オレがヤツらをたおす！

[ORIGINAL POST]

The Japanese Speech Contest was today and it was great. I'm glad that I went to see it and I stilldon't have any regrets not participating this year because I don't really have much to talk about, especially in Japanese. Come on... I'm not known for talking... I'm happy being the quiet, good-natured doormat type. Lots of good topics and even better speakers... makes me wonder what I've been doing up till now. I'm not even sure I'm physically able to speak any faster than I can right now. I'll admit - saying stuff like みられる and ちつじょ（秩序）is hard!

I know I don't speak well, but that only strengthens my resolve. Hopefully my "20 kanji a week" plan will pay off eventually. Here's the short version of my kanji plan:


1) The more kanji I learn and the faster I learn it, the less time I'll waste studying it in the classroom. And there's no way I can ever learn the entire Joyo Kanji List (常用漢字表) in class. In other words,the sooner I learn all the kanji I ever need to know, the more time I'll have for learning the REALLY hard stuff like grammar, vocabulary, and honorifics. It's one less thing I have to worry about. Helpful links: Jim Breen's WWWJDIC Server, Learn the Japanese Kanji

2) The sooner I learn kanji (trying to remember all the readings), the sooner and easier it'll be learning new words. Just today I was looking over someone's speech and I was able to pronounce 「内容」, so I asked "What does ないよう mean?" and the guy answered, "contents". Makes sense... 内 = "inside"; 容 = "contain / appearance". If you ask me, recognizing the kanji and knowing how to pronounce the kanji in compounds counts as a victory. Helpful links: Quizzes on Commonly-used Japanese Words

3) The sooner I learn words, the sooner I can read books, newspapers, and magazines to solidify my grasp of the grammar. And that's really all there is to learning a language, right? Helpful links:POPjisyo.com, アサヒ・コム


It was also good seeing my old JAPN 320 classmates (who didn't recognize me immediately)... they were great too.

What wasn't great? I would have liked an intermission (I was hungry and nervous and tired and I wasn't even participating!). Also there was one guy who already won some prize (he was good but I'm sure he had some unfair advantage), and then when he won something from the raffle, he was all "I don't need another dictionary! I have three dictionaries at home!"... I don't know about you but I thought that was pretty rude. It was being given away and he said he didn't want it... and I'm sure there were many people (myself included) who would have wanted it!

And before I forget... CONGRATS TO FIORE FOR WINNING THE DAMN THING!!! (...even though he's probably not going to read this.) Others from our class won stuff too, but I already forgot who won what. We're all awesome anyway.

ONG-BAK!!! (...and some other stuff)

[ORIGINAL POST]

Man. Today I just saw the movie Ong-Bak with my brother, thankfully in its original Thai language with English subtitles. I can honestly say, without the slightest fear of being accused of hyperbole, that it is the most mind-blowingly, super-fantastically, time-stoppingly AWESOME movie I have ever seen,or will ever see, in my entire life. The things Tony Jaa does... I swear. Wow. Now, the movie experience would have been perfect if some jerk wasn't kicking the back of my seat everytime the guy did something amazing... which was pretty much all the time. And seeing him nail guys in the head with flying elbows kinda made me want to try that on that jerk. I'm planning on seeing it again with a friend and / or my cousin next week. I don't know if I'm ever getting that DVD I bought on eBay though because the seller replied in an e-mail, "some mail has been lost / stolen"... just great.

Let's see what else happened:


Wednesday

I didn't have class that day so I told my cousin to take me to his school, Cal Poly Pomona. It was the school I was going to go to (my brother graduated there), but the Japanese program wasn't great. So anyway, it's... very big... and they have a recreation place not unlike our Pit (before it was closed down, that is). Of course, I was good enough at the games I played (including a game I haven't ever played before ) that I gathered more than a few crowds and met some cool people.

I probably should have done some homework first because I had two big projects due on Thursday...


Thursday

I slept at around 3:45 am and woke up at 7:00, not feeling as miserable as I thought I would be (and for the record, the least number of hours I slept was 2... and of course that was because I had someproject due in a matter of hours).

Would you believe I still had homework in addition to the project? That turned out to be fun, actually. It was like a puzzle, and I was able to figure it out on the two buses to school. It turns out I was learning Swahili...

Language lab! Winnie gave me something incredibly cool and cute. How like her.

