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Nothing you should apologise for. I cannot keep the rhythm up for very long anyway - as you can see, I'm already falling behind. I do much better with short (even if frequent) messages than long written conversations.
I will try to type this answer in its entirety tonight, but I am currently lost in Todoroki (BnHA's second season is awesome), plus Miraculous' ninth episode was even more fantastic than the last (Miraculous' second season is awesome) ...The internet offers too many easily accessible distractions.

There's not much of a story, really. I was trying to find a job over there, but all the applications I sent got rejected. I didn't send all that many anyway because I was doing this while working my regular job here, plus dealing with all the usual every day stuff. Plus I knew the timing was bad so I didn't push too hard. Of course it's entirely possible that they would all have been rejected even if the circumstances were different. But since it was that time, I just assumed that all the unrest and unclearness about what would happen, also in the smaller and more specific reality of hiring foreign workers, made employers less willing to welcome possible future headaches.

I will send you a PM with my e-mail and phone number. What works best for me nowadays are Line (which you probably don't know) and Telegram, which is my favourite. If you use it please feel free to add me, just don't mind my settings - I actually use it mostly to coordinate with other Pokémon GO players (for raids) so it's currently set up with that kind of focus. If something else works better for you though, please let me know and let's try to find a good common ground.

Well, 2018 at least started on a very good note; I got back in touch with you, I got back in touch with another friend, I plan to get back in touch with yet another (and possibly more), had a few lucky happenings here and there. I am not sure if I should be worried about the rebound. XD I don't think I would define myself as 'active' here, not in the nuance I attach to the word at least. It's really hard to keep interactions alive because of my life's current pace. I do still actively watch anime and TV shows, play games (mostly on my phone now), read doujinshi, fanfictions, and manga. I also wrangle since 2015 and get a lot of personal satisfaction out of it - it feels great when someone sends in a positive message about a particular wrangling decision you've made, or when users pick up the structures you've laid out and seem comfortable with them.

Again, there is no need for you to apologise. I've been thinking about contacting you at times but never did because I thought that maybe you'd actually rather not hear from me; leave the past in the past and move on. I am genuinely happy simply knowing that you do wish to keep in contact. And if we can manage to shorten the intervals to something less than a few years, even better.

Wish you a good night and a great Sunday.

xox

I promise I will reply properly to you later tonight but let me have my moment of excitedness first: I am so thrilled to find this comment of yours on my profile! I confess I haven't even read it yet, just skimmed through, but it's just - you're here! It's been so long! I've been wondering how you were doing for the longest time! So yay - thank you so much for taking the time to come all the way back here and say hi! ♥

First thing first, SORRY! (for the umpteenth time)
Keeping up with replies to my comments is really complicated for me, despite how ridiculous it may sound.

Thanks a lot for dropping me a line, it made my day better! (and give me an excuse to finally reply to you)

I'm currently in North America (Montréal) and enjoying my studies, even though it's tougher here. I'm not sure I'm excelling in anything right now; just got my last two midterm exams today, so we'll see.

My course is called English Track because they made a separate "track" for international students with classes taught mainly in English, yes (or at least, that's how it worked in their heads, I'm sure).
Funnily enough, in our current campus the Maths department is the only other sharing the building with mine, despite the two having absolutely nothing in common. I know that they've had some foreign students (at least at graduate level) but yes, I am not sure they actually provide any classes in English.

I am more familiar with American English because that's what's most common in Japan, but I am still an Anglophile! Would still love to live for some time in the U.K., even though it seems very hard to realise. And I adore the BBC - I promise I am not doing it on purpose, but all my favourite TV shows are from them. So correcting myself into writing British English is fully intentional and not especially limited to my conversations with you. On the contrary, I appreciate the corrections I get from those. ;P

When I talk about clubs in Japan, this is what I have in mind.

Because university in Japan lasts four years, I still have the exchange year I am doing here (until May 2015) plus one more semester in Tokyo (with graduation on March 2016).

4.0 GPA is a mirage of the past that only lasted for my first semester. Especially with the one-sided class dropping I've been doing lately (for which I earned two Fs).
Thanks for the good luck, given the economy's situation it is always much needed.

