Saved

. . .Barely. So I was able to get away with paying 25% of my tuition, as long as I pay the rest before the end of the school term (sometime in August). So that was $614.27. Meaning I now have about -$200 in my bank account. Lotsa fun.
. . .Handed in my math assignment even though it wasn't stapled. "All right, Joe, I'll staple it for you, but only 'cause it's you. Don't let it happen again!" said my math prof. He's so cool! ^__^
. . .I've gotta stop caring about my emotional welfare and just become a mindless puppet, knowing only how to clean, study and organize. The poor do not deserve life. And as such, I wouldn't be surprised if I were to disappear from the face of this earth in the next few months...

Perdition

. . .N'er do anything at the last minute. Obvious, one would think. But yah. So no OSAP for me this term. Which means that I'll have to magically summon $4000, $3000 of which I'll need within the next week to pay for rent, utilities, tuition... Even if I could secure a part-time job, I'd have to wait until the first month to get SOME money. And the University as an Institution doesn't really wanna take my word for it that I'll pay a week after the deadline, huh.
. . .Not sure why I'm posting this here... All it does is annoy ppl with my problems, all the while without actually solving my problems... But I guess I just need a place to vent... So please, unless you have something constructive to say, please don't leave a crass comment in ill humour.
. . .Suicide? Tempting, but no. The world truely is a dark and lonely place...

Future

. . .I may not have yet found a direction in which to head, but at least I found a passion -- the study of languages. My Japanese may not be very well, but that doesn't deter me from learning more vocab, kanji, historical orthographies or more grammar.
. . .Feeling strangely well right now. Must be because I woke up without an alarm clock at such an early hour. (7:20am) How? It doesn't matter, because I've just shown myself that I shouldn't need to depend on an alarm clock this term. Meanwhile, I still have to print my résumé and go job hunting. The one major thing I'm worried about is whether my potential employers will understand what it is exactly to be a "candidate for a Bachelor's degree in Independent Studies", to which end I hoped to list some of the things I've done through the program, but it seems rather irrelevant if I were applying for say, a tutoring job.
. . .Ah well. I'm having fun translating this lil' story thingy. I'll have to get my hands on the entire book than just this 8-page excerpt. ...After I finish translating. =)

Flowers!

. . .Strangely happy today. Probably because I spent the greater half of my day today in the company of friends. (I was productive too!) But yah. Tomorrow's when I get to act officially as Konja's new president for the spring term. Whee~
. . .In other news, I'm sorta on my way in translating that thing for the Japanese competition thingy. Dictionaries only help so much; so much of translating texts involves the tacit connotations of diction and interpretation of syntax. Guh... Lotsa work, but I enjoy it. ^_^
. . .This weekend, I'll get to visit my old highschool, gain access to a scanner (finally!!) and do some light studying on the side. ^_^ Friend sleeping over again, get to have another semi-intensive language exchange, and just get to plain relax in the comforts of my own home. ^^

Mastered

. . .Whee~! I learned another writing system! Yay! KJ taught me how to read/write Korean, which is freakishly phonographic (orthographic?). There's different characters for an unaspirated /p/, an aspirated /p/ and a glottalized /p/. Crazy, huh! Some of the diphthongs took me a while to get used to, especially since we like to slide our vowels all over the place in English, and certain different vowels in Korean are considered the same in Japanese.
. . .Aside from that, I really should get my butt into high-gear and start working hard in my classes. Still gotta sort out my OSAP crappery. Having a scanner would make things so much easier... but anyways.
. . .It really got me thinking. Especially with the language exchange that I have going with KJ. I think I'd really enjoy teaching English. And even though my parents don't seem to think that I know English really well because naturally, who'd pick an English teacher of Oriental descent when they can have the blond-haired, blue-eyed American? Guh... We work hard to eliminate racism, but it's still fiercely corporeal, even if we've learned to disguise it better. Whatever shall I do? I guess I really would have to get at least a Masters in English or a PhD if I hope to get recognized in the realm. And I suppose linguistics will have to take a back-seat to my passion for the bastard language that is English. And by linguistics, I really mean translation fun stuff, or second-language acquisition/teaching a second language.
. . .Lalala... my future is really screwed... whee~~

