Still have yet to finish my final projects. Made some progress, however, almost completing a full page! Woo-hoo for me.

Anyway.

I'm still having a hard time concentrating with Tokyo mere weeks away. Not to mention that all the paperwork and scheduling getting passed back and forth has my mind reeling. I received my Certificate of Eligibility two days ago:

 
and mailed it out to the Japanese consulate yesterday, along with my passport to obtain my visa. Then I got an email last night from the International Programs Office with my dorm assignments, which sent me into yet another round of thrilling over the idea of actually going.

I'm hoping to make friends quickly with some of the people in my dorm so I won't be alone in my explorations and deciphering of street signs. Most all of the posts and blogs I've seen from students that either have been there before or are there now make it sound like a great experience, and for the most part, that's all they can say. Other than that, it's "You don't really understand until you've been there."

I'm also rather impatiently awaiting an email from my international programs office with how to set up my school blog. Not that I don't love blogging here, but this is more my general info, casual blog. That one will be strictly for Japan happenings.

Feeling restless. I've got so much to get done and no real motivation to get any of it completed. The only thing my mind is on right now is my trip to Japan, and even that is not moving anywhere at the moment. It's a lot of hurry-up and wait. "Send in these forms by the 10th otherwise you can't go"....and then you hear nothing for a month or so. After that, it's another quick deadline and more waiting.
Monday I go and get my wisdom teeth out.

I have friends who could use some support, but I have no real way of providing that support.
I don't want to go to work, but I am in dire need of the money.

I feel anxious, nervous, stressed, excited, tired, incoherent and cornered.

Unfortunately, it's true. My muse is a goddamned flirt. When I have the time and the tools to work on my creative endeavors, she decides it's time to go on vacation. When I'm swamped with school work, real work and other side projects that aren't creative but eat up my time just as well, she's constantly tugging on my sleeve, begging me to take some time out to nurture her. She pleads with me, apologizing for her sudden absence when I needed her prior, swears up and down it won't happen again, and just when I'm about to give in, she up and leaves again out of impatience.
At the current point in time, I have an essay and a portfolio assigned that need to get done fairly soon. At the same time, I've got her whispering in my ear about revamping my character Maligo [the blue guy on the right]
 
and about picking back up my vampire story which I've hit a stand still with for a few months now. It's like this huge itch that I can't scratch. Its awful. I love it. I'd imagine this is what an alcolholic feels when seeing an ad on TV for Smirnoff or Baileys. And yes, I do realize that the simple solution would seem to be to get my assignments done and then work on what I want to work on, but for whatever reason, it never seems to work out that way. I get the assignments done, only to be met with another bout of things that need to get worked on. It's times like these that I wish I was in the graphic arts field, so that my work would be my art. But then I remember that when art becomes actual work, my love for it dies a slow and painful death. To the point where I bury the carcass in a deep grave in the middle of the ocean in the hopes I'll never see it again. Of course, the tides always wash it back up again, and I end up cradling it contently once more.

Oh yeah. My speech thing last weekend was well-received. They were thoroughly impressed by my extemporaneous delivery [which isn't surprising, considering my three colleagues read directly from their essays, bright bulbs they are].