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Saturday, July 11th, 2009
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12:33 am
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Why are half the things I watch turning into complete crap? First Torchwood had the most crappy, unsatisfying ending possible, so I decided to download the latest episode of Haruhi and even THAT was rubbish! I mean seriously, they're extending this plot arc for another episode next week? Really?
I'd like to rant in detail, but I shall avoid spoilers by just saying: second season of Haruhi? Don't bother, seriously. Okay, maybe the first episode, but the Endless Eight arc is going to have to run for at least five episodes now, and there was barely enough plot in it for three. It's not even an original idea, which is pretty sad for Haruhi. This has been done in a few sci-fi series I've watched, and Stargate did it so much better :/
I'm not sure I'll even bother with keeping up downloading the episodes for now. I think next week I'll just check the end on youtube to see if they've FINALLY WRAPPED IT UP and not bother with the rest of the episode.
I mean, I've read this bit in the novel. It wasn't even dragged out this much there. And because I've read it, I know how they have to end the plot arc and it's REALLY ANTI-CLIMATIC with this much build-up. People who've watched the entire five episodes (at least) to lead up to it are going to be pissed off.
I wouldn't be this irritated, but Haruhi is one of my favourite anime series, and the only one I'm keeping up with at the moment - and if I'm waiting a week between episodes, I want it to be worth the wait. And they kept the fans waiting for three years after the first series for another one, what the hell were Kyoto Animation doing all that time if this is what they've produced?
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| Friday, July 3rd, 2009
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9:45 pm
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Okay, so I have a small problem. My mum got me to write down the lyrics for "If You're Happy and You Know It" in Japanese a while back, so she could let her Year One class have a go at it. (My mum is a teaching assistant in a primary school, but she's qualified as a teacher so she ends up doing a lot of cover). Apparently they sang the song and loved it, and within two days some of them had memorised the whole thing, and they even sang it in assembly.
While she was trying to explain what Japan was to these five and six-year-olds, mum mentioned the different alphabets, and since they were intrigued she got me to write some examples out for them. I wrote all their names in katakana (as best I could), and a few kanji for things like school as examples. Again, apparently they really loved having their names in funny-looking symbols.
The trouble is, they've been asking mum how to say various things and asking questions about Japan, and she doesn't know enough to answer them. So she wants me to come in one morning next week anc talk to them for a bit about Japan and answer their questions.
Now, I'd really like to go in again, because I've helped out last year when they were in reception, and they were a really nice group of children. But I don't have a clue what to tell them about Japan, particularly as I haven't actually been there yet. I mean, where do you start? My area of knowledge is early history, but I doubt they'll be as enthralled by the Tokugawa shogunate as me.
So, any ideas what to tell a group of small children about Japan? I was thinking of bringing in some chopsticks and telling them a bit about Japanese food, maybe a picture of me with Miki, Natsuki and Ayaka to show them Japanese people, and I could let them try on my kimono thing (it's not a proper kimono, the sort of thing they sell to tourists)...but I'm a bit stuck for other things. Anyone have any suggestions?
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| Friday, June 26th, 2009
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11:58 am - Picspam of Koizumi from Haruhi Suzumiya in the latest episode, because I evidently have no life
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RIP Michael Jackson.
Anyway, since my last post I have...spent more time lying round watching anime. I mean, I've got my guesthouse in Tokyo and flights booked, which is good, and I've started working through the kanji workbook we're supposed to study next year, but apart from that it has mostly been a continuation of my anime marathon. I've gotten through the first series of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, which was win, and I've downloaded Afro Samurai to go through in my next spurt of lethargy.
I would spend this post talking about the latest episode of the new series of Haruhi Suzumiya, which seems to be the second of a 3-ep plot arc. However, because I don't think anyone on my friends list but me has seen it yet, I can't. So to avoid spoilers, I will instead post lots of out-of-context caps of Koizumi being GAY.
(Seriously, the guy maintains a normal level of campness and closeness to Kyon which is pretty high, but this episode is probably his gayest yet (discounting the STARING AT KYON'S MOLE moment before). He got in Kyon's personal space what, 3 or 4 times over the ep? The dude is fabulous, and this is why he deserves a screencap spam. All of these are from the latest episode, but I don't think they're serious spoilers unless you count "SOS Brigade do various activities" as a spoiler. No plot details or subtitles, anyway.)
( KOIZUMI BEING GAY )
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| Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
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10:29 pm - I make up for not posting in forever by writing about a bunch of anime no-one but me will see.
