2004.10.12

well i just finished taking a kanji quiz...i think i did ok...

long time elapsing...

ok it's nite time on the 13th...i must go to bed soon...going on a trip to Machida with my experiential activities class, and i have a vocab test tomorrow in my tutorial class (where, i remind you, i am translating Kimagure Orange Road manga)...also got discussion class...after that i'll hang around online to see if my gf will get online so i can talk to her...i hope she does...we got to talk a little bit online tonite, but not as much as i'd hoped...

-------

2004.10.13

well i just got outta class (conversation class) and MAN that was hands down the greatest class i have EVER attended...it was emotional, it was exciting, it was difficult at times...we talked about Media Literacy...it started out as a class on like, reading more news, checking what you hear and not believing it right away...we watched a 9/11 video (which is why to me this was an emotional class), and it was a video that NONE of us in the class had seen before...different angle, everything...and mind you, i've looked before and had never seen this one...

the point was that we don't get every bit of information when news reports it to us...however, this class was a LOT about where we were on 9.11...incidentally, i'm typing 9.11 cuz that's how japanese ppl write it...they also say "kyuu ten ichi ichi" (literally nine point one one) cuz it's faster than any other way i guess in japanese...like we say nine eleven cuz it's fast and easy...anyways, for the first time i had a real emotional response to it...i think maybe because i am in a foreign country...i've always been pretty proud of my country, but as i sat watching that video, emotions that i think maybe i was too immature to feel my senior year in HS flooded in...i felt proud of my country, i felt upset at the attacks...i got goosebumps...it was a great catharsis for me, cuz i'd always looked at 9.11 in a non-emotional way ever since it first happened...while other ppl i knew were crying i was just like 'this is a horrible thing that has happened' and maybe it didn't run much deeper than this...but i still felt anger and worry at what had happened, and wanted to show my support for the US, but i think my emotional capacity is much larger now, and so i felt it stronger watching that video...in any case, the discussions from people from four different countries was great to hear...one of the korean guys in the class had JUST entered his mandatory military service when 9.11 happened...another USian from washington state was asleep, but woke up and heard it on the radio...one chinese saw it while she was watching the news, and our japanese teacher saw it on the news as well...what really was poignant to me was that an american from nebraska was in a mathematics cllass when he heard...one of the chinese girls in the class was HER mathematics class in china...i haven't really thought about how that really works out time-wise, but i'll trust that it was true from them...that's amazing that people on both sides of the globe were doing the exact same thing when it happened...kinda shows you all people are alike, doesn't it?

i cannot write enough about my feelings in that class, but i will refrain, because i don't want to have an entry JUST about how i felt after watching a 9.11 video...

so yeah also tutorial class today, where i translated more KOR...i think i'll put my translation online (no pictures, so if you want, you need to get the manga yourself ^_^) so that way i don't think i'd be breaking any laws since it was only for research/education which i believe is protected as fair use (which incidentally, fair use has been being eroding lately...i hope to help fight the good fight for intellectual property laws when i become a lawyer...i wanna be a good lawyer, moral lawyer)...anyways...i guess it'll be ok...of course i'm adding an inside joke for X-Men fans...the main characters -- 3 of em anyways -- sometimes teleport, and i've been translating the sound they make ( 'shi' i believe ) to 'bamf' which is nightcrawler's sound when he teleports i believe ^_^

for my taiken (experiential activities) class we went to machida...first went to eat, then go shopping...BUT since we took so long eating and i had a class right after it, i had to return to class and didn't get ANY work done...so maybe soon i need to go myself and do the assignment...

anyways, that was my classes for today...

i'll peace out for now

so

peace ^_^
Kyle