Because I take university seriously, I cannot do anime all-nighters like I used to at some point. Still because of university, my viewing times (of everything, not just anime) have settled to be in the late evening/at night before going to sleep, and I mostly watch ongoing anime that catch my interest - my anime list in generally up to date. I'd love to recommend you something, but I'm not sure if you would enjoy the same things I do. Still, if I had to go with that, I'd say: watch Haikyuu!!, watch Free!, watch Shingeki no Kyojin, watch Oregairu, and watch Tiger & Bunny. Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso if you want something from the current season, and Akame ga Kill! if you want something from the previous season that's still ongoing. If you do really watch any of these, feel free to drop comments, I'll be happy to read them. =)

Now, question time.
What were you doing in a hotel in Salford? Holiday? And where are you now? (only if you wanna tell)
All this time I've been super curious to know how your quiz programme ended up. Tell me something of your exploits?
Are you still in school or have you graduated already? (I probably asked you this at some other point, but I lost track) Are you going to graduate school?

About that "boundary objects" class, it wasn't a paper but a simple presentation (since I had no intention to write a whole paper for a class I couldn't even register). And yeah, I guess that would be considered part of anthropology.
No, no. I created a big misunderstanding if I made you believe I was studying language. Far form that. I was supposed to study culture. Language was merely an additional option (which I had to drop after the first semester, moreover).

Yup, 'English Track' is the name of my programme (damn, American spelling got me on this one). Meaning, almost all the other courses are taught in Japanese. It still is not as easy as that (Japanese super-organization is but an urban legend).
If you're thinking about teaching or taking a doctorate in Japan there are many options you may want to consider. It's perfectly feasible, I know people who are doing/have done it. And, coincidentally, in the new building where my department was moved, the only other department present is that of mathematics, and there seem to be graduate students from abroad there. I do wonder how they go about though.

Lots of pressure is okay. I used to wake up at 4:30, go to club activities from about 5:30 (first train got me there at that time, no choice) to 7:45, go to class from 9:00 to whatever time I had course, do my groceries almost every day around 9:30 pm ('cause that's when the best discounts are out), plus go to karate training every Sunday and get the chance of the single-train trip to do my Japanese homework (with people weirdly glancing in my direction - can't blame them). At the time I was also still a moderator here, and even though we don't really get much homework from regular courses, there are multiple weekly exercises for Japanese classes. I also used to be someone who would rather work on papers slowly but steady, so I started the ones of which I knew the topic as soon as I could. Of course, I registered the maximum amount of classes I could (I actually wanted three more, but I was repeatedly denied that), and ended up with a 4 GPA. Ah, I also went to my part-time job whenever I had the chance, 'cause I needed money to eat and pay my rent. All of this was during my first six months here - I stopped going to the club during the second semester due to changes in my schedule. Oh, that's what they call clubs here (I don't know how the word would be different over there), meaning the serious people, so training was everyday but Monday. Of course, I stayed longer on the weekends (until 11 or 12).
Working under pressure is not my problem. My problem starts when I begin to find irreparable faults with the system. That's why I think that the people you were talking about and me are two rather different cases.
Now, I do the same as you: since I got my motivation taken away, I only care about maintaining the highest possible profile with the least possible effort, and I select my courses with this objective in mind. I don't really care anymore, and I think this is all pointless anyway.

I'm recently toying with the idea of spending some time in a different area of Japan. I'm interested in learning the language variations they speak over there, and people are, supposedly, friendlier.

Honestly, I'm more likely to misinterpret your worry of not coming across as a braggart. I wouldn't be surprised if it's just me though, since my ideas seem to divert quite a bit from the general standard.
I am very interested in the broadcasting, so give me some more information please! I am not sure of where I'll be in July though, so an internet broadcasting would be useful if available, I guess...

Luckily no, my work hasn't started yet. I'll hang myself with that as soon as I'll reach home. Until then, I agreed with my father that I'm off. Doesn't make sense for me to work from remote when I can't even print the data I need to check stuff.

Did you delete a comment of yours from my profile? (why?)
I had things to attend to earlier so I could only give it a quick glance, but I'm rather sure I wasn't dreaming...

If I got the very little content I read right, then CONGRATULATIONS! ^^

Haa, nostalgic times when I also (mainly) only worked for Maths... Which was in middle school, so a long time ago...

I feel stranger in every land, so it's not actually that much of a problem: it's kind of uncomfortable, but I'm used to it. A visiting professor from Berkley with whom I had the chance to have class made a connection between me (and also herself) and boundary objects (which is a sociological concept, in case you don't know; I unfortunately don't know much about them myself though) at the end of my final presentation, for which the topic was ourselves and the relationship we have with one/multiple non-human beings.
You're not familiar with it because it's not an idiom. It's a self-censor I got from my father, simply because it's more polite than saying that "they can fuck themselves for all I care."
There are quite a number of exchange students here, be it for six months or a year. Not as many ETs (English Track, that's what our program's called) I suppose. Plus there're some regular students who have non-Japanese nationality - my closest friend here, for example, is ethnically Chinese, although he now holds a Canadian nationality, and he's not part of the ET program. But overall the Japanese ratio is incomparably higher, of course (which is valid for Japan as a country as well).
I actually hope for my Canadian friend to help me around Montreal University when I'll be there, how do classes work and stuff. I think I can figure out where to visit by myself, and I'm an indoor type of person anyway.

