the beginning of the winter break

Life after the finals is the opposite of what it was before. During much of the term, I had little sleep and a whole lot to do. Now that everything (well, almost) is over, and I have cancelled my trip down to Hiroshima & Nagasaki, I feel like I have the whole day to myself and nothing to do.

It feels really weird, not to have that much to do after 2 months of crazy homework+assignments+projects+papers+tests and surviving on 4 hours of sleep on most days. I thought that was crazy, that postgraduate studies is even more exhausting than working life. Most of my peers came to the same conclusion as well.

Since it's winter break and most of the students are away in other parts of the country or traipsing around the world, I take my time in waking up. And end up having breakfast when it's supposed to be lunch time, and eat my lunch when everyone else is cooking their dinner. It's unhealthy I know, and I'm supposed to decide on a thesis topic before the year ends, but so far I've been doing nothing much.

Maybe I feel like I need to pamper myself after all the hard work. Speaking of hard work, I just went to see my Japanese sensei yesterday to get my results. I was given a preview of my position by my senior who's also in the same class, but I didn't dare expect too much as everyone was complaining about how hard the final paper was.

I was so happy that I'm on the 9th position, just after JC, this American guy who's so good he's supposed to be in the Advanced class. No matter that I didn't get the best grade, nor that my scores looked kinda average seen first glance. But the fact that all my hard work finally paid off was good enough a reward for me.

I actually put in more hours into Japanese compared to any the other subjects just because I have to work doubly hard compared to the rest who are much better than me. Much of the 4-hour-sleep-per-day was attributed to this. It's really quite ironic considering Japanese, even with daily classes only get 1 credit per term, and doesn't really count towards the whole.

My sensei gave me some constructive criticisms and comments when he showed me my paper. I was good at guessing kanji meanings but poor at the reading. Not surprising since I barely finished learning the kanji list meant for Intermediate level (and still passed the qualifying test! PTL) and Japanese kanji has its own quirks! Yes, a kanji is read differently on its own, and another way when it's combined with other kanji's.

Perhaps because of that, I got a little motivated and decided to get myself a Bilingual Bible. I had earlier wanted to get one for myself so that I could brush up on the language and also (hopefully) memorise verses in Japanese. I was just mentioning to the pastor's wife the other day about it. She kinda misunderstood and had actually ordered one for me through a local Christian catalogue.

I saw it on the reception table last Sunday and asked if she was selling it. Turned out, she thought I had placed an order through her, and so she purchased it on my behalf. So to cut the story abit shorter, I bought the Bible and went home with something that I've (quite) always wanted but didn't know how to get. And this is my first verse : 主は私の羊飼い。私は、乏しいことがありません。 It's from Psalm 23:1 :)