TheLeong.com

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.

It’s been a full week now since finals ended. Although summer vacation is great, I do have to admit that things are already getting a bit boring. After finals week, it took me a few days to get my sleep schedule back to somewhat normal. Too many all-nighters really screwed me up. From Monday, I’ve been working about 3 or 4 hours at IUSTV, doing summer planning. We’re moving to Read (Curry wing) over the next few months, so that’s going to be awesome. Aside from that, I’ve been getting a good amount of sleep, actually eating stuff at home, and doing various errands like finally sending my laptop in to get fixed. Things are fun, and having free time is nice (especially after finals week), but I’m running out of things to do.

I’m waiting to hear back on that one secret plan (coughIEScough), then I applied for a few other internships. I think an internship would be good, especially for resume fodder, but I don’t know if I want to go through the hassle of moving to somewhere like California for just three months, and have to deal with getting a place, driving there, etc. There’s my inherent laziness again. If I don’t get an internship, then I guess I can either stay in Bloomington or go back to St. Louis. In Bloomington, I can work on IUSTV things, and then do ad sales later on (and actually make a bit of commission money). Either way, wherever I’m at, I’m going to need to get a part time job or something to keep me busy. I’m also toying with the idea of taking some classes here at IU during summer session II. Maybe I should just try and get an internship…

まぁ、早く決めなくちゃなぁ。

Just when I started having fun, seeing all my friends in Bloomington and stuff, classes had to come and ruin it. First day of school today. Actually it wasn’t *that* bad, but it’s the principle of the thing. I went to Parking Ops this morning (after going to RPS by mistake), to get an E parking permit to compliment my god-like DP that I get to use for IUSTV. I get to park pretty much anywhere, even the Reserved spaces. So anyways, I didn’t even think that there would be a line, but there was: that meant I was about 15 minutes late to my first class of the semester. Oops! What am I, in Japan or something? haha

After that class and G202 after it, I had a nice break at home. Went to dinner with Seamus, Sam, and Elliot at Read. Oh man I forgot how horrible dorm food is. I had this thing that was made of fake eggs and mashed potatoes called a fritia. Tasted like plastic. The best part of being there was running into JIMMY JAMES! Here’s how our quick convo went:

Me: Heeeeeeeeeey! How’s it going?

JJ: Hmmmmmm, NOT very well actually.

Me: It’s been a while!

JJ: Yes, that was good.

Me: What? No way, whatt’re you talking about?

JJ: (mumbling something)

He needs to be nicer. Not sure why he hates me so much. Oh wait, I’m friends with Frank, haha! After that, a really short guitar class, then IUSTV stuff at the office. That was about it.

Moved back to Bloomington yesterday, with the help of my parents and their Honda mini-van. I had that thing and my car both packed. I brought a lot of stuff. Anyways, the apartment (at Woodbridge) is a lot different from what I expected, pretty much all for the best. It’s further north as opposed to right near Marsh (and the train tracks) like I was thinking. No problem there. It’s a lot bigger than I expected. At least it seems like it. Especially after coming from Japan (see my comment from the mall about how stores in America seem huge); I seriously think that my apartment would be about 10 times as big as my dorm room from Japan. Around 700 sq ft total, if you people actually know about how big that is. I sure don’t.

I’m still working on unpacking and setting stuff up. Although when packed into 2 cars, it seemed like I have a huge amount of stuff, when moved into a big apartment it becomes pretty apparent that I’m a big lacking, especially in the furniture department. To remedy this, I got a (double) bed from some guy who was selling it on the OneStart classifieds. Next step is a futon, which I’m getting via the same methods. Hopefully I can get that this weekend and have my living room set up ready to go, at least for the most part. Now I just need some more bookshelves or something.

Things in Bloomington are good. It’s really nice to see people, especially ones that I haven’t seen since last May. I mentioned to my dad on the ride here that it doesn’t seem like I’ve been away for 5 months. I think everything’s starting to blend around in my head. Time’s losing its definition and clarity for me. OK that sounds really weird, I think I’m just retarded.

I’ve gotten e-mails from Sayoko and Mii. I haven’t replied yet, mainly because I’m too lazy to read a long e-mail in Japanese, then even lazier to try and reply in Japanese. I’ll get around to it soon, just because well, I’ve got to. I guess it’s going to be good practice for me to keep my Japanese up. I’m not studying it anymore at school, and if I want to keep this language up I’d better use it some more. I’m still playing around with the idea of heading back this summer, for an internship or something. If I can find some company that will pay for my airfare or housing (or both), then I’m game. Actually, before I left, Shin-san at IES told me about this World’s Fair-type thing they’re having in Aichi-ken this spring/summer. And Nick did some research tonight, and apparently they do indeed pay both airfare and housing. This might be my summer plans right there…

OK time to try and set up some more stuff. My apartment still looks boring and naked. Time for me to ruin it with posters and thumbtacks. Time to make it “Anthony’s new apartment.” Hoo-hah.

I-Core started up today. It’s lectures right now, but I think once we start doing projects it will be a bit more exciting. Rubinstein is a funny guy. He’s a large man who used to be a motivational speaker, if that gives you a general idea of what he might be like. His favorite thing is to call us all “Kelleys,” and say stuff like “Kelleys don’t skip class.” Finance was a bit boring, but I’m going to try to keep up.

The new place is really nice. It’s odd having a big place like this to myself (well, not all to myself; I’ve got John Ho staying here for a few days). I’m thinking it’s good to at least have someone else here, otherwise things might get too boring. If you’re in Bloomington, come drop by!

Just finished my Japanese final. It wasn’t too bad, so I’m good. On the other hand, my Managerial Accounting exam is in 4 hours. I’m boned on that one.

In case I haven’t told you, I found a place to stay in Bloomington over the summer. Got a great deal on a townhouse, all to myself. The smallest bedroom is locked for storage, but the rest of the place is mine. Here’s the floorplan: