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

Although there's a show by the same time, I haven't watched it. I'm simply borrowing the name, that's all. I've often wished I could slow down time, stop it, even rewind it. But there's always things that need to be done, things that are expected of me or that I expect of myself. And when all is said and done, it's the end of the day.

It's been a while since I've gotten to write, so I certainly don't update this blog much anymore. Maybe it's because I feel like I'm just shouting at a wall - seeing as there's no one left to read this except myself - but then again, perhaps the reason why I'm the only one here is because I hardly write anything, or at least nothing particularly of interest. I don't really have the urge to write anymore. It could be because I'm taking Writing for Publication and have written much more than usual this school year, so I've drained any creative energy I had.

Or maybe it's just gone to other pursuits, not necessarily useful ones, considering my capacity for wasting time without getting bored. Well, at least I'm writing for a change. Maybe it's a start.

I've just arrived home from a trip to China, visiting relatives, as is necessary every couple of years. For a long time I'd made up my mind to hate the country, or at least the city of Shanghai, which is mostly due to what memories I had of visiting it. What I remember is...

- Being forced to dine with relatives that I had nothing to say to and who smoked indoors, and gave me gifts that I didn't want, but could not refuse because that would be bad manners

- Not wanting to eat anything except for egg tarts, which were very unhealthy. I was not interested in Chinese food, and still am not, for the most part.

- Being given huge sums of money by relatives, which made me feel uncomfortable because I didn't deserve it, and my mom always tried to take the money from me (she insisted it was for safekeeping, but I was always suspicious)

- Rude people in general (being shoved aside without apology on the street, in the subway station, and such. And vendors yelling at me if I didn't buy anything.)

- Spitting on the ground (you would hear this gagging noise and some person would spit a blob of mucus on the ground. Yuck! At least my old history teacher had the sense to do it in the trash can)

- Being stared at (store workers that would just watch me as I browsed the merchandise. Not comfortable at all)

- Near-death situations (cars, bikes, and people ignoring the red traffic lights, cars insisting on cutting you off when you had the "right of the way". Pretty funny this time since an old man said a very rude word in Chinese to the drivers)

- A general feeling of uneasiness (because of how rushed the locals seemed to be, combined with cigarette smoke and an ugly grey sky)

All of these things were still there this time, but maybe I had a different outlook now. Or maybe I was just tired of hating it. I did get to go to Beijing this time, and Beijing was pretty nice since it had parks - and cats living in them! Beijing even had a blue sky, which astonished me. But it was way too cold, and unfamiliar, and taxi drivers tried to rip us off or would refuse to drive us because of the horrible Beijing traffic jams. I guess I'd become familiar with Shanghai...I'd been there enough times to recognize the sights and sounds, and I even found that I liked nighttime there (it reminded me of Las Vegas, with the lights XD). The place hasn't changed so much. It's me who has changed.

Labels: beijing, blog, change, china, comparison, consequences, energy, familiar, lazy, memories, night, perspective, rush, shanghai, time, writing

I would have named this "The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku", except it isn't a Vocaloid disappearing. It's an actual person - to be more precise, my own piano teacher.

Last night, my mother received a call from the mother of a girl who has the same piano teacher as I do. She was wondering if we knew anything about where my piano teacher was and whether she was okay (at her age, it was not completely unreasonable to suspect that perhaps she'd had a stroke, or a heart attack, or some other terrible affliction). The woman's daughter was supposed to have a piano lesson, but she'd been unable to find the piano teacher.

My mother came over to me, rather unsettled, asking if my piano teacher had mentioned anything about there being no piano classes next week or anything along those lines. I was not particularly concerned. I'd wracked my brains and recalled that she'd said something about going to Shanghai, though I couldn't remember whether she was telling me or the student who had his piano lesson right before mine. I'd assumed it wasn't anything important. My teacher, in the past, had always made it clear when she would be gone. She would write that there was no class on such-and-such dates on the little notepad I keep for recording info from the piano classes, and she would say, directly to me, that she would be taking a trip. But not so this time.

