Expect Me When You See Me

Since today was my birthday, I pretty much took the day off to do whatever I wanted. I started off my day going to the Weta Workshop exhibition which is here in Seoul until Sunday. It was really awesome to see all the figurines even the ones for projects other than Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit;) I have a picture of me about to be stepped on by a troll. The display had a lot of really cool sculptures of fantasy world creatures.

I then headed across the city to Hongdae which is a popular food and shopping district. I stopped at a tiny, twee little bakery called Chocolate Yum which fresh bakes strawberry shortcakes and cookies every day. I bought a piece of cake and a pistachio macaron. That cake was so delicious. I ate it after I had some pad thai (which looked nothing like pad thai and only barely tasted like pad thai but was tasty nonetheless). I then walked to the nearest jjimjilbang called Happy Day which is the Korean equivalent of a hot spring or onsen. In the cities, they're usually a couple of floors, one with baths of varying temperature and filled with massage jets or fragrant herbs, and one or two with gyms, restaurants, and saunas. This one is three floors. It's a holiday today but I guess people went to bigger jjimjilbangs to celebrate because this place was not crowded. I spent a lot of time soaking before going to explore the saunas and lounge about reading. Once finished, I was already at the correct station to head to Seoul Station to visit the large Lottemart there (kinda like a department store/supermarket/mall). I was on a quest to find a few things like olive oil mayonnaise and a mattress pad on the cheap which I found and triumphantly carried back to my apartment after a successful hunt.

I then headed out to have some bibimbap for dinner (a mix of veggies, eggs, rice, and spicy red pepper paste) but it was rather bland sadly. Very healthy though so I have consoled myself with a nectarine bought at Costco yesterday (fruit is insanely expensive in East Asia though Korea is slightly cheaper than Japan at least so buying fruit at Costco is really a steal), and I'm about to bite into the pistachio macaron (delicious though perhaps more chewy than macarons are meant to be). All in all, a quite successful celebration of my birthday:)

Packing has been crazy. It's hard to fit a full wardrobe including semi-professional clothes for all four seasons into two bags and also fit in all the articles and books I need to read. And this is after I spent several hours scanning things in so I wouldn't have to carry as much. I am so glad I'm being met at the airport. I leave for Korea early in the morning but I still have to vacuum the apartment and finish backing up my computer. Thankfully, I was just gifted with two 1TB drives so at least I have plenty of room. See you guys once I get to Korea.

I went to the farmer's market yesterday in the hope that the Door County cherries would be ripe. I missed most of them last year because they ripened later in the summer so it was nice to find them being sold. I bought two big bags then realized I wouldn't be able to eat them all before they went bad so I made a cherry vanilla shake and a cherry-rum limeade to go with dinner. I also picked up some cheap cherry tomatoes and sugar snap peas. I'm trying to eat my way through my cupboards/fridge atm so I ended up having them together with home made inari sushi and rice balls filled with seaweed and egg furikake. My father is coming on Weds to stay for awhile before he takes my car (since I can't leave it sitting out for 10 months) and goes to visit my elder brothers and families who live in Kentucky and Missouri. I plan on dragging him to the farmer's market where we will buy even more cherries. Mwahaha!

Today, I lazed about in the morning before heading into the city to hit the library. I had a huge bag of books with me which needed scanning before I leave since I can't afford to lug them with me to Korea. I can request English language book chapters be scanned in online, but they only find my Korean and Japanese books about half of the time and since I own them anyway, it's easier to scan them in myself. I got to the one computer attached to the biggest scanner in the library (since some of my books are very oversized) and there was already someone there. Since there was a computer free next to her, I asked her if she could let me use the one attached to the scanner. She turns to me and asks, 'Are you a student?' I refrain from pointing out that you need a student (or at least a university) id card to get into the library and say I'm a grad student. She points out there are scanners downstairs. I point out that they're tiny and pull out one of my huge coffee table sized books (Korean archaeological institutes don't dick around when it comes to book size). She finally agrees to move. I spend the next three hours scanning in books (and occasionally wondering why the woman who moved spent the entire time googling obscure tv stars and musicians), and I sadly still have several more books to go, but I left around dinner time because enough is enough. Came home and made real mac and cheese with broccoli to try to use up my pasta, frozen broccoli and bread crumbs. Ate while watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith, devoured more cherries, did some knitting and now I'm reading. I'm trying to finish off the Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic series before I leave. I have just one book left to go which needs to be finished before my dad gets here. I should make it. I'm meeting friends for the next few days to say farewell. Once Dad gets here (bringing my second suitcase with him), I'll be packing up a storm. So it goes.