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Okay, so I haven't updated in forever! To be honest, you're not missing much, I don't lead an exceptionally interesting life :)
Just to gloss over the past month or so entirely, I took my uni exams and I think I at least passed everything (despite my week of hell where I had Japanese oral on Monday, Spanish oral on Wednesday, Japanese reading/writing on Thursday and Spanish listening on Friday. This still doesn't quite top Katy's week of hell with an exam every single day. Exam period for Japanese students is a bitch.)
Our group celebrated by going out for lunch at Wagamama, which is now among my favourite restaurants ever. Delicious Japanese food cooked to perfection (and plenty of it), a bottle of sake to share, freshly squeezed apple and lime juice...good times! Also, we bought a pack of Pokemon cards for the nostalgia and split them. I got Golduck and Combee :D
So what else is new? Well, I had a free week in the middle of exams and used it to download a hell of a lot of anime, so I've been marathoning a few new series I'd recommend.
( In which I recommend a whole bunch of anime, cut for the necessary pictures of Neuro in his BLATANT EVIL EDGEWORTHNESS. And also because I ramble on for way too long. )
...
tl;dr: Just looked back and realised that I've rambled on at length about how excellent EVERYTHING is that I've watched recently. Ignore my opinions completely, it may well be that I'm just easily impressed :/
Also, I got the Sims 3. I may elaborate on what I think of it at some point, but I think I've done enough of that for one post :)
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| Saturday, May 2nd, 2009
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1:00 pm
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So, marathoned all 14 episodes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya with everyone at Peter's (in broadcast order). I still love that series so much, though I'm less of a diehard Kyon/Haruhi otp shipper with Koizumi/Kyon lurking so fabulously in the background. Seriously, spotted even more bits this time where Koizumi is putting his fabulous moves on Kyon, like the photo on the SOS noticeboard where he has his arm randomly round Kyon's shoulders :D
Or the other, new ship, decided on as a group: KYON BANGS EVERYONE.
Also got way more of the references this time around (with Katy pointing out the Phoenix Wright tribute bit), so it was definitely worth rewatching!
And we ordered pizza :D
I should really be spending my time watching some of the anime series I haven't seen but have been meaning to get round to, rather than watching an old one for the 3rd or 4th time, but all the ones on my wishlist are so looong. I've been meaning to see/read Bleach and Full Metal Alchemist for ages, but as well the hours I'd need to put aside, it'd take up stupid amounts of memory on my computer.
Or, you know, I could actually DO SOME REVISION.
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| Saturday, April 18th, 2009
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12:03 am
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So, I'm going back to university tomorrow. I'm kind of looking forward to getting back into the swing of things with Japanese lessons, except that I left far too much work to do next week. This is partly my fault with my mad procrastination skillz, and partly that we have to write a short story as our essay composition.
I thought this would be fun, since I had to write god knows how many short story ideas anyway for the brenlj competition, and I could just translate one of those. Unfortunately I'm...basically not that good at Japanese.
My first effort was translating an idea about a guy who could stop time, but that didn't work in that I still wasn't good enough to do it as originally written, and also it went more Japanese and then I realised I'd just written Hiro Nakamura from Heroes :/
The problem? I do have an idea I thought up a while back, but it concerns cakes that escape from a factory in order to get revenge and eat people. I have the vocab needed for it: the words for cake, factory, and I'm fairly sure I've seen the word for cannibalism somewhere, which wouldn't apply to a cake-eating-people scenario but would be awesome to fit in.
I just kind of wanted to write a serious story for this, because I think I've turned in crack for every creative piece so far. "My wonderful weekend" was when I built a robot friend, who unfortunately turned out to be evil, but luckily was only six inches tall so he couldn't do anything about it.
(Also, I'm fairly sure an overly large percentage of my Japanese work involves cake at some point.)
Ah well, looks like I'll be writing right up to the afternoon lesson again :D
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| Friday, April 3rd, 2009
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6:17 pm
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...and one of my cats, Fred, who's been ill for a while, has suddenly got much worse. He's under the couch, where he's cold and barely responding. We've arranged to have him put down tomorrow morning. It would be today, but we have to wait for my little sister to come home so she can say goodbye.
What sort of fucking rollercoaster day is this?
EDIT: Fred's died. It's better that he didn't have to go to the vet, that it was at home but... :(
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12:54 pm - DRIVING TEST
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I PASSED MY DRIVING TEST ON THE 3RD TRY TODAY :D
I AM ALLOWED TO DRIVE A CAR BY MYSELF NOW
ON ROADS
ALL ROADS
I CAN'T EVEN GO UP STAIRS WITHOUT TRIPPING OVER AND THEY'RE LETTING ME LOOSE WITH A CAR, HELL YEAH :D
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| Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
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9:11 pm
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Note to self: Bacon sandwiches are delicious. Nutella sandwiches are also delicious. However, you know you're too easily bored when you find yourself making bacon and nutella sandwiches for lunch in an experiment to see if the two will combine to form ultimate tastebud awesomeness.
