Metamorphosis

I finally succumbed. All those "switch" commercials and those people in DC with the shiny, white iBooks finally got to me. I've been eyeing an Apple laptop for a long time now, lurking on Apple forums and whatnot, and going to Japan for a year gave me the perfect excuse to feed my curiosity and spend some of my hard-earned tax refund money! Yes, I'm ending my dead-end 10 year relationship with Windows and dropping (i.e. handing down to my parents) my 3 year-old 1.3 GHz P4 desktop PC for a brand-new (ironically) 1.33 GHz iBook G4. Most people's reactions are along the lines of "An Apple? WTF would you do that for!"

Well, let me explain to everyone all at once. I'm Apple's typical PC convert. I'm a lifetime Windows user who has been just so used to using PCs that I've never even considered an alternative. Then there was iPod. I've had my 2nd-generation iPod for a couple of years now and it was exactly the seed Apple needed to plant (no pun intended) to convert thousands upon thousands of us. iPods are the perfect marriage of form and function, a concept quite alien to beige-box PC users. Also, I don't play (PC) games (anymore). Really, all I need is a machine to browse the web, listen to music, watch porn and do CS assignments. Macs do all that with the most gorgeous and intuitive UI I've ever seen wrapped up in the sexiest package imaginable. I've never felt so good just using a computer. But under all that beauty is a rock-solid OS built on Unix, so you get the best of both worlds. Power and beauty. Together. Honestly. The question for me really was: why not a Mac? Well ok, if there's one drawback, it's that they're expensive. That is true, but I don't regret dropping a single penny of that cash.

I could continue to rant on an on about the virtues of a Mac versus a PC and why it's worth the extra dough but just think of it this way: when was the last time you saw a PC user declare his love for his Windows machine with such religious fervor? Why do you think Mac users are invariably so passionate and fanatical about their Macs? Are we all just mental? ;) If you haven't already, try out iTunes for Windows for a little taste of Mac heaven.

Not much to report regarding the job. I was contacted last week. They told me to wait. Haven't heard since.
[Update]: I was contacted again today by my field coordinator and he told me to continue waiting one to two more weeks. He says we're looking at a mid-May to early June departure...

As for preparations, most of my efforts are currently concentrated on studying kanji. I've kicked that into overdrive. It's essentially my sixth course, as I put as many hours into that as I do my other courses, as anyone who has studied with me at DC can attest :) My goal is to be able to read and write all 1945 joyo kanji by the time I land in Japan. Impossible? More on that later ;)