Might need sunglasses for this one.

Just saw this saved in the drafts, was taken either earlier this year or late last. Annette and I were walking about checking out food stalls at the university during Waseda Sai which is pretty much like the USP Open Day back home, food, performances, clubs recruiting newbies etc etc.

This was on the t-shirt of one of them recruiting clubs, never got a chance to ask what the club actually did (apart from the usual fund-raise to drink routine followed by most of them)

N.B: Genki means lively, energetic, enthusiastic, cheerful...you get the idea. Its commonly used to ask how one is doing: O genki desu ka? (Are you well?) and is further shortened to... Genki?

独身のうちに。。。

Just finished some Japanese bunpo (grammar) homework for today's class.

The homework involves completing sentences using the grammar rules that were learnt in the last lesson. I spend more time than necessary on these as I always end up trying to come up with more creative (or ridiculous) answers than just illustrating that i get how the grammar works. Homework is so much more fun this way!

In the latest task, some questions were a bit more thought-provoking than others :P Several soul-searching daydreams later, I did finally complete all of them.

独身のうちに... (While I am single_____)
若いのうちに... (While I am young_____)
雨がやむまで... (Until it stops raining...)
私は...まで...つもりです。 (Until_______I intend to________)

The 'while I am single...' one was funny, having not had a proper boyfriend over some years now I had to stop and think about what 'not being single...' restricts one from doing. (that I could also have the sensei read without cringing. :P) Took a bit of time, probably explains why I am still single :P

私は最期まで楽しみに住むつもります。

uʍop ǝpısdn ƃuıɥʇ ǝןoɥʍ ǝɥʇ uɹnʇ ɐuuɐʍ ı

I spent too much time infront of my laptop this entire week.

Watching movies, browsing the internetz, music, some more movies, gtalk, movies, music, twitter, fb, movies, gtalk...you get the idea.

(Although, I was very proud indeed of sending the 'Hero' vid to the peeps back home, wish i were there to see their reactions in person!)

but so anyway, as a result of all this din-maroing...

˙uʍop ǝpısdn ʇıq pɐʇ ɐ pǝuɹnʇ uǝǝq sɐɥ pןɹoʍ ʎɯ

The inside of my flat, ʇsǝɥɔ ʎɯ ɟo ǝpısuı ǝɥʇ, my stomach even,
the contents of my school bag,

˙ʇsod sıɥʇ puɐ

It helps with the thought process though,
coz my brains were always mangled :P

(Title for the post: uʍop ǝpısdn, by Jack Johnson)

le woof!

I got a new dog today!!!! :)

well, technically a new 'i-Dog'...but whats with the technicalities yeah?

I even walked out in the rain, in the freezing cold, to save him from the clutches of macdonalization, while giving into it myself >_< (yes, I bought a ハッピー　セット aka haapi seto ...or otherwise known as a happymeal from Maccers.)

So my new Quicksilver/Mc's i-Dog (brand-bashing much?) barks.
Like, for real!
It barks when I clap my hands. But only a loving clap...anything too soft or too loud doesn't get any woofy loving.

Also, I have to remember to, and it pains me to say this, switch it off. Because it also barks at random noises sometimes. He's sucha little dog! :P

(also, am super super spazzy happy because this week I was actually thinking about how awesome it would be if I could keep a dog! damn this nomadic life...but thank you i-Dog for coming to my rescue!!)

so here he is: my brand new super duper dog. :)

ps. does not need potty training, or a potty for that matter. :)

getting nosey about nose

One of my several part-time jobs here in Tokyo is teaching a bunch of 6-8yr olds English three times a month.

Its less teaching and more playtime actually. There is some revision of the alphabet and colours etc. then songs, games, games, some counting, more games and usually several cups of coffee beforehand to keep me going.

The children are absolutely adorable, and 90minutes is enough to ensure that they don't drive me up the wall (and oh! do they try!).

But even if I bitch about the chaos later, I secretly love it! How else can I play all these fun kids games at 26 and get away with it! :)

And, they also ask the most interesting questions.

Word on the board: NOSE

And the million dollar question?

Sensei, why did they put the E in Nose after the S?

>_<

er. I dunnoes why its nose instead of noes.
someone's brilliant idea to put the e after s, I s'pose?

(line of the moment)

"You're a parenthesis."

Yes, I watched Up in the Air.

(while I was up in the air actually, somewhere between Korea and Japan on the way back home, from home.)