It of course depends on the person. For me, about overarching themes I'm not sure, I've never really thought about it beside the fact that they all tell me something about myself (whether I was already aware of it or not). Or, they are somehow accurate representations of something I intensely desire. Possibly the two things combined.

Haha, no you do not [wish you had my kind of resolution]. I am like this because I very severely lack in other areas (and I'm not even the only one saying this, because a psychologist told me the exact same thing), which you most likely wouldn't want to do without in your life. And which caused me quite some problems. Even though it's a loose connection. Of course, it's just my case, probably other strongly goal-oriented people have "healthier" lives than mine.
Besides, being a goal-oriented person doesn't mean I know what to do with my life. I toy too often with the idea of death, usually because I have a very strong sense of life being more of a pain than anything else - and therefore not worth the suffering. I'm also pretty much fishing my degree, which will then be entirely useless, and have not the slightest idea of what or where I'll be in the future - which in my case is starting from, say, about two years (the time I still need to graduate). I do not especially enjoy life as a student, and I think that universities are for the most part made up of pure idiocy. I hope my opinions are biased because of my bad experience with mine, but I can't bring myself to believe so... Anyway, I may want to go for a master's once I'm done here, but there's no way I'll embark on something as time- and money-consuming as a doctorate when I don't even want to be a professor or a researcher.

There's stuff to do all the time almost everywhere, if you take the time to look around. Me, I stay home in front of my pc 99% of my free time, so there's not much difference. Life in Japan is very expensive, and as someone who is striving as hard as ever to not rely on anybody, I am doing my very best to save every single yen/cent I can. Sure, having the possibility to go to Japanese-style karaoke if I want to is nice, having used stores around with tons of manga/games/blu-rays/CDs is among the best I could ask for, and watching anime in theatres is bliss. Take those away, and just about any place would work pretty much the same for me (for example, the food in Italy is overall better and cheaper).

Living next to a castle is super cool man, trust me on this one. =P

Work...for school? Or regular-type work?

Japan is infamous for being a rather racist country, I am told by some. I kind of knew, but unfortunately I underestimated the phenomenon. Anyway, no matter. Apparently, my GPA is still the highest of my university, so they can go take a good walk in the park.
For Canada, I am not sure whether I could call him a friend, but I do have a good relationship with an exchange student from Montreal who's here now. So at least that's comforting.

To me, anime is self-discovery, which makes it quite personal. Of course it has to be of a certain level to get there, and that's why the list was limited.
I guess that I am more self-assertive than the average person. I wanted to study in Japan, I worked to make it happen. Then I wanted to go to another country on exchange, and I again worked to make it happen. It's actually not as out of reach as you make it sound, and I know people here who deserve much more admiration than I do - people who actually resigned from their jobs to come here and try to build a new life from scratch, or similar.

" I still love Oxford though. It really is a different world altogether. Like I actually live next to a castle. As in, my bedroom is touching the castle. " ← and you're telling me that you don't understand my being jealous?

I'm curious, how do terms work over there? When do they start, when do they end, and what are you required to do during them?

Nah, no big deal. It's kind of similar with everything with me. I'm just have a strong tendency to be a negative person. Then of course, racism of varing intensities can and does give some good pushes.
I'm going for one year in Montreal, because my French is horrible and I'm making it a personal goal for it to be pretty.

I think there is a slight misunderstanding here. Television/manga can be very personal, especially when you're talking to an intellectualizer such as myself. I don't know if other people with similar mental mechanisms have similar experiences, but for me these are pretty much the only things that allow me to feel 100% freely, or very close to that.
And I don't feel I'm getting behind the scenes of anything - I merely study a bunch of stuff in uni, and have contact of some kind with people who do the same or similar kind of activity. The only extra I get is the greater access to things (being them books, gadgets, or events).

I'm not sure what to say either, so I'll stick to thanking you. I will see my friend and how her condition has evolved in about a month anyway.

I am not sure of what I have done to make you think I don't care about what happens to you. It bothers me, as this is very much not the case. Just to be (hopefully) clear, I'd be happy to know whatever you'd be willing to share. I do hope that things will get better for you. And about Oxford, I am the one who's jealous.

