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zaichikarkyHaven't updated in a while. Or come online much anymore. : (. I've been feeling shitty since the start of the quarter. I also made this post two nights ago but then my computer decided to overheat like never before. I guess laptops are more prone to overheating. It really pissed me off though. And the lj autodraft thing restored about 2 paragraphs :|. So I'll split this up.
A-shes
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v326/MajesticArcanine/ashes2.jpg
So two things only make me happy nowdays. Ashes and Garou. But I'm sure the Garou obsession will go away soon because it always goes off and on depending on when I have access to it. Ashes is really a nice cat ^_^. He's exactly the kind of pet I've always wanted. I really hated him at first. When I first met him,he bit me :p. But now we're very good friends. For one of my Japanese speeches this quarter we had to talk about a "moment of happiness" and I talked about the time when I met Ashes and he ran away and I found him in 3 days :p. Then towards the end of the speech I said that Ashes still bites me now, but it's okay because it's a love bite or "ai no kamu". When he's sitting on me and I'm petting him sometimes he likes to bite kinda hard an leave teeth marks. I think it's somewhat common in cats, though. But I get really pissed when he bites me out of annoyance, like if his legs are digging into me and when I try to fix them he bites me. He really hates his paws to be touched. Then I wack his little butt. Last time he hid under the bed for a while. Other than biting, he is very well behaved. Every morning he comes into my room and gives me affection before I go to school/werk. He also really likes to climb on peoples' chests when they're laying down and stick his wet nose right on their chins :p. But he's not the kind of cat to like being petted anytime. Most of the time he doesn't like being petted. He's really whiney and has this whiney MEEEEW when I'm petting him and he doesn't like it. He also doesn't like being held much and mews like that every time I pick him up for more than 10 seconds.
He's also very adventurous and likes being outside a good part of the time. My mom is letting Kotik outside now a bit but every time he goes out there he freaks out at the random noises and runs back inside. Ashes is very alert when he's outside but he likes running out there and rolling around on the cement. He also usually runs away from me when I go out after him. He's going to stay with my mom when I visit Justin in a couple of weeks and she's like "ooh. Maybe I'll train him to go outside here too!" It's a bad idea because he'll probably get lost again just like that last time he was outside here. I dunno. I've kinda gotten over I'm a terrible pet owner for letting him go outside, but I think it's kinda cruel to keep animals locked up indoors at all times. Especially a cat like Ashes who is actually very active. I guess indoor animals get used to it, but even when I had the ferrets I really wanted to train them with their little leashes and walk them, but they'd have been confiscated :|. I'm not too worried about him getting stolen because he's not too friendly with strangers. The thing I'm worried most about is him getting hit by a car. I'm moving to a very residential neighborhood soon though, so now I'll have to worry less about that.
I notice that a lot of adult cats don't like toys, but Ashes really likes his feather toys. There is a particular one I got from Safeway with a little feathery poof at the end of a string attached to a pole. He chewed up his first orange one, but now has a new purple one he hasn't yet chewed up. He really runs around the room like crazy with it and likes to pounce on it. When Justin was over, he'd spend a lot of time playing with him and Ashes would eventually go to poking the toy with his paw when he was around so he'd play with him.
To sum it up, Ashes is really the only friend I have here and I <3 him.
Fanime
So I went to fanime last weekend. It was alright. I spend a ton of money this time just on the hotel/tickets/parking. Over half my money, and then the rest was spent on this really expensive present. But I did get little Athena/Mai dolls. I saw them online and thought they were so freaken cute. I had to buy them. That's all I really bought. I'll take a pic of them. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v326/MajesticArcanine/athenamaidolls.jpg . See. Supercute! They come with their own little accessories that are hiding in the box, but I but them back in there because I'm moving soon anywya. The only problem with figurines is that I have no place to put them :|. There is no more room on my desk for anything. I need a bookshelf or something >_<. I guess I'll think of something when I move into my new shitty apt.
I was in a room with Sean, Wei-Chen, Kanoe, and their friend. Wei-Chen and Kanoe had another table this year and sold a bunch of their stuff they made. They brought a printer into the hotel room and were printing out all this stuff and making more stuff. So stuff would mean what was really popular among the amature artists year by year- those little laminated keychain things. I have a whole collection of them. Wei Chen made a super cute Gara cellphone tag this year which I bought without her knowing because they don't want me to buy any of their stuff :p. I don't think it will last very long, unfortunately >_<. None of my cellphone accessories last too long! They were also more l33t than most of the other artists because Kanoe had a professional button machine. I *love* buttons. I don't have to think about "where the hell am I going to put this?!" like I'm worrying about the Mai/Athena figurines because I can just pin the buttons onto one of my backpacks. I have a ton of new buttons on there now. My backpack clanks even more when I walk now :p. I didn't buy any prints this year because I have no where to put them. I think that maybe I will buy a nice album for prints at some point and instead of sticking pictures on my wall, I can stick them in an album. Becuase last year when I got prints, they ended up laying around on the floor/desk a lot. My naruto one still is 0_o.
