bookish dreamer

Eye-opening adventures happend online today - I did a quick Graduate Student requirements check today and it seemed to indicate I'd completed all of my master's requirements.  Well, all but the thesis, of course.  A short stop in the East Asian Stuides Advisor's office confirmed my findings.  That's right, I'm actually DONE with every class I have to take as a master's student! 

Upshot of the conversation?  Fear, shock, joy, terror.  Now I've really got to buckle down and actually write my thesis!  I've got to talk with my advisor tomorrow about what I'm going to do for spring - theoretically I can finish my thesis in a semester but realistically I'll be at UT for another two semesters (which I knew, in concept, but ... the reality?  having it confirmed?  FAR more daunting). 

Monday I had professorial permission to skip my Modern Japanese class to attend this fantastic lecture by an anthropologist who's working on Humanoid Robots in Japan.  Totally fascinating stuff.  The main upshot of that afternoon was that she's concerned that the Japanese government, while sponsoring a progressive program to have robots in the majority of Japanese homes in the next 18 years, while fascinating, is actually a fairly nostalgic/reactionary agenda that turns women back into baby-making machines and supports a traditional family structure that either doesn't exist anymore or doesn't actually take into account the reality of Japanese lifestyle anymore (this ideal includes husband, wife, two kids, and the husban's parents living in the home of the future with a robot helper and lots of technological devices intended to make communication with eachother much easier).  The only sad part was that I wish I'd had more time with her - brilliant woman who was really quite interested in us little AS grad students, and our projects...

The ear infection continues - I finally made it back in to see the doctor yesterday and managed to persuade her to proscribe me some antibiotics even though she wanted to just give me a more powerful set of ear drops because she claimed the antibiotics might not do any good.  I got into a fairly strident conversation with her where I pointed out that I'd had reduced hearing for more than a week and wasn't exactly comfortable with the thought of having it for a week more because she wanted me to drop things back into my ears.  She swore there wasn't swelling that she could see.  But today?  After I've taken the first huge chunk of the antibiotics?  I am able to hear better.  It's not back to 100%, but definitely there's positive change, so it's all to the good.

And other than that it was a really good day - I was prepared for my Classical class (more than prepared because we had a guest sit in and ended up talking about Classical Japanese literature in concept rather than doing specific translations).  I ran off to Modern Japanese, got in enough time to actually study for the vocab test, and then read twice out of our readings. 

I even managed to remember to drop off the film schedule for the rest of the semester with the audio/video library and pick up the films we need for class tomorrow.

After having two weeks where I really felt like I was dropping things left and right I feel like I'm finally back on track for this semester - for tonight there will be some class prep, some test grading, some reading and planning for the classes I get to teach, and some mental freaking out (hey, that doesn't have to be scheduled, but it's fun to anticipate it anyway).  Woot! :D