|
So she sayeth...
Friday, December 28, 2001 11:34 a.m.
Hey, look! I'm alive after all! O_O;
Jeez, it's really been over three weeks since I've blogged last. o.o; Shame on me. Well, here I am back to update everyone who still mangages to check up on this purple piece of plainness. Just what have I been up to? Not much, actually. It's vacation, yo. Actually I turned in a handful of applications (I have two left that I'm twisting my own arm to do before break ends). I also came home a week or two ago which is where I've been ever since. Before I came home though some moron managed to set off the fire alarms at 2 in the morning by spraying a fire extinguisher all over the stairwell and hallway next to my apartment. >_< That was really fun. I enjoyed breathing the toxic chemicals as I tried to enter and exit the building that night. What is it with drunken college students and fire extinguishers? I just don't get it. Anyway, as I get up on my soapbox, let me declare to all who would consume alcohol: Drink is good. Go ahead, I really don't care. But. Just don't be a fucking moron by damaging other people's property. >_<
So I did get a small start on my translations and my project, which I'll be working on more in the near future. I bought all my Christmas presents the weekend I came home and sat back to wait. Christmas actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. People behaved themselves and the food was especially yummy--especially after three weeks of rice and macaroni as a staple. ^_^ I got some good gifts--99% of which I picked out myself. But here we go: Utena movie and Cowboy Bebop #6 on DVD, a book about Japanese women's literature, Underground by Haruki Murakami, The Voyage of Jerle Shannara, Isle Witch by Terry Brooks, the Run Lola Run OST, and a couple of other things that are escaping me at the moment, but mostly my relatives gave me money. Which isn't so bad, but I kinda wish they'd put a little more thought into it than that. Anyhoo, with my new-gotten loot I bought myself a Lord of the Rings 12 month calendar, the first two Trigun DVDs (used and cheap at CD Warehouse! woo!), the movie guide to LoTR, and a pair of new shoes. But my gift receiving isn't over yet, no sirrah. I'm lucky (?) in the fact that five days after Christmas comes my birthday. ^_^ woo.
I ended up beating Xenogears last week. Again, I'm a spoiled little girl whose first game ending was FFVI, so I end up comparing all endings to that one (and CT). It all wrapped up nicely and I think mostly everything was explained well enough for my peace of mind. I wasn't that amused with the anime ending. The bad dub work had me cringing through the whole thing. Whoever voiced Bart should be slapped. o_o; I of course saw the famous nekkid, winged Krellian. Pritty! If he's going to be an ass through most of the game, we might as well get to see it, says I. :P I ended up having almost everyone's deathblows at the end, and was annoyed to find out I didn't need them in the final area. O_o; Oh well. In that time I was learning them I was leveling up (...which also doesn't affect gear performance but...) and also getting money for spiffy gear parts/armor/etc. I ended up being pretty buff when I went in. I wandered around the first area of the final area for too long cuz I couldn't figure out you could jump on the columns until about a half hour into it. ^_^; Overall, I really liked the game. It was pretty texty, more so on the second disc, which was at the same time nice and annoying--especially if you accidently hit the X button on an NPC when he/she was actually done talking and they had a lot to say...
Anyhoo, yes, I saw Lord of the Rings this break as well. Like Karen, I had the instant attachment to Legolas. At first I didn't realize why, but then I realized that he was a walking-talking, breathing real life bishounen. o.o It wasn't just his face or whatnot that was goodlooking, but his entire character design was just, well, fangirl attracting! I actually found myself watching him the whole time he was on screen, which was surprising to me because not only do I normally don't do that (anime has given me a high tolerance to pretty and cute things) but also he didn't have a whole heck of a lot of screen time compared to the other characters, but what he did do (especially in the battle with the troll! *_*) was pretty damn cool. He was eye-attracting, no question about that. But beyond that surface stuff, it was a wonderful movie. All of the visuals were REALLY pretty. I liked all of the characters, and the plot, although cliche containing, was good. And as I think Karen mentioned in her blog, the "cliches" in the LoTR weren't cliches at the time, so they should be accepted. I admit, I'm a sucker for cliche (as long as it's *well-done*) anyway, so it didn't matter to me at all. ^_^; I just sat there thinking, "of course Elrond is pissy and doesn't think much of humans. Of course Legolas has a bow. Of course the dwarf has an ax. Of course Strider is...who he is. Of course Gandalf has a beard and a really cool hat. He's a wizard! etc. etc." I was amused though by the standard fantasy way of giving things names: ie: the BLANK of BLANK. Filly in yo own blanks. I also noticed after seeing it a second time with Karen and her mom that it was mostly action (good action, may I add) after they got out of the Shire, but it wasn't *too* action-oriented. It calmed down at certain points in the right places. After I saw the movie with my mom I heard a girl in front of me say "Oh, god, that was SO boring." To which I could only react "O_o;" It was far from that. I'm sorry if I find it odd that someone would go to a three hour fantasy movie and expect some Tom Cruise movie or something. I enjoyed it the second time through, and I'd love to go out and see the second and third one right now, but of course, we all have to wait. ^_^ At least it's only a year though. It could be three or four years like normal sequels.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "That's underground. Underground!" -- David Bowie
Thursday, December 6, 2001 12:11 a.m.
