Saturday, November 28, 2009

200th post!

anyway i threw together some screen caps of some vids from almost all guys tech school festival. all kinds of good stuff lol.

in other news, 30th anni kssr party was very merry indeed. not only did i go to the 2nd after party, i got kinda dragged to the 3rd party too lol (at a karaoke place). all in all, the actual banquet thing was cool. lots of folks i knew and didnt knew. lots of babies, too!

i posted (in the middle of posting rather) a private vid on youtube of me walking around taking in the party vibe. for all the KSSR folks, let me add you on my friends list so i can let you guys in on the viewing. steve, i added you, so you should be able to have a lookSee =D you can play the "dude that was totally OO-san" game lol.

anyway, here are some pix of that pudding daifuku that ive been talking about for quite some time now. check out the pudding-ness on the inside lol. it really is a delightful treat.


ive been meaning to snap some seasonal pictures but nothing has really been blog-worthy. theres a nice gingko tree with the leaves all golden and stuff, but there's construction going on around where the tree is, so as a photo i think itd look kinda crumby. i'll take a nice photo yet.

thanksgiving potluck dinner party is this tomorrow. if the mood is right, i'll take pictures. usually i don't - not at this event anyway - too busy eating lol.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

holy crap,

if you throw a search for 'guy cecil' on google images, i'm totally on the first page.

LOL.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

gosh darn it, cosplay.com is such a time sink for me lol. even more than youtube is! beyond online window shopping even!! facebook is nothing!

anyway cultural festival festival day 2 for almost all guys tech school was yesterday and boy was it awesome. those guys never disappoint lol. too bad everything i captured was in video format @_@ so it'll take me some time to get some stills up.

one week til kssr banquet in tokyo~

two weeks til a very merry foreigner thanksgiving dinner~

three weeks til... first sunday of december? lol.

i've been feeling JET senioritis nipping at my heels these days. for JETs in my particular sector of the venn diagram, it's something like this: i'm starting to compare everything about everyday life here to things back at home - from diaper commercials to... that out-rounded calf phenotype seen in japanese females. i've ditched my cute bento box for a brown paper bag with a BLT sandwich in it! and a red apple! that i eat with the skin ON, NOT cut into slices; i set my chompers to it like the human beast i am til there's nothing left but the core. i've been eating milk and cereal even though special K red berries is still 360yen for a one-size box that gives you only 2 big-ish bowl servings.

the other day it was pretty effed up. i get on the special ed train to go to almost all guys tech school once a week (special ed because there's a special ed school en route to my own school and i see the same group of special ed students get on the train once a week, every week). i was about 10 meters away from the first door leading into the first unreserved car of the train when i saw one of the special ed girls had fallen down right at the doorway - she missed a step i guess because her left foot was dangling in the gap between the train and the platform and she was kind of sitting on her ass, kind of half laying down all dazed and stuff. she was in a funky position with her right foot in the train, left foot in the gap, rest of her body on the platform and her hands/ elbows supporting her behind her. it was kind of bad too cause she was all spread-eagled with her legs and though they were modest-looking i guess you could see her black undergarments. the effed thing was there were people who were weaving around her to get inside the train. no 'are you ok?' or anything. it was pretty appalling. even businesspeople on the platform just stood their ground and stared. i was like "omg are you ok?" and stooped down put a hand on her shoulder. she was like, "i... fell..." and looked at me. so then i went behind her, got her by both arms near the armpits and hoisted her up myself. i asked her again, 'are you ok?' and then she looked at me and said, 'thank... you..." only when she was already standing did another woman bystander come over and ask her, "are you ok?" a second later the train dude showed up (seemed like he was jogging) and asked her if she was ok and then thanked me. but damn! those people who pretty much stepped over her crumpled body to get into the train. there was even this dude sitting in the train right near the door. he was so close to the girl he could have poked her with the tip of his shoe. but he just stared at her. he didnt even stand up or reach out or anything. ugh. they're all going straight to hell! lol.

I like Carrie Underwood's Cowboy Casanova ^^ the instrumentals are sooo basic, but i like the groove of it =D i wouldnt mind doing the electric slide to this song lol.

oh i got my wings iv medal back ^^

Friday, November 13, 2009

my 200th post approaches!

anyway, today was a grand day, despite being friday the 13th... except the day is not quite over yet <_<

almost all guys tech school cultural festival day 1 was today. the special exhibition was a play - and man was it a good ass play! demon/ ogre theme set in heian japan with overtones of love and humanity ^^ best parts though were all the epic battles between the demons and demon slayers (i was CONSTANTLY envisioning random kenjutsu/batojutsu + jujutsu, and jo vs sword/ sword vs jo tachiais lol... which gave me this weird unsettling feeling as i was watching each battle).

ran post office and bank errand after work, then gymed. bought shoes that were so not on sale >_> BUT! im going to wear them to the KSSR 30 year anniversary banquet that's coming up very soon. when i got home i decided to figure out what the rest of my outfit was going to look like and im very happy to say ive got everything down, head to toe. i even took a whole hour doing hair trials @_@ but now im fairly confident i will NOT look like total crap for the banquet.

oh, today was the first day i was very much forced against my will to wear one of those ridiculous dust masks. they said it was because the entire school had to be packed together in one big hall. also, they sprayed every man, woman and child (their hands) with this alcohol sanitizer before and after the play. so extreme. im surprised they didnt walk everyone over to a big trough to have them gargle. i totally would have put my foot down there.

