Saturday, December 6, 2008

hell week for the production is quite hellish

all the stuffs - building, scroll painting, etc. is going down in my apt so it's like a war zone in here.

we got a pet store to sponsor us, so we're happy about that ^^

pictures will come after the 13th @_@

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

lol why is it that every time i see koreans on tv here theyre always portrayed in a super violent way? and this wasnt even drama, this was the news.

and it annoys me when they say ENG things all messed up even when they have a perfectly usable syllable to say it right. for example: jelly, collagen, allergy, caffeine, eco-

the play that im in charge of costumes for is coming up in less than 2 weeks - dec. 13th, sat. sewin up the last of the costumes like mad at the moment. go, me.

Monday, November 24, 2008

thanksgiving was nice.

took home some nice chunks of Brazilian chicken =D

no school today (monday) and no school on friday means this is like the shortest week for me ever.

/hurray

Monday, November 17, 2008

The Kingdom of Craft




















almost all guys tech school had the best cultural festival ever.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

/rant on

so i was complaining about womens fashion here yet again just recently... which made me go and browse through mainstream young peoples online clothing stores a few mins ago... actually im looking at the time now and realizing that ive spent a whole hour online window shopping

/disgusted

anyway my students, teachers, and other locals have all boasted that fall is the best season of all for many reasons. i'll focus on the "because its got the best fashion in the whole year" reason, cause this is so far from the truth it hurts.

after hearing so many of my kiddies gush on how great the shopping is this season, i went around after school ever other day lasat week to window shop and see for myself what the hype is all about. what i found was... nothing all that exciting and dazzling, really (not to my surprise at all) we got fleecy, curry outterwear + a smattering of lace in random places, we got colored tights, we got ruffly things and things that sparkle in random places, knitted one-pieces with a) that mysterious cardigan style double pocket thing going on or b) an equally mysterious gathered-at-the-bust-so-it-looks-like-a-huge-bow thing going on. what else... enamel heeled shoes, enamel heeled semi-boot things (like Tear's shoes from tales of the abyss - i SWEAR thats how those horrid things came into fashion), and faux fur totes and messenger bags.

other styles that never go out of season in this counrty (EVER!!) include: short ass A4-sized skirts or shorts + knee high tight-fitting high-heeled boots, the layered vest+graphic tee look, )or the layered short sleeve over long sleeve look), the skinny jean, [also the colored skinny jean - became popular when colored tights got hot (it was only natural lol)]. funky radioactive cheap plastic chinese hair accessories never die as well... as opposed to the sparky korean costume/ special occasion hair accessories which are actually not so bad. also, if you look like a total slut that's always in fashion too. and im actually dead serious about that, haha.

/sizzle

maybe im a fashion prude lol, or highly conservative or something... but that would mean i would kinda enjoy the flavor of EU clothes... and i dont... especially H&M... even their online site blows. worst layout ever. and their 3D sucks. i could have done better with Animation Master... WHILE i was still in high school.

i think im done hating now haha.

wait, that was kinda one-sided... i feel like i gotta mention at least one clothing-related thing in this country that i do like - and thats UNIQLO. THEY kick ass. theyre the only ones here who get it, and thats why theyre no.1 in the corporate game hehe. maybe i'll go there after breakfast tomorrow and look around.

=D

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

good job, obama!

=D

show me your dance!
beat jeanne d'arc the other day ^^

and gilles rocks man. though i do think the spear skill, 'sweep' is way too powerful lol.

anyway, i went back to legend of heroes III. it's cute.

halloween party was nice-ish. wore my ranka lee cos to that. day after halloween was random party which was totally off the hook, like until 5am kinda stuff. then the day after that was a late night movie event thing. i was pretty beat on monday which happened to be a holiday, so i did some cleaning and then slept like all day.

today was a rather refreshing day at spicy chicken school. lessons went well. kiddies were extra nice. went home at 400pm on the dot hehe.

it was a beautiful day. perfect autumn groove. blue sky sprinkled with friendly far-away wispy white clouds, californian-like golden sunlight beaming through the trees set ablaze in hues of red orange yellow and brown, and a light sweater is all you need to keep comfortable against the chill.

i got a new bottle of contact solution today. not a new new bottle/ brand or anything, i just got... some more... cause i ran out. yes.

Friday, October 24, 2008

most wild and crazy teacher drinking party up to date. i drank the rainbow, mmm... surprised im all good to blog about it atm.

we made up some funky fresh handshakes lol. and ive gotten myself into skiing in february o_0! i SOOO DO NOT ski. haha, rather ive never skied ever before in my life zomg... got onsen to look forward to anyway. it'll be grand.

gogo almost all guys tech school!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Tokyo Game Show 2008

outside the con on the second open-to-the-public day, cause it was pouring rain the day before.


the sign within the building!

the masses.

more of the masses.

at the sqex sector.

little big planet~

there are supposed to be hot girlies on stage lol.

atmospheric gaming.

our hostel <3

my box.

*****

so - instead of writing lots and lots, ive decided to compose a less than charming poem to describe my time at TGS08

night train was a pain
wasnt my choice to boot you, old lady
rockin our DS' as the car be rockin
totally in the humidity's heat, totally couldnt sleep

five hours to kill, oh so very sleepy still
i feel so dirty
youre not helping old dude, put your freaking pants back on
coffee? sure, why not? i rarely drink coffee.

finally at the convention site, swim through the crowds with all our might
damn it's sure coming down
f0k! i left my umbrella in the locker
ten dollar ticket, aint no way i was gonna miss it

hunting for free stuff, with so many people giving so much away, it wont be all that tough
damn girl, get your 59cm waist a sandwich
in this country, peoples' lack of dental self-consciousness still boggles my mind
so much to see as i wade through the sea

spoils of war, how much more can i score?
let's jump to the evening
so freaking tired
hey there be ninjas on all the walls, nice pick leader dude, good call... lol...

second day of gaming delight, waiting in line playing our DS lite
is it just me or are there more people?
we gotta rush for the sqex private screening line!
that dude in front of us has a mini chair. what a good idea... let's all stare.

we're finally in, hurry! dont get caught in the crowd's mad flurry!
oh snap where the hell did fearless leader go?!
omg, theyre letting people in! omg do we run or wait for fearless leader?!
10 seconds pass, 20 seconds pass, 40 seconds pass

shit, the people who were letting people in just quit
totally could have caught the showing
oh well, didnt want other buddies to get pissed
again off we go, it dont matter there's still a lot more to the show.

gotta reel in as much free stuff as possible! team USA is unstoppable!
cooking mama for the wii is hella fun
level 5 makes some good ass stuff
little big planet was oodles of fun, i chose my chara to be the afro bling bling one

only half an hour remains, whats gonna be my last game?
damnit the line for shirokishi monogatari is 90+ minutes
yay street fighter iv~ i got a pin set for playing~
worthless story really was a worthless story

dropped by the restroom, then to the sega's show finale did we zoom
who ARE you random white dude?
the crowd knows the words to your english song, wow.
you sing pretty well through and through but, who the hell ARE you?

happy new year, the wrap-it-up song fills my ears
one last group picture in front of the big sign
dont mind us americans here, sorry to trouble everyone.
ah, that was fun and excitement, now for an evening feast to wind down our excitement

ueno it is, everyone here is still wearing CoolBiz...
friendly kaiten sushi place
OMG they put hella wasabi in this kappaMaki
browsing through the otaku shops we see homeless folks who aint got no tops

back to the ninja hostel we go, lovely memories about tokyo game show
we still got all tomorrow to relax and spend in akiba
good thing i took out a G for this trip
dozing off in my cell, im glad these 'rooms' have doors cause when people snore no one can tell!