I also spent most of my time getting owned at King of Fighters 11. I really liked that game and liked playing Kula/B Jenet a lot and wanted to practice more, but somehow KOF 11 seemed to be the most popular arcade game this year. Every time I went there was always a line there and it gathered a crowd. I was really surprised! KOF 2003 didn't do anything near that last year. So I didn't get any practice. I only got practice getting stomped on... Probably about 50 times : (. It really sucks because I really wanted to play someone more at my level but that's not the way turns go. The winner gets control of the game until someone can beat him. SO I really hated playing most of the super-good players there. It's not like someone can me can learn anything when your opponent is MUCH MUCH more advanced than you. I didn't have as much of a problem when I played opponents who weren't just *vicious* , who I could actually defeat 2 out of their 3 characters(in KOF you play with a team of 3 characters). I don't get a chance to play KOF against opponents very often at all in general. Sux. So I really didn't have a fun time with that this year. I liked KOF 2003 last year because barely anyone played it. I actually had to *recruit* people to play with me. Too bad KOF 11 is such a better game.
Asian Movies
This year, I watched more Asian movies than anime like every year I go. Mainly because I really am picky about anime. I don't like a lot of anime and I really would like to know what it is that I'm watching. Every year, there is a description of every single Asian movie that is shown in the con schedule. Also right outside of the Asian movie rooms there is a wonderful short synopsis and schedule of the day. So we can pick out what to watch. The only problem this year is that on Saturday, the main day I was there, during the whole entire freaken time I was awake, almost every movie they showed were action flicks. I hate most kung fu movies!! I hate most action flicks in general, but especially hate Asian action flicks. And I hate samurai movies. #*)$^. I don't know why people think that adding kung fu to a generic really crappy action flick would make it cooler. On Saturday morning, they showed this movie called something like "Hello Dharma" about these yakuza joining this Buddhist monestary. I really wanted to watch that, but I was still up in my room at the time. Damn, why couldn't they show better movies during the most active times. I think that my version of what makes a great Asian movie greatly differs from most of the con attendees :|.
I did get to see "Nana". Very shojo. It also apparently is also an anime. I want to get really into it but... I still need to watch: Yakitate Japan some more. I haven't been watching anime for a while. This is why I don't like series more than 13 eps :p. I feel less intimidated going into one of those series. Anyway, Nana is about these two very different girls who are both named Nana. One is this little tomboyish punk rocker girl who is the lead singer in the band, and the other is a super girly ditz. They meet by chance in the subway(or densha maybe) and then end up getting the same apartment. Then they face all the challenges of romance. the punk Nana's ex boyfriend is in this Jrock band which the girly Nana is obsessed over. The punk Nana just wants to be better than her ex and bring her own band to fame. I really love this one song that she sings. Here is a cute picture of both the Nanas. http://nana-nana.net/images/nana/calendar/5.jpg . The only thing about the punk Nana is that she really looks anorexic. She's so skinney 0_o. That was the one whose character I liked, though. Sorry, the cute tomboyish girl will always be my favorite in any series/movie you can think of.
I think that I will download the anime on my computer and make Justin watch it when I get there. *torture* Actually maybe not. I don't want another round of "FUCK THIS SHOW. FUCK THIS SHOW. *flips off*." That was really annoying. Last time, I brought over this anime which looked very cute and awsome at first called "Saikano" and I was watching it with James(Happy birthday to James btw). Today is his birthday. Yay. Anyway, so when Justin starting watching it it became quite messed up with everyone in the entire show dying. Yeaaah. It started off pretty good though ^_^*. James also watched all of "Elven Lied" I think because I kept trying to get Justin to watch it, and so after we were done with Saikano it was "WHY DO YOU ALWAYS LIKE THE REALLY MESSED UP SHOWS?!" Which was funny. "Fuck this show" was annoying though >:O.
Next we'll move to "Koi no Mon" which I also saw at the con. It was the last thing I did before I went back to Santa Cruz early Sunday afternoon. I will just post a synopsis that I found on the internets.
The film, whose title translates as 'The Gate of Love', revolves around the turbulent romantic push and pull between a pair of manga-obsessed nerds. Mon Aoki (Matsuda) is an empty-pocketed oddball who considers his devotion to manga an art form, and whose very peculiar approach to the medium consists of arranging painted stones in wooden boxes. One day while he stoops to pick up a rock at the roadside, Akashi Koino (Sakai) plants her high heel into the back of his hand and, yes, it's thunderbolt city.
Koino, a successful amateur manga artist, sees in Mon the ideal foil for her cosplay fanaticism and after getting him drunk she dresses him up as the male hero from her favourite video game. Her definition of a knight in shining armour is a geek who fits her self-made costume and Mon seems to be right candidate. He, however, is thoroughly disappointed with her geeky attitude and is out the door as soon as he realises that he didn't lose his virginity after all in the wake of their drunken binge. Koino is not about to let him slip away that easily and thus begins a game of will-they-or-won't-they, set against a background of manga bars, anime singalongs and the Tokyo Comicket.
