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So she sayeth...
Monday, February 26, 2001 12:51 a.m.
People, please for the sake of my sanity and yours give it up. O_o; [Notes on my issues with this are below.]
Well, here I am again and as you can see I survived Saturday's annual J-Club and Chinese Club trip to Chinatown, Chicago. ^^ A good time was had by all. Friday at our meeting we watched 6 episodes of Haunted Junction. Wonderfully spastic anime. The basic plot involves three teens one the son of a minister, the other a daughter of a Shinto priest, and the other the son of a Buddhist priest who go to a haunted high school in Japan. They constitute the Holy Student Council and it's their job to maintain some order around the school along with the help of the seven spirits of the school: the school Chairman, sexy Hanako-san, cute Mirror-chan, the Giant, the wacky skeleton and body manniquin, the bishonen Nino, and the hot biseinen Red Mantle. Each has their hilarious quirk--the Buddhist priest's talent is being possessed by ghosts and the shrine maiden's talent is exorcizing him (which amounts to shouting an attack and beating the crap out of him. ^_^) The shrine maiden is also a little obsessed with bishonen--literal definition. She only likes cute boys under the age of 12. She is the only straight female on the planet who can stand up to the sex appeal of Red Mantle--everyone else just turns into a puddle of mush. Everyone thought she was a bitch, but she just looked like anyother fangirl to me, but she WAS selfish much of the time, and her obsession was generally "clean" but got too be a little too hen. When one little boy offered to marry her she leaped for joy, and she took a picture of Nino when she accidently pulled off his underwear while trying to get his pants off to make him wear a pair of cute shorts. O_o; That crossed the line for me. Being overly fond of little boy cuteness is one thing but sexual attraction to them is another.
After J-Club I crawled home to bed and tried to get enough sleep before getting up at 7 am. I, of course, didn't. ^^; Then we went to Chinatown on Saturday. It was awesome and sucky at the same time. When Matt and I left J-club on Friday night it was sleeting and slicking everything over pretty badly. Then when I woke up, it was pouring down rain. There were huge puddles everywhere (we're talking 4 inches deep and several feet across). Some places were totally inaccessible because the sidewalks were the main things flooded.
We left relatively on time and were zooming right along....o.o when we got pulled over...and we waited while the highway patrol and our driver dealt with each other. After awhile and a big fine later we were on our way. Then an hour later we had to stop since someone in the van got car sick. Eventually we made it to Chinatown and found the other van. Then we pigged out on 11 different kinds of dim sum at a restaurant :D and scoured the shops for stuff. I wanted to buy a shirt, but they were really expensive. Instead I bought this cute owl thing that says "Ganbatte ne!" on it and some CCS envelopes. I shoulda bought a shirt...
While in Chinatown it was really cold (about 30) until it warmed up later after lunch. Then it started pouring down rain. O_o; Not just rain, pouring. So we wandered around somemore in the rain. I also bought a yummy piece of chocolate cake, a meat bun, and some fried donut thing that was so greasy it soaked through the paper sack and then about 6 sheets of a packet I had in my bag. Then we
came home. It rained cats and dogs the whole way back and got really foggy close to Galesburg. Visibility was really bad, but thankfully we didn't wreck any tires this year. ^_~
I was going to write a mini-rant about class sign up, but it's late and I'm tired, so I'll do it tomorrow when I possibly have more to rant about. I really hope I don't. ~_~ Oh, I didn't mention my thing about the "all your base" did I? Well, my thing was the whole trip 3 or 4 guys kept doing the whole bit of that over and over again. No matter where the conversation turned to it prompted some quotation from that. O_o; Needless to say when I got home and Matt started doing it I almost lost it completely. And you can guess who sent me the aforementioned link. >:P
Random Celestial Thought OTD (Guest): "Tyger! Tyger burning bright / In the forests of the night, / What immortal hand or eye / Could Frame thy fearful symmetry?" -- William Blake
Thursday, February 22, 2001 1:00 a.m.
Well, I got my first taste of electric-scoring type fencing. O_o Quite the difference! Basically you're under twice as much padding (extra jacket), we also got new gloves, plus there's about two tons of cords attached to various places on your body. Actually, there are only a couple of cords. ^^; One attaches to the foil and goes all the way up your arm and connects to the back of the jacket and the teather. Then there's a line that connects you to the electrical thingy which you're tied to by elastic rope. It's hard to try and remember that you can actually move even though you're tied down, plus fence and think of stragety. ^_^;
I translated all the titles on Disc 3 of the CC OST today and about half of Disc 1. I'm confused about Track 4 though. Anyone know the Japanese name of the Sea of Eden? I'm pretty sure the track is the one that plays while you're walking on the world map heading to Chronopolis, so I'm guessing the name is along those lines. I've tried two dictionaries--Nelson and the online one--but I can't find any combination of the kanji. If anyone cares, the kanji are "umi, tsuki, umi." For some reason that string of kanji makes no sense to me, even in the context of the game. In other news I actually managed to beat Puzzle Fighter on Master Arcade Mode. XD Dunno how I did it, but I did--with Ken. Don't ask me why I do so well with him. Maybe cuz of his drop pattern, but *shrug* purple Ken and I just kick (sometimes. Other times I just plain suck, but you know). Heh. I almost unconsciously said "karui karui" to my fencing opponent today... ^^;
Oh, I took the CLAMP character matcher. I haven't seen CCS beyond a couple episodes, so I dunno all there is to know about Li. But yay! Ferio! ^_^ Eagle's ok too, but I haven't seen the rest of MRK2 beyond the first tape yet, so... And other than them, Kamui, Zagato, and a few other CCS guys down the list, I have know idea who these folks are.
