By ◆ Juppie on Saturday, August 27, 2011 @ 9:47 PM
I am just going on and on in my jealous rage, thinking of all the awesome live performances I missed, so just skip down to the post below this one if you want to read something that's actually more than just complaining (more specifically, the J-pop Summit festival (: )
Well, maybe not exactly at this moment - but it is happening August 27 and 28 in Japan. Animelo is a huge annual live concert that has many performers of anime songs. I seriously wish I could just go to Japan right now, but of course I have school. :\
Really want to see Kalafina, May'n, ELISA, Minori Chihara, and Nana Mizuki, who according to Wikipedia (feel free to laugh at me here) are performing at Animelo. Though I really think going last year would've been more epic because Marina (who is the singer of GirlsDeMo, the fictional band in Angel Beats) and Lia were there. They actually sound really good live, unlike some singers, unfortunately (for examples: listen to fripSide's 2010 live of Only My Railgun, and Nomico's live of Bad Apple)
Also, apparently there was something called Anisama in Shanghai (ARRRRGGGH and May'n toured Asia back in May, she stopped by Shanghai that time! If only I could trade places with my retired relatives!!!), and Ali Project, Yoko Ishida, May'n, and even Miku Hatsune (though of course it wasn't really...HER, if you know what I mean) were there.
Then there was Anime Expo back in July...Kalafina was there, and of course there was the "live" Vocaloid concert that I was eager to go to (they ran out of tickets, and my mom's foot is injured, so it wasn't really convenient :\ ). 2010's Anime Expo would've been awesome to attend, too, because May'n and Megumi Nakajima were there.
The final straw has got to be when I saw videos of the Nico Nico Daikaigi on Youtube. There was a concert in Taiwan back in May, and a bunch of the singers from Nico Nico Douga went - Dasoku, Pokota, Nero, Clear, Gero, che:Sakurai... (By the way, you should definitely look up che:Sakurai's Magnet duet. It's amazing how she can sing as...well, I won't spoil it for you :p ) All I can say now is FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF---
- Er, enjoy some gifs of the Bad Apple PV, I guess. I don't want to go to be completely angry. (note: I didn't make these)
Labels: anime expo, animelo, bad apple, concert, japan, japanese, may'n, nico nico daikaigi, nico nico douga, shanghai, singer, singing, taiwan
By ◆ Juppie on @ 5:59 PM
I'll start out with a big birthday shout-out to the Vocaloid Lily! There's sure been a lot of Vocaloid birthdays this summer - Gumi, Gakupo, and Miku's is coming up pretty soon.
Not a lot of Vocaloid producers use Lily, which is a shame because I do like her design and voice, but I have read that she's rather difficult to use...Oh well, happy birthday to her, nevertheless, and I hope someday we'll see more songs from her.
On to the main subject: The J-pop Summit Festival in San Francisco's Japantown. I only heard about it recently on Vocaloidism's blog, or else I would have wanted to go the year before last year (probably not last year because I was so freaked out by the homework load in high school that I didn't want to go out of the house for the first few weeks). But at least I had the chance to go this year, so I was really excited about it.
It's really not that big of a festival, not like the size of huge conventions such as Anime Expo down in LA or anything like that. That reminds me, one of my friends did ask if I wanted to go to Sacanime in Sacramento with her...I really want to go, but it is pretty far from here. :\
Mostly I walked around and bought posters at the vendors' tents at the festival, as well as gawking at all the cosplays I saw, which included:
VOCALOIDS
- Many, many Mikus (well, I guess that's to be expected, the most popular Vocaloid ever). Not just her official outfit; there were several different costumes.
- 2 Kaitos
- 1 Meiko
- 2 Lukas
- 2 Gumis (both were of the song Matryoshka)
- 2 Pikos (this really surprised me, I didn't expect a lot of people to know about him)
- At least 3 Rin/Len pairs (a picture of one of the pairs below)
(I do not know either of the cosplayers or the person with them XD)
There were also cosplays of:
- K-On (There were Yui and Mugi wearing the K-On school uniforms, and Mio wearing the outfit from the ending song Listen)
- Macross Frontier (but actually, it was kind of a Vocaloid crossover, since the girl who was being Ranka Lee had a Miku wig on, and the girl who was Sheryl Nome had what looked like a Luka wig)
- Kuroshitsuji (there was a Ciel cosplay, and also a guy with black hair and a butler/waiter type of shirt, I don't know if he was doing Sebastian or not)
And there were a ton of girls dressed up in lolita fashion. I wonder if they got dolled up just for this weekend's festival or if they wear the clothing on a regular basis. o:
I really spent way too much money on buying posters, but I'd say it was worth it. XD I considered buying a t-shirt that said The Socialist on it (because it's featuring the Rin Kagamine song "Socialist Darling") just to try and see if anyone thought I was a communist (well, I did have a classmate last year who insisted he was a communist, so it's quite possible someone would notice and get fired up about it). Also walked around and saw that there were two small malls in Japantown, so I browsed the stores over there and bought a few things. There's two crepe stores there! I definitely have to come back and buy them. And I ought to go check out San Jose's Japantown sometime. I guess I'm just going to make myself even more obsessed with anime and Vocaloids and whatnot, but oh well. It's good to finally have something to look forward during this coming year.
