It's kind of amazing how your habits adapt to circumstances.

When I was working full-time, I (generally) kept regular hours. Wake up at 7, go to bed at midnight. Eat at 7. Now that I'm going to school rather than university, I'm going to bed at 6 and waking at 2 - 3 given the chance. Now, I'm convinced that I'm just a night owl at this point, and that's just how my biological clock is. However, staying up until 6 in the morning is slightly ridiculous when you're over 25.

Even more distressing news - the clothes is making a slow shift back to university casual. And North American university casual is a sad affair that is laughed at by other nations (with the possible exception of E. Asia that thinks it's cool). I'm trying to fight it, but when you look around and see people wearing sweatpants everywhere and exposing buttcracks, it's hard to maintain a sense of standard.

Finally, I'm blogging as a means of procrastination. Which just proves that I've come full circle again.

Some random thoughts:

It's a mixture of newly found (and even more newly lost) wealth and centuries of poverty. The poverty might have been a blessing in disguise though since Dublin has less of the awful Cold War architecture than in most cities (on account that they couldn't afford them).

The story of struggle is written in almost every building and every street - bullet holes in some places, remnants of the imperial symbol in others. Towering Anglican cathedrals in a Catholic-majority city. Despite that, the famous Irish hospitality can be seen even in the tourist areas (though not, alas, in Tourist Info). First time I got offered a personal tour by a priest.

Music and beer flowed freely at all times and the intermingling could best be seen in their coinage and from the Guinness symbol.

I've been on a theater frenzy lately. Seen two plays and a musical in the last two weeks. Reasons to be Pretty and Exit the King on Broadway. Sound of Music at the Princess of Wales Theater here in Toronto.

Definitely recommend Exit the King. Hope Geoffrey Rush wins the Tony for Best Actor. Susan Sarandon was also excellent as the Queen. Sound of Music was beautifully executed in terms of set and background, but compared to the superb script and acting of Exit the King, as well as the fluffiness of the theme, it came out lacking something. Unfortunately, the weak Maria and Captain did not help.

Will see another musical this Tuesday - We Will Rock You. And I'm planning to see The Tempest at High Park this year. Which means that I will see six plays/musicals this year. I also saw Kabuki and Nohgaku in Japan around this time last year...

So the gods my money will go to in the future are gastronomy, literature, fashion, and now theater. I need to find a new career.

On writing today:



An extra 1000 words (okay, one hundred of those are notes, regardless...). Hopefully I'll key in a few more hundred before I go to bed.

Was very productive today:

Did lots of weeding. Did you know the taproot of dandelion is about a foot long? No wonder they're so hard to eradicate.

Found out what's wrong with the family computer. Windows XP before SP2 sucks! Cannot read hard drives over 130 GB. Which means my Hard Drive space lost half its capacity. Go figure. Need to find a Vista.

And finally:



This is despite sleeping for about 14 hours...anyway cheers to me.

Oh, also found a tenant to sublet apartment for summer. Yay!

I know that it's silly to update with another progress report since it has only been a few hours, but knowing me, it'll be another month before I update. And I am quite proud of myself as I wrote over a thousand words today. Yay me!

Okay, it's not a lot for a month, but considering I've been doing my practicum for most of the time in between I'm happy. And I actually have a plot now! >_<

I'm currently in Ottawa trying to get rid of my bedroom (as I signed a lease until August 31st). It's unbelievably irritating to pay $622/month for an apartment you're not using. I've come to the conclusion that I really don't like renting/letting apartments. I hated looking for apartments, I hated the negotiation involved, and now I hate the process of looking for subletters. This makes me believe that I am meant to be rich so I either a. own my own place or b. have minions do the walking around and paperwork for me. Too bad my profession is not generally correlated with wealth :(. Right now, I'm dreading doing this all over again when I get to England.

Started a story for Hermione Big Bang and reached 1000 words. I'm quite happy about that. The minimum word count is 20 000 words by July, That's 16 weeks from now. Which means I have to write a little more than 1000 words a week to reach that. I'm not sure about my ideas or voice since it's ages since I've last written. However, I've wanted to join a fest for a long time since a clear deadline is a great push. Also, fics get illustrated, which is very cool. I'm going to post with updates every 1000 words or so to keep encouraging myself. Especially since the word meter is gorgeous.

I spent $80 on a teapot and its teacups today.  And I want to go buy more.

It's weird how my experiences in Japan has changed me.  The most obvious (to me) is that of aesthetics.  I have a greater appreciation for appearances now.  From a Western point of view, that's usually negative - it's associated with superficiality and consumerism. 

From a Japanese point of view though, if you can't even bother with the appearances, how can I trust what's inside?  Also, beauty is appreciated with the understanding that it's ephemeral.  And the Japanese appreciation of beauty means that 1. they try harder to maintain and preserve beauty and 2. they appreciate beauty in places where we just see ugliness.

What does that mean?

I am fascinated by fashion and feel like I should dress well even to go to the grocery store.  In fact,  I find myself decidedly irritated if I am unkempt.

I appreciate the seasons more.  A lot of foreigners deride the Japanese' focus on their four seasons.  After all, a lot of countries have four seasons.  But the appreciation is decidedly Japanese.  I notice the passing of the seasons more.  I find it irritating that there are no "seasonal cards" in the stationary shops.  I walk along sidewalks with mud splattered snow, and admire the few white patches that exist.

And finally, I am increasingly aware that food should be presented well as well as taste well.  And far above the presentation of food, is the presentation of tea.

And though some of this newfound appreciation is expensive (esp. fashion), I value it so I don't regret it.  Life is a lot more beautiful now.   Or perhaps life was always beautiful, but I was half blind before.  Now my eyes have been opened.

Now the only question is why I didn't adopt the Japanese punctuality as well.

The Big Read

(This has been floating around in the blogosphere so I thought I'd post it myself)

The Big Read, an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts, has estimated that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. How do you do?

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'ubervilles
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Note:  I bolded some that I gave up before the last two chapters.  I also didn't bold the ones that I've read half of then chucked (Life of Pi) .  I've also undoubtedly forgotten some of them since even the ones I've bolded and remember reading, I don't really remember the contents of.