# 1 Li Shaoran
# 2 Eagle Vision
# 3 Ferio
# 4 Kakyou Kuzuki
# 5 Kamui Shirou
# 6 Subaru Sumeragi
# 7 Noroku Imonoyama
# 8 Sorata Arisugawa
# 9 Zagato
# 10 Gingetsu
Wha! One more thing. I'm sure you've all heard about the spy that was arrested yesterday by now. What you probably haven't heard is that he's a Knox graduate. O_o; My history professor told us in class today. Matt's roomate said that people had been calling the switchboard all morning asking about it too. It's such a small world sometimes, ne?
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "*random sputterings of combinations of the words moon and sea*"
Tuesday, February 20, 2001 10:59 p.m.
This is so funny. :D Too crazy!
Oy, hissashiburi. o.o I've been so nastily busy now that I have to get my papers done. My kabuki paper is due Friday, but I'm glad to say that I only have 2 more required pages to go and a limit of 4 more. We're shooting for the 2 pages...x.x Because I have my Kurosawa monster paper due in coming weeks too. I'm exquisitely behind in that too, and here I am blogging. *smacks self* Two stuffs before the blog moves on:
Katherine: It's belated, but Happy Birthday. ^_^
Karen: CC art! *_* I've actually been listening to my brand-spanking new CT and CC OSTs today, so I'm all about CC now (again). I love the looks on Karsh and Norris #1's face. ^^ I actually thought of some things they might be saying, mostly relating to where Nikki is putting his foot...^^;;; but they're stoopid so I'm not posting them here.
So, yes, you read right. I'm the proud owner of CT/CC OSTs. Finally. XP @ animenation. They're nummy and making me want to play the games again. Unfortunatly I can't. *snifflies* The Nikki concert music is just making me adore him even more, and the ending songs are just yummy. Only thing now is I have the 6 notes stuck in my head... I've also developed this tremendous urge to translate all the song titles--they're actually all written in Japanese, shock of shocks. The CC OST also comes with a ton of liner notes, so of course those need translating too! XD There are interviews with several of the game and music designers and a little profile on Yasunori Mitsuda. Apparently, if I'm reading the kanji right, he was born in 1972. oo; He actually makes a couple of comments on each song too. I can't read most of it because of the sheer abundance of kanji, but my favorite one (and the one I can read all of oo;;) is his comment on Madoromi (Dozing/Nap): "Saa, mina-san mo issho ni nemashou. 1. 2. 3. Gu~~."
Not many exciting things happened to me since my last blog. The weather is being weird as usual. I'm just moseying along waiting for the term to end, which by the way, will be about the 10th of March. My break is until the 18th. Take note. :P Bai now.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Watashi wa Iowa de umarimashita [sic]."
Thursday, February 15, 2001 02:20 a.m.
PS: No, we're not biasedor anything. I certainly hope this was at least the background monolouge to a newsstory. Otherwise it sounds like it was written by a child. O_o; And where do these people get their information? ugh.
Thursday, February 15, 2001 12:40 a.m.
An interesting article on men and women in RPGs. I still hate the insistance of spelling "girl" in strange ways though...
Well, Valentine's has come and gone for another year. It was a day most like any other though. Did the normal scholastic dealy. I ended up getting a cute bunny statue/vase and I got him a Metallica concert DVD. Instead of fencing we constructed foils for electric fencing. Well, I tried anyway. -.-;; I'm so bad at that sort of thing. I got a lot of help from our coach/instructor, but we still couldn't get it done. For some reason the pummel wouldn't fit correctly no matter which one we tried, so we had to give up. Everyone else chatted on the couch and Matt put together a foil happily by himself. ^^; I swear, he's such a, well, a *guy* sometimes. I tried to get him to help me or at least do some of the tough parts together where you need 3 or 4 hands to do the job, but all he said was "Okay" and then did it by himself while I sat there and fumbled. X_x;
Gah. I'm suddenly not in the mood to blog anymore. And yet I babble on. -.- Anywayz, I got to thinking about high school again last night and how much I tend to idealize the past. At first I think "Oh, it wasn't that bad. It was what was. Pretty good." A lot of it was good. FHA Valentine's Day cookies for example. Then I remember how crappy I often felt and how utterly and totally alone. Then I think "Oh yeah. That." which sends me into a downward spiraling plummet. I recall things about how I hardly ever did anything with my friends outside of school. How they apparently would do so without me, or even bothering to ask if I was interested. Once I remember they sat right in front of me (literally; we were gathered around a lunch table) and made plans to see a movie after school without even glancing in my direction. I didn't bother to say anything either. Maybe that was my fault. I guess a lot is. I don't initiate conversations and other things a lot. But then I get to thinking about how normal that situation would be. Do other groups of friends do that? Do I even have a right to be upset? Is it my own fault for being alone since I'm shy, naturally quiet, and don't often go out of my way to talk to people? I dunno. I'm tempted to answer yes. >_< ARGH. *smacks self* Didn't I just say yesterday that I don't talk about stuff like this? Aho ya! >_<
So yesterday was Valentine's Day! It's supposed to be a happy occasion! One shouldn't blog about who hated who....etc. etc. So let's talk about other things. Like Adventurers! T-shirts. ^^ I want one. With Ardam on it. Maybe I mentioned that before, but I so do. Or one with the whole gang. ^^ hee! Spoon. I must have the world's ugliest cat calender. O_o Seriously. I absolutely adore cats--we have so much in common--and I think as a rule all cats are cute, but yeesh! I've never seen a calender filled with such not-so-good-looking cats. The photos of them are pretty crappy too. There are some cute ones in there though. Some that even looked like Rascal and Bandit. o.o *shrug* Anywayz. I'm so addicted to webcomics now. ^^ They're just so fun and easy to get. There's no decent comic store in town so I have to wait weeks upon weeks to get my manga. But, when I do go home it's nice to have 3 months worth of comics sitting there and waiting for you to read them *_* Saves on wasted angst over what happens next in many cases. Hum...maybe I should stay up all night. See what happens. *shrug*
Hmm. That's it.
