Midaregami

• Shortly after my post about the then-unnamed narcoleptic hypochondriac PowerBook, I found myself with a plethora of excellent names, most of them appropriately heat- or flame-related. Suddenly I wish I had more computers to name, because y’all came up with some good ones. I’m going to have to go with “Calcifer”; it strikes the right note of power, magic, and cantankerousness. (Thanks, Gabe.)
  
• Apropos of that, I got my computer back. I sure hope it doesn’t break again, both because I love it, and because losing it mid-semester would be a crippling blow to my academic sangfroid.
  
• I made Fluffy’s Chicken Andouille Gumbo, and goddamn was it good. Another entry in my slowly-growing general cooking repertoire. (Thanks, Fluffy.)
  
• In what I hope is not indicative of things to come, I talked to Ms. Nakanishi, the administrator (of pain and suffering) and she sounded somewhat panicked that I hadn’t yet registered for classes. I explained that I was precluded from doing so until I had taken the literature evaluation and stood before a panel of faculty, a shadowy tribunal that would pass judgement on my worth as a scholar and as a human. This mollified her somewhat, but just to be safe, I stopped by a relevant faculty member’s office to confirm things. It’s hard to say, but I think I’m going to have to to take a graduate reading class this semester—we’re starting off by reading Soseki’s “Sorekara.” In Japanese. I don’t know whether to feel awesome and hardcore or start the humiliating breakdowns now, just to get a head start.
  
• We finished watching the first season of “Lost” with Jake. I love it. I love it so much. I’m still holding out for dinosaurs or UFO technology, though—or dinosaurs with UFO technology. My season 2 theory, which is so obvious it barely counts as a theory: Tail section.
  
• Life in Hawai’i is still weird. We’ve spotted several of the ubiquitous geckos around the apartment, some less than an inch long. They are so cute. Yesterday Miss J pointed out wild parrots (or some other kind of psittacine) flying around the palm trees across the street.
  

Tomorrow morning is the graduate orientation and, in the afternoon, I’ll be facing the ordeal of the literature evaluation. I know I’m going to have to audit the survey courses, so my only real goal is to avoid looking like a complete lackwit. I’m not at all confident in my ability to do so, but we shall see. One of the faculty I spoke briefly with said that UH has a good reputation for helping students like me (you know, short bus kids) get up to speed and be competitive in the field.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 14th, 2005 at 8:54 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.