The future and a sweater.

   There is only 1 month of school left for me. I cannot believe it is over already. This is going to be a long month. Things that I know I will have to involve reading 2 whole novels, writing a 6-8 page paper, and 3 short papers, plus finals. That is not me leaving things till the last min, that is the assignments are on the syllabus but just I just don't have details yet. Im going to start one of the books this week, probably tomorrow. Im also reading this book called "Does Accent Matter?" by John Honey. It was referenced in an essay i read yesterday for class and it got me into learning about Received Pronunciation (think British Oxford English accent). I also need to go get permission tomorrow so that I can register for 23 credits for the spring. Im not really crazy, but I will be taking 16 credits of regular classes, then I will be Teacher Assisting which I get 3 credits for, but does not really count towards my degree per say, and then there is an Classical Indian (South Asian) Dance class offered that I really want to take but again would not count for anything I need, so I want to take that as pass/no credit but I need to overload my credits to do all this. 23 credits sounds impressive though I suppose.

   I am also in the middle of a internal debate with myself about whether or not I should apply to do the summer program in Mishima, Japan this summer. I was all gung-ho about it but then was thinking maybe not. I dont know. I want to go but i'm not sure. I dont want to apply and be accepted and then not go, and apply for the next year. If I take summer classes this summer and dont go I can graduate in May '10. Which brought up the topic of grad school with Matt. I really want to go to school in CA, to maybe UC Berkeley or Stanford for my MA and PHD. But Matt did not seem very receptive/happy about that move. Mainly because of his bands here. Which I can understand but I feel like he should be a bit more supportive of this. Maybe the band will move to CA with us if we go. I just feel like if I am going to continue with Asian Studies the schools in CA have more to offer me than here. Plus I need a change of pace/scenery.

    I feel like I finally have a moment to relax a bit! I started my job at the hospital last week, which involved working more hours than I will normally and two very early days. Plus Friday and Saturday which are going to be my regular days to work. Its going to kill most of my weekend. Sunday Matt and I slept a bit late and then we needed to clean out the gardens for the season. Then laundry, laying in bed and dinner at his parents. I spent almost 4 hours there studying Japanese. My neck actually hurts from reading for so long straight. All my nails are chewed off down to nothing and they really hurt. Grrr.

   Tomorrow is the first night of the knitting club I started at school. I hope a lot of people show up. I will probably get to teach some new people but I decided to start a new knitting project anyway! I really love ravelry and how easy it is to find patterns. I wanted to make a sweater with yarn I already have. So I started this sweater that I found. It will be all green when its done. I hope it comes out lovely. 

Pretty Thursday

I get to be off from school today. Its nice having extra days off. I just need days to sit around and do nothing. Although I will be doing some things today like:

• Take Grandma out for a bit
  
• Grocery Shopping at Trader Joe's
• Bake Pumpkin Ginger Muffins from simply recipes, one of my Favorite recipe sites!!
• Go to a yarn shop for a job interview. I may get to teach knitting classes there!
• Start my new urchin hat from knitty with nice green yarn I should not have bought.
• Cook fajitas for dinner in my underused cast iron skillet.
• Study for Japanese quiz tommrow.
• Look foward to the weekend!
• Do laundry
• Stop biting my nails.

These nails are gross. Ive tried to quit many times but now I really have to stop. I cannot help it sometimes. I have been trying since I was about 4. I can remember being in the car at preschool with my mom and her giving me some pennies for not biting my nails. And as soon as we were getting out of the car, i bit them. She took my pennies away. I filed them last night and put some nail hardner on them. I do it midlessly when I am driving or in class, or stressed. I bite them till they hurt and bleed. I really need to stop. Any ideas?

Thursday

    Im off today (and yesterday!) due to Jewish holidays. I kind of feel like crud though. Monday I was moving heavy boxes to find my fabric box (to make a skirt!) and I pulled my should and neck out a bit. Its not a sore today but I cant really turn my head to the left so much. And I have a really bad knot on the right side. Soo Achy. I just finished a massive powerpoint for my biotechnology class on the evils of Genetically modified foods. I was absolutly repulsed with what I learned. Matt and I are going to go as organic as possible, for our safety. 

   At least this is a quick short week. Just class on Thursday and I'm only going for a Japanese test on friday morning. Friday I am also going to a session about the JET programme!! Which I am excited to go to. The Japanese govt recruits English teachers to come to Japan and teach for a year! Its very competitive but I feel that when I graduate I will have a really good shot at it!

  The weather is gorgeous today! Im going to bake some flourless peanut butter cookies tonight! Yum!

June 4th

I cannot believe that it is June already! Before I know it the summer will be over and I will (again) be starting a new school. In the fall I will be attending Stony Brook University. I just transfered there so that I could major specifically in Asian Studies and Japanese. Im really excited. It also means that when that Happens that Matty will be on tour for a month and half with his band Royal City Riot. And then I will be sad.

Our garden is doing wonderful. I spent about 2 hours weeding yesterday. I also set up strings for the hops to grow up on. When I went outside in the morning yesterday I saw our Magnum hops just starting to snuggle up and around the tomato cage I put up for protection. I knew it was time to set up string trellis. I am SO amazed at how fast they have been growing. I should start mesuring them, they say that they can grow several inches in a day!
Im excited to say that my pole beans have made it so far also! The birds kept picking the seeds from the garden, I thought they were all gonners except for one plant. But yesterday I saw that the other two plants broke the ground and shot up! Hooray!



Here's our Magnum! I sent this to Matty in the a.m. We're so Proud!