A Song in the Trees

雪が降っている～

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:25:40 GMT

[In English: It's snowing~]

I was surprised to get up to let Whisp sit on the porch and see snow coming down. I didn't think that it was cold enough for that yet! It's only barely starting to stick to the brick, but the lawn is getting pretty covered up.

I had my kanji final on Thursday - it's going to be graded harshly, but we got the test ahead of time to practice. Yesterday I submitted my final big paper for the English course. An argumentative essay about fanfiction, it was really fun to write.

I hit 50k words on the 27th. I still need to finish my plot, though. I think it's more of a 70k~80k word book, although I'm not entirely sure. It'll finish when it finishes, I suppose... and I still need to edit my previous two. I'm planning on doing that when my English course is done.

This morning I lazed around in bed for a little while, thinking about the ships my characters can make (from book 1 and theoretical VN). Like, "A&C and B&D might be the official ships, but A&B would make a decent couple. A would be eternally patient with B, who would really like having someone she could convince to do almost anything with her, although in the end it would be more like their regular friendship. Not B&C, though. She'd get too impatient at him, he'd be too shy when it came to anything romantic..." Is this weird? *laugh* It's fun, though.

Oh, and I bought some YnM doujinshi from Yahoo!Japan Auctions. It was more expensive than I would have like, but the doujinshi themselves were cheap (￥300 each) and it was of a pairing I love. (Any guesses? Heh...) The first time I looked, too. Planning on writing a review of the shopping service (Crescent Shop), which was overall positive.

Aaaand finally, I'm really excited about the announcement of volume 12 for YnM! And I found this blog post from someone in Japanese: "Yamimatsu new book! I can die now!Wait, I can't die until I read it (line break) I love Yamimatsu!" With a few more exclamation marks. (And it seems that the release date is this person's birthday, too?) For some reason, it made me really happy to read that (besides the fact that I could). I guess fangirling (even if it's a guy? I'm not sure...) is universal ♥

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:23:28 GMT

Frigging LJ deleted this the first time >_____>

I meant to update this a long time ago. Oops.

I've had my midterms already. I got 88 on my oral (better than I expected, since I was 5 minutes late to the 15-minute test >_< and there was one part where I barely knew what sensei was saying and basically kept saying yes) 98.5 on kanji and 100 on writing (3 off, but then I got 3 for using kanji for some reason).

I also had a dream where I spoke in Japanese! Real Japanese! I even said something, and then immediately wondered if I had said it in the right context.

I'm also taking a writing course online at the university. *will rewrite later*

Unfortunately, I've been sick the past few days. *also rewrite later*

I can't believe NaNo's almost here! I have characters and a vague plot and research, I just hope it can all come together for 50k words.

ただいま～

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:24:59 GMT

A little late, but I'm home! Our planes didn't crash, and I had a delicious cake for my birthday. Here's the rest of the trip log. Photos should come sometime.

Day 13:

We stayed in a little late today, before going out to visit a local park. My dad and I discussed Japanese and language learning as we walked around a koi-and-turtle pond, and then we all sat on a bench in the shade near another pond. The landscape had gentle hills, some rocks, and many trees and other plants. I look up a couple of them later... たぶのき (tabu no ki) is in the subgenus Machilus (genus Persea) and the species thunbergii specifically. さるすべり (sarusuberi) is in Lagerstroemia, species indica specifically. Percea is a group of evergreen trees in the laurel family, the most famous member being the avocado, and Lagerstroemia is commonly known as Crape-myrtle.

After walking through the park for a while, we went to the train station that was almost next door and took a train towards Shibuya, where we got out and walked around some. Pachinko parlors really are loud! I'd hate to go inside one. Before we left, we got some lunch at a grocery store.

After eating it at a train station, we went on to Shinjuku, which we explored for a while along some streets without cars. There was this one store with a whole floor devoted to comics – and I found Yami no Matsuei and Fruits Basket! I haven't been able to find them in other bookstores because they're older series, and the stores only seem to have current ones...

At that point, we had been out for hours, so we all felt pretty tired and ready for dinner.

Day 14:

This day we went to the Ghibli museum. It's on the edge of a park, so there's lots of trees and insects and a few flowers, and on the way you can walk next to a canal. It's a very interesting little museum; the stained glass windows have Ghibli characters on them, and the first exhibit you'll probably go in to is about the illusion and history of animation.

After walking around in there for a while, and going up to the rooftop garden (which us this nice metal spiral staircase) we made our way out and then sat on a park bench a little off the path for a while. As we walked back to the train station, we went back along a residential street. It was so pretty! The house were small, and so were the yards, but they were nicely kept and neat. I don't think that I would mind living in one of those...

Day 15:

Today was shopping day. Eek. For Lolita fashion, at least. My dad wanted to rest his foot some more, and my mom decided that today would be perfect for something he's not interested in. So I dressed up, and my mom put my hair up into a bun, and then we left. I was initially really really nervous about going out in public dressed like that, but I didn't get that many looks.

First we headed for Harajuku. The three stores I wanted to look at were along or (in one case) very near to Takeshita-dori, so we walked down that. There were a lot of people, but apparently there are even more on Sundays – my mom said that she can't imagine more than the ones that were already there. The first store was Bodyline, up some stairs to the left. They have a nice big sign, it's not terribly easy to miss. Anyway, they had some loudish pop music playing, and the carpet was red. We browsed around a bit, and then I picked out a nice classic skirt and one of their 'sailor fuku' costumes (I liked it on the website, and I've wanted a sailor suit for a while...).

Once we had paid, we went back out and down to the street again. We checked very quickly in at 'Gothic and Lolita' which is almost across the street, and then a little further down is Closet Child's Harajuku branch. The racks in it are crowded closely together – it's single file, pretty much. I found a nice skirt and this really nice Meta dress with their emblem in gold that seems like it should fit me – but since they were on the sales rack, I couldn't try them on, and I ended up putting the skirt back (it didn't look quite right anyway). *googles* Looks like the print is 'Swan Embroidery', which describes it well. It was pretty cheap, as well.

Next we visited the Innocent World Harajuku. That store was much nicer than the previous two – nice classical music that wasn't too loud and racks spaced properly apart. Since it was a brand store, we didn't get anything, but I enjoyed looking at and feeling everything.

Then we headed to Shinjuku. I managed to navigate us to the Closet Child Shinjuku. I tried on a blouse there, but it didn't fit, and nothing else caught my fancy, so we moved on to Innocent World Shinjuku. I was planning to just look around some more, because it's such a nice store and I like the brand, but... the blouse I have is a little small, and we didn't really find anything I looked so much in the other stores, so... we ended up getting a blouse. It's really nice! And I got to try it on, and it fits, and it's long-sleeved so I can wear it when it gets cold! By then I'd used up my money between clothes and books, but my mom still has more work for me and I really plan to at least try and tutor when we get back (or some other kind of job) so I will definitely pay it back. (And it's a really nice shirt... I can wear it to school, even.)

Our last stop was very quick, at the Marui One building, just to take a quick look at the brand stores there because I wanted to show my mom. She doesn't think my skirt is so poofy anymore.

We went back to our hotel after I bought some more manga, and then we all went out to dinner. In the hotel lobby my parents took a few photos of me, since I was dressed up and all, but the lighting wasn't so good. So we moved on to the adjoining building to look for a place to eat. We settled on a traditional Japanese restaurant. It was a little worrying, because they didn't have a no-smoking area, and my dad really can't handle cigarette smoke, but we just hoped that nobody would come in and smoke near us.

