*insert witty title here*

[ORIGINAL POST]

[	mood	|	accomplished	]
[	music	|	Bujingai OST	]

It's been a little over a month since my last entry and I've had a few days to decompress from the craziness of finals, so I guess it's time to write about it.


School stuff

JAPN 315 (Language in Japanese Society): I got "A"s on the first two tests and I'm sure I did okay on the third (and last) test which doubled as the final. The project I had to do turned out interesting... as usual I did it at the very last second and I got my material from people on AIM, including people I haven't even met in person! Many thanks and apologies.

JAPN 410 (Modern Japanese Literature): Er... I'll be happy to get a "B" in this class. This was surprisingly tough; I got high "C"s on the first quiz and midterm (as did almost everyone else), and I have no idea what I got on the second (and last) quiz. I'm sure I did well on the final, and I did surprisingly well on the paper ("B+"), especially when Yokota-sensei was saying how she was "grading strict" and that some weren't "following the paper instructions"... not to mention that I turned mine in a day late! She kept delaying the due date of the paper and I was always just putting it in the back of my mind. On the day I thought it might be due, we had an insane amount of homework (which meant to me that it couldn't have possibly been on that day), and I thought she said we could turn it in the next day anyway. Everything turned out okay, though. I did most of the homework and participated fairly often, so that has to mean something, right?

JAPN 300A (Advanced Japanese): The final was a little harder than I thought (especially that first question)... maybe I should have studied for more than a minute. I was more worried about the presentation I still had to do; I knew mine would be a bit long with the DVD and I didn't want to use up any more time for the final than I had to, so I tried to go through it as fast as I could. I'm still disappointed that I still had to read off my script - much more than I thought, anyway. I tried to at least memorize the first paragraph, the last paragraph, and the first few sentences of each paragraph (to give the illusion that I memorized it), but I couldn't even do that. My hat's off to the beauteous Pearl for the best presentation.


Fun stuff

Bujingai: It's the game Gackt helped make. I found the US and JP versions very cheap on eBay so I grabbed them (if I was crazy I'd get the European version too, but I won't). It looks and plays great! It comes with lots of extras like unlockable Gackt interviews and stuff. I'm pleasantly surprised that the US version not only kept them but subtitled the videos as well!

Tom Yum Goong: I had a hard time believing that anything could top Ong Bak unless it was by Tony Jaa himself. WOW. It's better in every way in terms of story, scope, and of course action.

A Love To Kill (aka "This Love I Want to Kill," aka "A Love of Death"): Whatever you call it, it's pretty spectacular. This of course stars Bi, who I revere about as much as Gackt. And what do you know - he's also a singer. I've only seen the first three episodes so I won't be reading a certain someone's LJ for a while...

Firefox 1.5: This browser is my favorite new toy. Even if it didn't load pages faster than Internet Explorer and didn't prevent your computer's security from being compromised unlike IE (which it does), I'd still use it. I've got so many extensions for Firefox that let me do so many cool and useful features (that IE could never do) it's insane. You know, I've always thought obsessing over cars was pretty stupid, but if it's because of the customizability (like with Firefox), I can understand.


I still need to decompress until the first day of school next year, whenever that is. With any luck a friend from high school will be dropping by (he damn well better), so I gotta have my days open...

Japan stuff

[ORIGINAL POST]

[	mood	|	excited	]
[	music	|	Gackt - Metamorphoze	]

I spent pretty much the entire day working on the DVD for the Japanese oral presentation. Who knew it would all come down to 5 minutes of playing time?

My topic is 神威楽斗 (Gackt). I'm pretty sure I could do it on Gackt; Koike-sensei wrote "related to Japan, Japanese culture, language, something Japanese"... and, well, Gackt is Japanese, he's a popculture icon, and his songs play with the language - a point I intend to spend some time on. If I can't do it on Gackt, I'm screwed. What am I supposed to do it on... お盆？お正月？侍？ I wouldn't last a minute!

Since the presentation is supposed to be 7-10 minutes long, I felt I should make the video a maximum of 3 minutes just to be safe. I should have known, however, that no one can contain the greatness of Gackt in just 3 minutes... so I ended up doing it in 5, heh. But since we have to prepare 4 to 5 pages of script, that means I have to be able to read at least a page a minute!

