a few more snapshots

My bookshelf this term

Can't believe it's already February! Hurray birthday month!

Keeping me inspired

And finally, a little friend in the dining room

how i relax and de-stress

I'm going to delve into some real talk right now, mostly because this is something that I need to remind myself of constantly: relax. Anyone who is working on graduate studies can tell you that things can get hella stressful, hella fast. As I've mentioned before, moving from a semester system to the quarter system has done a number on my stress level, but I have discovered a few good tricks that get me to chill when I need to. Some of these are obvious (yet I still manage to forget them), and some of these are things that will maybe only work for me - but since I have a tendency to forget things, I better write these things down!

human contact // whenever I'm stressed I tend to turn inwards and keep to myself. Part of this is also due to the fact that I'm pretty introverted so when I feel drained, my default mode is to lock-down. There was one point during last term during which I was so stressed that I basically shut myself in for the week - the only time I interacted with people was during class. My boyfriend came to visit after that time (he's doing grad work in another state, sadly) and gave me a lot of crap about losing my ability to speak, which was actually true. Once you lose your ability to speak coherently, you realize your approach is probably not the best. So I started to reach out to my good friends in my program, inviting them to hang out, get tea/goodies, and lo-and-behold I felt more relaxed! Even though I have class with one of my bffs, we try to get weekly get-togethers with our other friend so we can all laugh/vent/whatever and just have a good break from the academic rigors of our program. Ever since I've made more effort to see the people I know will leave me with a huge smile on my face, I feel less stressed. Funny how that works.

knitting // really any type of hobby can stand in for knitting, but for me the most relaxing thing I can do is sit down, put on a short podcast/tv show and just knit. My favorite thing about knitting, besides falling into a rhythm that eases any mental tension, is the fact that though you may be relaxing YOU ACTUALLY PRODUCE SOMETHING! Especially since this winter has been historically cold, I get to wear my creations all the time - I am partial to textured cowls in particular so in the past month I have made two: one of wool (for the days that are -10) and one of acrylic yarn (for the slightly less cold days). My favorite sites for great patterns are Ravelry and Purl Bee Soho - between these two sites you'll be able to find any type of project you could desire!

Some of my previous knitting-to-destress projects

listening to podcasts, radio shows or audiobooks // I like to listen to podcasts/audiobooks during the day as a way to get my mind off work, but I also like listening to them if I'm having problems falling asleep. I don't know why but I cannot listen to music when I fall asleep, but for some reason as soon as I put on an audio book or a podcast I fall asleep fairly quickly. My go-to audiobook has been the same for the past four years: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy read by Stephen Fry. But a close second has to be any of the Jeeves and Wooster audiobooks. Once in a while I put on a standup album and that sends me off to sleep, as well. For comedy I usually listen to Jim Gaffigan, which I did last night, actually (Mr. Universe). A friend of mine recently suggested listening to The Dead Authors podcast and I cannot believe that it took me so long to listen to them! My favorite has to be 'Chapter 19: The Authors of the Gospels' which had me in stitches the whole time. I also love listening to BBC radio programs; my favorite at the moment is The Unbelievable Truth presented by David Mitchell - Season 12 Episode 3 is one of my favorites!

candles // for some reason candles immediately set the mood from stress to chill. I am addicted to Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Candles - Lavender is my all time favorite but I also have Geranium. What I like about these candles is the fact that they are made out of organic soy and they also kick off a lot of scent - I will say that, as the name suggests, the smell is really 'clean' and not too perfumey, which is something I really like.

painting my nails // I switch up my nail polish either every week or every two weeks depending how much time I have - mostly because there is something very therapeutic about painting my nails. I have no idea why, but I always feel relaxed afterward. Unless I smudge my still-wet nails by accident.

food // Okay, this is something that I can't help but put on the list. I am definitely an emotional eater; if I'm happy I'll eat to celebrate, if I'm stressed I'll still eat. However, I have learned that cooking a meal from scratch is something that takes your mind off any stress, and you feel like you've accomplished something! Plus you get to eat what you've created.

These are just a few things that work for me, but if anyone has any other good de-stressing tips, I am all ears!

from the bookshelf #1

Whenever the academic year gets underway I immediately fall off the 'reading-for-fun' bandwagon, even though I have a fantastic library system at my disposal! But, alas, I just run out of time. In lieu of reading new books, here is a list of some of my favorites from my bookshelf - as a disclaimer, three of the six are actually translations (two of which I haven't read in the original, because I cannot read Russian or Italian) so read them in the original language if you can, but if not there are definitely good translations out there!