Unfortunately, before we even got our food, somebody did. The waiter came back over and we were trying to explain 'can we have it in a box to go', and I said in Japanese that my dad had an allergy to tobacco. He seemed to understand and rushed off, and my dad had to get out of the room. He came back and led us over to an area where we had to take our shoes off, past another and to a private traditional one! It turned out that we couldn't just get a box or bag... so I slipped on some slippers and rushed out to find my dad and tell him. The door to the room closed, and no one had been smoking in it (or even in the next room over), so it would be fine. He went back in and to the room, and we had our dinner.

It was good. Fried sweet potato, tofu, 'Japanese-style omelet' which was folded over and over, garlic-sprinkled french fries, and sliced and fried haddock root (so that's what that tastes like...). The dishes were served one at a time, so we had a chance to enjoy each one a bit on its own before the next. The table had a space underneath it so we didn't have to kneel for forever. In the end, it was a really excellent place, and even if they added to the bill for the room it was worth it.

After all that, we wanted to take some more photos now that we had access to actual decent lighting. At first we tried in the hotel room, but my mom didn't like the light so we moved into the hallway next to the elevators. I moved around between the lights as directed. When we first came out, a couple of girls were going down an elevator, and a woman was yelling after them, and we told her that they had gone down as she came over. As we were finishing up, she came back over from her room, and while she was waiting for the elevator to come up she said, “She's so beautiful!” while looking at me! And then she said that I looked like a princess. I said, “Thank you so much,” and couldn't stop smiling as we went back to our room. I've read so much about people getting 'Bo Peep comments' or other nasty things, and the first one I get is something so nice like that!

Day 16:

Today we went towards the coast and saw a zen temple. It's called Engaku-ji and has an interesting history. It was even nicer than the shrine we went to before – this one had beautiful gardens, including a moss garden. I managed to get some really nice photos of a dragonfly that landed on a bamboo fence post and let me get right up to it. And the architecture, for my mom.

The last part was up a lot of stairs. Just as we were about to head down – there wasn't a ton to see up there – we noticed an insect trying to drag a dead spider! Only it wasn't exactly dead... my mom left pretty quickly, but my dad and I stayed and watched for a while. I took some pictures and video, too.

We weren't tired yet by the time we left, so we rode the train down to the end of the line. We grabbed some lunch from a convience store in the train station, and ate on the train. I picked out what I thought was apple juice, but was actually some kind of jelly. The label said 「りんごこんにゃく」(ringo konnyaku). I knew that 'ringo' is 'apple' because of Death Note, but I had no idea what konnyaku is. It turns out that it is “a gelatinous food made from devil's-tongue starch” according to Yahoo!Dictionary (the Japanese one). Not a great choice, as it doesn't make a very good drink, and my dad used some of the calories just getting the last bit out of the box.

At one of the stops we got out to walk around the town for a little while. I got some more manga at a bookstore, and there was a bridge over a river that had fish shapes in the metal sides. There were koi in the river, too. On the way back, we had a quick look at the neighborhood shrine. Overall, a good day.

Day 17:

Today we went up a mountain. When we got there from the train station, we took a cable car ride up to the main trail, and then we walked up. The forest there is very beautiful, and there were many kinds of plants. Just before the temple, there's a long stretch of wooden boards with a name written on each one. Then you get to the temple, which has some nice architecture. I got to be photographer for my mom again.

The main building is up one set of stairs, and then you can go up some more stairs to see some of the other buildings. My mom didn't want to go, so just me and my dad went. Before the first building was a hill with tall grass and some statues on it. The building itself was painted in bright colors, red and blue and others over carvings. Up beyond that was a couple of other buildings, and then the local peak.

When we got down, my dad wasn't feeling like walking any more, so we worked our way back down. This time, we (at least, the two of us) had front seats in the cable car (my mom sat back away from the front – she doesn't like heights). It was the best seat! I took a video, but it's much better in person.

Then we went back a bit on the train line, and took another couple of trains out to the end of the line in another valley. The mountains there were beautiful too, although the houses went out farther than they did from Kyoto. When we reached the end, we had initially thought about eating there, but we ended up taking the train back right away because of the times. On the other train we had to take back to the station near our hotel, I took some pretty photos by upping the exposure time on the camera and then taking a picture of the lights we were passing by. Some of them turned out very nice, and I might be able to use them for manips.

Day 18:

We got off to a bit of a late start... but at least I had some good dreams (if a little odd). Before, we had plans to go to Nikkou, but after riding the trains for so many hours yesterday we decided to go to the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation instead. It was interesting, although I don't think I learned very many new things. I did like that they emphasized that science is a teamwork thing; they mentioned that Edison had a whole team of people that worked with him, and said that if you're having trouble figuring out how to do something, maybe you should have somebody else help you to solve the problem. And most of the text was also in English. My favorite part, though, was the medical section, which talked about how different technologies are changing healthcare, especially ones related to genetics.

Day 19:

Today we returned to Kyoto. Originally, we were going to Mount Fuji, but things didn't work out, so instead we had an extra day in Tokyo and now an extra one in Kyoto. We rode the Shinkansen and got into the hotel without any trouble. But the check-in time wasn't for more than an hour, so after they took our bags we went to go have lunch. We decided on the first cafe again – Lipton – and my parents had the omelet-rice while I wanted to try the green tea parfe. It was... interesting, as I thought it would be. I've had green tea ice cream before, but this also had a layer with red beans, some clear rice starch thingies (I think – still not exactly sure what they were) and at the bottom some sort of jelly that was the color of seaweed. Very interesting...

We still had time to kill, so we went to go see a Japanese post office. They had an actually decent number of people working there, and some nice stamps. Then we headed back to check in. On the way back, there was one store that puzzled us for a moment. It had socks, and shoes, and baskets, all next to each other. The name was 'Three Coins', and then I figured it out when I saw a sign; everything was 300 yen, or 315 with tax. It's like a dollar store, in that way. That explains the very different items. When we returned to the hotel, it took us about thirty seconds to check in (the same room!) although we didn't stay in the room very long.

Down the street is a temple. When my parents went there before, it was closed, but it was earlier when we set off, and it was still open. A sign claims that it's the biggest wooden building in the world, and it is (was?) the head shrine for some sect of Zen Buddhism. It's another building where you have to take off your shoes, like the castle. There seemed to be a room in the front, but it was closed, so we walked around to the side, where there is a large room with tatami mats. It feels nice under your feet, and it smells nice.

The room is in front of a shrine, and there were people sitting and praying. After looking at the shrine, we sat down (my parents opted for the small chairs, and I just kneeled on the floor) and meditated for a few minutes, until a couple of priests started closing the doors to the shrine. On our walk back to the hotel, a discussion about koans had me reminding my dad about something we learned from Death Note: 'mu' is called a nonsense syllable in books my dad has read about Zen Buddhism, but it isn't. It's a reading of the kanji for 'nothing'.

After lounging in the room for a while, my mom took me to the department store, because when we were there before we never did get around to look at the 'stationary' floor, and I wanted to see if they had origami paper. A store did, and there were lots of other things related to paper, too. Art supplies, postcards, address books. And some things that weren't really related to paper, such as bags and squares of cloth that I think might have been for furoshiki. It was interesting to look around.

