Cavorting Beasties...

Walking by the river t'other evening, the twilight disclosed all manner of plastic bags floating by in the water.  Seeing crap drifting downriver (not literal crap, mind you) is not unusual.  Mostly the usual suspects: the aforementioned plastic bags, empty food containers, wood chips, bottles and cans, and clap your hands.

Despite this, even by the time it empties into Tokyo Bay, Sumida River merely looks unsightly compared to some rivers elsewhere.  The Mississippi is pretty funky when it gets to Louisiana... and not Bootsy Collins funky, either.  Glow-in-the-dark, scratch-and-sniff biohazard funky.  とにかく、隅田川で泳ぐつもりない。

But back to the Sumida: having an eyeful of a bunch of discarded plastic bags of an evening... saw one of them twitch.  Paused to rub the peepers.  Looked again and found that all of the plastic bags were intermittently moving or pulsating or undulating.  Ew... hate that last word.  Of course these were not plastic bags, but jellyfish.  (Probably aurelia aurita to be precise).

Everything has its season, of course.  When jellyfish appear in large quantities, scientists refer to it as a "bloom".  Jellyfish blooms present a problem here and there.  The phenomenon can have disastrous effects for some.  A bloom of Nomura's jellyfish or 越前水母 (エチゼンクラゲ) managed to capsize a fishing trawler when a group (school? wiggle? flotilla? jar? dunno...) of them ended up in the boat's net.  Surprised?  It's less surprising upon learning this critter can grow to two meters in diameter with a mass of two hundred kilos.  Zoiks.

Anyway these otherworldly blobs are mighty interesting.  Wikipedia ho!
この不思議な塊は興味深いだな。ウィキペディアに行こう！

Status updaticus: a group of jellyfish is most precisely referred to as a "smack".

What the hell?  Who makes this stuff up?

Sheepskin Collection.

Life has proffered various bedevilments over the years.  C'est la vie.  Some of the more amusing (and predictable) include: unrequited love, smoking cessation, forays into the depths of madness, fishhook inadvertently stuck in hand, excessive alcohol consumption, and arguments with all and sundry.  In retrospect, however, few of life's bedevilments have proven more consistently annoying than post-secondary education.

After several stabs at college, finally snagged a BA (which was BS, really) in East Asian Studies.  Spent six semesters studying Chinese only to be fully unable to speak it in ordinary conversation.  Well, whatever.  Went to Japan, instead.

The acquisition of the BA led to a solemn pledge never to set foot in a university again... except maybe to use the toilet.  That vow, uttered in earnest before the dear and fluffy lord and at least two fellow meat bags, held up for exactly three years.  Then, it was off to grad school!

Contrary to expectations, grad school was actually pretty damned interesting.  Learned some genuinely useful shit.  Met some genuinely interesting folks.  Also met a few dispicable chowderheads.  Mostly interesting folks.  Became painfully aware, though, how unsuitable the life of an academia nut is (at least for this carbon blob).  While out at a restaurant with fellow grad students, one smarmy, pedantic little troll started blathering about going right on to get a doctorate.  Immediately made a solemn vow before the dear and fluffy lord not to pursue any additional, additional schooling.  Just can't do it.  Gold stars on the fridge to those who can do it.  Frankly, would rather use a hedgehog in lieu of toilet paper than get the third degree.

And speaking of paper: in the way back when, diplomas were printed on parchment, vellum, or sheepskin rather than paper.  Some people still refer to diplomas as sheepskins.  The practice continued here and there as a decadence.  One of the last places in the United States of America to confer actual sheepskin diplomas was Rice University in Houston, Texas.  They quit doing so in 2012, citing cost and handling problems.  Figures.  Electric lights made candles pretty goddamned expensive.  Works that way for many things.

At any rate, got an official letter from the grad school t'other  day saying that all the criteria for the masters program have been fulfilled.  Iz grajuit.  For realz.  This diploma will be made from paper, and not snipped from ovine hindquarters.

That said, shall now make (yet) another pledge before the dear and fluffy lord and all who read this blog: this meat bag is done collecting sheepskins.