I hate being sick.

This is the third time in four months that I've gotten a cold and it sucks. Seems like the Washington climate has something against me :(. It always happens right before an exam too (then again, there's never a week without at least one quiz, usually many). I somehow managed to score full points out of yesterday's kanji quiz even with my mind all fuzzy, but today's bigger exam on early samurai history was a disaster. Too many names to remember... I usually have an easy time remembering Japanese names, but my cold prevented me from reviewing yesterday (I did try, but I pretty much ended up just staring at the text without comprehending anything). Why do Japanese people have to like repeating the same kanji in the names of everyone belonging to the same family? For example, Oda Nobunaga's father's name was Nobuhide, his grandfather was Nobusada, seven of his brothers had names beginning with Nobu as well as nine of his sons. Makes it really hard to remember which family member did what (though thankfully this time I didn't have to remember any relatives from this particular family).

My roommate seems to be wary of catching my cold, judging by the fact that she has temporarily moved to the living room in order to avoid me. Can't say I blame her since whenever my last roommate got sick, I immediately got a cold too.

My colds also always seem to happen right when someone is about to invite me to go do something fun (which doesn't happen too often). Last time I had to miss a birthday party and this time an invitation to the movies (I have not, in fact, been to a movie theater in Bellingham yet). Sucks.

What else? Oh yeah, I just quit aikido. I like aikido itself, but I was never too fond of the way they taught it. I would have liked to concentrate on learning one move properly at a time, but we always tried to learn many different ones in a single session and only spent a short time on each. Then we would have a new set of moves the next week and I just kept feeling like I wasn't learning any moves properly. Because I kept feeling like I wasn't improving at all I dreaded going there every week and all that dread has been rather stressful. So I quit. I'll probably take a couple of weeks off of club activity and then I'll join the anime club in the hopes that I'll have time to make a friend or two before I go back to Finland.

Shit, my head is killing me... I've been spending so much time sick that I even had to ask mom to send me more painkillers (I'd rather not try American ones when I don't have to). She also sent me 3 kilos of Finnish candy (so much for my diet).

A Japanese friend showed me a couple of ways to write my first name with kanji and I liked the ones that meant "true logic". Not totally me, but sounded cool.

Again, no energy to check for typos in this post.

Weeks sure fly by fast in here. During summer I used to really hate Mondays because they marked the beginning of another stressfull week at work, but here Mondays don't feel any different from the other days of the week. I have lots an lots of homework (mainly reading, 12 books in all to read) so school work takes up as much time during the weekend as it does during the week. I managed to get an A for my second paper (more ancient Chinese philosophers) though it beats me how. There are two other short papers and a presentation coming up soon too.

I had my first two tests last Friday. The first one (the religion course that seems more like a philosophy class) I was sure would go badly, but in the end I was pretty happy with my answers and I think my essay was at least okay. The second test, however, was a total disaster. First of all, I hadn't properly prepared for the map question because I thought the teacher would give us a list of places which we would have to place on the map. Instead, she gave us a blank map and told us to name the marked places - not exactly easy when you have to remember names like Huangzhou, Tianjin, Chang'an and so on... Missed some easy points there. Another problem I had was the fact that there tend to be many different ways to romanize Chinese names, and the teacher's handouts used different forms than the textbook, which was my primary resource. So if there's Mencius (Meng Tzu), Mozi (Mo Tzu), Xunzi (Hsün Tzu)and Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) among others, how on earth do you expect me to remember who is who when Xunzi and Zhuangzi sound the same to my ears? Had to leave a lot of empty places because I just couldn't be sure I knew who the question was about. The test also contained fill-in-the-blanks type of questions which were so vague that half the time I wasn't sure whether they were looking for a person, idea or something else. There were also some true or false sentences which at times used such difficult English terms that I couldn't understand the questions. All in all, it was one of the worst exams of my life. Once again I'm glad it doesn't matter all that much what kind of grade I get, and at least now I know what to expect in the next exam.

I spent the week before my exams sick so I only had two days to cram for them (obviously it wasn't enough). While I was sick I spent my time happily watching through all the seasons of Bones, which is the most brilliant TV series I've seen in years (Jose disagrees and says it's the second worst show he has ever seen... then again we've noticed that we have very different tastes in both movies - not counting our anime obsession - and food). I immediately downloaded a bunch of new Bones icons to show my life for Booth/Brennan *squee*.

