Well, seeing as the more "popular" Vocaloids are from Japan, when someone tries to make them sing in English, it tends to be less than perfect. Sometimes I can understand some of what they're saying.
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Labels: bilingual, blogger, blogskins, english, japanese, kaito, language, layout, luka, megurine, nico nico douga, nicovideo, opinion, suggestions, vocaloid, vocaloids, youtube

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

Last week, in math class, we watched a video called Donald in Mathmagic Land. It's an old Disney movie featuring Donald Duck which shows how math shows up in our lives.

The movie showed how music is actually based off of math. I believe it was Pythagoras, whom the Pythagorean Theorem is named after. He found out that to go an octave higher, you simply divide the length of a string in half. Different lengths of string would create different sounds/notes (C, D, E, F, and also the sharps and flats) Pythagoras's discovery then became the basis for the instrument we know as the harp.

Also, the film showed how math is used in nature. Many flowers had five petals, designed to look like a star, or a pentagon. And snails and other animals with shells had a spiraling shape, which is also mathematical.

Even people who play pool (otherwise known as billiards) use math. There are little markings all along the perimeter of the pool table. Some experts use those markings to decide how to shoot, and it also helps them to see where the ball will go.

It's a little hard to explain it in words. If you're bored one day and have a half hour of time, I suggest you go on Youtube and search for "Donald in Mathmagic Land". It seems that the movie can be watched on Youtube. It's pretty good considering that the movie was from 1959 or so.

Enough about mathematics itself...And on to math class. My teacher said that this morning he walked by and saw some students doing PE. They were having their pull-up tests on the metal bars we have at my school. He said that at our age, we're supposed to be at our athletic prime, and so he found it funny watching people who look buff struggling and struggling to do a single pull-up. They would strain and kick their legs but they wouldn't go up. But at least there were some people who could do lots of pull-ups, which sort of made up for it. Apparently, one guy said, "I'm so proud that I have a ripped friend," since one of his friends could do 15 pull-ups.

Lately, my dad has been really busy at work. He's practically working two jobs since he's still doing his old job and kind of doing another job too. He doesn't want to be a manager anymore. I was outraged because I think that being a manager is a good job. Before, my dad didn't seem to work much and he was being paid a reasonable amount. But my dad says that now his company is really getting their money's worth out of him since he's really working hard. I'm kind of worried because he looks tired. That's why I think he should go back to being a manager, just that, like the old days, so he can be relaxed.

My mother is also having troubles with work, but a different kind. She was moved downstairs (her cubicle used to be on the second floor of her office building). Now she's right near the door, which is both convenient (shorter walk to and from her car) and also annoying. There is a vent or something above her cubicle which has air coming out of it. My mom complained about it but it still seems to be blowing (she hung up something and it moves because of the breeze). She says she can't concentrate at work because of the breeze. Unfortunately, she hasn't been successful in getting to move to a different location yet.

The last time I visited my mother's office, we were going back to the building after lunch when we saw a person smoking. It was pretty close to the door. Ironically, there was a sign on the door that said "No Smoking within 20 feet of the building" or something like that. But the person was not that far from the building. I hope the smoke from his cigarette is not blowing into the building when the door opens... After all, it's bad enough to smoke, but it's much, much worse if you smoke in a place with other people. If you made a bad decision and start smoking, it becomes your loss, but if you smoke around other people then they could get lung cancer when they've never given into peer pressure or somehow or other picked up a cigarette.

I am still finding cigarettes around the school. It's probably not from the teachers because one of my old teachers says that if you smoke, you've pretty much ruined your chances of becoming a teacher...At least at elementary school, and perhaps also middle school. Where did the cigarettes come from, then? Is it from those people who come here on the weekends? (I didn't know those older boys who play basketball smoked, but you never know. We find old Gatorade bottles and gum stuck to benches...) I find it unlikely that middle school students would be smoking, but there are always snakes in the grass...

Labels: air, billiards, building, cigarette, disney, donald in mathmagic land, job, manager, middle school, movie, music, pool, pull-ups, pythagoras, school, smoking, strength, teacher, work, youtube

Do you have any guess what it is? (Yes, I know, the last time I used a French blog title was pretty recent, but eh, I heard about "faire la bise" recently and I wanted to talk about it before I forgot) Well, it's a gesture in French. Have you ever seen French people kiss each other on the cheeks as a greeting? (Maybe in a movie, or you've actually seen people do it?) That's basically what faire la bise is. My French teacher explained about it and also told us something mildly amusing.