I think that she probably thought that she had told the students when she really hadn't. According to my mother, who spoke with someone who is connected to the piano teacher, my teacher has been planning the trip to Shanghai for quite some time now. It wasn't just some spur-of-the-moment decision, a sudden desire to chase an until-now-forgotten childhood dream. But why hadn't she told her students that she wouldn't be here?

It was strange. Very strange. I don't think that my piano teacher is in any danger for her life, at least for the time being. But it seems that her age is starting to show. She is already more than middle-aged, if not quite an old lady. I wonder if maybe she can't remember what she's done and hasn't done anymore. That she's getting her thoughts and what has really happened mixed up. She's becoming like me.

I hope that this is just one incident, that this won't be happening again. I don't want to see someone losing his or herself. It's just too terrible to be alive in body, but to lose your mind, little by little.

Labels: classes, deteriorating, forgetful, losing, mind, missing, past, piano, shanghai, teacher, the disappearance of hatsune miku, trip

Today a childhood friend of mine came over to my house. She has been living in Shanghai ever since she moved away many years ago. I haven't seen her for a few years. She's in California now because she's attending a creative writing summer camp (I believe it lasts for three weeks) at Stanford.

I'm afraid I'm not very good with people. Although my zodiac sign, Leo, says I'm supposed to be extroverted, strong-willed, ambitious, and a born leader, I don't think those things are true...Maybe I used to be more like that, but I've been changed by my experiences. (Or I happen to be unlike most Leos.) A person once said I was more like a Virgo. Virgos are shy, meticulous, intelligent, analytical...as well as being perfectionists and worrywarts. Maybe I was born at the wrong time. (But I was actually born a little bit late, so maybe I'm meant to be a Leo with a Virgo's personality?)

I'm not a very good host, and I couldn't really say much. There were things I wanted to ask, but I couldn't really express myself because I thought the questions would be too blunt and rather strange... And I couldn't really say what kind of things I do when I'm at home during the summer because it might take a lot of explaining. Nor was I able to properly tell her how video and computer games that I was playing worked. (I guess it's partially because I don't know what to say exactly and partially that I've usually figured out how to do things on my own or by reading instruction manuals, so I'm not so familiar with giving people verbal instructions...)

She did say that the Korean boys at her school were quite fond of Starcraft, and it occurred to me that some member of the Korean boy band SS501 had become a Starcraft programmer or something of that sort.

Anyhow, though, that's not really important. I'm sorry, I got sidetracked again. (I apologize for my disorganized posts recently. My thoughts are a bit...muddled.) To me, living in Shanghai is a foreign concept, even if I've visited the city several times. Through listening I've noted various differences between the city where I reside, in California, and Shanghai, China.

- SH: Hot and humid in the summer
CA: Hot, but apparently not as hot as SH (both my friend who lives in Shanghai and my friend who lives in Taiwan say that here is cold, comparatively. I was horrified. XD)
- SH: Friend gets on the bus at 6:45 am and rides it for an hour to get to school
CA: I leave for school at 8:00 am, about an 8 minute ride
- SH: A polluted city with weak sunlight
CA: Bright sunlight (but in my town, you can't see the stars that well at night. Yosemite, on the other hand, is just splendid for stargazing.)
- SH: No wildlife, except in zoos.
CA: Birds (mostly pigeons, crows, and seagulls) and squirrels. (Stanford University, as I just discovered today, has so many squirrels in this one area. It was amazing.)
- SH: 8 classes at the school my friend attends (which is an "international" school that teaches by USA curriculum.) 4 classes in one day, then the other 4 the next day. (It's a good idea. You would have 2 days to do your homework so you can manage your time. And if you have trouble with it you have one day to ask your teacher for help.)
CA: 6 or 7 classes, daily. (It's predictable, but I want to try the 8 class system.)
- SH: Many students use Skype.
CA: Kids are more likely to chat through Gmail.