hello tall building all sparkly and clean, tall fortress up in akiba ive never seen o_0!
that monday holiday morning felt like christmas
hit up my usual favorite stores
way to end the day, at a maid cafe!

i think ill get omiyage at the shink platform, though this tasty little thing im eyeing has me torn
hooray we got seats together
lol we're hella loud DSing
locals give us the evil eye, but really they should give gaming a try

back at home, time to chillax alone
into the washing machine you go clothes
gotta go to work tomorrow... oh well it's my base school anyway... and i have no lessons!
flames of moe encited me to beat ffxii finally

con report way overdue, and wow how time flew
got pictures and some info
i hope thats enough
i give this con a 8/10 and with that my report is written.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

tokyo game show excitement begins tomorrow night! (riding night train, oh~ yeah~)

expect a mini report when i get back ^^

Monday, October 6, 2008

so finally got to watching the vp debate...

yeah...

im not sure if im glad or sad to be away from the homeland right now, lol.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

man i wanna progress in jeanne d'arc so bad... but im... situationaly... unable to. arg...

oh, the frustration.

how could you fail me, psp-chan? i believed in you. i treated you right. you were the water in my fountain... the cheese on my nachos... the butter on my popcorn... and now, youre only worth slightly more than a brick.

/sob

well who knows. maybe you'll wake up one morning and decide to return to your former vigor and glory. but maybe im being too judgemental. when i think about it at a different angle, you actually have become... almost human. it's not that youre broken, you just have a will of your own. you can say, "darn it. i do NOT want to play with you right now." and you can crap out your screen right then and there. but if you feel like, and ONLY if you feel like, you can say, "yknow what, i'm allowing YOU to play with ME, gosh darn it. youre in my house now. you follow my rules." then you'll put on quite a show, produce all the pretty images youre able to, and take it all away from me when im enjoying it the most.

such a cruel thing you became.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

eavesdropped on some of my kids talking about code geass on the train today kekeke.

and tgs is so close i can smell the fanboys already!

and <3 jeanne d'arc

Sunday, September 28, 2008

ey, someone effed up, or got effed on or something, but it seems like cosplaylab.com dont work no more... grr.

live music tonight was hoppin. there was this crazy local who was strummin so hard he broke like 2 of his strings... not on the same song tho... but he kept on goin which was pretty hardcore...

it's getting chilly outside now.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

have i gushed about gurren lagann yet?

everyone should watch it! it's a funky fresh adventure that everyone should watch! did i mention that you guys should watch it? even if youre not into mecha anime, the story is pretty far out, so get ready to be entertained. i think that's all i'll say tho hehe... so watch it.

on a totally different note, my dude that i coached last year for the speech contest got 2nd prize this year! needless to say, i was beyond proud. i still remember the look on his face when he clutched his dinky participation certificate and told me, "i will... win next year... for sure!" and this year he got himself the fatty certificate and shiny plaque ^^ him and the number one kid get to go to the prefectural semi-finals in a month or so. then if they do well there, they go to nationals.

total excitement.

playing the jeanne d'arc psp game at the moment and it's actually quite captivating... gonna get back to it now, lol.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

curses. forgot to make a post about the "Storm" event at my base school while i had all this energy to talk about it lol. anyway, to put it in a nutshell, imagine martial arts cinema from the 80s, with rows and rows of topless dudes wearing thin white cotton drawstring pants (kinda like judo pants) and a streaming white hachimaki (like epic in length - went down to their ass).these are the freshman boys of the school. oh yeah, theyre barefoot too, but some of them have epic white tape on their feet! then they start bellowing and hooting and hollering in the most masculine manner they can. for the next hour they prance around a huge bonfire singing folk songs in unison. you get this frat boy kinda vibe from the whole thing, except it feels much more structured and really militaristic. then you got the higher-ups (upperclassmen) who are dressed in the same style as the freshmen, except theyre wearing red hachimaki that go all the way down to the floor. theyre the ones who stand on a platform and beat the huge drum. you also got higher ups walking up and down the ranks as the freshman sing and prance around, bullying them (verbally) into order.

remember the matix reloaded? was that the 3rd one? anyway i was immediately reminded of the scene where theyre all underground dancing in slow motion all orgy-porgy-like... minus the heterosexual grining and techno music.

the freshman were in constant motion around that blazing fire. i think the point was to work up a good sweat while losing your voice as your feet bleed beneath you and fire embers singe your skin and all that... cause thats good manly fun!

the event ended with a rather impressive fireworks display. afterwards i trolled around for a few minutes to see this famed 'girls giving out refreshing drinks to their favorite guy' custom, and i gotta say, if you werent looking for it, it would have been almost impossible to catch haha. those kids were super covert ops about it. like hiding pet bottles up their sleeves and dealing them out shuriken style! crazy kids.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

yay for cultural festival. my kids are so on the button it's scary. got to get some good eats, watch exciting shows, and our english club movie was a success! meaning more outside people than english club members came to see the film haha.

advertising (posters etc.) was very exhilarating too. behold!



did i come to see what this class had to offer? heck yea.

tomorrow is supposed to be sports day, but since it'll prolly rain and regular lessons will be carried on, im going to do a 'words of encouragement' kind of theme for my classes.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

O. M. G.

i finally used the Aspir scroll i've had in storage for like 4 long years...

cause my dark dark knight is finally lvl 20!!!

on a totally different note, we're going to a local onsen this afternoon yay.

Friday, September 12, 2008

it's cultural festival season, and the english club movie is done and done! subtitles and all hehe. i hope people come watch it ;_; there are like 3 showings so im hoping thatll give folks enough time to do what they want and then come burn up a whole half hour with us haha.

anyway, im excited cause Tokyo Game Show 2008 is officially less than a month away now! oh baby oh baby.

oh a totally different note, i heard it through the grapevine that theres gonna be this devastating earthquake in japan tomorrow morning, saturday Sept. 13th. as a matter of fact mr big and cool prophet dude? also predicted more earthquakes and pinpointed all the big ones around the world...

so just in case i totally get owned by this crazy earthquake, i just wanna say these 23 years, almost 24 years, of life have been grand. i have no regrets, and i just wanna thank everyone who i can call my family and friends. if my life gets claimed, my corpse will probably still be clutching my psp or ds or something lol. i would have gamed on it til the very end to ease my pain lol. im turning off all the gas etc before i go to sleep tonight... i'll put the 2liter bottle of water + rope and shoes at the side of my bed...

anyway i tried out the Valor brand cup noodles and theyre not bad... theyre not as good as nissin curry noodles, but the regular flavor and seafood flavor are almost identical in taste and quality. the curry one just doesnt have that thick, curry-like texture of the nissin brand! i got another mosquito bite today. it was while i was riding my bike... i totally felt it happening too but there were too many people behind me and in front of me (and it was in the dark next to the river) to stop and grind ms mosquito into a paste. that meant this mosquito had to have been flying like the same speed as me like in Speed, park on my foot and stay latched on as i was pedaling. why me? i think thats a lot of useless effort. the bug should have just gotten some junior high girl idling on her phone or something... but no, it goes for me... i really want to know what is it about my smell + taste and other chemical stuffs about me that makes the mosquitoes so crazy... i dont know my blood type... maybe its super cool and rare! ... which would kinda suck for me if i ever needed a transfusion or something...