In Japanese class, Fioré was teaching everyone (or at least, just the girls) how to write Korean. I wish I got a chance to ask him some things because there are lots of Korean words I've learned (from the dozens of k-dramas I've watched) and I would have liked to see how they were written in Hangul. And before that he was showing how in Chinese, all the characters have only one pronunciation, and how tones are important, giving the tired old "ma" example. Bah, I could have told anyone that. Ok, well I know he's just a more popular, better-looking, successful version of me (if I can even be compared to him), but his knowledge of two foreign languages (not counting Japanese) compared to my one(counting Japanese) makes me feel less special. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the class who just knows English, and you know... there's a part of me that always hated my parents for not ever teaching me Tagalog. It wasn't a problem up until high school and including today. When I think about the number of opportunities I missed or the friends I didn't get to make because I didn't know Tagalog, I feel like crying... or punching walls. And now all I hear from my parents is "If you can learn Japanese now, you can learn Tagalog now." So I'm supposed to waste time as an adult learning something I should have been born with? What a load of crap!

...and after Japanese class I went home and to my surprise I didn't have to pay for the bus to El Monte Station because it was packed, or something. I still had to pay for the bus from the station to my house, but that's still $1.50 saved. Woo-hoo.


Friday

Spent most of the day wishing it was Saturday so I could go see Ong-Bak.

I also did a little translation job for someone. It was a good exercise.


Saturday

After Ong-Bak, my brother installed that bigger harddrive (leaving me with some... tens of dollars). Now I don't have to worry about running out of space when I capture shows from TV. The original plan was to copy my current (C:) drive to this bigger harddrive, but after about 4 hours of waiting, we found out it didn't work because the harddrive was too big for the program... without the patch. So he gets the patch but says we have to start all over. I didn't want to wait anymore, and I'm sure he didn't want to stick around any longer than he had to, so we went with Plan B: get rid of my CD burner and put it in that slot. I still have my DVD burner and I don't really burn CDs anymore, but if I needed to burn a CD I could still use the DVD burner.


Time to go to Target again...

Out of the frying pan and into the fire

[ORIGINAL POST]

Today in my first class, I got the instructions for the second assignment even though the due date for the first assignment is still weeks away! I'm not looking forward to either of them.

Then in my second class, I struggled through a mid-term. It was multiple choice, sure, but choosing between things like "acute / chronic exercise", "resistance / endurance training", and "life expectancy / life span" just killed me. And I just know that if I didn't have to memorize the Japanese roleplay I would have done at least a little better...

Oh, but the fun didn't stop there! Winnie was at the language lab so I thought, "Well, today's not all bad..." But when I was about to leave, I realized I couldn't find that yellow attendance slip! After making a whole scene, I just ended up filling out another one. You know, it's kind of funny how I always act so clumsy with that one piece of paper - but only when Winnie's around... uh, heh... *nervous laugh* By the way, I found that yellow paper real quick... I was using it as a bookmark for the Japanese book! Though I suppose I am a little lucky that I finished my mid-term early enough (such as it is) that I was able to finish the language lab assignment before 1:00 because I don't think that other guy would have been so cool about it.

My Japanese roleplay was pretty bad... just incomprehensible in every way... and not that I don't like Jason but I WANT A NEW PARTNER ALREADY! Because hey, it wasn't my idea to say ガキ instead of 子供... I heard Zabuza say it when referring to Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura, so I had an idea of how it was used... but by the time I remembered to point it out it was too late and it would have taken too long to explain, and without the episode playing, my own comments wouldn't have held much value anyway.

On the plus side, I downloaded all 16 episodes (700 mb each!) of the k-drama Full House, and I don't feel bad about wasting space on a third DVD-R (six 700 mb episodes can fit on one DVD-R, so there's only 4 episodes on the third) because I also got the Full House Extras, interview, and OST! I still have to watch them before I burn them to DVD, though, since those subtitles could use some cleaning up.

Also I made my first eBay purchase yesterday. It's the movie Ong Bak (aka Thai Warrior) on DVD with English subs. I heard it was all sorts of awesome so I just had to get it! And it's a good thing that guy accepts money orders because I don't have a credit card and I don't use PayPal. Usually I just bug my brother.

I still need to get that bigger harddrive with whatever little money I have left... but I can't afford not to download all day!

