So, I recently decided to go and cut my hair short. I didn't realize until afterwards that there were already several people at my school with a similar haircut...

...and that there were actually anime characters that had that kind of haircut too. My parents joked that I looked like someone out of an anime right after I got the haircut. I wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not, because I certainly don't want to imitate anime characters (well, except for if I ever cosplay, but I'm not going to be cosplaying everyday, now am I? :\ ). As much of an otaku as I am, I don't expect to ever come near to the awesomeness of an anime character. But it has been kind of funny having a different haircut. I've been told by two people already that I look "KAWAII DESUUU", both of whom said it in a very bad accent on purpose.

Anyways, although Miku Hatsune is not an anime character, she seems to have gotten a haircut as well. Check out the song "Fleeting Reality":



I like this song pretty well, actually. And it kind of gives me a Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica vibe at times (starting around 2:32, when she whips out the sword...Miki Sayaka anyone?) And speaking of which, I just heard that all the Madoka girls have had recent victories in the Saimoe competition...Well, except for Akemi Homura. Sadly she was eliminated early on because she faced off against Misaka Mikoto.

Back to the Vocaloid songs. Here's a Gakupo song that snagged the #10 spot on the most recent Vocaran. Miku always dominates the Vocaran, but it's nice to see the other Vocaloids getting some attention too. (VY1's song "Cyber Thunder Cider" just popped up again on the Vocaran. I think it's because the song was revealed to be the demo for VY1 in Vocaloid3)



And here's a Luka song. How could I resist? I've always been a fan of Luka voice-wise :p



I should not neglect to mention two Vocaloid songs that have been very popular recently. The puny amount of Japanese I know has unfortunately grown rusty from disuse, so I'm afraid I don't know the English name of this song. All that I do know is that I don't like it very much. Sorry to those of you do, but I can't manage to love this song. :\



What I do like is this song: "Senbonzakura" or "Thousand Cherry Trees" or whatever you want to call it. And there was a big surge of Nico Nico utaite singing it a while back (mostly guys, even those this is a Miku song... o_o;; ).



Well, let's end with the last, but definitely not least: #1 on the vocaran! This is what I believe would be called "Talkloids": having the Vocaloids "speak" rather than sing. I can't understand that much of what they are saying (blame it on my lack of Japanese knowledge again) but it looks amusing anyhow.

Labels: 211, fleeting reality, gakupo, hatsune miku, luka megurine, music, ranking, senbon zakura, songs, talkloid, vocaloid, vocaran, カゲロウデイズ, 千本桜, 御手繋ぎ

Recently I've been seeing a lot more dead animals than usual - about 6 of them in this past week alone. Most of them were probably killed by vehicles, though it's hard to say, seeing as some of them have ended up on sidewalks and between poles and other objects. But I'm pretty certain that, at the very least, it was not a mailman who ran over the animals.

Why? Well, just the other day I received a letter from Thefalse-tto in the mail. That in itself was a pleasant surprise, since I have not been exchanging mail with anyone for a long time (though I was supposed to have a email pen pal from France but she has not replied to my last email, so I assume that she has lost interest...Or maybe it ended up in spam for some reason and I didn't see it. Hopefully nothing bad has happened to her). But I noticed the date at the bottom of her letter said June 26, and I had received the letter on July 6. In the past I usually received letters within 3 or 4 days, so I thought that did not bode well for the post office...Maybe all the mailmen were taking time off because of the Independence Day holiday...Still, I live pretty much next to the post office, so it wouldn't be that hard to deliver my mail, would it?

Oh, and speaking of Independence Day, I had a rather odd one. On the weekend right before it (July 2 and 3), I could hear fireworks from my bedroom. According to my mother, the amusement park Great America was having their fireworks over the weekend, since if they had the fireworks on Monday, July 4, all the adults would have to go to work the day after, and be all tired and grumpy from staying up late for fireworks. Or something like that. (This is based on her allegations, so I don't know if it's true...) So I kind of assumed that my town's fireworks would follow the same schedule.

Evidently not. The evening of July 4 rolled around, and while I was attempting to sing Black Rock Shooter at home (which did not work out, since I cannot hit the higher notes of the song), I realized that there were some sounds from outside. The sound of fireworks, to be precise. It was very frustrating for me; I've been planning since last year to go to the location of the fireworks so I can take better pictures of them. Wonder if I'll even get to see the local fireworks before I move out of this town. (But then again, maybe I'll live in a big city, perhaps even Sydney, Australia, and see better fireworks.)

Though I guess in China people might not even know about the 4th of July, so if I ever went there on Independence Day, nothing would happen. My grandfather talked to me on Sunday, and I tried to tell him that Monday was a holiday and my parents weren't going to work. He didn't understand. He said that since it was the first day of the week, of course they were going to work. At that point I attempted to send him the Chinese Wikipedia link for Independence Day, but he didn't notice it.