Day 20:

Today we went to Hiroshima. It's a couple of hours from Kyoto by Shinkansen, although there is even less to see because the train spends a lot of time in tunnels. From the station, we took a tram to the entrance to the peace park. Right when you enter it, you can see the A-Bomb dome (the closest building left standing – the bomb was about 600m above it). We walked around from there through the park a bit, and then to the museum.

The museum was... interesting. The first floor talks about the politics of the decision to bomb. It was rather fair, for the most part – they didn't pretend that the city was innocent, or even the country, and talked about how Hiroshima was a war city. They even mentioned the Rape of Nanking. However, it wasn't completely fair – it wasn't a major point, but they said that one of the reasons for bombing Japan was that after all the money and manpower spent, the US had to 'justify' the cost of the bomb. What? It was a secret project, and a lot more money than that was spent on the rest of the war. There also was only a very brief mention of the fact that Japan would just not give up – a line about 'a 100 million honorable deaths' but that was it.

The next floor up talked about what had happened to the city a bit, and then the international angle. One of the paragraphs said that there are hibakusha (bomb survivors) all over the world – people who returned to their home countries, or who were poisoned by fallout from Chernobyl, or things like that.

The highest floor is the most disturbing... it talks about the effects on the bomb on structures and living beings. The thing that greets you is a life-size mock-up of the immediate aftermath. People moving forward, skin hanging and blackened, clothes in tatters, arms held up like zombies. There are also a lot of pictures and artifacts to illustrate the text. A wardrobe with embedded glass shards, melted bottles, removed keloids and damaged fingernails.

After that we walked back along the river and under the road. We were heading for an art museum. Along the way, we walked through a little festival for young kids. It looked familiar, with a face-painting booth and a game involving water in a little plastic pool. As we were leaving, a couple of woman came up to us and gave us these little balls suspended on string, with bells inside. They were made with thin strips of plastic very loosely woven together (loosely enough that the sides didn't touch). We should hang them from the porch...

Finally, after a bit of walking and some help from a random woman passing by, we got to the art museum! The main exhibit was French painters. There were a few Picasso paintings, but one of them I thought didn't have enough contrast – if you got close, about all you could see was one woman's back and it was hard to drag my eyes to the darker parts. There was also this very nice one of a shepherd leading a flock home and stopping to talk to a farm boy. It was beautiful, and full of movement; one sheep's head ducked down for a blade of grass, the shepherd had only just paused, and another sheep was midstep. There was also an exhibit about a Japanese picture book author.

When we were done, we waited for our train and took the Shinkansen back through the dark.

Day 21:

We pack, we get on the train back to Oosaka, and arrive in plenty of time for our plane. At the airport my dad and I both buy a book – mine is a collection of three dark short stories by the same author, and his is a book I should read – and my mom and I get some sweets. There were green tea KitKats! Which weren't that bad.

Our plane ride is uneventful. I get a little sleep. When we go through the airport, while he's checking our passports the guy at... Customs and Immigration? asks us a few questions about our trip and then tells us, "Welcome home." I'm sure he says it a hundred times a day, but those words... it meant we really were home, somehow.

There's a long wait for our other plane back home. I sleep most of the way, and we arrive just fifteen or twenty minutes before midnight. As we come out of the hallway that leads us to our baggage, I notice the date's ticked over, and suddenly my age is too.

The drive home is dark. The cats at home are welcoming. We're home.

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:05:53 GMT

Day 12, with more Comiket. None tomorrow, though - my mom's had enough and I don't see anything that looks terribly interesting to me.

Today's line? Was a lot longer. We got off the train and just kept walking... and walking... and walking... maybe even a few kilometers! It took an hour and a half to get in the building (thank goodness for hats! And our fans) and another 20~30 minutes to get to the hall I wanted. I think there were a lot more people today...

We went through the circles on my list, although there were a couple I couldn't find x_x Cicles, please make your name clear. However, several of my 'want!' circles I could find had books I wanted <3 Then we went and browsed through the Fullmetal Alchemist section. I picked up some more books. We browsed around a little of the rest of the hall before ducking into the halls across the way for a moment, and then sitting down to rest because my mom was getting tired.

Somehow we made it to the west halls, where the game-based doujinshi were. I found a Chrono Trigger doujinshi! Two actually, but I only got one of them. Too bad I probably won't be here in March for the Chrono series-only event. At that point, we were feeling pretty tired, so we left and lined up for another 25 minutes for the train. Total books: 15, all but one FMA.

Both days we saw cosplayers, and even people in yukata. Not a lot of westerners, but more than I thought: two men on the first day, in line for the catalog, maybe one man today in the epic line of epic longness, and two women at the beginning of today as we were going through my marked circles. Both days were pretty tiring, but I thought they were fun! (My mom will ask to differ.)

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:14:12 GMT

Oh hey, I managed to survive Comiket!

Comiket Comiket Comiket is today. Lots of people, tons of doujinshi, and much fun!

My mom and I set out a little late, but still at a decent time. It didn't look very sunny out, thankfully, though it was still warm. We managed to cram into a car at the 'monorail' station, though I think we took up most of the rest of the available space... a lot of people got off at one stop, though, and we were even able to sit down. At one point, we crossed the rainbow bridge (which according to X should have fallen a decade ago).

When we got to the right station, we bought our return tickets right away and then followed the people, poles, and signs to the line. There were so many people, my mom thought that we weren't even going to get in >_> and she read on her Kindle while I just looked around. At first it was a little slow, but then at one point we could just walk normally, up and up the stairs. And they were selling the catalog! So, we bought one. It really was helpful, although I think we might have managed without it. The total wait was about fifty minutes, although about 20~30 were spent on the catalog and waiting to buy it.

Then we went in, and headed through the 'Tunnel of Horrors', as one guide put it, which has a low ceiling and little light. I was fanning myself and my mom with the map, and wishing I had remembered to bring the fan. Then all of a sudden, a lady right in front of us reached into her bag, pulled out a fan, and handed it to us! It's a pretty one, too.

We managed to get to the East Halls, and I started going around my shopping list. I only had a few circles, so we finished up pretty quickly, and I browsed through the Code Geass and then the Death Note section. There was also one circle that I had been hoping might have a Princess Tutu book – and they did. Total: 10 books.

Then we went and looked around the West Halls for a bit. There were a few vaguely interesting things, but I didn't buy anything more. Since we were tired, we went home, after waiting another twentyish minutes to get on a train. Then we stopped to get some food and headed on up to our hotel room to collapse.

Actually, I thought it was going to be a lot worse, but somehow it wasn't as bad as some places have made it seem like to me. Maybe it's usually more crowded? We're going again tomorrow – Fullmetal Alchemist stuff is then, along with some other stuff – so I'll see if it's any different. And I'll definitely try to remember the fans...

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:00:48 GMT

My bookmarks were not recoverable. :(

In more recent news, Japan! I fail at updating, so there's our first ten days here, which includes Kyoto and two days of Tokyo. We had a really nice view from our Kyoto hotel, and we have an even better one here! The Tokyo Tower looks so pretty at night~

Warning, first day is a bit weirdly written. I might edit it when we get back. It's also a bit long.