What a month...

[ORIGINAL POST]

It's been almost a month since my last entry, but it's not because nothing happened. I'll start with this:


The first day of classes

One of the worst days of my life actually began the second I woke up. My first class is at 9:50 and it takes about 30 minutes going to school taking two buses; knowing this, I set my alarm to 6:00. I woke up on Tuesday and I felt refreshed and not tired at all. Immediately I realized something was wrong (because if I'm not tired that only means I overslept), and with wide, worried eyes, I turned my head and looked at the clock. It was 7:55!

Of course, the day my alarm wouldn't go off just had to be the first day of classes - and no, the volume wasn't too low, and I didn't get the AM / PM mixed up... the switch was simply off, even though I made sure it was on the night before! I wasn't exactly sure when the bus would come by (I remembered it coming around before at 7:25, so I thought it would arrive at around 8:25, give or take 5 minutes), so I was extremely stressed. A five-minute shower and a half a glass of orange juice later, I was out of the house, running to the bus stop waiting for a bus that may have already come.

Luckily it came at around 8:45 and I made it to class on time. Now, I thought I had enough time for a real breakfast, so I bought something at the Carl's Jr. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to actually eatit, and with my second class immediately after my first (both having strict "no food" rules), I was only able to eat my (cold) French toast dips and (cold) hash browns at around 1:00, turning a good breakfast into a pretty lousy lunch. And even though I got the combo, they forgot to give me my orange juice - I thought it was in the bag!

This whole ordeal reminds me of my first day at this school, when I took the wrong bus. I took the "480", but I took the wrong one! Instead of going on the "480 Downtown L.A.", I got on the "480 Montclair"! I walked around for an hour or two, looking for some bus that would lead me back to the El Monte bus station. Thankfully, I got on a Foothill bus (good thing I carried a lot of change), which pointed me to another (MTA) bus stop, and I was moments away from missing that one, too! Anyway, I made it on time; the class was at 1:00 and I decided to catch the bus at around 9:00 AM, giving me plenty of time.

Japanese was fun of course, but I really wanted people to make a bigger deal about my new hair. There was one new guy, and it was over a year since he last took Japanese, but then we all found out that he should have enrolled in Japanese 200A instead of Japanese 200B. He'll have to wait anotheryear, and well, I felt pretty bad.


And what's just as bad as a blackout?

My computer hard drive apparently died right before the second week of school (the screen would freeze during the WinXP startup screen, and "Safe Mode" and "Last Known Good Configuration" didn't help either), which really slowed me down... more than anyone could imagine. I'm reminded of my early days at this school when my DSL connection died and I had to use dial-up like an animal - a problem made that much more irritating because I had online assignments, pretty much taking away the whole "go at your own pace" feature. And on the week my hard drive died, of course, I had to go online and write a summary of the results of an online quiz.

For an entire week I was wondering if I really lost everything that mattered to me (I'll be honest here: my computer is my life), and I set aside the money for a new hard drive, but luckily my brother came through and re-installed Windows XP, or something. I wasn't completely sure what the problem was, and I'm not sure what the solution was, either. I didn't enjoy downloading all those Windows updates and patches and service packs again, but after the longest week ever, I was still happy. I think I'm going to get a new hard drive anyway because I'm really running out of space, here; I have a lot of things just waiting to be burned to DVD, but I'd like them to be "complete" before I burn. It's really limiting my capturing capabilities (where 10 minutes is about 4 gigs), which means saving even moreprograms on TiVo - something I don't feel good about at all.


So how are those classes?

ENGL 401, English Language in America (Huld): I rather enjoy this class. It's all about linguistics, where you learn about the sounds of speech and such. There are lots of symbols to memorize, and for a kanji guy like me, it's right up my alley. Learning those transcription symbols and being able to write them is amazing - it's like using my very own 白眼 (BYAKUGAN!) on every written and spoken language on earth! I almost want to form hand seals before class...

KIN 345, Physiological Effects of Exercise during Aging (Hawkins): We didn't get to see the instructor until the second week, and when I finally saw him I was a little scared because he has a loud voice, but he's actually pretty cool. There was no book to buy so that's a plus, and the course seems pretty clear-cut: 5 internet assignments, a mid-term, and a final. There's also the choice of volunteer work (hah!), or a paper. And since he's giving us the sources, it's just up to us to write it! I can already tell that it's going to be easier than that Anthropology paper (5 pages instead of 7-8).

