fever

And just like that I got a fever.

I shouldn't be up I should be sleeping. But I miss my baby. I appreciate her for waiting for me and buying for me a bag of chips after my last class it really made my day and lightened my mood. I was thinking of her the time class ended and then I saw her cutely waiting for me outside the door. My baby, I thought. Love her to infinity.

Feeling dizzy, sweating, getting a fever sucks. I need to get better now.

Not feeling it today whatsoever. I'm either about to come down with another cold or  just feeling sluggish from the lack of sleep I've gotten last night. Either way I'm not feeling my 100%.

This week especially has been my most busiest so far, with an exam followed up with an analysis paper, followed up with a take-home quiz, followed up with memorizing a few sentences in Japanese, followed up with a kanji quiz. Yesterday I attended a rough TKD class and came back sore and with multiple bruises on my entire right leg.

"You seem a little flat today," said the master instructor yesterday during taekwondo. "Everything okay?"

I was starting to feel lethargic since yesterday evening. But all I could respond to him was,

"Yeah just stressed from school." Even though that was a lame non-plausible excuse. But it was true, I thought at the time.

"Academics come first," he said. "But now is the time of day where you can just go and beat people up for two hours." 

True that.

But in addendum I've commuted up and down, from campus to the dorm on and on, back and forth. 

Exhaustion is not the right word.

Spending late nights in the library has been the bane of my existence this week. 

Language classes take up so much of my time, and it's so tedious.

My body feels cold. An ominous symptom of a cold, or fever. But hopefully not.

I really hope not. 

Come to think of it I really have no time for breaks. Especially since I live off campus and don't have as many gaps between classes, I don't have time to rest at my dorm during the day.. Like, ever.

Today I had a bagel for breakfast, tuna roll for lunch, and chinese food for dinner. Not the most healthiest but that's all there really was.

Baby is not free until 11. Really want to see her but I feel like I need to rest up in case I actually come down with a cold or fever.

Back at my dorm, I glance at my planner and realize I have work to do.

I'm so proud of my baby today. She sparred for the first time during taekwondo class tonight. Even with some bruises, she still took them and told herself, no pain no gain. That's the real spirit of the taekwondo practitioner.

So proud so proud.

But this is to you, baby.

Sparring of course is a task that gets hard to get used to, as you are actually fighting people. And my you sparred well. Don't feel sad, don't cry. I know sometimes you can't stop to control your emotions but try. What you did out there is tremendously brave and it was a great experience for you. Keep up the great work. Work to rise to the top! I love you and I can't be proud enough for you effort.

Embracing my inner Tengo Kawana from Murakami's 1Q84. 

Credit to my baby

Had a dream where the pilot of the plane gave us front row tickets for a Yankee game during Jeter's final season and all of the passenger's watched the game together at the stadium.

Anyway,

After a haircut, the four day weekend is here at the university. Most of the students have gone home. All of the on-campus eateries close early, leaving me to take out at a local Chinese restaurant. The temperature rises above the freezing point as the snow turns into rain, the ground turning slushy from the mixture of the remnant snow and water.

The restaurant looks family-owned, as the owner's children help out to serve the dishes. I order sweet and sour chicken with hot and sour soup with a can of soda and take it back to the dorm to munch alone. Subpar.

The subdued campus atmosphere gets me. The rain trickles down and hits the concrete. There are only about a few students walking here and there every now and then. My girlfriend and I peacefully spend the time together, eating, sleeping, and relaxing.

At her dorm while she folds her clothes, I sit on her desk and look up the latest articles online while munching on some jelly beans. The United States is leading in the number of medals earned at Sochi, controversy spurs for the results from the women's free program figure skating between Yuna Kim and the Russian victor, Adelina Sotnikova. Relations between North and South Korea improving, journalists detained in Egypt, and Anne Frank's diaries vandalized in Tokyo, reasons unknown.

The rain never abates. It pours. And pours.

Took a quiz called "What Type of Haruki Murakami Character are You" and got loner salaryman with impeccable tastes. I am colorless Tsukuru, and the narrator from A Wild Sheep Chase.

While thinking about it more in detail, every object you own has its own story, whether it be the jacket you are wearing now to the device you are using to read this.

The computer you own has been designed in Cupertino, California, assembled in China, and shipped to your hometown. It's been with you for years and is your go-to partner for finding out global, instantaneous information, processing documents, watching movies and television shows, and organizing photos and music. It's been on your lap, a tremendous number of desks and tables, the bed, and hopefully not on the floor. It has been charged fully repeatedly, your very fingerprints leaving a mark on almost every keyboard button by now, namely the space bar. It has been clutched in your arms, put in your bag, zipped up in a case, put in a separate bin during security check at the airport. A few times it caught a fever and you had to schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar. You've been separated with it a few times as it had to go through an operation. A few tear drops later it comes back, operating as smooth as ever. Such is your Mac.

Just finished taking an exam but the show does not stop here. Next week calls for another exam, a quiz, and a paper.

But I got to admit that finishing an exam and realizing that I have no classes until Monday feels nice as ever.

After helping her stretch her legs, my baby peacefully falls asleep on her bed as I am sitting on her desk with my computer and textbook studying. So cute seeing her in her sleep.


Back at the dorm. Accumulating work ahead. Shouldn't even be writing this. My roommate is fast asleep. My desk light shines the desk. Got a quiz on Tuesday, a criminal justice exam and a Japanese essay outline on Wednesday.