Random Celestial Thought OTD (guest thought) "So, they WERE curse zombies." -- someone from X/1999, one of the Dragons of Heaven i think
Wednesday, February 14, 2001 1:05 a.m.
Ugh...I had this nice pita all written up about how I had a problem with overly-bitter single people on Valentine's Day who either purposely or inadvertantly make me (a non-single person) feel bad on this day. Then I erased it. I'm playing my role and avoiding conflict. O_o; But I'm the type of person to nurse my pain alone and in silence lest I offend people or cause anymore trouble, so this comes as no surprise to me. I hate conflict so I tend to avoid it and not talk about stuff that bothers me. Especially if it's stuff I'm unsure about, and thus if I open my mouth and I'm wrong, I look like a complete idiot. Actually, I'm doing that right now...but that's another story. -.- I'll post my V-Day rant later today if I see anyone doing that, but right now I don't feel provoked to do so. You're safe from my pointless rantings for now, my readers.
So anywayz, Matt and I went out to dinner today at the Landmark. We had really yummy food (for a change!) Mmm...I remember now why I love croissants so much. They're so good! XD I had some fancy-shmancy waffles, chicken noodle soup, and of course a croissant. We had a hot fudge crepe for dessert. mmm.... Then we came home and continued on like normal people. Tomorrow our day of romance will be mostly like any other Wednesday. Class. Lunch. More class. Fencing. We're going to give gifts though. I got him one he should damn well like. I'll include what I got him in the blog tomorrow lest the information make its way back to him. Actually it won't be a totally normal Weds. We're going to have a weapons assembling party instead of practice since the dancers have taken over the gym for their concert on Thurs. I'm not sure exactly what that will entail, but I hope it's fun. o.o
I did other stuff today. Signed up for classes, met with my prof about poetry, completed my application sans one reccomendation letter, avoided homework, and visited the registrar (hate that place... ¬¬;;). That's about how interesting they would be to anyone but me, so I'll leave it at that. Oh, and I did watch Kurosawa's "The Lower Depths" yesterday too. Great movie. Watch it. Ack! I keep forgetting to mention I finally beat Puzzle Fighter this past weekend. ^_^ And then today too. First with Ken and today with Morrigan. I'm so proud I actually beat Akuma in 3 fights and then 1 today. *_* Pretty good for me since it took me so frightenly long to get him as a playable character! But I should be attempting sleep now. Baaaai.
Random Celestial Thought OTD (guest thought): "Yatta ze! Oyaji!!" -- Dan
Sunday, February 11, 2001 04:53 p.m.
Karen, I feel your pain about the gender confusion. I knew this person online for a good year or so before I found out "he" was a she. It didn't help the fact that her nickname was a male anime character, her real name was gender neutral, she used not only "he, him, and boku" to refer to herself, and she was "chat married"/dating a female I knew. Imagine my surprise... -.-;;;
Anywayz, I said I was gonna talk kabuki and Sailormoon today, but I'm putting it off since I'm pressed for time to blog. So it was the weekend at last. I don't know why I'm so lazy this term. Maybe the weather, maybe the darkness. I just don't feel the need to do anything constructive. All this is gonna backfire real soon though since I have two huge papers due within the next two weeks. ^^; Well Friday was J-Club per the usual. We watched the 3x3 Eyes OAV (I'm pretty sure it was the OAV...). It was amusing and very bloody. Good story though. I'm glad I got everything explained about that series now. O_o; I actually own manga issue #5 of something so I've seen it before but really didn't understand the full of what was going on. Oh yes, and I finally got Matt to agree to watch episodes 6-9 of Cowboy Bebop. We would have watched thru 10 but his DVD player was being evil.
Yesterday Matt and I hung about, ate pizza, and braved the ice-cold weather, walking downtown to see "Hannibal." If you liked "Silence of the Lambs," see this movie. It was really good and artistically nummy. I'm not going to summarize the plot because I think it's better to go see thriller movies without knowing the first thing about what's going on. The first hour and a half or so were kinda boring. They focused on Hannibal in Florence, Italy and this cop who was sorta chasing him. Clarice Starling was still doing her thing in the US. The last half of the movie was really great though. "Hannibal" is the first movie that actually made creeped me out. This is quite a feat, let me tell you. I'm pretty cold about watching TV and movies. Sure I get involved with the characters and stuff, but when it comes down to it, I know everything about them is fake. As a result, horror movies aren't scary and most of them I hate because they come off so stupid. "Hannibal" broke that icy barrier. O_o; I kept going back and forth about my opinion of Dr. Lecter ranging from "that bastard! >_<" to "oh, don't kill him..." and "he doesn't deserve XXXXX ;_;" But then he does something evil again and I'm back to where I started. The ending is O_o; Well...Just see it! I don't want to prejudice you anymore than I have.