(They don't. I wouldn't say they were nasty though, just a little strange. Perhaps an acquired taste?)
(Oh, and that's not an April Fool. Similar mucking around in the kitchen when bored has produced Ben and Jerry's ice cream toasties, mint sauce sandwiches, pesto sandwiches, dipping chicken in lemonade to see if it makes lemon chicken, dipping the lemon chicken in cinnamon and then having that in a sandwich, and Eggworth.
Also putting breadcrumbs in an omelette to see if it gives it a crispy breadcrumb coating, but it just ended up kind of...spongy.)
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| Thursday, March 19th, 2009
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10:37 am
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So, got chatted up in real life for the first time last Friday. I smiled at this guy sitting on a bench, who called me over, and I ended up chatting with him till I made my excuses to leave. He said he was from Cameroon on holiday in England for four months, and since he didn't know anyone would I be his friend? I was feeling a little creeped out, but I gave him my e-mail address since I could always block that.
Turns out it wasn't a friend he wanted, and yes he was chatting me up. The last e-mail I got from him I found so hilarious I thought I'd post them on here :D
( E-mails from Creepy Cameroon Guy )
Also, downloaded another two OSTs last night. I got the Vampire Night Guilty OST, despite Vampire Knight being a fairly average series IMO and I haven't even seen the Guilty series yet, because I really like the opening and ending song. (I did for the first season too, so I should really check out the opening band and ending singer).
I downloaded the OST for two tracks and both are TV length. What sort of OST is that? I could get that much off youtube :/
However, I also downloaded the Gravitation OST (mainly for Sleepless Beauty and Blind Game Again, since I already have Super Drive and Rage Beat). It...makes me happy. I don't recognise all the songs though, and I'm intrigued that they have No Style on there when I thought that was just Bad Luck's first single in the manga, but it got changed to Rage Beat for the anime. Maybe it was in the OVA? Still, upbeat JPop always puts me in a good mood, and now I have the entire OST my good mood will be unstoppable :D
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| Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
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10:24 am
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So, slept in through a lecture for the first time this morning. In my defence, the alarm didn't go off and I'm not entirely sure why, but I'm pretty glad I woke up a few minutes before my friends called. I was having a dream about trying to keep a fish alive and being chased by a manatee, so I would've been rather confused when I picked up.
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| Sunday, March 15th, 2009
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7:25 pm - Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage
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| Friday, February 27th, 2009
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11:11 pm - Me and TUFS: not off to a good start
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So, got this e-mail which has me very stressed out:
( AAAAAAARGH )
Firstly, what sort of incompetent university says it has places for five exchange students but only accomodation for three?
Secondly, I'M GOING TO LIVE FOR A YEAR IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY I'VE NEVER VISITED AND I'VE BEEN LEARNING THE LANGUAGE FOR LESS THAN A YEAR, I DO NOT NEED THIS HASSLE.
Thirdly, TUFS dorms are 40,000 Yen, including utilities. Private is apparently 60,000-70,000 Yen. This would put the rent up from £287 a month to £430-£502 a month. I have no idea how the hell we'll afford that.
One of the guys from our group has suggested that if it's not too expensive to get a four-bedroomed flat, he and two boys going to Tokyo ICU could move in with one more person from our group. So my options are to either live by myself off-campus as a female student in a big foreign city I don't know, which leaves me feeling very unsafe....or I move in with three boys (one of whom I know from class, the other two are intermediate students so I've barely spoken to them at all.)
So I've e-mailed back saying how much I don't want private accomodation, and I'm really hoping someone else volunteers to go otherwise it might come down to the picking names out of a hat, and in that case it's anyone's guess who has to fork out. I'm getting so worked up about this, which is stupid because it might not happen and there's nothing more I can do about it anyway, but I can't help it. I'm not even sure when we find out who gets to live in the dorms.
All I can say is: FAIL, TOKYO UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN STUDIES, MAJOR EPIC FAIL.
This is making me really optimistic about their capability to process the rest of the year abroad arrangements smoothly, and doesn't give me much faith in their general competence :/
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| Monday, February 23rd, 2009
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6:46 pm - Meme
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Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given!