On Monday, Lina asked me what I was going to do for my presentation. I said "Gackt", but she might have thought I was just clearing my throat or something, still not answering. I didn't get a chance to explain because I remember Pearl entering the room and grabbing everyone's attention with her Gakuen Alice costume. But I still feel bad about it, so someone please email her and tell her that my presentation is on Gackt. I can't do it myself for obvious reasons.


Which brings me to my next item: Monday was also my birthday. The fact that no one remembered wasn't what was bothering me; what was bothering me was that it was my birthday. I think I summed up my feelings about it pretty well in my last LJ entry though, so no need to dwell any further on that...

But on Thursday I went over to Kinokuniya and bought Kodansha's Dictionary of Basic Japanese Idioms for about $35. This thing is great; I finally learned how to use 「気になる」 in a sentence. It's more practical than the proverb dictionary and easier than the onomatopoeia book I bought before. I just never could get past the first chapter!

Then I treated myself to some curry rice. $5.25 is so worth the price of chicken curry mild and making other people on the bus hungry. And it's still cheaper than the sushi I usually buy!

Hmm

[ORIGINAL POST]

Another year, another dozen things I should have / should be doing / should have done by now.

But it's not all bad... I got my brother's old 3rd gen iPod. So I'll go ahead and say that the 3rd gen iPods are the best.

Knott's Scary Farm

[ORIGINAL POST]

[	mood	|	okay	]
[	music	|	Ace Combat 5 - The Unsung War	]

I'm a little late with this, I know...

Friday was the day I went to Knott's Scary Farm with the usual suspects. That day I only had a light lunch at noon and some ice cream at 3:30. I wasn't sure when I would be picked up; maybe I actuallywould enter the hallowed halls of Winnie's house, and I didn't want to be rude by being the only one not eating anything if we actually did have a snack or dinner before going, so I decided I would save some room. Boy, did I soon regret that...

We met at school and left at about 5:45. It took us a long time to find the place, a long time to find parking, and a long time to meet up with the rest of the group. We were probably finally ready at 8:00. I was getting a little hungry.

I don't know who said that the place wasn't scary, but it was pretty scary. Not just for the atmosphere, but for the random people in masks who would suddenly scream at you. Mask-wearing chainsaw-wielding maniacs I can handle; this I can't. Honestly, I get startled whenever someone knocks on my door! The fact that they couldn't legally grab people didn't help me, either!

I was getting pretty hungry after two mazes so it was either go on a ride or do something else. I usually go with the majority, and in this case it meant skipping dinner and going on a ride. Now, had I known the wait would be 90 minutes and the ride would be less than a minute, I probably would have chosen dinner. The ride (Supreme Scream) was actually scary; so scary, in fact, that I'm going to have to come up with an easier way of killing myself. We had to take off our shoes and remove everything from our pockets and we got up really... really high. I thought I could handle it, but it wasREALLY REALLY HIGH. And when we were falling (REALLY REALLY FAST), I was off the seat, my heart beating almost exponentially faster each half-second. It was a great view, though, second only to seeing Pearl in the blue light from the $3-a-bottle Pepsi vending machine. Man, I wish I snuck a picture when everyone else was looking at the map... I bet I could have said "I was just taking a picture of these outrageous prices", too... (hope no one's reading this part...)

At this point we all got back together and... no, we didn't eat (except for a few small pieces of Pearl's bizarrely cute Japanese chocolate candy)... we went on a log ride. At this point I was beyond hungry (my stomach didn't feel empty because it forgot that food was supposed to go there), but I probably would have fainted in half an hour so I caved and bought a $3 Sierra Mist and some more candy. That came out to an even $5 so I didn't feel too bad about the price.

The train ride was nice, if not a little cramped. It was really unbelievable how much I needed to sit down; it wasn't my feet that was killing me, it was my back! I didn't mind the occasional scare because I was luckily positioned so that I could see it coming, and if it did come my way it would only get Sammi... hehe...

The shows were pretty impressive. I saw a little bit of The Hanging which was a hilarious lampooning of some of the other theme parks. Ed Alzonzo's Howl-o-ween House Party was pretty good too, but a little lewd. The Haunted Hypnotist was ok... the crowd was great, but I've never been a huge fan of hypnotism. I think the idea of being powerless under someone else's control is a scarier than anything. It's only funny in sitcoms. Oh well... I guess I had to be there from the beginning.