I wrote/slaved hard and creating a poem today. I'm actually quite fond of it...probably because I was inspired by "Road to the West" to write it. I have quite a few poems that have been inspired by songs, actually. Some songs just hit home with me and bring pictures to my mind. So when I hear "Road to the West" I see the black sillouette of a guy walking down a desert highway into a bright orange sunset surrounded by a horizon mountains. O_o; So I wrote about that plus a little back story to make it a poem. I'm also proud since it's my first prose poem. Now we'll just wait to turn it in and have it ripped apart in class. Ok, so it's not that harsh. The critiques offered in workshop are helpful, polite, and very constructive. And I DO mean that. ^^; Anywayz, I need to run off to Qigong now. Bai!
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "On the road to the west, the mountains are silhouetted in orange. The land once green, now faded by time has dulled into gray. Walking alone into the setting sun, boots scuffed and hands stuffed in pockets, he wonders why there is no God." (Ok, that last bit isn't like me, but it's the way my character is...o.o...just so you know.)
Friday, February 9, 2001 12:14 a.m.
Anyone care to read my female gaming poll in SMU forum? The spawned post from channy is interesting too.
Ye gods how it rained today! O_o; I woke up to not only rain, but a thunderstorm. Another tree on campus must have gotten struck by lightning because that's the type of sound that woke me up. When I finally ventured outside (I didn't have class today) it was really really foggy and *gasp* warm. Then it was yucky for while until the deluge started. Now campus is one big lake. Mind you I am by no means being figurative. I bet half the sidewalks on campus are flooded with two or more inches of water on them. Not to mention there's still quite a bit of snow still on the ground.
Stupidly, I ruined my best pair of jeans today. Grr. I accidently left an open pink highlighter lying near them...and the result was one quarter sized splotch on both sides of the leg. Shout Stain Remover, you suck. Two applications of that and two washings did little to help. I'm gonna have to buy new ones now. But at least that forced me to do laundry. I really don't like doing laundry because it falls under the heading of "cleaning." It's not hard, just time consuming and not fun. Plus it's hard work running up and down 4 flights of stairs with baskets of laundry. ^_^;
Katherine: eheh...Sorry! Yeah, and at least it wasn't the "Miyuki-chan in Wonderland" background track. That's not a fun one either. ^^;
I played way too much Puzzle Fighter tonight. Yet I reaped many benefits such as win icons and character colors. I actually almost have them all. Donovan is giving me trouble for some reason though. I have no idea why... I did however finish my outline. It's very...outlinish... Oh jeez, I can't believe I just thought to myself how vague my outline was. XD I think that's the "go to bed" sign. heh. Tomorrow I've got to blog about the many kabuki elements in Sailor Moon. Serious! ^^ Jya, oyasumi...
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "I hope this paper outline is ok. It's so vague though..."
Wednesday, February 7, 2001 11:08 p.m.
I'm crazy crazy crazy 'bout a chicken bone. o.o
Or just crazy. Nyah. Aren't Gabriela Robin songs great? They'd be 100% greater if I could understand half the words that she's singing. O_o; They'd be 200% greater if they would actually put the lyrics in the CD booklet... Anyhoo, it's been an interesting day. And and "interesting" one too. I experienced the joys of copy machines when the 2nd page of my poem never made it into our workshop packet. So I had to go down and make the copies myself...during class. I also got poked, bruised, and scratched in fencing tonight, but it was loads of fun! XD I sucessfully surprised Matt with my first and only sucessful flesh. Don't get any idears there. A flesh is a fencing move. :P
I'm currently agonizing over a paper thesis for history. I always agonize though. That's always the hardest part. Feh. I have a topic though: kabuki. I knew next to nothing about it until today when I started reading about it, so that's not helping matters. Oh well. ^_^ I chose it so that I WOULD learn about it. It's such a massive topic though. I hope I can learn and digest enough in time.
Only other thing of note today was the god-awful assult on the SMU forum. Some guy decided it would be fun to mess with the code and as a result massively flood the forum. And I got mistaken for Celes again today (Celes the person in our forum, not the character, btw) by the flooder boy just because my nick is Lady Celeste. *shakes head* I hate that, I really do. Especially since it's been going on on and off for 3 years. I'm not by any means changing my nick though. Nyah. Oh, I promised something amusing today, didn't I? Well, read my TOTD. At least I find it half-way amusing. ^^; And yes, Karen, that's how you spell my name. :P Mmm! Bread. Anyhoo, g'night all.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: more roof jumping than your average epiosde of Ranma!"
Tuesday, February 6, 2001 04:17 p.m.
Karen! *_* Your bishounen are rockin'. Don't you dare say they suck. I adore the shiny pants.
News everyone's prolly heard by now, knowing how I keep up with things. :P But I hear Slayers is going to be shown on Fox Kids beginning this month. I'm shrieking inside. Not only for the fact that the dub will be shown, but at the memory of what Fox Kids did to Esca. Although Slayers is a bit more "American" in the sense there's more action and stuff that would appeal to kids. But of course bye bye to the breast jokes and anything questionable like blood. Of course on the other hand the masses will get to see how cute Zel looks in a bunny suit! XD A glompable sight if I ever saw one. Uh... o_o thought. I wonder if they'll cut the cross-dressing episodes. O_o; And the gay dragon...
