Thursday, October 29, 2009

spicy chicken!
doesnt this remind you of the Wonder Chef? kekeke
red bean pepsi...
/sigh richmond

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/28/california.rape.investigation/index.html

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

halloween sleepover mini party, then party party coming up this weekend! but before that, im going a nice bobbing for apples and carving pumpkins thing with eng club yay =D

that means ill have more jack o lantern pictures to put up! hopefully my girls come up with something more original than the girls at spicy chicken school hehe. speaking of which, i actually was able to purchase some spicy chicken, finally - after so long, at spicy chicken school. the pix is on my phone so i guess if i remember ill post it as soon as i get home in a few more hours =D

hopefully my exchange girl remembers the pumpkin buying date we have today after school...

im having my kids draw turkeys (you know, that elementary school art project thing where you trace your hand and turn the shape into a turkey) and write the stuff that they're thankful for. the regular course 1-8 kids are so freaking ADD lol. its a good thing that my teacher buddy for that section is good with dealing with those kinds of kids. especially the boy students! it almost feels like my almost all guys tech school in there. we had to threaten them with the whole, "aight guys, it's obvious that everyone wants to FAIL the next FINAL EXAM, cause no one wants to stfu and listen..." we're such terrorists i know...

what else has been going on...

im afraid to finish odin sphere... rather ive been reluctant to move on to the armageddon book cause i dont want the magic to end haha. so ive been playing star ocean instead. im around 30 hours into the game and i just reached the point where i "will be unable to return to ancient Roak" so i feel it might be coming to an end as well? i guess ill find out soon enough haha.

so im pretty set on staying in japan this holiday season for reals now. i have to somehow prevent myself from vegging out indoors with games though >_> i guess i can try to get myself to the gym every day during the break, minus emperors bday, christmas and new years day itself anyway.

lone wolf christmas for me this year lol. at least im not 25 years old yet; no remorse about eating christmas cake alone when youre twentyFOUR! (in japan they say women are like christmas cakes, on the 25th: christmas day, theyre beautiful, fresh and desirable - 25 years of age. on the 26th though theyre nothing but leftovers that no one wants, like a 26 year old woman... japan is harsh to their ladies lol) anyway i havent told any of my teachers my real plans yet... they all think its a given that ill be in taiwan. in any case i dont want their pity invitations to random events >_> not like im too good for em or anything like that - no problem doing my own thing...

maybe i can go to fuyukomi! though im not too eager to brave the crowds alone... actually now that i think about it, two conventions a year seems good enough for me -_-! id go shopping, except i dont think itll be a good idea to buy even more stuff when i should instead be thinking about sending stuff home... ah that's right... maybe i should use the holiday to ship stuff home - i can investigate that sea/ ocean mail service thing.

lol some teacher has a loud ass polyphonic ringtone thing that's playing like, the entire damn song of some variant of pachabell.

most of all, i gotta tell myself to not spend money; save it. dont spend money, save it. dont spend money, save it. dont spend money.... save. it. otherwise i might as well have bought an expnsive plane ticket to vegas to be with the rest of my family haha.

yay 6th period is over~ cleaning time~ which means i should vacate the zone so they can actually sweep under my desk lol.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Xenogears, Reflection After 10 Years

ive been thinking about xenogears a lot due to a link that was posted on facebook about that humans + gears remix CD that's out there... and it really takes me back.

the main reason why i love that game so much is because it's had such a profound impact on my life - how it helped me grow into the person i am today and stuff. i must have written on so many different forums and in chats, or said in so many game-related conversations irl about how inspiring the writing/ story/ message of the game was to me at the time i played it.

so i make it a rule not to write so much on blogs like this about super personal stuff, but for this game, i will just for the sake of me trying to honestly... just tell it how it is.