JAPN 200B, Intermediate Japanese (Yokota): Same old, same old. Love it. Right now I'm struggling to come up with something to write about for the speech contest, and I'm not even sure I can. It might just be easier to try for the JLPT (日本語能力試, or the Japanese Language Proficiency Test), even though it's only once a year, at the end of the year. I hear topics like "My vacation in Japan" win contests, so I'm out of luck anyway.


Anything else?

I saw two great movies: Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle is now my favorite movie of all-time, actually beating out Office Space! It's very, VERY funny (even the DVD menus are hilarious), but it also manages to drive a point home, something Dude, Where's My Car? lacked (though I like that movie just the same). More recently, I was digging through my rather large still-unwatched collection of "Stuff From Pearl" and decided to watch My Sassy Girl. I put off watching that one because it's split into two files, both over an hour each, but I am so very glad I made it through (and besides, I was encoding something on VirtualDub that took about two hours anyway). There's no wasted time in the movie, and the more you pay attention to the details, the better your viewing experience. And like with100 Days With Mr. Arrogant, I recognized a few of the actors here as well. The male lead was in the k-drama Prince's First Love which finished some time ago, and the aunt was in the k-drama My Precious Child where she plays a 40-year-old woman (could have fooled me...), and she looks even younger and prettier in the movie!


Currently listening to...

I'm really enjoying the soundtrack to the current MBC k-drama airing here in SoCal: Tropical Nights in December. I still don't know how they came up with the title (it could just as easily have been the title of the previous drama starring Kim Nam-Jin), but the drama is great. I really like Kim Nam-Jin's character (I like to believe I can empathize with his struggles). The soundtrack is great, too. Some tracks are hauntingly beautiful just like Stairway to Heaven (the k-drama), and some are infectiously catchy. Either way, the 1-minute intro theme is just so good... I'm considering making it my "Start Windows" sound or my ringtone or something. I'll just stick it on my phone anyway.


I still have lots to do, and I'm not just talking about homework, so I should probably end this right now. I've been dead tired the entire time I was writing this, and I could always edit this (I end up editing for typos and other minor things anyway)...

Back on track

[ORIGINAL POST]

Now that the hustle and bustle of Christmas is over, I figured I'd get back to writing about the little things that make up my otherwise uneventful life. Some are probably more interesting than others.


CSULA Fall Quarter Grades

ANTH 335: B+. Can't complain, really. I did well on the one quiz and the one test we had in the class, so I was coming into the final with a 90% in the class. I don't think I did so hot on the final (scantron only), but I was confident I knew at least half of the answers. There was also the paper I turned in, and let me tell you... it was the lousiest paper I've ever written! It wasn't late since the professor extended the deadline to after the break, but long story short, I had to cough up a dollar to pay for shipping for the paper. She said she does take the time to read them and grade them, and it's only fair that we get them back instead of just tossing them. All said, it was a good class; lazy guys like me could sidestep the required 'service learning' option (where you spend time with old folks, or something) and the 5-page paper for library research and a 7-8 page paper. We were supposed to have more quizzes and tests, and we were also supposed to get 'fill in' questions, but it was all scantron. If you're looking for an anthropology class to take, look for Saul. Just don't be late for her classes.

JAPN 200A: A. It's hard to find fault with this class, though compared to Hirai-sensei's classes at PCC, kanji isn't really stressed, and that's a shame. I didn't care much for the required language lab attendence (those headsets hurt), but it did help me to the point where I didn't really need to study at home... and of course Winnie was there so that's a huge plus... I just had to time my visits. Looking forward to seeing Yokota-sensei again.

JAPN 320: B. I completely bombed my first quiz and first test (enough to make me consider dropping Japanese in general!)... but I got an A on the next quiz (Japanese prefixes) and B on the next test, which was higher than most. The two required oral presentations and the fact that I smashed the hell out my final certainly helped. How was the class, you ask? It was small (I'd say there were about 15 people, or whatever the minimum was), and all of the people were pretty cool. About half of the classwas made up of native speakers, but this time I didn't mind, because this being an "Intro to Japanese Linguistics" class, they didn't know all the answers either. Learning about topics such as aspect, tense, auxilliary verbs, helping verbs, and inflection was all very interesting. I'm sure I'll have Riggs-sensei in the future.

