I'm so heart-ing my wallpaper, found in flickr: here. Flickr is fastly becoming my wallpaper searching destination. :P

Item #1: Japanese class
I finally went back to taking my Japanese night class, and the first class back was quite... intimidating. I have a feeling it'll stay that way for the rest of the classes. That's because, the whole class is in Japanese, with very limited amount of English. And when I realize that (very early into the class), I was, in a way, quietly freaking out. It doesn't help that the other people in the class have okay (and compared to me: quite good) conversing skills.

As the lesson went on, I got a little more comfortable with the listening, but that doesn't mean I know 100% of what was said! >_< I so need help in vocabularies, verbs, and sentence connecting devices/particles/phases. The conversation in class were actually quite casual, so I could pick up the gist most of the time, but if it involves any phrases/nouns/verbs that I don't already know, then I don't know what's going on.

There's also this quiz/test of Japanese knowledge at the end and I realize I don't know much about the culture! Haha. Hmm... I should browse around the net more often. As well, with this class, I think it is time that I should invest in 2 dictionary: kanji, and a regular word/phase/verb/noun en-jp/jp-en dictionary. I'm fastly seeing the attractive-ness of the option of purchasing an electronic dictionary. But then again, I'd have to know how to operate and understand those as well. Maybe I'll ask around some people I know. ^_~

Final verdict: I quite like it actually, if I don't always remind myself of the fact that I'm very lacking in vocabs and speaking skills. It forces me to listen/comprehend in Japanese, and with time, I think I can hopefully slowly be less intimidated with the speaking and sentence constructing. :)

Item #2: Extensive driving with lack of sleep combined with semi-work deadline
So after the above, with my jittery nerves, I had to go fight rush hour traffic to the airport and back -- while having had only fewer than 3 hours of sleep. I was groggily when I woke up and got into the car. But then, nothing beats fighting traffic to get your mind focused on a task!

And after that, I didn't go and grab some hours of sleep to make up. Instread, I went up and down, left and right, and basically stretching my heightened mind state from the adrenaline rush of everything. (I think it is akin to staying awake by coffee, except that I don't know how that is like, since I don't drink it.) Another reason that I had to stay up, was that I had this thing that needed doing and was due (somewhat) in the next morning. And I wasn't nearly half done. So in the end, I pulled another uni-like night: up for 20+ hours on less than 4 hours of sleep. :T

But! After bugging several people of some problems I had, I finally got done-ish with the work I needed to do, and did grab a few more hours of sleep. So all's okay now, at the most part.

Final thought: I need a job to regulate my play/sleep/work hours.

Item #3: Mailing things
I didn't realize mailing parcels are so expensive! Out of 4 places I looked online, only FedEx has the cheapest shipping rate quote for the parcel size I specified, and by cheapest, it's not even dirt cheap, I would only say it's a reasonable price. Especially since I wasn't even looking into the express option. It's too bad that I only found out about the FedEx rate earlier today, coz the parcel was sent out already by then. :T But next time, I'll be sure to do my research before doing anything postal(=mailing things by post, not the other meaning)! :p

---

Quite a long post today, eh? Anyway, thank you reading and have a good day!

After my constant complain and annoyance with the windows live mail beta, I've had enough today and finally opt-out of the beta. So now I'm back to the original Hotmail, and I feel sooo relieved, it's like this drag of going to hotmail (To delete spam! Coz that's the only thing I do there.) is now lifted. I can honestly say that now I may even go log on (and delete emails) more often!

I don't understand why it annoys me so much. I understand that it's beta, and that it could be buggy. But then, I've tried the Yahoo Mail Beta and I was fine with it. (Even thou I've since returned to original Yahoo Mail, but that's just because my comps are a bit slow at handling the Ajax.) MS's mail beta was.. very unfriendly to use, for me. And I just couldn't take it, especially when I had to spend twice/thrice as long to delete a few simple spam.

Maybe I was using it wrongly, maybe I would be more used to it if I were an Outlook user, or maybe I'm the only one around here who is annoyed by all this... Either way, I think if MS want more ppl to use their product(s), they better make it easier to use and understand. With that said, I'm personally not very much looking forward to IE7 and Vista, nor do I want to try their beta right now. What if they're so radically different (and buggy?) from the old products that they alienate me from wanting to try/use any new thing from them?

Anyway, rant done. I hope there's a happy mail experience for everyone.

Seeing that it is September 22 already... And just in case I forget, here's a little something something for some of my friends. :P



I don't really have "actual" gifts (no $$ >_<), hence the little drawing above I did myself. It looks simple, but it did take me quite a bit of time, so don't say I didn't put thought into it! :P Hope you both enjoy your day (or week) of celebration! :D

---

So, due to reasons untold-able here, I've been eating rather differently lately. Standard dinners now consist of some forms of starch (mostly potato, coz there's a whole bag of them that we need to finish), soup, and some vegetable. I've always thought that if I cook food myself, I would cook just enough that I won't get overly stuffed.

Turns out, that's not the case. :T I cook enough alright, but I think I eat to the point that I'm actually more full than normal. And with me sitting around watching tv after food, that's not going good. :T (Aside: Shark was quite entertaining I must say. :P) Maybe I should expand my food source to more veggies... Oh no... speaking of which, I was supposed to water the veg plants and pick the ripe fruits........... >.> Yikes.... I hope they don't rot..... >.> <.<

So anyway, there's more household chores ahead, and I also need to find new ways of cooking potatos, mainly just trying to find sauces/powder mixes that go with it. Although, it does taste okayly sweet on its own. I do have a question though, do most people eat potatos with the skin peeled or unpeeled? Which is better(healthier)?

That's it for today. Bye!

You know, there is this one thing from a certain place that I want, but doesn't want to pay for it myself. But then, no one knows what it is except for me really, and there was only 1 left in stock in the store the last time I checked. So I don't think I'll ever get my hands on it. ^_^;;

And another thing, Spamalot just ended its run in TO! I didn't know it was only here for such a short time. Coz other high profile musicals tend to stay here longer, but then again, Martin Short's Fame Becomes Me wasn't here that long either... So I guess different plays/musicals have different schedules.

But yea, back to Spamalot, I went to check for ticket sales the other day, and found that the prices are actually quite high. :T Definitely not in my budget area, since I still don't work yet.. But, I think, if I ever could afford to go && if it ever comes back here on stage, I'd definitely go and see. I listened to the CD of the Broadway version and the songs are funny and catchy. I think I would have a good time watching it. :)

*sneezing like crazy* (due to dust) + I think one of my HDs is dead or on the verge of dying, don't have time to check it thou, not to mention I don't know how yet!, so I'll go and work on what I have to work on first and come back to it later. :T

Bye everyone!

So yes, I was at the TO Star website and checked out the A&E page just now and was :O-ed by baby Suri's picture! My first reaction was: She looks like TC! Kinda not expected that, because I tend to think a lot of babies look pretty much the same. But then again, she's been born for a while, so maybe it makes sense.... :P But... yet again... it still surprises me that she looks so much like TC! Since most people look more like their parents as they grow older... But anyway, am done gossiping and I actually gotta be somewhere right now. Bye!