This movie was really the perfect one to show at an anime convention. The chick was a serious otaku. Cosplay otaku, manga otaku etc. She eventually gets fired from her job because she spent too much time going to cons. My favorite part of the movie was the beginning when Mon wakes up in her bed to think he lost his virginity, throws the covers off his body and finds himself dressed as YUN SEOUNG from Soul Calibur. I was like "WTF!! AHH YUN SEOUNG!" I love him, he's so freaken hot. Too bad I could never play him very well. And she took pictures of him dressed herself as Xianghua. She became obsessed with him actually because "No one cosplays Yun Seoung like he does...". When she showed him where the character came from, she displays an *X BOX* game box. )#(&$#_(*^$. I was so pissed at that. What right does X Box have to be in a Japanese movie?! It's not supposed to even be popular out there :|. Anyway, Koi no Mon was super funny :p.
And finally we have "Kamikaze Girls". It was shown at the con too, but I didn't see it there. I saw it at the Japanese movie night a few weeks ago. This movie was equally as crazy as Koi no Mon and it was my favorite of the 4 Asian movies I saw recently. Here is the site- http://www.kamikazegirls.net/news.html . I'll post a synopsis from the site.
Momoko, yearns to live in 18-century Versailles than in her back-country hometown of Shimotsuma, heartland of the yakuza. To escape, she loses herself in the dreamy, doll-like fashions of the "Lolita” scene. Her idol is Akinori Isobe, chief designer of Baby, the Stars Shine Bright—her favorite Lolita design hose. She travels all the way to Tokyo to shop at their store.
One languid summer, to help fund her expensive hobby, Momoko runs a
classified ad of brand-name knock-off clothes (produced by her dad) for
sale. She encounters a buyer named Ichiko (the real name is Ichigo), who
happens to live in her neighborhood.
Super-rebel Ichiko, is a “Yankee”-style member of the Ponytails motorbike gang, one of Ibaraki's "Wild speed tribes,” whose teeth-rattling customized bikes are decked out with fiberglass shields and bannered backrests.
Somewhat against Momoko’s will, she and Ichigo slowly develop a strong friendship as they share their feelings on the odd goings-ons around them.
The movie is *hilarious* and I really love the character of Ichiko. Gee wonder why :p. http://www.kamikazegirls.net/images/_sq/9_m.jpg . It was just so silly and so awsome to see this little pretty Japanese girl acting like a yakuza. The site actually talks a lot about kids being yakuza wanabees(yanki) in the Japanese countryside. And it talks about the "Lolita" fashion trend. Two very well written articles. I heard of the Lolita a bit and thought they fit into the shinjuku culture of Tokyo and was right. Their outfits are just so pretty 0_o. Apparently, girls get highly stigmatized for dressing like that, however.
Moving
The last time I wrote an entry, I said my dad was moving in with me. Nuup. Not anymore. I didn't have the number of my manager so I didn't contact him about me not moving out. Instead, he came by one day and asked me what I was doing. Apparently he thought that Stephan and I were both moving out and decided to put the apartment on the listings and got tons of phonecalls. After he got pissed off that I declared my dad would move in without him knowing and after he said for him to fill out an application and give it to him ASAP, he then remembered that he put up the rent to 1375 a month on the listings and said that this would affect my rent and he'd move it up to that. That's a hundred extra dollars because "he got a ton of phone calls". I told my dad this and we both thought it'd be best to move out. My parents think he's a huge slimeball. I dunno, really, what I think about that situation.
My dad got this really shitty two bedroom apt for us in a suburb of San Jose. Not only will I have to take Highway 17 every single day next year, but I have to live in a shitty apt that is so much smaller and crappier than this one. I really hate it already. It's missing a lot of stuff that this apt has and everything is smaller. The bathroom is especially horrendous. It is the most tiniest shithole of a bathroom you'll ever see. It reminds me of those closet bathrooms that you'll see in Japan/France and other countries. Where they is just a toilet in a closet-sized room. And also there are a bunch of screaming kids and neighbors that turn up their music. I *HATE* listening to others music. I deal with it enough with the Halo neighbors right above me, and I can hear their Halo more often than their music. The new landlord already warned my dad that the neihbors right above us are really noisy and the last people that lived there had tons of noise complaints. My dad only got it because it was easy for him to get since it is also privately owned as these apts are. When I moved in, there was no credit-check required. This current landlord requires one now, though.
I've also spent all day packing up, throwing away and washing my massive load of bedding. When I couldn't dry all my sheets today in the one dryer that is available here literlly the entire day, I drove to a laundry mat. So I just spent over 10 bucks in quarters. I'm pissed about that. I still have a blanket to wash and I have not enough quarters. Moving, of course, is a huge hassle. I need to go to the new apt tomorrow so I can be there for the cable guy when he comes. I also don't know what will become of the huge damage I did to the ceiling from banging on it so much to try to get the Halo neighbors to turn down their damn Halo. It never works : (. One time I did it so much that the next door neighbor called the police. They never came though 0_o. I spent about 50 bucks "fixing" it, but it still looks terrible. *siigh*.
