The Quiet Month of March

I am blogging to amuse myself. It has come to that point.

March has been a rather quiet month, overall. I don't have much money in the budget for fun, far-reaching stuff (meaning trips outside Kyoto), and I don't want to touch the money that I have been able to save up so far. Usually, when I begin to save money, my fingers get a bit itchy, ESPECIALLY when the new kate spade (not capitalized for a reason, that's how the label is spelled out) collection is out, there are three pairs of shoes that I would like to get and my Jack Spade wallet really isn't holding up to the grunt of god knows how many ID and memberships card that are in there. But once I do start saving, then I don't want to touch it.

If I don't put the change that I have in my business card case (niftily used as a change purse) my wallet won't close. I need a wallet like the ones my sister and my mom have - lots of card slots (so I don't have to double and triple up anymore and a nice big space for change. Something like a checkbook wallet. Something like this one:
The "jane street maria" checkbook wallet in kelly/amethyst. A girl can dream. And then post it on her blog.

In other news, I have been going to the gym that is 5 minutes away from me by bike, and on my way home from Rits, so I have no excuse in not going to the gym. The first week was rather hell, since I haven't exercised in god knows how long. And I went to yoga. It's the basic yoga, nothing too flashy like hot yoga (good stuff) but the room is kept rather warm, so I do work up a bit of a sweat and my heartrate does go up. I also go to aerobics; I have discovered in the course of my first few weeks that I HATE HATE HATE the treadmill. There are no ellipticals in the machine room. Me + treadmill = hell. I powerwalk on the thing, and the timer ticks on by but because there is a timer, I am more conscious of the time and thus start to whine in my head and then give up. For yoga and aerobics, the time goes quickly by and I am not bored. And the teachers mix things up a bit - which is both good and bad. Good because I am not bored, but bad because once I get over my fear of throwing my legs up and over my head while on my back (still working on it rather) my yoga teacher goes and throws in headstands for kicks. THAT is something that is going to take me awhile to get used to. I am afraid that I am going to break my neck.

But back to the saving - there is a wedding coming up and flowers, a dress and pretty paper are involved in it on my end. Plus, I already did my traveling for the really-long-break in Korea so I did my "I am OUT of here!" part.

That doesn't mean that I am done travelling. You kidding me? The last week of April is Golden Week, a week long mush of holidays which this year has two days off in between. It's April 28-30 and May 3-6. I was originally going to skip the two days in between and two days before to go to the Philippines and meet Mel, but tickets are expensive during Golden Week. The next option was Hong Kong, because Deena has off the exact same days that I am off for the first half of GW. I just came back from the co-op a bit disappointed: they did have tickets for only $450, but there was no seat available going to Hong Kong. The only other option? $900. HELL NO. Instead of April, Mel and I are going to the Philippines at Christmas for sure next year since we have alot of time to save up the money. It will surely be more kicking then.

Another option is to go to Okinawa - I emailed Colleen about it and she told me (ran into her today on campus) that she saw it but hasn't had the chance to email me back. I quickly told her that if that didn't work out, there is the fourth option, which can be done by myself as well (as is Okinawa, but Okinawa would be fun with more people): train-tripping it around Kansai and the Chugoku (where Hiroshima is) area. There are tons of places that can be a day or two day trip and it won't be that expensive either. One of them that I really want to go to is Koya-san, a Buddhist monastery/city in the mountains, and you can stay at the temples and get traditional cuisine there included. Then there is Ise (the main Shinto shrine in Japan). So there are things to do, it's just a matter of getting things organized.

I have spend most of my vacation reading, watching Grey's Anatomy and just chilling out before the onslaught at Rits begins - not only do I want to take two regular classes (one out of the two that my sensei recommended and a culture course that I thought would be cool) but I also want to take Japanese classes. I finally figured out - and everyone agrees with me who is also just a research student - that there is nothing that is really expected of me in terms of a "final result." Like I said before, even my sensei doesn't know what is expected of me. If there is, I can just show my published paper and the fact that I went to two conferences. So, my plan is to pretty much do what I need to do to prepare for grad school applications. Have to be honest though - every time I look at history department's websites at places like Harvard, UPenn, Stanford, I slowly begin to scream in my head. It can be rather nerve-wrecking to say the least. And friggin scary - the average amount of people that apply to these programs is 300-400 give or take. And on average, the schools accept about 30-40 people. That is 1 in every 10 about if I do my math right. To borrow a quip from Prof. M (medieval prof, not Asian prof): "I only count in base 10."