I wanted to go to bed an hour ago, but somehow that didn't happen. I've been having a hard time getting sleepy at the right times, so my sleeping schedule is all messed up. I'd really like to start waking up earlier, mostly because I lose so much of the day and end up feeling lazy and lethargic the entire time I'm awake despite sleeping 8 hours. I think if I woke up at around 9 or 10 every morning, that would be ideal. I'd like to get started on reading, research, and Japanese studying. I especially have to get started on Japanese, since I'd like to retain my comprehension. Time to break out the animes and J-dramas. I have been meaning to watch "At Home Dad"... I have it bookmarked and everything.
There's been a lot on my mind lately. Speaking of studying, I'm a little worried about what's gonna come after grad school. I don't know where Sam and I will end up, since it really all depends on where he wants to go when he goes to grad school. The economy is bad, and I'm hoping that's better by the time I graduate. I also hope that I can speak and read and write Japanese well enough to get a good job. Ideally, I would get a job translating or doing some kind of marketing for a manga company, but it really depends on what's available at the time. The thing that I really regretted after graduating from undergrad was that I didn't have a strong enough grasp of Japanese to actually have a career related to it. I feel like I know a lot more Japanese now, but the fact that I'm still not even close to fluent bothers me. What's more, there isn't even a 4th year Japanese class at UCSB. It's at least somewhat comforting that I now know there are language schools out there where I could take a course for 9 weeks and come back fluent, but that's expensive, and difficult to work into our living situation. I'm just really hoping that reading and writing will get me through any possible work. I really want a decent job when I get out of school. I don't want to be stuck in an entry level position again. I definitely want a job that I'd enjoy and make a career out of, but I think it's also important to me that I make at least as much as what I did at my old job. I'm really hoping that my 4 years of office experience will also boost my resume, so that not only am I highly educated, but I have a good work history too. I know it's too early to worry just yet, but I really want to feel like my schooling was all worth it, and not something done entirely out of desperation, haste, and naivete.
Something else I've been thinking about these past couple days (which is completely unrelated) is the societal value of human life. On Thursday, Michael Jackson died from cardiac arrest, and the news has covered basically nothing else for the past 3 days. It was tragic and sudden, yes. He was one of the major influences on contemporary music, I agree. And that certainly deserves mention. But nonstop news coverage for days? I think that's more than a little ridiculous. I especially feel bad for Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon because they died this week too, but no one's talking about them anymore. Their deaths were perhaps not nearly so sudden as Jackson's, but certainly no less tragic. Perhaps even more so, because they suffered from their illnesses for a long time prior to their passing. They're celebrities too, shouldn't they deserve more than a 5 minute mention? What struck me too was that I was watching TV and saw one of those "Coming up at 11" news advertisements. They went on and on about Jackson for at least the first half of the commercial, then cut quickly to a 3 second mention of a shooting in LA that killed 3 people. 3 people are dead, shot before their time, but they only get 3 seconds out of 60. Michael Jackson was important, sure. But so were those 3 people. They were important so someone. But in society's terms, their deaths - and their 3 combined lives - were only worth a fraction of the news anchor's breath in comparison to the hours of coverage of one musician's life. I know that's how humankind is, but that seems wrong to me. And that makes me think - how many people died in service of our country since Thursday? How many people died needlessly in violence since Thursday? No one will hear a mention of their names, and only a relatively small amount of people will mourn their passing. The majority of those people probably led far more moral and honorable lives than Michael Jackson did. But millions are mourning this one man - a man who was almost certainly a child molester - and they will likely continue to mourn him for a long time. It's wrong. I know we can't care about every death like people care about celebrity deaths, or else everybody would go crazy. But it's still wrong.
But it's late, and maybe I'm just feeling opinionated and gloomy. Totally emo tonight, folks.
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