About catching up, the pleasure's all mine. I'd actually been wondering all along if you despised me, so I'm glad to see it's not the case. Do feel free to drop me a line - here, or on Skype, or by e-mail - whenever you feel like it. And if it takes me a long time to get back at you, or I don't at all, it's not because of some sort of bad feeling, but merely because I am apparently someone who is unable to manage their own life properly.

Well, as far as these first five days go, it's been so-so I guess. I hope yours has been and will be better than mine. Regardless, you're right, let's try to enjoy ourselves the best we can.

I would very much love to know what you have been up to. I've been wondering about that for the past two years. So do keep in touch with me, whenever you have time.
About me - yes, I am still in Japan; no, doesn't hold as much intrigue as when I first arrived. We'll see how I am going to feel about Canada later this year (exchange student program).

About what I've been up to...hmm...I am not sure. But I can give you an unsugarcoated list of goods and bads that have been up to me (in attempted chronological order).
Goods:Bads:
That's pretty much all I can recall off the top of my head.

I watched Amélie.

First of all: I hope you're having a very wonderful day today, full of enjoyment with your friends and/or family. Happy Birthday!

I was really glad to hear from you. I myself got a bit busy with school first, then other life things including, mostly this month, MAL modding.
I hope things are going better for you. Honestly, I was in sort of a life slump since my arrival here - academic results aside since I kind of resolved to dedicate myself entirely to that. But life is made of ups and downs, and luckily I do have my ups here too (this is still the otaku paradise, after all).
I wonder how your exams went. If you received my e-mail and want to add me on Skype, I'm online virtually all the time (although I never start conversation with anyone haha) and it has become the most effective way to contact me.
Thinking about it, one of the girls I know from my university is coming to Oxford this September through some exchange program. I don't know the details, but I guess it'd be kind of funny if you happened to meet her. If you do, please treat her well.
Also, apparently some of your colleagues are coming here as well - I was told about this even from a person I know, and of course I'll be sure to go.

Again, apologies for my lateness.

Stay well,
V

P.S.: here's the spare copy you've been wishing for.

Busy times...
My feelings for London seem to grow by the day, so no worries. I am even pondering about moving there once ended my studies (to do what, I do not know) instead of living in Tokyo. I think I've got a good candidate who would agree to share an apartment (and all the resulting costs) with me, even if I'd have to train her English first, but I'm quite sure she would accept. Also because she could ascertain that the English are not such jerks as she was told in school - there was this unbelievably kind man who stopped by us and asked if we needed some help to find our way out of his own accord, which instantly made our day several times better even though it turned out he couldn't help us. We still agree that we would have liked to invite him for coffee out of gratitude - yeah, we're sap kids oversensitive to kindness (lol).
It's astonishing how I manage to never be happy with good things, now that I'm moving to Tokyo the place I most want to be is London (but I know the reason, so yeah).

I'll tell you, but don't get too jealous. =P I could find a cheap flight, so the first day was almost all wasted because of the arrival time, but we managed to do a nice demi-random stroll including fangirling in front of Buckingham Palace because of Arthur (luckily there was no one other than us). The second day was scheduled to be Greenwich - which is closer to London than what I had imagined by the way. So we went there in the morning and visied everything we could, with me getting especially excited in front of the National Maritime Museum, and her in front of all the 'Trafalgar's (Tavern, Quarters, Road, Square...you English seem to seriously like 'Trafalgar' lol). This being the reason, obviously. Then we went to visit the Royal Observatory (gardens included), and felt asleep during the planetarium show despite ourselves because we stayed awake chatting until four in the morning the previous night, to our common annoyance (that was so stupid). And since it wasn't late yet when we went back to London I took her to Camden Town because Elendil talked so much about Cyberdog that she was curious to see it too; which resulted in adult conversation, walking around the stalls outside because contrary to our common friend that's the style of clothes we enjoy, and so much more fangirling from the moment I bought myself a ring (because of him). At night I then went on my own to see the Tower Bridge lifting (I'm a little child). The third day was London: we rode the London Eye because she obsesses over Ferris wheels, visited the Houses of Parliament (so beautiful! I hope to do an English tour some other time) and Madame Tussauds (with fantalking, fangirling, excitement, displease, identity wondering and whatnot - and she was too scared to enter, but that 'Scream' thing is so much fun, it isn't frightening at all actually I was laughing), went to Forbidden Planet where she bought 'Doctor Who' books, and the nearby Foyles so I could buy the three original books I wanted. Then we went ice-skating in the evening, because I've always wanted to try but didn't feel comfortable on my own and didn't have anyone to ask, and she already knew how to do that and was happy to help me. She'd never fallen in her life, so I made her fall for the very first time lol - she fell in my place, poor her.
The last day was really only about taking the flight home. We both agree that Arthur loves us maybe even as much as we do because those three days had the best weather we could hope for - not hot, sure, but not that cold either given the season, and not a single drop of rain, mostly not even cloudy. It was raining lightly only at the very moment we arrived and it started again when we were on our way to the airport (sad to see us go? *giggle*).

