I Am Completely Serious

I bought some manga, and requested some manga off ILL, and also bought some other manga.



It's important for my senior research. It is.

(The astute viewer, who decides to go into Flickr and zoom in for some reason, will note that I have been puzzling the Quebecois again - I had to order the Pokemon and Princess Knight in French. These are some of the ones I actually seriously needed for research, which makes Sensei unhappy because he's having to take my word on what they say.

Anyway, I didn't realize Misty's French name was "Ondine." That's pretty cool. I am, however, far less enthusiastic about Gary being "Regis.")

Also, apparently the signs were, in fact, the work of a fraternity - it was apparently supposed to stay secret even after the meeting, but someone told Link. I mentioned the subject to him last night, and he admitted he knew, but claimed the only hint he would give me was that the organization started with an "f."

He then immediately caved under the intense pressure of me deciding he was talking about FLAG.

Two classes today - one had five students, one had three. Both only got finalized a couple weeks ago.

So it was kind of a weird day.

The other four people in computer science were either sophomores or freshmen, all of whom had just finished up the prerequisite the previous semester/year. I took the prerequisite first semester of freshman year. Listening to the guy talk was kind of panic-inducing, but the actual text didn't look at all bad when I started looking at it. This is the same set of reactions I had when I took the first class freshmen year, which was an easy A - I think it'll be okay.

The professor was obviously worried about this random senior's presence amongst his delicate little majors/minors, however, so I promised him I'd drop the course if it started to look like I was going to hold them up.

Modern East Asia, on the other hand, was very on-the-other-hand. It is being taught by a grad student who only signed his contract last Thursday - Professor Portentous, the usual East Asian history teacher, is out of commission for the semester for medical reasons, and the guy who was originally slotted to replace him had a family emergency. Hence, Grad Student. The class consists of:

* The Voice - a senior East Asian Studies minor, whose nickname I did not select at random, and who has been known to annex entire discussion periods even having blown off the reading. When I entered the room, he was earnestly suggesting to Grad Student methods of shutting him up, up to and including force.

* me - a senior East Asian Studies major who did a semester-long research project in Grad Student's pet subject (the Japanese military medical corps) last semester. (project previously featured in this journal as "essaypocalypse") Also, when Grad Student asked us to define "history," I worked "constructed narrative" into my schpiel, which thrilled him - according to the people taking the early morning section of the class, this is his very favorite phrase. Oops.

* a guy who's taking the class for a GE

GE guy looked very sad. I don't know if they're going to keep the class if he drops.

(Though Shorter-Than-Me-san, who's in the morning section, said something vague about transferring over, which would be good. I really don't want to rearrange my whole schedule again...)

Professor Portentous sent me a very apologetic email about how sad he was to have to be canceling his classes. (I think he sent personal ones to all the seniors.) This alarmed me slightly, and I reassured him that everything was just fine and he really ought to go back to bed. Now I kind of see why he was so fretful. His department's not really prepared to lose both him and Shitty Art Teacher at once.

On the other hand, we do apparently have four Real Actual Japanese People on the faculty all of a sudden - I think we'd only actually planned for one, the Noh dance teacher, as of the end of last semester. The others are a replacement for Shitty Art Teacher (I have her class tomorrow); a second language teacher to take over the Intermediate class from Sensei; and apparently some kind of music teacher - I'm not sure whether she's associated with the East Asian department or not, but she was in the library yesterday. These all seem to be older people (not grad students), which obviously isn't a guarantee of responsibility, but hopefully their presence will help keep Sensei and Mr. Smuckles from overheating.

Oh, my god.

I might have driven Shitty Art Teacher away. She's gone. She was tenured and her picture was on advertisements and she's gone.

One semester after I sent in my horrible, nasty, mean, signed evaluation. A year after The Voice, who did the same thing, returned to haunt her.

Oh, my god.

The world probably doesn't revolve around me, or even the anime club, but... seriously. I get the idea that people have only started getting really nasty about her the past couple years, and I know she's really thin-skinned. Did I help break her?

I was just going, "I HAVE THE POWER" at first, but now I'm trying to figure out if I should feel guilty. I mean... tenure. She didn't have to quit, she could have just stopped sucking, or something...

...

( And now, the happy post, written pre-the-first-stirrings-of-a-guilty-conscience: )

Edited to put a cut in, 'cause it was long.

My grades are not up yet (while other people's are) because I forgot to fill out the teacher evaluations.

I keep using sound effects for post titles. If I'd used a sound effect for the title of essay-pocalypse, it would have been "HACK *die*".

Essay-pocalypse weighed in at twenty-seven pages. And then I went to work.

So I AM READING MANGA TONIGHT PEOPLE OKAY

I walked out of the health center this morning with a paper bag containing:

* 1 box of Sudafed

* 1 bottle of Mucinex

* 2 packages of throat lozenges

* 8 packets of salt (for warm salt water for gargling)

* 6 packets of honey (for tea)

The sorts of things they hand out down there amuse me. I wonder if they also keep tomato juice for people wandering in with hangovers.

The nurse was very insistent about the curative powers of the honey, and my throat is presently so swollen I can feel *exactly* where the air's going when I breathe, so I just used half of one of the packets. I feel completely justified in saying that you people who sweeten tea are criminals.

I nearly missed the mandatory East Asian department meeting because I was drugged and sleepy and totally forgot. I only left my room because I couldn't get hold of Professor Portentous on the phone, and needed to ask for an extension on a paper. I went up to his office, saw that it was still empty, and laid down on the couch out front for a few minutes to wait, until The Artist who Formerly Wore a Beret All the Time pointed out to me that he was probably at the meeting.

So I staggered in something like forty-five minutes late, and Sensei, Mr. Smuckles, and Professor Portentous all laughed at me. I am not expected to be responsible.

There is an award ($500) that they give out to the really studious Chinese majors, and to absolutely no one's surprise, this year's went to The Tao. They'd made The Tao give a speech about his senior research, as an example to the rest of us of the proper way to do it, and I cleverly timed my entrance to right in the middle of this speech. I should argue that The Tao is only able to exist within the East Asian department because I am here to counterbalance him, and that therefore I should get $500, too.

I finally got volumes six and seven in from ILL yesterday, and I read them last night, and it was almost unbelievably slashy* and I was right about everything it just all came out at the end of volume six, and now I can completely truthfully say that I'm using Pokemon comic as one of the primary sources for my senior research.

I think I'm going to ruin some people on scans_daily's day when I've got some more free time; I don't feel up to explaining the awesomeness of this manga right now and without plenty of visual aids scanned in.

* and I looked up the illustrator, MATO, last night, and saw that she does Gundam Wing doujinshi for-Christ's-sake, so it's not my imagination

I was up in the stacks shelving earlier, and one of the books was called Great First Lines. I opened it to a random page to stick my culprit-slip in, and it said, "Call me Ishmael."

I said, "Well, fuck you, too."

My head hurts and the fan is too noisy, and I'm feeling kind of resentful at the world in general. I am pretty sure that my Comm book's unattractive orange color is deliberate and aggressive. The dorm's dryer burnt the shirts I just bought this morning. On purpose.

I'll show you, objects. I'll show you all.