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

yunessun.

the actual site can explain a lot better than i can:
http://www.yunessun.com/english/

...and we just wanted to take a bath in the wine one... we had NO IDEA what we were in for lol. yunessun was very satisfying as an onsen/ water-themed resort. theyre open 365 days year! =D i think yunessun's got the right idea. itd do well in vegas =D

oh there's this crazy thing they got called Dr. Fish where they let these special fish eat the dead skin on your feet + legs maggot style haha. that was the most bizarre feeling like ever lol.
NPC action.

feeling rather adventurous we decided that we wanted to go to an onsen somewhere in hakone right after the last day of gasshuku. when the others asked us where we were staying we were like, "... somewhere in hakone." some of them were like 0_o! and others were like, /palmFace "you mean you havent made reservations anywhere? ... amazing..."

honestly i didnt think we were doing such a crazyMan kind of thing. hakone is littered with onsen right? meaning if you ask someone "hey, where is the onsen?" they will ask you, "which one?" right? anyway, fairly confident we head set off on a non-shinkansen towards that area. at this point we learn that it's raining cats and dogs allllllllll over japan and trains are getting delayed by more than 15 minutes left and right. we acquired a 777yen potato apple pie to eat on our ride towards the hakone area. to our surprise we met a fellow gasshuku-er and pressured her to give into temptation with a slice of the pie hehe.

we get to our destination and it's still raining like crazy. as we're talking, this NPC engages us into conversation outta the blue. after talking with him, he tries to convince us to stay at the hotel where he works. after a bit more dialog, we agree to follow him - but on the train as he tries to book us in, we find out that there arent any vacancies! but as we were winging it anyway, we agree to have a takoyaki snack (which turned into more of a dinner) at this takoyaki place/ bar he frequents.

NPC introduces us to his older man friend/ co-worker who turns out to be a very strange, shy, and socially retarded kind of fellow. we have a nice round of drinks and the bartender helps us out trying to find some place for us to stay that night - which was totally awesome of him. as it was nearing midnight, he tells us that he hooked us up with a place to stay around the station and on top of hooking us up, he actually offers to drive us there too - which is like WHOA because gas is expensive and the station was a 20 minutes drive away... in the pouring rain.

NPC says bye to us at the takoyaki bar and we get into the bartender's car! when we got to the hotel, he helped us get registered and said goodbye. he totally saved us! one hero of a bar master.

as i was sitting on my hotel bed later that night, it was all playing out in my head like an RPG event, haha. help from strangers! oh yeah!

the next morning (monday) we go to the station and pick a random ass gimmiky place from a travel guide and go for it! armed with a map and compass (yes we totally used them both too! they took pivotal parts in getting us to where we needed to go, lol) we took a train up to this mountain stop and walked 20 minutes through the mountain forest towards the red dot on our map, lol.

when we got to where we wanted to go it was kinda like... bam! it was kinda like a high school just rose out of the forest or something. this place was HUGE. considering all the other onsen places we were passing by on the way, this resort was a whole village itself. the place we went is called YUNESSUN.
gasshuku.

we got on a 716am kodama from toyohashi and was able to sit down to a literally last-minute lunch at the shinbuden at 1159am.

friday >> practice was... nice i guess? not as hardcore as i or anyone else (team USA) was expecting. no major injuries, everything was executed on time. the study session was talk about the gods. no BBQ, no legalized drinking in the shinbuden... which made everyone all closed up and stuff. no smiles anywhere - i kid not. no mosquito bites yay! =D

all girls locker room talk and girls dormitory talk that you think only exists in anime and manga totally is real hahaHA. it's so cute when you hear college girls talk about boys in the way you and your girlfriends talked about boys in uh middle school lol.
"so he turned his head around as he was backing up his car, and and and i was sitting in the seat right behind him and our eyes met, and and and..." /squeal
"i like a kind guy who goes at my pace" /squeal

lol one of the girls was complaining that her guy took her on a lame date, so we were like 'tell us tell us' and she was like, "nnnnnnnnnnnnn well he was driving and we were talking and before i knew it we were in front of a book store. then then then, we went in together and got like a bunch of manga and i thought we were gonna proceed with our date after leaving the store, but in the car he was totally driving back home and i didnt want to say anything, so we got home and then he was like, "come inside!" so i couldnt say i wanted to do something more because he was so excited so we went in and we spend the rest of the day inside reading manga together ;_;"

then i was like, "dude thats a quality date!" then one group of girls were hella laughing at me >_> but the other group was like, "oh yes oh yes! very love love! together reading! he must have been holding you at the same time right?!" and she was like, "well yea, but..." and everyone was all teasing her and acting out the situation and stuff lol.

saturday >> more normal-paced practice. schedules were really in the pocket. enbu was very interesting to watch. saturday night was very... exciting LOL. mister Headmaster is a very amusing drunk. and there are just some things you cant unsay - things you cant unhear.
/hand entends forward from body and clutches the air, balling hand slowly into a fist.
i cant quote from mister Headmaster, but i can quote from another dude!
"gomen nasai" /vomit in wash trough
illegal drinking? highly possible~ huhuhu~
no mosquito bites this day either! =D

girls shower room talk is also very surprisingly accurate to anime and manga. they really WILL compare breasts 0_o! no one is left out of the magic circle in a shower room either. not even in the corner lol. >_> so there's this one girl who has a normal asian body rite, but like her boobs are outta control - you wonder where she hides it during practice. but theyre massive - and she was all jumbling them with her hands in the shower and stuff - it was nuts! 0_o! and it looked exactly like this style of Amazing Nurse Nanako. lol, google it real fast and you'll see what i mean if you dont know what the nanako style is lol. anyway. i kid not. they really were shaped like that.

sunday >> beginning to feel tired and more and more dirty from putting on a sweat drenched judogi ;_; but i was still healthy and got in good practice and actually a lot of praise from the higher ups i worked out with /tailSwish ^^ the enbu was nice to watch again. one of the members had this fatty camera that sounded like something outta Speed Grapher hahaha. it made the enbu more epic because people were being thrown around and right before the landing and rolling youd hear these camera shutter sounds haha. felt like a fashion show hehe. the rag-upon-ground floor cleaning race was amusing as ever hehe. then at the shrine i got this cute jangly charm bell thing for 'good luck.' i just got it because it was pink hehe.

we said our thank yous, goodbyes, walked to the train station, and that was that... sorta =3
osaka.

i went to osaka a while back for a mini training camp thing, but never got to really wander the streets. i didnt even get to eat takoyaki ;_; but a few days ago i did! =D it was blazing, but we chowed down on some nice takoyaki and parfait =D we were wandering through several shopping malls and game centers, all around entertainment shops, gay towns, etc. haha.

at the end of the day we went to eat at this fatty steak house. the meal was divine~~~ =D and it also was officially the most expensive meal ive ever paid for myself in my life. >> 4800yen... oh wait i paid $45 at the wynn buffet, which is almost the same. anyway, the meal was cash money, but it was worth it.

shochu.

my teacher buddies are the crazy lol. their conversation with brother always goes something like:
"so how long are you staying?"
'2 weeks'
"oh thats great. where have you been to so far"
'tokyo, osaka, nagoya..."
"ah nice vacation. DO YOU LIKE SHOCHU!?!?!?!?"
and they get all enthusiastic suddenly and stuff lollollol. this is SUCH an alcoholic country.

shinbashi.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=jI0pzt4oTZk
i know it's old, but passing by the actual shinbashi station, you cant NOT think about this lol.

bicycles.

ive really been missing my pink stallion these several days. ive had to walk cause there was no bike for brother to use too. but yea, SO. MUCH. WALKING. and id always be thinking - darn it, itd be totally sweet right now if i could ride my bicycle. especially when walking down a big ass hill haha. other than electronics, pink stallion is hands down the best investment ive made out of everything else ive purchased in japan haha. i'll be happy to ride it to school tomorrow. then, it shall take me 13 minutes and not 30 minutes to arrive at school.
comiket 74

DECULTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
goodness, what an experience. so ive been going to anime cons every year since like 2000... and... nothing ive been to compares with the summer comic market in tokyo. i mean, i've been to all the different kinda of events and gatherings at AX... i've been to all parts of las vegas on the new years countdown... i thought id be ready to experience the legendary comiket crowds... but i wasnt! lol.

