me to tell whose team she's playing on. 

Two exams later with one week left in the class, we'll see where this class takes me. 

Tuesdays bring be the pool session for scuba class at eight in the morning. All I have to say is, though it's a pain in the ass waking up at seven, hardly having enough time to get ready, then driving for a half hour to a class so I can jump in a pool during the coldest winter we've had in ten years; scuba diving is fucking awesome. 'nuf said. It's a spendy fucking hobby but it's hard to describe the feeling you get after being underwater for an hour at a time, just swimming around and shit. Thursdays we have the theory session which we turn in some worksheets that we fill in from a book. Today however we learned about dive tables and how to use em. 

The weekend after thanksgiving I'm getting certified with a river dive from a local dive shop. Did I mention this is the coldest winter we've had in ten years? Do or die motha fucka, live free or die hard, young forever, go big or go home, or something like that. I'll get back to you guys when my testes grow back.

Been doing a little climbing on Fridays with a friend. We've been going to a place  a half hour out of town that usually isn't very populated (above). The rock is nice and solid with few flaky spots but I noticed spots of wear that bumped some routs from 5.6 to 5.9+. At least the rock isn't granite... I don't think I've ever lost so much skin than with granite. 

Three days a week on Mon/Wed/Fridays I have climbing class at school. It's just a one credit class but it's nice to have time in the mornings to climb before my real classes start. It's a great way to get rid of morning energy and get focused for the rest of the day. If I'm gonna be paying for school I may as well enjoy it, eh?

Lately more than ever my family has been driving me fucking insane. As if there's anything new there. I try as hard as I can to understand why they do the stupid things they do, and why seem to resent me like they do, and why they always fall back into the same mistakes that make problems for them in the first place, but all I can conclude is that they're idiots. Granted it's probably not their fault, it's still the truth, which means I can nothing but forgive them for their shortcomings and try to move on in a whirlpool of stupid-shit.

That being said I'm still trying to find a good working schedule for me that I can really be happy with. I know my posts have been long, boring, spaced and infrequent, but I promise I'll be making more regular posts sooner than later. Especially with fuyuyasumi coming up, I should have some free time to spend with my bloggerbros. Until then, this is Steve signing out.