Labels: 2011, cosplay, j-pop summit festival, japan, japanese, japantown, jpop, lily, merchandise, san francisco, vocaloids
By ◆ Juppie on Thursday, June 16, 2011 @ 3:28 PM
I seriously have no idea what to name this post, so of course I had to take a stab at a lame pun. :p
I never had much interest in VY1 or VY2 (Yamaha's Vocaloids) up until recently. I'd only ever heard maybe a couple of VY1 songs and they hadn't really impressed me...That's probably why I didn't like Vocaloid music when I first listened to it two years ago. First impressions really make a difference.
Recently, though, I was bored and looking for more songs to listen to, so I was lurking in VocaloidOtaku's forums (yes, I do have an account, but nowadays I'm too lazy to log in o_o;; ) and decided to look at VY1 and VY2's forums. I listened to a couple of songs and was pleasantly surprised. Now I think that the Yamaha Vocaloids are high quality, and of course I still like Internet Co's Vocaloids (such as GUMI, Gakupo, and Lily). I always wonder how come Miku is used for the vast majority of songs out there when there are so many other Vocaloids. Maybe the producers bought their Vocaloids earlier on when there weren't as many Japanese Vocaloids available. Or maybe it's just because Miku happens to be the most famous. (She even appears in a car commercial. Though I can't say I liked the Toyota Corolla commercial with Miku in it much.)
I've found that I like VY2's voice a lot, better than Kaito's, though I'm not sure yet whether I prefer him over Gakupo (and I know thefalse-tto will skin me alive if I say so). True, I don't think that his "symbol", the sword, is particularly creative since it reminds me a lot of Gakupo (since Gakupo is designed to look like a samurai), but I guess it's supposed to go along with VY1's symbol, which is a fan.
Here's VY2's cover of the song Iroha Uta.
A fairly recent song by VY2. (You can probably tell I greatly prefer his voice when it's low; I generally dislike high-pitched Vocaloid voices)
And here's a duet of the song Cendrillon, by VY1 and VY2.
Besides just their Vocaloids, though, I must say I also like their pianos. My piano's a Yamaha one and I have always liked its sound. (:
Labels: commercial, crypton, forum, hatsune, internet co, japan, miku, miku hatsune, piano, toyota corolla, vocaloid, vocaloidotaku, vocaloids, voice, vy1, vy2, yamaha
By ◆ Juppie on Tuesday, June 14, 2011 @ 10:16 PM
Well, of course, it should really be spelled "craze", but I felt like using alliteration. :p
Korean pop, or k-pop as it is often called, seems to have become quite popular in the last few years. It also seems to be a trend (even if it is unintentional) for people who were once obsessed with anime to turn their interests to Korean dramas and bands. It's not a bad thing necessarily, though I must say it made me feel both sad and proud. Sad because I felt like the race of otakus was dying out (though actually that's not really true at all, from what I've seen on the Internet lately), and proud that I wasn't following a trend. The second part's funny, considering that I'm probably missing out on a lot of good things because I try not to do what everyone else is doing. (I guess that was part of the reason I picked Weight Training instead of Dance. I didn't want to add to the stereotype that girls take Dance and boys take Weight Training. But then again, I actually do want to try Weight Training.) After getting disappointed by the Twilight series, I lost faith in what's popular with the general public. Though I'm starting to jump back on the bandwagon again, particularly since I've watched a couple of popular anime (Durarara, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica) and found that they were actually quite good.
Back to k-pop. I haven't really listened to too much of it. I've tried, but I'm not usually all that fond of hip hop and dance music (I have the feeling I've misidentified the genres, but whatever). There are a few groups that I do like, such as DBSK (which has, unfortunately, split up, though a few of the members made a new group called JYJ, I think). Maybe I should listen to more of it. The other day, Shiroi showed me a few songs, such as a DBSK acapella, and also, to my surprise, some Japanese songs sang by K-pop groups. It's pretty cool that they can sing in too languages. But then again...have you heard any of those Vocaloid songs which are supposed to be in English, but the lyrics don't make any sense? I heard this Luka song the other day that was saying something about German alcohol, I think. I guess the composer's knowledge of English was a bit...lacking. Maybe it's just because Asian countries seem to enjoy putting English words in their songs and on their products, even if they aren't exactly sure what it means?
