- pirates -

currently listening to - Lovin' Life (funky monkey babys)
mood - a little excited

im assigned to translate a passage in English to Japanese, for my English lessons. we do this for every lesson - the teacher will select around 3 students randomly for passage translation, to see if we understand the contents. not sure if the teacher did it on purpose, for i am the one and only foreign student in class, but.. there's something different about the part which i'm supposed to translate. A LOT OF ENGLISH CONVERSATIONS. which obviously need to be left in ENGLISH when presenting. because the previous sentence is "Common English greetings such as...".....

suddenly i feel insecure. imagine, you're the only foreigner and while being surrounded by 40 japanese, you're gonna pronounce these strands of english words which (i'm sure) sound different from what they've been hearing in their own communities. aaaaah.....

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"pirates".

at world's end?

no.

it's actually a japanese female duo, disbanded some years ago. their best selling points were their (relatively) huge boobs and terms they used which were highly related to boobs. in fact when the term "pirates" is read the "japanese way", it always gives me the impression of "boobs on the verge of exploding".

and why did i have to mention this? because my dear english sensei mentioned the Kanou Sisters. another big boobs duo. one has red head and fair skin, and the other one looks a bit like angelina jolie because of her thick lips (personal impression hehe..). anyways the point is.... i really agree with my english sensei that these people live in a completely different dimension from us....

people whom we call "celebrities".

watched a tv show some time ago, and found out that the Kanou Sisters visited India to meet the Maharaja. during the few days before their meeting, they went shopping for jewelry and sari and tried esthete... which looked really hilarious to an ordinary person like me.

especially the jewelry hunting. they entered an expensive-looking jewelry shop and asked the sales attendant to ransack the entire shop to look for the "perfect accessories". when they finally decided to pay and leave the shop, they were surrounded by seas of necklaces and earrings... i'd never make myself purchase anything in a jewelry shop as if it's my hobbby (probably because i'm not as rich and i prefer to spend my money on other things..). "wow, they're so cheap!!" i understand that the purchase was done with rupee but....

what's more amusing, was when they went to another jewelry shop which is said to have the "best jewelry in India". and after staying in the shop for 5 minutes, the angelina jolie lookalike commented nonchalantly "they're so ordinary," and left. *gassspp* i'm sure if someone else had done the same thing he would've been bashed to death...

aaaaaaah.. celebrities. such a distant existence.

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yeap, my english teacher's an interesting person. he bitches about women and complains about his own life all the time (hey, we never had the chance to do something related to english, other than translating passages and present them in JAPANESE).. i do question his english-speaking ability, but he's quite an analyst when it comes to modern culture and lifestyles. he explained to us why Hamasaki Ayumi and Utada Hikaru are so successful in Japan and the US respectively, and how different are these 2 singers in their appearances - japanese are said to adore the american culture and the people, therefore Ayu is made to resemble the WASPs (whie anglo-saxon protestants). whereas americans are said to value individual identities very much, so they accepted Utada and her identity as a typical japanese (or rather, asian) - small, black hair, asian face..

not sure if his arguments are completely true, but one thing i'm really sure is that.. i can definitely stay awake and pay attention during his classes.

- woe me woe me love me.. eh? -

currently listening to - Raison D'etre (nightmare)
mood - cool on the outside, confused on the inside

been fooling around happily when all the other foreign students are apparently preparing for their mid-term tests.

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thought i'd write this as a sidetrack topic but as i wrote my draft it got *very much* longer than i imagined it would be. so here you go, an otaku-ish post.

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fell in love with the manga Claymore recently. actually i started off with the anime, but i couldn't resist from spoiling myself ahahaha... currently the first cliffhanger had just ended in the anime, while i've already updated myself with the newest episode of the manga (Monthly Jump, June 2007).. yay..

to tell the truth, i don't know why i like it. i know that it's really predictable at times, and that it's such a typical adventure-type shounen manga (some people really don't like it because it's "too RPG").. maybe it's coz all this while, i've been reading manga with guys as the main characters (the so-called "heroes" of the stories) and i need some changes?

