02/28/2006: "Someday, I'll learn to let go."

I'm supposed to be writing my speech right now. I need to write my speech. Most of it's done in English, but it feels so uninspired, boring. Nothing I'd be interested in hearing in Japanese or English. Being critical at a point like this is particularly damaging, since it dramatically slows me down and limits progress. Not good. I'm aiming to have a decent English version done by tonight or tomorrow afternoon, then have a Japanese translated version by the end of the week (ideally, Wednesday night or Thursday afternoon). From there, I'm going to translate that version back into English so that way the English version is representative of what I'm actually saying, not an ideal "I hope I can write this in Japanese properly" version, which is what it is now.

As I (think I) mentioned previously, I went to a Japanese festival this weekend, which was actually fairly interesting. Not enough there for make for an entire afternoon worth of excitement, but fun for 45 minutes to an hour. Traditional Japanese music, knock-off Japanese food, people from the consulate, that kind of stuff. They also had various stages showing different events, one of the most interesting (that I caught, at least) was a traditional dance performed by a bunch of women in kimono. Of course, I also got pictures there, which you can see under the "more" link at the bottom of this entry.

Have Japanese class tomorrow.. most certainly not too excited to go to that after getting my uninspiring test results back. I'm also now confident that I'm going to get screwed on my workbook grade, after I spent so long doing it. Naturally, I'll be sure to write something about it if it does, in fact, go that way.. but I'm hoping not. "On a wing and a prayer", as they say. Now, if only I believed in miracles.

The desire to do something exciting/interesting/worthwhile with my life over this summer only increases by the day. It even seems to lodge into my thoughts while I'm in bed at night. I guess that's not too abnormal, but I just can't seem to let it go, while at the same time, I don't really know what I can do about it other than dive headfirst into some monetary issues in order to "fulfill my dreams", which is really not a practical nor good way to live your life.. or at least I think so. I always tend to be a bit quick to err on the side of what "makes the most sense" rather than what I want.. I hear that this isn't so good, but again.. not sure what I can do about that without throwing things drastically to the wind.

I'm going to run and turn the PC off, maybe try to do something mildly enjoyable and then get back to the paper. You can't make yourself be creative or feel inspired, unfortunately, and that's what I need.

At the very least, I have at least 5 people who can check my paper for me for technical mistakes. Possibly more, if I feel like going out and actively looking through people I know. Once drafting is done (hoping for early next week), I can get onto memorizing.

Wait.. 6 people. Forgot about someone I asked last month.





Me and a kimono-clad dancer
The girl's name is "Cassandra", which isn't terribly Japanese-sounding. I asked if she'd be opposed to being called "Kashi", then, when I was typing this up later, which apparently she was. I did get her to agree that "Kasandora" was alright, which sounds at least mildly more Japanese.


Several "Loli" girls
Not really much to say about this one. Ran across them on the way out of the festival and figured I needed to take a picture. Remember: there's no such thing as too many pointless photos.
Jason