As for actual Korean songs by K-pop groups, thefalse-tto introduced me to Pinocchio Danger and Nu Abo by the group F(x). In particular she pointed out the girl Amber, who has now been added to my growing list of women/girls that I admire. For some reason I really like tomboyish girls and girly-looking guys. But besides that, it turns out Amber is actually Taiwanese-American and from California (I assume from around Los Angeles, since that is apparently where she got picked up by SM Entertainment).
Speaking of Los Angeles, I'd sure like to go there - not because I'm planning to audition to become a k-pop singer (though I actually would like to try if I had a larger vocal range), but because of Miku Hatsune's live concert at Anime Expo... Right now all the tickets are sold out, but I really hope there will be more. I'm thinking about going there if more tickets become available. (True, since Miku is a Vocaloid, she's just going to be a hologram and I could probably watch the concert on Youtube later, but I've started to think that a concert is a totally different experience from listening to music by myself. After all, you're surrounded by tons of people who love the same thing that you do.) This is one of the times that I feel frustrated about living in the suburbs. It's rather far from the action sometimes. (But there was a convention a lot closer to where I live, I guess I couldn't gone to that one...The price and the fact that finals were coming up threw me off, though...Still, would've been nice to look at the merchandise and see people perform at the convention.) Oh well. When there's a will, there's a way. I'll have to see about getting to LA.
Labels: amber, anime, anime expo, california, concert, convention, english, f(x), japan, k-pop, korea, languages, los angeles, miku hatsune, music, otaku, trend, vocaloid, weight training
By ◆ Juppie on Saturday, May 28, 2011 @ 8:02 PM
Interpret the meaning of that however you want. I love having titles with multiple layers of meaning. I guess my Writing for Publication class really is seeping into the rest of my life.
Well, one of my friends, thefalse-tto, seems to enjoy being written about, so I suppose I'll inflate her ego a bit more (no offense intended, if she is reading this). She was telling me about how before she'd made a "persona" on the Internet, which means that she basically made a whole identity for herself.
She managed to convince people that she was a 17-year-old boy living in Korea, and she explained that she knew English because you have to learn in there (which is true) and that she knew Chinese because you had to learn another language besides English and Korean (apparently also true; first time I've heard it, but it doesn't surprise me). I think it'd be pretty fun to try doing that myself. All I've done so far is stop showing my gender one or two of my accounts...but then again, I bet they already saw that I was female before I hid it. Or they can tell from the way I speak and the kind of pictures I have on my profiles/blogs/etc.
But then again, maybe not. It might not take much to convince people I'm the opposite gender or that I'm a different age or anything I feel like. I've done it before by accident; when I was in 7th grade, people on a forum I used to visit said they thought I was in high school or college because I apparently sounded mature (well, most people speak with tons of smilies and chatspeak, so I guess I seem really old in comparison. I don't know about you, but I estimate people's ages based on what they type). And there was a really funny incident many years ago on Club Penguin: Some girl thought I was a guy, so she kept having her penguin make those emoticons that look like a heart is breaking. Concerned, I asked her what was wrong, and then somehow or other we ended up going to my penguin's igloo. Well, eventually I said I was a girl and she said "You lied" and left. I was really flabbergasted at the time, and even angry, because I never said that I was male. But now I just find it hilarious. Isn't it funny how people are trying to flirt using a kids site where everyone is a bird?
Anyways, I don't really like to lie about my information, because I try to live by what I believe in, and also because I've seen lots of people on the Internet say they hate fakers and liars. I am overly concerned about whether people dislike me because I believe that they attack me with switchblades in some dark, obscure alley, or take pictures of me while I'm changing clothes and put it all over the Internet, and other things like that. (Not that it's ever happened, but hey, you never know.) Still, I am very curious about what people would think I'm like if I didn't have much information up. So maybe from now on I'll reveal as little as possible and see what happens.