I'm sure a lot of you have heard of the swine flu scare not that long ago. As a measure to try and prevent the further spread of H1N1 virus, the French people were told to try and do less faire la bise, what with it being easy to spread disease with your mouth. Some people were pretty huffy about this. They consider faire la bise a part of being French, and I guess it's offensive being told not to do it (even if it's not outright forbidding faire la bise). Yeah, I know writing it down doesn't make it sound very funny. Oh well.

In history class, we were watching Youtube videos. I guess some things don't change. I mean, my history teacher last year showed us quite a few Youtube videos. Today, we watched some of the speeches of Taylor Mali, a poet/teacher. They were kind of funny, but they were also meaningful. I liked the one called "What Teachers Make" the best. I did think it was a little odd that the speeches are called poems, because I'm used to reading poems which are all mysterious and sometimes don't make sense. But I suppose there always a lot of different versions of the so-called same thing.

My mother has been staying home because of something to do with her health. I'm not really supposed to talk about it (and it's not like her life is threatened! So no worries) but my dad stayed home as well. And they both seemed to be lazing around. I used to think it was good for people to relax once in a while but now I'm not so sure since my parents seemed more lazy than usual. I suppose I'm probably kind of like that too when I have a day off, but it still seemed weird.

Since my mom has been staying home the last two days, she was watching a movie called Though None Go With Me. I watched some of it as well, enough to get the story, anyways. It's about a old lady who tells about her life to her granddaughter. The old woman, Elizabeth, had promised to follow God, but much happened to her, and she suffered from the deaths of people close to her. The movie was often rather cheesy and cliched but at other times it was touching. Apparently it was based off of a book, though I have not read the book.

Labels: break, caution, disease, faire la bise, french, gesture, lazy, meaningful, movie, poetry, staying home, swine flu, taylor mali, though none go with me, tradition, youtube

There's no need to be concerned, because I don't gamble. I once tried to in the Venetian hotel quite a few years ago, when my mom and I were eating dinner at a restaurant inside the casino, and I wanted to press one of the buttons on a nearby slot machine, but then a worker came by and said I couldn't. How disappointing. Slot machines make cool noises, kind of like the newer checkout machines at the local library.

The inspiration for my blog post and title today was cars. Yup, cars. I often see doubles of the same car. Today when going to school, in front of my car were two Lexus (dunno what the plural form is...Lexuses? o_O;; ). They were the same exact kind except for the color.

And there are a lot of Subaru Foresters, I have discovered. I have seen a couple of them in my area, same color and everything. And one time I came with my mom to work at her office since there was no one to watch me at home (and I have no siblings, so I am not trusted to stay by myself, except for this summer when I was doing just that). Well, my mom had parked her car next to another Subaru. It was also a Forester except it was a black one. I know they have to sell a lot of a kind of car or they would discontinue making them but I still get amazed if I see the same kind of car. I see the Mercedes we have hidden in our garage sometimes too.

There are a lot of twins, too. A pair of twins who are both geography whizzes are in my village this year, along with a girl who apparently has a twin (but I haven't quite figured out who her twin is. I assume she has to be in the school somewhere). Maybe there's more twins in my village that I didn't notice yet.

Anyhow, on to other news. The blog layout has been changed since unfortunately the one I had in mind isn't working as well as would be nice. So maybe I'll just try and format it for Nutrinopets or something, because I often use blog layouts for my profile there. This time I got it from createblog.com, which has Blogger layouts, though I still prefer to go to blogskins.com most of the time. I thought the toast was very charming. And I really like bread. XD

I've moved my playlist and it is now underneath the posts, at the bottom of the page. It will autostart so pause it or turn off your sound or turn off the playlist's sound if you don't want to hear it. There's also a Youtube video so you can have images and sound together if you would like. I picked out Colorless Wind sung by Yuuki Aira, which is the Sola anime opening. It's one of my favorite songs. (There was another song I wanted to put up but I couldn't find it...Sigh...)

Labels: automobile, blog, car, casino, change, colorless wind, forester, gambling, las vegas, layout, lexus, mercedes, playlist, slot machines, subaru, toast, venetian, video, youtube, yuuki aira

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

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