(no subject)
Woo!
Okay. Update.
I've kind of vanished over the past three weeks due to copious amounts of company. First I had Karen here for six days, then my sister was here for a week, and then my mother and brother came for a week, and the only pause I had was one day between Karen and Rebecca. While this has definitely kept me busy, I'm looking forward to having time to myself for a little while to regroup. It's odd how that happens (but not really) - I guess when you get used to being on your own, it becomes a bit more draining to redirect your schedule around the desire to spend a lot of time with other people.
The best thing about having all that company (besides being able to see everyone) was that it got me up and sightseeing again; I'm settled enough now that it sometimes becomes hard to get myself out and seeing new places when I've got a standard repertoire of venues that I know I like. I finally made it to Roppongi, for example (though I still live in F33R of Roppongi Hills - don't they conk people like me over the head in there, and when we wake up we find we've been made over in D&G and Louis Vuitton? "Hey! Look! That chick's jeans are about six sizes too loose - we MUST replace them with a fashionable pair that create rugburns on the backs of one's knees. And those chunky shoes - they clearly don't pinch her toes enough! Defective leg or not - they must be updated! Only Prada will do!)
Somebody slap me. My anti-snobbishness has turned me into a snob.
But yeah, I've been to Odaiba now, too, which is incredibly tacky and whose most famous drawing points are an undersized Statue of Liberty and an oversized Toyota commercial (which includes a HUGE ferris wheel - the sight of it gives me sweaty palms, and I'm not even afraid of heights, really. Well, okay, maybe a little.)
Anyway - yeah. It was really nice to get to spend a week with Rebecca, who overcame the magnitude of the city at a pretty impressive speed in spite of how nervous she was at first. And this was a pretty exciting first-venture-abroad for Aaron, for sure, and I was really impressed with how quickly he started using basic Japanese phrases to talk to people in stores and restaurants. I think Mom got a kick out of how big the whole place is, and how different-and-yet-not it is from home. And having Karen around made me nostalgic as hell for Queen's. I really have to send some emails to people I've been neglecting. And she went back to Seoul in spite of continually telling me I couldn't make her go back to Korea - if you read this, dude, you could have stayed! You could have! Hahahaha.
Oh, and I suppose my other big news of the moment is that my future - for another year, anyway - has been determined. September '05 is bringing me back to jolly ol' England, London this time, where I'll be starting an MA program in Comparative Literature at University College London. Don't talk to me about funding (this is me hiding under the bed and cringing, while peeking out pleadingly at the student loans offices back in Canada and the States). I am - to put it mildly - pretty geeked about that whole situation, as a Master's degree from one of the top Colleges of the University of London will definitely open some fancy-looking doors for me in the Ph.D. area. It's going to be a ridiculously challenging program, I know that. But I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to have to polish up my French before I go (it's so rusty it barely holds together anymore), and - depending on how my schedule looks when I get there - I may try to audit some Spanish classes. There's a translation studies component to this course, and while a reading knowledge of a second language is a recommendation (not a requirement) I really have no excuses not to make more of what I've got.
I realised, just a few weeks ago, that I've managed over the past five or six years to continually have the upcoming year be something I'm looking forward to. That's the way to keep things, I think.
Well. I'm off now to grab coffee with a friend, and I'll probably post this sometime this evening, after that.
PS: Current reading: Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald. It's messing with my head in serious ways. One of those books that I can't read for too long in one sitting, because if I do, I lose the rest of the day to distraction and despondency and trying to figure out how such a string of events can really come together - and being frightened at the same time by how much sense it all makes. This is definitely another one I'll recommend to anyone who wants to put themselves through the mind-job (it's well worth it). I've read a whole string of amazing books since arriving out here. It's wonderful.