for claymore, it's different. the girl Clare is the main "hero" and the boy Raki is more like a "heroine", a person who supports and helps the main hero. what's more, the majority of the important characters are female, quite the opposite of Sukisyo! and Princess Princess (like Mai-Hime..)? yeap, girls kicking ass. but then it's not like the guys in this story are weak.. Raki's getting stronger under Easlay's (is the spelling correct??...) training.... and yeah Easlay of Alfons is STRONG.. probably one of the strongest in the manga (after Priscilla).

true, the setting is so RPG, but i'm a person who loves RPG so it doesn't matter. the manga portrays 3 types (?) of living creatures in the world: the demons (they're called the Yoma), the half-human half-yoma, and occassionally the humans.. yeah human vs demon, so typical. i know it's everywhere. take Trinity Blood, Blood+, D.Gray-man, etc etc etc...

the protagonists are the half-human half-yoma beings, and they're all women. they were once human, but turned into half-yoma because they took the yoma's flesh and blood. and trained (by an anti-yoma organisation) into warriors to kill all yoma, the antagonists (obviously). it's Ragnarok Online all over again!!!!! paladins and crusaders everywhere hahaha... and these girls are called Claymore by public because they fight with claymores. they are ranked by numbers based on their strengths and potentials. Clare's no.47, the lowest ranking, probably because she's only a quarter yoma (she took the flesh and blood of the deceased no.1 Teresa, who's killed by Priscilla)...

you might wonder why this species consists of only women. according to the manga, the organisation used to bring up male warriors, a long time ago. however these men couldn't control the yoma's force in them (apparently controlling the force is like controlling one's sexual desire, and men are weak at this perspective) and they turned into pure yoma very easily.

of course, female warriors will eventually turn into yoma too, but not as fast as men. and warriors who turned into yoma are called the Awakened(覚醒者). the Awakened are very hard to be defeated, especially the stronger ones like Easley (ex-no.1), Priscilla (ex-no.2?), Lucera (ex-no.1, killed by her own sister no.5 Rafaela. EDIT 12 Jun: apparently she killed Rafaela before Rafaela could kill her...), Riful (ex-no.1), Ligardes (ex-no.2, killed by Clare)... in fact, a few of the protagonists were half-Awakened, but they somehow managed to return to the human side - Clare (awakened twice?), no.6 Milia, no.9 Jean/Gene (Ligardes gave her a fatal blow, and she died stopping Clare's 2nd awakening), no.15 Denev and no.22 Helen.....

oops this post is full of spoilers..

actually the anime had just reached the death of Teresa (!!Paku Romi kakkoiiii!!!!!!!!).. but judging by the speed of the anime, i can see why the producer made it a 26 episode series and not longer. the anime's catching up fast. after reminiscing her past with Teresa, Clare's gonna battle together with Milia and the others, against the Awakened. and later she will encounter the worst warrior ever, no.4 Ophelia, who kills both humans and yoma without hesitation (even though killing human is against the rules). hence Clare and Raki (who were together all this while) will separate, for a very long time... 7 years... fortunately Clare didn't die because she was saved by Conan... a.k.a ex-no.2 Irene (pronunciation: ee-reh-neh). she's kakkoii tooooo!!!...........

okay i think i have to stop otherwise there'll be no more surprises (eh, for who?) .. i apologise for being so otaku today..

last spoiler: like i said just now, Raki's currently with Easley. how ironic (and PREDICTABLE!!!), that the protagonist is together with the antagonist, without realising each other's true identities. sigh.. oh, and Priscilla's living with them too, Easley's in love with her. XD

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by the way, is it me or something's wrong with the opening theme's lyrics.. i didn't know the word "woe" can be used as a verb... (for reference, the youtube video >>>>>>)

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1) kakkoii - cool. awesome.

- speaking of kafka... -

currently listening to - Awaking Emotion 8/5 (Wentz Eiji)
mood - still sleepy

slogan of the year: nihongo umai ne.

apparently there's this "nihongo umai ne" campaign going on among the japanese and i am one of their regular targets. it seems that someone made it compulsory for everyone to use the phrase "nihongo umai ne" (there are improvised versions like "nihongo pera pera desu ne" or "nihongo jouzu da ne", they all mean the same thing..) whenever they first encounter a person like me. now im so used to this phrase i even discovered the most ideal reply to that phrase - "ie ie sorehodo demo".

i dont know why but somehow, i feel sad about this.