I'm also snickering inside because if you look on the back of your Slayers tape box you'll notice the "appropriate for age 3 and up" icon. O_o; Which was the face I made when I first saw that. I don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't show Slayers to my three year old simply because they prolly wouldn't understand it and they might get scared. Kids can be scared over the darndest things adults see as "whatever." Take the Last Unicorn for example. I watched that as a child and really liked it, but I still had nightmares about the Red Bull. And scattered throughout the rest of my childhood and into my teenage years I STILL had nightmares with him in it. Of course they got less scary as I got older, but the fact remains that image remains embedded somewhere in my psyche. Now, you tell me Shabby, Gaav's eyebrows, and Zel's English voice are less scary than the Red Bull. :P And getting back to the censors rant, I also always thought thier age choice for Slayers was pretty stupid for the very fact that MKR has a "appropriate for age 13 and up" on the box. How is MKR worse than Slayers? And now I'm guessing we'll be seeing snipping and chopping going on to make Slayers "safe" for kids to watch on TV even though the box claims three year olds can watch it. Anyone else find that incredibly odd/silly? Yeah, I know it's TV as opposed to video, but you know. :P
Oh, J-Table was today. Fun as always. ^_^ I had a nice conversation about independent majors in East Asian Studies. Seems I or someone else started a little trend in that area. o.o Actually it may have been this girl (best friend of Matt's sister actually) who transferred for the fact that she *couldn't* get a Japanese/East Asian Studies major here during my freshman year. But it's a good thing, I think. Maybe all these people (okay, I only know three including me. ^^;) wanting Japanese related majors will finally force Knox to make a legitimate major or minor and *gasp* maybe even hire more professors in the Japanese department. Currently we only have one. But that won't be anytime soon thanks to the budget crisis. -_-; Right now they're not hiring new tenured professors or making any visiting professors tenured. Which has caused several problems I might have blogged about before. Regardless, I'm not dragging them in here now. sigh. Life would be so much easier if they hired another Japanese language/culture professor.
o.o hmm...that seemed like a whole lot of crankiness today. ^^; I'm not even really that upset, but those things just stood out today. Oh well. I'll return tonight or tomorrow with something more amusing. ohoho! ^_^ I just found that fuzzyfur is selling Magic 8 Squall T-shirts. And shirts with a bagel on them. o.o hmm...
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Whatever." (No, honestly, I couldn't think of a thing to say. O_o;)
Sunday, February 4, 2001 01:10 a.m.
I too am curious about the future. I love this strip. If anything brings to life the phrase "it's funny because it's true" then this is it. XD
Heh. Well, hello again. It's Sunday, just barely. My first comment of the day is death to all groundhogs. Friday was the coldest day yet this year and I woke up to sunshine pouring down through my windows even though it's been cloudy ALL week. >:P Stupid rodents. Anywayz. Yay. I survived my Japanese history midterm. It wasn't that bad though. I was dreading that it was going to be really hard, but it turns out it wasn't so. *shrug* We'll just see what grade I get though. Mou. I got pummeled in fencing on Wednesday. I guess it was skewer the Rachel day or something. Couple new bruises and a nice welt on my arm. It's pretty much gone now though. I bruise like a grape... Thursday I just studied for my midterm and hung around like a lump. Friday was also J-Club. Yay! We watched "Shall We Dance?" A wonderful Japanese film about dancing. It's a great movie, but I'm too tired to explain any of it now. Just see it. :] We also saw more Saber Marionette J. Thanks to Esca, Faust is a laugh riot to me. His bangs are twice as tall as Allen's and he looks like Jajuka's little brother. *snicker* One of the episodes was about these collectors of Marionettes (they made the bad mistake of stealing Lime.) And at one point Lime says "You're bad! You're thieves!" or something like that, and I and couple other folks shouted "NO! We're TREASURE HUNTERS!" and "Call me treasure hunter or I'll hurt you!" ^^; It's so great when you can make jokes like that around people and they know what the heck you're talking about.
Parents are visiting this weekend so we've all had a lot of fun, eh? I bought a ton of food at the grocery. Good thing is that they carted Matt and I down to Peoria to can see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. *_* It was a suberb movie! The martial arts scenes were great, the scenery was spectacular, the characters were awesome. My favorite was Shun Lien. The woman kicks butt. Lo was pretty awesome too. Bandits. Suteki! After we got back from Peoria we just hung around, watched SNL, played Puzzle Fighter, you know. O_o Geek stuff. Tomorrow I'm going out to finally buy Matt's valentine's day gift. Not that I have a clue what to get. Well, it'll be something, we know that. eheh... -.-; Well, I guess that's it. I'm sleepy. G'nite all.
Random Celestial Thought OTD:
Matt: And then in the morning I have to go to the lab and make graphs.
Me: Well, you know how to do that, so it shouldn't be too bed.
Me: I mean BAD! O_o;
Matt: Tired? ^_^;
Sunday, January 28, 2001 09:20 p.m.
Hiya, folks. It's been quite a weekend. Very, very tiring too. I-fair was Saturday, as I've mentioned. It was wonderful! ^_^ The food was extra tasty and I didn't die of the spiciness of most of the dishes. I've discovered this very oishii food that's like a meatbun only made with mashed potatoes instead of bread. Yumma. :] Unfortunatly I had to avoid the Japanese table since we ended up serving sushi--not a favorite food of mine. And I'm not queasy about the fish or anything (ok, a little...) but I'm not too fond of cucumbers and for the most part, I think it's the vinegar that does it for me. Anywayz, the booth was lovely and not very time-consuming to construct. We had a Playstation set up for people to play Rival Schools. We had a bunch of keen Japanese stuff on the table. So much so that two people came by and wanted to purchase some of the items--one being my new, and not yet read Banana Yoshimoto novel. O_o; I toured the rest of the booths and watched the Indian booth's puppet show which was hilarious. KARES (environmental group) constructed their booth entirely out of pop cans, pizza boxes, and tape. It was really spiffy!