(and yes, because of this dual home thing, my life was beginning to feel like a parenthesis...but, its out of the brackets now. Also, I am sure there's a limit to how much one CAN actually write within said parenthesis.)

throwing caution to the (cold) wind

Have been quite unlike my usual cheery self (*shock* *horror*)
...everything in moderation i guess.

but after hitting the proverbial bottom (which wasn't so much a bottom really, just bouts of tiny dips in the ocean of crankiness)...i am back with renewed vigor and enthusiasm!

let me at 'em!

also, drawing from a nice read on Sir Mraz' Rant
(yes, some crushes last a lifetime)

Everything is perfect.
Everything is fine.
The rules of life are made up.
The rules only exist in your mind.
Of course there may be courtesies
And closures and laws to abide,
But the zeal with which you play
Relies on where YOU draw the line.
Mraz,Jason

(and yes, i love writing in parentheses)

read the sign on MY head.

Yes, as you may or may not have noticed from the last few posts, I am in a stellar mood.

And when I usually am in sucha stellar mood,

I immensely enjoy reveling in the sounds of Ludo's Love Me Dead

Its a work of art.

Fill my soul with vomit
Then ask me for a piece of gum.
Bitter and dumb, you're my sugarplum
you're awful, I love you...

and the other favourite line ofcourse:

You're a parasitic, psycho, filthy creature
finger-bangin' my heart
You call me up drunk, does the fun ever start?
You're hideous...and sexy

:)

off to bed then, its Friday already. I need to sleep off this grumpiness, its wrong to be cranky on a weekend.

Also, the one thing that IS keeping me sane this week (or probably adding to my insanity!) is...The IT Crowd. And I want to move to Ireland.

That is all.

For now.

Snippety snip...snap!

That's the sound of necks breaking.

or at least... it could have been.

So I finish the class with the humiliating self-introduction and am getting ready to leave, saying hellos to some friends from the last semester when two of the newbies in the MA Programme walk by.

*giggle, giggle, giggle* Where are you from?!! *giggle giggle giggle*

er, (point to myself) me?

girls nod head in midst of more giggling.

er..Fiji.

*giggle giggle giggle* oh! fiji! *giggle giggle giggle*

then,

they...

WAVE...excitedly. yes, right in my face: *WAVE WAVE WAVE* *giggle giggle giggle* HELLO!!!! nice to meet you *giggle giggle giggle*

>_<

I am sure they are nice, but some days I am tired of being a foreigner.

wriggle...wriggle...snap!

Feeling slightly inadequate.

Its orientation/guidance/class shopping week so have just been floating about from classroom to classroom trying to decide on what to take and what to avoid.

This year I am back on the Japanese learning bullet train of a bandwagon, so have to do two sets of class shopping; one for the Japanese Language classes and another for my Grad School classes.

After having done this for a year and a half, I don't hyperventilate over it anymore like the newbies. Collect the syllabus, scrutinize the sensei, make sure the workload doesn't include a BIG test (I'm more of a continuous assessment kind of person), and then of course, try to mastermind the perfect timetable with enough work and enough playtime to make the semester bearable.

Everything's gonna be alright.

well, everything except for the small matter of...self-introductions. argh. *cringe*

self-introductions in almost every.single.class. >_<

In the language classes they are done in Japanese. Its the same thing over and over again. Name, country, field of study, how long have you been studying Japanese blah blah bleh. Although, you're surrounded by foreigners and the language teacher is the only Japanese native speaker in the class, so the pressure to sound perfect is off.

In the Grad School classes though, things take a bit of a twist. While the majority of the classes I enroll for in the Grad School are in English, I do take a few that are conducted in Japanese, the more practical ones though, like Video Journalism, so I can figure out whats happening most of the time (along with my fingers working my electronic dictionary at lightening speed).

Also have to ensure that the teacher knows English so I can bombard him with questions when I really can't compute.

How I get effed over with the simple self-introductions then? Well, as I discovered last semester, my brain has this bizarre ability of being able to understand what is being said, BUT it cannot have me say it. So I get the gist of things, understand the questions, the explanations. But cannot process a reply.

Introduce yourself and explain what kind of photography background you have, and what you are interested in photographing now. (Said in Japanese)

gulp. Choke. look around at all the native Japanese speakers that surround me.

I excuse myself in Japanese and ask if I um...can...answer...

in English. >_<

eh?

back in Tokyo

and feeling quite bleh.

I blame the cold.

...and the lack of warmth.