もうあれから11年か。デイヴィスには直で行けなくて、ユーリカという小さな地方空港に行く羽目になって、空港というよりは日本の片田舎の無人鉄道駅のような佇まいに驚き、空港周りの何も無さにさらに驚き、ホームステイ先に遅れると連絡したいのにネットは…

Perhaps for the very first time I'm finding this campus pretty beautiful. Walking around the campus this morning, I was struck by its bright flowers, birds' chirping, sweet air, clear sky, and smiling faces on Ring Road. How tragic my life…

I feel lonelier and more isolated in Japan than in CA. Wherefrom comes this sense of emptiness and tristesse?

It's hard to believe that I leave the US for my home country in less than six hours. But I'm unsure whether I can say that I'm going "back" to Japan. Is this really a homecoming? Isn't this more like going to another country? One thing I c…

I missed the train to LA due to several delays that occurred in the route from NY to Chicago. Now I'm in a long line to talk with a passenger services person. The problem is that the substitute ticket automatically sent to me--surprisingly…

Yes, this is how Amtrak works: Delay. The train stopped at Albany-Rensselaer, for about two and half hours, and doesn't seem to depart for how long I don't know. I'm afraid that I might miss a return train to LA at Union Station, Chicago, …

The 3-hour bus trip from LA was done. What come next are a 4-hour train trip to Stockton, and then another bus trip to Sacramento which takes only (!) an hour. After that, I finally get connected to the Zephyr route, in which I spend more …

Thank all of you who came to the pub and waited me. I finally arrived at Union Station, LA. The first bus leaves here in two hours. Today was such an eventful day, of course, in a bad way. I hope this won't be a bad omen for this trip. Aft…

Hi all, I finally arrived at UCI campus and am now bringing boxes of books to the library. After this, I'll go to the pub, if you're still there. And special thanks go to my friend who accompanied me all the day! I returned all the books I…

On the very last day I leave CA, I finally made a huge mistake. I made a collision accident, hitting a car in front of me which hit another which hit another. Fortunately nobody got injured (as far as I remember, and I was actually slowing…

I'll be on campus or around Irvine on Wednesday and Thursday. And probably I'll leave for Union Station LA from the amtrak station in Irvine in the late evening of Thursday. Like the protagonist of Schubert's Winterreise, I came here as a …

I depart from LA for the coast-to-coast train trip in the early morning of Friday and come back to LA in the morning of Dec. 19th. I leave for Japan in the morning of Dec. 20th. I'll be on campus from around noon to 5 PM tomorrow and proba…

s u b m i t t e d

I moved to the final submission website. But I really wonder who is really capable of reading all the tedious instructions about publishing, creative commons, and so on and so forth. It's funny, though, to hear that I may earn "royalties" …

A works cited list is complete. Now, the rest is to combine chapters and upload a pdf file to the library archives page. So close, almost done.

I think I've just written down the last sentence. No doubt it's crazy that you're still writing your drafts on the very day you're planning to submit a final draft. It's like playing a game you know you can never win but still somewhat bel…

I'll spend a second night in the library, in the same chair, in front of the same computer. Last night I was yet very uncertain. Tonight I feel far more relaxed. I've collected my committee's signatures. I've finished the online surveys. Y…

Wait, do I have to pay $95 if I choose the "open access publishing" option, instead of the free "traditional publishing" option? REALLY?

All right, I finished writing an abstract. I still need to find nice concluding sentences and edit a few chapters, but the writing part is almost done and I'm going to get the signatures of the committee members today. Most likely I'll upl…

I stayed overnight in the library. Edit, sleep, edit, sleep, edit sleep. Now a coffee break.図書館で夜を明かした。手直し、寝落ち、手直し、寝落ち、手直し、寝落ち。そして今はコーヒーブレイク。

I ended up writing a full-fledged conclusion, or mashing up 16 pages from the previously written but discarded drafts. I reread those pages and found them okay. I need one more paragraph and it's done. I admit that they are not the very be…

The final conclusion will be completed in a few hours. So close to the end. I feel really bad about working on the drafts to the very last moment, but I may still be proud of having never compromised the quality. あと数時間で結論部分が完成…

I forgot to write a conclusion and am now desperately trying to fabricate one. Not a long piece. Just a few pages. Perhaps it's enough to put the dumbest, most boring, most meaningless one, a summary of the previous chapters. But a prepost…

I finally booked a one-way ticket to Japan. I also finished planning my last (but almost first) trip in the US. I'm going to travel coast to coast, from LA to Chicago to NY. I depart on Dec 9th and come back to LA on Dec 19th, and leave fo…

The fingertips are oversensitive and typing keys irritates me. The hands tremble, the knees shake, the left eyelid droops heavy and I have difficulty in keeping my eyesight properly focused. I can barely stand up from the chair but I don't…

It looks that I have finished revising the last chapter. At last, I have to add. I want to reread it from beginning to end once again and do some minor editing, but I'll do no major changes. To be sure I'm still far from being done. I have…

Almost, almost there. Everything has been rewritten. I mean this literally. No paragraph has been left intact, every sentence modified. I often wondered, and am still wondering, "am I writing a dissertation or something else?" because what…

I ended up rewriting the whole dissertation. These few weeks I was revising it, sentence by sentence, chapter by chapter, and I'm so exhausted by this endless process. But I'm getting to understand my dissertation better, not yet really lo…

Okay, I finally, FINALLY, finished writing the last chapter on Kropotkin. Last two months I kept telling people that I was finishing it and I meant that. I believed that I was finishing, but I kept writing and revising, which became an une…

It turns out that I have to move out from Costa Mesa early next month, and I'm now looking for a new room to stay by the beginning of December. I'm not decided yet, but leaning toward the place in Long Beach which I visited today. It's ver…