We clubbers hung about the table for most of the afternoon until it was time for entertainment. The hall was packed with folks and it was down right impossible to find a seat in there, but we did. The entertainment was equally as wonderful as the booths, but there was SO much of it. I left the show at 7 (it started at 4) and it was still going on. Late as usual, but you know. Our play was simply great. The audience got a huge kick out of it and we got a lot of laughs. So much for our dignity. :P As the crab, I got to put this weird red stuff in my hair which made it, well, red and shiny. It came out after my much needed shower after the events though.
Matt and I hung out for the rest of the night and ate pizza, played Puzzle Fighter, and watched the Escaflowne movie (which I'll discuss momentarily). We were supposed to watch more SMJ with another club member, but he couldn't be found, so we retreated to my house. Now, the Esca movie. (I don't own this, btw. Matt's sister let him borrow it.) First off, the fansub was a really really really bad copy. I swear, it must have been 4th or 5th generation easy. Thus, I can't comment on how spectacular it looked, because I couldn't tell. One thing that did bother me though about the new character designs was Folken's hair and Hitomi's huge pink lips. Ick. All of the VA's were back. All of the major and some minor players in the series made an appearance in the movie, though often in muddled form. For instance, there were only 3 Dragonslayers shown. Naria and Eria(sp?) were dancing in this bar/restaurant thing owned by Dryden. Millierna was VERY different in personality and design. Little elements of the series showed up too, like the pillar of light and the pendant, though in very different roles. The major people who don't show up are the rest of the Asturian royal family, the snake guy, Dornkirk, Van's parents, anything to do with Fried, and (I think that's it...)
I'm sure most of my reader's know the plot, but if not: The basic story is that Hitomi is your average high school student. Her tarot cards have been replaced by suicidal tendencies. Because of this, Folken summons her to Gaea to help him destroy it to get rid of all the sadness. Things go awry and she ends up inside Escaflowne and with Van, who really doesn't like her at first. Escaflowne disappears as Hitomi gets out of it and turns into...a pendant... Turns out that now Escaflowne is the God of War (Tatakau no Kami) and Hitomi is the predicted (by the Moleman! O_O;) Goddess of Wings (Tsubasa no Kami). While all this is happening Gaea having a war between the White Dragon Clan (on whose side is Allen, his crew, Millierna, Merle, the Moleman, and Van) and the Black Dragon Clan (Folken, Dilly, the Dragonslayers, and this girl named Sora). Both sides are trying to get Escaflowne and Hitomi for their own ends. Basically each Fanel boy is trying to kill the other in revenge for various things. Stuff goes on. Escaflowne reeks some havoc. Dilly reeks some havoc. Did I mention all descendents of the dragon clan can use magic? O_o; Hitomi and Van get closer. We get to see some plummage. *_* The end happens. (I'm not going into this one bit. You can all be surprised and pissed as I was. >:P)
Van isn't as feral as his new design looks. He spends half the movie shirtless which would have been nice since he's not a skinnyboy in the movie, but he wears this odd and ugly armor thing. Hitomi is quite the suicidal girl. She's very different from her TV version self. Less...strong it seems to me. Merle is still "Van-sama!"-ing all over the place. Be assured, despite her new look, she's not a sex kitten. Dilly is himself but Celena is never mentioned. Dilly at the end REALLY pissed me off. Just watch, you'll see. Karen shouldn't hate movie-Allen since he doesn't do anything except look cool. The Moleman has become a soothsayer. O_o; Dryden is the same. We all know Milly changed--she's Allen's right-hand woman or something. Folken is really assy, vengeful, and has bad hair. There's a new character, Sora, who's very odd and mysterious. Her voice irked me--it was too anime-girlish. The plot was ok, similar to the TV series, but pretty different and shruken becuase, hey, it's a movie. The ending... ¬_¬ Escaflowne really has a problem with endings. I'm sure if I read the manga all the way through, I'd hate those too. The music as we know is awesome.
That's about it. I'm glad I saw it though, and I'll prolly buy it once it's commercially released because, hey, it's Escaflowne. Anyway. I should get back to my homework. I really haven't worked on it much this weekend. Oy. Midterm for me on Friday. -_-; Blech. So, bai now.
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "Catch ya later, T-Bone!"
Friday, January 26, 2001 01:38 p.m.
Hi all. (Er...all? O_o) Anywayz, HI! It's been a fun-filled couple of days. We actually started on the J-Club play. Woohoo! It's a really funny Japanese folk tale about a crab and a monkey. The monkey tricks the crab into giving it a riceball for a persimmons seed, then ends up killing the crab by throwing a persimmons at it as it steals the crab's fruit. Then the crab's children, a bee, a chestnut, a mortar, and a pile of cow dung (O_o yeah, I know, stop making that face.) get revenge for the poor crab and assult the monkey in a spectacular scene of comedy and pain. Guess who's the crab? ^^ Second play this year I get to die. I'm sensing a trend. I'm either dead, I die, or I faint in J-Club plays. Heh.
Tonight is booked solid. I have class, followed by Caxton Club reading (which is all but required of my classmates and I by my poetry professor), dinner, play practice, booth set up, J-Club movie, and Saber Marionette J. Hopefully there'll be enough time before I collapse to play my newly acquired copy of Puzzle Fighter. ^^ yay. Also newly required is my passport. I'm so happy it finally came. Ok, so it's been less than two weeks, but I'm anxious about it since I need it for my application which is due in a month. @_@ Oy, that essay needs to get done NOW.
