Before the Vacation, there is Homework

I think I now know what it feels like to be a mother, who works part-time and goes to school. For the past few days, I've had to:

- Go to school
- Go to work (nine hours total)
- Take care of five "children" (their names are Mickey, Sparrow, Princess, Nero, and Miksi), who, even after I clean up after them, feed them, play with them, etc., continue to whine and whine and whine.
- Have a social life (or at least attempt to)
- Run errands
- Fix a car (or at least make the problem go away for a few hours... my tire has a hole in it)
- Clean the house
- Cook dinner

Yet, there's something satisfactory about it. After my first day, which involved all of the above, having finally sat down to eat after the long, long day, I noticed something. It felt very good to eat a meal that I had just prepared for myself, in a kitchen that I had just cleaned. I had done everything I said I would do that day. I felt very proud of myself, despite the tiredness, and despite the fact that the saying "food doesn't taste as good when you eat it alone" is true, after all. Being able to do everything I told myself I was definitely going to do that day gave me a sense of self-satisfaction, that I might just possibly be ready to be out on my own.

Yesterday was about the same, minus the school part.

Today, though, is the homework marathon day. Sunday always is, but since this is the last week before Christmas break, there are a great many tests and papers due this week that I need to work on. You don't believe me? Here, then:

Whiteboard ga uso o tsukanai yo - the whiteboard doesn't lie. That's a list of everything I -must- have done before school starts on Tuesday. Including memorizing all that Chinese, which may seem easy (especially since I'm fairly familiar with Japanese) but it's NOT. Believe me.

Still not convinced?

There's just a quick snapshot of it all. That book on the upper left? Half of my Art History textbook. Yeah. Just half of it. I need to take notes on the Roman Art section, then do a complete vocab-writing, summary, and report on the Chinese art section.

The book on the lower left? Chinese book. I need to be able to repeat everything from that chapter from memory. Yays.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and literature notes on the upper right. Deep-read Heart of Darkness, find symbolism, irony, theme, and review elements of literature. Study notes.

And finally, biology notes. Genetics chapter, show genetic crosses and work out story problems.

Hurray, and that's not all.

Studying Japanese, for when I apply to go to Tokyo for uni in about a year! Not just the language, but history too. Yes, I must be able to remember everything in that middle book.

And then there's translations. May not seem necessary, but it sure is helpful to getting to know sentence structure, verb tense and endings, vocabulary, word flow, etc.


So that's what I'm doing from when I get home from church basically until I go to bed, minus quick breaks, taking care of the "children", dinner, etc. Getting the biology homework and art history homework done today would be ideal, so that's what I'm aiming for, at the very least. If I can get those done, with the Chinese, then all I have to work on is reading Heart of Darkness tomorrow. Sounds good to me. I can stand a lighter workload.

Quick little anime-watching update, to anyone that may care - FINALLY got out of the VS. American Junior Invitational Team arc. 32 episodes of pointless torture are no more, and Tezuka has finally, finally re-joined the Seigaku tennis team after 89 episodes of absence. (How I have managed to make it this far without falling out of the fandom from all this pointless crap boggles my mind...) Now it's just the final streak to the end of the anime and through the seventeen OVA episodes, and I'll be done with Tennis no Oujisama. Until more OVA episodes are released, at least. I started watching "Meine Liebe", which is amazingly good, "Wolf's Rain", and "Ouran High School Host Club" (one of my new favourites).

And thus, I must go get ready for church. I'm playing violin today for prelude music. I'm just a little bit worried about that part.


Listening to: "Dona Dona ~type T mix~" by Suwabe Junichi
Eating: Nothing, for now
Reading: Biology notes
Watching: Well... when I take a quick break, I'll be watching Tennis no Oujisama episode 166 - Seigaku's Specialty, Again.