Just watched Tomb Raider. Well, started our with Lady Snowblood but this proved too cultural for the brother and so we watched Tomb Raider. That film has so many epic moments and lines and effects that I cannot not enjoy it. We also came to the conclusion that I might establish a Buddhist cult and take over the world, starting with the Church of Norway. My brother was planning on taking the place of Lara Croft, noticing strange Buddhist inscriptions and images hidden in the classical Norwegian art relics, during his wedding ceremony. He will then interrupt the priest and say his catch phrase (in a Schwarzenegger manner, most hopefully,)before charging out of the church on the hunt for my cult’s headquarters, where I am with my trusted group of fanatics plotting how to brainwash the entire world into my beliefs, which are still under construction, and making the entire globe settle into peaceful meditation. (This would of course be a disaster, bringing the entire global economy and trade blah blah to a stop blah blah -but I’m too eluded/uninterested to see this. Which is why I’d be an awesome bad guy. Girl.)

Other than that, well. EE is due on Monday, though I might have gotten an extension. I better be almost complete by then, anyway. So I was planning  on spending all day doing EE. Logically. But then I woke up at 1,30- rather than 10 as planned, and then I got distracted for a couple of hours, rather than being disciplined, as planned, and so I didn’t get that much done. Which is a shame (my shame, I know) as I wanted to go to my pre school’s Christmas fair tomorrow. I might still go, after all, I have gotten quite a bit done. Whatever I end up doing, I’ll have an alarm on tomorrow morning. And I must be in bed before midnight, my sleeping pattern is way too messed up.

Speaking of plotting, reminded me that when I was asked what I wanted for my birthday by a friend, I answered -a treasure hunt. I actually think she might go through with it, she’s at least considered it. And that would be totally awesome. I will not, however get my hopes up too much (*dreams of running across Oslo looking for mysterious parchments and symbols engraved into our cultural treasures*), as I have done for the SA concert. Last night, I had the strangest dream which started out with me going to the concert, and it being totally epic; and ended with me hunting down (Zombie)Nazis in an awesome old mansion.

Back to reality, for a bit: I asked the brother to proofread what I’ve got so far, and he sort of admitted that it was a tedious read, which I already knew. Anyway, I let him read it at his own pace as long as he’d looked through it by tomorrow. And then he gave me a hug while impersonating Arnold Schwarzenegger  and told me to go off and start plotting.

The internet seems to be totally opposed to me purchasing a ukulele. This makes me sad.

This morning I had the strangest dream. It was utterly Sci Fi with strange spacecrafts and weapons, which I could actually “identify”, and then there was a bomb siren/alarm which was going off in the background the entire time. The dream felt like it lasted quite a while before I woke up and realised that the alarm was the door bell. So I staggered out of bed and opened for our cleaning lady, who looked totally furious. Well, it’s her fault, she did turn up an hour earlier than agreed. The dream sort of stuck with me all day though.

I procrastinated. Otherwise, EE would have killed my long ago.

Ok, I’m feeling slightly retarded at the moment, and cannot be bothered with rescaling and all that. >.< One thing WP is bad at, images. Or maybe that’s just me. >.>

Today

I skived school to do school work. I slept five hours more than planned, but I did do some school work. I’ve been up for two hours now, and the only procrastination I’ve done so far is to play the guitar. And blog, of course. Three sentences.

OMG reason to be paranoid. My school just phoned me on my mobile and kept ringing for ages. While I was looking up the number, our home phone goes off. >.<

Okay, I need to get my act together, I need to write my personal statement and apply to unis. Two of my close friends have gotten offers now, while I have yet to apply.

Back to EE. I just found the first plan I made, which I wrote in August. Would have been nice to check this one out before now/five days before deadline? No?

