I didn't know who Ansel Adams was until quite recently. While I was on a school trip to Yosemite National Park, all of the students would walk to the theater for our evening program every night (usually something informative, like about rock climbing or climate change, but one time we just hiked outside and played a game similar to hide-and-seek). We always passed by a place called the Ansel Adams Gallery, which sold gifts, and I think you can rent cameras there, too.

Once I returned from Yosemite, I visited the library and checked out some magazines. I usually look for science-related magazines at the library because every trimester we must present a scientific news article. I happened to see the magazine called Popular Photography, and I have checked out a few of the issues (not particularly new ones, but oh well). I was looking at an article about 30 photo-friendly cities in the USA when I saw San Francisco, in 2nd place. And it was mentioned that Ansel Adams broke his nose in an earthquake in San Francisco.

I've probably written about this before, but this still keeps on happening to me. I even saw the very same camera that I have - a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3A - in an edition of the Popular Photography Magazine. It was apparently a good camera for a not-too-expensive price or something. In fact, when I was at the Campanile in UC Berkeley, someone asked my dad to take a picture of him, and he had the same camera, in the same color. I suppose it's just a common camera. (Not like my old Nikon Coolpix, it was a pretty rare one. A silvery sort of color. I sure miss it, even now.) But it's still unsettling to see it in other places. It's kind of like how I'm bothered by seeing people with the same name as me.

Ever since I arrived home after my trip, I've been feeling a bit out of sorts. For one thing, my dad left for Shanghai, China, to visit his family. It's pretty quiet because it's only my mother and I around the house. That's kind of a good thing, and kind of a bad thing. I'm not really used to having less noise around the house. But it's kind of good since I get to talk my mother more than usual. (My cell phone ringtone is starting to annoy me, though. I figure I should change it, but I actually still haven't figured out how)

Speaking of my cell phone...I'm still frustrated at it. Sometimes I think I don't get any signal. One time I was walking home from school and needed to call my mom, so I whipped out my cell phone and dialed her number. I kept hearing it ring, and ring, and ring, and finally I was told that the call wouldn't go through or something. I kept trying this over and over while I walked. I finally managed to reach her when I was near a school (I think the schools should all have cell phone coverage). What good is the cell phone if you can't even use it? Also, my mom said she called me on my cell phone, but I don't think I ever heard it ring. She says I probably had my cell phone on mute or some other mode where you can't hear the ring, but I don't know...I think perhaps it really is hard for me to get a signal, which will be troublesome if I ever desperately need to get in touch with someone.

Recently, I visited Cold Stone Creamery, my favorite place to get ice cream. There's actually a place Cold Rock Creamery, but I've only seen it in Australia. (It's not bad either. They have some different flavors.) My mom had some coupons, and I always leap at the chance to save money on yummy food. Cold Stone now has warm sundaes (we had a buy-1-get-1-free coupon for it, but sadly it expired before we had the chance to use it...) and I think my mom might like those. She used to complain about how ice cream was too cold for her. It kind of ruins the point of ice cream if it's cold (and it isn't all that fun to drink "ice cream soup") but it still does sound like it would be tasty. And it'd be nice during the winter.

When I was younger, I had trouble eating hot food. I would refuse to eat anything that was too hot (in fact, I even went so far as to put ice cubes in my hot chocolate so it would cool down to a reasonable temperature). My parents would say, "It's not too hot," but when I tried it, I thought it was still too warm. I wonder if we have different senses of temperature and taste. They don't see any difference in taste between water bottle brands, but I actually have slight preferences in water bottle brands. Also, I hear people are more accepting of alcohol when they get older because their taste buds have died and they can't taste the bitterness as much anymore. If so, I guess it's good if I have a sensitive tongue since that means I'm still young. (It does conflict with my trying to act like an old person, though. But you can't have both. It reminds me of a conversation I heard...A girl was saying to her friend that she didn't want to take some pills because her mother told her not to, since there was a drowsiness side effect. "So don't take it," said her friend. "But I need it..." said the girl - it was carsick pills. Her friend said, "Then take it!" Basically, there's no middle ground - she can obey your mother or she can save herself from being carsick)

Labels: ansel adams, camera, carsick, cell phone, choice, cold rock creamery, cold stone creamery, ice cream, inconvenient, magazine, photography, popular, signal, taste, temperature, tongue, warm, yosemite

I was considering just leaving it as "clones", like it's supposed to be, but I figured that since the enemies looked different (and even had different names), it would be better not to.