This is a pretty big change of topic, but it's still got to do with this post's title. Very literally. Because there's a series of video games called Persona, and another friend of mine started telling me about the plot of Persona 4 yesterday. I've certainly seen Persona around before; one time I was on the air plane, and I noticed that the guy in the seat in front of me was playing a video game. Being the creepy, eavesdropping, people-watching sort of person that I am, I stared at it through the gap in the seats to see what game it was. I saw a character that looked very familiar, and then after a while I was certain that it had to be Minato Arisato, the protagonist of Persona 3. (And I was right; I later confirmed it by looking at pictures of Minato on the Internet. Couldn't find out from watching the guy play because his game was in Japanese, I think. I really have to learn Japanese this summer.) My friend says that she convinced her mom to get her Persona 4, which she says was pretty awkward, because Persona 4 is rated Teen in Japan but is rated Mature in America. (Tells you something about Japanese standards for what's age appropriate, game-wise at least, doesn't it?)
What I'm really in the mood for playing, though, is Pokemon. Sure, I have the older games, and I could go back to those, but there's nothing to do except slaughter wild Pokemon (which is like animal abuse, seeing as I don't even need to attack them except to make my own Pokemon level up), since I've already beat the main storyline. I'd like to try playing Pokemon Black or Pokemon White. But I haven't decided which one I want yet...I like Reshiram, the legendary Pokemon of Pokemon Black, but I think it'd be more useful to have Zekrom, and possibly Thundurus, if I ever get that far in the game. It seems, from what I've Googled, that it's easier to level up your Pokemon in Black...? (Correct me if I'm wrong.) I guess Black might be more useful to me because I don't really need those Pokemon that you can get in White but not in Black. (I mean, I checked the Pokemon that are in the White Forest, which is only in Pokemon White, and I have those Pokemon on my older Pokemon games.) If you have either game, please do tell me which you think is better.
Labels: club penguin, first impression, friends, honesty, identity, internet, japan, minato, paranoia, persona, pokemon, pokemon black, pokemon white, pretend, video games
By ◆ Juppie on Friday, February 25, 2011 @ 8:14 AM
I think that the song Soundless Voice is originally sung by the Vocaloid Len Kagamine, but this song is better known as being sung by Valshe, a Japanese singer who I believe debuted on Nico Nico Douga. I got into Valshe's music after hearing Soundless Voice.
I'm a big fan of her because she can sound female or male depending on how she sings. For instance, she sings the female (Luka) and male (Len) parts in Symmetric Target.
Anyways, here's more of her singing.
In Yume Sakura, Valshe does the male part (Len) while Choco does the female part (Rin).
And here is a song called Imitation Black, sung by Clear, Dasoku, and Valshe (Valshe does Len's part, she's the highest voice out of the three). It's mostly Clear that you hear in this song; I think he did a good job with this one.
Sorry, I'll stop video-spamming now (the videos weren't uploaded by me, anyhow D: ). I needed an outlet for my fangirling.
I really wish I had a larger voice range, I can only sing at medium-ish pitches (hard for me to go high or low, and I have to use a higher, quieter, weirder-sounding voice to hit higher notes; I think it's called a head voice?). And even then my voice doesn't sound like I thought it did (tried recording it with my cell phone and I am not pleased with the way my voice sounds x_x). I hope that I'll be able to expand my range by practicing at home in the shower, but somehow I get the feeling that my voice is going to be my like my height, something I wish I could change...but can't.
Labels: japan, japanese, kagamine, len kagamine, luka, luka megurine, megurine, music, nico nico douga, nicovideo, range, rin, rin kagamine, singer, songs, soundless voice, valshe, vocaloid, vocaloids, voice
By ◆ Juppie on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 @ 6:35 PM
One of my classes, Writing for Publication, has caused me to become a lot more paranoid. We've read about all sorts of things that journalists have to avoid - invasion of privacy, revealing a source's name when we've promised not to, messing up certain details, lying. But the scariest thing was the most recent one I've learned about: copyright law.
These days, as soon as you create something, whether it be a photo or story or some revolutionary discovery, it's pretty much automatically copyrighted to you, the creator. And so that means just about everything out there belongs to someone. When I put up something that isn't mine (in my case, it would probably be pictures), even if I say it wasn't mine, I could still get in trouble if I was ever brought to court for it. My teacher puts it like this: "I could steal your jacket and write on the tag that this jacket belongs to you, not me, but it's still stealing."
At first, it occurred to me as very odd, because then wouldn't that mean that there are a ton of people out there breaking the copyright law? They talk quite casually about downloading stuff on the Internet that wasn't supposed to be distributed on the Internet. And I've never really seen someone get in much trouble for taking something that isn't his/hers. I figure it must be because of just how hard it is to crack down on these things what with the Internet... It'd be nearly impossible to catch and punish everyone, and I think it'd be unfair to target some individuals and let the rest of us get off free, except for in some rare instances where big trouble was caused. Though I do wonder if someday there'd actually be a huge police force just for the Internet.