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a month passed after my university life began, and i am proud to say that my unsystematic and disorientated lifestyle hasnt "deproved" to a more human-like stage, nor has it "improved" to a more exciting and heart-stopping stage. though i must say i almost got myself kicked out of the dormitory for illegally importing humans into my room. yay. it's FIVE-STAR PRISON all over again..

no worries. i havent received any warning letters from the administrators. besides, life has to be spiced up with some interesting happenings. ;)

so for the first semester, i chose Introduction To World Literature 1 as one of my compulsory elective art subjects. compulsory because we are required to obtain at least 4 credits for art subjects to proceed to year 2. elective because we are given quite a few choices to choose from - other than the one i chose, there are subjects like column writing, art and museums, daily life and law, reading confucius's works, introduction to economics, and so on. it's not like i have a special interest in literature or what.. according to the analysis of our senpai, as long as we attend the class and write a book report at the end of the term, we will definitely get our credits.

frankly speaking i really don't know much about world literature. i would gladly transfer to one which is related to manga or anime if there was one........ anyway. during the first lesson we were told that we'll learn about literature from germany, france, US (or was it british..), and china. the head lecturer is responsible for german literature, and apparently his specialty is german-language novelist, Franz Kafka.

and so we spent 4 weeks on kafka, his life and works.. and even watched The Trial, an english movie based on one of his most famous works Der Prozeß. for me it was depressing and slightly unpleasant to watch.. partly due to the fact that i didn't know the flow of the story because i came to class late (because my previous lesson ended late..), and that the movie is in black and white and the graphics are not really clear (because it's made in the 60s).. to top it all, i was sitting at the edge of the second row which was very close to the screen, and the person sitting between me and the screen kept changing his sitting position every 2 minutes.. which gave me a slight headache towards the end of the movie..

i think i'd rather read the novel if i must. after all im more of a "reading person" rather than a "watching person". same goes to the manga-anime case, which i personally prefer reading the manga than watching the anime of the same title.

unless the anime is NOT originated from any manga or book, like Darker Than Black. =p

oh but it WILL be adapted into a manga i heard...

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1) nihongo umai ne - u speak good japanese / ur japanese is fluent
2) ie ie sorehodo demo - typical japanese way of expressing "oh come now, you flatter me" (when translated literally, it's "no, no, i'm not as good as you think i'd be").

- golden week -

currently listening to - howling (abingdon boys school)
mood - extremely sleepy

i think im hooked to a new anime. first of all the opening theme's sang by abingdon boys school, a new (relatively?) band created by lead singer of T.M.Revolution. who sang the opening theme of d.gray-man. these 2 songs have similar style, and i like both of them. then, it has the title Darker Than Black, which made me go "ooooh..... sounds interesting..". and the fact that the main character is actually an Orang Perancis, gave me more reasons to check it out. so far the first 5 episodes were fine, and i sincerely hope the director doesnt screw up the rest of the series......

alrighty enough otaku talks for now...

I'VE FINALLY GOTTEN MYSELF INTERNET CONNECTION!!!!!!!! banzai....

will slowly trace back my memories and post whatever i've missed in the previous month..

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meanwhile, to save some time and trouble, i've linked a post from my friend's blog (instead of posting a brand-new one myself). basically i went through almost everything with her during golden week 2007. enjoy~

http://caesa-salad.blogspot.com/2007/05/golden-week.html

additional fact 1: oh, i didnt go clubbing with them.
additional fact 2: because i went searching for an ATM during dinner, my pasta (which contained raw eggs..) went cold and hard when i returned... but i still ate it. and hence, i got food poisoning for 2 days. yay..
additional fact 3: Yodobashi Camera is one of the biggest stores in japan which sells a vast variety of goods including electrical goods, furnitures, clothes, etc... has outlets all over japan.

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1) orang perancis - hint: it doesnt mean "french". hint 2: [p][r][c]....
2) golden week - a (almost) one week holiday consisting of a series of holidays like Showa Day, Constitution Memorial Day, Greenery Day and Children's Day.