so the plan was to climb fuji between thursday and friday morning, come down, and get to the con in tokyo around noon on friday. THAT SO DID NOT HAPPEN. lol. it was like 1000am friday and we were like 'lol so how bout that getting to comiket by noon plan...' we werent even at the top yet XD though we were very very close (but so far away ;_;)!

anyway, we were just gonna eff the con for friday, and use the rest of the day to rest up to be all fresh for saturday. brother had left luggage in a shinjuku station locker so we had to go pick it up first thing saturday morning. there was no way we could have woken up any earlier than 1000am on saturday after the climb, so we set out for shinjuku around 1030am saturday thinking itd take like 45 there, and 45 back (to funabashi where we were staying) with some waiting time tacked on there. then going all the way back to the tokyo area again for the con lol. anyway, i predicted we'd be there at 130pm-ish and that way, wed beat all those early morning veterans right? then we'd do a quick swoop of goods without cosplaying that day, and devote our sunday to cosplay...

that was the rationale... but the trains totally failed us in tokyo. the line that we wanted to take back to funabashi was totally out of service for some question mark reason, as were the 2 following trains on the line, so we had to take this lame and long roundabout way back with like super chunky waiting times... by the time we got back to funabashi we were like, 'i wonder... if we'll be able to make it... like for reals... lol.'

we tried anyway =D

...and got inside one of the dealers hall right at 400pm! ... but no one was selling anything!!! -_- that day we really REALLY felt how punctual jp folks were. they have this tradition i think? where they applaud the 1600 hour chime (comiket ends ON THE DOT!!!! at 400pm). lame. anyway, we were able to marvel at the tail end of the crowds which were still pretty fatty. we saw cosplayers like freaking everywhere - in the halls, outside the building, inside the building, at the AM PM conbini - so we said 'sweet, theyre lax about cosplay.'

we met up with some of my buddies and spend the rest of the evening in akiba... where a monsoon of a rain kept us trapped there for some time haha. then we partied like no tomorrow at good ol saQra bar that night after getting back to funabashi.

SO - having missed 2/3 days of the con we were bent on getting there at 1000pm (the opening time) on sunday. set my phone alarm for 800am and noticed that i was low on battery so i plugged it into buddy's charger to test compatability, charging light came on and everything, so i set it and we all went to sleep.

come morning, the urge to pee woke me up, so after a trip to the bathroom i looked at mr phone and it totally didnt turn on and i was like, 'ah come on~~~~' ... sure enough mr phone was dead which meant alarm that was supposed to have rung didnt. i checked my watch and it was like 930 and i was like cruddddddd. i was kickin myself too because i had actually brought my own phone charger too, but after getting tricked by that damn charging light, i didnt think i had to bust it out because i thought our chargers were compatible.

/complain
/complain

totally got tricked.

we hurried to get con-ready and bolted out. after stopping by random places for last minute cosplay items and food, we managed to get to the con around 130pm i think. first thing i dashed for was T2 ART WORKS! but how foolish was i to think that there would be any of HIS goods left at 200pm -_-

after being hosed in so many ways, i felt that we had to at least get out there in the cosplay area and get some pictures of ourselves with other macrossF cosplayers. so we mosied our way out to the cosplay area ready to enjoy ourselves at the last hour of cosplay on the last day (cosplay ends at 300pm on the last day). we chose a relatively secluded (as secluded as you can get at comiket) place near a bush, made a magic circle, and began to gear up!

as we were changing, people were staring at us and we were like !(<_<>_>)a
we thought it was because we were talking kinda loud in english, and we had an exotic non-asian among us lol.

anyway, we looked good!! after the first random photographer came to snap us, we were in happy the moment! which made up for all the time we missed out from the con =D well, that's how i felt at least haha. there wasnt any way i was gonna leave the con without getting at least one picture of us in our cosplay, after spending so much time and effort and yen-age on them lol.

at 300pm we decided to go back into the halls to scout for goods and thought - well theres hella people inside the halls in cosplay (not just innocently ambiguous EGL threads either - like we saw full bright pink wig shit and stuff) so that means green light towards the end of the con maybe? so we were looking around for maybe 20 minutes when a staffer comes up to us - or rather, comes up to our non-asian buddy and is all, "hey! hey, change out of your costume now. cosplay time is over." and we were like, "aight. we understand." and since we had our clothes underneath our cosplay, we could change fast and stuff. so we parked next to a wall and began to de-gear.

the meaning of freedom:

i took off my wig, tie, hood thing, and started to unbutton my shirt when the same staffer runs up to us with this end of the world look and is all "HEY! HEY! did you not understand what i asked you to do?!" and i was like, "... " kinda taken aback at how he was like screaming at us all up in our grill and shit and he was like, "can you understand japanese?! huh?! can you understand what im saying?!" and after a few seconds of thinking like "omg step the eff BACk, coz..." i say, "um, im changing...' then i undo another button and his head like explodes and hes like, "STOP!" this time in english, and holds up both hands widespread in front of my face like russian martial art style... which makes me drop my tie and hood on the floor so i instinctively pick it up and he goes, "NO!" in english. then i drop them both in my bag and he goes "STOP!! NO NO NO MOVE!!!" and im like '...lol' then he talks into his walkie talkie thing and like 5 other staffers show up and original dude explains to them in japanese, "uh, we got a bunch of first-timer GAIJIN here who dont know any japanese, they dont have their clothes with them, and theyre trying to change in the bathroom."

at this point im thinking, 'uh, we know what youre saying, we're not changing inside no bathroom, and we have our clothes right here... on our bodies... just let us take our shirts off and we'll be part of your perfect image fake ass plastic society again, bitch.'

BUT - we decided it would be to our advantage to play the "so sorry, no japanese!" card.

lol. and then they brought out Tanaka!

jk - basically they told us to follow them. we were good kids so we did and so we were bought to this staff area where we were forced to wait for some question mark reason... i listened to this staffer on his walkie talkie who said "yea radio Tanaka (dont know what that other punk's name was) we need someone to tell them about how stuff works in english... yea tell him to escort them to the locker rooms too... alright thanks, see you."

i pointed to this girl in cosplay and was like, "why arent you forcing her to change right now?"
he said, "we only called you out because you're not registered"
we were like, "and how did you know we werent registered? by looking at our faces? its not like that girl, or that other girl, or that cloud strife with his big ass buster sword right there are waving around their reg papers or anything."
he was like, "...."
then he was like, "there are like 200,000 people here right now. we cant catch everyone."
then we were like, "so catch her... or her... reach out your hand. youre not doing anything right now... your other staff buddy isnt doing anything right now either, go bust em."
"..."
then we were like, "why did you tell us and not anyone else?"
" ... "
then he was like, "if we let one person go then other people will do it and itll be like a... domino effect."

alllllllllllllll we had to do was take our effing shirts off. like... 5 seconds for reals. they can close their eyes, count to 5, open their eyes, and everyone can go about their business again - no stress no mess. but thats not how they do it in japan.

whatever task or process that needs to be done, you gotta involve as many people as possible, push around as much paper as possible, and wear a suit and tie as youre doing it because god forbid you do any business without having your wife shine your black valentino shoes and bleach your-never-before worn white shirt beforehand. but zomg that cant happen and you'll get fired from your salaryman i-hate-my-life company because your sons gonna effing stab your wife to death before she can touch the shoe polish or washing machine.

/hate off

anyway, comiket rules are whack.