I’m tempted:

Never mind. I’m off to bed. Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

En un tiempo donde vamos contando los dias para finalizar el año, cansados, agotados, agobiados … los Ejercicios Espirituales en Adviento llegan para renovarnos, para darnos esa carga de energia que necesitamos para finalizar el año alegres, contentos y porque no para hacer un balance de todo lo vivido hasta aquí.
Comenzaremos el viernes 18 de diciembre a las 19 hs. y finalizaremos el domingo 20 a las 18: 30 hs Aprox.
Será en el Colegio Jesús María de Florencio Varela.
El equipo está formado por religiosas de Jesús María y laicos y además nos acompañará el Padre Rubén Strina sj.
Para informes e inscripción escribinos a retirosensilencio@gmail.com

http://retirosdesilencioignacianos.blogspot.com/

So, when I was accepted to law school last Spring everything I read said to relax the summer before school starts – don’t read anything for school, that I’ll be reading so much during school, I should just enjoy the summer!

BLAH!!!

Who could say that??  I find that negligent behavior, except no one who told me had a duty to care toward me so I guess it fails on that claim, but DAMN!

I keep thinking about how much easier my life may be right now if I had already completed reading the supplements I am now trying to devour!  I just wonder the motivation behind all of those people who said to not do any advance work prior to school beginning!  Are they sitting around laughing at home right now at those of us struggling to get everything done??

So, here is my advice to those of you planning to attend law school in Aug, 2010:

1.  Purchase the E&E’s for Torts, Contracts and Criminal Law or whatever classes you have!  Read those books through and through!!  By May/June 2010 you should have your schedule so if you have Civ Pro or something else, get that one too. 

2.  Hornbooks - In July, read as much of each class’ hornbook as you can.  These books will give you a serious jump on everyone else in class – you will hear terms and understand them much quicker and clearer after reading the E&E’s.  Each day before class you should read the corresponding section of the hornbook in addition to the case. 

3.  Briefing the case thoroughly is not as important as understand the law and how to apply it to real cases so re-do the E&E questions/answers for the corresponding section you will be discussing in class.

4.  Outline while reading – THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!  When you read the assignments/hornbooks - outline as you read.  Add class notes to the outline.  Each weekend, widdle it down to the absolute necessary stuff – not so much detail about the case (1-2 lines MAX) – most of outline should be black letter law, common law, etc.  Nothing will be more valuable to have come November – you will be SOO far ahead of the game if you do this!! 

5.  Research how to write a legal memo and get a step-by-step instruction on how to write them (CRuPaC, CiRiC or whatever you use).  This is key because you will not be able to get a lot of instruction in the beginning outside of the Professor and if your guy is like mine and hides the ball (doesnt fully explain what he wants) then you will have to suffer through low grades before figuring it out!!  Even if your class is pass/fail, do this – Moot Court, Law review, writing samples for summer jobs, etc. all depend on having good legal writing skills, so it is very important to master it early!!

5.  Take a 1 day seminar in October or November in your area on test taking skills – without question one of the best things I have done!  You may even consider taking it earlier or buying it on Cd’s – could be very helpful on midterms.  Beyond helpful – just wish I would have taken it before mid-terms!

I cannot wait until our month off after finals but instead of relaxing, I plan on doing all of the above for each of the classes I’m taking in the Spring!  It is not a guarantee to all A’s, but it will put anyone in the position to truly be competitive!

One of the most unfair parts of law school is that the Professors are not completely forthcoming with what they want until after you’ve failed miserably!  Get some outside help and you will do much better!  I hate people don’t share this information more often, but it truly is necessary to know!!

As I begin to write about my current status as a 0L I realize how premature and ridiculous the idea of starting this blog seems. Ok, here’s the truth…I haven’t been accepted to law school yet! I know, I totally have the cart in front of the horse, right?

