Mood:
By Arashi. This was the theme song to Yamada Taro Monogatari (The Story of Yamada Taro). Fits the series so well. Basically about how tomorrow things will usually get better. If you fall, just pick yourself up, and try again. Stuff like that. The pv for it is kind of funny. They look like they're having a lot of fun fooling around. Kind of a feel-good uplifting song.
Well, we took Mom to the airport on Monday. Haven't heard much from her since. Just that she made it safely to my aunt's place for the wedding. I think the wedding was scheduled for yesterday. Hope she had fun. As well as my cousin. Mom will stay over there until the end of this week, and then she goes to Florida. And, a week later she's home. Yay!
Started watching Tumbling on Monday. I tried it several months ago, and didn't like it after watching the first 5 minutes. This time I decided to try it again. After those 5 minutes or so, it was really good. So, maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to judge...
Only tried it again, because every drama fan site that I've been on has a large number of Tumbling fans. Really high ratings in the reviews as well. Wataru Azuma, the resident bad-boy at Karasumori High School, causes trouble wherever he goes. He also has a weakness for girls. So, when a new transfer student, Mari Satonaka, joins the women's rhythmic gymnastics team, he decides to join the male rhythmic gymnastics team. Also, he had to join a club, to make up for some credits, nothing else caught his attention. He doesn't understand it at first. But, towards the end of the episode, he becomes hooked on it. I think he'd be a better captain than Yuta is. He knows how to rile up the other members. They need someone to keep up morale. Apparently, from the pic, his friends eventually join it. As of this episode there's only 5 loyal members. Plus, one who occasionally comes in and does stuff with them, but he's more into competing individually. It's interesting to see at least 2 actors I recognize from previous dramas, doing such different characters. Shows how good they are, I guess.
(Wataru's the guy with red hair in the pic.)
The only day I didn't play my clarinet was on Monday. That's pretty good.
Sounding better too. Almost done editing the heritage meme in photoshop. Worked on my dragon drawing. Looking cooler every time I go back to it. Now that I've drawn out most of his scales, he looks even more 'water-based'. I didn't think it would turn out like that.
Finally ended up with an interesting name for a park in my story. (Took me long enough...
) Also, wrote a bit more of chapter 15. The ideas are a flowin' again.
I still went to the cafe yesterday, even though Mom wasn't there for her mahj group that meets then. Dad stayed there, too. We both had mochas. Haven't had one in a while. We both managed to talk a lot to the barista this time. She's the one I found out that went to the same high school as me. One of her friends showed up about an hour before closing, and apparently was another person from the same high school. Same age, as well. That ended up being another big conversation.
In the end, I didn't get as much work done as I thought I would, but it was nice.
One of the people from the mahj group offered to give me a ride next week. Nice! I won't break the cycle of going out, seeing people, and studying there every week.
Somehow I seem to get a lot done without distractions, like the internet, computer being slow/updating, etc. The only electronic I bring with me is my mp3 player. Not much.
Found a recipe in Japanese for a mint-flavored milk shake. Sounded really interesting. Found another that I'll translate next time that is for walnut 'snowball' cookies. That sounded good too. Found a few Romanian recipes, as well. A soup, chicken ghiveci (braised chicken), and a Romanian-style chili. They look pretty tasty.
I'm apparently going to be alone for Shabbat dinner.
Oh well. Dad's going to meet a couple of friends throughout most of the day tomorrow. I'll just have to get something good.
Mood:
Yay for chocolate and mint put together!I'm kind of iffy about it. Sometimes I love that stuff, and others...not so much.
Have to be in the mood, I guess. But, I like mint chocolate chip ice cream, Andes mints, grasshopper pie/ice cream/cookies etc. Chocolate mint's apparently an herb, too. It's part of the spearmint family.
Well, Mom's going on her trip to the east coast for my cousin's wedding, tomorrow. After that, she'll travel down to Florida to visit my grandparents. She'll be gone for 2 weeks. Hope things go well.
Sounds like it'll be a lot of fun. I wanted to at least go to the wedding...
But, oh well. Dad's on vacation this week, so that's nice. It'll be a bit 'different' for everyone. It's all good, though.
We had chicken potstickers, chicken and vegetable eggrolls, and some fried rice for Shabbat dinner Friday night. I was so tired, and didn't really look at the first part of the directions for the potstickers. They ended up sticking to the pot.
Some burned a bit. But, they still tasted really good! (In fact, maybe better.) We also had lemon pie for dessert. So good!
