On: WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

Hi! Long time no see huh? Technically it has only been about a month and a half but it feels like it has been so much longer since my last post. So many things have happened in real life that have contributed to my absence so I'm going to use this post to give an update on my life and let you all know what I have been up to.

To start off, the biggest change in the last month has definitely been the fact that I STARTED GRAD SCHOOL! Yes, it did finally happen. I am attending grad school to obtain a Masters in Library and Information Science. It's busy work. Overall, not too bad but still busy busy work. I always have lots of reading and writing to do so that has definitely taken up pretty much all of my free time. I have a few gripes already with it being an online degree but the definite plus is that I can keep my job which is cool because I'm paying about $3, 500 per semester out of pocket. Ouch. I knew my savings would come in handy at some point.

In addition, I have been trying to catch up on my reading list. I mean, I had this stack of books by my bed that were almost due and despite working at the library, keeping overdue books for any length of time does not look good on your yearly review. I've had to return a few books without even reading them. This is why I have 4 books currently "in progress" on Goodreads. The truth is that I'm really only reading two. I had to return the other two and am keeping them on there so I don't forget to finish them (because that would totally happen...)

Twists and Turns

This month I have come across many blog worthy moments but for some reason, I can't seem to find the time to set aside and write these blogs. Life has been getting a bit busy lately so I'm going to try my best to summarize most of those blog worthy moments in one post :)

So earlier this month I received a notice from the overseas job I had applied for letting me know that I was selected as an alternate candidate. Basically, if one of the short-list candidates can no longer accept the job, for whatever reason, I may be promoted to take their place. Promotion is a 50/50 chance and it very much depends on whether or not you fit the criteria for the type of candidate a place is looking for, so while I filled out the alternate paperwork, I may not be promoted to the short list at all. As of now, I'm waiting until mid-July to see if I'm promoted at all and if not, I will be taking my name off the short list and working on getting into grad school. Wish me luck :D

Diving Back In

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to dive back into my Tobira textbook for a while. While I haven't picked up the textbook, I have finally started reading a book I have owned for a good 4 years or so. I bought the pink book below, when I first started becoming interested in the Japanese music scene. At the time (and arguably until today) one of the most well known artists was AKB48. I had watched some of their television shows and found them interesting, so I decided to buy this book thinking, hey, I know hiragana, katakana and about 200 kanji, I'm sure I can read a good part of this. Yeah, no. I got the book and immediately set it aside for the "future" where I would be "better" at Japanese and recognize more of the kanji.

I definitely recognize more kanji, but I've also forgotten a ton of them. So, despite these drawbacks, I decided to start reading it this week. It has been a very very very slow start. I feel like the second picture says it all....especially taking into account that it took me like 3 hours to get through the prologue. Jeez! Luckily the next page was not that bad and I actually got through it pretty quickly (pretty quickly being in about 1 hour and a 1/2). The third page was the easiest because it has words said by the members themselves. I find it a lot easier to read dialogue so that went by pretty fast. I'm really proud of myself for having at least started this and hope that by March I'll have 2 chapters done (this is my goal. It's kind of a sad goal, but if I reach it I will be super proud of myself. Never mind that each chapter is like 8 pages long >.<)