Satuday is the I-fair, which will take up a huge chunk of the day. It's fun and well-worth it though, I suppose. ****Uh..warning, beware of rant...**** It's irksome though that none of my non-Japanese Club friends/acquaintances don't want to go. Piddly little excuses too, in my opinion--the big one being "I'm too busy." I'm sure it's going to take a huge chunk out of the day to tour the booths once over and watch the entertainment. It only happens once a year for goodness sakes, but I always get the same thing. "Too busy. Have fun. Wish I could come, but too bad! XP" But then of course, I have to make time to go out with them after the fair for dinner and whatnot. -_-; Oh well. Shigata ga nai.
Ah, the ever present character selector. Here's mine for FF6. Forgot the URL; it's somewhere in the anime section on select.com though. Hmm. I don't really have any comments about his one except "yay! Celes!"
#1 Celes
# 2 Cyan
# 3 Leo
# 4 Strago
# 5 Terra
# 6 Locke
# 7 Sabin
# 8 Edgar
# 9 Gogo
# 10 Relm
# 11 Gau
# 12 Shadow
# 13 Gestahl
# 14 Kefka
# 15 Setzer
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "You'd better grow fast tree, or I'll pinch you!"
Tuesday, January 23, 2001 11:35 p.m.
Yo. Well, I just back from a lil birthday get together. Not really a party, per say. We sat on the floor/chairs the whole time. We ate various cupcakes and chocolate yummies. We were *extremely* ecchi too. ^^; Not the fangirl-type ecchi though. Although, amazingly 2 of the 6 people there were anime fans and I didn't even know it. Of the remaining 4, two being me and Matt, 3 of us were anime fans. Imagine that! The ecchi-ness was quite interesting too since Matt was the only guy of the group. XD hehehe. Poor thing. Well, not really. He was amused.
I didn't do much over the weekend. Did homework, hung around campus, ate out, etc. I made some purchases on buy.com and made a mad search of my room for stamps to send in my money order. You know how frustrating it is to be 1 cent short? O_o; Quite. I-fair is coming up this weekend. Next week is midterms. Aie... Friday will be the dash to get the booth done. It'll only take a couple of hours I'm sure. We're pretty darn lazy (some of us anyway...-_-;) about things and our theme is pretty simple: Japan, Then and Now. Some folks are making sushi for the food part of the fair. Supposedly (-_-; and >_<) we're going to be doing one of our patented Japanese Club Skits(tm) for the entertainment portion, but as yet even though I signed up last week (Thursday, the first mention of getting started on the thing) I haven't been contacted about practicing and other such things. I have this horrible feeling that A: we're not going to be doing one now or B: the play won't be that good. Either way I'm quite irked. Aho ya na....
^_^ In brighter news, I took more selector tests which I will post over the next couple days. I know you're all dying to see. :P Here's my Slayers one. I knew someone would make one. heh. I must say I'm slightly surprised by my results though. Here's my top 5.
# 1 Luna Inverse
# 2 Kopii Rezo
# 3 Xelloss Metallium
# 4 Zelgadiss Greywords
# 5 Filia Ul Copt
Yeah, an interesting mix of Xel, Zel, and Filia--which is very true. ^_^ But Kopii Rezo? *lets out a peal of high pitched girlish laughter* O_o; *coff* I don't think so. What I really don't get is, why Luna? She never even made an appearance in the series. How can you even determine her personality? Well, I guess that means all the Lina Inverse-type folk should fear me. >:D Just kidding. ^_^
Or am I? >:D
Random Celestial Thought OTD (Guest Thought): "You mean on this bed?! O_O *jumps off* Oh, god that's so wrong!" -- I forget who...
Friday, January 19, 2001 11:06 a.m.
Well, today I've taken the plunge back into the groove of Japanese. Sadly, my college only teaches two years of Japanese. I took an independent study last term, which gave me more practice and kanji knowledge, but since that time I haven't learned a thing. O_o; Sad, ne? So! Today I've taken the inititive to make kanji flashcards, for the sake of review plus to learn new ones (eventually ^^;). I started filling out my study abroad application yesterday. Not too bad until you get to the essay--now that's a pain in the butt. It asks about 8 different questions to be strung together in one essay. All of said questions deserve a "well, duh!" answer, but they also end up being hard to put into words. Things like "What is the value of a study abroad program, and what's the value of this program specifically?" and "What can you give to this program?" I have trouble putting the obvious into words--I'm very intuition-based in my thinking.
I had something really interesting to blog about the other day, but I've plumb forgotten what it was now. O_o; So, I guess I'll just talk about FFIX. I've been playing sporadicly since I got back from school, but I'm progressing. I'm a couple hours past the beginning of Disc 3 (of 4). Those who haven't bought the game should. It has actual plot although the goals of the villian are still mysterious at this point. Basically he's contenting himself with being an ass and riding his dragon. ^^; It's visually pleasing (as long as you avoid prolonged eyecontact with Zidane's hip-pads and Steiner all together). All the characters are very likeable (except for Steiner), the art is beautiful, it's actually chocked full of little things to do even if they aren't sidequests, and the battle & ability system although easy is still fun. The FMVs are gorgeous--my favorite thus far is the showdown outside Madin(sp?) Sari. The whole thing is a plot spoiler so I'll just say "*_* Suteki."
BTW, Karen, did I tell you that despite the feminine hips, I'm 99.99% sure that Kuja is a man? Finally had an FMV with him, and I've seriously not seen such a girly bishounen since Nuriko. It's SO hard to tell. O_o; Anywayz, I must run off to lunch, so I'll leave you with my Final Fantasy female character personality test. I guess it's accurate, but I dunno why Yuffie was so high and Aeris so low. A big "O_o;;;" to the Ultimecia and Edea ones.
# 1 Garnet
# 2 Quistis
# 3 Yuffie
# 4 Ultimecia
# 5 Edea
# 6 Eiko
# 7 Aeris
# 8 Rinoa
# 9 Selphie
# 10 Tifa
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "So what you're saying is that they were whores?"