Then for some reason this university has Thursday and Friday off, which means there is a four day weekend.

But until then it's all about the studying. Gotta get on that study grind and ace those exams and assignments.

Happy Valentine's Day

So thankful for my baby. I'm as happy as can be.

When my baby talks in Chinese it's so... I don't know. I feel so lost because I don't know what she's saying. Like a whole another person. The struggle of not knowing languages. 

The snowstorm returns

At this point my nose is probably sick of seeing these tissues. I've recently come down with a cold these past few days and it hasn't been pleasant at all. Coughing, sneezing, blowing nose, tears in eyes. Not at all pleasant especially when you've run out of all your pocket tissues. But now it has gotten better.

Haven't had the chance to curl up with a good novel these days due to the increasing workload I've been getting.

A snowstorm approaches and the university declares another snow day. 

If I were to tell an opening lede for an article, it would be something a little like this:

This 90% chance of a snowstorm will take an effect for students as their 90% grade may wind down.

Cheesy but it gets the main idea.

Some news here and there. 2014-15 will be the last season for the Yankee captain Derek Jeter, as he recently announced he will retire after this year. The veteran shortstop has always played a pivotal role for the Yankees. Seeing him without the Yankees is something all fans will not be able to get used to for a long while and will be greatly missed by the team. I remember when I was younger I watched him make uncompromising plays in the field. I was at the stadium when he hit his 3000th hit. When I think of the Yankees the first thing that comes up is Jeter. He stayed true to the field, never played another position, has always been a Yankee for his entire career, and has always worn the number 2. Memories flourish.

Students in the city are endlessly complaining how they don't have a snow day.

If Macy's is open, schools should be open, says one person.


First exam coming up next week and that's fun. Excited to spend Valentine's Day with my special someone.

Moving, Olympics

It was a busy week, I say to myself while attending a lecture for a politics class amongst students scrolling through their twitter feeds on their laptops and taking naps. Biggest news is the fact that I moved to another room. This time all the way across another hall. My new roommate along with my other friend helped me move my stuff. The hardest thing to move was no doubt the microfridge, which we spent almost thirty minutes thinking of a way to carry it.

We attached our belts around the cart and the fridge and did our best to lift it going downstairs and upstairs. 

All the time I thought to myself how much stuff I had brought from home. I definitely had too much stuff. But in about 4 hours after unpacking, organizing, and throwing out, I managed to finish and settle. My previous room was empty as ever. My new room on the other hand was nice as ever. There was an extra large window next to my desk, an upgrade from my previous room. 

I moved during the one snow day the university had declared. Some good and bad things about that. If it wasn't a snow day I wouldn't have gotten help from friends since they would be in class. But the snowy conditions made the move a bit harder.


The Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia began yesterday. I consulted friends but shockingly none of them seemed to be interested in it. Nobody seemed to care. I felt like I was the only one who actually wanted to see some of the events of the Olympics.

I especially like to watch figure skating and short track speed skating. Both are riveting and exciting. I still remember the rivalries between Yuna Kim and Mao Asada, as well as the controversial race between the skillful Korean short track athletes versus Apolo Ohno back in 2002. Some years ago I still remember watching Ohno skate against the two South Korean skaters Viktor Ahn and Lee Ho-Suk.

But the weekend winds its way down as the remnant snow still covers the ground. A lot of catching up on work and some organization to do.

Every Thursday is the day my peer and I teach taekwondo class for a full 120 minutes. But for some reason teaching was a skill that I was not really acquainted with. I had some specific drills and activities in mind but somehow they seem to not go as planned, or, perhaps might have be a little too difficult for the club members. Either way my drills always doesn't seem to go smoothly. I don't know if was the way I taught or just the way the club was.

But that's that.

 

Bowling, Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year winds its way forth as many head back home to celebrate. My girlfriend sends me videos of the parade and everything and it makes me want to be there. I've always wanted to pop those pyrotechnics in the street while taking in the crackling sounds it produces, kick back and enjoy the show. All my life I wanted to do that. It's amazing how we grow up with different pastimes.

Classes I attend mostly want to make me fall asleep. My friend and I are still figuring out how we could room together. Not that there is a problem with our current new roommates; just we feel it would be nice we if we could.

From now on once a week I am expected to teach a taekwondo class. Curriculum is mostly made up on the fly but somehow I'm able to manage it.

I spend the night at my dorm, for the fourth time so far this semester, and listen to the rendition of Butterfly Lovers. A lovely piece that somehow makes me feel nostalgic.

On a Friday night, two of my friends and I decide to eat at a local, family-owned Chinese restaurant and then head straight towards the bowling center, which is conveniently a few blocks away from the dorm. One of the few advantages of living off-campus in a suburban town is the fact that you do not feel as if you are stuck on campus; rather, you have the chance to get to see more of the real world and the neighborhood stores and amenities around.

The bowling center is the only brightly-lit place around us. A little walk away and there are a row of unoccupied houses and nothing but darkness. Very few cars and very few people. A fantastic area to shoot the next Paranormal Activity movie.

Both friends are international students, one of them leaves to serve the military for two years in Korea after this semester. Which means by the time he comes back to finish his studies, I'd already graduate.

"I'm just worried a little bit," he said, since there might not be anyone he knows when he comes back.

Eventually he beats me by two points in bowling, my other friend pulls off a turkey. And what are my web-gem highlights?

I'll make do with my few strikes and spares.