Well, if I thought for a moment that there was a bit of doubt about what I will be doing next fall I wouldn’t start this thing up. I’m only applying to one law school and WILL be accepted. My numbers alone and my graduate school pedigree will more than suffice to get me in and at least SOME financial aid (did you notice the syllepsis there? Impressive, no? Zeugma is very prestigious…). In fact, the only reason that I haven’t been accepted yet is that I’m waiting on an obscenely late letter of recommendation from a grad-school professor whom I should never have asked to write for me, given her habit of doing everything either at the last minute or late. But what’s done is done. She WILL get the damn thing in eventually and I will be accepted. They’ve already started rolling admissions and I am getting worried that the sole consequence of her tardiness will be financial aid. If they start making aid offers before I’ve been admitted that could conceivably limit the amount I’m offered. With all the debt I’ve racked up in undergrad and grad school the very thought of losing more money (and unnecessarily) turns my stomach. She really needs to get the lead out…

So what else? I’m a gunner hopeful. I am very smart but very lazy, and this has to be fixed within the next 8 months. Like all incoming law students, I plan to graduate at the top of my class, and I know I cannot do this without an overhaul of my personality and work ethic. I also have no intention of playing on a level field next fall, so I’m starting my work early.

I’ve bought all the Examples & Explanations books for my first year and have gotten hold of (notice, I didn’t say bought) the outrageously-priced Sum & Substance audiobooks for most of the classes as well. I figure I need to make my way through all of these and then move on to Hornbooks, though, since I don’t know what section I’ll be in or what professors I’ll have, there’s no telling if I’ll be using the ‘right’ ones. Whatever…hopefully I’ll get one or two right. If not, it certainly can’t hurt.

I am a little bit unsure of what exactly I should do as I read all this. I started outlining Torts (E&E) but gave up on the advice of a lawyer friend who said that was unnecessary. Well, that alone shouldn’t have stopped me. Unnecessary is not an issue…will it be helpful? Will I be able to use the notes I take out of the E&E’s and re-use them in whole or in part later? THAT is the question. I’m tempted to just go back and keep plugging away at it. I’m already noticing that I don’t retain information if I don’t take notes. I really don’t want to read this stuff (as interesting as it is) and not remember it.

Last but not least: why I’m doing this blog. Well, I think that, eventually, having an unvarnished chronicle of the law school experience will help others. But in the near future, I want this blog to keep me motivated as I do my preparation for 1L. It’s really difficult to make myself work without some deadline or tangible goal. I just watched Julie & Julia and it got me thinking that perhaps making my progress public would motivate me to keep plugging away, whether or not anyone actually reads any of it. If nothing else, hopefully the prospect of being anonymously embarrassed by an empty blog that should be filled with lists of my accomplishments will motivate me to get my shit together and start working. After all, it’s work I won’t have to do later, when I’m under the gun.

I honestly don’t know why I’m writing a blog post when I have three IB pieces of work to do. Me writing right now – it’s indirectly and also directly connected with my procrastination – of course.

I’m half-sick right now, so I decided that I’d do my EE editing in bed, where at least my legs are warm – it’s been hovering around 13 degrees here for the last few days, you see. With a warm laptop (the overheating hard drive is useful for once),  a thick blanket, and chocolate, I thought I’d get quite a bit done. I sort of did, and sort of didn’t, but that’s not really the point here.

Somehow my ‘workworkwork’ mantra morphed into ‘Ican’tdothis’, so I ended up watching Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong film The Departed is based on. Call me biased, but IA (digression – I can’t look at those letters without thinking of the acronym for ‘internal assessment’ [IB-speak for coursework] – IB truly corrupts everything) is indefinitely the superior movie. The remake can’t match up – maybe in other cases it can, but not here.

I’m not sure if I should recommend Infernal Affairs, though, because sometimes it’s hard to really appreciate a style of film that you’re not used to, and that could potentially ruin it all. And yes – sometimes Hong Kong films are really an acquired taste. But that applies to a lot of other things too. And I’m digressing again.

Watching the film made me really want to write again – and I don’t mean my Extended Essay, which is still unfinished. The deadline’s on Friday, by the way, so you see the dilemma. I know – I gave up NaNo for homework, and that’s the way it should stay. But when inspiration hits (and you can’t tell me you haven’t noticed this – regardless of whether it’s inspiration for writing or something else), you can’t get whatever you want to do off your mind. My mind is going, ‘I want to write I want to write I want to write I have to write’ and I’ve half a mind (pun intended, I guess) to give in.