I was the last to get dropped off at around 4:00 am. I found it amazing that Sam woke up at 5:00 am the day before. I woke up at about 10:00 feeling just fine.

The next time I go to an amusement park I'll be sure to actually eat something, and I'll save my camera batteries to watch dramas when I'm waiting in line instead of in the car.


Things to do:

Monday: japn 300a homework, register

Tuesday: japn 410 test, japn 315 homework

Wednesday: japn 300a speech outline

Thursday: japn 315 test

Ahh what the hell...

[ORIGINAL POST]

[

mood

|

annoyed

]

I was watching some videos when the doorbell rang. It was about 9:30 so I wondered who the hell it could be. I peeked through the window and it was a fucking police officer! Now of course, more than a few things came to my mind.

1) Why the fuck is there a fucking police officer at the fucking front door?

2) What the fuck was the matter?

3) Is this shit for real? I've seen shows on TV about people impersonating police officers to get inside a house where they end up butchering everyone. And it's fucking nighttime already.

4) If I close my eyes will she go away?

Usually my dad watches TV until about 11:00... except for today when he decided to sleep early for some fucking reason, so I didn't know what the fuck I should do. At least until she (not so politely) told me to open the door and (not so politely) told me she needed to use the phone. And of course today I wasn't able to find the cordless phone quickly because my parents were moving everything around AGAIN to finish up the hardwood flooring installation. All the while my dad was putting some damn clothes on. Fucking... fuck...

FUUUUCK........

Apparently they got a call from our house so they came by to investigate. No one was using the damn phone, much less calling 911. Oh, but we got some warning anyway. Fuck.

So now we have some sort of fucking record with the police, we don't know how the fuck they could have gotten a call from our house, we don't fucking know if someone really WAS fucking with our phoneline, and if it happens again we're going to have to fucking pay for them coming over.

Fuck.

紀伊國屋

[ORIGINAL POST]

[	mood	|	peaceful	]
[	music	|	世界はそれを愛と呼ぶんだぜ　（サンボマスター）	]

Well, yesterday was interesting.

I went to Kinokuniya (...all by myself...) in search of another origami book and at least one other book. That's right, origami （折り紙）.


On Monday, Sam went to Kinokuniya to buy a new electronic dictionary and I tagged along, wondering if I could / should get a music CD. I was about to leave without getting anything when I sawThe Buck Book: All Sorts of Things to do with a Dollar - Besides Spend It. Maybe it was the catchy title (if I was at least a little bit wittier and knowledgeable about a topic I'd name it something like that), or the free $1 bill they give you ("Instant $1 Rebate"... gotta love it), but I remembered that I really needed a new hobby and origami was one of them, so I bought the book. It really is great; the writing is entertaining and the instructions and diagrams are very clear, making use of the marks on the dollar. The only downside to the book is that there are only seven patterns. Also, the word "origami" is nowhere in the book.

So yesterday (Friday), I got another book on origami: Sticky Note Origami: 25 Designs to Make at Your Desk. This book, like the other book, seemed like a very practical book on origami so I grabbed it. I'm unsure if this book is better or worse than the other one; this has 25 designs compared to 7, and while some of them seem very impressive (those molecules and fold-able cubes come to mind), others are just too simple. The first one was in fact an elephant made from a single fold. That didn't stop the diagrams from being several times more complicated than the ones found in The Buck Book, though that may be because sticky notes don't have the visual aids that dollar bills provide. The book did provide info on origami as a whole, so that's a plus.

It took me a long time to choose the second book. I first wanted a book to supplement my Japanese studies, but I didn't want it to be just a glossary of terms. Some were just too expensive and the rest were too elementary. Luckily I wandered into the "Martial Arts" section and found The Book of Five Rings （五輪書） by Miyamoto Musashi （宮本武蔵）. Not only does this match The Art of War by Sun Tzu, but the English translation is accompanied by the original Japanese text and a modern translation!

I was feeling pretty good until I got back to the bus station when I decided to buy something to drink. I usually don't drink soda except when wolfing down a burger since that's already unhealthy (thanks in part to the movie Supersize Me), but it was hot, I wasn't in the mood for water or an ice cream bar, and I figured that "if I spent this much money on books, what's another $1.25?" I got my Cherry Coke and it turned out to be warm. Hmm. Then when I opened it, it spilled into the bag with my new books! I was seriously pissed off (to say the least). My new books were possibly ruined and I wasn't able to wash my hands until about 40 minutes later. Maybe it was karma for killing a cricket by throwing a rug over it and walking until I heard a sickening (yet satisfying) crunch?

