Doodles, Shore, and One Great Big Decision

I don't remember a time when I didn't think of music accompanying The Lord of the Rings. The songs written by Howard Shore somehow were woven into the book, and is now an integral part to the story. Whenever I hear the opening song to the Fellowship, I'm immediately transported to that world. My parents read LOTR to us kids, and I remember sitting enraptured, listening to the events fantastically unfold.
It's also great doodling music. I become almost mindless and start drawing, just letting the music take over my brain. Basically I'm not responsible for the drawings that end up on my sketch book's pages.

The reason I'm writing this is because I should be studying for my midterm exam in my Chinese class...but I'd rather explain the rapture I feel when I listen to music.
At least my procrastination is good for being bored and needing reading material!

This weekend we have a public holiday starting for me on Saturday, and ending on Wednesday. At this time I should of course work on my project, turn in my PPT for review and collect "last minute" data. So that means on Wednesday, I'll get all this done right before the deadline. My project is a SWOT analysis of the Food and Beverage outlets here, if I haven't mentioned that before. I'll go through each venue and list the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and compare them to their competitive set here in Dalian. Sounds relatively simple right? Yeah...*sigh*. It is. It's simply 20 pages, a PPT and a half hour presentation in front of the Excom members. Mid October marks D-day, and also denotes our time here slowly winding down. That plus the English corners, the separate internship paper that's due before Thanksgiving should mean our time is quite occupied, and we will be very busy for the next month and a half. Thank goodness!
We've also been talking about what we're gonna wear on the plane ride back...y'know, just to be prepared.

I did discover recently that only 24 credit hours stands between me and graduating, and all I'd need to do is take 22 credits this next spring, and 2 in the summer. That's it! I'm decidedly ready to be done with school. It's annoying, the whole time I dread taking tests, going to class and through the motions of being a functional student. I'm over it!
However, after some consultations and much thought, I've decided to spend my time focusing on school and working, rather than killing myself just to be shoved out into the great wide world a few months early. So, I will indeed graduate December 2013 like originally planned. I'm sure the decision is a sound one, and I'll be glad for the extra time...it's just hard to see past the drivel of schoolwork and what feels like a waste of time in a classroom, when I could be out and doing what they're talking about!
Why did I want so badly to be an adult when I was a kid?

Also, my friend Ian got me a bag of these starchy seeds, that are usually surrounded by a spiny light green encasement, found on trees. They are delicious, but the texture is odd. He called them, "li peng", and I asked what the English name was but he didn't know. I was so excited! A real Chinese food that no one has had in America.
Guess what it is?
A chestnut. A simple, plain chestnut. I was crushed.