Once More, to the Future! (with feeling?)

It’s already January 7th, 2010, and I’ve decided I need to accept that not only has yet another year passed by, but I also now have to get used to typing only one zero after the two in 2000, and writing a one after the slash whenever I hand-date anything. It’s sure to be a challenge.
Of course, and perhaps more importantly, the other remarkable thing about January 7th this year is that the week it’s been so lovingly installed into (the week of the fourth, for those of you not keeping track) is the week that my finals started. Coming from a different school-year track, it’s rather interesting to be taking finals in early January instead of relaxing and making money at Zea, but even more intriguing to be facing a two month-plus spring break starting at the end of January.
As far as breaks go, it’s a wonderful length, and as far as the timing is concerned, a long break after a difficult semester is always aptly timed. But from a seasonal perspective, it’s a little bizarre. My few and beloved readers, I would ask you to not be fooled by the sweet name that has been glossed across the span of this break. As I’ve heard, and am gradually starting to understand with my own flesh, winter comes late in Japan, peaking during Feb., and then working towards spring and finally a sweltering summer during June/July. The weather up until now, staying in line with my outline above, remained fairly mild. But with New Year’s Eve came the first snowfalls (none have left any proof of their passing aside from a touch of white in the corners of buildings and some frosting on the outside legs of metal guard rails, waiting eagerly to melt away) and on today’s bike ride home the wind poked fun at my clothing, and I was unfortunate enough to feel the jabs. I’m fairly sure the only sign of spring will come at the end of this break.
The winter break (late in terms of needing a break from school, and somewhat reasonably timed seasonably, although also admittedly a little early for Kyoto,) ended after it provided its scant 9 days of relief, and yesterday, what comes to roughly two weeks of a-test-a-day festival began at 10:40am. The reading test went alright due to copious studying, and today’s listening test was passable, despite some problems with graph interpretation and my apparent failure to learn the names of various illnesses in Japanese. Tomorrow’s test for my Essay class is feeling a little hopeless, and having struck upon an almost delightful dou demo ii attitude, I’m waiting until after dinner to study what I don’t understand, and can really only wait for my brain to come to terms with.
And so I’ve found my way to my computer, to write my intro to the last few weeks of my life, which have included more seasonable observations, a presentation week exhumed from Hades, a Christmas holiday in Japan, a spectacular trip to Osaka for onsen and hiking with Kurt Sauer, and of course New Year’s eve in Kyoto. It should be a fearsome recollection.

p.s. For those of you that noticed, sorry if the reference in the title got your hopes up. You should know I don’t watch that show.

~ by Zack K on 01/07/2010.