I wonder if I would come to like Shanghai if I went there. Maybe I could have a dog, like my friend does, if I lived in Shanghai. But I have very little grasp of Chinese (at least as a written language - I can speak Shanghainese somewhat better than Mandarin, so maybe that's okay) and I like my big backyard and getting to use the Internet freely (in China, you can't access Facebook, Youtube, or Blogspot, as well as other thinsg). Perhaps trying out the lifestyle is the only way to see.

Labels: atmosphere, california, china, comparison, friends, inability, instructions, internet, korean, language, leo, lifestyle, school, shanghai, squirrels, stanford, starcraft, temperature, virgo, zodiac

Today in cooking, we made cinnamon crisps. I didn't know for sure what they were until today. I finally found out that it was a kind of cookie. It was addicting and delicious but it was filled with unhealthy things such as: sugar, of course...salt, molasses (a byproduct of sugar), and butter, which is quite fatty but tasty.

Sorry, folks, if you were disappointed about my lack of post yesterday. I couldn't think of much to say and didn't have a lot of time to dedicate to a post, so I decided I would skip it yesterday. It's pretty hard to maintain posts every day sometimes, especially since I have some big projects coming up in school (A presentation and research on Japan, and a story about factoring...). They sound pretty tedious to me but I guess I will have to do them. At least I won't have to do it again. (But I will have other projects in the future, which isn't encouraging.)

I saw Haibao on TV. (If you read my bonus/special about him, you'll know, but just in case...He's a blue cartoony guy who is the mascot of the Shanghai world expo in 2010). It wasn't a statue or merchandise this time. There was a person wearing a suit, kind of like you might see someone dressed up as Dora the Explorer at one of the nearby amusement parks. I feel sorry for the poor guy who had to be in the suit.

I'm still having my "health problems" (It's a female thing, don't think too hard about it) but I hope it goes away soon. I don't feel hungry anymore and I can't tell the difference between digestion problems and the pains from my...extra organs. But I'm getting kind of used to the wet feeling nowadays but that doesn't keep it from being a bother.

Oh yeah, I am supposed to go to my friend Mars's house on Monday. It turns out her sister invited a bunch of friends...And we all have to go see a movie. Something about a hotel for dogs. I am okay with a movie but I really prefer to chill at someone's house, or take a walk. D: But I can't do anything about it because I can't be left at someone else's house. So I have to go if I don't want the meeting to be canceled. This is a dilemma.

Labels: blog, cooking, costume, female, friends, haibao, health, homework, movie, shanghai

Ugh, how mean. After my parents practically dismissed me from eavesdropping on their "serious conversation", I went to the garage to mope. (We keep our washing machine and dryer in there instead of in a laundry move) I heard the sound of the washing machine, so I opened it and took a look inside. However, it just went and stopped whooshing when I opened it. But it started again once I put down the lid. So I guess it was telling me to go away. I've got ruffled feathers now, if you know what I mean.

I was pretty chipper today since my mom is finally back. I hadn't seen her since New Year's Eve. Literally. So it was a pleasure to see her again. I almost got offended because when I told her that I got 50/50 on a math test, she mentioned the previous test, and remarked I hadn't done well then, like she was disappointed in me. Me, I just want to be appreciated, is all. The one person who has never praised me willingly is my own mother. So that's probably why we aren't truly friends. (Even if I missed her I don't even know if she missed me. But I'm not about to ask in case she pretends)

My mom was really huffy after her extended stay in Shanghai. Her clothes and other things in her suitcase smell like cigarette smoke. It's really kind of disgusting. She is washing her close to try and get rid of the smell. (It's even worse because her own father is an avid smoker. Luckily, her mother doesn't smoke.)

