- study time: summer eyes -

currently listening to - FREE (ERIKA)
mood - resurrected from the dead

had a lot of fun cramming all those math equations and solutions and physics theories into my head within 1 day by staying in the university library from 11am till 8 pm. on a cozy SUNDAY. it all started when someone came up to me, in my dream, and said, "hey, don't you have 3 tests on monday?" man, that was a nice wake-up call.

just joking. it didn't go like that.

i woke up in the afternoon on saturday and realised that i made a BIGGG mistake.

i have tests for both liner algebra and calculus, 2 weeks later. which is true. what's NOT true, is that we have tests for both LECTURE and TUTORIAL. so that makes 4 math tests and not 2. what's more amazing, is that the tutorial tests were conducted on monday, 2 days after i enlightened myself. so i had to make math my first priority when i get to the library on sunday, which i originally reserved for physics.

sitting for 5 tests in 2 days was really thrilling. you see everyone around you going "yabai, yabai" (but you knew that they said it because they can't get full marks, not because they're gonna fail the subject), while you yourself stay calm and cool (but actually you're *probably* one of the most yabai people in class).

anyway it ended. for now. i think i make my own life "interesting". old habit, can't be helped. =p

*****

i've known about Natsume Souseki for a long time, but till now i haven't read any of his novels. even though i actually have "I Am A Cat", "Bocchan" and "Kokoro" at home... just like i've not read Murakami's "Norwegian Wood", "Dance Dance Dance" and "A Wild Sheep Chase" even though i have someone in the family who knows almost anything about him. tsk tsk tsk shame on you!

so i learned a bit more about Natsume Souseki during nihon jijou. apparently his pen name "souseki" came from a chinese/japanese idiom 漱石枕流 (shu-shi-zhen-liu/sou-seki-chin-ryuu) which refers to the act of a sore loser stubbornly refusing to admit that he's wrong. maybe Natsume-sensei wanted to tell the whole world he's stubborn?

what's more amusing is that when i showed the idiom to my mom, who's supposed to be very good in chinese, she gave me a blank look.

)('#$%&'("$)#('&T="#$%&'($##!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *gasp*

the second thing that i found out about him, was that he turned more neurotic (he was already neurotic before that) after one of his university students committed suicide.

Natsume-sensei was hired to become a lecturer in the former kumamoto university, to take over Lafcadio Hearn's (who was fired because a new policy was introduced: native teacher over foreigner teacher, even for english lessons) place as an english teacher. Hearn was very popular and the students didn't want him to leave, so when Natsume first came he wasn't that welcomed. one day he snapped and asked one of his students Fujimura Misao to leave the classroom if he wasn't interested in his lessons. and the boy left.

a week later (?) he threw himself into a waterfall.

and he wrote himself a suicide note. later, it became a tradition for some people to recite it (a poem) when they want to commit suicide..

悠々たる哉天壤、遼々たる哉古今、
(the tranquil sky, the long history,)
五尺の小躯を以て此大をはからむとす。
(i am trying to measure the magnificence of the two with my 5-feet-tall body.)
ホレーショの哲學竟に何等のオーソリチィーを價するものぞ。
(in the end, does Horatio's philosophy worth anything?)
萬有の眞相は唯だ一言にして悉す、曰く、「不可解」。
(the truth of the universe can be explained with only one word, that is, "incomprehensible".)
我この恨を懐いて煩悶、終に死を決するに至る。
(i bear this bitter feeling in me, anguished, and finally i choose death.)
既に巌頭に立つに及んで、胸中何等の不安あるなし。
(here i am on top of the massive rock, having no worries at all in my mind.)
始めて知る、大なる悲觀は
(i finally realised, that the great depression)
大なる樂觀に一致するを。
(is equivalent to the great happiness.)

direct translation ahahaha. you can find the *prettier* english version of the poem here --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misao_Fujimura

some claim that he killed himself because he was heartbroken (young boy.. wikipedia said he died at 18, but my notes say it's 16). but Natsume-sensei thinks that he died because of him.

the girl who broke up with Fujimura, married a researcher for mines, and their son later became a professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology.

eh? that's my university....

*****

1) yabai - (i) (as an adjective) dangerous (ii) (as an exclamation) shit!! (iii) (reversed meaning) awesome!