yesterday i tripped over my router thingummer and now it's emitting this high-pitched wail... it's even more high-pitched than those pest control devices they put around the perimeter of shopping malls (not that those things are all that high-pitched actually - theyre quite audible and it cripples my soul every time i have to walk through the train station's underground @_@). anyway, it's significantly more bearable than those pest devices and i actually want to test to see if it keeps critters away... except im afraid im going to slowly go deaf or something if i let it shriek on for the rest of my time here... i guess i'll jack directly in from the broadband modem thing.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

last wednesday my english club kids and i experienced a delightful culinary treat, thanks to the two turkish sisters who are club members (and enrolled in the international understanding department as well). i forgot the name of the dish, but after looking it up just now, i think what we made is known as: Etli yaprak sarma. their family's version was basically rice, meat, onions, black pepper, salt, tomato paste, olive oil and some other spices and ingredients i didnt see go in, rolled up with grape leaves and stewed/ simmered til goodness! served with generous heaps of plain yogurt.

my girls were like, "omg pham-sensei, you roll so beautifully... and fast!" and i was like, "lol... i have much exp."






Tuesday, November 10, 2009

curses! i'm almost done with Lady of Sherwood... i knew i should have just gotten Lady of the Glen as well ;_; now if i order, i'll have to wait another 3 weeks until it gets here -_-!

i guess this means i can finally finish odin sphere lol - been putting Armageddon off since last month. in the meantime there was star ocean: first departure and now star ocean: second evolution. i never played the first one before, but i did play the second one years ago and i have to say there is a lot i dont remember. i generally don't re-play RPGs unless it's a remake (chrono trigger!) cause i figure there's just so many in the genre, might as well treat yourself to new material, right?

so in season one of minami-ke, (old-ish anime i know) there's a good deal of food related chatter going on - like with the rice, curry, cream stew, udon i think it was... or ramen i don't remember... anyway with that cream stew, right? i actually learned of this dish's existence through minami-ke. i've just never had it served to me with someone saying, "this. is. cream. stew," and i've never seen/ noticed it in a restaurant before. anyway at the supermarket, the cream stew sauce/ mix powder thing is placed in the japanese curry mix section. so whenever ive gone to get curry i always stare at the cream stew boxes and think of minami-ke. ive never actually tried it out though... until yesterday!

there wasn't anything particular going through my mind - i just picked up the box, looked at the back for the ingredients, got them too and went home to whip it up. all and all the dish is pretty alright. i don't rate it higher than japanese curry in terms of tastiness and satisfaction, though. also with all the milk that goes into it, i have no idea how this dish fares with lactose intolerant folks haha.

/story interjection... there's a dish that i named, 'white curry' maybe 2 years ago because i had forgotten to get the sauce mix blocks and it was already past 900pm and my market was closed. so i decided to simply season the 'curry' with chicken broth powder and some other stuff. the finished product was quite nice! anyway, that dish was way better than this cream stew i think. so next time you want to do the anti-japanese curry dish, just follow every step for japanese curry and then at the last step omit the curry blocks and season to taste with other stuff. it'll be groovy, trust me.

... but sometimes you just cant deny your appreciation for japanese style curry rice.

holy crap how did i get 20000/24500 into lvl already... campaigns make the world go round!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

pudding daifuku is pretty good. i first saw it maybe a week before halloween and tried it out just because ive never seen or tried a pudding daifuku before. today i saw it again at the market and couldnt resist. it's kind of sad, but both times, i was thinking in my mind, 'gotta take pix of this little guy and post it,' but both times i totally forget. somewhere between taking it out of the plastic shopping bag and unwrapping the squishy thing my mind just goes blank with anticipation lol. i'll manage to take a picture someday. basically, it looks like a normal daifuku on the outside - a blob of rice cakey softness. it's this soft yellow color. then on the inside you got the pudding goo and caramel goo too. soft, smooth and velvety~ i would even go so far as to call it my favorite kind of daifuku ever. hopefully it's not just a seasonal thing.

as i may or may not have mentioned, it's getting cooler now. yay for light sweater weather!

big kssr pt in 2 weeks omg... gotta figure out what to wear lol.

Friday, November 6, 2009

oh yeah, almost forgot these pictures. i saw this little dude today at almost all guys tech school - it's a paperweight hand-crafted by some bored high school kid haha. it's pretty awesome, and it started my day off real good haha.




oh! and Lady of Sherwood came in the mail today ^^
cultural festival is coming up at almost all guys tech school!

so i had them whip up some english public service announcements/ signs targeted towards elementary school students. my examples are these two lol.


easy enough to understand, right? =D



this one is kinda heavy i know. does anyone remember seeing this PSA on TV mid-90s?

*****

anyway, the kiddies came up with this stuff:


he totally did a /palmface when i told him he was missing the 'N'


takoyaki ^^


cause everyone is afraid of influenza!


this was a class favorite.


also a class favorite.


cause i love crab /heart


an excellent composition, i think ^^

another excellent composition

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

today was the first day i felt cold outside when setting off to work in the morning. the air and sky were so clean and clear, too. it made me want to migrate all my lessons outside. i dont think other teachers would have liked that, though haha.

anyway it's been foliage + moon viewing season ^^ today the moon was great. it's beginning to wax a bit, and it was a nice cheesy color from what i saw.

pretty soon ill snap some more seasonal pictures and put them up ^^