Recently, I had the opportunity to play the game Wii Sports Resort. It has quite a few more games than the original Wii Sports (which comes with the Wii when you buy a Wii) but it does require the Wii MotionPlus accessories (apparently it makes the Wii remote's motion more accurate, or something along those lines). I thought the Archery and Swordplay was fun. The Cycling was amusing, but it wasn't very much like actually riding a bike since you just move the Nunchuck (also an accessory for the Wii, you attach it to your Wii Remote) and Wii remote in tandem.

If you unlock it, there is a Swordplay activity where you go around fighting off everyone else. You can only take three hits - if you get hit three times, then you lose. The enemies are pretty easy since most of them only need one hit to keel over. It really looks like Star Wars since your Mii uses a blue sword that looks like a lightsaber, and the enemies all use red swords which resemble lightsabers. But at the same time, the game has an oriental feel since everyone wears a kind of armor (which looks kind of like samurai armor) and because of the background music.

After watching Shirayuki no Kimi play the computer game Starcraft, my interest in it was rekindled. Several years ago, when I was in elementary school, I would watch people play that game, and eventually I got ahold of it myself (I can't remember who bought it for me) and played it at home. I'm not good at fast-paced games, so I'm used to cheating my way through. (This applies to other similar games, like Age of Empires, which has the same concept as Starcraft but isn't so...science fiction-ish.) I looked Starcraft up on Wikipedia, because that's what I always do. It turns out Starcraft was released for Windows in 1998. Whoa! That's even older than I thought. I am always surprised by the ages of things. (I can't really judge people's ages, either.)

On television, I saw some mention of more coffee = less diabetes, or something. Wow, that is so weird. People keep changing their mind about what's good for your health. And there are all sorts of strange diets for people who want to lose weight. It's hard to tell what's really good for your health and what's just bogus. I don't even drink fruit juice much anymore because it has a lot of sugar (but then, various fruits have a lot of sugar because they're, well, sweet). Well, I guess I'll keep eating fruits and vegetables and drinking water, I'm pretty sure that's safe and there isn't going to be a health specialist saying, "Oops! It turns out an apple a day makes the doctor come more often".

I used to have a teacher who really liked coffee. He said he wanted to try to drink less coffee, but it wasn't easy. This year I have a teacher who likes coffee, too. She even keeps it on a shelf in her room, behind the whiteboard. The classroom smells funny sometimes because of the coffee. I wonder if a lot of teachers drink coffee or if it's just a myth.

At my house, no one really drinks coffee. I heard my grandma likes it, but I'm not sure whether or not that's true. My dad drinks a lot of tea. Apparently, it stains his teeth, because my dad said his dentist was complaining. "Ugh! Drink less tea! Your teeth get so dirty." My dad replied, "Yeah, but I give you business." It all works out in the end, I suppose.

I don't think my mother drinks much tea. In fact, I don't really see her drink much in general. I think she's lactose intolerant or just has bad digestion, because she doesn't drink regular milk. But she says it's okay for her to eat a little ice cream now and then (although she complains about it being cold; it's ice cream! What do you expect?).

Labels: age, age of empires, coffee, computer, games, health, ice cream, lactose intolerant, milk, nunchuck, samurai, shirayuki no kimi, star wars, starcraft, tea, wii, wii motionplus, wii sports resort

I was trying to think of a title for today's blog post, and it just wasn't coming to mind. Sometimes I have multiple titles I think of to suit the subject matter I'm starting the post off with, and other times I can't think of anything worthwhile. This is one of those times. (It's ironic, because I already have the title thought out for my very last blog post. I hope I never have to use it, because I don't want this to come to end. It feels like my happiness would come to an end too)

What I mean about the title is related to anime. I was watching an anime called Someday's Dreamers. It's not that recent (I think it was a 2003 anime or something) and it's not really that exciting. But it is nice that there is a dolphin in it. After all, despite the scary dream about dolphins I had once, they are still my favorite animal.

Well, because Someday's Dreamers isn't that recent, probably no one is going to find the Japanese version and make English subtitles for it. I have only been able to find the English dubbed version so far. It's really annoying having to hear it in English because if the voice actors/actresses don't pronounce it well, you can't tell what they're saying. At least with the subtitles you could just read it straight off. But it was funny because one of the characters has a voice actress who speaks with a sort of British accent.