1:40 AM EDT August 3, 2009. I ask my mother to wake me up by 2:30, and then go to bed. I don't actually expect to get any sleep; how could I, when the days ahead are so exciting? I turn over several times and sometimes listen to the crickets, which are otherwise pure background noise. Somehow, I do manage to fall asleep, but not for long – perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes at most. Then it's time to get up again and finish the final preparations for our trip.

3:25 AM EDT: The small bus arrives that will take us from our house the airport. My mom has trouble with the seatbelt, and moves up to the front seat, so I scoot over and get it on my first try. The ride is dark and filled with staticy radio that I can't seem to hear more than a few words of. I like it, and quietly sit in my bouncing seat and watch the electric stars of light go by.

4:15 AM EDT: We arrive at the airport and everybody gets their bags sorted out. Then we have the minor adventure of check-in, before heading off to get through Security – which takes all of two minutes. We find our gate and sit there for a couple of hours before boarding the plane.

I'm a bit scared as well as excited as the plane starts to accelerate down the runway. I remember when I last flew three years ago, on one of the rides my ears had trouble with popping. But this time there's no trouble at all, and I watch the city shrink until it looks like a miniature, then gets covered in clouds. I have a view right over the wing, and watch it cast a shadow on the clouds.

The flight will be about five hours long. I sleep for most of it, but not all at once; the seats lean back maybe five degrees, and there's a headrest keeping my head up, so it takes a few minutes to fall asleep, and I keep waking up. I play one of my games a little, and look out the window as the plane goes down. At one point, I think that some barren mountains are sand, and clouds the sea! Eventually, we land.

2:04 PM EDT: Having gotten to San Francisco safely, we wait some more until our plane to Osaka starts boarding. This time, the cloud cover is lower, but when we break above the layer of clouds it is like looking onto a field of snow. Even as we go higher and holes appear, there is only blue, and it's like flying over Antarctica. Occasionally, there are some higher clouds that spoil the illusion, but it is beautiful.

I only sleep an hour this time, and when I try later I can't fall asleep. I play games on my DS and the netbook, and read. After a long flight, we are over Japan, and I get excited over being able to see the coastline. My ears, however, won't pop right as the plane starts to descend. I yawn and swallow as fast as I can, but it hardly seems to help. By the time we are on the ground they no longer hurt, but my hearing isn't right. It doesn't get completely fixed until the evening.

2:98 PM JST: We are off the plane and go head off through customs. It's really easy. My parents get fingerprint scans (why doesn't the US have this?) and we hand off our passports and that's mostly it. Then we go to get the JR pass, and reserved seats on a train to Kyoto. It is a bit of a scramble – the train leaves in three minutes – but we get there and enjoy a peaceful train ride through interesting cityscape.

We relaxed for a little while in our hotel room, then went out for a bit. There's an underground plaza nearby our hotel, and we walked through the part with restaurants and cafes. Every store has a display of plastic models of the food, so it is mostly easy to tell which foods have meat and which don't. At the restaurant we choose, we get a set of egg salad sandwiches and a dish with an omelet over rice and vegetables, with two different kinds of sauce. It's very delicious. As we walk out, the main stores have closed, so we go back to our room for the night.

Day 2:

We woke up, got ready to go, and headed out of our hotel. After a quick stop at the tourist information place, we decided to go to Arashiyama. The train ride was nice and scenic, although we accidentally went a station too far and barely made the next returning one. We walked towards the river, stopping at a store for some food. Once we reached it, we walked upstream. On the other side was a tall hill covered in trees, so thick there was no room for more. We stopped briefly to eat our food on a bench. There was a school outing, and as a few of the kids walked by us they said “Harro!” to us, and we said “Hello!” back to them.

Once we finished eating, we continued onwards. The path we wanted changed directions and had a staircase, with wide steps that weren't very steep. The road was uphill from there, and it was hot and humid, and we were all wearing pants, so we got pretty warm. There were a lot of poems carved in stone. Past them was a part of road that had a few frogs on the other side of the fence, with a deep croak. We made it to the bamboo forest.

'Forest' is the right word. The bamboo was as tall as trees! They were also thick around – no wonder it's used in some places for building house frames. There was a break in the forest for a graveyard, which was pretty interesting. The graves are very square, made of polished granite, with three layers, and a space for offerings.

When we got out, we were all feeling pretty tired, so we decided to get some bananas at a store we had seen earlier and get some drinks at the store we had bought the other food from. And I managed to say more than one line to a person! After we paid I said 「ありがとう」(arigatou/thanks) and the shopkeeper smiled and said 「ありがとう」back. He said something else that I couldn't quite hear and my mom said to tell him that we're from the US so I said 「アメリカ人です。」(amerikajin desu/we're American). He said 「ようこそ！」(youkoso/welcome!) and then we went on our way. It wasn't a lot, but he seemed happy that I knew even that bit of Japanese.

At the train station, we managed to get on the wrong train and headed in the opposite direction of what we wanted. Since it was an express train, we passed a few stops before the train stopped, and then we went and waited to get on the right one. At least the valley we ended up it was pretty.

Day 3:

Hello there Japanese language, it's nice to be speaking you. This morning when we headed down to the underground shopping center again for breakfast, I ordered in Japanese. I know I messed up a little bit, but at least I tried.

Then we took a bus to Kiyomizu temple. It didn't take us right there, because we took the long way to have a nice walk. There was a small temple that we walked through. Beside the path was a small lotus pond, and somebody was picking the seeds while a woman sat on a bench. When we asked what the name of the plants in Japanese was, they told us 'hasu'. So we were going to move on and I was writing it down... but then the man pulled out a little electronic dictionary and showed us the word! Then he showed us the word for 'income' (income for the temple). And gave me a lotus seed. And then the woman gave us little plastic bags with origami Totoro and elephants in them. And he showed us the word origami. They were really nice!

Walking up to Kiyomizu temple was exhausting. It was hot, humid, and uphill. At least we got quite a view; we were walking on a path in the middle of the graveyard! And it was huge. Thirty to forty feet to each side, plus another hill, for at least half a mile up the hill.<

The architecture of the place was pretty interesting, and the balcony that it is famous for has a pretty spectacular view. Unfortunately, the twenty or so life-size Buddha statues that they have were all set back twenty feet behind a wire screen >_> We also saw a shrine with little statues with red hats and bibs, which I correctly remembered are memorials for children who have died...

After all that, we were ready to get on the bus and go somewhere else. On the way back we took a different street that had some handicraft shops and a pottery museum (though we didn't go in). One store looked especially interesting to me, so we went in. It had a nice display of many chopstick pairs, and I bought a pair with some pretty green sakura petals for only 630 yen. We also got a fan at another shop – it wasn't the nicest, but it was the cheapest, and it does help you feel cooler.

The next place we went was the Kyoto Traditional Handicraft Museum. It looks small from the front, but if you go back you discover that it actually has a museum and not just a shop. It was very interesting, with all sorts of crafts, from arrows to sugar-dough confectioneries that are formed into very realistic plants to laquerware to dyeing to roof tiles.

>We were going to go to the International Manga Museum today, but we were so tired that we didn't. We are definitely going to go, though. Instead, we went down for dinner. This time we stopped at a traditional Japanese restaurant instead of the western-styled one we went to for breakfast. There was rice and udon and soba and tea and chopsticks. I hope our table manners were okay.

