And the beat goes on

Term is here, with all its gentle showers. I'm back on the treadmill of academia, polishing my mind to a keenly-honed edge with the grindstone of learning. Stop laughing at the back there.

It's good to be back in the saddle. I'm taking beginning Chinese this semester, and the first two sessions I've had so far have consisted of my comical efforts to get my tongue round the sounds of this rather esoteric language. I'm also taking three seminars, on modern Japanese history, pre-modern Japanese literature and modern Japanese cultural criticism respectively, so while a solid and demanding workload, it is unlikely to be quite as crushing as it was this time last year.

Before the grueling four-month semester kicked off, I hosted the lovely Miyagi belle Ms. Christine Ngan for a few days in New York. Having spent most of the last two years in rural Tohoku, New York must have been something of a step up, but despite her notoriously poor sense of direction she still managed to avoid getting seriously lost. I had feared that she would take my assertion that the grid system in Manhattan makes it almost impossible to lose one's bearings as some kind of challenge. But it was not to be, and we managed a few trips to Ellis Island, the Empire State building and other sundry landmarks in the few days she was here. Perhaps I'm getting a bit blase; it was my fifth visit to the Statue...

There's more to the title of this entry than merely the above would suggest. For the last couple of months or so I've been experiencing an irregular heartbeat and palpitations fairly frequently, for no obvious reason that I can discern. While I've had no other symptoms, I still thought it warranted getting checked out, and so I went to see the doc back home in Newport. She thought it was probably nothing - blood pressure, pulse etc all normal - but recommended an ECG as a precautionary measure. I learned upon my return to NYC that they had seen something there they weren't happy with, and I should get it checked out further here. I made an appointment on Tuesday, and learned that I have a heart murmur, albeit a very faint one, and should get an echo cardiogram at the hospital.

So I duly did, and thus was my first encounter with US medicine. I have no complaints; it was all done quickly and efficiently. I had some gel smeared on my chest, the readings taken, then again with the doctor present. The final result, after all the blood work and sonograms were analyzed, is...

...there's absolutely nothing wrong with me. Given the absence of any other symptoms, medical minds on both sides of the Atlantic are inclined to think that it's just one of those things. Bizarre, perhaps, but a relief nonetheless. Now I can bury myself in the library again, and hope that the only thing that'll get me flatlining is the reading list for this semester...