2016 is well under way. It's amazing to see how quickly the year has passed, really, considering that my last post was on New Year's Eve and we're already in the middle of March. Not a lot of things happened in between. I will be graduating in September, so right now I'm basically looking to secure myself a full-time offer before graduation. Honestly, it is a tough job market out there, but I'm pretty confident about my chances. I managed to land a relevant internship last semester, I have extracurricular experiences, and I studied abroad as well. I've also done a fair share of networking throughout last semester, although I didn't meet as many people as I wanted to. 

So overall things are okay. My grades for last semester had been pretty decent. The dissertation (which I literally wrote two weeks before it was due) managed to receive an A+, which (according to my lecturer) is a really rare grade. I was told that no-one had gotten that grade in two years and I must have been the first person to get it in a while. To be fair I really didn't think the dissertation was that good. In retrospect it looked a bit rushed, I hadn't fully thought through my arguments, and I hadn't done enough primary research. But I managed to somehow pull it out and they seemed happy. I guess I can't really complain, can't I? Can't hide the fact that I still feel a tad incompetent, though.

My lecturer and I met up about two weeks ago over coffee on where my career is supposed to go. To be honest I already knew where I wanted to work, but I wanted her opinion on how a career in academia might look like. She said that academia is really tough to break into, and that getting a PhD is basically the same as flushing 80k down the toilet at this point (well, she didn't literally say that, but you know what I mean). Then she briefly congratulated me on my grades before she subtly hinted me to take on the Masters program at my university. I really don't have any intentions of staying at university, though. I like doing research and all, but I want to start working full-time.

So I guess that's it for my share of real-life stories. I've met some pretty amazing people over last semester, and overall school had actually been really enjoyable. The transition into work life is going to be tough, though. I'll have to get used to walking around in a suit, setting up a decent-looking LinkedIn, and be ready to have conversations with people I may or may not like. I think the reality of working in a corporate environment is that you get used to doing things like that, and you learn to do everything in a professional (i.e. slightly polite yet generally emotionless) manner. And the scary thing is that I'm sort of getting used to that. I'm getting used to getting along like that.

Besides that, nothing really happened. My private life has also been fairly mundane. I came pretty close to having a girlfriend last semester. She's an accounting student, and basically PM'd me on how much she liked me and so on. I didn't really feel anything and while we're still friends, nothing overly emotional happened thereafter. I don't really know why I don't feel that romantically attracted to anyone. I don't think there's a void in my heart that needs to be filled by someone else, anytime soon. I have friends who basically can't get along without their arms around a girl, and I can't really comprehend that. I just don't understand why women or companionship is all that important.

I did end up going out with another, Japanese girl, though. Her story is actually really, really screwed up. I was introduced to her via a friend of mine, who works at the same company as her. My friend really likes her - she's timid, she's a really shy, which I guess makes her kind of cute in a weird way. So one day, I asked this Japanese girl if she wanted to go to a convention (i.e. date) with me. She instantly agreed. It was really fun. I gave her some pocket money and she spent it like the irresponsible kitten she is (and did I mention she wore cat ears to the convention as well?). Then we went into the city and ate ramen and told lots of jokes and laughed. Things started getting cuddly between me and her really, really quickly. It was a really, really weird feeling.

That night, I saw her walking in the city. She told me earlier that she was going home, but she was actually in the city for the whole time. She cuddled me. I asked her if things were going fine and she said yes. After that, she went drinking with my friend. She got wasted. She made out with my friend in the back of the car. She got home, and encountered her boyfriend. I don't know what happened after that. My friend told me, about a month later, that her boyfriend is Japanese and is really, really abusive. He hits her quite often and I'm sure that she must have been beaten up that night because she went out with two guys. After that encounter, I met her one more time. Then we broke off all contacts.

Sorry. There's just so much I wanted to take off my chest. The story is just so unbelievably screwed up. You can probably make a soap drama out of the whole fiasco. And the reality was, I actually felt awful for taking her out. If I had known she had an abusive boyfriend who wouldn't let her get close to another guy (even if he has the romantic attraction of a rock), I wouldn't have taken her out. It was just an awful experience overall and it nearly destroyed my semester. I actually have no idea how I managed to survive through last year when there was so much random stuff going on.

I finally got a new hobby, and I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't gotten this hobby I wouldn't have made it through last semester. I was hoping to take up a new, 'better' hobby like running or exercising, but K-pop ended up being a very therapeutic thing that helped me a lot. It's funny because K-pop is actually just as awful as anything I've liked previously, but I just really like some of the girl groups. A-pink is great, Lovelyz is great, and some of the newer groups are also good as well. I think Lovelyz is fantastic - For You has got to be the most beautiful video that's come out all year. Definitely worth a watch - it's filmed in Okinawa and makes me want to go there.