Jose and I have made plans to go to an anime convention (aki-con) in a few weeks. I'm trying to get two of my Japanese friends to join us (it's funny that I know a lot more about anime and manga than they do) so that we can split the hotel bill between us (we've reserved a room for four). The convention is actually from Friday to Sunday, but we have the hotel room booked only for one night. The plan is to leave on Friday after classes, to stay awake through the first night (they're showing anime all night long) and to only sleep during the second night. It's going to be pretty crazy since I'm really bad at trying to stay awake for more than 20 hours, but in the worst case I can just take a nap in the anime room. Jose actually plans to stay awake for the whole three days if he has to (he's nuts!). I'm so taking my camera this time. I really want to cosplay, but I don't really have either time or resources for it. Halloween is also coming up and I don't have a costume for that either. If I could just manage to find pink overalls somewhere I could go to both events as Kyoko from Skip Beat (my favorite shoujo manga ever), but where on earth can you buy pink overalls? I'd also like to dress up as Sanzo from Saiyuki, but that will have to wait until I get back to Finland and have access to my mom's sewing machine (plus it would require a lot of planning and work).

What else... Well, aikido is proving to be really intense. The more I learn, the more intense it gets. In the beginning all new moves are taught to me in slow motion, but today I got to the point where I knew some of the simplest moves so well that my more experienced opponents could do them a lot faster with me so that it felt a lot more like a real fight (which it wasn't, but still). The problem with being up against more experienced adult males, however, is that they're freaking strong, and they no longer seem to feel the need to hold back their strength as much when they go against me. I'm surprised I don't have bruises on my wrists after all that squeezing and twisting. My bottom and thighs are really really sore though, from practicing my forward rolls, and I managed to scrape my elbow pretty bad on Tuesday. I also managed to get a cramp in my foot in the middle of practice and had to stop for a moment. The teacher said it usually takes around two months for the body to get used to the training, which means I still have another month of suffering ahead of me before it should get easier. Joy. I'm still determined to continue aikido for the rest of the year, but I'll very likely quit when I get back to Finland. A year (well okay, eight months) should be enough to teach me the basics and that's all I really need.

I hate the fact that my English doesn't seem to have improved at all during my time here. I still stammer and get stuck all the time and just can't find the right words. I was trying to explain lanttulaatikko to someone yesterday, but I ended up being completely lost for words and had to give up (the other Finnish girl pointed out to me today that I should've used the word "casserole" which I had completely managed to forget). It's just really frustrating. It's not really helping that I talk the most with the other exchange students who all have their own weird accents (a Dutch guy commented that I sound like I have a Scottish accent. How totally weird) and most of them speak less English than I do which forces me to use simple words when I talk to them. Luckily, I get to talk a lot with my roommate and there's also a girl in my Japanese class who I talk to a lot (she studies linguistics and is also interested in hearing about cultural differences). My roommate uses the words "totally" and "sweet" a lot, and I'm trying my best not to pick up the habit of using them...

By the way, do you remember me mentioning Mount Baker? The one I had a picture of? I just found out a couple of days ago that it's actually a dormant volcano that belongs to the Cascade Volcanic Arc. I'll quote Wikipedia for a bit:

"Some of the major cities along the length of the arc include Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, and the population in the region exceeds 10,000,000. All could be potentially affected by volcanic activity and great subduction-zone earthquakes along the arc. Because the population of the Pacific Northwest is rapidly increasing, the Cascade volcanoes are some of the most dangerous, due to their past eruptive history, potential eruptions and because they are underlain by weak, hydrothermally altered volcanic rocks that are susceptible to failure. Many large, long-runout landslides originating on Cascade volcanoes have inundated valleys tens of kilometers from their sources, and some of the inundated areas now support large populations." Link to the article

And that's exactly where I currently am, between Seattle and Vancouver. Now it feels really weird that it doesn't really scare me even though I used to be scared to death of volcanoes when I was younger (I had a lot of nightmares...).

And that's all for today. Ja, mata ne.

So. I've posted some pictures under friends-lock, but haven't really sat down and written about the things that have been happening here. Now would probably be a good time because I'm trying to watch The Fifth Element without much success (my god, this movie sucks big time) and not doing anything intelligent. I do have a lot of reading to do, but that can wait.

My classes are going fine so far. I haven't really dared to speak out in class (other than that first day when the professor just had to call on me), but I'm slowly gaining confidence. I'm probably going to spend this first quarter just listening and getting used to things before trying to actually participate in class. I'm pretty glad right now that I only need to get the credits for my classes and that I don't have to care about what kind of grades I get because these courses aren't a part of my Major and I won't even get a Minor out of them. I'm taking them mostly because I'm actually interested in learning about East Asia and it's up to me to decide how much I want to get out of the classes I'm taking.