ML 150: Credit. The class was "Building a Modern Language Portfolio". I showed up on that one day and got my 1 credit. Easiest class ever, though I may have to build some sort of portfolio... luckily I save everything.

UNIV 400: Credit. This was the dreaded university requirement, the Writing Proficiency Exam (WPE), and I'm happy to have passed it in one go. I don't consider myself to be any sort of writer, and I didn't enjoy spending my Saturday morning writing on a topic I couldn't care less about (it was something like "Who would you choose to honor on a postage stamp and why?"), but now that I know I passed it, I'm far less bitter about it than I was before. I'll say this, though: 1) I spent the entire time (about two hours) writing trying to come up with something to fill up those three pages (I even managed to write some kanji in there...); 2) that dictionary I brought didn't really help; 3) proofreading goes a long way, and luckily I proofread to a fault.

CSULA GPA: 3.622. Pretty good, I'd say. With those university requirement classes ("Intro to CSULA" and the WPE) out of the way, all I have left in addition to Japanese is 1 more class from my G.E. Upper Addition Theme and... classes for my minor. I'll have to check with my advisor to learn exactly what it's called again... whoops. I'll suppose you'll know my grades slip when you notice I don't ever talk about them again...


Organizing Internet Bookmarks

Much like in real life, I have all the desire in the world to be perfectly organized, but I put off the actual organizing until later. It dawned on me only recently that I actually have the time to do it, so I thought up new folder names, such as:

Buying Stuff
Depressing Real Life Stuff
Fun But I'll Look At Later
Sites I Probably Should Refer To
Useful Web Services
Wow That's Pretty Neat


New Gackt Stuff

My new Gackt stuff came in, and it took more than two weeks (can't blame them though). Some thoughts:

DVD: Gackt Live Tour 2003: 上弦の月～最終章～完全版 (Crescent Moon ~ Final Chapter ~ Perfect Edition) - Incredible! Gackt's live concert DVDs have been getting better with each release, and considering how great his last one was, I was wondering if he could pull it off again. Well, any doubts were quickly laid to rest. This tour combines songs from his (then-latest) album, "Moon", and his (then-unreleased) album "Crescent", under the theme of the movie "Moon Child"! I always get chills thinking about how good his songs are live. The ending was too good... and the bonus tracks were great! If you know me (and I like you), I'll probably make you see it.

CD: The Seventh Night - Following "The Sixth Day", which was a singles collection album (with some of songs slightly remixed), this album has more (old) songs, all completely redone "unplugged". Well... I don't know about you, but as a die-hard Gackt fan, I think I was only able to appreciate this remix album having heard the original songs, and to tell you the truth, I prefer the original songs. I'm not saying these remixed songs are less than good (it's just that the original songs are really good!)... but this album probably won't win over any potential fans. I can't remember how any of these remixed songs go, but Last Song on the piano is just so great, my faith in Gackt remains unshaken.


Scary Chairs

It's always something with my chair. I had an old red chair that's been around for as long as I can remember, but the cushion was so worn-out, the spikes and nails were coming out! That gave me more than a few cuts on my legs and eventually ripped my pajamas to the point where they were unwearable. Sometime this year I got a newer chair, but now the cushion seems to be pushed to the front (cracking the leather or whatever the material is), and the seat isn't very comfortable at all - I might as well be sitting on a log! I also don't have complete faith in the "lock" mechanism. I usually keep the chair straight, but sometimes when I lean back, the lock fails and I fall back pretty far and unexpectedly, to the point where I could easily lose my balance and fall off! The next time I lean back could be my last...


Peace Maker Kurogane

I just finished this 24-episode anime series (thanks Pearl!), and I am a richer person because of it. Don't let the surprisingly cute characters fool you - this is some really gritty stuff. I was never bored because the story wasn't predictable in the least. And I'm still thinking about those characters... just don't ask me to name all of them.