Anyways, I'd just been wondering if I ought to keep doing as I've done for quite a while now. I used to make graphics that had part of images drawn by other artists in them, and although I hadn't claimed to have made the original image, I hadn't asked for permission either... (In some cases it wouldn't have been possible to ask permission since some artists might've only been reachable on Pixiv or only spoke Japanese or had no contact information at all or I might not have even known who'd illustrated a particular picture. But still, maybe I could've taken more care in some instances to get permission to use works.) At the same time, it is a huge hassle to have to ask EVERY SINGLE PERSON EVERY SINGLE TIME when you want to just share a nice image that you saw. (I've also been wondering, wouldn't it be a good strategy for people who want their works to be known if they let people spread it around - as long as it says who made the original work? If it's too much hassle to use something, people might just lose interest and you would actually lose the opportunity for profit or at least recognition. But I don't know, it's probably more complicated than I think it is.)
I do realize I am babbling on and on, and I'd better stop (and go to bed, for that matter, so that I can actually get a decent night's sleep). I'd just like to ask...If everyone is doing it, does it make it okay? Or is it simply too late to stop an evil from spreading?
Labels: artist, copyright, creation, credit, crime, fame, internet, japan, journalism, pixiv, question, stealing, strategy, violation, writing
By ◆ Juppie on Friday, February 19, 2010 @ 6:08 PM
When I visited the Grand Canyon, the most startling thing to me was the snow. There was snow on both sides of the road, surrounding the trees... I didn't expect to see snow. The Grand Canyon is in Arizona, and so I always expected it to be a really hot place, so snow was quite the surprise. But I suppose the Grand Canyon is at a high altitude and that's what causes it to snow.
The snow on the actual canyons had already melted, but the canyons were stunning nevertheless. We were only able to see the South Rim (there is a North Rim and South Rim) because the North Rim doesn't open until the warmer months.
I find it interesting that although California is considered to be a pretty warm state, Nevada and Arizona felt a lot warmer (even the Grand Canyon wasn't all that cold). When I got back home, I was pretty surprised by it. I guess that means Arizona and Nevada are really hot in the summertime, though. And I've heard that old people like to move to Arizona since it's a warm place. It helps with arthritis. (I've visited the Winchester House, which is pretty close to where I live, and I heard that Sarah Winchester had lots of heaters since she had arthritis.)
While I was on vacation, I would watch the Olympics at nighttime. I always hoped to see the skating, which I was interested in. The problem is, the skating didn't go on until late at night, so I'd be really tired by the time it was on TV.
I was watching the Pair Skating, and there was a pair from Russia, Yuko Kavaguti and Aleksandr Smirnov. Yuko Kavaguti is actually from Japan, but gave up her Japanese citizenship and moved to Russia to pursue her Olympic dream. I don't think I saw any Japanese pair skaters. I had heard on television that some people considered her a traitor for leaving Japan for Russia. But you know, making a decision like that couldn't have been easy. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to make other dreams come true.
I also watched some snowboarding. It seems like having longish hair is a common thing for male snowboarder, though Shaun White, one of the USA snowboarders, had especially long hair... My parents think snowboarding is a risky sport and all. Really, a lot of the Winter Olympic sports seem pretty dangerous. I also watched some of the women's alpine skiing. It was pretty scary seeing athletes get into crashes. It sure is dangerous to do these sports. No wonder when I was watching the skiing, a person commented, "It's like she's afraid of the speed." Wouldn't you be, if you had just nearly gotten yourself killed? Hockey also seemed to be quite the violent sport.
I kind of wonder why people still go into sports despite that they could really injure themselves badly. Do they try not to think about that? Do they feel it is worth the risk? I guess there is a kind of thrill in doing something dangerous, too.
I was really freaked out when I was standing near to the edge of the Grand Canyon, even though there are railings and all. There was a sign saying people have died by falling into the Grand Canyon. My dad said sometimes being by the edge gives him the urge to actually go and jump in. I often feel like I'm going to fall in or drop my camera or something like that, and sometimes I'm really scared of falling in, but at other times I think it will be really thrilling.
My imagination tends to go wild a lot, and I think of myself doing all sorts of amazing things that I would probably never be able to do. When I was younger, I thought of myself with magic powers, being able to control things like a rainbow swirling sort of thing. That was inspired by the old Fishtime Club I was a part of back in elementary school. In first grade, one of my friends decided he wanted to a form a club. We started out with just him, me, and his sister, and we would spend time digging up rocks and walking around the YMCA daycare at my elementary school. But then we met more people, and there were some really fun and happy times. Later on, though it kind of split up, as my friend and his sister stopped going to the YMCA, and eventually I think they must have moved away (I haven't seen them at my middle school). They might still live in this area. I saw someone who looked a whole lot like him at Target once. I don't know if he still remembers me or if my old friends still remember those fun times. (A lot of the people who I spent time with were a year younger than I was. I guess I get along better with younger people because I've always wondered what it's like to have siblings. I like to spend time with my friends' younger sisters, too.) I'd be really happy if they still have those memories.
