Term is Almost Over!

I'm sooooooooo glad that I finished my last lecture today! I felt comfortable in this small class, not always though. I may miss this small class because I liked this small crowd of students. But if I'm asked whether I like teaching, my answer is no. It's too much work and too little reward. I want to feel that my labor is worth something. Teaching is not my thing.

Anyway, tomorrow's large class will be taken care of my lovely teaching assistant. So, I will take a day-off. Actually, I have to do something else. And, Thursday, I will just give the exam to the small class. Oh yeah, there will be the final for the large class, but that's nothing. After that, I will be in Hawaii, woo-hoo!

Life Change

Um, I'm not sure whether the title is accurate. It's not that big deal. I was just asked by my committee member to sit his house and cats for two months in January and February. But that'd change my life a lot. If I will stay in his house for two months, there's no reason for me to keep my current room. If I keep it, I will just waste my scarce money for rents and utilities (The house owner forces me to pay utilities that I don't use, which pisses me off).

I talked with DS to secure a temporary place to stay. She is always generous so that she immediately accepted me. After that, I told the house owner that I'd move out by the end of December. He said OK. OK, then, my life will change.

I won't miss this hippie house and the owner (no way!) at all, but I will miss my housemate. She is a nice, comfortable girl to share a house with.

Hair Cut After More Than One Year!

A-ha! Finally, after more than one year, a year and half, maybe, I had my hair cut this afternoon. It is the first time for me to go to a hair salon in this hippie town, wow. I don't have my hair cut so often anyway because I don't feel comfortable to go to a hair salon even in Japan. I don't know, but it may be because I don't like awkward conversations between a hair dresser and me while having my hair cut, mm.

Anyhow, my hair was really long, well, I should say heavy. I have thick hair, which is good. But when it gets long, it becomes heavy.　For instance, when I put my hair in a bun on the top of the head, I feel pressure from it. I almost gets a headache.

I complained about my long hair to my gym friend who is Korean, and she introduced her hair dresser to me. Initially, I was thinking of getting a hair cut in Hawaii when I go down there next month because I thought there must be a bunch of Asian hair dressers there, given the large population of Asians, especially Japanese. But this Korean gym friend who used to live in Hawaii told me that it is expensive in Hawaii and suggested to me to get one here, instead.

The hair dresser she introduced me was also Korean, a very nice, polite lady. Her work was fast and pretty good. Now, my hair is light again! And she charged me a very reasonable fee. $18 for a hair cut! I wrote a check of $22 including a tip for her, but it was still reasonable. I will come back to her some time again :)

Bye-Bye Evil Bank of America

I closed my BA account this afternoon. I was thinking of doing so for a long time, but I didn't want to stay in a long line to do so, which prevented me from doing so. But today is Black Friday when everyone is busy going shopping crazy, and the bank must be slow. I was right. No line at all.

The atmosphere at the bank was a little different. In the first place, a guard was standing at the entrance (because of the Occupy thing). And a bank clerk asks you the reason of closing the account (because of the Occupy thing). Because I saw a news clip in which a customer who closed her account with Citibank was arrested at the bank, I didn't tell the clerk that I closed my account because I've been pissed off by BA. Instead, I told him that I may be leaving the country. That is not necessarily a lie. I have to leave the country, as early as the spring, if I can't find a job. So, the clerk closed my account without asking me further questions.

This is a small town, but the Occupy thing is apparently going on. Actually, some people have been arrested. I felt uneasy by looking at the militarization of banks and police. Where is this country heading to?

Turkey Day

D & T invited me for their Thanksgiving dinner. They are a nice, lovely couple. T cooked all from scratch, wow, fantastic! Turkey is turkey, but decent stuffing and yummy vegetables, hmm, good job, T.

D invited other people from my school. It was nice to see people from my school. I don't complain. But I realized that their conversations were boring, sadly boring. This is highly likely because I'm alienated from my school and I'm not interested in teaching, a Ph.D. or the university. I'm in a complete apathetic state, probably I have since I passed my comprehensive exams a few years ago. Why have I been in the university though I've been feeling I don't belong to it? Oh, well, that's a question too late to ask. Anyhow, I was bored, and I realized that I was getting bitter. So, I just shut my mouth. I don't want to be a bitter person, ugh. I just want to be out of my current situation ...

Black Beans

I'm proud of myself, cooking black beans! Oh ho ho ho ho, they look fantastic. I can't wait until tomorrow to taste them!

Waiting for Superman

I found my housemate keeping this DVD in her shelf. Taking advantage of being her housemate, I watched it while enjoying wine. Well, it turned out that this movie is not good to watch over wine. The movie is all about the depressing, dysfunctional public education system in the United States. It is understandable that parents want to homeschool their kids or send their kids to magnet schools or charter schools.

In a sense, the movie is helpful for foreigners like me to understand why the level of knowledge of university students, generally speaking, is incredibly low. I only know students here (a public university), so I don't intend to generalize what I have experienced and witnessed. But I have heard similar stories from teachers and parents across the country.

But this movie is kind of anti-union, bashing unionized, tenure-track teachers. They are unionized and tenured so that schools cannot fire them easily. That's what the movie says. Really?! I thought. Look at what it happening across the country. Teachers are being fired because of massive budget cuts. Kids are losing their favorite teachers. Kids are taking four-day weekends, which is ridiculous to me. The anti-union message aside, the movie tells you enough about how bad the public school system can be.

Another Toshiba

This looks better? Well, in the photos, they are the same, but this model is newer and installed better CPU. The price is about 10,000 yen more, but it's still reasonable. Because this model was released just last month, so I can't find any review about the keyboard. It should be improved ... that's my hope.

Ultrabook

This looks fantastic, though it looks like an imitation of MacBook Air. It weighs only 1 kilogram, which is fantastic. Toshiba just released this model today. But the problem is that this model is not equipped with a DVD player or Blu-ray player. Mm ...

Desperately Need a New PC

My 5-year-old Fujitsu is cranky and getting crankier every day. Windows sometimes does "unexpected shutdown," volume sometimes can't adjust, some keys are not in use for a long time, power is unstable, etc. etc. I have to seriously think of replacing it. So, I started searching a new one.

My conditions are: either Fujitsu or Toshiba, a 15 inch monitor, Microsoft Office installed and a reasonable price. I sent these conditions to KK for advice. KK is my personal computer consultant. He picked up a few options, and I'm currently into Toshiba Dynabook. Dynabook is lighter than Fujitsu, which is the decisive point.


This model looks good for the price. KK recommended this. I read reviews about this model. One of customer complaints is that the keyboard is cheesy and hard to type. Mm ...

Week 7 is Done

Thursday evenings relax me. I'm so tired of teaching. I have hated the Monday and Wednesday class for a long time, but recently, I'm not so happy about the Tuesday and Thursday class anymore. I just can't keep doing this. Teaching is not my thing, which is for sure. But this is the only way for me to make a living right now. Sucks.