Afterwards we stopped by a bakery in case we got hungry later, and went to a bookstore that I saw. It had manga!! Most of it I hadn't heard of, but they did have some Death Note and I picked up volumes 4 and 5. My dad was looking for a dictionary and got to talk to someone who had taught herself (some?) English. I said a few things to her in Japanese, too. At both places, the cashiers were very quick, they wasted absolutely no time. And the bookstore wrapped my books in paper (I guess so the covers stay alright?).

Day 4:

Before we go out, my dad notices that his foot (which has been giving him trouble for a while) is bleeding under the toenail, so he wants to see a doctor. The hotel has one, so they take him off to there. It seems he has an infection... So, he's not going out today. My mom and I went and had breakfast, then stopped by the bakery and another shop for some milk and juice. We took this back, and then managed to get ourselves on the subway.

The International Manga museum is really close to the subway, just across the street and down the block. It is also a library. That is a very good word for it, as it has at least seven areas with full-sized shelves filled with manga. There is also a special exhibit about that evolution of yokai, Japanese monsters. We spent a lot of time there, maybe five and a half hours?

When we got tired, we walked down the block and then back to the train station and caught the subway back. We got a meal, including some parfes! Yum~ And then we returned.

Day 5:

Again, my dad didn't think he should walk, so it's just me and my mother today. First we went to a textile museum. Museum isn't quite the right word... it's mostly a shop, with a smaller bit of museum. The museum part was very interesting, though. At the hour, there was a kimono fashion show, and suddenly there were a lot of people! I guess they must have been spread out, because there sure didn't seem like so many before. After the show, we looked at the shop some more – the fabric there was all so beautiful, especially the kimono. There was this purple yukata I really liked, it had nice flowers on the sleeve... but I don't know enough about wearing them.

Then we walked to the Raku pottery museum. I thought it would be rather boring – I would just sit somewhere and maybe look a bit while my mom admired the pottery. But it absolutely wasn't! First, we nearly the missed the place – it's part of a home, so it was easy to overlook it, and we weren't even sure we were in the right place until some other people came along. It was a place where you had to take off your shoes for slippers. I ended up getting in for free. In the first room, you can sit down and watch a video when it comes on. The first time it was Japanese, of course, but then it was shown in English :) Anyway, it was very interesting.

Then you go into the museum part. The first room shows an example of a pot from each of the previous heads (the current one is number fifteen – it's been going for over 450 years!). A lot of the time, the descriptions in museums are... boring. Interesting, but boring. However, these ones were fun. They said things like, “Can you tell he was inspired by a peach?”. The next exhibit is upstairs, and shows the process and the tools used. There is some charcoal like the stuff they burn in the kilns, and the sign invites you to bang them together to hear the metallic sound. It really did sound like two metal rods, not charcoal. There was also a display of shell-shaped pottery. “These look a lot like shells, don't they? Now here is a question. We have put some real shells in as well. Can you tell which are the real ones?” That's not the exact wording, but I thought it was kind of cute~ Then there is one more room with more examples. It's a small museum, but very very interesting, and the pottery is very unique.

Next we took another bus to Mijo castle. Castle is a good word... it's very big. We walked around the outside, me taking the pictures my mom needed, and then we went inside. You have to take your shoes off here, too, to protect the wood floor. There are many beautiful paintings on the screens, and in a couple of the rooms mannequins are set up to show a scene. There's even one part where you walk by a garden with some nice trees outside. The floors squeak a lot, but they were made to! It's so it was possible to hear someone trying to sneak in.

After that, we walked around outside a bit some more before going back to our hotel. That was about our limit for the day, but it was really fun. All three places we went to were interesting.

Day 6:

We didn't do so much today. We rode trains up pretty far, and then rode one back. The mountains, and the forests on them are really beautiful here.

Day 7:

We went to Kanazawa. First we went to an old district with old wooden buildings. Then we walked back around the river, at one point stopping at a 'mini asphalt zen garden'. Next we went through a large garden. There was a fountain that is powered naturally, the first fountain in Japan. There's also a lake, with trees and irises and a great view nearby. There was even a crane. Many of the trees were very old and bent, and needed supports.

We stopped at a different river, and then went to the market. It was very large, and parts of it smelled like fish. Some places sold fruit, or bread, or even clothes, as well as fish shops. We bought a few things – including some really cheap peaches! - and then headed back to the station. And we rode back.

Day 8:

Woken up by my mom panicking about an earthquake early in the morning.

Once I got up for real, the first thing I did after eating was watch a movie. あらしのよるに (Arashi no yoru ni/During the stormy night) It was cute~ and I could understand enough to get the basic plot. Then me and my mom went to the department store to get... a kimono. Yukata, actually. So pretty!

So, we went there and I tried not to feel too out of place in a store selling traditional Japanese clothing. First we looked around all the racks, and then we went to the 'not horribly expensive' one. The ones there were still very nice. I found one that I really liked, that I kept going back to even after I saw other ones that I thought were nice. My mom asked a store lady if I could try it on, and she ushered us over in front of a mirror and unfolded it and put it on me. Then she tied it, and went to get a few obi to see which one I liked. There was a pink one, and a red one with white sakura, and another one. The pink one looked nice, the red one okay, and the last one I didn't really like with the yukata I had picked out. I liked the red obi over the pink one individually, but with the yukata I thought the pink looked better (light blue + flowers – it sort of matches the flowers).

Then she tied the obi for me while showing us. We didn't bring a camera so I don't have a picture, but it ended up looking really nice. My mom later said that I looked 'very Japanese'... When it was agreed that that was what I wanted, the store lady got the ties, and a thing that goes under the obi, and the underwear, since I didn't have any of it. She took us over to the other area of the store and went and got papers with instruction for tying the obi, and then asked if we wanted another demonstration. Yes! This time, my mom got to try. And we bought it! I don't have the shoes, but I figured that the yukata itself was a good start.

Later we all together went down to a bookstore in the underground area, and it had manga! I bought volumes 1, 2, and 23 of Fullmetal Alchemist and volume 1 of Gakuen Alice. Then we went to a electronics shop because my mom had heard that it had video games, and we wanted a dictionary for my DS. We didn't end up getting anything, but there was such a selection! Way more kinds of stuff than in, say, Best Buy.

At that we returned to our room. My parents went out again later, but my feet hurt so I stayed behind.

Day 9:

Today we rode the Shinkansen! From Kyoto to Tokyo. There wasn't really much to see... it goes really fast, so there isn't time to see anything that isn't pretty far away except near the stations. At one of them was a girl dressed in lolita (fashion)! Baby blue, although that was about the limit of detail I could see without my glasses.

We have a really nice hotel room here, we can see both the bay and Tokyo Tower. After relaxing for a bit, we went out on a walk. This part of Tokyo, at least, is really nice. On one street there were a lot of women and men in yukata, which we learned today were probably from a wedding party. Overall, it looks pretty normal to me... I haven't really been in a big city before (does DC count?) and it kind of reminds me of Germany. My dad said that it reminds him of Europe. Anyway, people seem to think that Japan is this very exotic place – people were always impressed my mom said that we were going – but at least in Tokyo and Kyoto it doesn't seem like that to me.

After walking, we ate at an Indian restaurant, and the food was so good! All of us felt kind of bad that we were the only customers there, because it was nice. After we left, somebody else went in, so hopefully it was just that we got in so late.