Labels: alpine, arizona, arthritis, danger, fishtime club, grand canyon, japan, memory, nevada, olympics, pairs, russia, shaun white, ski, snow, snowboarding, sports, temperature, winchester, yuko kavaguti
By ◆ Juppie on Wednesday, January 13, 2010 @ 3:28 PM
The inspiration for this post came from what I heard on the radio. I think the station was PBS (stands for Public Broadcasting Station), but I'm not quite sure. On the radio, the topic was Japan, and how it has kind of "swept the world" and become known as "cool". The Hayao Miyazaki films, such as Spirited Away, were mentioned. (I was pleased with that, seeing as I am very fond of those films.)
A man went to Japan, and was guided by a woman called Lisa (or Risa, if you want it to be more Japanese :o ). Lisa showed the man a place that was totally filled with photo booths. Photo booths are not that common in the USA. I've only seen them in two places - in Chuck E. Cheese (I know because I have a picture taken with my dad from there. It was fairly simple, though, we didn't get to decorate it or anything like that) and at a local mall (there is a place with a couple of photo booths. The place is called Angel Pix, I think). There were a few people trying out a photo booth, actually.
Well, Lisa told the man that he wouldn't have been able to go inside the photo booth place unless he was accompanied by a girl. Apparently guys aren't supposed to go into the establishments. On the radio, they even said that "If a guy asks to see a girl's photo booth sticker collection, that's very offensive. It's like asking to see someone's underwear." (I don't really know if it's true, but I'll go with the flow) The man and Lisa picked a photo booth that would make you into a Beautiful Girl. The man was given the chose of being a Sweet and Pretty Beautiful Girl or a Colorful Beautiful Girl, and he chose the former. They had to make a certain pose for the picture (not sure what the pose was, since this was on the radio, not on TV). Then they could decorate it, adding bees, and butterflies, or whatever things you can add. And then some sheets came out of the machine, with many identical little stickers of the decorated photo. (I heard that it cost 400 yen. That's like $4 in the USA.) Thus, the man had become a Beautiful Girl. XD
Afterwards the man said that he had seen girls in schoolgirl outfits just like the ones in the manga his daughter read. I thought this was interesting since when I had been in Japan, I had seen some students, but their outfits were black, and not like those sailor-style seifuku (uniforms) that you'll see often in anime. I wonder if I just didn't go to the right place. I'd like to go to Japan again, and go to Hokkaido so I can see the Sapporo Snow Festival, but unfortunately the Snow Festival is in January, so I'll be in school and I can't go.
There are other things I think about besides just things that are impossible are highly unlikely to happen, though. I think many of my peers are still caterpillars. They are young and restless and still innocent. They're still gold, like that poem by Robert Frost...
"Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."
I saw this poem in the book The Outsiders. The meaning of the poem could be said to mean that nothing perfect can remain; something will go wrong and ruin it, because that's part of human nature. And it can also mean that you might be young and innocent, but you won't always be.
Some people strive for things, like getting all A's or becoming a doctor or making a million dollars or finding a cure for cancer. I've been wondering why they have such goals. If you want to be a doctor, is it because you truly think you can save lives? (If you're a veterinarian, you'll have to be prepared for killing animals, too, because sometimes you must euthanize them.) Or is it because your parents wanted you to? Because it was a respected career or for the money? Or for the title of Doctor? (Ashamedly, if I wanted to be a doctor, I would probably want it for the title.) I hope that my fellow people understand what their motives are for doing things. If you want good grades, is it to better yourself? To feel that you have improved and are striving for your limits? Or is it to keep your parents from hitting you and from taking away your privileges? It'd be good if everyone would take a little time to look at what they want to achieve, how they will achieve it, and why they want it. If they can't answer the why, a very important part, then probably they're truly a part of the rat race. I heard the rat race being described as, "We keep going and going even though we don't know why we do."
It's when you know yourself and your dreams and are fighting to achieve them that you truly turn into a butterfly.