That’s the real test, I suppose – writing when you have no inspiration, and refraining from writing when the urge hits. That’s life, isn’t it? Doing things you don’t want to do when you have to, and not doing what you want even when it’s the only thing you feel like doing.

I can’t give in now.

Maybe I’m just being emo, and all I ever wanted to do was put work off. The sun is setting- no, it has already set, and it’s time to finish off this essay for good.

It is all about prioritising. Either, I could be sitting at school writing rubbish, which I know is rubbish, about books that mean nothing to me except for the fact that my exam grade is based on them. Or I could be at home, eating my packed lunch from a plate, mug of something warm to drink next to me, and a long list of things I better get done this afternoon. We’ll see how that goes.

My friend, who’s English and lived in England her entire life just wrote:

deffonate

Please do me a favour and try to deduce what she was trying to say. It hurts my heart.

And as I’m already quoting. Well, I finally received that email from the artist I’m writing my EE on. He is totally epic. I asked him all these silly questions about his darkroom and printing methods. His reply:

I don’t do darkroom. I don’t like it.

This is one awesome guy, and I might have to declare my undying love for him by the end of this. Seriously, I cannot think of much controversial stuff this guy could’ve done that would have caught my (and the examiner’s) attention, but a photographer who dislikes darkrooms and who does not care about what camera he’s using as long as it’s working? Epic.

~Hours and hours later~

Right. So my day. We had a sucky sucky surprise Paper 2 in SOAS, which wasn’t actually a surprise since I’d written it down in my diary, I just managed to ignore it all of yesterday. So that was bad. Very bad. Then we had bio where the teacher, giggling the whole time, displayed a diagram of a penis on the board and told us that we had fifteen minutes to sketch it down while she was in the other room enjoying her coffee.  She was acting more immature than anyone in my class. It was embarrassing to watch her. And then we had to go through the entire menstrual cycle in detail. It made my tummy hurt to think about it all at once. (That was why I refused to dissect last week -Looking at that lung lying on the table, or being inflated, makes my lungs hurt.) So now I can identify numerous hormones running through my body, and more. Yayness.

I’ve considered becoming a vegetarian. Well, pescetarian, at least. It is not because I feel bad for the animals, or the environment (well, I do, but not enough to change my diet for it.) or cannot afford meat. It is simply that I do not enjoy eating meat. I don’t like the taste of it, nor the texture.  I used to love chicken, turkey, duck and pork. Not anymore. Even duck, which was my favourite dish isn’t as tempting. Is it rude to order vegetarian Peking Duck at a restaurant, I wonder? xP After all, it is the Hoisin that I enjoy so much, not the duck.  Well, that was random. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. Just never got around to blogging it. The main reason why I’ve been thinking about it is the Christmas meals. We have roasted pork. Every year. I used to love it, but not so any more. Also, we had elk stew the other day, and I was about to refuse to eat it, as it was making me feel physically sick. I did eat it, but honestly, I’m slightly scarred.

My conclusion, so far, is that I might give vegetarianism a go when I move out. That should be after this summer most hopefully. Then I won’t have to pester my dear mother about my strange eating habits, which would be mean. And until then, I’ll do as I’ve been doing of late. Either force it down or just ignore the meat and eat the veggies.

I did have more to say, as always, but I need to get ready for bed. I’ll come back to this in a bit.

Yay, I’m good, I’m filling out cas forms. They’re tedious asking question including the words: accomplish, successful, difficulties encountered, abilities, attitudes and values developed, benefit, improve and apply to other life situations.

Verfasst von Edgar

Langsam wird die Arbeit doch sehr viel und neue Videos werden schon erwartet. Mit nur einem Redakteur kann man jedoch unser Projekt nicht am Leben erhalten, deswegen greift unser Kollege von EE-Games Joe uns unter die Arme und wird regelmäßig Artikel verfassen. Doch da er auch noch sein eigenes Projekt leitet, möchten wir ihn dabei nicht zu sehr zur Last fallen, weswegen wir noch mehr Autoren suchen!

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After working on two large-scale, cross contains / platform, web application projects, I’ve come to the conclusion that Java EE is fatally flawed.