I had a dream last night that I was dating Pedro Pascal. We were in, like, a chick flick plot where I had to accept his 8 year old son, and his acting career.

( GOT spoilers )

Spring break was this past week. I made up a list of various things both academic and not which needed to be done such as my taxes, and scholarship applications, and made it a goal to finish one of those things a day. I managed to keep that goal until Friday when I procrastinated writing a paper until Sunday evening, but overall, it was a productive spring break. I even made one of the things on my list to 'take a day off' so I drove with a friend down to Chicago. I had deep dish pizza at Giordano's for the first time. It is very tasty, and reminded me of a medieval pie with its thick crust. I am not sure if it really beats out all the other delicious pizza I've had in my life across the world though. We then headed over to the art institute where we spent a lot of time in the Asian wings (because my friend and I both work in different parts of Asia). They have a very nice display of Hiroshige's on display atm, and we debated our favourite form of hindu god. Once we were tired out, we headed out of the city and stopped at Ikea so I could buy some pretty lights, and we could have a swedish meatball dinner. I was pretty knackered when we got back, but the $4 platter of cinnamon buns from Ikea fed me until Sunday.

I am currently in the process of scheduling my prelim *fingers crossed the last professor will agree to the time* and just working my way through the rest of my to do list. I really want to write an article on one of my dissertation topics atm, but I'm stalled because I can't do so without reading the 200 page report on the topic in Japanese *whimpers*

I taught myself to knit this past month. My father and brother found it pretty surprising. I'm guessing because they consider it a girly thing and I'm not into so-called girly things, but it seemed rather practical to me that I, who is very allergic to all types of wool, be able to make something warm and cozy for myself during the winter that will not actually contain wool. Either that, or the cold weather has driven me mad, and I'm preparing for the winter lasting forever. (Take that, White Walkers!)

Well, believe it or not, I only managed to recover from my flu symptoms last friday. The fever went away, but the coughing, sniffling, headaches, ear pain, and exhaustion lingered for about three weeks, and the coughing and sniffling lingered until a few days ago. Every time I spent more than a short amount of time in the cold, the symptoms got worse so I ended up using my car to drive in for my classes to limit my time outside. I haven't been getting much done because of how much sleep my body was demanding, but I had to give a presentation on my research last week and that's finally galvanized me to get over my burnout and get back to work. I just keep repeating to myself that this is my last term. Thank the gods.

Bujinkan last night was focused on sui no kata (water). Sui is flowing, yes, but it's also about controlling the flow within your body. The arm comes up to block, and though your wrist moves, the crook of your elbow should still be pointing up at all times (it's the same for the strike), as you block, your back hip opens up and is pulled in, the back hand comes straight up then strikes out in shuto, and all that energy from the hip gets transferred to your back and arm, backing up the strike. You are also pulling your shoulder muscles back when you block and strike, this makes you use your whole body not just your arm. I need to practice this and keeping my elbow crook facing up.

We did a lot of variations on sui no kata. They changed a little when the attacker switched to throwing crosses. This shortened the amount of time/space you had to respond so we were sort of doing relaxed versions of sui no kata. One hand up to block, the other with the elbow up to block the second punch that usually follows, you go around that arm (using the elbow as a pivot) and then do the shuto. A variation had you placing your hand on the back of their neck, then straightening and twisting so they fell down.

The weapon was once again sword (I'm assuming because Jack got a new wooden Chinese style sword which he wants to play with). Sui no kata works very well with sword. You still block with the sword (keeping your kamae), then move in to use your other hand to either grab their sword, or what not. The attack btw, was not overhead but swinging the sword one handed from about neck height (my partner's sword was very heavy so my arm is killing me, plus it wasn't well finished so I have a splinter too). One variation involved the usual block, but then a circular motion while stepping in to get their sword out of the way (a sort of twisting of the blades) while still allowing yours to be pointing at them.