Day 10:

Such a tiring day! First, my dad wanted to see a doctor about his foot again, and it ended up being that he shouldn't walk on it until it gets a lot better... so he has to stay behind again. At least he's in fairly good spirits about it and taking it in good stride. So me and my mom went off to two large bookstores because I really want the Comiket catalog. Neither had it, but a storeperson at the second place pointed us towards a store in Akihabara.

So we took a train to Akihabara, and tried to find our way towards it. We got a little lost, but a storekeeper set us back on track, and we were on the same street anyway. So many stores! So many people! It was really fun. I even saw another girl in lolita, this time in pink. Unfortunately, the store had a sign that I feared meant that the catalog was sold out – and it was. We tried some other stores, but they were all sold out too, and they didn't have any ideas of where to find one. I read on Wikipedia that they will be selling them at the Big Sight on at least day 1, which I really hope is true, so we'll just have to try and buy one there. At least we can have fun browsing, if nothing else.

Our feet were really hurting, so when we came back to our part of Tokyo we stopped at a cafe after going to a bookstore (there is always energy for a bookstore) and getting volumes 3&4 of Fullmetal Alchemist. We got some ice cream, milk, and juice, but there was only a little bit of ice cream – about the size of two golf balls, maybe a little bigger – and the milk was hot! I enjoyed my mom's juice a lot more. Then we went and got some food for my dad.Now, back to sorting through Comiket stuff...

Fsking html. Why can't I just copy&paste from Open Office? >_>

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:29:40 GMT

Well, I have most of my data back now. However. I do not have my bookmarks, which upset me a lot. They copied the 'Favorites', which is for IE ( = have not used in forever) and a .html file for Firefox that was created a bit more than a year ago (probably when upgrading). I have bookmarked a lot of sites since then, possibly more than 200. So my mom's going to e-mail the people again about where to find my actual bookmarks, and hopefully they'll be willing to e-mail them to her.

I mean, I really appreciate that they've gotten back my other stuff, especially my writing and my Mnemosyne data, but this is annoying, and some of those were for the trip :/ At least many of those bookmarks were links from one site, which helps.

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:00:37 GMT

Yes, I'm still alive, I just took far too long to actually sit down and update >_>

But since I just actually went through with a name change, I thought I might as well do so. It wasn't that I minded nekastale, but I usually use allekha now and I don't want to be named after my character any more. (Except on FP, but that's so ingrained that I wouldn't be able to stand to change it. Plus, my tags all have 'Neka' on them. They'd be a pain to change around.) 'Allekha' was something I actually came up with for a name of a town in my book, but I actually never used it.

On Sunday, when I tried to bring my laptop out of sleep mode, it froze at a black screen, so I shut it off. And tried to boot it up again. But it didn't. It wouldn't boot in safe mood, either. There was one point where it said 'Hit ESC to skip loading sptd.sys' and if I hit that key then it came up with a different message. The next day, my mom took it into the university computer center. Yesterday, the people there said that something was wrong with the hard drive, and it was unfixable, but they could get data off of it. They said that they would put it on a DVD.

This morning as I was showering I started agonizing over the ways it could go wrong, since the amount they supposedly had seemed low (something like... 2.5 gigs? I'm really sure I have more than that) and one of them came true. They only copied my mom's files. None of mine. Immediately we sent a message about that, but they don't work on weekends, we're leaving on Monday, and tomorrow is Friday. Yeah, I'm not happy about that. At least I won't lose the files for forever, but I really would like my Mnemosyne files and bookmarks back before we leave. I had a fair amount of sites bookmarked to find at Comiket, and it'd be a bit of a pain if I have to find all of them over again...

Aaaand just as I finished typing the above my mom finished a call. They said that if she got there this evening with her 32-gig USB stick, they think they can get what I need off before we go. It's 20 gigabytes (5 DVDs) so they preferred the USB. *crosses fingers*

For something completely different, I typed this up a few weeks ago. I just updated the exchange rates.

Sailor Moon [14 volumes, -1 that I have]
Yami no Matsuei [11]
Tokyo Babylon [7]
X [18]
Wish [4]
Angelic Layer [5]
Cardcaptor Sakura [12]
Legal Drug [3]
Earthian [4]
Death Note [13]
Fullmetal Alchemist [22]
Gakuen Alice [19]
IS [16]
Fruits Basket [23]

...I think that's all of them. There's also Pretear, but Amazon.jp doesn't have it for sale, just secondhand. Anyway, assuming that they are at the price on Amazon.jp, the grand total is ￥75471. At the current exchange rate, that's
790.32 USD.　Um. And 169 volumes. That's about ￥447/$4.67 a volume, which is at least waaaay cheaper than the English translations (which tend to be around $10 new). And at least I won't have to pay shipping if I buy them in Japan. Still, longish series cost money *sigh*.

And now I need a new laptop. Maybe if I don't get anything else for my birthday? At least I can get one with higher specs and without broken hinges now.

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:23:41 GMT

Had a very short, very fierce bit of storm earlier. I was glad I brought Whisp in because I saw the light changing and it seemed like rain was on its way. And just a few moments after I thought 'this might knock the power out' the power went out. We just got it back fifteen or twenty minutes ago as it was getting too dark outside to read. It went out about 3:30, I think. That was today's adventure.

My mom's getting back from China tonight. She climbed a lot of mountains - some on foot, some by horse - and visited several temples and caves. She also crossed a couple of very scary-sounding gaps.

I've been having trouble sleeping again. A few nights ago I was up until at least four, and the night after at least three thirty, and last night it was closer to four again. At least one good thing did come of it... I was making up a story as I went to sleep, as usual, and all of a sudden I realized that I really liked the story, so I got up and wrote a summary the mini-notebook I keep on my desk. It filled nine and a half pages and my hand was hurting, but I wrote the whole thing down. I should write it up properly. It kind of surprised me, since it was/is rather dark and includes characters dying, which I don't usually write. Especially not about characters I care about (this was/is fanfic), since I have done it sometimes for oneoff characters.

My summer chem course starts next Monday.

Sun, 24 May 2009 02:57:42 GMT

The kid with the lymphoma that's not getting treatment and has been spirited off to Mexico or wherever? I'm watching a thing about it on the news and it's making me angry like news stories rarely do. This kid is not old enough to refuse therapy. You should not be able to deny proven medical treatment to a child in your care that will die without it. Ugh. I really hope they find him and get him back here for treatment. His parents make me sick. That is not religion, that is... I don't even know what. In any case, I think denying proven, applicable medical treatment that will save your child's life is murder.

The antiscience people are getting to me. The month-old baby that died because not enough people were vaccinated, the Jenny-McCarthy-getting-on-Oprah thing, the lady on the tv right now not being scientific at all about fighting off her cancer half-chemo-half-'therapy'. People die because of people who spout anti-scientific things. Children especially suffer, I think. The whole thing just makes me feel sick. I can't even understand why. It's one thing to want to save your life/someone elses' life and look at alternatives, it's another altogether to do things without any research behind them at all and no proof that they work.

...and on a completely different note, my best dog ever so far on Furry-Paws - level 58! - hit 100 days today. Woo.

An LJ, I'm fairly sure that 'proven' is a word.

(Oops, left the tab open all night - below was written last night.)

Writing and oral finals are over, and I'm getting an A.

Watched Mulan yesterday and just rewatched most of it. I love this movie. Besides the general awesome of Mulan, there were several frames I loved the look of, usually because of the body language or perspective. I'd find screen shots and write something up, but I doubt anybody cares. I liked the music, too.