If someone asked you to state the most important, guiding principle of the Java language, what would you say? You would would probably say “write once, run anywhere.” Indeed, for Java SE this holds true most all of the time. In Java EE however, it is hopelessly broken. The reality is that every web container is slightly different in ways that force developers work around problems, avoid certain features, or even have different code paths. Different code paths in a language that was never designed for it.

Different aspects of Java EE have different levels of stability. JSP works almost the same across all containers. Things like JSF and Java Persistence (JPA) however are hopeless. My most recent experience is writing a web administration console using JSF for the OpenSSO project. OpenSSO claims to support at at least 8 different web containers. Every container required JSF tweaking that ranged from annoying to just plain terrible. Needless to say I had egg on my face to some degree over the choice to use JSF. It was a no-brainer for me. JSF is the chosen MVC framework for Java EE. My mistake.

The only container where JSF “just worked” was Tomcat. Tomcat isn’t a Java EE container at all.Tomcat doesn’t include JSF or any of it’s dependencies. We might be on to something here. Let’s look at another example: Spring. Spring is essentially a lighter-weight, simpler replacement for Java EE. Why is Spring so popular? One reason is that it is an elegant design. But another, perhaps more important reasons is that no matter what container you are developing on, Spring is Spring. It’s the same JAR, the same code, the same implementation. It makes very few assumptions about the capabilities of the underlying container. Another example is Facelets, a light-weight JSP replacment. I use JSF+Facelets on the OpenSSO project, and it has been flawless (the Facelets part). Why? Because I include the Facelets JAR, it is not provided by the system.

What if Java EE had followed the same model? Java EE should have been nothing more than a plugin framework and some base services. Want to use JSF in your project? Just include it from a managed, networked Java EE module repository. Include the one, common implementation of JSF. Include the approved version for your level of Java EE. If you support Java EE 5, you get JSF version X, across all web containers.

I’m sure it’s stupid to rant about annoying people in the middle of such an essay. No wonder I’ll be pissed off and moody. But honestly,  gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaerarrughem.

I got cake. Break from EE. NOW. And that was one orgasmic piece of cake. Especially considering the circumstances.

I’m going to write LOVE on my arms tomorrow, and I think all of my readers should too. (And simply don’t do it ’cause I tell you to. Be a good individual and use that mean green mind machine.)

I have 962 words. I told myself that I can stop at a thousand. For tonight. Though, thinking about it earlier I was planning on reaching at least 2000 by this evening… >.>

My ToK presentation got moved to the 10th of December or something like that because Pinky was ill. I did mind in the end, but not too badly. Just would’ve been nice to get rid of at least one thing…  Today I’ve been good, though. I did quite a bit of work on my Bio lab report, (due Tuesday) and quite a bit, (considering how little I had when I started) on my EE. I have to hand in my first draft tomorrow, so it’s not like I have a choice. And I’ve already gotten a three week extension for the first draft. I have that Animal Farm letter to do (due Tuesday) but my sister is coming down this weekend, so I thought we might write some Communist propaganda together as a bit of sister-to-sister-time.  I got my Norwegian P1 back today, and I got 19 points! That’s one more than usual. Usual is every time since I started the IB. And I thought it was crap, but it wasn’t, so I was happy for the rest of the lesson. 19 points would be a 6, just. I always get 5 in Norwegian.

We had a really interesting ToK lesson today. Well, the discussion wasn’t that good actually, I really didn’t agree with most people, but it was concerning art. What is art? What is not? And apparently, I consider many more things than most people as art. And then we visited this website, “The Museum of Bad Art”.

I don’t agree. I really did think that though they weren’t  AMAZING, those pieces up there did not “deserve” a place in the Museum of Bad Art.