Labels: beautiful girl, doctor, dreams, hayao miyazaki, innocence, japan, nothing gold can stay, photo booth, poem, radio, rat race, robert frost, sapporo snow festival, seifuku, the outsiders, uniform, youth
By ◆ Juppie on Monday, December 14, 2009 @ 5:17 PM
Recently I attended the birthday party of one of my friends. It wasn't actually her birthday, but I think she decided to have it early since her birthday is during the winter break. I was looking at the light fixtures in her house and thought, "Hmm, they look kind of Japanese."
The pattern is like the one in the above picture (which is a "shoji lamp", apparently) except the light was kind of a flat rectangle, and it was on the ceiling. I did see some pictures sort of like the lamp I'm trying to describe but nothing quite right.
And then there were other lights that looked sort of like what I saw when I was in Japan. I couldn't find the right picture for that either. But I saw those kinds of lamps in my hotel rooms when I was in Japan. Perhaps there are such lamps in people's homes too. I'm curious about it, but I doubt I will get the chance to return to Japan soon. (I wanted to go again so I can see Hokkaido, and the Sapporo Snow Festival, but it's in January and I have school. Ugh, school. A lot of good cruise ship routes are only during the months when I'm in school so I can never go)
Well, my friend does not have Japanese lineage, as far as I know of, but I believe her father had been in Japan for a while, so maybe he was fond of Japanese-style things and decided to buy a house that had such features in California. That's why my friend knows that if a few letters were taken out of her name, then her name would be the Japanese word for flower. Speaking of which, I didn't think my name really had a meaning (besides famous cities being named after me - though the truth is that I'm named after the city), but then I looked it up and apparently my name is from Old English and means "wide meadow". Hmm, not bad.
While I am on the topic of Japan...Sometimes I take a look at the bonus features on anime DVDs. I've watched an interview with Yui Makino and a day in the work on The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (that one featured Aya Hirano, who was Haruhi's voice and sang the opening and ending songs - note I am talking about the original anime and not the re-release). I thought that their singing sounded different from their normal speaking voices. Do people always sound different when they sing than when they are just talking? I've been curious about it ever since.
Speaking of music, I started watching an anime called Da Capo, and now I'm on the second season. (I think the name Da Capo is cool since it is a musical term) When I was watching the opening sequence I listened to the song and realized that it was strangely familiar to me. In fact, I discovered it was a song on my playlist. ("Sakurairo no Kisetsu", sung by Yozuca*, #37 on the playlist at the bottom of this page)
Also, Abba must be after me for some reason. My playlist is on shuffle and autostart so it automatically picks a random song on my playlist. Two times in a row, when seeing my playlist, I was given an Abba song. (Yes, I know, Abba is old and isn't even singing anymore nowadays, but I thought they were sort of catchy. I guess I really am an old person after all.)
I learned something about Harrison Ford recently. Harrison Ford played Han Solo in Star Wars and was Indiana in Indiana Jones. I had never known for all this time that he was an actor in Star Wars until my dad told me...I guess I'm not that knowledgeable about actors. (Refer to my post in June 2009, "definitely hunting season for drivers", there's a part about my lack of knowledge about Angelina Jolie there)
Labels: abba, cruise ship, da capo, harrison ford, haruhi suzumiya, hokkaido, indiana jones, japan, japanese, lamp, meaning, music, name, round, sapporo snow festival, shoji, star wars, sydney
By ◆ Juppie on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 @ 5:02 PM
...Or so I thought. I was busy typing up my factoring story for homework, and then I thought my eyes were flashing or something! So I looked at the lights,and one of the lightbulbs flickered and then went out. But now it's back to normal. I wonder if it was my imagination or it really did almost run out of energy a second ago.
As I am feeling very unhappy (because I am presenting my speech for my Japan project tomorrow) I don't feel that much like doing homework. So instead I figured I'd put in another blog post, and listen to my own playlist in the meantime. I just figured out that I had two of the same song (Anata ga Ita Mori, the ending theme of Fate/Stay Night anime) so I deleted one of them. Wow, I have too many songs - a total of 26 now. And that's just weird since 26 was my classroom back in fifth grade.
Here's the cooking schedule. It's pretty plain this week, much to my disappointment. But then again, next week will be winter break, and after that barely any of the trimester is left. I can't believe I'll be moving onto woodshop soon. (One of my friends is going to make me a clock, except she said she would make an easy one, to save herself effort)
Monday - Nachos Supreme (we made dip out of beef, spices, beans, cheese, etc.)
Tuesday - Chocolate Hearts (not hard to do. Just melt chocolate and pour it into molds. Then leave it in the fridge for a while)
Wednesday - Dairy Cow DVD (something like that)
Thursday - Dary Cow thing again.