I was also watching an anime called Emma, not that long ago. It was more unique since it's about a time in England, more than a hundred years ago. The main character is a maid. Her name is, rather predictably, Emma. And then she meets a guy called William. Personally I don't like him all that much, but oh well. William is the son of a wealthy businessman, so he's part of the gentry. I don't want to spoil the main theme of the story, so that's as much as I'll say about that.

I found it amusing that one of the characters in Emma was a guy called Hakim from India. It's so weird to see an Indian prince in England speaking Japanese. And all the British people speak Japanese too. Well, the manga must be from Japan, and the anime too, so I suppose that's just the way it is.

On to other news, because I am not planning to squander my whole post talking about this. Recently, I had gone to the mall with my parents to a buffet for dinner on my mom's birthday. We spent a short amount of time browsing Macy's, since my mom was looking to buy a coat, preferably a waterproof one. I noticed a desk and some Christmassy themed things around it. There was also a mailbox of sorts (not one of those with flags that people have for their houses, I mean the sort of mailbox that is usually blue that you just dump your letters into if you don't want to go all the way to the post office), and paper and pencils to write a "letter to Santa". I was greatly offended because I AM Santa, and I have never received any of those letters, so Macy's was pretending to be me. So I wrote a letter that said so and put it in the mailbox. Hehehehe.

Sometimes I get the old nostalgia for Applied Arts again. Two of my friends are taking Advanced Applied Arts. They have been making some pretty nice stuff in cooking, like ice cream (though it melted over the course of the day, unfortunately). I miss Woodshop too. I was always allergic to the dust and kept sneezing during clean-up time, but still. After a while even the smell of glue and wood can grow on you. It's not like I don't like French...In fact, I guess I'm glad that my mom suggested I take it. (Sometimes it's okay to let other people decide things for you. Arranged marriages sometimes work out better than "love marriages", because they're more practical, rather than being based on a whim) But that doesn't mean I don't miss things sometimes.

Labels: anime, applied arts, arranged marriage, blog, christmas, dolphin, dubbed, emma, english, ice cream, india, japanese, letter, macy's, santa, someday's dreamers, subtitles, title, woodshop

As of late, we've been studying the Constitution in my history class. In one of the articles, I saw the phrase "yeahs and nays". I thought it kind of reminded me of the neighs of horses. I mean, the people at the time were kind of like horses anyhow. They even wore wigs which sometimes have "ponytails" on them.

Nowadays, instead of yeah and nays, it would be thumbs up or thumbs down, or just raising your hand to vote for something (while everyone's heads are down on their desks so they can't see who's voting what), wouldn't it? It might be fun, though, to be asked an opinion, and then to have everyone say either "Yeah" or "Nay" all at once. I suppose it would be considered a waste of valuable class time, though.

Speaking of which, I caught sight of something which I wasn't supposed to have seen. It's not something inappropriate or anything, so don't worry about that. I forgot to print out my homework for language arts class, but I had my USB drive, so I asked my teacher if I could print it out with her laptop. While I was preparing to do that, I noticed she had a Skype window. She was chatting with my history teacher. At first I thought, "Oooh! Busted!" but then I realized it was probably work-related since there was some mention of a meeting. Besides, I'd be in trouble if the teacher realized I was snooping, hehe. So I guess that rumor about my history teacher spending time chatting with his girlfriend (who is a teacher as well, in a different school, wouldn't they both be fired then?!) is not true, it's just my language arts teacher.

For a long time I was meaning to post a drawing that I made, except I kept on forgetting about it, so now I'm only posting it practically a month after I drew it. XD (If you've been actively checking up on my DeviantArt you may have seen it earlier) This is a drawing, or, two drawings, of the character Haruhi Suzumiya. I am currently working on a piece of Hatsune Miku (using GIMP to digitally make lineart and color it in). I will post the original sketch and the finished version up when I'm done.

Just the other day it was my mom's birthday, so we went out to eat at a buffet called Tatami. It's in a mall, and it used to be called Todai, but apparently it was sold. D: My mom got her food free since it's her birthday. (You have to be accompanied by two "paying adults", though. But I count as an adult now, so it's fine. Too bad there's no more kid discounts. I have to wait until people believe I'm old so I can get the senior discounts on things like museum membership) I am a plain sort of person, so I just like to eat kappamaki (cucumber sushi) and Philadelphia rolls (basically, sushi with salmon and cream cheese in it).