Stupid

. . .Why can't I stick to my simple decisions to block out certain people from my life? Who am I to judge people? Nobody. But surely I'm at liberty to choose my friends and surely it is within my right to decide whom I confide in. If people don't want to open up to me, fine.
. . .Cynicism has some cause. Women are a popular cause for many men's cynicism. Not that the two are related in any way. Intelligence does not equal emotionaly intelligence does not equal maturity. As I'm quickly discovering, the novelty of such young intelligece is wearing quite thin when compared to the constant crassness of consciously constructed cuteness. I use subjunctives as much as any man, and in fact even more so, but it bugs the *bleep* out of me when I need to know details and all I get is "I don't know?". *BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP*!!! If one's going to invite me to sth., at least have the decency to give me a rough time frame, an approximate guest list and a list of possible activities and locations. I may be an increasingly social creature of late, but that doesn't mean that I have the luxury of an entire day just to wait for a last-minute phone call. I realize by reading this blog, my number of invitations to social outings will be drastically reduced, but is it really too much for me to ask for common decency? At the very least, when I make plans with people, I give a rough idea -- afternoon or evening, karaoke, movie, friend's house or bbt, just the two of us or a group of three or more. I don't deal with idiocy like, "wanna do sumthin' next week? dunno when, dunno what, dunno with whom. juss sumtin."
. . .I realize that the notion of etiquette is dead in this world, as is God, or so Nietzsche would say. And as a certain radicalist ex-friend would say, one should just forget the restrictive conventions of the past and accept that people aren't perfect. Sounds good, except that that just gives people more leyway to offend others.
. . .Yes, we are human. Yes, we aren't perfect. But should that be an excuse to lower our standards? Would you shrug off a railway accident as "human error" just because in that one crutial split second while the teenager was dashing across the railway, the driver was blinking and didn't see him? Personally, I think it's only by having high standards that we can hope to improve as a society. People are sloth - a fact that history seems to prove over and over and over again. Despite our greatest efforts, there will always be factors that will retard or deter our aims. To use the analogy of a projectile, if one were to aim straight at the target, gravity would pull down the projectile lower than where one aimed. Similarly, it's only by aiming higher that one can hope to maintain a reasonable society. If one's aim is already low, just imagine how much more easily one's aims will be detered...

*Phew*

. . .Well, the scheduling conflict was resolved. But I ended up TA'ing both sections for that one day. SO tired. Recognized some people in my new TA section, so that's a bit of a bonus. Not entirely a sea of strangers. Yay! Other courses are going ok... so this term should be good. ^__^
. . .Oh yah... been hanging out with a lot of other people this week too. Now that I know people from Toronto who're here in UW, it's kinda nice to just be there and help serve as reminders that we're not alone in this soul-sucking space. ^^;

Spring Term

. . .Whee... classes have started again. I brilliantly scheduled a math class to cut clear into my Japanese TA time, so now I gotta talk to the other TA's to see if they wanna swap. So far classes are interesting... sorta. I see myself falling asleep in my Intro. to Group Theory class, but that might just be because I didn't get a lot of sleep the night before. Today I have Intro. to Linguistics, and I'll try out auditing Intro. to Semiotics. It sounds interesting, but I'm not sure how well I'd be able to take it as a full course.
. . .*groans* I gotta go textbook shopping sometime today. I probably should have done it this morning, but I'm lazy and enjoying the few precious moments of morning that I do have before the daily set of worries starts to set in and remind me why I'm always depressed whenever I'm resident in Waterloo.
. . .Speaking of which, I'm going to start up another story soon. Hopefully I'll get to see this one to completion, but knowing me, that might take some time. ^^; Well anyways, I should be going now, gonna try to get some textbooks before my linguistic classes...

Bright and Early

. . .Only not so bright and far too early. Yesterday, I woke up at 5:30 without any disturbances. Which is really weird, because I crashed into bed at around 11:30pm or so. So what was Joseph to do? Absolutely nothing. I decided to check out what all this hype about the forums were about and found some pretty interesting topics. Some were kinda geeky -- "Where can I find the codec for blahblahblah?" but others were more serious such as the legalization of gay marriages.
. . .Ummmm.... met up with an old friend today. That was kinda cool, but our time was cut short cuz of Dhoui's farewell party... :( He's flying to Taiwan! I've gotta get his mailing address; there's sth. I forgot to give at the farewell party. But anywhoo...