Bedding down in the new semester
Well, it's the beginning of week 4 of the new semester - which actually, being a third of the way (almost), probably means it's not so new anymore.

I have some hopes that this semester will be less traumatic than the previous year. However, the university admin being what it is, I still don't know if an application I've made to reduce my credit load is going to be accepted. It's going to be a shitty climb back if I have to return to the full load after week five. Or even later.

Then again, I "shouldn't" borrow trouble, I know.

I'm taking another history class this semester, this time of modern Japan, to compliment the modern history of China I did last year. There is the same mountain of unfamiliar names, although some of the names become familiar in their repetitions after getting stuck into the first chapter (actually, the middle chapter of a book designed to cover 2 courses, the first half covering, logically enough, the history of Japan from earliest times to the dawn of the modern era - which in the Japanese time-frame means the moment their country was forced open by Commodore Perry...).

It's just icing on the cake that I get to take this class with my friend M. from the previous years' languages classes. So we walk back after class to catch our transports home (the city has the train station and bus depot handily gathered in one area), chatting about the little frustrations of our student lives. (Or, in some cases, big frustrations, like dealing with the university's international office... talk about a private little fiefdom... sheesh!)