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky I always hesitate to call this my favorite book because I have never read it in the original (like I said, no Russian skills) but I just love the story so much that I just have to list it as a constant favorite. I first read this when I was twelve - I know, I was an ambitious reader - but of course none of the meaning really sunk in (obviously). I reread it when I was probably about fifteen or so and that's when the story really hit home and I fell in love with the novel. Since then I try to make it a point to reread it once a year and I've actually been mostly successful in that endeavor. ANYWAY. Once you get past the sheer number of characters and also get past the cringe-worthiness of some of their actions, the ideas Dostoevsky manages to present through these characters are truly thought-provoking and beautiful. 

Dune by Frank Herbert And now for a complete change of register - here's some classic sci-fi! If you're not familiar with the Dune series, there are a billion books. I've never actually counted, but I remember going into the local Borders (a moment of silence for Borders Bookstores), heading straight to the sci-fi section, and seeing a few shelf-fulls of Dune books. Some of these were written by Herbert himself while others were written by his son and, weirdly enough, Kevin J. Anderson - whose name is only familiar to me because I read a TON of Star Wars novels when I was young. I had weird taste in books when I was a kid, apparently. Regardless, I love Dune because I'm all over any sci-fi books that create worlds and cultures in detail and I thought the ecosystem of Arrakis was really neat. That being said, I strongly caution anyone who decides to read the rest of the series because in my personal opinion the quality of the books themselves crashes after the second and third novels. Then the stories get super sketchy (which includes scenes of child molestation and even worse things, what the hell Herbert?!) - so word to the wise, just read this one.   If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino Now this is a really awesome book for anyone who likes novels that really play around with narrative structure. However, I do not have any skill whatsoever in reading Italian, so I rely on translation - but the translation was good! I don't want to give too much away because this is a book that does its best work when the reader approaches it with no preconceptions. I read it on a whim without knowing anything about it and it BLEW MY MIND. Go read it!   The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro This was the first book of Ishiguro's books that I read and because of that it holds a special place in my heart. My boyfriend also got me a beautiful hard-bound copy of it and it looks so pretty on my shelf, which also probably adds to its appeal. I remember how struck I was by Ishiguro's evocative language and the amount of feeling he transmits to readers in such short works. This novel is part of his war trilogy (which includes An Artist of the Floating World and A Pale View of Hills, both of which are also fantastic) and is the only one of the three novels set in England - the other two deal with the issues of post-war Japan. Honestly, I love anything written by Ishiguro so it was hard to pick just one novel. Seriously, go pick out any one of his books and I can almost guarantee that you will be floored.     Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami I freaking love Murakami. It was hard for me to pick just one but this novel is my favorite out of all his works - 1Q84 was a close second - I just can't get over the amazing mix of magical realism, psychological study, and his unique narrative style. I've also read quite a few of his novels in the original Japanese and I can tell you his novels do translate well into English. Like the Calvino novel, I don't want to go too much into detail because I think Murakami is so fun to read without knowing what the hell is going on (which is a significant chunk of the time, let's be honest), so go read it!

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall This one is another one of those books that I can reread a million times. I love this one because Hall plays with narrative and the bounds of language, but he does it within the action genre. Most novels that attempt to break narrative convention have a contemplative atmosphere and even though there may be some action in it, the action itself is not necessarily what the focus is on. Hall's novel on the other hand reads like one of the Bourne books but manages to completely blow your mind with new ways in which language can become sentient - just, go read it and you'll see what I mean. Spoiler: yes there is a real shark. But not in the way you'd think.  And as a bonus, here's a book that is not my favorite, but I have a weird love-hate-fear relationship with it because it is an incredible work, but it scares the be-jeezus out of me every time I see it on the shelf: House of Leaves. If you want your mind blown, crying/rocking in the corner, while becoming afraid of your own house, then go read this one.  

some real talk

HAPPY OCTOBER! And happy first day of some classes for me, yesterday.