Ah, but what I really liked was the cookies they have there. When I used to visit Todai, I always ate those cookies. The light-colored ones are the best. I thought they were supposed to be sugar cookies, but I'm not sure. My parents say the smell of milk is strong, so maybe they're just "milk cookies". I would like to be able to buy them, but I have never found them. (They're not Nilla wafers, anyhow) My mother thinks that they could be a personal recipe of the restaurant that was passed on when the owner sold Todai and it got changed to Tatami.

The restaurant has a chocolate fountain and a vanilla fountain now, you know, those miniature ones you can plug in. It's pretty cool. The kids were fond of it, of course. I tried dipping the milk cookies, bananas, and big marshmallows into it. What was funny was a sign that says, "Please do not dip your ice cream into the chocolate fountain". It must mean someone actually tried to put their ice cream cone in there. I wonder how they reacted when they were trying to hold the cone and there was chocolate sliding down it.

I have been thinking that although the town I live in has a hefty population, it's still not all that exciting, because of something we were talking about in French class... My teacher said, "We don't really have a downtown here, do we?" And another student replied, "The library!" If the library is our downtown, then we can't say much for ourselves, can we? XD All over the USA, though, not many people go to the library regularly, it seems. It's kind of saddening. My parents say more people go to the library in my town because they're frugal and don't want to buy books. (Rather, they waste their money on brand name things and cars. -_-;; )

Labels: birthday, buffet, chocolate fountain, constitution, cookie, downtown, drawing, gimp, haruhi suzumiya, ice cream, library, skype, spending money, sushi, tatami, teacher, todai, yeahs and nays

I see that people are as selfish as ever. They all want ice cream because it's free. I know this since I showed up around 5:30 pm yesterday at the school, because I heard there would be free ice cream. However, many students were already there because they'd gone to the Cougar Fest (the Kennedy kids stay after school to do activites like pony hopping, rock climbing, bungee jumping, hoop shooting, and other things. I heard there were even Wii games. Probably just Wii Sports, though, and you get that for free when you buy a Wii). I paled looking at the long line of students, and my dad and I made a hasty getaway. We ate some cookies and cream ice cream at home instead.

I wish the Nature Center had been unlocked. I would like to show my dad sometime since he likes gardening. He wanted me to put his name and "A husband, a father, and a gardener" on his gravestone. So I thought it'd be cool to give him a tour of our school's nature center, which is a garden of sorts that is sometimes used for scientific studies, especially in seventh grade (our classroom has a back door leading to the Nature Center). There's all sorts of nice and not-so-nice things like two ponds (one is broken and man-made. The other is...thriving. One time we had a pair of ducks land in the Nature Center. They might want to mate there), many plants (ginkgos are my favorite trees since their fan-shaped leaves are kind of pretty), and benches (sometimes we have fern plants there, or "plaster of Paris" to use to make molds of fossils o_O;; ). It's better than a stuffy classroom all day, anyhow.

I have been watching drama, a Korean one called One Fine Day. My mom checked it out from the library so I took a look at it. It started off in the city of Sydney so of cuorse I had to watch it, because I watch things that have my name in it (like Finding Nemo, a cool animated movie about a clownfish). Dramas are strange. There's lots of yelling, cheesy background music, etc. I'm too used to anime, which makes Korean seem foreign to me. But I think my mom and I know some words in Korean now.

Ching-jang-neh-yo (that's how you pronounce it, not how it's spelled XD) is boss or team manager?
Abuji - Father
Amani ("Ama" for short?) - Mother
Neh (how do you spell that) - Yes
Deh - Either "no" or "pardon?" depending?
Oppa - Brother (I was confused about this at first. A character is called Gun but his sister calls him Oppa)

I have changed the layout of the blog. It is now Koda Kumi themed. I found it on Blogskins.com which has some pretty cool skins. You have to hunt for them sometimes, though. I have trouble getting my playlist's HTML code to work here, so I have put a link to my playlist in the click away section, and instead put an Imeem song 30 second preview thing instead.

Labels: blog, blogskins, cougar fest, drama, ducks, finding nemo, gardening, ginkgo, ice cream, koda kumi, korean, language, nature center, one fine day, playlist, pond, school, sydney, theme

Y'know. Just a twisted version of "Be careful what you wish for". Anyhow, did anyone hear about the peanut butter? Yes? No? Well, if you didn't, I heard recently that a lot of peanut butter was recalled because it was discovered to have salmonella bacteria on it. The old sal is supposed to be living on chickens. That's why you need to be careful about cooking your chicken carefully.

