Back to School.

Classes let back in today, and it was a good beginning. I'm taking two seminars and two language courses - including what promises to be a fascinating course on classical Japanese. The first assignment involves a rudimentary overview of the differences (and similarities) between classical and modern Japanese grammar forms. Loving linguistics (and grammar) as I do, I think this class is going to be stellar and that I'm going to learn a lot that helps foreground my knowledge of modern Japanese. The second-half of the advanced Japanese course appears to have been improved from the first, and the professor appears to have taken student suggestions to heart in structuring the curriculum. From the syllabus it looks like it will be a much more cohesive course.

I met with my adviser this afternoon, and it was a great meeting. I explained to her, in brief, about some of the things that have been going on this past month and she was very understanding. We had a great chat and ironed out important details about my upcoming language examination, my summer fellowship plans, my MA thesis, and so much more. Despite my failure to get much of anything done over the break (although, to quote my adviser, I wasn't supposed to get anything done - I was supposed to rest), I seem to have managed to stay ahead of the game in some ways. I've gotten a bit done for the seminar paper research (I know where I'm going at least and have begun building a bibliography), and my summer applications should be well in hand within the next couple of weeks. My biggest challenges in the month of January will be my participation in the Grad Expo committee and the language exam, which will be scheduled earlier this term than it was last and for which I will seriously need to prep like a fiend. (Not to be confused with being a prep-fiend.)