Shower time. I will return. After all, I have another 38 words to write.

~~~

At dinner this evening I accidentally mentioned that a girl in my class burst into tears after having to spoken with our teacher. Apparently her average grade is so poor they don’t think she’ll pass as things stand at the moment. Only after I’d said it, I realised why my family’s not been bothering me as of late. They are all hoping that I’ll be able to handle this to the end, they’re just not sure.

YES: 1012. Good night EE.

Just stalked this dude on facebook who used to be a good friend of mine. We both played the violin and were in the same crappy orchestra for quite a few years. I quit the violin, he didn’t. Where is he today? Travelling the world with his epic quality little string group. I’m so jealous.

And reading other people’s blogs makes my chest hurt. Not a bad hurt, just a sort of amazement, I guess maybe I did believe in solipsism after all?

(and suddenly I remembered why I started this blog entry. I was reminded of something, earlier today. Of a feeling. An experience which I’m starting to forget. I’m scared it will never come back. And I’ll know that something is missing, I might even call it by its name, but it might never come back to me. Not in the same form as last time. All the flaws have disappeared over these last four years. All I can recall it as now is perfection.)

=)

We will be back in a couple of days!

Watch this space!

=p

Maybe I give up too easily. Maybe I lack motivation. Maybe there’s no explanation, other than that I’m plain lazy. But none of that changes the fact that I’m not doing NaNoWriMo anymore.

November is just…hell. Even if I stayed up till 3 every night to do my 1667 words, it just wouldn’t work. I’d get sleepier and sleepier, I wouldn’t be able to function at school, my EE (on the verge of completion – sort of) would never be finished, and what I’d have at the end of November would be a half-assed NaNo, probably about 10K words long, and really low marks in coursework.

Yes, I know – schoolwork and marks and grades aren’t supposed to be everything, but in Hong Kong – frankly, they are, however much I’d like to deny it. As someone who’s never actually failed to deliver (at least, not permanently), there’s obviously a lot of pressure. IB exams, the last year of secondary/high school, the vital year that could make all the difference before university.

The choice to do NaNo or not do NaNo could make the difference between what university I get into, what course I get into, and even which country I go to. Failure isn’t a price I’m prepared to pay – not now, and really – not ever. If that sounds too intense, well… Some of us simply don’t have a choice.

I’m not binning what I’ve written – none of those 5547 words are going to go to waste, but I’m going to have to save it for some other month – maybe June or July, when my exams will be in the distant past and all my memories have been carefully repressed.

It really does irritate me that I have to break promises to myself, but I don’t see an alternative that will allow me to – first and foremost – keep my sanity, second – get top grades in the 3 official pieces of work I have to submit in the next 2-and-a-bit weeks, third – actually reach 50K.

So I guess the description of this blog was accurate: “A November (and beyond) journey through the foreign land of Writing.” November and beyond – yes. Writing – I never specified which kind. I just didn’t imagine that it would be essays, rather than stories.

I’ve wanted to write a post-mortem for finishing the rough draft of my novel–I have, in fact, started it a couple of times–but it has not proven useful, I think because the whole project only had one lingering after effect: The knowledge that I can in fact write a whole novel.

I learned that writing is my raison d’etre; when I got into it, writing was all I wanted. As I wrote in one of my failed post-mortems: “From June to September, I was alive. [...] I would write until I was shaking with hunger or bleary-eyed from fatigue, I read more, my life felt calmer and more focused than it ever has. Never before have I been so consumed to finish something.”

So that has set in stone my graduate studies. I’m working to apply to MFA programs, because I need it, I need that time and that structure to write more. This novel was amazing, but it was a fluke. I will never have the time to write something like it again, more than likely. Getting an MFA will allow this kind of time, and it will guide my reading, and so on.

I’m also determined to read more. A common piece of advice for writers is to read; I read a fair amount in college, but it was exclusively required reading. This introduced me to my true reading love, continental lit, which I need to get back into. I also need to read more science fiction, considering that will probably be my bread and butter in the future. I have read an embarrassingly small amount of science fiction, limited to a Philip K Dick, a whole lot of Star Trek novels, and that’s about all I can remember. I read a fair amount of fantasy, too, as a youth (Tolkein, Jordan, Goodkind, Dragonlance).

