*dying*

Fulbright application is killing me. Lack sleep. And confidence. Makes me sad to think that all this effort is likely to be for naught. Have been anxious for the past three days. Literally, I am drinking a can of mike's hard(er) lemonade just to calm myself down a little.

Need to email researchers in Singapore and convince them to help me with my project. FURTHER ANXIETY.

Life. :(

I'M CONSTANTLY BUSY

And I'm not even employed on campus yet. Ye gads! Weirdly enough, that my roommate is just as busy as I am is actually really comforting.

But otherwise, it's good to be back at Kenyon. Though more isolating than I expected, since I know very few of the underclassmen. (I didn't realize how many upperclassmen friends/acquaintances I had before until now...) Chinese is kind of killing me, since absolutely everything is in Chinese now (I spent a few hours translating my syllabus the first week, lol) and so many of my classmates have baller speaking skills now. But oh well, at least I'm learning a lot. :)

So yeah. Taking one more class than how many people normally take, but I hardly do work for it since it's my first pass/fail class. So I guess I can't complain. Aside from that, I'm a discrimination advisor on campus and soon I'll be writing for the Opinions section of the school newspaper. (!!) I'm also trying to be employed on campus for a max of ten hours/week because I think I would implode if I forced myself to work for any longer than that on top of all this other shit. Currently waiting on a response from the staff of the new art building that popped up on campus while I was gone...

So yeah. Busy. I haven't even watched the newest Natsume Yuujinchou yettttttt. x___x

And yeah, I found a bootleg copy of the entire Book of Mormon musical on Youtube and so now I'm even more obsessed with it than I was over the summer. x___x

EDIT: OH MY GOD THE BOOK OF MORMON IS COMING TO CHICAGO. TICKETS WHERE!!

I'M BACK ON CAMPUS

IT'S WEIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRD. It's like I forgot how it feels to be a college student. o-o

I can't believe I'm living in a dorm this year. I was getting used to my homestays and beach-side apartments. ;___;

Top 5 Anime/Manga

...Of the ones I've watched/read this summer. NOT counting series that I'm still in the process of watching, including Aria & Natsume Yuujinchou. And I'm JUST ON THE VERGE of watching Redline (torrent download 98.6% done!!), so the list is still subject to change. :3

5. Pluto
From the very first chapter onwards, I was hooked. Not a single page of this manga is wasted. And mad respect to Naoki Urasawa for taking a rather simple Astro Boy plot and crafting an entire WORLD out of it. I think the ending stretch of the series is a little less good/too rushed in comparison to the rest of it, but eh. Small slight to an otherwise great manga.

4. Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica
For what are now obvious reasons. I think it's even better appreciated if you actually sat through seasons upon seasons of Sailor Moon/Card Captor Sakura/old-school mahou shoujo anime as a kid. Would have never thought of it before watching this series, but the mahou shoujo genre really was in bad need of deconstruction (and boy did they deliver).

3. Eve no Jikan
Pretty much my favorite anime movie now. The animation is gorgeous, pacing is consistent, and the ending story is just wonderful. And not only is the cast characterized well (including characters who only appear for 15 min), but the leads get some genuine character development, all in less than two hours. I walked away from this feeling like I had just watched a mini-series (which it technically is, har har).

2. FMA: Brotherhood
Yeah, I only watched this in full this past summer. Sue me. :P

When I was watching the first series, I always thought that it had a lot of unnecessary episodes. And even besides that, the main story just didn't draw me in the same way it did other people. (Mind you, I had no idea the first series diverged so much from the manga until Brotherhood started airing.) If anything, I'm glad I am finally now a fan of FMA and am no longer one of the handful of people who doesn't care for it much. ^^;

1. Watashitachi no Shiawase na Jikan
Gets the #1 spot mainly due to how emotionally affecting the story is. I still can't believe how much I came to care for the characters when the entire story is only 8 chapters long. This is also one of the few anime/manga I've encountered that has the potential to really change how some people think and act. And yeah, I'm totally willing to admit that the last chapter made me cry like a bitch. Seriously, I'm glad no one else was around. (FYI, the plot is NOT as melodramatic as the MAL summary makes it seem. I swear it!)

Not anime, but still deserves mention:

Avatar: The Last Airbender
Yeah, watched this series only recently too. And it's AWESOME. Totally buying the whole thing on DVD someday. Zuko pwns my soul, weh. *o*~

Game of Thrones
As amazing as everyone says it is. Yeah.

X-Men: First Class
Really liked this movie. Enjoyed it quite a bit more than Captain America, tbh. Probably because of James McAvoy. :P

Tap-Dancing Mormons

Psychology Today is a wonderful website. Just ran into an article about the relationship between creativity, leadership, and introversion. Gist of it is:

Studies suggest that innovation often requires solitude... People who like to spend time alone are decidedly at odds with today’s team-based organizational culture. Introverts are much less likely than extroverts to be groomed for leadership positions, according to management research, even though another Wharton study led by Professor Adam Grant found that introverted leaders outperform extroverted ones...

This reminds me of something I read in Freakonomics about how an absurd majority of corporate CEOs are tall white guys, or just tall guys period. We have this image of what a leader should look like, even though that image may not coincide with the qualities a leader should possess. I mean, how many people would've looked at Mark Zuckerburg when he was still a student and honestly believed he has crazier CEO superpowers than Donald Trump?

What I take from all this is, us introverts need to stop listening to what other people think a leader should be and become a little bit more assertive about taking on leadership roles ourselves. Of course, not every introvert necessarily has leadership potential, but if introverts really do have a greater knack for innovation, then we have a lot more to offer than people may think. One possible caveat is, I've heard great leaders are often risk-takers & gamblers, which introverts tend not to be.

I've always thought one the best ways for extroverts & introverts to work together is the Tamaki/Kyouya-type leader pair that's so popular in anime. You need energetic extroverts to inspire people, bring workers together through the power of charisma, be a risk-taker, etc. But you also need a Kyouya-type to work in the shadows and manage people, come up with new business ideas, practice sound decision-making, etc. So introverts don't necessarily have to be at the forefront and could just be the "neck that turns the head," so to speak. :P

So about those tap-dancing Mormons. I've had this song stuck in my head all day! Well, this and SPOOKY MORMON HELL DREAM. xDDD

Thank Mormon God for whoever illegally recorded this. I STILL WANT TO SEE THIS SHOW SO BAD. omg I will give my first born. Screw you, New York, you're the reason why Chicago can't have nice things! :(((

Also, I found out why this song sounds so much like an Avenue Q song: because both shows have the same composer, durr.

On the anime front, the famous Matoba arc started in Natsume Yuujinchou. EVEN MORE EXCITING, I'm finally about to watch Aria the Origination, which is supposed to be one of the best anime ever. It has seriously taken me months to get to this point. I BETTER NOT BE DISAPPOINT.