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Monday was the first day of classes here at IU. I slept until about 2:30PM, and watched TV most of the day. Yep, that’s right, no classes on Mondays for me. It’s looking like the best semester ever, and of course it’s the final countdown (yes, start humming that song). I’m taking 12 credit hours I think, but my schedule is pretty much perfect. I only have classes Tuesday and Thursday, and they don’t start until the afternoon. I don’t think there’s any way to have a schedule better than mine. Here’s a quick rundown of my classes and a wrap-up of Tuesday, which was the first day for me.

Business Marketing M419: Retail Management
I’m going to drop this course tomorrow morning, because I only need 1 more marketing class to graduate. Since I wanted to double check and get a feel for the class before I dropped it, I went to the first day. Note that this meant I had to wake up earlier than I normally would, since this one started at the wee hour of 1PM. Retail management might be useful if I was going to work somewhere like Sears, but I don’t know if I’ll be doing that right after graduation. I got to class on time (seriously, that’s a miracle), and it was in a computer lab that I’ve had several courses in before. That was a big plus; I love computer classes cause they’re usually pretty easy, and I sit there with Outlook and Firefox for web browsing. The class was pretty much all chicks, but the syllabus and prof make it sound like there will be a good amount of work required. Also 3 different groups to work in, which would mean a lot of out-of-class meeting. I don’t want to have to do more group meetings (I have enough meetings as it is). Also the prof mentioned she has a zero-tolerance policy against web browsing and e-mail during class. Uh-oh, no good for me. So yeah, I’m going to drop this as soon as possible. I would have done it earlier but I want to make sure I won’t mess up scholarships or student status when I drop under 12 credit hours. I’ll have 12 eventually, since I’m doing an independent study with the Journalism school. I just have to get that set up and in the books.

Business D302: Operations of International Enterprises
The prof for this class is Dan Li, so I was expecting a Chinese guy. I was right about the Chinese part, but it’s a female. Anyways, this is the continuation of the international business class I took last semester and was pretty un-involved from (still pulled a B). It was also the class that I was late to almost every day that I went to, bombed the tests, but saved myself with the miracle that is known as the “Toys R Us in Japan” paper, which I wrote in Minneapolis and Brian had to turn in for me. Seems like much of the same, but since I don’t have as many classes, I guess I might actually try to study or something. I’m just staying that, you know. I probably won’t do anything for it. Regardless, it’s a fairly straightforward course, much like the last one. A good amount of reading, and that’s that.

Business Marketing M405: Buyer Behavior
The night before going to class, I was looking at the syllabus. The prof’s name is Robert Smith. I was watching Big O on TV at the time and confused it with Roger Smith and thought to myself “sweet, maybe he has a giant robot.” SHOW-TIME! Anyway, this course is pretty much a psych class taught in the business school. It seems pretty interesting and I’m happy to have a class that’s a bit different than ALL the international and marketing-type courses I took last semester. I actually thought to myself the other day (before class) that I wish I had time in my class schedule to take something different, like psychology. Looks like I got my wish. The teacher seems pretty down to earth and relatable (he talked about how he goes to sleep at 3 or 4AM and wakes up at noon), so it should be a fun class. I have to remember not to sit next to the window/AC on Thursday, though, because it was a pain in the butt trying to hear what the prof was saying over the noise of the air conditioner (which was for some reason, blowing COLD air in the middle of January).

Those are the three classes I went to on Tuesday. I’m not going to M419 tomorrow since I’m going to drop it, so I only have class every Tues and Thurs from 2:30 to 5:15. Not too shabby, eh? I deserve this, I’m such a hard working student.

Now, aside from those I’m also taking the following, which will put me to a total of 12 credit hours.

Business X488 Globalization
I need one more class to finish my international business major, and at first I was planning on taking an international economics course or something, which would pretty much kill me. I’ve never done good in econ. Luckily, I got an e-mail in the fall about a new online course available for students studying abroad. Haha, I got in! So, I have a 3 credit hour online course that will finish that second business major, and I don’t have to actually get up and go anywhere. Sweet. It’s not going to be as ridiculous as I kind of hoped for an online course, but it should be better than taking econ nonetheless. I’ll have papers and stuff to do, but I think it should be interesting. Also it looks like a big part of the class is doing journals and “talking” to your classmates on an online message board.

Journalism Independent Research
I really don’t even need to do this, but I think it will be kind of fun and interesting. Also the 3 credit hours of (what will most likely be) A’s will do my GPA good. I’ll be working with a few other IUSTV staff members and the dean of the journalism school (who is new this year and very cool: has a strong interest in student TV) to research other student stations across the country. We’ll look at what makes the best stations the best, and then in turn try and bring new improvements and ideas to IUSTV. I pretty much would do this anyway, so I might as well get credit for it.

That’s the semester. It’s looking like it will be awesome. Fridays are as usual being reserved as IUSTV work days, but I still am undecided on Mondays and Wednesdays. I could spend both of those days doing IUSTV stuff also (which I’ll do to some extent), but I think I’ll finally have more free time in the semester to do what’s important: find a job, sleep, play video games, and watch TV. Life is good. Hope everyone has a good semester. And I hope everyone who is graduated finds a job (snake!).

今学期も夜露死苦、機械犬。

Last night I went with Brian and Nick to the good ol’ China Buffet on 3rd street. We go there somewhat often, since it’s cheap and not too bad. Your standard cheap Chinese buffet restaurant. Also pretty much every entree they have there is some form of chicken, not that that’s a bad thing. Anyways, the main point of this story came at the end of the meal, when it was time to get some dessert. This doesn’t count Nick’s half dessert half meal, which was banana pudding and rice on the same plate. No, Nick, this still isn’t how you make rice pudding.