She really hates me, I think :p. When she first moved in, she kept parking in my spot and I finally caught her in the act and told her to move her car. She said "I don't know where to park because ever since I moved in, someone has always taken my spot". I told her to tell the managers this since that isn't supposed to happen and in the meantime she should park in the street. It really sucks when someone takes your spot. She said "okay" and then proceeded to park in someone else's spot. Also one of the times I went to visit my dad, I was doing laundry and left my stuff in the dryer. You know, in the dorms, anytime that happen, right away you usually take the person's stuff out. If it's in the dryer, you put it ontop of the dryer. If it's in the washer, you move it to the dryer. I think this process is fine and would have no problem if someone were to move all my panties.Here, though, someone left a note in the laundry room one time. It was basically bitching about taking clothes out of the dryer/moving them. Right after that someone posted a response that they've lived here for 8 years and they have found that people leave their clothes in for hours. I, of course, agreed with the second person >:O. Apparently neighbor lady was waiting "all afternoon" for me to take my clothes out of the dryer and eventually took them out. She left an apology note with her room number about how she needed to wash her kids' clothes, etc. That was awfully considerate of her. If I was her, I would never have waited at all. I thought about leaving her a note about not hesitating to take clothes out the next time, but changed my mind.
Other stuff
I've been writing this for a couple of hours now so I think I'm gunna uh skip some stuff I also wanted to mention.
Lately, I've been to a couple of parties pertaining to the Play I was in. I like going to academic parties a lot. Not once been to a "real" college party though. The first party was another cast party. It was fun and I talked to a bunch of people. We brought food from the languages we performed. There were tons of rolls of French bread XD. But someone brought NUTELLA! *gasp* I love the stuff. Too bad there were no crepes, though.I'd just like to mention a conversation I have with a "closer acquaintence". I have no friends here, just acquaintences. And this girl is going to Japan for all of next year : (. By the time I come back, I'll be graduated. *sad*
So she's REALLY into World of Warcraft. I think she's rather proud of being one of the few girls who's into it. She says on her squad(or whatever the groups are called) she's one of the girls out of 140 people. I think she said there were 4 girls in it. Anyway, so she keeps trying to hook up with guys on it. The first guy from New York didn't work out. She wanted advice about the second guy from Tennessee. Apparently he seemed interested but they hadn't been talking too much lately. Apparently he was too busy trying to acheive "high warlord" and spending all of his time in the game. She said that she was going to Japan soon and wanted to know when she'd get to talk to him and all he said was "soon". She asked what I thought, and I told her that he seems like a lameass who is only interesting in acheiving "high warlord" and has no time for girls. And that if she really wanted to find a guy, she really should look outside of her usual sphere of WoW. I also say the same thing to a friend who tries to hook up with guys from "Pokemon League". I mean comeon, those kinds of really nerdy guys really aren't looking for girls if they're spending their time doing that. I should be talking, though, right. I'm the one who found her boyfriend from a Pokemon chatroom and then had oral sex with with a big fat 26 year old man from the same pokemon chatroom. ^_^**. I don't think I'd ever do it again, though.
This quarter isn't really great academic-wise : (. My grades last quarter were: A, A-,B+, C+. I was annoyed with the C+, but that's what I get for taking Japanese as a letter grade. I took 4 classes last quarter(most students take 3) but this quarter is so much harder : (. It takes me forever to read and it seems like every weekend I have a ton of reading, most of which I don't go through. This weekend, I've read barely any :|. I also have a Japanese essay to write tomorrow, which I'm stressed about because I have no idea what to write about since the essay is about a samurai movie that we watched in class and I really hate samurai movies. I didn't show up to class to see the second half of it. A classmate told me about the rest of the plot, but gah.
I think I will pass all my classes, in part because the professor of "African Archaeology" seems to grade VERY easily. I mean, I think I did very shitty on my midterm and I think I got an overall grade of "B" on it. I don't know what I will get for my "Sexuality and Society" class. The professor for that really is one of the department's best, but she's also very demanding and is a somewhat harsh-grader : (. I got an 80 on my midterm. I hope that my final will go alright. I keep wanting to raise my GPA(which is currently a 2.800000000 I believe) but I've taken so many classes and it's much harder to raise it >_<. My goal when I graduate is a 3.0 and even now I think that will be really hard to acheive.
Also, my parents demand that I finish next year a quarter early because I'm a financial burden or something. So there goes my hopes of taking Japanese next year. It really sucks. I don't want a break in my Japanese studies, especially when I really suck at it and think that retaking classes will benefit me. I'm really distressed about next year : (.
This was very long. And now I'm going to bed instead of reading >_<.