i was in 8th grade, which was like 13 going on 14 years old. in a group of really close classmates/ guy friends, there was one dude in particular who became my best guy friend. now in all reality, i lived a middle school life characterized by its manga-worthy drama (no details on that, though, sorry! - i actually plan on pitching the story to be made into a real manga someday =D), so fast forward to the very end of 8th grade. my best guy friend and i were going to go to separate high schools, which really sucked. i was going to the mid-level ghetto school in the district and he was going to one of the best ones. as a matter of fact, ALL my best friends from middle school were going to different high schools than me. im sure if you recall your early teenage life, your world pretty much revolved around your friends, right? so to be torn apart from all your closest homies would be nothing less than earth-shattering, right? that's what it kind of was like for me. especially when you're that fragile 14...

anyway, that best guy friend, with much verbal pushing from peanut gallery friends, came to be called a 'boyfriend' and i the 'girlfriend,' which at that time was kinda like 'wha?' because of our history of being 'just friends' for so long. eventually we were just like, 'yeah, sure, i guess... youre into me and im into you... aight, lol.' nothing really changed though in terms of our... what, eating lunch together in a big group/ clique of friends? talking about video games during passing period? chatting about anime on the phone after dinner at home? what else can middle school kids do? haha. we went to the movies... thanks to our parents who drove us there and picked us up afterwards LOL. however, the more i entertained the possibility of us sharing a loveLove kind of relationship together, the more make-believe i jumped into, and before i knew it, we were each others' undisputed darling and sweetheart kekeke.

fast forward through 8th grade graduation. so that summer, the summer before freshman year of high school, i was really beginning to feel my resentment, anger, sorrow and everything stemmed from the ghetto high school i was forced to go to. i spent days arguing with my parents about how much better my life would be if i went to the other high school where all my friends were going to. but they were convinced that if my older brother was having an A-ok time at 'ghetto high school' i should have no problems there, either.

ghetto high school was in fact the best compromise between cost (of travel time + money) and quality (academically it was 3/5 stars in the district), but blinded by my feelings for my friends and first real relationship with a guy, i continued to fight with my parents up until the very end of summer. my dad especially was super pissed at me. he kept trying to convince me that the school didnt really matter as long as it was decent enough, and that i myself would have to be the one to make the most of it. then he tried to make me understand about the benefits of having older brother to have already 'paved the way' for me. plus the $$$ we would save on gas, AND the school was sooooo close to the family business as well as our house. my mom even tried my mentioning that id be able to see some of my elementary school friends again at high school.

/sigh... in the end, i was a good asian kid and listened to my parents. if i really REALLY was hell bent on it, listening to no reason at all, i would have filled out the appropriate paperwork to change my address registered in the school district's office, which would have put me within the boundary (where you were sent to school was based on where you lived, or precisely what address you had on file with the school district) of the high school i wanted to go to. i even had 3 moms who were willing to write their address on my papers so i could go to the 'better' school. anyway despite all the young, teenage angst and raging hormones, i was still able to buckle down and be a good kid.

so what the hell has any of this got to do with xenogears? everything!

that fall season was tough; new blood on campus, not a single friend to chill with. even those i could recognize from elementary school (i even remembered their first and last names, damn it!) didnt even bat an eyelash at me when i said 'hi' to them in the halls, hoping for them to OMG! me lol. the only salvation i had was my brother, which made things worlds better, but still there was the bf i wanted to be with, and the homies i wanted to just be together with - talking about mess, fondly referencing memories from middle school. i would be on the phone a lot at home, that and AIM hahaha - talking to my friends, high school life, etc.

enter xenogears.

it was around this time when bf let me borrow this one game. it was actually a game that he himself had borrowed from a mutual friend who may or may not have known it was now being passed on to me. in any case, without much background knowledge at all about this 'Xenogears,' into the playstation it went. who knew it would help me deal with all the shitty things in my life? lol.

if you're not familiar with the story, characters, music, etc. of Xenogears, it's all good. you will read no spoilers here. i will instead rec. it to you! play this game so you can know its awesomeness on a firsthand basis!

anyway, what i needed was to see someone in a similar situation of hopelessness overcome their hardships and emerge a beautiful, strong, wise, human being. as i was playing this game, i realized that if i could develop my own patience, be understanding and open to new ideas, but at the same time know when to grasp at the things i desire, or have the drive to create on my own, i could look forward to a future that i could be proud of. as long as i believed in myself, i could enjoy being blessed with being believed in, in return - and to ultimately experience the jubilance of a distant yet carefully kept promise.

