I'm Back, with various issues

Sorry for the nearly two-month absence. It takes a friend's few words of encouragement to motivate me to blog again (thanks Chris Brooks!).

Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's my bodily condition, but I begin to feel anxious about various things. In general, I am becoming more anxious about my research because I must write my master's thesis when I start school next Winter Quarter. Before that, I need to improve my Japanese to a level comparable to my research materials. But for this second session, teachers have placed me in a lower level than the first session because only 15 of us are in the program, and they cannot divide us into too many levels. I end up being with the lowest level of students out of 3 levels. The teacher told me that I am right between level 1 and level 2. Although I finally talked to the teachers in my third week of the session, nothing has changed yet. Hopefully starting tomorrow I will see changes. I plan to talk to teachers more about it. The main problem is not the material itself but that the pace is too slow.

After the language issue, I have source problems. I want to research on female students' family background and their school life, but the materials available in Japan are mostly government regulations and documents. I also do not know my focus yet...

I also felt really exhausted today, as if all energy went elsewhere.

Many fun experiences and things have happened. I will talk about them later.