A-shes
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v326/MajesticArcanine/ashes2.jpg
So two things only make me happy nowdays. Ashes and Garou. But I'm sure the Garou obsession will go away soon because it always goes off and on depending on when I have access to it. Ashes is really a nice cat ^_^. He's exactly the kind of pet I've always wanted. I really hated him at first. When I first met him,he bit me :p. But now we're very good friends. For one of my Japanese speeches this quarter we had to talk about a "moment of happiness" and I talked about the time when I met Ashes and he ran away and I found him in 3 days :p. Then towards the end of the speech I said that Ashes still bites me now, but it's okay because it's a love bite or "ai no kamu". When he's sitting on me and I'm petting him sometimes he likes to bite kinda hard an leave teeth marks. I think it's somewhat common in cats, though. But I get really pissed when he bites me out of annoyance, like if his legs are digging into me and when I try to fix them he bites me. He really hates his paws to be touched. Then I wack his little butt. Last time he hid under the bed for a while. Other than biting, he is very well behaved. Every morning he comes into my room and gives me affection before I go to school/werk. He also really likes to climb on peoples' chests when they're laying down and stick his wet nose right on their chins :p. But he's not the kind of cat to like being petted anytime. Most of the time he doesn't like being petted. He's really whiney and has this whiney MEEEEW when I'm petting him and he doesn't like it. He also doesn't like being held much and mews like that every time I pick him up for more than 10 seconds.
He's also very adventurous and likes being outside a good part of the time. My mom is letting Kotik outside now a bit but every time he goes out there he freaks out at the random noises and runs back inside. Ashes is very alert when he's outside but he likes running out there and rolling around on the cement. He also usually runs away from me when I go out after him. He's going to stay with my mom when I visit Justin in a couple of weeks and she's like "ooh. Maybe I'll train him to go outside here too!" It's a bad idea because he'll probably get lost again just like that last time he was outside here. I dunno. I've kinda gotten over I'm a terrible pet owner for letting him go outside, but I think it's kinda cruel to keep animals locked up indoors at all times. Especially a cat like Ashes who is actually very active. I guess indoor animals get used to it, but even when I had the ferrets I really wanted to train them with their little leashes and walk them, but they'd have been confiscated :|. I'm not too worried about him getting stolen because he's not too friendly with strangers. The thing I'm worried most about is him getting hit by a car. I'm moving to a very residential neighborhood soon though, so now I'll have to worry less about that.
I notice that a lot of adult cats don't like toys, but Ashes really likes his feather toys. There is a particular one I got from Safeway with a little feathery poof at the end of a string attached to a pole. He chewed up his first orange one, but now has a new purple one he hasn't yet chewed up. He really runs around the room like crazy with it and likes to pounce on it. When Justin was over, he'd spend a lot of time playing with him and Ashes would eventually go to poking the toy with his paw when he was around so he'd play with him.
To sum it up, Ashes is really the only friend I have here and I <3 him.
Fanime
So I went to fanime last weekend. It was alright. I spend a ton of money this time just on the hotel/tickets/parking. Over half my money, and then the rest was spent on this really expensive present. But I did get little Athena/Mai dolls. I saw them online and thought they were so freaken cute. I had to buy them. That's all I really bought. I'll take a pic of them. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v326/MajesticArcanine/athenamaidolls.jpg . See. Supercute! They come with their own little accessories that are hiding in the box, but I but them back in there because I'm moving soon anywya. The only problem with figurines is that I have no place to put them :|. There is no more room on my desk for anything. I need a bookshelf or something >_<. I guess I'll think of something when I move into my new shitty apt.
I was in a room with Sean, Wei-Chen, Kanoe, and their friend. Wei-Chen and Kanoe had another table this year and sold a bunch of their stuff they made. They brought a printer into the hotel room and were printing out all this stuff and making more stuff. So stuff would mean what was really popular among the amature artists year by year- those little laminated keychain things. I have a whole collection of them. Wei Chen made a super cute Gara cellphone tag this year which I bought without her knowing because they don't want me to buy any of their stuff :p. I don't think it will last very long, unfortunately >_<. None of my cellphone accessories last too long! They were also more l33t than most of the other artists because Kanoe had a professional button machine. I *love* buttons. I don't have to think about "where the hell am I going to put this?!" like I'm worrying about the Mai/Athena figurines because I can just pin the buttons onto one of my backpacks. I have a ton of new buttons on there now. My backpack clanks even more when I walk now :p. I didn't buy any prints this year because I have no where to put them. I think that maybe I will buy a nice album for prints at some point and instead of sticking pictures on my wall, I can stick them in an album. Becuase last year when I got prints, they ended up laying around on the floor/desk a lot. My naruto one still is 0_o.