there are many themes of suffering in Xenogears, but the resolution to all the suffering is so artfully unfolded. maybe it was all too much for my 14 year old self to fully comprehend and appreciate, even lol.

in this way, i didnt kick myself for not being able to see my buddies on a daily basis, but instead i looked forward to the 'my friends can meet your friends' thing at birthday and/ or dinner parties and the like. plus there was of course an undisputed 'cool' about having a mysterious bf at a different school too, haha. not to mention going to each others' proms! oh, and anime clubs + conventions made things even more dynamic! at one point, bf and i were like the spike that held this long and complicated railroad network of friends together (not by virtue of our dazzling life-of-the-party charm or anything lol - it was more like we were the means by which our friends first met and hung out together for the first time).

that bf and i have long since broken up, and others have come and gone. as everyone knows im all the way in japan while current bf is still in LA. i get a lot of, "oh you must be kinda cut that you gotta pull this long distance thing for so long," and in my head my answer to that is always, "dude, i played Xenogears. i am sooo beyond mentally prepared. besides, it's a breeze. i had to go through it all through high school, too. no worries." all that really comes out though is, "no i'm fine with it, lol. he comes to visit quite often actually, so it helps. plus there's all this technology that's out there - skype, email, etc. which eases some of the stress as well."

anyway, i cant praise this game enough for what it's done for me. i just happened to be in the right kind of situation to be taken in so spiritually by this game haha. if a missionary had come to me at the same time instead of this game id totally have been a convert, i swear lol. seriously, i was _that_ in need of help @_@

also, come on - i was 14! and i needed a good female role model >_> Tifa was getting old lol. (backseat gamed ff7 the previous year at 13 which may have been the REAL reason why im such the messed up, otaku-tinged, RPG fangirl-type today!)

oh and american, if youre reading this, go buy it at gamestop or ebay or something and play it NOW! i think you might need it in the state youre in haha. hopefully it can 'save' you like it did me! noImJustMessin. play it just for kicks of course ^^ actually: how about i buy it for you and have it shipped to fourTen? cause i can... and maybe will... lol.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

1TB logitec external on sale at eiden for 12,800yen that i swept up today =D

mini gasshuku was intense. got to watch a chuden okuden and kaiden test and it was sooo long @_@ after party was super, though!

and jps are such glottons - im reminded every time i dare turn on the TV lol. those ridiculous reactions make me want to punch my screen in, seriously. i mean come on, shaved ice? you can say its good if you think its good, or even smile or be like 'awwJea' but to do this whole song and dance about it... and on top of that everyone says the same damn thing -_-! it's always some variant of .oishii. or .umai. it's just llike when my kids describe something as 'interesting.' i wanna put their paper right to the shredder (it is next to my desk after all lol). what's worse is that it's bled thoroughly into my own speech pattern because it's easy for my kids to pick up and i know they know the word so i throw it around a lot especially when im asking them questions about something. alright, gotta use funky words around them more often...

hmm... now i feel obligated to speak good of some aspect of jp culture now...

let's see, the cleanliness always pleases the air especially is very good here.

people-watching is cool here. they inspire.

=D

i guess that's about it.

liabelle got to lvl 62 today haha.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

an abnormally long-ish post

-so, lots of stuff ive talked about before except this time with all the boring details-

ive been researching on DSLR cameras a lot recently lol. with the whole not going anywhere thing this winter, i thought, "hey, i can use that would-be plane money to get a DSLR!" not only that, but ive really been in the whole "im going back next summer" mind set, which has had me going through a lot of my belongings here - trying to figure out what im going to leave and what i want to bring back. i have a bunch of stuff mentally grouped into different categories like, "things i definitly want to send back home, and are going to go by sea," "things i can see myself throwing out if i have to," "things i know im going to throw out," "things that are going to go in my actual luggage on the plane back to LAX," "things im going to give away," "things im going to try to sell," "things im going to try to slough off not-so-secretly in the international room at school >_>"and stuff like that.

for no one else's sake but my own, here's a list of just my technology stuffs and electronics alone i've got here (not including kitchen appliances).