Given to me by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) maskalade:
1. THE COLOUR BLUE
Obviously, the hair :D I started dying it blue because I wanted an unusual colour that'd stand out, and my favourites were blue, red and purple. Everyone seems to go red with purple a close second, so... I was going to keep dying it various strange colours, but I liked the blue so much it's stayed that way for almost 3 years now. I just don't know what I'm going to do in Japan - either I have to negotiate in Japanese to get the streaks re-bleached while I'm out there, or give it up and go back to brown :(
I just love the colour blue generally :D
2. Penguins
I KNEW this would be on here. The Chiyo-chan suit is now notorious, and I am inextricably associated with my costume. That said, it's a pretty awesome costume to be inextricably associated with.
(And it amuses me that out of the hand-drawn Christmas or birthday cards on my wall (including ones with drawings inside or on the envelope), 4 out of 6 are of me in the penguin suit :D.)
3. Count D |Db SORRY FRAN
Wasn't expecting this one to come up with, but I do love the Petshop of Horrors series, and Count D is maybe the most awesome character in any manga ever. He has all the best expressions as well as the prettiest outfits (though that's partly down to Matsuri Akino's art style, which I really like), and while he's got the whole sinister nature-loving incredibly-badass god thing going, I like the way he pretty much descends into just being a bitch whenever he's paired with Leon.
Of course a huge part of why I love the series isn't that it oozes slash, of course not
4. fire alarms
I'd talk about this, but I think my last post sums it up.
5. your bff Amy
Yeah, I talk about Amy quite a bit :D It's only since getting here that I've really noticed how many of the awesome things I like you got me into in the first place. I'd say yey and thanks, only given that you introduced me to slash fiction I can probably blame you for completely corrupting my childhood innocence :P
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| Friday, February 20th, 2009
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6:57 am - Fun Size Fran's Fire Alarm Frenzy!
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Yey! It's that time of the week again, Fun Size Fran's Fire Alarm Frenzy!
Previously on Fun Size Fran's Fire Alarm Frenzy: Fran went to bed at 2.30am-ish on Sunday, got woken up at 5.06am by the fire alarm and then excitingly again at 6.25am when she'd just dropped off to sleep! Despite Monday being a vocab test day, Fran made the risky decision not to bother going back to sleep and was incredibly productive for most of the day before crashing in the evening and falling asleep in the Parkinson Building on her textbook.
( TODAY ON FUN SIZE FRAN'S FIRE ALARM FRENZY: )
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| Friday, February 13th, 2009
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11:09 pm
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So, I guess I was going to make a post about something vaguely important or interesting, like updates on my year abroad, or going to Liverpool tomorrow. And I will.
BUT
I JUST FOUND A SONG ONLINE WHICH I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR FOR AGES
And when I say ages, this is an obscure song from the Yami no Matsuei soundtrack which I looked for when I first watched it - which was what, late high school maybe? - but it's not even one of the main tracks, just a cello piece that plays in the background for a few short chases. I didn't have a title and because I didn't speak Japanese I wouldn't have been able to pick a relevant title off the OST even if I'd realised you could get OSTs for anime. So I gave up.
Trying to watch YnM again for the first time in quite a while (seeing how much Japanese I can catch with the subs covered), it suddenly occurred to me that now I'm a little more savvy about illegally downloading obscure (and not-so-obscure) tracks, manga and videos, I might have a better shot at it. Google lead to the two OST track names, youtube was a bust and I was just resigning myself to googling every track when a window I'd brought up and forgotten about loaded randomly with that song.
It's called "Kanashimi no Tsuibi", apparently, and it further boosts my faith in the internet that I FOUND the dratted thing. It's like track 16 off the first OST.
Even better, while I was looking for the name of the song I played through some of the other tracks, and I think I'll try to download both OSTs. I like Asato Tsuzuki's song and there's an instrumental on the second OST called "Zetsubou no Shinen" which I quite liked before, what I heard of it, but I'm not sure I've heard it played before from where the violin and cello come in. It's just...beautiful. I haven't wanted to download a song that much in ages 0 . 0
TOMORROW I will post about something vaguely exciting. Tonight, I will fangirl over lovely Japanese cello music from an anime most people don't seem to have heard of :D
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| Sunday, February 8th, 2009
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12:24 am - I'm going to Tokyo!
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So, we got an e-mail today telling us where everyone is being sent for their year in Japan...I'm going to the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies!
I was a little ambivalent about this to start with, because whilst I really wanted to visit Tokyo, I didn't want to live there. But although it's bigger and busier than I'm really comfortable with, there are advantages - there's obviously a lot going on there, it's fairly convenient for travel, people speak standard Japanese, and Jenne and Katy are going to different Tokyo universities so it should be fairly easy to visit them!