I also spent most of my time getting owned at King of Fighters 11. I really liked that game and liked playing Kula/B Jenet a lot and wanted to practice more, but somehow KOF 11 seemed to be the most popular arcade game this year. Every time I went there was always a line there and it gathered a crowd. I was really surprised! KOF 2003 didn't do anything near that last year. So I didn't get any practice. I only got practice getting stomped on... Probably about 50 times : (. It really sucks because I really wanted to play someone more at my level but that's not the way turns go. The winner gets control of the game until someone can beat him. SO I really hated playing most of the super-good players there. It's not like someone can me can learn anything when your opponent is MUCH MUCH more advanced than you. I didn't have as much of a problem when I played opponents who weren't just *vicious* , who I could actually defeat 2 out of their 3 characters(in KOF you play with a team of 3 characters). I don't get a chance to play KOF against opponents very often at all in general. Sux. So I really didn't have a fun time with that this year. I liked KOF 2003 last year because barely anyone played it. I actually had to *recruit* people to play with me. Too bad KOF 11 is such a better game.
Asian Movies
This year, I watched more Asian movies than anime like every year I go. Mainly because I really am picky about anime. I don't like a lot of anime and I really would like to know what it is that I'm watching. Every year, there is a description of every single Asian movie that is shown in the con schedule. Also right outside of the Asian movie rooms there is a wonderful short synopsis and schedule of the day. So we can pick out what to watch. The only problem this year is that on Saturday, the main day I was there, during the whole entire freaken time I was awake, almost every movie they showed were action flicks. I hate most kung fu movies!! I hate most action flicks in general, but especially hate Asian action flicks. And I hate samurai movies. #*)$^. I don't know why people think that adding kung fu to a generic really crappy action flick would make it cooler. On Saturday morning, they showed this movie called something like "Hello Dharma" about these yakuza joining this Buddhist monestary. I really wanted to watch that, but I was still up in my room at the time. Damn, why couldn't they show better movies during the most active times. I think that my version of what makes a great Asian movie greatly differs from most of the con attendees :|.
I did get to see "Nana". Very shojo. It also apparently is also an anime. I want to get really into it but... I still need to watch: Yakitate Japan some more. I haven't been watching anime for a while. This is why I don't like series more than 13 eps :p. I feel less intimidated going into one of those series. Anyway, Nana is about these two very different girls who are both named Nana. One is this little tomboyish punk rocker girl who is the lead singer in the band, and the other is a super girly ditz. They meet by chance in the subway(or densha maybe) and then end up getting the same apartment. Then they face all the challenges of romance. the punk Nana's ex boyfriend is in this Jrock band which the girly Nana is obsessed over. The punk Nana just wants to be better than her ex and bring her own band to fame. I really love this one song that she sings. Here is a cute picture of both the Nanas. http://nana-nana.net/images/nana/calendar/5.jpg . The only thing about the punk Nana is that she really looks anorexic. She's so skinney 0_o. That was the one whose character I liked, though. Sorry, the cute tomboyish girl will always be my favorite in any series/movie you can think of.
I think that I will download the anime on my computer and make Justin watch it when I get there. *torture* Actually maybe not. I don't want another round of "FUCK THIS SHOW. FUCK THIS SHOW. *flips off*." That was really annoying. Last time, I brought over this anime which looked very cute and awsome at first called "Saikano" and I was watching it with James(Happy birthday to James btw). Today is his birthday. Yay. Anyway, so when Justin starting watching it it became quite messed up with everyone in the entire show dying. Yeaaah. It started off pretty good though ^_^*. James also watched all of "Elven Lied" I think because I kept trying to get Justin to watch it, and so after we were done with Saikano it was "WHY DO YOU ALWAYS LIKE THE REALLY MESSED UP SHOWS?!" Which was funny. "Fuck this show" was annoying though >:O.
Next we'll move to "Koi no Mon" which I also saw at the con. It was the last thing I did before I went back to Santa Cruz early Sunday afternoon. I will just post a synopsis that I found on the internets.
The film, whose title translates as 'The Gate of Love', revolves around the turbulent romantic push and pull between a pair of manga-obsessed nerds. Mon Aoki (Matsuda) is an empty-pocketed oddball who considers his devotion to manga an art form, and whose very peculiar approach to the medium consists of arranging painted stones in wooden boxes. One day while he stoops to pick up a rock at the roadside, Akashi Koino (Sakai) plants her high heel into the back of his hand and, yes, it's thunderbolt city.
Koino, a successful amateur manga artist, sees in Mon the ideal foil for her cosplay fanaticism and after getting him drunk she dresses him up as the male hero from her favourite video game. Her definition of a knight in shining armour is a geek who fits her self-made costume and Mon seems to be right candidate. He, however, is thoroughly disappointed with her geeky attitude and is out the door as soon as he realises that he didn't lose his virginity after all in the wake of their drunken binge. Koino is not about to let him slip away that easily and thus begins a game of will-they-or-won't-they, set against a background of manga bars, anime singalongs and the Tokyo Comicket.
