Day 14: Research, Research & Research

Not that I am too lazy to come up with a more appropriate title for today's entry, but this is really what I have been doing all day! I was going full speed and so immersed in doing one research and reading after another that I forgot to eat on time, postponing my excercise, and even skipped my Japanese class!

At the end, my back hurt so much from sitting too many hours today, so I had to go down to excercise anyway.

Among other things that I need to find soonest is how or where I could get the Japanese version of the book titles that I plan to use for my content analysis. But as I continue to comb the web, more questions came up in my mind. It was more as a self-doubt: am I really sure these would be the books I will use? Have I really explored enough? Should I tried investigate Tokugawa's other literature some more?

I finally ended up did more research on Tokugawa society, religion, and thoughts. I also did look up more Bushido resources from that era. I did make many clips and put it on my Google Notebook for future reference. I also spent some time skimming through my saved bookmark in Yahoo My Web and told myself may be I should start first from there because I have at least 50 fine Bushido resources there in store.

Tomorrow I may not have that much time to work on my dissertation because I have my sword class. But at least I think today I did cover a lot of ground.

I will give the list of literature I plan to cover to my sensei this weekend and hear what he thinks. May be he can even lend me his own copy, if he has some! Being a samurai sword teacher, I see no reason why he wouldn't have ALL of them! hee hee hee

They are (in no particular order):

1. Budo Shoshinshu
2. Hagakure
3. The Unfettered Mind
4. The Live-Giving Sword,
5. The Book of Five Rings

Well, actually I have some more in mind. But at least these 5 would be my basic starting point!

Can't wait to roll up my sleeves and delve right into this project!

Oh, my eyes are so tired. I'd better try to get some sleep. Didn't have enough sleep for many days now. My brain just refuses to rest. I will need all the rest I could get for my sword practice tomorrow!