English writing

             I have decided to write my journals in English from now on.  Today in Peace and Compensation class as we were handed out blank sheets of paper to write simply why we chose this course, I found myself desperately searching for words to describe my reason.  I wrote it the first time, and it sounded weird.  Like I wasn't a fluent speaker.  I started to nitpick at my own words, judging if it sounded as if it might be within the boundaries of "native speaker" writing.  It reminded me of when I was taking the TOEFL iBT test the last time.  I did not do well in the writing section.  I kept questioning myself and my once brilliant intuition with wording had gone astray.  I felt a sense of impotence for not being to supercede my previous self.  Although I was doing translating work around the time, I was not writing anything myself.  I was not writing to form an opinion or an argument.  Today I decided that that was exactly what I needed to do. 

I was surprised at myself, when I started to type this and felt "Oh, man, this is so much more work".  I used to feel this way towards Japanese and now it's the other way around.  

So, let me get into the details of my first day in school. 

It's not a "first day in school" per se, because this is my third year.  I came to the realization today that my university life is half over.  I already have more than half of the required number of credits to graduate.  Looking at the number of credits I got, I thought to myself, yeah, not bad- considering that I didn't take a lot of classes in the first year.  I passed all of the mandatory classes (which is the reason why I am now in the 3rd year), and got all of the ones that are advised to be taken earlier on.  I am going to get all the credits I can in this year, so that I can concentrate on job hunting or studying or whatever it is that I will be doing in the next year.  

I just calculated my GPA and I found that I need to get better than A+ on every single subject I take from now on in order to reach a GPA of 3.0.  

Well, that's absurd. 

I guess I should choose subjects on the overall prospects of how well I would do in the classes.  

I think the grading system varies too much by university to be any useful indicator of a person's aptitudes in their studies. 

But that's not for any universities abroad to judge. 

Well I guess I need to go to a university in Japan for my masters.  

That way my GPA wouldn't matter, if I was to become a researcher.  

But to be a researcher I need to put up with another 4 years of school after the two years of school I already have to put up with in order to graduate.  

That's 6 years from now. 

I'll be 26 by the time I get my doctorate in god knows what. 

I don't even know what I want to major in.  

And my university life is half over. 

To be honest I don't want to put up with another 4 or 5 years of school.  

I want to work and be independent. 

There's already so much I can do in the workplace, and so much I want for myself. 

By the time I'm 30, I want to go travel with my own money, buy clothes with my own money, buy a house with my own money. 

I want to work abroad, work in Germany or America. 

I want to have a job and a nice apartment there. 

I want to live in a dingy little apartment by the ocean of Choshi, working for some little company. 

Like a play doll set. 

Little jobs, little apartments, with my little Ken doll. 

Life in Aomori also seems fun. 

I was looking up beaches in Kanagawa and some places look pretty good.  

I wonder if I can go alone.  Technically, yes.  But what if there are weird people there? And my face has to recover before I can be out in the sun without sunscreen.  What I want to do is, I want to rent an apartment close to the ocean while working in Yokohama.  I want to live by the Keikyu Line.  Koganecho looked like a lovely place.  Byobugaura seems nice too.  All the stations on the Keikyu line seem quiet and lonely. Even the train station signs are blue and are written in that wonderful nostalgic font like the Shinkaisoku in Kansai. The font and the colour screams ocean. Lonely, rocky beaches of the pacific with fitting beautiful names.  What makes me happy to be Japanese is that I can appreciate the names of these beaches.  I was looking at the population statistics of Choshi and the population had dropped by nearly 30% since 1975.  It really is getting depopulated. 

I wish I can live there and just paint the ocean every single day.  

Not that I'm any good at that.