After a while my dad came home from work. He had gone to Costco, a big store with ugly tall ceilings, to buy things. It seems like they didn't have any Blueberry B Monster. (It's a drink from the company Odwalla which I often drink.) I hope they didn't stop selling it. Then I would have to go somewhere else to get it. I wonder if Whole Foods (Supposedly a store that sells healthy food and other organic products) has it.

My dad is kind of an immature person. (If you read this, Dad, I am sorry, but my true feelings are meant to be displayed on this blog) He wants people to like him and praise him, rather than give him criticism. And even if he is an adult, in his mind, it seems life is rather simple. (This does not mean that life is easy. Just that he has a straight-forward mind, similarly to my mom. They are both rather stubborn.) But maybe that isn't true, and I have been deceived for years.

While I was practicing piano this evening, I could hear a loud voice, so I thought my parents were arguing. I stopped playing and went over to take a look. It turns out my mom was giving some sort of speech. Her eyes were wild, her mouth open and flapping, and one arm was pumping up and down. I was shocked. That looked kind of like my dad when he's lecturing.

And now, I think they really are arguing. They keep talking about trying to move my grandpa (on my dad's side) to a new apartment. The stairs to the apartment are frail and steep so it's dangerous for an old man like him. (Particularly since he slipped and fell once, and injured himself. He is fine now...Or so he says. His relatives don't believe so.) And also he still didn't get indoor plumbing because it costs money. (Being retired is bad especially when you're old and weak. You have to rely on your relatives and the government for money.) So my dad and his siblings are desperately attempting to convince my grandpa to move to a new apartment. Then they will pitch in all their funds to try and buy one.

But my dad seems to have come to a disagreement with my mom, as his voice was raised and he looked really steamed. When my mom breaks in to make a comment he gets more heated up. I am afraid he will blow his top like a volcano and start throwing our dishware. D: I really hope not. It is scary, and it also means I have trouble hearing other noises since his voice is so loud and violent.

Labels: appliances, beverages, cigars, emotions, family, inanimate objects, mental, shanghai, smoking, washing machine

This is the first "bonus" label edition I've made. Hehe.

I'm going to give a bit of a lecture here, so bear with me.

Haibao is the mascot of the Shanghai World Expo. The world expo, or fair, is something that occurs every couple of years, kind of like the Olympics. (But the next one will be in 2010, unlike the Olympics.) In the world fair, countries can display their wares. This is a chance for countries to show off their best stuff and potentially get people to want to buy their stuff. (You'd probably be better off reading the Wikipedia article: Click)

Anyhow, apparently this is China's first time hosting the World Expo. (Odd, because recently we had the first Chinese Olympics. And they were really hyped up about it.) And they decided they wanted to have the first mascot. (Haibao is the first Expo mascot! This is kind of like the Beijing pandas for the Olympics.)

"Haibao," the mascot representing the Shanghi World Expo was unveiled on the Shanghai Grand Stage Tuesday evening.

Haibao is a blue "人," or "human-shaped" form. As a combination of tradition and modernity, the mascot represents "treasures of the seas."

Haibao is the first mascot of the world expo. As the participants of its birth, we feel lucky and proud," said Liu Jun, head of the mascot designing committee of the Shanghai Expo.

This past spring, a mascot for the World Shanghai Expo was publicly solicited worldwide. Within 135 days of solicitation, Liu Jun's office received 26,655 designs from 21 countries, 63% of which were designed by youth aging from ten to thirty.

Shao Longtu, the 62-year-old design team leader, explained that Haibao is a happy, naïve, confident and lovely child. Its blueness symbolizes many things: the earth, dreams, the oceans, life, future and technology.

December 18 is Haibao's birthday. This year, the date also commemorates the 5 year, 15 day mark of when China won the bid to host the international event. Only 865 more days to go until the World Shanghai Expo takes place. (From this article)

Here's a few picture of the little bugger. (He's all over Shanghai...My mom says it's one of the few things they can be proud of.)

Labels: bonus, haibao, shanghai, special

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