I know that the flow of this post is rather random, but I guess I'll end by talking about the odd dream I had last night. I was at some sort of concert or musical (probably a musical, since there was a vague storyline, I think), and some of the performers were members of a nonexistent Korean band. Thefalse-tto was in the audience too, and she was explaining to me something about how the audience wanted the female member of the Korean band to sing a song about little unicorns that had inappropriate lyrics. Then I remember seeing a guy from that band going on stage and singing a song. Part of the lyrics to that was "Eugene! Eugene!" I'm not sure whether it was the guy's name or if it was supposed to mean something. Maybe, though, it was because I watched Tangled twice recently and Flynn Rider's real name is Eugene...

Labels: animals, china, concert, dream, eugene, family, fireworks, friends, grandpa, great america, independence day, july 4, letter, mail, pen pal, roadkill, songs

That's the name of the anime that I just finished not too long ago. I found out about Macross Frontier in a different way than I usually do. The typical ways for me to find animes are:

1. A friend recommends them to me
2. Wikipedia browsing (I visit the Wikipedia page of a studio or a voice actor that I liked, and look at what other animes it/he/she produced or acted in.)
3. I see some nice fanart of the anime on the Internet and eventually become curious about it

That 3rd method is how I found out about Vocaloid, by the way. And one of my friends told me she thought it was an anime, so I went looking for the episodes on the Internet. Read more »

Labels: alto saotome, anime, characters, fanart, gumi, macross frontier, may'n, megumi nakajima, music, ranka lee, sheryl nome, songs, vocaloid, vocaloids, wikipedia, youtube

Some covers of Vocaloid songs that I found on Youtube and liked. Do listen to them if you have the time.
Read more »

Labels: aimou, akahitoha, cover, dancer in the dark, electric love, gumi, hatsune miku, hirari hirari, luka megurine, meltdown, mozaik role, music, sing my love, singing, songs, sweet devil, tori no hito

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

It's a pretty famous musical, and I have a video tape of the film version; I watched when I was very young, but I don't remember what it was about. The only thing I do remember is two of the songs: My Favorite Things and Do-Re-Mi.

I've only got the basic tunes in my head, I don't know the lyrics by heart. But it's easy to find them on the Internet. If you weren't sure which songs I'm referring to, maybe seeing the lyrics would help...

My Favorite Things

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad

Do-Re-Mi (this is just part of the song)

Doe, a deer, a female deer
Ray, a drop of golden sun
Me, a name I call myself
Far, a long, long way to run
Sew, a needle pulling thread
La, a note to follow Sew
Tea, a drink with jam and bread

But anyways, I don't intend to be talking about the musical for this entire post. I've been wondering lately about how exactly a person would judge a song. Is it the lyrics or the sound that determines how "good" it is?

In one of my classes, Writing for Publication (it's basically a class preparing you for journalism), we listened to some songs by the singer Adele, because we were practicing writing reviews. The first song we listened to was Crazy For You. Both the song and lyrics are pretty clichéd. I don't mean to single out Adele, since there are many songs and many singers who don't have creative lyrics, but it still irks me if the lyrics are unoriginal.

I suppose that could be part of the reason why I listen to mostly Japanese music. If I don't understand what they're saying, I'm not able to insult the lyrics, so I'll only concentrate on the sound. That doesn't really work anymore, though, since I do understand some words here and there, and eventually I might be able to understand what they're saying...

Maybe sometimes it's best that I don't know. I recently listened to Spice!, which is a song for Len Kagamine (a Vocaloid; don't want to make this post too long, so look it up if you want to know what Vocaloids are). I thought it was a pretty good song, and today I was searching it up on Youtube. I clicked on a video and it said that it was flagged as being inappropriate for some users. It really surprised me. I hadn't noticed anything inappropriate about it.

I did a bit of poking around, looked at the English translation of the lyrics, and saw some other videos of the song, and was pretty creeped out. I don't think I'll ever see Len the same way again (he's promiscuous! Ugh!). And talk about a weird coincidence, because in French class, we just listened to a song about a guy who was cheating on his wife. I had quite enough of songs about polygamy.

Sorry for going on so long, but I just want to mention that there is one thing about Len Kagamine that I'm looking forward to, and that is the Append. I've heard that Len is getting an append (it's like an update/addition to the voice...I'm not good at describing it), called Append Cold. Click here for a sample. (Amazing had 8,000 views already after only one day...) Even though I don't have any Vocaloid software, I do want to hear more of Len's Append.