This is ridiculous, and I fear coming off as a poseur when I say I write sci-fi. I need to fix this immediately. Heinlein, Asimov, Herbert, more Dick, Bradbury. I’ve relied too long on a childhood of Star Trek episodes and books.

In this vein, I read half of Stephen King’s On Writing this past Friday to gain some insights for when I begin editing my novel tomorrow. He backed up some knowledge I’m already working with–eliminate all but the most necessary adverbs–and reiterated the “read, read, read” mantra. He made some claims I’ve scoffed at before–kill your darlings, second draft equals first draft minus ten percent–and I suppose I need to take this more seriously. Dress down dialog attribution seems like reasonable, professional advice. Make sure backstory is revealed deftly. Character motivation has to be believable. Coherence, recurring elements, theme, description.

I have a feeling I’m going to learn more from the editing process than from the writing process.

The worst of my schoolwork is over…for now. In three weeks’ time, it’ll be the EE deadline, and everyone (apart from the really organised/really unconcerned people) will be up at 2 in the morning, frantically copy-and-pasting typing and editing. For now, though, I’ll pretend that I have no work to do.

My progress on my NaNo is getting better. I’ve found that flashback sequences are great. They don’t have to tie in with the plot or even make sense until chapters and chapters later, so if I don’t ever finish the story, I won’t ever have to make those chapters make sense. Or maybe I’ll realise that they actually have a purpose in the middle of typing. Who knows?

I’m aiming to catch up on my wordcount tomorrow. Well, if I got down 7067 words it’d be nice. I won’t settle for less than 2000, though. There’s still plenty of time. Sort of.

Now, though, it’s time to sleep. The last 3 nights have been hell – I got 3.5 hours of sleep each night, on average. And that’s already a generous estimate. I don’t function well on little sleep – I’m not sure if anyone does. I tend to get pretty short-tempered and really impatient. And I procrastinate. Give me a good 9 or more hours and I’ll do pretty much any work you throw at me. 3 hours? Forget it. 6 hours is usually an acceptable compromise. I don’t fall asleep in class, and it leaves me enough time to actually do homework.

Recently I’ve heard that sleeping more than or less than 8 hours shortens your lifespan. I guess my sleeping habits aren’t exactly healthy, then – too little on school nights, too much at the weekend. But what’s really shortening my lifespan is the cause of my sleeping problems – IB itself. I wish I was doing A-Levels, but that’s all it is – a wish.

Mytop 5 lists and WHY:

Top 5 Kombi of all time:
1. Tunnels
2. Downtown
3. Ninety-nine
4. Taka and Toshi
5. (Dont have one yet)

Tunnels never did manzai, and started off more as a monomane/gag duo. They were incredibly popular in the 80s and managed to obtain over 30% of the ratings nationwide with their shows (which is incredibly hard, for any show) and having seen their earlier works and Tunnels Mina-san okagedeshita, and Kuwazugirai, I can say I love those shows more than Downtown’s gottsu ee Kanjii and Gaki no tsukai. I love all 4 shows, but somehow I cannot imagine Gaki no tsukai without Matsumoto. Or Hamada. If either left, i dont think i would want to watch the show. That includes Heyx!3, their reliance on each other is amazing (as in a great bond) but it seems to say that we are only good as a team, and not solo. I love how Downtown takes punishments in their shows (theyre always the butt of the joke two, even though these two are incredibly big names in the show business). The second thing is, I love manzai too, but i just havent seen enough / understood enough to like it more than Tunnels work (which is understable without Japanese)

Ninety-nine is there solely because of Morning Musume and their connection with Tsunku, that and Okamura dances funny

Taka and Toshi are incredibly funny! Their manzai skits are…truly hilarious, though they tend to rely on their props to really cause the imagination to stir. But its amazing, Tunnels got to play pranks on them too! You can see Taka and Toshi skits on youtube (I may have linked to them in the past)

Top 5 Comedians of All time
Note: I like Japanese comedians, manzai and owarai above ALL other forms of comedy…which is why this list only has Japanese comedians.

1. Ishibashi Takaaki
2. Hitoshi Matsumoto
3. Masatoshi Hamada
4. Takashi Okamura
5. Tamori

1. Ishibashi Takaaki