If I began every entry with my apologies for not updating this thing often, they'd likely all have them...o.o oh wait. I bet they do. ^_^; eheh. Anyway! Odd links first. Then onto my glorious week.
- Mokarimakka! Learn some kansai-ben without leaving the relative comfort of your desk chair.
- rachel.org is pretty interesting. I didn't read through the whole site, but, yeah. Should I be upset they're usurping my name? :D
- I'm a search engine too! Whee!
- Mr. T Haiku I pity the fool who doesn't read Mr. T haiku!
- Muffinfilms.com You'd think that I would be saying, as would be the normal conclusion at finding such an odd thing, "Someone has too much time on their hands!" But I'm not. This is part of the creator's MFA thesis. :D I enjoyed and laughed out loud at these movies and then went out and made some Jiffy corn muffins. I'd love to see a second batch of them!
- Big Bunny He's a giant pink rabbit with a taste for flesh who has no idea what a carrot is and tells twisted fairy tales to impressionable children. Why aren't you watching? XD "Delicious."
Ok, enough e-crack for you. What have I been up to for the past week. Well, my seminar is over. It ended Friday. Since then I've been throwing myself at research (finding little directly related, but other interesting things I can and can't use ^^) and picking my way through grad school stuff. It's a wonderful life. o.o yeah. I guess I could talk about that, but the details of it aren't too entertaining. I'm almost finished with the Michigan application. Then I can breathe for five minutes and do another scholarship app. Then I can breath for a few days and do another school one. :D Rinse. Repeat.
Living in an apartment by myself is great, I've come to realize. I can do the dishes when ever the heck I feel like it. I can play Xenogears until all hours of the night and early morning. Which is what I've been ending up doing. ^_^; I realized that although I get sleepy about midnight. I'm not too tired to go to bed, but I'm too tired to continue thinking and writing/reading. Thus instead, I've been playing Xenogears until 3 and 4:30 in the morning. Hey, whatever works! Right now I'm leaving Shevat for I can't remember where. More of that later tonight.
O_o; Um. Did I just miss this randomly, or is it common knowledge that Otaku no Video is being commercially released in January? I did not know that... Hmm. I also just realized that Christmas is less than three weeks away. o_o Maybe I should get started shopping. Not like I can get anywhere decent in Galesburg--not without a car at least. Ah well, that's what online shopping is for. :D And there'll be a mall when I go back home, so no problem. Hmm. I just ran out of things to say. o.o Oh well. More later if my brain starts up again.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "There are no yuuuuummy wolves in this forest...Not anymore..." -- Big Bunny
Wednesday, November 28, 2001 06:24 p.m.
Well, all right I should be doing something useful like reading for tomorrow or picking through manga or translating or something. But I'm not. Hoo. I'm being hard on myself since I did squat yesterday. I randomly devolped this icky headache which caused everything from the base of my neck to the top of my head to ache through and through. -.- I hate headaches like that. I waffled through some stuff, but failed miserably (although I did get my scholarhsip app. pretty much done.) I tried to go to bed early, even, but that failed too. I laid there awake in bed for over an hour. Argh. I hate that too! o_o So yeah, I feel motivated to do useful things tonight.
I did have quite the useful day even though I had to drag myself out of bed before sunrise (6:45 a.m.) because I was going with my seminar people to Iowa City to visit the U of I grad school folks. That's the one eternal bad thing about field trips. They almost always require you to get up at some god-awful hour. ^_^ But that's what sleeping in the van is for. Anwyay, we went and the dean of something talked to us about grad school in general--which was very informative. Then we had some free time to wander around so I went with some people to the Praire Lights bookstore. *_* So many books! I was Happy to find the Asian Studies section. I found a book I wanted (um...two actually) but didn't buy them because I didn't feel like hauling them around all day, but I'm going to get them later. ^^ So then we had a really yummy lunch and had more informative talks with people. Then it was onto departmental visits. I and the other CW/JS major at Knox (XD) talked with Professor Yoshimoto all about the Asian Languages department and about the other schools on my list... Which was really helpful, actually. It was really a neat thing to be able to make some comparisons between the schools right there with an actual professor of one of them. In the end, it made me unsure about going to Iowa. o.o But that's ok, since I'm unsure about the other three too. ^_^;
I'd also like to note that I'm never going out of the building this winter after 4:30 again. >_< Stupid crows. *shudder*
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "O.O BOO! Did I scare you? Well if you really want to be frightened... Call 1-900-829-4300! Call Santa now! Call Santa now!" -- Matt
|