My neighborhood almost always appears to be a peaceful place. I've never heard gunshots, seen people beat each other up, or any of the stuff that I've seen in movies happen around here. But there's one crime in particular that happens often and goes unpunished: theft.

It's one type of thing that is very commonly stolen, and that would be fruit. I've known for a long time that the usual thieves are squirrels, birds, ants, and all the backyard fauna. Nothing I can do about that, since they have as much right to the land as I do...Well, my old afterschool/summer math teacher said you could hang up these spinning things that would scare away birds (it's hard to describe them...they sort of give you an optical illusion when the wind blows at them), though I have no idea if it's working anymore. Surely even with their bird brains they could figure out that the spinning things wouldn't really attack them. :p

Actually, though, I've seen people become poachers lately. There was one time on the weekend where I was taking a walk and I overheard the conversation of two people. A woman was sneakily taking a fruit (I believe it was an orange) from a plant growing out of someone's front yard. A man scolded her for taking it, but she insisted it was fair game because it was on the other side of the fence and technically no longer on the owner's property. (Well, I guess there's no harm done, I highly doubt the owner of the fruit tree would notice it missing.)

I'm pretty sure I saw someone else who took a fruit too, quite recently. He was walking with his arms behind his back, and I kept wondering why until I saw that he was holding an orange. He also had his hood covering his head, so I couldn't see his face unless I was facing the front of him. Very suspicious! I later saw another old man coming along from the other direction, his hands also behind his back, and once I passed him I whirled around to see if he was stealing fruit. (But that was just me being paranoid, the second old man was innocent. XD)

If you'd expected to hear about something more major, sorry to disappoint you. The more serious stuff that I've caught wind of is in the school environment, what with the copying of homework, ditching of class (though I'd only heard people consider it, I don't know if they actually have), and...smoking. I actually saw a couple of my fellow students smoking one day at lunch when I was walking off campus. They weren't really trying to hide it. It wouldn't trouble me too much except that I figure I'll end up dying of lung cancer while they go along their merry way...

I've always wondered what made people want to smoke. I'd heard that it was done to lose weight (since your sense of taste gets ruined and you won't want to eat as much), or to look cool (no idea if this is true, enlighten me?), or just a mistake - you try it once and get hooked. I have no experience in the matter nor do I intend to have any, but feel free to tell me why you smoke or why someone you know does, if you feel like it.

Well, this is unrelated, but I like to share pictures of similar-looking characters when I see them. I watched the Tales of the Abyss anime quite a while ago and had forgotten about it up until I saw some pictures a few days ago. Tear Grants always reminded me of a Vocaloid, Luka Megurine. (If I remember correctly, Tear sings too. Talk about a weird coincidence, unless it isn't one.) Their bangs and hair colors are different, and Luka's hair is generally wavier, but I thought their outfits were similar.

TEAR GRANTS
click or click


LUKA MEGURINE
click or click

Labels: birds, cigarette, crime, criminal, fruit, luka megurine, neighborhood, people, reasons, scare, smoking, squirrels, suspicious, tales of the abyss, tear grants, theft, thief, vocaloid

Not that long ago, in language arts, we were doing a group project that involved a skit. We had to meet up outside of school to film it because there was no time in class given for doing so. We met up at the school and went to one of the girls' houses. We knew one of the members of the group would be showing up late, so we tried to call her to let her know that we were meeting at the house instead, but we weren't able to get into contact with her. We ended up going to the school again to try and find her. But we didn't see her anywhere.

We decided to go onto the school campus to look for her. It would've been okay, but there was something we didn't expect going on at the time: Japanese school.

We went onto the campus and walked around looking for our fellow group member, but we were stopped by a guy. He said, "What are you doing here?" We told him that we were from this school. He seemed confused. I don't think he understood that we were talking about the actual school that's in session during the weekdays...I think he thought we meant the Japanese school. He seemed very suspicious of us and kept staring at us and following us as we walked around.