I had my first true encounter with Japanese, and I can say hes been the reason why I even like it
Taka-san is outrageously funny, ridiculous at times, yet hes still a very sensible and well respected man. Hard to explain, until at least you watch him at work. Hes INCREDIBLY knowledgeable and smart, frequently citing a lot of western and Japanese references (which is funny when they relate or you can understand where hes coming from). His work in Tunnels (the comedy duo) is legendary, being very naturally funny (more so than Downtown in Gotsu ee Kanjii, to me least least) although he never really did true manzai.

His face expressions are amazing, and basically he can pull off any kind of emotion on his face at any time…he should really be an actor. His dress sense is very conservative, but to me its clean and respectable. And with Taka-san, I feel like Im laughing at his expressions AND his actions/ what he says. He is just so straightforwardly funny, and he is incredibly daring, referring to different things, touching female artists, asking for their numbers, showing the audience his knowledge of the video equipment,  etc . His friendships with many famous people such as Nakai-kun, Matsuda Seiko, Tamori, Morning Musume etc are envious and it always seems like many positive things come out of it. His way of life (getting married, then having a child, being a family man, etc has also been positive to me), and hes like 180cm tall.

Even after their Tunnels era ended (in terms of popularity) hes been going well doing solo work, something that I cannot imagine Downtown (and neither can they) going solo. His successful transition is a reflection of his ability

Simply put, I LOVE HIM!!! Hes the best comedian

2. Although Taka-san is very much above everyone else in this list, Matsumoto comes 2nd (though not TOOO close).
Heres where I explain why Taka-san is my #1 vs why Matsumoto is my 2nd. So basing it on their comedic abilities alone, I think Taka-san and Matsumoto are pretty much even and equal. Their quick, their ad-lib skills are amazing and they can think of a reference / retort /challenge (all humourous of course) to anything. The thing that gives Taka the edge is that because of being in Tunnels and doing monomane and ippatsu gags a lot, he has more control of his face and can pull of a billion expressions that Matsumoto cant. So basically, as neither do manzai [anymore] and I see them mostly on Utaban and Heyx!3, Taka-san is the better of the two.  This and the above list on Tunnels vs Downtown will explain why. I really do like Matsumoto though, and its hard to say, if I could understand Japanese and manzai, where his position would be (though I would understand Tunnels works more too)

3. Hamada is well respected and I like how hes angry, scary and totally sadistic. hes regarded more as the head of the group for Downtown, for various reasons I can see (such as taking the lead) but he is just not as naturally funny as matsumoto or Taka…even not doing his tsukommi role.

4. Okamura is only here because of the morning musume relations and acts he has done, otherwise I would of liked to put Sanma here (though I havent really understood what he was talking about)

5. Tamori is here for his amazing ability to renact a lizard and freak out Matsuda Seiko and Tunnels!

My first day at Glen Alpine was great.  I am assigned to Ms. Edwards 5th grade classroom with Patrick Smith.  Since it was the first day we just observed and tried to figure out how things operated.  The very first thing we did was listen to students read to us.  During their silent reading time we walked around and quietly listened to each of them read part of their book, they were all reading different things so it was interesting.  We got a special treat because WBTV Meteorologist Kelly Franson came to speak to the entire 5th grade.  It was really interesting because we got to hear about some of the things that make TV “magical!”  The green screen and some “sign language” they use to tell the anchors when to talk, and stop talking, etc.  She spoke with students about the things they have been learning about in science class with the weather.  After the presentation students went to the computer lab then it was lunch time.  Lunch time was a lot of fun because I got to know a lot of the kids and they asked lots of questions.  Two girls even sang Miley Cyrus to me.  Learning names was the lunch time goal, I have about half of them right now.  Hopefully I will get the rest on Monday.  After lunch we went to recess, I played basketball with 9 other kids.  We played 5 on 5, girls against boys and the girls won! When recess was over it was time for math.  Students went over the homework they had been working on all week.  It was interesting watching stuff “click” for them, things they missed on the homework but when Ms. Edwards explained it they understood.  I can’t wait to go back!!