*brought, $bought, %inherited, @pink:

2004 Sony Trinitron TV, 26inch %
Epson PX-A740 photo printer/scanner $
Jilbere de Paris 1.5inch ceramic curling iron *
Dell inspiron 1520 *@
Wacom Graphire4 A6 (CTE-440) tablet *
Nintendo DS *@
Sony PSP 2000 (times two -_-!) $@
Apple iPod 4gb mini (you go, little discontinued buddy =D) *@
iPod speakers by ELECOM $
Set Mate 3/4inch ceramic curling iron $@
Helen of Troy professional gold series hair dryer *
Nikon coolpix 2100 (bought way back when in japan spring 2003 - my first time here!) *@
Sony MDR-Q38 headphones $@
SVP T-100 all purpose media device of doom $@
Sony PS2 *
Funai VCR VH-M23 %
National/ Panasonic ES2082 (dont hate, epilate!) $@
Brother ELU52 sewing machine $@
Singer TT600 mending machine (/short story start! the first thing i ever got on ebay - rather, the item that got me to sign up for ebay and paypay in the first place - sophomore year in college lol. i knew 45 bucks total was too good to be true cause it's a crap machine lol. they call it 'mending' machine rather than 'sewing' machine on the box because it, you guessed it, cannot actually 'sew' lol. as kid living in a cramped dorm with not one, but 2 other roomates, i thought itd be a good idea to get a lightweight machine for my college cosplay ambitions... i thought wrong @_@ while it can handle sewing through extremely thin pieces of cloth like business shirts or pillow cases, as soon as you get thicker than 2 sheets of cotton sweatshirt materal, the motor is simply too weak to push the needle through, haha. even using the hand wheel feels like the needle kinda hits a brick wall. on top of that, there's this one prong which holds the top spool of thread that is kinda ghetto and moves, which effs up the tension and in turn effs up the machine's ability to catch the bottom spool, leaving you with no sewing action what-so-ever. from our old apt, i had allen bring the machine to me on his first visit to japan because i thought maybe here i could learn to appreciate it... only to get frustrated at it all over again lol. (american, im sorry for having you drag that thing all the way here just for me to totally not use it lol) /short story end!

i also have an assload of cords, wires, adapters etc. that i inherited along with a whole other plethora of 'gamesoft' [(= game titles) as they call it here, lol] that have been sent to me from home lol.

so yeah, with all that considered, if i get a DSLR camera here then that's just another bulky bastard to bring home lol. im pretty sure the scanner/ printer wont follow me home, and im on the fence about the sewing machine... because it's simply awesome - strong, lots of stitch options, fast and easy threading, push-button (foot pedal optional), all the on-body text is in japanese (it'd be like my mememto of japan) and it's pink!

arg. well, good thing i still have a lot of time to plan this stuff out lol. it's pretty bad though because as much as i tell myself i shouldnt be buying any more material goods i still window shop, and then one thing leads to another...

just yesterday i was on cnn and read an article about the merits of backing up files on your computer more often and i said to myself, "yknow thats some good advice because in my 2 and little bit more years here i totally have not done that. pictures, art, lesson plans, etc. stay right here on my laptop's hard drive. sure i have a bunch of stuff posted on various sites online, and i have handfuls of files from work that i keep on a compact flash mem card, but as for seriously sitting down and saving important or sentimental stuff off of mr computer, i got nothing. SO i went to eiden after school yesterday to check out prices. i saw a bunch of 350gb external hard drives (pack of 3) and 500bg ones (packs of 2) for around 9800yen and 18000yen respectively. i dont really know if those are good prices at all, really. i also saw some flash drives, 4gb, 8gb and 16bg on sale for 1900yen 2900yen and 4900yen respectively. then i cruised on over to the DSLR camera section and picked up a bunch of pamphlets as i drew aggro from the eiden staff lol. didnt have any headphones on me yesterday so they were all too ready to ask if i needed any help... like 5 billion times. i'll be ready tomorrow! >;3

while i think i'm willing to spend a good hunk of cash on a phatty camera and lenses, if i can find myself a decent entry-level one, i'll be happy with that. i dont need to make any money with the pictures i wanna take. i just want something that'll add my cosplay hobby, especially upon coming back home. right now i have my eyes on the Olympus E-620!