Now, before I go too far, I must mention that back during the A-Team Halloween weekend, we all went to China Buffet and saw some guy with a super mega ultra mullet. One of his offspring (there was about 20 of them with him) also puked while we were waiting in line to eat. Nothing whets your appetite like some redneck kid puking all over the floor. For dessert, we got the China Buffet brownies. I’d never eaten them before, and they didn’t look that bad. I think either Ari or Fatla had theirs first, and apparently it tasted horrible. You’d think to yourself that if something tastes bad, you wouldn’t want to try it. That’s not how it went down. I think this best relates to that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine has the stinky pen. Even though she knew it was a stinky pen, she kept on smelling it. Something about doing such a stupid thing is appealing or something. Thus is the CB brownie. It was bad, and yet we all tried it. Instead of tasting like chocolate or a brownie, it has some kind of weird bubblegum or otherwise NOT CHOCOLATE flavor.

Back to the present (er, yesterday). The brownies were back on the dessert tray; the first time I’ve seen them in months. Actually I had forgotten about the Halloween incident, probably because I blocked it out of my memory. Nick and I each got one, and he reminded me of how bad they were last time. You’d think we would have just left them uneaten, as we’d experienced the horror once before. You’d be wrong. We each tried them again, and they are indeed as bad as they were before. Seriously, they taste like some kind of chemical loaf with brown food coloring. Brian, who hasn’t gone to CB with us back at Halloween, was even coaxed into trying the evil dessert. The moral of the story is: don’t eat the brownies at CB. No matter how much time has passed or how good and chocolate-like they appear, they will taste like nuclear waste and should be avoided at all costs.

Back in Bloomington. And yes apparently staying up until 6AM every day for the past week or so has officially ruined my sleep schedule, and I am sitting here in my nice Bloomington pad, 6AM, for some reason not feeling like going to sleep although I have absolutely nothing to do right now. I was feeling a little tired earlier around 2, but why go to sleep when I can watch TV and repair a Red Dragon Megazord?

Partially due to the boredom (not a bad thing) and lack of things to do at home while on break, I’ve become addicted to reading peoples’ blogs. I guess I can’t really say addicted, because I haven’t read that many, but I like to read peoples’ blogs (people I know, primarily) more often now. I don’t have as much of a hankering for reading strangers blogs, because they don’t seem as interesting to me, but I think I’m going to try and read peoples blogs more frequently from here on. YOU are obviously one step ahead of me and are already reading mine. Just some ramblings from a guy who should go to sleep soon. Oh yeah, speaking of blogs, I like comments on mine, because it makes me feel like this has a point/interaction. Use it like a discussion forum. Topic: what is your favorite type of cheese?

Obviously being awake this late is having some kind of effect on my train of thought. Anyways, in the past few hours, I’ve actually ran through my head two or three different “topics” that I could write blog entries about. I don’t always plan stuff out too much before I write on here, which is why my blog is pretty random and all over the place. Nick, of course, has an ongoing list of 30389 topics that he narrows down in a fashion similar to the Academy Awards nomination process. My problem is that I think of a good number of ideas, but am too lazy to sit down and write about them. Either that or I decide that it won’t be a good article (or there won’t be enough to write) and abandon it that way. Just off the top of my head of what I can remember, some so-called “discarded” blog ideas from the past few weeks have been:

• similarities between hardcore anime otaku and sports fans
• college is pretty much a waste of time if you don’t actually get experience in something that will be applicable in the real world
• saw a CNN spot on some hippy school in Chicago. STOP RAISING HIPPIES
• i love Dragon Ball
• Kishidan is 10 years old somehow, and they are still awesome
• semester outlook (I’ll prolly get around to this)

Feel free to borrow those ideas and develop them into some quality blog posts/newspaper articles/pop group songs for yourself; I’d love to see them.

I got my JET confirmation letter (they got my stuff), grades, 2 bills, and a reimbursement check from Sears in my mailbox. Also a bunch of ads. Overall, not the frightening overflow of mail I expected from being out of town for almost 3 weeks. But it’s good to be back; this is going to be a sweet semester. But for now, I must sleep. I’m going to forget what daylight looks like.

Have you run Windows Update since Thursday (if you use a PC)? If not, make sure you install the patch Microsoft just put out. Easiest way is to just run Windows Update. They found some big gaping hole in Windows that allows hackers to infect your system just by you loading the wrong image file from a website, e-mail, wherever. Microsoft put out a patch on Thursday, so make sure you’re all safe and stuff. This concludes your public service message.

Link to the patch site (Microsoft.com)

Now back to your regularly scheduled complaining and rambling.

We had a small “reunion” tonight with LHS-ers. Not a lot of planning, thus not a lot of people, but good times nonetheless. Also: no details, but to the two who make me realize how old we’re getting:

Congrats!

The new cell phone that I got around Thanksgiving takes somewhat decent pictures compared to my old one, so I can use them to illustrate the stuff I see all the time (and complain about). I haven’t posted any here yet, so I figured I might as well start. I don’t know if I’ll make entire sections under Pictures for cell phone pics or just post them as needed here on the blog. For starters, here are a few to tide you over. I’m on blog fire; you other people with blogs (*cough*Ari, Nick, Alicia) need to catch up. I’m bored and want to read something, haha.

First, nothing special, just showing off my phone’s (poor) ability to take panoramic pictures:

Next, from my trip to the Mitsuwa shopping center in Chicago. I hate Pe Yonjun, and he is even sold here for Japanese housewives living in America to go nuts over.

Finally, I mentioned this last week in a post. I saw at CompUSA here in St. Louis an old couple who both had the EXACT same hair doo: it was a poorly dyed brown afro. Maybe they’re big fans of Welcome Back Kotter.