I can't send any PM at the moment, so I'll just forward the e-mail to the two e-mail addresses I have of yours and see if you get it.

You probably know, but it's not like I'm working because I like it, you know. I work because we don't have money. The situation is very bad at the moment, now more than anytime I can remember, and sometimes (a bit too often actually) I can't help but think I did an incredibly stupid mistake about the timing of all this. Because that is a private school which will cost me every single coin I've saved up to this day plus some more, and I will need to work over there as soon as I can as well to be able to continue to pay it (and yeah, to eat too), and still I wonder if it will be enough. I'd be wonderful beyond words if I could just spend my days in books and lectures and conferences and documentaries and everything, and leisurely keep studying till the end of my days, but it's an option I'm not given because my parents are not oil magnates. I'm already stretching the limit enough by attending such an expensive university in a city I would like to live in (and it being 9800 km away doesn't help one bit) and studying something only for the pleasure of it with no actual immediate application in mind.
It's written in the e-mail you'll hopefully receive, but in any case this is the university and this is the faculty.

QI incorrect, really? It didn't seem like that to me from what I read. Guess I'll give it a go for the fun then, when I'll find a little time for it. I've been wanting to watch Dexter since some time, even if there are some other titles I'm more eager to try, the most recent of which being Misfits (discovered thanks to a YouTube multifandom video) because I find the setting very interesting. I'll be sure to watch Boardwalk Empire since you're talking so well about it. I guess Sherlock is a bit silly, even slightly dumb and fanservicy at times, but this doesn't prevent it from being one of my favourite tv shows. Give me characters I like and you're almost done, and I do like Sherlock's characters a whole lot, so it doesn't matter if I understood the Baskerville case way before Sherlock did, or if they made an editing mistake in episode 3, or if they turned half the cast gay or seemingly so. I'm enjoying the show, and the characters' interactions, way too much to care. I think at the very least you could probably watch it for the lols (that's one of my very favourite editors there).
You didn't tell me your opinion about Doctor Who (and spin-offs). You don't watch it? =P Maybe you could share your thoughts about Merlin too? I really love the fact that all of those are British (I'm a Britain partisan XD).

Good evening.
I'm glad to know you're getting on well with your new environment. Having such a large collection of reads at hand sounds wondrous. I'd be curious to read some further detail of your Oxfordian life.
Life's going on as always on my side. I've allowed myself a couple of travels, so I came back to London with a very full program in December (8th to 11th) together with a close friend, then I went to spend a couple of days at her's during January's first week (because the 6th is a holiday here). Still not a lot of time for anime, but for some reason (her fault) I'm more into tv shows now. I finished to watch 'Sherlock' some days ago so I'm now entirely dedicated to 'Doctor Who'; I'm thinking to start watching 'Downtown Abbey' as well though, and 'White Collars' intrigues me. 'QI' seems to be a lot of fun, and 'How To Start Your Own Country' got to me because of the title. If you've got any suggestion I'd be glad to hear it.
I don't know if you've got the e-mail I sent out some time ago, but I'm moving to Tokyo at the end of March (if I manage to get my visa). I've been accepted into a university there, so I hope to stay at least till the end of my studies. I was quite determined on the idea of not leaving even afterwards; now I'm not too sure of what I want to do then.
People keep on repeating me that, if I managed to pass admission, the rest will be a piece of cake and I'll have lots of free time. I can't bring myself to be so optimistic, but if that reveals itself to be the case then it'll be a nice change.
Thanks for your congratulations.

Serendipitous. Besides Wikipedia, it does not exist in the Italian dictionaries I've checked, and according to it it appears to be a neologism deriving from English itself (and also one of the most difficult English words to translate). The only other place I've found it in is here - I do not know if and how famous they are in other countries, but they do have some relevance here.
This time around it was daunting (and aesture, though I couldn't find it, but I get the meaning). I wonder why I keep on forgetting such pretty words.

Waiting to read something more from you then.
Take care.
V

I'll never lose my predisposition to dilate on things, apparently.