Poem by Atsuhiro Sawai

Early Spring

If I make an attempt to walk with each and every thing
   thrown off
the air with the mischievous smile of a devil
attempts to present all things to me
so that my being will be bewitched by any one of them.

I throw them away
and then I begin to walk all over again.
And the world is in early spring.
Under the girdered expressway a milk-colored haze is
   hanging,
the sunlight of morning shining into it aslant.

Where a powdering of frost halfway comes off the tops
   of roofs
children of sunlight blow upon tiny horns of spring.
Heads of grey-green colored hills and
heads of building of this side stretch up billowingly.

Looking out on this scene of such joyful existence
now I will stop questioning the condition of "happiness."

Jolly Chimp

I was wrong. Well, I'm constitutionally wrong about many things, but I thought by now, I would be kicking back, relaxed and doing lots of random things for fun (what I mean by fun = doing lots of leisure reading, organizing the closet to dig out spring/summer clothes, doing the silly dance with "Sexy and I Know It" alone, cooking some rirakkuma shaped inari, etc) after I get done with my thesis defense.

Wrong...I was so wrong! I got done with my thesis defense more than a week ago, but I've been still busy calling and emailing manga publishers to clear out copyright issues. I've asked them to give me a permission to use some of their manga pages on my thesis. Luckily, the publishers I've spoken with have all been very nice and helpful, and I heard back from 4 of them already and only waiting for one more. I just need to translate their emails into English and use them as written permission. What's taking so much time and what's so ridiculously annoying is...thesis formatting. I really don't know how to skip page numbers...or how to merge some separate PDF into my main thesis PDF...or how many single spaces are 2 inches...and I'm beginning to be very impatient and starting to re-hate Word and this genius non-metric system in the U.S. Well, no, hate is a strong word, and I don't hate anything or anyone, but sadly I'm beginning to really dislike this whole process and want to just get it out of my way.

Writing the thesis was fun, and I miss writing every day, but I will not miss this formatting process. It's certainly  a big waste of my time. I can be spending time on something more useful and important, like trying out my new Uniqlo leggings and indulging a self-fashion-show or skyping with nene! Speaking of nene, when I get back home in May, I probably need an entire day dedicated just to hang out with nene, and another day would be doing absolutely nothing but just staring at the "jolly chimp" for hours...(attention please: I 'hate' monkeys.) My daydream can keep going on and on. OK. Until that day, I just need to keep working...and I know, I know I'm really nearing the end...