LOL oh yea, so as the first dude was beginning to bully us he was like, "where are your papers? dont you have this cosplay registration packet?" and we were like, "registration?"

right then his head exploded another time and we were like, 0_o! then he talks into is walkie talkie all panic-like saying, "oh shit, oh shit you guys, these guys arent registered, we're in a big mess here omg - O M G!!!"

Tanaka walks us all the hell the way over on the other side of the con where the locker rooms are and explains to the female cosplay staff that i didnt register for cosplay but cosplayed anyway and now i need to use the changing room without being registered and ZOMG will it be possible to do that??? ZOMG ZOMG!!! and even the lady staffers were all biting their nails in nervousness and i was like in jp, "i. have. clothes. all. i. need. to. do. is. take. off. my. shirt." then they were like, "oh well.... hmmmmm. i think we might be able to somehow make an exception...." so they led me to the room, i took off the shirt as i was walking towards the exit where the exit girl asked for my reg booklet and i was like in jp, "i am going to walk out now. i talked to 10 people about this already. im leaving." and went out lol.

most pointless thing ever.

raced all the way back to dealers hall to scout for this one decal of Ranka Lee that we had glancingly seen earlier, met up with the rest of my people again at that location, we each bought a decal, and then at the very next minute, the chime went off, people clapped, and comiket 74 was over.

/rant on
our non-asian buddy was totally profiled. comiket staffers will let the locals slide on the rules, or in the harshest of cases they will politely ask their fellow jps to do XYZ. we on the other hand get yelled at in the face over the smallest of things. we're the ones getting detained and shit - being made an example of...

/rant off
/sigh

im not sure if i was THAT ready for being treated like that... and i know it's all one sided the way im telling it.

i did read the comiket phone book. i read english version, made sure i knew what was up and what to expect and everything. i was aware that there was a cosplay registration + fee BUT because of complications we only had one hour to cosplay anyway.

it was my suggestion to put our cosplay stuff on outside in the open air because it would have (and DID) save us time. we did not need the services of a locker room, though i am aware that the con said we needed to any ... how can i say ... "movement of clothing" inside the locker room. from my american point of view (the right point of view) why do i need to pay for a service i dont need?

it's like if a homeless guy comes up to your car, washes your windows for you without your express permission, and then extends his hand in your face demanding payment. maybe that's not a good comparison to the situation, but that's how i felt about it. the "if you wish to cosplay, you must register at the dressing room" thing is just a way for these guys to score money off of cosplayers.

what if you had a white mage cosplay where all you had to do is put on a cloak? you wear a socially acceptable pretty white summer dress to the con and as youre waiting in line, you take the cloak out of your bag and throw it around your shoulders. did you hurt anybody? did you flash anyone your panties? what's the problem? what's the big deal? everyone within a one mile radius of me right now actually is into what im doing too. we all think it's cool here. you guys are all about closed-community magic circles. i accept that you enjoy child pornography. why cant you accept how i like costuming?

imagine yourself in street clothes. what if it was cold in the morning? you have a pullover on, and as youre waiting in line, it heats up so you take it off. youre breaking the rules!!!!

one can argue that these cases are different because the bottom line is that one person is a cosplayer while the other is not.

comiket reg book states "Please be aware that cosplay and masquerading have yet to be widely accepted in mainstream Japanese society."

that's bullshit.

where does the word 'cosplay' come from again?

that sentence should be re-written to something like, "Please be aware that the freedom you and i have grown up with does not exist in Japan. Please be aware that even among the most hardcore of Japanese otaku, it's still not ok to show your fandom in front of them. Please be aware that the presence of shame is as prevalent at this convention as it is in the rest of Japanese society."

imagine youre a world class chef who goes to an international cooking convention. then another chef walks up to you and calls you a glutton fatass for coming to a cooking convention. if it was in the states, itd be a great joke! but in japan itd be for reals man...

freedom.

cant wait to get back to it.

damn proud to be an american.

our country may be harsh, crazy, dangerous, and the ass of every other countries' jokes but, at least we got real freedom here. ive never been much of a patriot or anything, but after living in a country like japan, you realize just how much shit you're allowed to do in america. we think outside the box. go against the grain. question authority. we're ready to take all kinds of heat from anyone cause we're fighters. but we're lovers too! we dont squirm at the sight of PDA.

cause darn it, you cant sit in a classroom and learn about diversity if all the kids around you are japanese (plus one token brazilian lol).

you talk to the jp kids who have lived in foreign countries for several years and they come back to japan and theyre frustrated about all the stuff they're smacked down for doing here. then youre frustrated cause theyre frustrated!

come on jp folks. just. do. it. eff everything else.

/claw eyes out
it's ok to be humannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

/sigh

lemme get back to the con...

anyway, it was my fault lol. i should have acted more... japanese... and mindlessly followed an established system... but i let the american in me have too much free reign. i'll behave next time. i wont even cosplay - it's too much of a pain in the ass. i dont wanna wait in a pointless line to enter a room i dont need to use and so wasting my time.

I'll enjoy TGS as a simple foreign fan as i did last year =D

i'll quell my cosplay flame by sewing pjs lol.

oh snap! lol. so i was talking to a ranka in the cosplay area and we were just talking about who we were and where we came from and stuff, costume chatter yknow then i mentioned that me and steve were eng teachers and she was like, "oh wow teachers! nice! ...oh wait /whisper is it ok for you to be here getting pictures taken of you?" and she said it all seriously too LOL.

anyway i think im done venting on the subject of my first comiket. i was gonna pick apart more of the "DO NOT"s of the book, but it's alright... i feel better now lol. i feel like i have a better understanding of the society here. and no, it's not as warped in my mind as how it came out written here, lol.

we were after all experimenting with cosplay at a jp con for the first time. it was truly a fine study for us. i have no regrets. i think what i needed was this kind of harsh treatment anyway to kinda beat me into sumbission lol. i myself still have 2 more years here after all haha.
fuji.

it doesnt look so intimidating from the shinkansen... but once you get to the station its like... whoa. we got there in the evening and our plan was to get to the top by sunrise. it was past midnight when we started climbing...

man we were so juiced in the beginning. all of our gears on our backs and stuff lol. we got to the first checkpoint-ish place and got a paper map thing that outlined the climb to the top with all the distances, heights, etc. along with approximated times to each of the other checkpoints to the top. we were like 'sweet. we're kicking ass at our rate. we'll be able to make it up there with like an hour time to spare.'

oh man.

so it's pitch black up on fuji, and the only light source we had was this dinky keychain-sized LED light thing lol. i think it was better that way because the would-be view of the top of the mountain from our low position would have been like 'ohshi-' for us haha.

how we will never take air for granted again:

as we were passing up the checkpoint stations we saw that each little hut station thing sold jerky, water, gloves, other mountain gear stuffs, and oxygen can things haha. we were all laughing and taking pictures of it and stuff, thinking some of the older climbers might need to use it maybe... so we just chuckled along our way... as we reached the above-the-clouds level though, we were like, man... its uh, kinda hard to breathe up here... and by the time we were nearly at the top we were like, omg, we NEED those air things man... like we is gonna black out if we dont suck one of those air can dudes lol. anyway, it was ridiculous. first time in my life i felt that way before... the feeling of having not enough air to breathe, or like... trying to fill my lungs as much as possible but without the satisfaction of a deep breath... it was crazy stuff.

on the brighter side of things, the weather was beautiful and the scenery was incomparable to anything else ive ever set my eyes upon. took a bunch (27 to be exact lol) of disposable camera photos which i feel obliged to post here haha. i'll post like 2 now hehe.



oh yea, so as the above pix shows we got these stick things, right? well we got them at the bottom of the mountain at this shop right, but in this picture (this is the last threshold torii thing before the top) im not holding one~ and that's because as we were taking a rest, covering our heads with a blanket and so obscuring our eyes, some stickless cousin came around and swiped mine. how ghetto is that? i was reminded of a starving animal's mentality kinda... where some dude was prolly like, 'damn should have got a stick... need stick badly... will not make it without one!' /yoink