Tue, 19 May 2009 15:41:28 GMT

Just finished up my kanji final. It wasn't as bad as I feared (as usual), and I probably have Mnemosyne (like flashcards but much better) to thank for that. It really makes it easy to remember so much. And I did study, so I wasn't really surprised that it wasn't that hard.

On a completely different subject, I wore knee-high socks and mary-jane shoes for the first time today. I just got them a little while ago and wanted to try them out for a 'test run'. The shoes have some little wrinkles that they may or may not have had before hand, and one has a small scuff mark from when I tripped, but they still look okay when you're more than two feet away. It was different from what I usually wear to class - black pants, maybe shorts or occasionally a skirt, and flexible sneakers - and it felt a bit weird going up and down stairs, but I think they're fit to wear.

I think this might be the first time I've talked about clothes here except for whining about how my favorite kind of shoes are hard to find.

Tomorrow I have my written final, and at 2 on Friday I have my final oral exam. *breathes*

Sat, 16 May 2009 03:15:00 GMT

Hey, body? Guess what is the appropriate amount of time to fall asleep when the next day is Monday? Hint: not more than two hours.

I fiddled around with the journal layout thing. I wonder why it reset mine when I upgraded to the new engine? Anyway, I hope it's readable on other peoples' monitors too. Now I just have to get used to it...

Just added 14 stories and 1 author to my favorites list at ffdotnet. They've been building up for a few days. My number of tabs is now down from their obscene level from when I finished Fruits Basket and went on a fic binge. And I've added some fanart sites to my bookmarks, ~10 I think. I'm glad I've got some Yami no Matsuei sites now, most of the ones on the link list I found were dead - more than three-fourths of them, I'm sure. 404s should stay in nightmares.

I recently discover that I've bred the top Tibetan Spaniel on Furry-Paws ever. The top 2 even. When I told my dad this, he said I could write an essay on it, so I did. There's still a little more I want to do with it before calling it finished, but it's three thousand words and four and a half pages (with internet formatting).

Sun, 10 May 2009 22:55:05 GMT

I just finished Fruits Basket.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I cried/teared up through chapters 130-132. And then again through the last two chapters. Stories rarely make me cry.

The whole thing was amazing. The characters and their interaction and development... wow. I wouldn't be able to count how many times I said "Poor (character name)" and "Aww..." and "Freaking...!". The art was pretty decent, too. The little!characters were cute as they should be. The only real complaints I have about the whole thing are pretty minor: occasionally, someone's face would look weird, and sometimes the speech bubble order was a bit hard to follow. I kind of wish I'd read it sooner.

Edit: Okay, there was one thing that bugged me a little more. Yuki's romance with Machi felt a little... tacked on, I guess. It felt like Yuki was falling in love with Tohru, but then he wasn't. Maybe I'm seeing this through shipper-colored glasses (Yuki->Tohru<-Kyo) but it still felt weird. Anyway, it didn't ruin the series or anything, it just seemed odd. (End edit.)

Some of the scenes really stick to me.

TV Tropes was right about Akito's 'epic' villanous breakdown.

When Yuki lost his temper at Kyo near the end.

The Kyoko flashback.

The Yuki flashback.

(Actually, most of the flashbacks in general, I think.)

The whole 'summer vacation' arc.

Chapter 97, although I was spoiled about the major thing when I was watching the first few episodes of the anime with a friend. Still.

When the curse was broken.

The very last scene.

And I don't regret that I read 100 chapters of it in 5 days.

Sun, 10 May 2009 01:10:52 GMT

Newest obsession: Fruits Basket. I've been reading 20 chapters of it a day inbetween school for the past 4? days. It's so good I can't help it.

I was on the driveway last week and it had been rainy for most of the day, so the worms came out onto the driveway. For once, I moved one (that was still alive) into the grass so I wouldn't step on it. I hope I didn't sign its death warrant, but I went back later and it had moved away from the spot where I put it. If I had stepped on it, it probably would die for sure anyway. And I had just watched Seven Years in Tibet the day before, and there's a scene where they insist on carefully moving all of the worms away from where they're digging into the ground so they don't hurt the worms. There was a slug, too, but it turned back to the grass on its own.

Late last night I was half-watching the end of a tv show and it had something to do with bridal dresses. The prices made me choke. Why would someone ever pay thousands of dollars for a dress they'll mostly likely only wear once?! I feel almost guilty for wanting a high-quality dress that's three hundred dollars from a foreign country that I would actually wear. (Plus, imo, most of the dresses they were showing weren't even that nice-looking >_> Then again, I didn't share taste with the people on the show afterward....) I think I would rather get married (should I ever do so) in a nice suit that can be used afterward, or possibly even in my mom's wedding dress, should it fit. Skip the elaboarate ceremony, just go and sign the certificate. With a small party afterward with family and close friends.

I just can't understand how people can justify spending a so much money on a one-day event. What am I missing, I wonder.

Sun, 03 May 2009 19:09:18 GMT

My mom let me install the Sims 2 on her computer, and it runs so much better on there. I can even see fish in the ponds now. And it's nice to have it load faster.

Last Saturday (not yesterday, the week before) my mom and I witnessed a car accident. Well, we didn't see it, but we were at the place it happened and heard it. Somebody got hit from behind as they were turning in. Thankfully, it seems like they weren't too badly hurt, as the ambulance took them off without lights or sirens.

I was somebody else, a twelve?-year-old girl in the past (though it wasn't a very accurate past after a while...). I traveled eastward alone somehow, and I think either the place I came from, the place I went, or both, were Germanic somehow. Anyway, I showed up at a house and they let me stay, and I helped out in the kitchen, mostly doing cleaning. There were two older girls, the one I remember better was 14. After a while their older brother came back too. One day, we had somebody doing a delivery of some sort int he kitchen, and he asked me if I wanted some sort of training, but I couldn't hear, so I went 'what?' and got closer. He said it again, but I still couldn't hear. After the third time, it sounded like something very bad so I started refusing quite vocally, and the older brother came to chase him away. Some days later, the older brother was doing something in the kitchen, and I was running around consolidating the pens into a couple of containers (yes, modern pens). And then we talked and I think he said that I had some kind of ability (magic?) and then there was a time-skip to modern day.

I was at school (college?) and I was riding a skateboard home, except home was my real house now, although I was still the other person. The first part didn't make a lot of sense but had some beautiful scenery, and the last part was how I would actually get home. I was going over a hill and then I saw cars backed up in every direction except to the right at a four-way intersection. I slowed down and went to the right side, and saw a bunch of people lined up. I continued down the road to make some sort of delivery. It had something to do with onions, and suddenly I was wearing a weird dress with layers of petal-shaped bits of fabric sticking out. The lady who accepted the delivery liked something I did. Then I turned around (in normal clothes again) and started home again, except now the skateboard could double as a hoverboard. The police were lining people up and telling them to walk down the road, and there was an electric sign that had statistics to do with swine flu, except with infections int he millions. I saw my adoptive siblings hanging around near the end of the line and went up to them, and we all decided just to go home, so we did. And the mail and newspaper were scattered over the leaf-covered driveway, since it was suddenly autumn. So me and the sister I was closer to started picking it up while the other two just stood around, and for some reason some of the pieces of paper were shaped like chickens and colored like chickens. Maybe it was close to thanksgiving? And that's the last thing I can remember of it before waking up.