And only a kanji geek such as myself could truly appreciate some of the finer things in the anime!Kurogane is an old (or, at least, rare) reading for the character 鉄, meaning "iron", usually pronouncedtetsu. That should also explain why Tetsunosuke　（鉄之助）　was referred to as "Iron Boy". His brother, Tatsunosuke　（辰之助） was called "Dragon Boy", since tatsu means "dragon", though the character 辰 means "the dragon", as in the Chinese Zodiac. I don't see why 龍 or 竜 couldn't be used in his name (the latter being a simplifed version of the former), though typing in "tatunosuke" in the Japanese IME only gives me 辰之助. The anime also uses the traditional ("business style") numbers in naming the episodes: 壱 for 一 (one); 弐 for 二 (two); 参 for 三 (three), and 拾 for 十 (ten). Finally, the kanji used in the title, 鐵, is just the traditional form of the very first kanji I mentioned: 鉄 (iron). It was seen again as the title for the final episode, but it's a bit of a stretch to translate it as "Peace Maker".

Next up: Azumanga Daioh. I still have to see several seasons of Ranma 1/2, and Panda Genma's signs and other things keep me learning Japanese... you never know when I'll use such gems as 「早乙女流究極奥義！」 ("Saotome-style Ultimate Technique!") and 「支払いは天道道場へ」 ("Send the bill to Tendo Dojo")...


And if you if you read all that, give yourself a pat on the back! It took a couple of hours to write, so itshould take a couple of hours to read, right?

Karaoke!

[ORIGINAL POST]

Last Tuesday I went to a Korean karaoke place with some of the guys from my Japanese class. 好了好了好了・・・ (Why am I posting this late Sunday night instead of early Wednesday on the 15th? I suggest you take a look at one of my other entries!)


The ride there

I was picked up by Terry at around 8:30, and it took us another 10 minutes or so to pick up Winnie. I already forgot the way there, but at least now I know that her place isn't within "walking distance" (although I have walked some crazy distances before). That effectively eliminates the possibilty of a da- ...uh, "day-event". Anyway, I almost regretted not bringing along my pack of Gackt CDs, but Terry had a great mix of Utada Hikaru songs (also gave us something to talk about). For some reason she kept changing the songs - and skipping traveling in favor of Final Distance? Craziness!


Parking adventures

None of us could find the place (having the place's name changed probably didn't help) so we ended up parking pretty high up at some at some nearby building. Four dollars and a scary elevator ride later, we found Bertha and a place where we probably could have parked for free.

Ok, I'll admit it was nice escorting two lovely ladies. Sure, you can bring up the fact that I'm a guy, it was dark, and it was unfamiliar territory, pretty much making it my responsibility... but I prefer my phrasing.


Not nearly as nerve-shattering as I thought

Karaoke was pretty interesting. We discovered (the hard way) that you have to be a little careful entering songs or the previous songs will get erased. At least, that's my understanding. We got to sing songs in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (oh yeah... there were English songs too). Pearl was nice enough to bring print-outs of the romaji lyrics of j-pop songs we should all be familiar with - that alone made her cuter than... I dunno... 100 Pokémon (...not that I watch that show, of course)! She was also the only one smart enough to bring a pen, because not only was finding the songs really hard, but we'd lose track of the numbers.

How did I fare? Maybe it was the fact that there was one "good" microphone and one "bad" microphone, or the fact that I have a low, hard-to-hear, and generally unpleasant voice, but (luckily!) my performance was pretty forgettable. I was only prepared to sing Malice Mizer's Le ciel (I have that pretty much memorized), but I couldn't find that, so I looked around for some Gackt stuff. I saw a lot of familiar songs, but those weren't the songs where I really tried to memorize the words or learn the kanji (hiragana was only available sometimes), so I tried １２月のLove song with varying success. Looking back, I probably should have tried 君のためにできること instead. Next up was Malice Mizer's Au revoir, and once again I found I could only handle the refrain. I could "read" the Japanese, just not at any decent speed. At least people liked the music. The strangest part of it all is that I sound great in the shower! I don't know what's going on...

I just wish I didn't have to go at it alone. Gackt's Last Song wasn't there, and that was the only Gackt song Pearl had in romaji. Also, I only knew the first three words of the Hotman theme song; after "きっと Shining Days...", I'm lost.

Other than the "good / bad" microphones and the fact that our song selection got erased, the only things that dampened the mood were other technical oddities such as the background videos (imagine slow, depressing songs being sung to colorful, exciting images like racecars and people waterskiing), the scoring device that didn't score (either that or we were all worse than we thought), and the surprisingly expensive room (we weren't serviced at all... and no, that one time some guy came in describing a car didn't count).