Monday, January 15, 2001 10:45 p.m.
DANCE! Evolution! ^^
You may have noticed more changes to the blog. Well, good for you. I changed it a bit. I'm surprisingly awake today! Maybe it's the Two-Mix in the background or maybe is the Qigong. Or maybe it's the cookies I ate two hours ago. ^^ Anywayz, it's Monday again so I had class. It was open house here so the campus was teeming with perspective students. Only depressing thing about the day was there was no mail. We have no holidays at Knox so I didn't even realize it was one of those days where the mail doesn't come. I really need my birth certificate that's being mailed to me. O_o; I need my passport pronto for my study abroad application. Speaking of which, I finally decided on a program--the JCMU (Japanese Center for Michigan Universities) summer program in Hikone, Shiga Prefecture. It'll be from May 31 through the beginning of August (the 4th or 7th, if I remember correctly.) I can't wait to go. ^^
Not much in the Random News tonight. I did, however, take the Evangelion testor.
# 1 Hikari Horaki [I guess. o.o Haven't seen the show in awhile to remember much about her]
# 2 Kaworu Nagisa [^^ yeah, baby.]
# 3 Maya Ibuki [I'd have to agree with this one]
# 4 Rei Ayanami [I thought for sure she'd be higher. I have a lot in common with her...personality-wise...]
# 5 Ryouji Kaji [Uh, no.]
# 6 Gendou Ikari [O_o; I'm not a bastard who'd shun my son.]
# 7 Makoto Hyuuga [Don't remember much about him.]
# 8 Ritsuko Akagi [I have better taste in men.]
# 9 Shinji Ikari [I'm a worry-wart like he is. I understand him more than I'm like him, I guess.]
# 10 Aoba Shigeru [Don't remember.]
# 11 Kouzou Fuyutsuki [Again, no remembering.]
# 12 Asuka Langley Sohryu [Really not like her.]
# 13 Misato Katsuragi [^^ Ditto!]
# 14 Pen-Pen [Squawk!]
# 15 Touji Suzuhara [Ok, it's been 2 years since I've seen the show, OK? >:P]
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "If Ein had a twin, would he be a ditto dog?"
Sunday, January 14, 2001 11:00 p.m.
Once again, here I am with the long time 'tween updates. But enough about that. :P I updated! I archived! I changed format! I'm still looking for a nice picture (not to mention figure out how to get my stuff on the network ¬¬;; It's being mean.) I'm also still working on format. We'll see how soon I change it after today. It looks pretty good though. I've been doing a lot since I got back to school. All the usual stuff is back in place. I'm fencing and singing in the choir. I'm doing homework til it comes out my ears. It's not that much this term though, at least compared to last term. Darn normal and I'm happy with it. I'm taking poetry this term so that's been creatively taxing, but it's a good thing. I'm on my 3rd poem, which is currently being written as I type. (I'm switching between screens...^^)
I did start something new and interesting--Qigong. It's a practice kinda like yoga (kinda) in which you do body movement and breathing exercise to move energy (chi, ki, however you want to romanize it) around your body. As you get better, you become healthier, have move energy, and maybe heal yourself and possibly others. I was hoping to learn ki blasts too (yes, too much Fushigi Yuugi for me, thanks. :P) but that's not taught in this class. Matt's been going for awhile now and he finally got me to go. It was pretty darn cool. I could actually feel the chi. ^^! My body feels pretty good too. One odd thing about the night though, I think Matt stole some of my chi. O_o; We were doing this one exercise together and I got really cold during it when I had been fairly warm doing it by myself. *shrug* I'm betting this is why I feel so damn tired right now. erg.
I've been taking character selector tests too. Here's the Utena one:
# 1 Utena [yay! ^^ Pretty much, but I'm not that athletic]
# 2 Juri [I adore Juri!]
# 3 Mikage [uhm...don't know too much about him yet]
# 4 Shiori [take that back, test! O_o;]
# 5 Miki [I adore Miki-kun too. ^^]
# 6 Nanami [I am NOT!]
# 7 Saionji [uh, no.]
# 8 Ruka [never seen him in action; he fences though]
# 9 Tsuwabuki [Oniisama ni narumon! O_o; Jyanai.]
# 10 Wakaba [heh. not really.]
# 11 Akio [HISSS!]
# 12 Kozue [she's mean to Miki and let Touga fondle her. yuck.]
# 13 Anthy [what's the sound of one hand slapping?]
# 14 Touga [not at all.]
I'll also post my Fushigi Yuugi results.
# 1 Chichiri [I wasn't trying to get him at all, but look. LOOK! XD WAI!]
# 2 Mistukake [We're quiet and not popular with the fans. I admit to ignoring him too. ^^]
# 3 Amiboshi [so cute. I forgive him for being related to Suboshi.]
# 4 Chiriko [I guess...]
# 5 Miaka [Uh, O_o; no.]
# 6 Tamahome [Again, no.]
# 7 Hotohori [ok, so I'm vain sometimes...]
# 8 Nuriko [XD wai!]
# 9 Suboshi [psycho yo yo boy! >.<]
# 10 Soi [she'd better be toward the bottom of the list...]
# 11 Tasuki [i adore him, but we're not much alike]
# 12 Yui [not at all like her]
# 13 Ashitare [grr...]
# 14 Nakago [HISSSSS!!!! Evil bastard!]
# 15 Tomo [I have no feelings on Tomo. O_o]
Random Celestial Thought OTD: "The donut has revitalized me! :D"
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