A good portion of all the small talk I had with people yesterday revolved around the fact that we cannot believe it is already October...and the fact that we can't believe how late the University starts its Fall Term. Like most schools, my undergrad institution was on the semester system, so by this time we were already planning for mid-terms and getting excited for fall break. NOT SO ANYMORE. The University is on a quarter system, so we began this academic year on October 1st and we go until June 27th. Which is all something very new for me, but something two of my good friends experienced at their undergrad college - so at least I had heard of the quarter system before I arrived.

Now that the term is up and kicking, we also received our first paper back. Now let me say a few things about the difference between undergraduate vs. graduate papers. The obvious one is that you are expected to have a much more mature writing style and a more concrete grasp on what is it you want to argue. That is all well and good - but here's the curve ball. My theory course requires us to write four papers a term, and these papers must be in the style of analytic exposition.

[cue horror music]

An analytic exposition is a paper where you do not get to argue anything, you don't get to set up your own critiques, and you certainly don't get to engage really in any way with the text. All you get to do is pick apart the original argument, figure out what the grounds are for their argument, how the grounds support the argument, examine how the argument pertains to the rest of the work, and then determine the stakes of the argument. To put it plainly, you are explaining how someone else's argument is functioning BUT you can't make any value judgements on it yourself. Needless to say this is not the kind of paper I am used to writing and so when we handed it in, I was quite worked up over it. I was SURE I was going to get a D or lower because I have no past experience with this type of writing and I felt like I was floundering.

Definitely had a moment of impostor syndrome where I thought that they'll find me out and kick me out of the program because I clearly don't belong here!! This paper must have revealed all!!

But surprisingly that's not what happened. Turns out I got one of the highest grades and even though I definitely need to keep my preceptor's comments in mind for my next paper (on Hegel, no less - someone just kill me right now), I had made a limping move in the right direction. By no means am I saying that I understand how to write these types of papers, but I am kind of maybe getting the hang of it. Another thing that helped me muscle my way through that first attempt was that I can see how the analytic exposition forces us to look closely at and to allow ourselves to momentarily immerse ourselves in an argument in order to see its benefits as well as the flaws. These exercises will help me reflect on my own arguments and will, hopefully, let me see the holes in my thinking before someone else does!

Our next paper is due next week and, as I woefully mentioned earlier, it is on Hegel. Whom no one understands. Least of all myself, with my limited philosophy background. But I'm going to try my darndest anyway!

And finally, apropos of nothing: my new shoes came in the mail yesterday and I AM IN LOVE.

I have an interview today so these shoes arrived at the perfect time! And now that these babies are here, I am definitely being more aware of spending and budgeting - let's hope the job works out!

a few snapshots

A blog that only offers readers a block of text is no fun at all, am I right? So to balance out my very word-heavy posts, have a few bits and pieces of what my new home looks like!

Lovely original artwork by my good friend Jackie over at mutton thumper!

japan: all in the family

I was flipping through the channels a few days ago and happened upon a show called Who Do You Think You Are (which never fails to remind me of this song). The show chronicles celebrities' searches for their family histories and some find really interesting documents from over a century ago, if their family line extends back for ten or more generations. I joked with my mom that if I was on the show my investigations would end at my grandfather, since my family is Japanese and my grandfather was the first of us to come to the United States; he only came over for work and moved back before I was born, so even that line of inquiry would have made for a very short episode. That quip led to a lengthy conversation about my family history that fleshed out a story already knew a bit about.

As I became more interested in pursuing a graduate degree and more specifically, a degree in English Literature, my grandfather told me that I was following in the footsteps of my grandmother's family. It turns out that my great-grandfather (whose name, quite pleasingly is 八鳥 which literally translates as '8 Birds'), was a professor of English Literature. He taught at a prestigious university and published a few works that are unfortunately very hard to come by, especially being overseas. One year when I was visiting my family back in Nagoya, my grandfather gave me a few of my great-grandfather's worn books that were marked up with his own notes written in the margins and all over the page. It was an incredible feeling to know that my family has a history of scholarship that aligns with what deeply fascinates me some ninety years later.

I plan on uncovering more information about my great-grandfather since he died in 1952 before my mother was born, so even she doesn't know much about him. The time period in which he lived, taught, and loved literature is an inconceivably complex time for Japan as a country and I can't help but wonder how he was treated at the height of WWII, since he spent his life studying the language of "the enemy".

There are many questions I still have but it is wonderful knowing that the love of literature has long been ingrained in my family - hopefully I can do their memories justice in my own work!