Anyhoo, back to the point. I saw on TV a kid (who looked like he might eat too much sweets. No offense to the poor guy) and he got infected. He said he was "very sick...I wanted to die." It's not a good sign when young'uns start saying that sort of stuff. (Usually you hear that from depressed teenagers)

Today we are trying out some new cooking. We have this portable cooker. We cook soup on it, then we dip meat into the soup (the oven/cooker thing still on) and eat it once that is cooked. It's pretty cool. We tried it in Japan (and they even gave us vanilla ice cream bars afterward. Too bad my dad keeps eating up our popsicles). I was surprised to find my parents had such a thing stowed here.

I was trying to concentrate on my factoring story (called the cheesy name, The Factor of the Opera) and I made some progress; I added some pictures. Still, it is a hassle doing the project. I want to give up already but I can't since I'm not finished. D: Maybe I should bribe someone to do it for me (then again, I wouldn't be able to ensure the quality). For instance, one of my friends wanted to color my cover, but knowing she is not particularly skilled at art, I refused. She got very offended by that. (Sometimes I doubt whether to call her my friend. But then, it would hurt her feelings to say I didn't like her as much as she liked me.)

My mom's been watching a lot of dramas lately. Ever since we watched Boys Over Flowers: The Movie (aka Hana Yori Dango) on an airplane, she got interested in seeing what the main story was about. So she tried watching the Korean version, Boys Before Flowers (but that series isn't finished yet) so then she's watching Meteor Garden (Taiwanese version?).

By the way, does anyone here like to do puzzles? You know, with a lot of little pieces and you put it together to make a picture? I have one at home that I can't feel motivated to do, so come over here and help me please. D:

Labels: bacteria, cliched, cooking, danger, drama, homework, ice cream, peanut butter, picky, puzzle, salmonella

It is hard to believe I am at home and it is now 2009. It might take a while for me to get used to the passage of time all over again.

I feel really exhausted from riding airplanes so long. This time we rode with ANA (Air Japan) again since they have vanilla ice cream. :p It's Häagen-Dazs and it comes in a little carton. (It's really expensive if you buy it at Shanghai's Pudong Airport, though. Don't buy it there, it's a rip-off. Better deal just to buy some ice cream from Coldstone's.)

We had to go to Tokyo Narita Airport first, though, because ANA only flies to and from Japan. We waited for a few hours for the plane from Tokyo to California. Actually, I got a free upgrade to business class on the Shanghai-Tokyo flight. (That was pretty lucky since it's rare to get a free upgrade. But it turns out they must've run out of seats in the Economy class or something.)

Since we had a lot of free time at the Tokyo airport, we looked at the shops. My dad wanted to buy some mochi for his friend so we went to this place called FaSoLa. (It was all over the airport o_O) Then I bought some Pocky and caramel candy. I got upset when my dad bought the red bean flavored candies. I don't like those but my dad says he needs to give something to his friends and coworkers anyhow.

I was watching Shugo Chara Doki! moments ago since I needed to catch up on missed episodes. I realized that I'd heard the ending song (Lotta Love Lotta Love, I think it was called) multiple times while in Japan. (At least, I say Buono, the group who sang it, performing it on TV) And once I saw the end of a Shugo Chara Doki episode, but it doesn't really matter because I can't understand enough Japanese to not need subtitles yet. XD

My dad went out to buy a few things. We are very low on groceries since we were gone so long. He bought milk...and a battery. But I don't know what the battery is for. D:

It's way too quiet around here, even though there is the sound of my typing and the sound of the anime I'm watching (Asatte no Houkou). I miss seeing my mom, even though she's usually mean to me. (Though she probably has good intentions. Or not.) At the airport I kept looking for her, thinking she was just taking a bathroom break, but it's not true, after all, since she's not here.

Oh yeah, though this is not in chronological order, I fell asleep soon after I came home. I was really tired since I was watching a movie on the plane. (It's a Japanese movie called Dear My Cosmo. It's mostly about a girl and her horse, whose vision is failing.) I woke up around five...By then the sun was pretty far down. I tried to get back to sleep but I gave up and got back up again.

Labels: anime, blah, family, ice cream, movie, shopping, sleep, time, travel

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