April Fools Day--Not Funny!

Please allow me a personal rant of about a paragraph long. I woke up at 3:30 AM today to sign up for classes for next semester. In order to get all the classes I wanted, I had to sign up at my allotted time slot and no later. Trouble is, that allotted time slot was March 31, 2pm ARKANSAS time. Dakara, I had to wake up at 3:30am April 1st my time in order to sign up. Good news? I has my classes. Bad news? I couldn't go back to sleep. So here I sit waiting on Ruth to finish class so that we can go to lunch, wishing that I had slept. My goal is to stay up as late as I can stand it (I never seen to be able to nap) and then go to bed at that time so that I don't screw up my sleep cycle too much. Still... Wish my time was earlier so that I could have signed up last night instead of this morning. Blarg.

That said, I should probably tell you the classes that I am taking, yes? I am taking Philosophy and Physics and Human Affairs + Lab, both of which are core requirements (philosophy is its own requirement and physics counts for a science). I am also taking Advanced Japanese Conversation so that my Japanese skills won't deteriorate too much and Popular Culture because I need another upper-level anthropology course. And lastly, I also have a core anthro requirement of taking History of Anthropological Thought, so I'm getting that little bugger out of the way too. This all amounts to 16 hours, plus working.

And now that I've said that, I come to the positive realization of today (and part of what was keeping me from going to sleep earlier). I may actually be able to graduate on time! This pleases me greatly! One less year of work and school at the same time. So, I'm sure you're wondering, is-ness, what are you going to do from here?

Well, provided I can get accepted, I hope to be back in Japan teaching English for the JET (Japan English Teaching) Program. This lasts for a maximum of 3 years and puts me in a rural area of Japan. Unfortunately, I'll get stared at more because most rural areas have a higher density of people who have never seen a foreigner before, but that also means that I'll have a steady job that pays well for 3 entire years. Well enough that I SHOULD be able to start paying off my student loans AND go visit the family during the longest break (whichever that is according to the Japanese school calendar). The goal? To have most of my student loans paid off, gain valuable teaching experience IN JAPAN, and to return to the US ready to start graduate school with a fresh financial background. Yay JET, because, you know, if everything works out, it'll be fantastic. UA usually sends 17 JET kids, so I have a pretty good shot at getting in. I be pleased. :)

Absolutely forgot about the visual anthropology midterm yesterday, and was considering skipping the class to go sakura viewing until I remembered (good thing I did remember, huh). So, that means I didn't study at all and guess what! The exam was insanely easy. I likes this.

And now it's time to tackle the multitude of April projects. They just seem to keep multiplying! It's just not fair!!

Other news: Hopefully there will be a new post on the because it's japan blog before Saturday (he never checks them until sunday anyway). The topic is art and entertainment in Japan and being the person that I am, I do not want to do traditional art or the stereotypical japanese art that americans think of (anime and manga) unless I do so with an interesting, strange, or quirky twist. Because I'm not stereotypical at all, nuh uh.