:/

anyway, it was all gravy, made the last stretch plus all the way back down without the stick... but i paid 1000yen for it! i even attached a pink glowstick to the top! darn that! theres no 'oh i mistook it for mine' possibility there... ah well... hope that punk got hurt on the mountain!

top of the mountain:

again, that picture of us celebrating right? well we only took it because we found out that we were on the very last staircase to the top lol. i think i remember myself saying, 'dude they like... pump this part of the mountain with like, extra oxygen or something man... i can like, totally breathe fine now man...' lol. we were tripping out pretty bad. all i remember after getting to the top was taking a bunch of pictures, watching this white dude pee on a random rock like 3 meters away from me, then i fell asleep on a bench outside. i think i slept for an hour? but when i woke up, it felt like i had fallen in some kind of... temporal vortex... all the events of climbing and picture-taking and getting to the top seemed like a dream and i felt as if i wasnt really on the top yet.

i forced myself to eat, but after a few bites, i just couldnt swallow the food in my mouth lol. i wasnt nauseated or anything, but the food was just sitting in my mouth and i couldnt get myself to chew or swallow. it kinda feels like trying to pee again after having peed 5 minutes previously? haha.

i mindlessly bought omiyage and soon after we began our trek down around 3pm.

we got to the bottom at like... 700-something pm? lol.

the way down was a zig-zagging kind of ordeal... we got to enjoy the scenery more, and didnt have to take breaks as often as we did on the way up (i swear the last hundred feet up was like... we had to take a break every 8 meters).

we managed to catch a bus to the station and the rest of the way back to civilization was... mindlessly traveled lol.

final thought: ive never pushed my body to its physical limits as i did climbing fuji. fuji isnt just this pretty, perfect background mountain that you can see from the shinkansen. it's a beast!!! im never gonna climb that thing again lol. glad i got nice omiyage hehe.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

100th post!

so instead of putting everything in a nutshell like i always do, im going to make a list of stuff ill write about in detail in a later post:

mt fuji
comiket 74
osaka
shochu
shinbashi!!!!!
bicycles
gasshuku... lol...
random teen NPC in the mountains
yunessun

Monday, August 11, 2008

so i totally effed up this dye job for my Luca tie

/anger

it was originally this radioactive lime green color, so i was trying to dye it a darker shade of green. i took a green posca marker (which i thought was a permanent opaque paint marker through previous usage) diluted it in some water, and set the tie in to suck up the green paint mixture. it coated the tie in a beautifully uniform shade of hunter green so i was like sweet, that was easy, all i gots to do is let it dry! so i set it outside and went back to work on other stuff. about 2 hours later i checked on the tie again and what had happened was the coloring kind of separated and settled i guess? so there were darker pools of green everywhere and it was all splotchy and i was like CRAP. so i did a second dyeing and this time i concentrated the paint a bit more. after applying it on, it seemed to do the trick, but if i let it air dry again i knew it was going to splotch, so i took out my hair dryer and stood there blasting it for like 5 minutes. after most of the dampness went away, i let it set again and went back to other stuff. i checked it after like 30 mins and you could kinda still see where the different concentrations of colors were. anyway, i washed away the excess paint, and now it's hanging up to dry outside. in between this operation i was thinking that since the dye job was pretty much a fail, id try my hand at making it out of the green satin i thought i wouldnt have to use >_> another 1.5 hours later... handmade tie complete! this time i (somewhat) followed proper instructions, so it came out looking pretty alright. if i actually had some wool, or some other kind of cushy fabric to put into the tie, it would have been pretty good looking, but since i didnt, it's all flimsy and stuff, but it presents the look i want just fine, so whatever.

ranka only took me like... 6 hours to finish, which was kind of surprising. i thought id really be pushing my time this summer (like all summers) with cosplay, but these costumes are soooo done. lol.

anyway, my cosplay statuses as of today:

Ranka Lee @ 90%
minus wig (needs to get here so i can style it! XD), minus boots
Luca Angeloni @ 95%
minus wig (cause i decided its gonna really eff up my hair if i bleach it blonde just to dye it strawberry, and then i'll have to dye it to a normal color after the con cause of school and that'll be a pain in the ass)
Alto Saotome @ 90%
minus wig, minus red hair cord thing, minus protective charm/ necklace thing, minus pants
Mihaeru Buran @ 90%
minus wig, minus glasses, minus pants

Friday, August 8, 2008

found the ties. yessssss. sucks i bought that fabric tho... but whatever, let's hope that i can use red green and blue satin for something in the future haha.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

uwaaaaa~ deculture!

so im making ranka lol - the dress she wears when she meets alto for the first time.

i have material for the guys' ties, so i'll make them tomorrow. im following the instructions from http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/Tutorials/HOBERHowToMakeANECKTIE.htm so theyre gonna come out all proper and stuff hoho.

and english club movie is pretty much finished at half an hour =D

Friday, August 1, 2008

what an intense week of filming!

now to change gears into editing mode. hooray for magic particles and flowers lol

Sunday, July 27, 2008

too much poison is never enough.

i thought that my mosquito smoke coil would be enough to protect me while cooking after having taken a shower and so washing off my morning layer of mosquito repellent off my body... but it wasnt lol.

i swear it's a year-round battle.

i got 3 on my legs yesterday. the one behind my left thigh has swollen up pretty bad. it looks like someone implanted a tennis ball under my skin... maybe that's exaggerating a little... so let's say golf ball instead. but the area of swollen skin is way more than the diameter of a tennis ball. im glad there arent any trips to the beach anytime soon...

i got rank 7 today! the feeling of progress i got was phenomenal haha. maybe more than progress, i felt non-lazy i guess?

macross F cosplay is at a standstill until those wigs come in and until i find those ties.

on the lighter side of things, i made some somen okonomiyaki with pork taste just now for dinner - yay.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

failed to find those ties in nagoya ;_;

but went to a dazzling tanabata festival thing while i was there!

i walked through a arch of fire! and had a nice miko girl shake bells at me! i feel like so purified now haha.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

wow - why have solid colored neckties become the rarest thing ever? ive been scouring all the malls, 100yen stores, department stores, designer stores, etc in my town and solid color ties (besides black and white) are nowhere to be seen.

so i went to hamamatsu today to take a look over there. after running around on ground level stores and 'commoner' high rise shopping malls, i decided to try my luck at the high brand name building just for the heck of it. i saw a tie that i needed in like... Burberry lol... and Hugo Boss...

if i cant find these ties come first week of august im either going to have to go with original idea of hand dyeing white ties (but im scared the color is gonna bleed off onto the shirts ;_;) or making ghetto ties from scratch (dont wanna do this cause... i want the ties to look good and authentic, damnit haha - cant have the wind blowing the ties and everyone see the ghetto behind part...).

anyway on my afternoon scouring malls, i wandered into toys R us and saw this totally awesome dollhouse. it was a Sylvanian doll house, which is european in origin? but is super popular here i guess cause you got the whole Redwall-esque thing going on with personified animals and such. anyway theyre the perfect size for my pinky street girls! and i really really wanted at least the smaller house ;_; it would have looked so cool ;_; my desk would be the most extreme one in the teacher's room kekeke. arg - i couldnt believe how perfect it would have been... and hey, the smallest one was only like 4000yen or so for something the size of... i dunno 2 japanese rice cookers stacked onto one another? totally buying it when i get back to the states! i hope they sell em at the toys R us back at home too... and speaking about pinkies, i saw sanrio ones at the animate in hamamatsu. kuromi and my melody cosplay girls =D but i didnt get them >_>

as a matter of fact i was going to go home empty-handed but felt like since i had made the trip to hamamatsu i should at least buy something, so i did! there was a sale sale sale at the top of high name brand building so i got some super discount clothing yay.

im going to go to nagoya tomorrow after school to try to find those ties @_@ and plus it'll give me another excuse to window shop haha.

chicken nugget udon tonight lol

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

all 3 shirts are done! man, they look so good =D

luca @ 90%
alto @ 70%
mihaeru @ 70%

i need to go hunting for ties tomorrow or something...