Friday - Some exercise notebook or practice? (Dunno what that is but it sounds boring)
So you see, though cooking is really nice since you can look forward to it when you wake up, and it's free food, sometimes you have a dull time because we have to watch a bunch of cheesy videos and fill out worksheets.
But at least we watched something interesting recently. It's called the Meatrix and it's pretty funny. Here's the link.
Meatrix
Meatrix 2
Meatrix 2 1/2 (ignore Korean subtitles)
Labels: blog, cooking, elective, factoring, homework, japan, lightbulb, meatrix, music, speech, videos
By ◆ Juppie on Saturday, January 31, 2009 @ 9:51 AM
When I went to blogger this morning I noticed it said I had 100 posts now. That's quite the milestone. It took longer than I thought because I don't post everyday anymore, but I'm glad to have gotten there anyhow. Though some people always say "Quality, not quantity" I'll try my best to achieve both.
Anyhow, I think I've already hit rock bottom. Maybe things can get better from now on. I stapled the map page from my history test in the front instead of the back, so I lost 5 points off my test, which otherwise would've been perfect. Also, I missed a bonus run in PE (if you run/jog the whole time, you can get credit for it or something) because I still hadn't recovered completely. Oh well. My foot should be better by the time we run our next mile. I hope I won't be too tired by then. (It seems like I have bad luck with both of the "Blairs" at the moment.)
Well, at least we watched an interesting Youtube video in class. Two criminals ran away from the court. They were handcuffed together and got peppersprayed so they couldn't see all that well. They weren't so bright, and ran on the opposite sides of a lamppost, causing them to crash together and get caught by the police again. Apparently a year has been added to their sentence. (I don't know what the original offense was, so please find out yourself.)
My neck is really itchy. That's strange since usually that only happens in the summer, because it is hot and dry. But I guess it happens in the winter because it's cold and dry. It makes it worse that I'm wearing a sweater, which my mom wanted me to try. I always wear jackets or no outerwear at all. (Of course I wear clothes. But that doesn't really count as outerwear.) It's lavender with white stripes. It's a pretty color but I already saw someone walking to school who had a similar sweater and I don't want to have an identity crisis.
I've been wondering about what to do for my Japan project. The subject is ikebana, otherwise known as flower-arranging. I am trying to decide what kind of ikebana I should do. Should I do an upright kind in a tall thin vase? (I have a vase like that except it's a Chinese vase and I would have to remove the bamboo already growing in there.) Or should I do a dog food dish for the vase? Or even this thing that looks like a very flat lampshade? Hmm.
This morning a lot of memories about when I was young came flooding back. When I was little, I wanted to play piano so I could play the song Fur Elise. Not a good goal since I soon reached that and became bored of piano. I would get upset if I couldn't play good, and cry and bang on the piano, or try to rip up my books. (This is why my belongings are so shabby.) Nowadays I realize I need to be more patient. I guess that means I'm maturing mentally.
Labels: 100, bad news, blog, childhood, homework, japan, neck, piano, running away, sweater, vase, youtube
By ◆ Juppie on Sunday, January 18, 2009 @ 10:29 AM
Nowadays I've been dreaming a lot and mostly I forget it all in the morning but I do remember last night's dream involved me speaking Japanese to people. Sometimes it's real people, in Japan, and sometimes it's fictional characters. It's really strange. I wonder if I've been listening to people in anime speak Japanese too much if it's started to invade my mind.
At least I'm still speaking English to the people around me. That's a comfort. I would be in quite a pickle because most of the people near me don't know Japanese and go "Whaa? What in the world?" Though I would like to learn to effectively speak and read Japanese someday. (But I guess it would be more useful to learn Chinese because there are more people in the world who know Chinese, and Chinese is similar to Japanese anyhow)
I need to spend more time reading books and less time on the computer nowadays, I suppose. I mean, I have three stacks of books to read (They aren't very tall stacks but still stacks nevertheless) and maybe not much time to read them. But it's easier just watching anime because I can multitask and do stuff on the Internet at the same time.
I have piano class at 11:15 today, so I figure I should try to wrap up this post and do something else on the computer while I have the chance. Then in the afternoon I can try to relax. (Or work on my factoring project. Sigh...It's still there even if I try to pretend it's not there.)
I know my posts on the weekend are pretty drab, unless I went somewhere. Sorry about that. It's just I don't see a lot of people or do much interesting on weekends. (Except for yesterday I went to see two new Japanese places that opened. One was a store selling a variety of cheap/useful things. The other was a supermarket that was a little on the expensive side, even though it sells the same products as a different supermarket.)
Labels: anime, books, dream, english, homework, japan, language, piano, shopping