One of my classes, "Religion and Society in China and Japan" has turned out to be pretty much a philosophy class where we're expected to discuss and analyze the thoughts of several ancient Chinese philosophers. Right, how nice. Except I happen to detest philosophy with a passion and I usually have absolutely no idea what philosophers are talking about. I somehow managed to get a B+ for my first paper, although in my own opinion it was utter crap. The first test is coming up soon, and I'm hoping not to fail because I can't remember which philosopher said what. I have to read seven books for this course.... gah.

My Japanese classes on the other hand are going a lot better. I'm a bit behind on some things and a bit more advanced in some because I've learned things in a different order, but everything seems to be going alright despite that. I still need to read through the text book and see what the local students have already covered during their first year that I haven't yet learned, but that shouldn't be such a huge task. Japanese is the one thing I definitely have motivation for.

Other than school, I've been occupying myself with watching movies (my roommate has a huge collection that I'm browsing through) and taking part in various activities. People who know me in real life have probably by now realized that I'm not exactly the most social person around, but that's one part of myself that I'm trying to improve while I'm here. I'm persistently trying to take part in most activities arranged for us exchange students because I really don't want to feel left out. It seems to be working because I'm on speaking terms with most other exchange students and on friendly terms with several. Jose is still the one I talk with the most (besides my roommate Kailey), but I'm also making other friends. I admit that I'd been hoping from the beginning to make some Japanese friends while I am here because I thought it would be nice to get to hear about Japan from native Japanese people and to maybe get to practice my Japanese skills later on in the year. The only problem is that Asian people tend to stick together and it's not easy to get between them. Luckily for me, we had this barbecue party around two weeks ago (I posted some pictures earlier) where I got to meet some Japanese girls. They turned out to be interested in Finland (or more precisely, Moomins) so it was easy making conversation. I've gotten to hang out with them occasionally since then (went out for some sushi) and I think we can be considered friends by now. One of them has even started aikido with me.

Okay, now about aikido. Like some people may remember, before leaving Finland I talked about possibly signing up for the aikido club here because I've always been interested in learning some sort of martial arts. Well I did join. It's not really a club in the sense that clubs usually are here because it's situated downtown instead of on campus and the meetings are more like aikido classes than club meetings (and they cost 25$ a month). There are also other people taking lessons besides WWU students. Anyway, I've been there now three times and I think I'm going to stick with it for the whole nine months that I'll spend here. The meetings are thrice a week (which is a bit too much considering all the other things I also want to do), but it looks like it doesn't matter how often you show up as there's a different group of people every time I go. I was pretty surprised to find out that we have to follow Japanese customs (bowing, greetings, etc.) in the dojo (practice room) even though no one there is actually Japanese or studies the language. It was pretty cool. I got one of my new Japanese friends to come with me to the aikido class and she seems interested in continuing it with me (which also gives me a lot more time to interact with her, yay!). The classes are interesting, and besides learning self-defense I also get a good workout every time. The first couple of months are probably not going to be that much fun because it's really frustrating that I can't keep up with the people who've already practiced a lot, and I can't yet be a proper practice opponent to them. I also feel really clumsy. There's still a long way to go before the movements will come to feel natural.

The one thing I really love about being here is the whole campus thing. Most students live here so distances are really small, and the campus offers a huge number of different kinds of activities for everyone. It gives people the chance to make friends with people who aren't taking the same classes as they. In Finland it's usually really hard to meet people who have other Majors or who have started studying before or after your own starting year. That's why it seems like the only way to meet people in Finland is to go to parties and bond by getting drunk with them. And that is so not for me. In here I've finally gotten to notice that my social skills aren't actually that bad if I just get the chance to talk to people without the whole thing involving alcohol or partying (note that legal drinking age here is 21, and they're very strict about it too). Why can't Finnish universities have more clubs?

I've been experiencing so much recently that it's hard to put everything I'm feeling right now in words. I'll write more when I manage to gather my thoughts, but I think this should do for now. Just a couple more random facts before I go to sleep:

1. I realized only after getting here that Washington is actually situated in an earthquake zone. I heard that they're expecting a huge earthquake to strike here sometime in the next 50 years or so. I'm probably crazy for half-hoping that I'll get to experience a tiny earthquake while I'm here.

2. My roommate is interested in bugs. She actually owns a couple of tarantulas, but is considerate enough not to keep them here. Her uncle is looking after them for her. I could almost faint from the relief. She says hi by the way.

3. There have been a couple of cougar sightings in the area around campus over the years, the last one of which was in May last year. I sure wouldn't want to bump into one of those.

4. I brought way too many winter clothes with me from Finland. Right now it's still a bit warmer here than it has been in Finland this whole summer (well okay, it's quickly getting colder), and if I understand right, at most the temperature will drop to -1 degrees Celsius in the Winter. I almost melted from the heat when I first got here.

Okay, enough. Time for bed.