Sunday, July 20, 2008

avatar the last airbender is officially my favorite animated series of all time.

and as for my cosplay status:
luca @ 70%
alto @ 40%
mihaeru @ 40%

Thursday, July 17, 2008

macross F cosplay is coming along great =D

movie for english club is getting there too =D

Sunday, July 13, 2008

cosplay efforts officially start tomorrow!

gonna finish off the macross Frontier ones before the shining tears x wind ones hehe

oh, maybe i didnt mention before that we jumped aboard a macrossF cosplay boat hehe, in any case that's what we're doing!

wish me luck!

Friday, July 11, 2008

mr computer totally restarted on me as i was preparing food. good thing i hadnt written a lot yet haha.

anyway im going to put five billion things in a nutshell like i always do. allen came to visit these past few days. we went to mini gasshuku at tsukuba together which was pretty intense but full of earth quaking fun - literally haha. non-gasshuku days were spent at school! the kiddies seemed to appreciate talking to another native speaker of english, but i cant help but think theyve been kinda ripped off i guess because allen is, well, asian. haha.


mostly i cooked random stuff for lunch and dinner during the time we werent at tsukuba and for his last night we ate at the best ramen place ive been to this year - houjun: this cozy, little up-in-the-residential-zone restaurant where the manager kept on telling us how cool and international we were lol. i was going off a recomendation from one of my teacher buddies hehe. but seriously, the food was great.

my 1-8 kids kicked so much ass today playing word association game! we even did a 'back in the states' pace and they were tearing it up! they looked oh so happy to not be in their textbooks. smoothest part of the lesson was when this one boy got the word "cute." for his word, he looked back at the girl who said "cute" to him and said, "you" all smoothlike. the rest of the class was like /squeal and then he was like /smoothaura "well, you ARE cute yknow." then the class was like /squeal x 10

magical. just magical =D

this black and green cache dress i got like 4 or so years ago at Tahoe with mom is the dress im going to wear to the 2008 sayonara party tomorrow. im looking on youtube for hair ideas at the moment... and i went out and bought some matching earrings and a jeweled hairpin for kicks too haha. i think i'll go practice this promish updo now.

oh i also got this ridiculous black leathery ring bracelet grunge skull timepiece thing, and im totally gonna wear it to comiket and TGS lol.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

sweeet.

i managed to hit 5th rank and 4th rank on mog bonanza! 4th rank gets me 100,000 gil or an item kinda equivalent. this Matron's knife thing seems like itd be better as an offhand for me actually...

anyway go me.
macross frontier! ohhhhh baby. it's so good, and the music is incredible too. but i dont think anything is gonna take me higher than Avatar for a while though haha.

me thanh and steve are hella gonna go as the 3 main guys for comiket kekeke

now i have mao and Luca to work on... dang i should start collecting materials like... soon.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

mog bonanza is almost here! i hope i can get that 100,000,000 gil!

and yea im totally obsessed with avatar. i think about it like every other hour @_@ those last few episodes are gonna kill me i just know. and i was trying to think whether im more of a zutara fan or kataang fan lol - out of principle im going to say im leaning more towards the katara + aang pairing haha.

anyway, avatar has totally taken over my art drive :P

Monday, June 23, 2008

so i binged through a lot of avatar (Avatar The Last Airbender) last week, maybe like... 55 half hour-ish episodes.

best cartoon ever! im not just saying that either. it really is the best animated series ive seen since like... man... i dunno when! glad the DVDs were forced upon me a month ago haha.

the crazy humidity is back. it's gotten to the point where the boys at almost all guys tech school run around in their underpants - no exaggeration.

there was a warm rain all day yesterday and into the night i saw lightening at 5-10 second intervals - it was insane.

yea.

Monday, June 16, 2008


so how can you NOT catch this? it's pokemon seafood ramen by sapporo ichiBan. i found it in the discount bin with a 68 yen price tag on it and didnt even think twice before plopping it in my basket. now i can sing the (US) pokemon theme song while eating it at work.

disappointment for the day: this anti-mosquito device (katori ki) they put on my desk at school totally failed me. for the past two weeks it's been giving me peace of mind leading me to believe i was shielded within this almighty force field, when actually i probably was much mosquito food as the rest of the poor teachers in the staff room. basically the katori ki i was given is this palm-sized honeycomb-like plastic device with a battery-operated fan that blows some chemical from off the honeycomb thing and into the air around you. the chemical supposedly wards off mosquitoes.

anyway, as i was pouring over papers i feel this sting at my ankle and by the time i look down, theres this fatty mosquito making a meal of me. so i swat (to kill) at ms mosquito but she dismounts and kinda hovers about the air around me. next, the scientist in me became really curious about the katori ki that totally just failed to protect me, so i picked it up and held it up to the engorged mosquito, like one would hold up a garland of garlic cloves to a vampire, to see if indeed it would buzz away or better yet fall out of the air and roll over on its back in the classic death pose as advertised on the box. to my disappointment, ms mosquito just buzzed about the katori ki like it wasnt even there, high off my blood stolen obviously. it even parked mockingly on the katori ki itself. my experiment over, i put down my toy of a katori ki, whammed the mosquito and ground its body into a bloody paste between my bare hands. yay retribution, lol.

on a lighter note, i made myself this refreshing tuna + celery + pasta + rice dish flavored with an S&B curry sauce cube.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

sweeeeet

we got some nice filming done today in english club. basically i just wanted them to get a good feel of being on camera and being part of the whole making a movie experience as a whole, so i had them do random "students speaking english around school" scenes. i managed to catch students i knew doing their respective club activity stuffs and asked if they could randomly babble in english about whatever they felt like and it was great! i even got the volleyball guys to run this way and that way doing their military chants in english - totally awesome lol.

man on tv theres this comedy duel thing and this one contestant dude is just like... man... /palmface
because it really shows the progression or lack thereof of comedy here... it's basically this dude prancing around babbling nonsensical things... blah

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

i got the nagato pinky today =D

now i gots all 3!

Monday, June 9, 2008

LOL

after being here for almost a year i've finally realized that when the phone gets answered in the staff room it sounds like, "show queen's shits, dess."
whoops - totally havent updated in a really long time - that english camp totally drained like akk the HPs from me for reals. so i guess it's major nutshelling time.

lessons go swimmingly as usual - im starting to get to know most of the freshmen at all my school a lot better. for some reason their names stick in my head a lot better than any of the kids from last year. i think it's because there are more kinds that kind of stand out... or these kids seem to have more guts than the kids last year, as in they talk to me like alllll the time haha.

summer is approaching with a bounty of humidity. this might be just a bay area kid talking, but man is it getting bad. the locals dont seem to think it's all that humid yet, but for me it sucks. the mosquitoes are sucking the life out of me every day. i get attacked in the supposed sanctuary of each of my schools' staff room. it's even air-conditioned in those rooms and they still get to me. all screens are up too - they totally fly in from underneath the doors. then they find their way to my legs and feast. i got a new one on my right ankle today. one of my teacher buddies slathered some post-bite medicine on it right after i noticed it - it's called "MUHI" or something like that, and is the number one popular mosquito relief medication in japan.