It was a nice dream.

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:59:17 GMT

I got sick on Monday :( At first it was just a drippy nose, but in the afternoon my stomach started cramping up, and I threw up three times and had a hard time falling asleep for a while because it was hard to keep a position that didn't hurt and if it hurt too much I couldn't sleep. And I hadn't done Furry-Paws yet, but I got my mom to lock it. So that evening kinda sucked.

It still hurt in the morning, but I still went to class (where the combination of sitting + Japanese distraction made it not really hurt). Today I feel just fine, except I still have a runny nose.

When I went to Girl Scouts last week, it was my turn to bring snack. I chose pocky! And more people than I expected actually recognized it. That was kind of fun.

I've also been getting some offline reading done recently, especially thanks to gaps of time at the graveyard (silver award project (for girl scouts) location) where there's not much else to do. I got through The Hammer of God and 3001: The Final Odyssey, both by Arthur C. Clark, and reread Good Omens. Plus I've been reading lots of fanfiction, and even practicing my Japanese a bit with fanart sites. And I still have tabs open for fanfic, and another novel, and an autobiography. So much to read~

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:54:39 GMT

Midterms were over last week. I got 103/100 on my written (!) and hopefully did okay on my oral.

I've gotten started again on editing my book (the first one, I mean). And am resisting the temptation to get started on a third. No brain, I have enough projects for the moment!

I love spring. Not particularly more so than any other season, but we have a ton of daffodils and the forsythias are in bloom, and the air is so fresh. And it's raining and warm again. It's been a while since I've felt mud under my feet.

I can hardly believe it's April already.

Today I started playing Chrono Trigger, which I got for Christmas never got around to starting. I'm not very far into it yet, but I'm having fun.

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 03:25:50 GMT

We were part of the area that got hit with snow, so I took the opportunity to go sledding (which I didn't get to do last year). I had a lot of fun, but my dad got blasted by the wind at the top of the hill. I also managed to collide with some other people on another sled because I didn't seem them in time to break very much, but nobody got very hurt. I bruised my thumb when I landed on it, and thankfully that seems to be it.

Today it was really nice out. Above 70, even.

I got a dog on Furry-Paws to level 50 today. That's my highest ever (and I just set a new record a few weeks ago!) and she's only 46 days old. This generation is sure doing well; I have three dogs above fourty (including them, I've had ten total) plus the one above fifty and nine over thirty. Most of them are Tibbies. My Border Collies are kinda just moving along...

Last night I had a little bit of a weird dream. It started out as Matt/Near and they were just sitting on a king-sized bed in a small room. And at some point Matt said something about Mello being right outside the door (even though he wasn't, and Matt knew that) but I don't quite remember the context. And then it changed to something about a murder case, and everybody was in the style of the Sims, and I was the murderer at first. But then the police used dogs to track it down to my neighborhood, and me and my parents were collecting DNA from the entrance road (?!) and comparing it to my parents' DNA (I think) using a little hand-held device. But when it came up a match it suddenly changed and I wasn't the murderer anymore, so the DNA didn't match.

If there's such a thing as a 'normal' dream, I don't think I have them.

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:25:25 GMT

We got snow last night, so yay :) Classes got canceled.

Saw the end of the Death Note anime a couple days ago. I liked it, but it surprised me since it's so different from the manga ending. I was also surprised at how little Mello appeared. Did he have that little time in the manga? I don't think so... At least they didn't skip out on Near, too.

Exactly 1500 cards in Mnemosyne atm. 1236 of them are for Japanese. I love this program ♥

Moving bookshelves can be fun, except for the fact that you have to get all the books off of them first. And then put them back on. At least they're sort of sorted now. In some vague order. That mostly has to do with series going together.

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:44:37 GMT

Today I spent two hours in freezing rain to help sell Girl Scout cookies. We sold maybe three dozen. That was fun.

I also got to help cut wood with a power saw, although we had to stop right away for me to go get hearing protection. I doubt a career constantly using powertools ist in my future. Anyway, that's the start of a new desk in my room (that I can actually sit at, since my current one is way too low for me to sit at properly).

The newest thing I'm watching is Strawberry Panic. It's... interesting. Not a lot of plot, but I think it's still fun to watch.

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 04:48:55 GMT

Now that we have our living room mostly redone (except for the bookshelves) we're working on the bedrooms. We moved my dresser downstairs and my dad's dresser into mine... I didn't like it very much at first, but after seeing it in daylight (not bright light at night) I like it a lot more.

We also moved all the stuff off a couple of the shelves near the ground and took them out to make room for smaller dresser. Gives me lots of room for the clothes my mom found that fit me but not her. And when we clean off the other shelves, there will be lots more room for books too. It looks nice, anyway.

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:25:29 GMT

My Wenesday and Monday Japanese teacher is... a little intimidating. Not so terrifying today (but not in the bad way). I still don't see myself failing as long as I do the work and try to learn. And I managed to talk to someone while we were waiting in the hallway. He showed me the stuff he had bought for Japanese on his iPhone (I think that's what it was?) and I told him about mnemosyne.

Oh, and I signed up for Twitter last night. I was kinda half-thinking about it for a while, but my mom signed up and that was what finally triggered it. Now I can keep tabs on the Mars rovers easily too, I guess.

We've been cleaning lately. I hate cleaning >_< but I guess it can't be helped.

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:15:04 GMT

Sorry for typos, I'm typing with one hand. Chopsticks don't lend themselves to typing easily.

I just got out of class a few minutes ago. And it was awesome! One situation where the wait is worse than the wait. I left early (you can get in fifteen minutes early, it's a five minute walk, I left 25 minutes ahead) though there were a few people there already. My heart was pounding really hard, so I was taking a breath, holding it in, and then going 'Om mani padme hum' in my head before letting it out. Which did seem to work.

The lesson was pretty easy since this week is all review; started with hiragana, then katakana, with speaking mixed in. He was a bit surprised when I said my age (and as expected, I'm the youngest...). I answered some of the questions too. To leave, we had to answer something in Japanese, but I tripped over myself telling the time >_< Oh well.

Anyway, it was fun and as long as I keep up I think I'll do okay :)

Maybe I should let my rice warm up a bit more. It doesn't taste as good cold.

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:54:57 GMT

My class starts tomorrow ._. and I'm still really nervous about it. I guess I'll just have to do my best...

Oh, and hope I don't take too long to fall asleep tonight. At least I'm not watching my Netflix. A few days ago I had Grave of the Fireflies, which is incredibly depressing. Hint: If it's the kind of thing to affect you, don't watch it before going to bed. Especially not if you're going to watch a depressing film about stolen and destroyed art and architecture during the same war. And since what I have now is Barefoot Gen, and I know what will happen to most of the family since I've read the first volume of the manga... yeah.

We went clothes shopping today. I remembered why I hate clothes shopping so much - it takes so long and I hate trying things on. At least I got a few nice shirts and a dress-shirt-thing. And we went and ate at a nice place afterward. The pie I had was really good~ even if I was too full to finish it.

Wii~

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:31:03 GMT

We got a Wii today!

We also got a flatscreen TV and a PS3. And more importantly, Super Mario Galaxy.

Me and my dad tried out the Wiii sports, and tomorrow I want to play Super Mario Galaxy...

Seriously, after three(plus?) years of wanting one (including before it was released) this is pretty awesome.