It made me feel really unsettled. I didn't really have a reason to be uncomfortable since I didn't commit any crimes and I AM a student of the school, but still, I felt like I was being considered an outsider, a stranger, perhaps even dangerous. It was as if I didn't exist during the weekdays when I came to school as a student.

But I am a student there, and it is a familiar place to me, so it bothers me that I would feel this way when Japanese school is going on. Even more unsettling is the fact that Japanese school has been here for quite a while and I've never seen it going on until now. And it makes me realize how many things about this world I still don't know.

But I guess that's to be expected. It's like Mandarin - Even if you study all your life, you will never be able to learn every character in the language. And even if you lived your whole life trying to discover everything in the world, you wouldn't be able to. But you can always try. The quest for knowledge is neverending.

I kind of wish I had chosen to take Japanese in high school. I like French, and since I have already started it, it is best to continue with it, but at the same time I also wish to know Japanese. I think both of them are very beautiful languages. For now I can only learn Japanese through watching anime, but someday maybe I'll be able to focus on it. One time I thought that I would like to learn all the languages in the world and learn how to play all the instruments. Both are quite ambitious goals and I don't know if I can accomplish them. But I'd rather regret trying than regret not trying...

Labels: alien, anime, crime, danger, french, group, guard, japanese, knowledge, language, language arts, learning, outsider, project, quest, school, student, suspicious, weekdays, weekend

For a while I've been looking for my old paintings from last year's summer class - in particular a small oil painting of the coastline. So I was bored and went upstairs (there's only one room which we basically stuff things into, everything is downstairs...) and walked around. I thought I saw some papers in a box and looked inside it. I discovered some of my old artwork...And especially that one that I really liked. I wonder if it's okay to scan paintings. (If so, I'll try and get my dad to scan the smallest one)

Also, I found the Ippon Demo Ninjin video! I talked about it in an earlier post. So here's the link to the video.
Ippon demo ninjin (いっぽんでもにんじん) The whales are especially funny. Once they finish counting the first time, watch the whale. He seems to be dancing on his tail and he turns from side to side, though the other objects/creatures always face towards you.

My playlist had been getting way too full, so I started clearing out songs a little bit and now I just have 194. Oftentimes we listen to music and talk about it in my painting class. (I suppose it's more relaxing than having to work in utter silence...) One of my classmates made a CD or two for the teacher and we listen to her CDs as well (I think she buys songs from iTunes? Using her brother's money XD). Anyhow, some of the artists include Jack Johnson, Cold Play, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson, The Cars, John Lennon, and various others whose names I have forgotten.

Which reminds me, there's a guy in the Beetles called Ringo Starr. I always wonder why he took the name Ringo as his first name for his stage name (Richard Starkey is his real name, and he is still alive...). I mean, I thought "ringo" mean apple in Japanese...(But I don't blame him, because apples are very cute fruits.)

The weather around here has turned hot again and it's really bothering me. I end up sweating a lot but I don't want to turn on the air conditioning or the fan because I am wary of the environment...But I suppose eventually I'm going to be so frustrated I will turn on the fan. D: It used to be nice weather only a few days ago, too...But now it's really, really hot outside and I bet I'm going to start losing sleep again. :( And right when I was starting to feel "healthy"...What a shame.

Recently I went to Jamba Juice. I rode there on my bike with my dad and we used a coupon so we could get two smoothies for the price of one. There were some suspicious young people near the store. One of the guys seemed to be trying to show off muscles (if he actually had any XD) and also there was a girl who sometimes ran into the parking lot and was chased by a guy in glasses. Anyhow, I thought they were creepy (even if people near the 7-11 probably act like that) and I was pretty relieved when they left.

Labels: apple, discovery, ippon demo ninjin, jamba juice, japanese, lost and found, music, oddity, painting, people, playlist, ringo starr, sleep, smoothie, song, stage name, suspicious, weather, whale

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