i've inhabited the bike port right underneath my stairwell near the mail boxes since this one dude went back to canada and left the port vacant. it can fit around 3 bikes there if they file in all organized-like, but id been camping the spot for 2 weeks, and no one had moved in, so... i did - haha. it's great now because i dont have to deal with the swarms of insects in the communal bike parking zone (which is only like 10 meters away from my stairwell anyway, but dude - mosquitoes and i are not cool together).

i dont know how intense the rainy season is going to get, but so far it's been rather tame. i think we're officially in the 2nd week of it and it's not like it's El Nino or anything. what helps is that rainy days are not freezing and are pretty warm to tell the truth. i go out wearing shorts and short sleeve shirts rain or shine and it's alright. though the other teachers always ask me, "arent you cold?!" and im like, "... no." i'm not trying to be a tough kid or anything like that - it really is a comfortable 22-28+ degrees nowadays. id actually be super happy if it stayed 22 degrees all the time from now until december haha. minus the crazy humidity too of course.

man, someone is frying up some eggs or something now at like...11:14pm.

deep cleaned my apartment earlier today for the heck of it.

ate at indian place with the chinese canadian and the australian a few hours ago.

snaps, what other noteworthy things have come to pass as of late...

oh yeah, middle school buddy came to visit like a week ago. he was on a 16 day trip all throughout japan, and he managed to squeeze me and nagoya into his schedule. we talked about random stuff that went down and other random memories within the 11+ years we've known each other. haha - it was good times.

oh and allen is coming to visit in less than a month, so he'll be around for the 4th of july, Tanabata, and a mini gasshuku at tsukubaDai. awwJea~

which reminds me - AX is going to come and go pretty soon. feels weird not to attend after going for the past 8 years... but it's all good - i gots me natsuKomi 74 and tokyo game show 2008! then after a few more years, after im done dealing my damage to this nation, i'll be back for (a hopefully repaired) AX, and more to come! also im thinking of hitting up otakon the summer i come back too, so my homecoming should be beyond exciting just considering the anime cons i'll be able to check out again.

i havent started on Mao yet, but i still have hella time, so i'm gonna just let the feeling come to me and then i'll get cracking. no rush, no rush! the nice thing about cosplay shopping in japan is that inspiration for costume designers in japan comes from the japanese environment, which means it's highly accessable, AND inexpensive =D one thing i noticed several months ago was the Tales of the Abyss designs are soooooo spun off from jp street fashion. take for example Tear's white shoes (those ones that look like pumps with a shallow boot ankle things) and guy's boots - you could find like so much to choose from here! that crazy key hole-ish shape on the front part of guy's boots was IMPOSSIBLE to find back at home, but i must have seen like 3 pairs of boots in the same color with that same front design here at random stores - in just ONE city alone! then with the "Tear shoes" - gosh that style was totally last fall's look, and it's become like a staple shoe in all women's closets since then - just like the summer 07 kitten heel sparkly sandals. [those 'in the office' booty shorts + thigh high dark tights + 3 inch heels will never get old though - it's like a year round fashion for jp hos here, no joke].

... maybe that's being too critical, lol. i shouldnt be calling those poor fashion slaves hos.

... and i had to consult urbanDictionary real fast just now for "ho" or "hoe." i've always been using "hoe" but doing the whole english teacher thing made me actually 'research' it and it seems people use both and it's ok? but "ho" is supposed to be short for "wHOre" in which case "ho" seems the best suitable spelling for the word.

anyway, you CANNOT wear japanese women's trendy fashion in western countries if you dont want to be seen as a ho. cause the stockings just do not make up for those short ass shorts youre wearing, ho.

lolz - ok hating /off

Friday, May 30, 2008

english camp was intense. crazy kids all over the place, haha. we LARPed it to the max so i was happy. the food was excellent and the rooms were cool too. too bad it wasnt like a real cabin camp thing or outside camp thing - that would have made everything like 10x more enjoyable. though it was convenient how compact the venue was - walking from your room to the main event rooms took only like 45 seconds.

a rewarding 3 days!

Saturday, May 24, 2008

we're going to the beach tomorrow.

then, english camp is from wed-fri.

we saw narnia yesterday. capsian + peter: oh baby.

i know all 4 katsu ire no koto now.

=D

and ive decided to go as mao from shining tears X wind.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

wow the seasons here are seriously like harvest moon, i swear. you wake up one day and 'bam!' it's totally the next season - no transition lol. i saw a cockroach scuttle across my floor just now, but my first reaction wasnt, 'zomg ROACH!!!' but 'wow it really is summertime now isnt it?' they came out to play with their best friends, the mosquitoes. totally not looking forward to the scars. the ones i got from last summer havent even completely faded yet. theres this one i got on my leg yesterday that's swollen up nicely - very uncool.

we did tasuki-dori today among other cool stuff.

the evening is quite nice. actually today was a nice day all around, though it is beginning to get a little bit too warm for my tastes.

comiket hype! still havent decided on my costume yet, but i'm leaning towards arche from tales of phantasia. i would like to do something that's low maintenance yet still has an impressive presence. the thing with arche is i'll have to do the crazy pink wig thing and that is soooo not low maintenance. everything else should be summer-ok for me as long as i choose the right fabric. i could very well go for something completely different though - i guess the resolve will just come to me when it does.

i think its vegetable curry time + chicken nuggets!

can you believe i made 100k npc-ing dhalmel drops last week? i felt like the laziest thf ever - i just kept on running back and forth between buburimu and mhaura. it was 100% mindless too because i farmed only while i was eating dinner.

Friday, May 16, 2008


had to bring out the big guns

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

yay i got the haruhi and mikuru pinky street dolls today! cant stop staring at them <3

Saturday, May 10, 2008

yay there was a mini gasshuku today. one of the mommies brought her baby girl (1 year 4 months) to practice too (mommy didnt practice but daddy did). it was oodles of cuteness and fun! i'm sooo gonna bring babies to practice. cept i'll actually practice too - how cool will that be? ohohohoho.

after the 100pm-400pm practice we had an awesome dinner at this place called hana no mai (hana as is flower and mai and in maiko). it was basically japanese cuisine and all the natives where complementing the freshness of the sashimi so you know it was good hoho. i ate a piece and i was like "yea i think this sashimi is the bomb, but you guys know better than i do so what do you think of it?" and they were like, "no youre right, this is good ass sushi." it was an awesome gathering. the kansai folks are all so jolly and they always wanna practice their english with me which is great because i get to use jp on them harharhar. i told them, "yea it's all good you guys. for all the parts you get stuck on in english just go ahead and use japanese, i gots it." then they were like, "man it's totally awesome talking to you lol - that extra mile i cant go you can understand my japanese so our bridges totally connect." and everyone was happy.

i played random elementary school girl hand games with one of the kansai guys lol. it was awesome we did it like five times today. [we did the mcDonalds one (big mac, fillet o fish, quarter pounder, french fries, icy cola, milkshake, sundaes, and apple pie... etc.)] it was tight. he totally memorized it too lol.

what else... it was raining cats and dogs today.it never stopped raining from early morning until... now. needless to say the river next to the apartment has swelled to scary proportions. i had a daydream as i passed it this morning where a small boy fell in and his body was floating down the river. then i imagined to jump into the river hero style and pluck his body from the churning brown rapids. i felt like a hero in my mind. of course this means everytime i stare at that river i have to scan it for bodies and dive right in when i see a kid floating in it - no hesitation. not like i want to see any poor kid in there or anything.

can you believe UNIQLOwas having a sale on polo shirts for 390yen a pop? dude, the exchange rate now is 104yen for 1 dollar, so you can do the math. it was a steal!!! so i got three new polos yesterday: M&M green, mustard yellow, and sky blue. it was a S T E A L!!! happiness.

yay laundry is done.