damn, if i can only be a good kid and wait until i get back home! i also have to resist the urge to get one based almost entirely on its outer design (the Pentax K-x model comes in 100 different color combinations offered only in japannnnn @_@ but it runs on four AA batteries bleh, and it doesnt have the cool art filters the Olympus E-620 has, nor is it as handsomely pimped out).

expanding on my emotions about cameras, i think it totally sucks how they are more expensive here than in the US - even the japanese brands too! shouldnt it be less expensive? maybe it's like japanese rice lol - 20kg bag for 5000yen! cant you get a 40lbs bag of three ladies jasmine rice for 14 bucks at international supermarket in san pablo? i get 2kg bags of rice and that costs like 1180yen. the cheapest brand of 2kg rice at Valor is 880yen. /sigh

theres this seller on ebay from taiwan who has a number of various Olympus E-620 kits - body 2 lenses, 4gb mem card all hovering around the 1k$ range. free shipping too!

i should stop, lol.

dad was a pro photographer before the restauranting happened. that was like late elementary school and middle school for me. i remember alllllllll the photo stuff we used to have between the studio and our house. theres also this one photo of me that's HUGE. im like in 4th grade or so, with 80s big fluffy hair, zebra skin patterned unitard thing, sitting in a chair that is also reminiscent of zebras, staring off into space but looking oh so happy at the same time. and i was pretty chubby lol. still kinda am, especially in the face lol.

anyway, photography reminds me of all that. i just wish i was older and into cosplay and stuff during the time my dad was a pro and had his own studio and darkroom and stuff so i could take advantage of it.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

i finished Lady of the Forest today.

best damn book ive read in a long ass time lol. im gonna amazon.com some of jennifer roberson's other stuff like... now.

we had a nice chill today - around 14 degrees or so in the morning, it heated up into the 20s during the day and by the time i rode home it went back into the teens maybe? riding around with a light, long-sleeved number was still no problem, though.

this weekend is mini gasshuku in osaka. oh boy, oh boy. im looking forward to the after party lol.

latin aerobics again tonight!

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Kanadehon Chushingura



it was my first time ever going to a kabuki performance so i didnt really know what to expect. i remember studying a little about the history and such of kabuki in one or several of my classes back in my university days but we never really went much into detail.

one of my teacher buddies managed to snag some student price tickets (1,300yen) for this show a few months ago and insisted that i attend along with some other kiddies so i was like, 'sure why not...' not really knowing what i was getting myself into. the full price for the seats we got was 13,000yen by the way haha. anyway imagine 5 hours of action - and when i say action i mean sitting in a hot, cramped theatre full of older folks listening to gobbledygook lol. not to say it was the most horrible experience ever - it's just that... it would have been better if it was more comfortable that's all. we had three intermissions when we should have had like... five. the air was so freaking bad it's amazing i didnt throw up right there at my seat (i threw up when i got home, though @_@). i managed to meditate and focus on breathing normally and that somehow saved me on the train ride home. i had the worst headache ever, though. it started 10 minutes into the performance. i took an advil (luckily i wore the bag that had medicine in it) during the first intermission which helped a lot, but by the end of the whole show it was back in its entirety. anyway, when i got home i went straight into throwing up, brushed my teeth, threw away the contacts and settled into bed. i made plans to go to a live performance at House of Crazy later that night, but the thought of getting on a train or even walking made me feel sick lol. i dont know what time i was out, but the show ended around 340pm, and im going to say it took like an hour and a half to get back to my apt. i woke up again at 800am this morning and was like ooooooooooooohMyGoodness.... i stood up and i was like, 'man still got headache...' i took some bayer and knew i had to eat something, so i ate an apple... it's 200pm-ish now but i dont feel particularly hungry... and speaking of food i totally bypassed dinner last night lol. im going to a bday party in a few hours so i'll get in my fooding then.