I got home and I was able to minimize the damage; the soda washed off the covers rather easily, and since the books were closed and the pages were thick, you could only see stains on the very top of the books, and only if you looked carefully.


My thoughts on origami:

Appreciation comes when you realize how much variety there is. Traditionally it's about making objects out of nothing more than a piece of paper without cutting or using other materials. Purists will insist that it must only be from perfectly square pieces of paper. That's just limiting, and I think part of my excitement comes from being able to make things from common items like dollar bills and sticky notes.

Fascination comes from simply admiring and attempting your own. Even after making my "dollar peacock," I'm still amazed it turned out as well as it did. Some of those folds are surprisingly complex, and I can only wonder how many objects can be made out of a plain piece of paper, with or without cutting or gluing. It's not for nothing that origami fascinates math heads, too.

Beauty comes rather easily. There's something for everyone; the "less is more" crowd enjoys simple designs and competing for the least number of folds. Others make startingly detailed models. I'm a little of both.

I think this is definitely right up my alley. It's fun, great to look at, and it's easier to show off with than handstand walking (not strong or balanced enough), juggling (not coordinated enough), or unicycling (don't even know where to begin). Card houses are still fun but they're a pain to clean up, and I'm afraid learning kanji will stop being fun once I start tackling vocabulary.

The amazingly talented can draw manga; the adorably cute can knit. That leaves me with origami. Here's what I've done so far:

My... vacation?

[ORIGINAL POST]

Has it really been a month since my last entry? Huh.

My "vacation" so far has been moving stuff around and out of the house to prepare for the installation of hardwood flooring. And now that that's done (4 days of noise and dust), the rest of my vacation will probably be moving stuff back to my room... after my parents get done repainting the walls. Not quite the vacation I had in mind. I miss being in my room, but must say that it's awfully convenient having my computer and the TiVo in the same room.

I recently got my test results from the two kanji tests I took in June (９級 and ８級) and I passed both of them! I've been studying kanji for years but I only studied for these particular tests for about 10 minutes total. ９級 was a piece of cake, and although ８級 was quite a bit harder, it was still doable. I just feel a little bad for a guy I know (he introduced me to the tests) because he missed passing the ８級 three times (by 5 or 10 points)!

So with those tests under my belt, I've decided to really dedicate myself to studying Japanese... even more. Which, in this case, means anime. Even before I got the test results I started watching Bleach because of a certain someone and caught up to episode 46 from the very beginning in three or four days. (I was a bit of an idiot here, though... I downloaded the ANBU / Anime Keep batch and after fully seeding that, I saw the better batch by Lunar Anime and downloaded and seeded that batch!) I've made it a habit of putting the more interesting or useful phrases into a Word document, like this gem from 石田雨竜: 「勝負しないか、一護？君と僕と、どっちが優れているのか分からせたい。」

There's other anime, too. I've been downloading Tsubasa Chronicle alongside Naruto but I haven't even seen a single episode until a "DVD quality" version of episode 1 was available a few days ago. I decided to finally check out the episode 1 I already downloaded and I was pleasantly surprised... such a beautiful, beautiful series.

I also decided to check out Daddy Long Legs because it had the same title as a Korean movie I downloaded. Not quite the same, but I'd challenge anyone to view the first few episodes and not cry.

Episode 1 of Shuffle! was released ago and I gave it a try. Seems like a nice contrast to all the other series I'm watching. Reminds me of Tenchi Muyo... (bah, I just checked animesuki and I downloaded episode 1 from Anime Source like an idiot when I could have been downloading up to episode 8 from Froth-Bite!)

And then there's the whole j-drama scene. I have a dozen or so downloaded/seeded/burned dramas of which I haven't seen a single episode, and that includes Densha Otoko. It was recommended by a fellow drama addict, the series was always surpisingly well seeded at d-addicts, and subtitles were coming out mere days after the release of each raw episode. But when there was a topic about it on afighting game forum, I figured it had to be good. I think I'll start watching it... (too...)

And... aaaand... a friend dropped by and handed me FF7 Advent Children. I'll admit that I haven't exactly been keeping tabs on that, even though I beat the game three times. It seems to be all the rage now (and a certain someone is just raving about it), so I'll watch it... eventually.