This movie was really the perfect one to show at an anime convention. The chick was a serious otaku. Cosplay otaku, manga otaku etc. She eventually gets fired from her job because she spent too much time going to cons. My favorite part of the movie was the beginning when Mon wakes up in her bed to think he lost his virginity, throws the covers off his body and finds himself dressed as YUN SEOUNG from Soul Calibur. I was like "WTF!! AHH YUN SEOUNG!" I love him, he's so freaken hot. Too bad I could never play him very well. And she took pictures of him dressed herself as Xianghua. She became obsessed with him actually because "No one cosplays Yun Seoung like he does...". When she showed him where the character came from, she displays an *X BOX* game box. )#(&$#_(*^$. I was so pissed at that. What right does X Box have to be in a Japanese movie?! It's not supposed to even be popular out there :|. Anyway, Koi no Mon was super funny :p.
And finally we have "Kamikaze Girls". It was shown at the con too, but I didn't see it there. I saw it at the Japanese movie night a few weeks ago. This movie was equally as crazy as Koi no Mon and it was my favorite of the 4 Asian movies I saw recently. Here is the site- http://www.kamikazegirls.net/news.html . I'll post a synopsis from the site.
Momoko, yearns to live in 18-century Versailles than in her back-country hometown of Shimotsuma, heartland of the yakuza. To escape, she loses herself in the dreamy, doll-like fashions of the "Lolita” scene. Her idol is Akinori Isobe, chief designer of Baby, the Stars Shine Bright—her favorite Lolita design hose. She travels all the way to Tokyo to shop at their store.
One languid summer, to help fund her expensive hobby, Momoko runs a
classified ad of brand-name knock-off clothes (produced by her dad) for
sale. She encounters a buyer named Ichiko (the real name is Ichigo), who
happens to live in her neighborhood.
Super-rebel Ichiko, is a “Yankee”-style member of the Ponytails motorbike gang, one of Ibaraki's "Wild speed tribes,” whose teeth-rattling customized bikes are decked out with fiberglass shields and bannered backrests.
Somewhat against Momoko’s will, she and Ichigo slowly develop a strong friendship as they share their feelings on the odd goings-ons around them.
The movie is *hilarious* and I really love the character of Ichiko. Gee wonder why :p. http://www.kamikazegirls.net/images/_sq/9_m.jpg . It was just so silly and so awsome to see this little pretty Japanese girl acting like a yakuza. The site actually talks a lot about kids being yakuza wanabees(yanki) in the Japanese countryside. And it talks about the "Lolita" fashion trend. Two very well written articles. I heard of the Lolita a bit and thought they fit into the shinjuku culture of Tokyo and was right. Their outfits are just so pretty 0_o. Apparently, girls get highly stigmatized for dressing like that, however.
Moving
The last time I wrote an entry, I said my dad was moving in with me. Nuup. Not anymore. I didn't have the number of my manager so I didn't contact him about me not moving out. Instead, he came by one day and asked me what I was doing. Apparently he thought that Stephan and I were both moving out and decided to put the apartment on the listings and got tons of phonecalls. After he got pissed off that I declared my dad would move in without him knowing and after he said for him to fill out an application and give it to him ASAP, he then remembered that he put up the rent to 1375 a month on the listings and said that this would affect my rent and he'd move it up to that. That's a hundred extra dollars because "he got a ton of phone calls". I told my dad this and we both thought it'd be best to move out. My parents think he's a huge slimeball. I dunno, really, what I think about that situation.
My dad got this really shitty two bedroom apt for us in a suburb of San Jose. Not only will I have to take Highway 17 every single day next year, but I have to live in a shitty apt that is so much smaller and crappier than this one. I really hate it already. It's missing a lot of stuff that this apt has and everything is smaller. The bathroom is especially horrendous. It is the most tiniest shithole of a bathroom you'll ever see. It reminds me of those closet bathrooms that you'll see in Japan/France and other countries. Where they is just a toilet in a closet-sized room. And also there are a bunch of screaming kids and neighbors that turn up their music. I *HATE* listening to others music. I deal with it enough with the Halo neighbors right above me, and I can hear their Halo more often than their music. The new landlord already warned my dad that the neihbors right above us are really noisy and the last people that lived there had tons of noise complaints. My dad only got it because it was easy for him to get since it is also privately owned as these apts are. When I moved in, there was no credit-check required. This current landlord requires one now, though.
I've also spent all day packing up, throwing away and washing my massive load of bedding. When I couldn't dry all my sheets today in the one dryer that is available here literlly the entire day, I drove to a laundry mat. So I just spent over 10 bucks in quarters. I'm pissed about that. I still have a blanket to wash and I have not enough quarters. Moving, of course, is a huge hassle. I need to go to the new apt tomorrow so I can be there for the cable guy when he comes. I also don't know what will become of the huge damage I did to the ceiling from banging on it so much to try to get the Halo neighbors to turn down their damn Halo. It never works : (. One time I did it so much that the next door neighbor called the police. They never came though 0_o. I spent about 50 bucks "fixing" it, but it still looks terrible. *siigh*.