yeah so about the play itself!

i think what i enjoyed most was the set and music + singing.

the stage had this awesome rotating circular thing so when it spun, the next scene was like... totally there. like theres this one part where the dudes are all outside and then the walk inside and the stage does its spinning transformation thing. the stage ninjas also aided in transformations. like there was this part where this one stage ninja had this huge rolled straw mat/ carpet thing and in one big toss he throws it from one side of the stage, and it manages to reach alllll the way to the other side all beautifully and stuff. it was pretty pro. everyone in the audience was like, "oooooooooo!!" /applause lol. it was but you got to hand it to him though because it really was pretty slick.

the music crew made things awesome. it was all male, as were the actors of course, and they were simply magical. lots of vocal + shamisen action. the drums were cool too. oh not to mention the wooden block beater people. imagine that stereotypical "yoHhhHhhhhHH~~~! /clack! /clack! /clackClackClack... thing kabuki has - cause that's totally what i experienced haha. i didnt get a picture of the black, red and green curtain thing because i was way too sick by then to even think of taking pictures lol.

and when i saw the actors who portrayed female characters i couldnt stop thinking of Alto from Macross Frontier:
leave it to anime for warping my perception of japanese culture! lol.

Monday, October 12, 2009

so some neighbors wanted to check out the different kinds of aerobics programs at the gym so i was like aight lol. we did a 915pm-1015pm tonight (which is later than i usually go) led by some super hyper youngish looking middle aged dude. he was pretty intense. imagine if hard gay led an aerobics class for a solid hour lol. he was screaming in the mic in english cause he saw me and my anglo looking girl friends in the back lol. it was a riot. i'll be honest too - he looked pretty gay. not in a bad way, just in a "dude. this boy is GAY," kinda way. bicycle shorts that were hella high up and tight. warrior AF tank top. he had the walk. all his aerobics dance moves had some G-life flare to it too haha. pretty spicy. it was fun though, and a good workout haha. we're going to try the latin aerobics tomorrow to check that out and then the one on wednesday too. get outselves in a good sampler of all the instructors.

if neighbor buddies never asked i never would have gone in. not because i have anything against aerobics or anything. i think it's actually pretty cool. i have fond memories of aerobics in PE during sophomore year of high school. it just sucks to be the only noob in the back fumbling around that all. way to fumble around in togetherness with people you know! and for the past few years all the people ive known who went to the same gym were dudes only interested in weight lifting and the treadmill.

anyway, go aerobics!

in other news, check out these fat onigiri dudes i had for dinner today:

those who know me fairly well can probably guess what's inside. hohoho.

Friday, October 9, 2009

hello, mr. snowboard.

so i was cleaning up typhoon mess just now on my veranda when lo and behold a snowboard crashes down at my feet. it was in its bag and stuff so i guess at first glance years ago i took it for more surfing equipment. as i may have mentioned, i have a full set of golf clubs, a surf board that's taller than my height of 5'2" for sure and a boogie board out there, among basketballs, volleyballs, soccer balls and dumbbells. anyway ive only gone snowboarding once so i dont know much about it other than it's close to 150cm in length.

ah~ if only i were at home home again. then i wouldnt have any remorse about getting into snowboarding. but here i have to worry about all the shit i own cause... as ive complained about before - i just have so much crap. last night i sifted through mountains of clothing and managed to weed a bunch out into a pile i call, "not coming back with me." pretty much the stuff i got dirt cheap or from the second hand store here. the 'what the hell was i thinking?' clothes are also in this pile haha.

anyway back to cleaning up. i gotta tape up my bug screen.
some sights of typhoon #18's aftermath









these are all different trees by the way

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

typhooooooon number 18.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

in spirit of halloween i busted out my cosplay collection and was shocked at just how much space it's taking up. to name them all, i've got medusa, black star, ranka lee, obi wan kenobi, luca, mihaeru, alto, and my corsair AF. also, my buddy sloughed off to me a hand me down yukata this past summer too. (to american reckoning that's totally cosplay, at least at an anime con i guess haha).