Quote of the day: "What does that mean??" (--Fioré, after hearing V6's Feel your breeze)


So hungry and cold I could puke

We paid the $80 or so (about $12 per person I think), and after a good 10 or 15 minutes deciding what we could and should do this late at night (considering it was a Tuesday), it came down to a boba / coffee shop thing. The mango smoothie I had was easily the best I had, although I only had one before, and that was over a year ago. After some pics, we decided to go back, and we were all too tired to pay attention to the "gentleman's club" billboard or the "adult videos" store.


The ride home

I don't know why I was so tired, especially when I've been going to bed well past 2:00am in preparation for this. It was probably depression, too; I realized there's still a lot I need to do - not just for school, but life in general. It makes me want to jam my mouse into my brain to embrace the satisfying sweetness of death... but hey, there's always next year. Winter break couldn't come fast enough, but now I can't wait to get into a rut again at school so I can at least pretend I'm busy.


Other stuff:

My new website is at http://www.underactive.net/justin. My brother's "rustedmind.net" domain expired so now I'm using underactive.net. That means re-uploading my sites and re-linking my pics and avatars on forums... joy.

I've never been one to list the "currently listening to" or "my mood" details (both change too frequently), but I think I should mention the Ireland OST, which you should be able to get here.Ireland is a Korean drama that recently ended here in SoCal, although like in Korea it was beaten out by the more popular KBS dramas airing at the same time. Still, the soundtrack is all great stuff. I haven't enjoyed a soundtrack this much since the OST for the k-drama Stairway to Heaven.

I'm also getting around to looking at my "Stuff from Pearl" DVDs. Three episodes of Peace Maker Kurogane a day is the plan, but tomorrow I think I'll just go for Korean movie 100 Days With Mr. Arrogant. Very, very curious about that one.

It's about 1:00am now and I promised myself I'd start waking up at 6:00am so I'd better end this.

Finally over...

[ORIGINAL POST]

That's right people, finals are over with!


Tuesday:

Japanese 200A final. The final was at 4:30 so I came at about 4:00, but everyone was already in some big discussion over where to go as a group during the break, so I felt left out... =( Fortunately the final was easy - even the listening section. (I actually got one listening question wrong on the last test, making it my only mistake on all of the tests!) Everyone finished at around 6:00 so we hung out for a bit in the cold (for some reason). Pearl was the only one smart enough to bring a camera, so she took all the pics (which I guess also means she wasn't in any of them)... I wonder if she's actually planning on sharing them or if they're just for her. I would have snuck in a few pics with my phone except it had to be low on battery! I didn't charge it since I had those long talks with Jason over the dialogue! Argh!

Japanese 320 final. It was supposed to start at 7:30, but for some reason it started at around 7:10. Good thing I came around 7:00 anyway. Since it was test time, we all had to sit one whole seat apart... which means I didn't get a seat at the table! I sat near the wall. This being final day, I didn'tbring my clipboard when I totally needed it, so I had to write on my Japanese 200A book - good thing I brought that, at least. The final was actually pretty easy, as Riggs先生 said. I was able to answer everything, and relatively quickly as well (I think I was the third person to finish). Going through the test with virtually no problems was great, but I also had no feelings of "over-studying," which made it perfect. I finished at around 7:45. Had I known it was going to be that short, I would've had dinner at my house! Riggs先生 asked me if I signed the paper that was passed around, and I said "no" since I couldn't take the class. I hope it really was about some class and not a "I recommend this teacher" thing... eek...


Thursday:

Anthropology 335 final. Ok... not so confident about this one. I read the chapters and all and got the gist of it, but even if I read them carefully, I'm still not sure I could have answered the questions any better. On the bright side, some people didn't get their papers back, including me. That's because if you did, you would get "verbal feedback," and I personally didn't want to stick around any longer than I had to while the professor tells me "liek d00d this paper $µx0r$". That meant I got to go earlier, also in part to me sitting on the side of the class she started on... and there were over 100 people in the class!

Meh, I'll take it.


I'm looking forward to all this free time, of course - I still have several DVDs worth of stuff from Pearl that I probably should look at. Anime, manga, movies, music...

I'm also looking forward to the Gackt stuff I bought at CDJapan. It should come in by next Friday, because it usually takes them a week to get the international money order, a day or two for them to send it, and another day or two for me to get it.