My training partner was a new green belt I've never met before, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that while his movements were very slow and jerky, he was generally on the right track. Jack told me to stop being so nice to my partner though. *oy vey*

First, the yuletide fic I wrote.

The Curved Jewel
Fandom: Mushi-shi
Summary: Most jewels are just stone, beautiful and precious. But some jewels are born of air, not earth, and those jewels contain souls.
Note: This was a lot of fun to write since I just incorporated the stone beads I study for my dissertation work as mushi. Otherwise known as, yes, this fic is strangely historically accurate for a series based on magical non-living organisms that exist in an alternate premodernish Japan.

The fic written for me was in The Almighty Johnsons fandom, I'll Find You Another Time . (Or Five Other Ways the Johnsons Might Have Stumbled Across the Frigg.) It's very good.

Also, chapter 5 of How to Be Bilbo Baggins: A Guide to Dragon Taming and Dwarf Managing has been added.

I have spent this holiday trying to feel like a normal human after such a crappy semester. This has mostly involved switching to a schedule where I stay up until 3am, sleep until 11am or noon, play video games (with my little brother whenever possible), visiting with friends, read the books and comics I've been putting on hold, and watch the huge numbers of shows I am now behind on. Consequently, now that the holidays are well and over, I am finally starting to feel like I can handle my final semester of classes. I still have two weeks before those classes start and will be in NJ for most of them. I plan on working on my dissertation proposal, but I've been distracted because I started working on my Uric book again. I need to rewrite parts of the most recently written chapter, and I started the next one. (there's only about 3-4 chapters left so it's very exciting). But I really need to reread it too which is a pain since it's rather long. Still, there are plenty of fics out there which are longer, and I've been trying very hard to keep away from the newer Hobbit fics so I don't get mired in a wall of tabs to be read, and not get any work done. We'll see how long that vow lasts.

Yesterday, we got a bit of a snowstorm here. I went out and did the shoveling afterwards so my dad didn't have to. This has left me quite sore today, but accomplished. I plan on heading back to Bujinkan on Monday and I'm really looking forward to it.

Media updates:

I am finding myself not enthused at all about the new Sherlock. Watching people react to it on tumblr told me I wasn't going to like it (this is not a new sensation... I have huge problems with pretty much every episode of Sherlock except for S101 and 103). So I banned it with xkit and found my life and stress got a whole lot less. I figure I'll save season 3 for several months down the line or watch it in small sections so it doesn't annoy me so much, or maybe I'll just drop it like I did new Who. Elementary is a much superior modern adaptation anyway. And the old school Russian or Granada versions are still top notch.

Let's see, the most recent arc in the Deadpool comic (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) has been fantastic. It really brought the tone back to the original Deadpool comic series which alternated between comedy and tragedy whereas most recent Deadpool comics have been firmly comedy oriented (with the exception of Deadpool kills the marvel universe which was just weird).

The first new Sandman comic is brilliantly illustrated, but doesn't have much plot yet.

Have caught up with Elementary, and Castle. Still working on Person of Interest and Grimm. Am enjoying Grimm more than I expected after seeing the crappy mid season 2 finale (yes, I am that far behind).

Percy Jackson: The House of Hades - have I reviewed this yet? It made up for a lot of gaps and pacing problems the previous book had, and clarified something regarding Nico which had struck me as firmly ooc last book. This was confirmed to be a lie, thankfully, but the poor kid really needs a hug. Overall, I enjoyed it, especially Leo's unexpected romance and Frank and Hazel's character development. Could have taken or left the trip through Tartarus though.

Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire. This book still suffers from the pacing problems of pretty much all of her books. I think I'm just going to have to get used to it or learn to be grumpy about it each book. Terribly slow for the first 2/3 of the book, then a breakneck pace for the rest of it. The characters are all still awesome and interesting, but the foreshadowing was a bit much in this book. Otherwise known as, I really wasn't worried about the main conflict which is not a bad thing, but I hope the stakes ramp up next book.

I am really tempted to go to the Yule Ball this year. I have no one to go with and no costume to wear, but damn if that doesn't sound relaxing. There's a feast beforehand with butterbeer, etc. It's a little pricey, so I'm wibbling. Hmm.

(I have a 20 page paper due this week, plus I'm leading discussion in class the same day, and I'm leading discussion tomorrow. This is my second hell week of the term. Such joy.)