She really hates me, I think :p. When she first moved in, she kept parking in my spot and I finally caught her in the act and told her to move her car. She said "I don't know where to park because ever since I moved in, someone has always taken my spot". I told her to tell the managers this since that isn't supposed to happen and in the meantime she should park in the street. It really sucks when someone takes your spot. She said "okay" and then proceeded to park in someone else's spot. Also one of the times I went to visit my dad, I was doing laundry and left my stuff in the dryer. You know, in the dorms, anytime that happen, right away you usually take the person's stuff out. If it's in the dryer, you put it ontop of the dryer. If it's in the washer, you move it to the dryer. I think this process is fine and would have no problem if someone were to move all my panties.Here, though, someone left a note in the laundry room one time. It was basically bitching about taking clothes out of the dryer/moving them. Right after that someone posted a response that they've lived here for 8 years and they have found that people leave their clothes in for hours. I, of course, agreed with the second person >:O. Apparently neighbor lady was waiting "all afternoon" for me to take my clothes out of the dryer and eventually took them out. She left an apology note with her room number about how she needed to wash her kids' clothes, etc. That was awfully considerate of her. If I was her, I would never have waited at all. I thought about leaving her a note about not hesitating to take clothes out the next time, but changed my mind.
Other stuff
I've been writing this for a couple of hours now so I think I'm gunna uh skip some stuff I also wanted to mention.
Lately, I've been to a couple of parties pertaining to the Play I was in. I like going to academic parties a lot. Not once been to a "real" college party though. The first party was another cast party. It was fun and I talked to a bunch of people. We brought food from the languages we performed. There were tons of rolls of French bread XD. But someone brought NUTELLA! *gasp* I love the stuff. Too bad there were no crepes, though.I'd just like to mention a conversation I have with a "closer acquaintence". I have no friends here, just acquaintences. And this girl is going to Japan for all of next year : (. By the time I come back, I'll be graduated. *sad*
So she's REALLY into World of Warcraft. I think she's rather proud of being one of the few girls who's into it. She says on her squad(or whatever the groups are called) she's one of the girls out of 140 people. I think she said there were 4 girls in it. Anyway, so she keeps trying to hook up with guys on it. The first guy from New York didn't work out. She wanted advice about the second guy from Tennessee. Apparently he seemed interested but they hadn't been talking too much lately. Apparently he was too busy trying to acheive "high warlord" and spending all of his time in the game. She said that she was going to Japan soon and wanted to know when she'd get to talk to him and all he said was "soon". She asked what I thought, and I told her that he seems like a lameass who is only interesting in acheiving "high warlord" and has no time for girls. And that if she really wanted to find a guy, she really should look outside of her usual sphere of WoW. I also say the same thing to a friend who tries to hook up with guys from "Pokemon League". I mean comeon, those kinds of really nerdy guys really aren't looking for girls if they're spending their time doing that. I should be talking, though, right. I'm the one who found her boyfriend from a Pokemon chatroom and then had oral sex with with a big fat 26 year old man from the same pokemon chatroom. ^_^**. I don't think I'd ever do it again, though.
This quarter isn't really great academic-wise : (. My grades last quarter were: A, A-,B+, C+. I was annoyed with the C+, but that's what I get for taking Japanese as a letter grade. I took 4 classes last quarter(most students take 3) but this quarter is so much harder : (. It takes me forever to read and it seems like every weekend I have a ton of reading, most of which I don't go through. This weekend, I've read barely any :|. I also have a Japanese essay to write tomorrow, which I'm stressed about because I have no idea what to write about since the essay is about a samurai movie that we watched in class and I really hate samurai movies. I didn't show up to class to see the second half of it. A classmate told me about the rest of the plot, but gah.
I think I will pass all my classes, in part because the professor of "African Archaeology" seems to grade VERY easily. I mean, I think I did very shitty on my midterm and I think I got an overall grade of "B" on it. I don't know what I will get for my "Sexuality and Society" class. The professor for that really is one of the department's best, but she's also very demanding and is a somewhat harsh-grader : (. I got an 80 on my midterm. I hope that my final will go alright. I keep wanting to raise my GPA(which is currently a 2.800000000 I believe) but I've taken so many classes and it's much harder to raise it >_<. My goal when I graduate is a 3.0 and even now I think that will be really hard to acheive.
Also, my parents demand that I finish next year a quarter early because I'm a financial burden or something. So there goes my hopes of taking Japanese next year. It really sucks. I don't want a break in my Japanese studies, especially when I really suck at it and think that retaking classes will benefit me. I'm really distressed about next year : (.
This was very long. And now I'm going to bed instead of reading >_<.
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Date: 2006-06-04 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-04 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-04 10:09 pm (UTC)And San Jose is incredibly boring. There's no reason why you'd want to come here >_<. I swear, it's just about the most uninteresting big city I've ever been to. All it is is a bunch of coorporations and stuff related to technology. The only place I like in Silicon Valley is the tech museum.
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Date: 2006-06-05 10:40 pm (UTC)Oh and funny you mention elementary school because I live right next to *some* kind of school, but it looks like a middle school to me. Not as fun. There seems to be parks around though.