Milena and Ellie are in Akita, which'll be a bitch to get to, but Peter's in Kansai Gaidai. It's near to Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka, all of which I plan on visiting if possible, so I should be able to drop by there at some point.
As for the university itself, it's kind of...well, I'd have actually preferred to go to one of the other three Tokyo universities (or at least the two Katy and Jenne are at, whether they'd been there or not). There's a wikipedia page on it, though I think the Accomodation section may have been written by a student:
"TUFS's on campus accommodation consists of two buildings located adjacent to the sports field. Building one contains rooms for international students and Japanese tutors, including ensuite shower facilities, a music room (which consists of a go board, two armchairs and a broken piano), a small indoor rainforest and a lounge.
Building two was completed in 2005 to house international students and Japanese tutors, however the student exchange division received many complaints that the building was not finished; many of the rooms have absolutely no hot water facilities and there are but 3 shower cubicles and 3 washing machines to serve each floor (of upwards of 20 residents). Neither building one nor two has a roof, although this was perhaps intended to accommodate the previously mentioned indoor rainforest and not the students. The building's interior design elements have lead to comparisons between it and a prison cell block."
To be fair, wikipedia's reliability aside, if this really is a picture of building two then the prison block comparisons are rather justified:
BUT, the accomodation is not actually what I was really worried about - it was the fact that being a University of Foreign Studies, it was likely to have a lot of Japanese students wanting to learn English as well as a high proportion of foreign exchange students, which isn't really the best environment for learning Japanese...
However, I was talking to Georgie and she reckons that actually a lot of the students there aren't learning English. Our friend Saori, as it turns out, studies Cambodian! Also, if the foreign exchange students are from all over the place, our common language should be Japanese, which'd be great. I was worried about it being like Kansai Gaidai where there's loads of American students, but now I don't think that's actually the case.
So in short - TUFS wouldn't have been my first choice, but it could be worse (in the south away from everyone, where it's bloody hot in summer, for example), and I don't think the foreign studies thing will be a problem if I make the effort to speak Japanese (in fact, it might even help if they're experienced with teaching Japanese to foreigners), so have come to the conclusion that it's really not that bad :D
PLUS, I'M REALLY GOING TO JAPAN! YEY!
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| Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
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12:22 pm - Writer's Block: Cookies
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I don't normally bother with the writer's block things, but I have to answer this one because I have honestly received the fortune, "Good luck in your third marriage".
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ONE AND TWO?
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| Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
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8:54 pm
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Today me and my friends were talking about student stereotypes and one got mentioned which we hadn't done: to hang out in a coffee shop and write bad poetry.
So today we went to the Starbucks in Borders and each gave the person to our left a prompt, then all wrote poetry around it. It was BRILLIANT. Unfortunately, I don't have any of the other poems for obvious reasons, but I will post mine.
(The prompt was "People mistaking my hair for candyfloss". It was originally going to be "The disadvantages of having blue hair", but then I pointed out there weren't any, and I think Peter suggested that it could be mistaken for candyfloss.)
(Also, BAD RHYMES ABOUND. I regret nothing. Well, I do, but I'm not going to fix it now.)
( Attack Of The People Who Mistook Me For Candyfloss )
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| Monday, February 2nd, 2009
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6:58 pm - SNOW
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More on why my Japanese teachers are awesome:
It snowed a lot today, so me and most of my friends planned to have a snowball fight after our last lesson. Me, Ellie and Peter finished at 4, everyone else finished at 5. So, for the hour we were waiting, we made a life-size snowman model of Takewa-sensei (with help from Toby when he wandered by). She's about my height, so we used me for scale, and we dyed her hair pink (it's actually black, but soil just looked silly) using the free pomegranate juice they were giving out at the union.
( EDITED to add the two photos Ellie took during the making )
Then we got Takewa-sensei after last lesson and showed her. We took photos of her next to it, which I'll post if they get sent to me. I asked her the Japanese for snowball fight, which is apparently "yuki gassen", to which the only possible response was, "Shimasshou!" or "Let's do it!"
So the eight of us PLUS TAKEWA-SENSEI had a snowball fight, and it turns out she actually is a ninja. Really. At points she caught mine and Peter's snowballs to throw them back.
And when we finished, before she left, her suggestion was that we go to the pub and warm up with some vodka XD
( Also EDITED to add the picture of Takewa-sensei next to Snow Takewa-sensei )
In other news, I have designed the Ultimate Japanese Character. Her name is Kawaii-chan (suggestion of maskalade), and I've tried to incorporate all aspects of a stereotypical Japanese creation.
( Unfortunately I drew this during a lecture on the Japanese economy, so I know nothing about that, but never mind )
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