Today was up and down. I find that lately I've been waking up cheerful and losing my enthusiasm throughout the day, which is just the opposite of what generally happens at home. I wonder why.
Anyway, speaking class today was good. After that I killed some time surfing around online before I was to meet Saho for a quick interview. For one of her English classes, she and a friend have to interview me about something or another. I thought the full interview was today, but it turns out today I was just supposed to meet the friend, whose name I can't remember, and fill out a form saying my name, hometown, home college, and major. The whole meeting took about five minutes, which was nice, because I had expected it to be much more long and involved.
For lunch today I decided to do McDonald's, so I got some chicken nuggets and fries and ate them in the little student lounge on the third floor of the student center that I just discovered the other day. It has been exclusively Japanese students both times I've been in there, so I think many of the foreigners don't know about it.
Art history today was good; we looked at Heian Period mandala paintings. It was neat, because the ones we studied most, the Taizokai and Kongokai mandalas, are images that we looked at extensively last fall in my Asian Religious Traditions class. It was cool to see them from an art historical perspective rather than a Buddhist perspective. I love that kind of thing.
Japan in Western Film and Lit was cool today, too. We talked about The Cheat, and then we watched parts of another movie, from 1919 by D. W. Griffith, called Broken Blossoms. In this one, this poor little English girl with an abusive father befriends a lonely Chinese immigrant, and tragedy follows. It was not nearly as enjoyable as The Cheat, I thought, but still highly interesting. In this film, the Chinese man is the tragic hero, but he's only allowed that role because he remains in his "exotic aesthete" stereotype. Very interesting.
In discussing The Cheat today in class, I came up with my topic for my midterm paper that I have to write. I'm going to look into Okakura Tenshin, the guy I did my big Meiji research paper on, as a historical character and compare him to Tori, the villain of the film. They've got some interesting similarities, although as far as I know Okakura never took a hot poker to Isabella Stewart Gardner.
After classes were over, I bought some snacks for the weekend and returned home for a nap. This evening I ran the sweeper and changed my bed linens, so now everything in my room is nice and clean.
Supper tonight was really frustrating. Apparently yesterday I forgot to put away my large plate and soup bowl, and they have now disappeared. Luckily, there was an extra plate that has just been sitting about for several weeks, so I have claimed that one for my own. Still, I’m out a bowl, and if I don’t find it by the end of the semester I’ll be fined. Yuck. Oh well; it’s what I get for not paying proper attention. Also, I couldn’t find any tongs or cooking chopsticks to fish my curry out of the boiling water, which was a lot more upsetting than it should have been. Really, at that point I was fairly livid. Normally I have absolutely no temper, but sometimes on these meds I really lose it.
Anyway, after realizing that there are worse things in the world than a lack of chopsticks and Corelle bowls, I sat down with my curry rice and began to read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Now, I have to admit I’m quite the literary snob; for years I’ve read really little beyond the established cannon of classics. But honestly, that leaves out so much, so I’ve been trying recently to open myself up to more recent and more popular selections. I’m really glad I picked up this book. It’s a quick, easy read—I’m nearly halfway done with it, and I’ve probably been reading for an hour and a half. Plus, instead of numbering the chapters 1234etc., they’re numbered only in primes: 2357etc. Very cool! In any case, I like it a lot; definitely check it out if you haven’t read it. Mom, especially, I think you’ll like this one. It’s rather in a Flowers for Algernon line, I think, though much less depressing so far.
Tomorrow I go on a field trip to Kyoto with my Asian Psychologies class. I’m pretty excited, and I plan to take lots of pictures and let you know how it goes. First activity of the day: half an hour of zazen (Zen sitting). Very exciting! I’ve done a Korean variation of this meditation when I went to Furnace Mountain Zen Retreat Center with the Governor's Scholars Program in high school and really liked it. It should be cool.
Note to self: If you eat a large bowl of curry rice at 10PM, you will get indigestion. Next time eat lighter or start earlier.
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Every time you mention McDonald's, I have a strong urge to go and get chicken nuggets.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was pretty enjoyable, I thought. Still sorta in line with standard modern classics, though. Flowers for Algernon, though, I haven't read. It sounds really good, and ridiculously depressing.
One book I've heard a lot about is House of Leaves. I'd have to say that it falls pretty far outside the usual classics, but it's said to be good. You may recall that there was an XKCD comic not long ago that was a parody of it.
Um, other books. The Thursday Next series is primarily about classics. Thursday becomes an agent of Jurisfiction and has to protect our novels against all sorts of things. The first book involves a plot to remove Jane Eyre from her book, other novels involve bootleg Shakespear plays, Bowdlerizers, famous characters attempting to kill their romantic rivals, etc. At one point, two characters take refuge in the footnotes to avoid other characters. There's also a lot of time travel, a dodo, the Toast Marketing Board, and many Supreme Evil Beings. And despite my lackluster descriptions, they're very good. Especially The Well of Lost Plots. Since it's probably possible to start in the middle, if you'd like to borrow it when you return, I'd be happy to lend it to you.
I've also heard good things about The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. And since we're talking about books, I recommend The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear and The City of Dreaming Books, both by Walter Moers.
Really, it's almost a pity there are so many good books, because it's impossible to read them all.
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