Anyways, here's a fanart of Len's song, Spice!. (It's not drawn by me. XD)

Labels: adele, append cold, coincidence, crazy for you, do re mi, do-re-mi, japanese, len kagamine, lyrics, music, my favorite things, player, songs, sound, spice, the sound of music, vocaloid, vocaloids

This is sort of a follow-up to my previous post, "The Pealing of Bells". Well, just to bring you up to speed, I visited Sather Tower (the Campanile) of UC Berkeley.

While I was up there, I was snapping photos, as is my hobby nowadays. Other people were doing the same thing. A few people asked my dad to take a picture of them. I looked at their camera, and alas! It was a Panasonic Lumix, blue like mine. In fact, the two cameras were exactly the same.

Whenever I hear bells mentioned, I end up thinking of the song Viva la Vida, from Coldplay. Part of the song mentions bells.

In language arts class, part of our homework was to find some song lyrics where slant rhyming is used. (A slant rhyme is when two or more words sound similar but still different, like dark and heart, or me and harmony) I was sitting there thinking of songs that I knew (besides the Japanese ones XD) and I started remembering the lyrics of Viva la Vida. Well, then I noticed the two other people sitting at my table group were also trying to recall lyrics. Upon listening closely, I realized it was from the very same song.

I've been hearing Coldplay music in other places too. It's golf season again, so my dad has been watching golf on TV. In the background, the Coldplay song Clocks was playing (without any voices, though).

A while back, in language arts class, we spent the whole period writing an in-class essay. We had been given the prompt options before. The purpose of this was to practice writing within a time limit and also to practice writing the kind of essay that would score well based on the grading guidelines that are used for writing tests. One of the things you need to do to get a high score is to come up with a unique interpretation of the prompt.

That's a pretty tough thing to do, isn't it? What if you came up with something and you thought it was unique, but fourteen of your classmates also thought that? How would you be able to know whether you had a rare interpretation or not unless you were able to compare yourself to other people?

What really makes someone unique? It is commonly said that everyone is different. At the same time, we are more similar than we think. (In fact, humans have a lot of genes in common with corn, or so I heard... D: ) There are those that seek to make us be the same. And there are those who seek to make us be different. Which is really better? For to be different means we could end up apart from each other. Separated by the things we don't have in common. But to be the same means that you could lose your identity.

There are times that I feel separated from my peers. True, I may spend my day with them, but hearing their problems, sometimes I end up thinking, "Why is that a problem when there is so much else in the world?" or "I've already gone through that years ago." Perhaps that is was led to my belief that I am old. For the older you are, the more experiences you are likely to have gone through, and so you will end up with much wisdom (or in some cases, bitterness at the injustice).

On a side note, I discovered one possible origin of Santa Claus. It appeared in the book Twice Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris.

"Now, the last thing we have to do is find a name for our business. Since it's all Mr. Lucasa's idea, I think it should be named for him. I've been fiddling around making anagrams out of his name. And I think I've come up with something. It just needs a little tinkering."
She put a piece of paper in front of them. Written across the top was STAN LUCASA, and underneath were all the combinations of letters she'd been able to think of, none of which made any sense at all, including:
ASA CALNUTS
SAL NATSUCA
SALSA CATUN
LASSA TUNAC
LUTS SAANAC
At the very bottom of the page was a name with a circle around it. "This is the one I think we should use," Susan said. "I can't explain why - it just seems right. What do you think?"
"Santa Claus," Mr. Lucasa said slowly, trying it out.

Labels: bells, clocks, coldplay, deja vu, different, interpretation, jean ferris, language arts, problem, same, santa claus, sather tower, slant rhyme, songs, twice upon a marigold, unique, viva la vida

Recently, the clouds have been moving back and forth, covering the sun in the morning and letting it shine through in the afternoon...And sometimes the sun is covered by fog, so the light from it is weak. Because of the lack of light, it sometimes appears that people and objects have no shadow, or a very faint one.

I remember once that I heard about someone who had no shadow...Was it a book? Or perhaps an anime? I cannot clearly remember. But that person stood out because they had no shadow.

Shadows are always there, yet people don't really pay much attention to them. One's shadow always follows you around, and imitates what you do, for it is a part of yourself and yet at the same time not a part of yourself. The shadow diminishes and grows depending on light, and although people are taller in the morning than the evening, living things do not wane and wax the way the shadows do.

I am not really sure why I felt like talking about shadows, but I suppose it was just to help me get the writing flow going, if you know what I mean.

