This is like waking up late for the first day of class and I have to turn in homework already

So the day one of me resolving to change my bullshit ways has fallen through already. I couldn't get to bed until late (I really need to not browse SA forums so late at night, it's killing me) so I end up waking up at 11:30 in the morning only to realize I haven't taken my medication... so whoopdeedoo, no fucking breakfast for an hour. No resolve to get up, finish planning out my novel, nosh a bit, update this thing, do laundry, plan more, lunch, etc. Goddamn. I really set myself up for failure, here.

Alright, let's talk about something else.

Last Tuesday, my university threw a fall career fair for students and alumni, and I attended mostly to get mom off my back, but to actually get my resumes out there in the easiest way possible. I've applied with numerous organizations (mostly federal work, though) and while I think I've got something, I know there are better applicants out there. I can only hope at this point that someone actually sees something worth training in me.

After I had finished with the career fair, I decided to hop on by my undergraduate advisor's office and essentially beg for guidance. I don't know if getting work will pan out (it might, most agencies and bureaus are at the end of their fiscal year and can hire new people now) so I wanted to know what programs for Japanese I should apply to. Well, of course, he couldn't help me unless I knew what I wanted to study. Shit. When he asked I basically said modern literature, women's lit specifically, but I don't think I want to study that now. Honestly, I'd like to go back to some of the stuff I touched on in my senior project, some translations from Hideyuki Furuhashi's Aru hi, bakudan ga ochitekite, which is a light novel.

... Fuck it, I want to study light novels. Hardly anyone has fucking studied light novels in English, and they're only just now being translated and printed in the U.S. by a few publishers. It's not much, and it's very much a niche audience, but they seem to be doing okay with titles like the Haruhi series.

As for the question, "is this shit even worth studying?" Yes, to me it is. But I say this is mostly because my undergraduate advisor has never discouraged me from studying what I want. To people like him, there's nothing not worth studying - and he's kind of right. There are thousands of subjects people haven't touched in academia pertaining to literature - I know barely anyone has made a serious study of YA literature (which is bullshit because the majority of books being challenged within the US are YA novels and well-loved novels in the academic sphere, almost exclusively) or even fandom. Why? Who the fuck knows. It could be anything from lack of knowledge to a cockblocking PhD advisor.

As to "why the fuck would you want to study this shit?" Well, I find it fascinating, really. Light novels are (and I touched on this in my own introduction to my translation) a very unique blending between literary culture and visual culture that is particular to Japan. It's a genre that really has no equal in the U.S., but we also don't have a strong nerd (read: otaku) subculture supporting stuff like fantasy. We have one for graphic novels and comic books, but they're not really the same, although there are plenty of parallels between the two cultures. There's actually a fair bit of research and study being put into light novels and otaku subculture in Japan, but very little of it has been brought to the U.S. - stuff like Hiroki Azuma's book on otaku and internet culture in Japan was only a start. He's written a follow up book to it since, but it hasn't been translated at all, which is a shame, because it was all about light novels and fuck me, I could have really used it for my research. So I think there's something worth studying about light novels.

Whew, that's done. Now it's all a matter of where I should look to apply, if I choose a career in academia like most of my family. Anybody got any ideas?