anyway im boxing them all save medusa (gonna wear it for this years halloween party) to be shipped back home. yay for monday off~ i get to run housewife-ish errands like going to the bank and post office, not to mention cleaning up my already pretty clean apt lol. maybe i can chuck all these bulky wood and plastic stuff leftover from last december's theatrical production haha.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

after being here a little over 2 years i didnt think id see anything more to shock or surprise me here... until i saw my first japanese field mouse! actually, i dont know if i should be calling it a field mouse or a door mouse or lab rat or whatever. it was out next to the river chilling around a storm drain. it was pretty tiny - about the size of those small, retractable USB laptop mice haha. anyway i got all excited, but i was on my bicycle so what i ended up doing was skidding to a stop right in front of the drain which of course freaked out the little mouse dude and it ran away into the drain. it was kind of cool too, cause its body went through first, and then its tail went through looking like someone slurping a single spaghetti noodle into their mouth, lol.

today was open school day for spicy chicken school. i helped run a lesson for the eng department. best group of middle school kids ever! they were so relaxed, talkative, creative and... young! lol. we didnt even do one of my more exciting lessons either (no murder mystery activity, complete with physical evidence and pinky street figurines lol). i call it 'scrap paper writing.' basically kids get a sticky tab, write any vocabulary word they feel like on it, get thrown into a random group, and are told they have to use all the words to write a comprehensive story together - one sentence per word. final task: write their story on the board with an illustration, then whole class votes on the best composition. anyway, it was really nice to see the kids smiling and giggling and talking with one another teamwork style. good times for them. good times for us.

it's alarming to think that in less than a year i'll be back home. im not so sure what that exactly means for me, but i know that ive at least a plan with a handful of backup plans. 2 things i can do in the bay area, and 1 thing i might be able to do in southern CA. it wouldnt really do much good for anyone to write all the boring details here, so moving right along...

oh yeah. at open school today english club carved jack o lanterns! they looked so freaking awesome. they looked so good i took a picture of them! my kids are great. most of the girls are exceptional artists as well, so i expected nothing less from them. hehehe.


jack o lantern excellence.

the fall season in japan means teachers start giving me buckets and buckets of fruit. literally. and they know im only one person here... golly. persimmons are the worst fall present ever. dont get me wrong, though. theyre magical fruit! i just dont need to be given three dozen a week haha. maybe i should try making perssimon pie or something.

oh, have i mentioned im going to Green Day's 21 Century Breakdown Tour in Nagoya, 1/25/10?!?!?! cause i am lol. my buddy who teaches at another school had a frantic student run up to him saying he accidentally bought two pairs (4 tix total) of these green day tickets (8500yen per). anyway this kid had been asking all his buddies, but none of them were into green day or had the money, time, permission, etc. to go. so when the kid asked my buddy he was like --/think for 2 seconds "aight."-- when i heard the story there was still that last ticket up for grabs and i was like, "i wanna go~" and that was that. post birffday treat for me, hoho.

i like odin sphere a lot. i feel like it plays out like an opera. very fitting for its theme i think! i started playing star ocean the first departure recently too. it had been sitting idly since i got it mailed to me and one day before i went to school i was like, "hmm, im doing a whole lot of nothing today..."

gaming in the closet is most triumphant.

i randomly picked up one of the many hand-me-down books in the "for international students" box this past mondy - Lady of the Forest, by Jennifer Roberson. it's a Robin Hood-ish book and ohhh man is it phenominal. im going to be super sad when im done with it cause its just so badass. it's been a long time since ive experienced this style of writing (of the super descriptive, artful type - the phrasing and structure is just so beautiful). im going to try to track down her other works!

in other book news, i finished a different hand-me-down book (got lots at my apt too) called The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. i'll be honest... i judged the book by its cover! there's a grim reaper looking dude dacing with a little girl in pigtails and the jacket background is like one of those old, effed up trasure maps. the writing style reminded me of the way i blog kind of haha. anyway it was a book about nazi germany.

anyway here i go. supper is on the range. oden time, then odin time.