For homework, I was supposed to look up George Washington's Farewell Address. (That was the speech he gave when he resigned from the presidency after two terms) It was really long...Well, maybe it just felt like that because I was reading it and not hearing it. Still, it was pretty lengthy, and pretty hard to understand, since it was around the late 1700s... In fact, there was quite a bit of stuff in the speech that didn't have much to do with the President resigned (besides that maybe he was giving the country and next President his advice about the evil of political parties, and staying out of Europe's messy relationships, and such?). I feel a bit of kinship to George Washington, though, because he wanted to stay retired, but had to stop being retired to become President. Also, I heard that the President liked interior design and collected art. (I've been to his house, Mount Vernon. I wasn't overly impressed but maybe I'm judging by the wrong standards. It was old-fashioned, after all, with beds that are really high and all)

I've been to quite a few old homes, like Hearst Castle and Versailles and Winchester House. Winchester House is the most interesting one, I think. It's not too far from where I live and I've been there twice (once on a field trip with a summer camp, and another time for a friend's birthday party) It's got all sorts of weird things like the staircase that goes into the ceiling and a place where Sarah Winchester could look down and spy on her servants (to see if they were gossiping about her or something along those lines? Then she could fire them if they were). Some parts of the house would make you uncomfortable if you're claustrophobic, though. The guides tell people not to wander off and open doors because you could get lost, and never be found...

Another cool place would be Mystery Spot, which I also visited as part of summer camp one year. (The same summer camp that allowed me to see Winchester House, in fact.) It's a place that is really...weird. I forget what caused it, I'm afraid. But sometimes things are sideways and gravity is really strange. That's why it's called the Mystery Spot, I suppose. It's very mysterious.

I had a question, and if you happen to have the answer right on the tip of your tongue (figuratively, of course; if you talked to me I wouldn't be able to hear you unless you're next to me), please enlighten me. I've been looking for a jacket for my coming trip to Yosemite, and I've been wondering what the difference is between "water resistant" and "waterproof". Personally, I think it's the same thing, but my mom thinks that water resistant isn't as good as waterproof. I have no idea. (Unless you don't know either, don't bother looking it up, this is just if you already know it...)

This is something kind of random, but my history teacher has all sorts of odd songs. There was one that seemed to talk about elements (the sort that you find on the Periodic Table), and there was one that was like the 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall song, and just today I heard some lyrics in a song that went like, "God is great, beer is good" or something. D:

Labels: beer, claustrophobia, elements, george washington, god, house, light, mount vernon, mystery spot, president, retirement, sarah, shadow, songs, speech, water resistant, waterproof, winchester, writing

"Homemade" movies have been coming together around me. My piano teacher and my parents want me to record my piano playing. My teacher says that I can share it with my children when I'm older (since when you get older, you can't play some songs anymore. Lack of strength? Lack of skill? I dunno). My parents just want to send my music to my relatives in China so they can ooh and ah over it. So my family has been using our new (sort of) camera to record the songs that I'm playing currently. I keep laughing or getting nervous, though, and so I don't think any of the recordings were really as good as I can play if I'm feeling good. Oh well.

And then my piano teacher actually arranged for her top students to have their songs all recorded and put together in a DVD. We would dress up - like dresses, or perhaps a suit if you're a guy - and then we'd go to her apartment, and one of her students recorded us, and then he made it into a DVD. I just got the DVD. The cover picture is nice-looking. But all the piano players and the teacher have their picture in black and white, so it made me feel like I'd already died and it was a memorial DVD. D:

One time I was reading Fruits Basket, and in one of the novels, I was looking at the fan art section in the back. (I don't know if the original Japanese manga has a fan art section, but I know the English manga does.) Actually, I think there was someone from the town where I live. It was amazing. I guess it's a small world after all.

It was the Moon Festival recently. I had forgotten until my mom told me. (But really, it's late this year. I thought it was normally in September) Some of my parents' friends came over to our house because of it. Apparently, one of the families (there were two, though one person was missing because he was sick) had another friend who owned a cat and a dog. They went over to the friend's house, and then their son (who was also at my house, but didn't do much besides play his DS) was bitten by the dog. The dog wasn't even vaccinated since their owners thought it "wasn't necessary since the dog never left the house". And the cat was crazy too, trying to attack people. I guess that's why my parents' friends are against dogs going unleashed in our town. If they already can cause trouble when they are leashed, then having them unleashed would make it worse. But I think it would be cool if there were places dogs could run free, and maybe "touch upon their wolf heritage" or whatever. I mean, I heard there are places where there are beaches for dogs to run free. It would be cool if someday I could have a dog and go there.

I was taking some photos at home and one of them came out kind of weird. I spilled some soup at dinnertime once so I decided to take pictures while I had the chance. When I had the flash on, the photo turned out kind of interesting. (Click to enlarge photo. It's really big!)


This blog has already been running for a whole year. In fact, the anniversary was only a few days ago, on September 30th. Let's toast to the future of the blog! (Unless you want it to go down. If so, I don't even know what you're doing here. o_O;; )

Labels: anniversary, black and white, blog, cat, Dogs, dvd, fanart, fruits basket, homemade, manga, moon festival, movie, music, photography, piano, record, songs, vaccination

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