Buh?

Fall semester's starting a few days earlier than I thought, which means I have just a week of vacation left.

Only two classes are starting next Thursday, Japanese and Intro to Logic. I have Japanese in the mornings on Tuesday and Thursday, and Logic is just Thursday afternoons. My Poli Sci class doesn't start until the following Wednesday (the ninth). I'm excited for all three. I've already cracked open my book for Logic, "Becoming a Critical Thinker," with the hope that going in with a little preparation will help me. The first skill I have to learn is how to be able to identify elements of an argument. It sounds easy enough, but it's sort of not, at least for me, so I'm gonna see what I can put into practice between now and next week. One of the interesting bits in the first chapter was the focus on the "issue", and how it got lost the longer and more emotional a debate got, but also that a truly skillful speaker would be able to keep things on task. That's cool.

Japanese actually looks... daunting. Part of that is because the book is like an instruction manual-- it's written entirely in both English and Japanese. I'm really hoping we have a good instructor. It's not that big of a deal, I think, just because I have 15 weeks to do it in, unlike my last 4-credit hour class. But I'm excited! This is what I want to do!

Speaking of what I want to do... I have to be completely honest with myself. I thought I hated fighting, but looking at it, I *love* fighting. The stuff that bothers me was the circumstances around the fight, which were the reasons the fights ever *happened*. But real martial prowess? Totally awesome. There's only one discipline I can claim to "know" much about, and that's not just close quarters combat, it's swords! Kendo, to be exact. I "hold" the rank of ni-kyu, which is two below ichi-dan (ichi-dan is essentially "black belt"). I really wanted to do more outside of Eastern, but it's kind of expensive... which is why I'm gonna do more of it when I go back =D. But I have my eye on something in the meantime...

Fencing! OCC offers it, and I wanna take it. I was inspired in part by my friend Adam (not to be confused with Ypsi-Adam, of Adam-and-Courtney) because he fenced for a couple years at CMU's club, and had actually done a couple of tournaments. One day on Facebook, he mentioned that he just wanted an all-out fight or semi-formal fencing thing, and I was saying "Man, I'd like to take him up on that." I just have to know what I'm doing first. Adam likes fighting with an epee, something I wouldn't learn until the second fencing class OCC offers, so I gotta get moving! Not happening this semester, though. I wanna see how I do with 10 hours/3 classes before I do more. If that works out, and then 11/4 goes well, I might take full time credits next fall.

I really want to be done by May of 2011. Jonathan put off schooling til next fall, and that means, if I'm back out there soon enough, we'll probably rent an apartment together! That sounds good to me! I mean, my other options were live alone on campus, or live alone just off of campus, because there's no way I'm living with a stranger, and having Jon as a roommate would be awesome. It's not like I could live with Adam and Courtney. But even with things as they are, Jon would probably only be around for a year before he was done. I think he's crazy for trying to get everything done at once, but from what I've heard about his habits at his last school, he could handle it. But, it all depends on how I'm doing now.

I want to read more before next week.

Sean