Didn't wake up early enough, and didn't really feel like doing my little service yesterday. But, I did read the portion. There was actually a double portion this week. (Well, one of them was really short, so maybe 1 and a half. :P) It was about the commandments mainly. (We actually have more than '10'. To be exact, we have 613.
This one obviously doesn't talk about them all.) The second short portion was about taking a census. Each person whether wealthy or poor had to pay a half shekel. This way they could do the census without actually counting people, and pay for costs of the temple. Kind of interesting.
I found out yesterday that someone upgraded me to the title of Citizen on one of the first forums I joined. Which was a long time ago...They say I joined about 2 and a half years ago! I've thought about leaving it a few times, but something good always brings me back. Anyways, most of the time people become a citizen either by donating to the site, or contributing in some way to the community. I'm kind of honored that someone did that.
I don't think I contribute much. Just have part of my novel up, some pics, and occasionally say something in certain threads. Well, with this, I can look at the 'hidden' forum sections, give people positive or negative reputation points, a bigger album size, and more. There's apparently clans you can join, as well. I don't know much about those. There's a dragon, magic, and royal clan. People are already asking me to join their 'clan'. But, they seem a bit weird when I read the limited amount of info on them.Hmmm...Maybe I'll have to look around some more. I thought the person who upgraded me, didn't really like me, but maybe that impression was wrong.
I decided to drop Attention Please. It wasn't really as good as I thought it would be.
I thought I'd give it another try, but the story doesn't sound that great. And, I'm not sure if I like the way the acting is directed. I know they're good actors, so it must be the direction, or script, or something. Too bad. I'll just have one more spot to fill for my week. There's a lot of good looking candidates, too.
I've kept up practicing my clarinet. Some days I sound really great, and some not so much.My hands were fumbling a bit today. Reed felt extra dry today too, so I felt like I was on the verge of squeaking every so often. Managed to not really squeak, but I hate that feeling. Kind of hurts.
Pandora Hearts has been awesome!
I love how it has Alice in Wonderland elements to it. The Mad Hatter and Dormouse aren't really friends (I was surprised at who's the Dormouse), somehow Alice is also a black rabbit (filling kind of 2 roles, yet there's also a white rabbit?), there's a Cheshire cat, and others. Mad Hatter fits the personality pretty well. (Although, he doesn't wear a hat often.) He even sat down with Oz for tea.
I'm still watching Fairy Tail everyday until I catch up. Not much left. In about a couple of weeks I would have finally caught up. Natsu had a cool/hilarious battle with Gildarts. He passed. Levy, Cana, Gray, and Elfman passed as well. Something's weird about Mest though. No one remembers when he joined the guild, or who he really is. He just tells Wendy that he's Mystagon's disciple, but Mystagon kept to himself. Also, there's a weird, but interesting character that was on the island before the guild members arrived. He seems a bit confused, and everything near him dies. He's been apparently searching for Natsu. But, Natsu just met him at the end of this last episode, and has no idea who he is.
deviantART fave: My Gallery in a Meme- Blank I did not make this! I think it would be interesting to fill out, if I ever find the time. I don't know what my oldest thing in my gallery is. It's been too long... Other stuff I might have somewhat of a clue about. Should be fun.
Mood:
Almonds are good. Just not my favorite nut.(I love walnuts and pecans.) Nice it has its own day, though. They're very healthy. Apparently the almond tree is native to the Middle East and South Asia. But, today, California produces 80% of the world's supply of almonds. Interesting.
Wow! It's been a while since I've posted...Suddenly became a bit hectic for a while there. I'll try to get back to posting more often.
We celebrated Tu B'Shevat (or literally '15th of Shevat') last week. It's our New Year's for the Trees. Had 2 people over for the seder part. One came over for dinner before we started with things. It was all really nice again.Always more fun with guests, too. We still have leftover fruits and nuts. You're supposed to eat at least 15 different types of fruit. At least one of them should be something you either haven't had in a long time, or something new. You're supposed to have 4 glasses of wine (or in our case grape juice), for each season ranging from dark red, red with a little white, white with a touch of red, and white. Each fruit/nut group signifies something as well. One of my favorite holidays.
Didn't do much for Valentine's Day. I have very mixed feelings for that holiday, so to me it's good I didn't do much for it.Parents went to a fancy restaurant during the weekend before. So, that's nice. Mom got me some Ferrero Rocher. I haven't had that in years. I kind of forgot what it was like. Soooo good!
I've managed to practice almost everyday this past week. Couldn't practice the full hour that I wanted to yesterday, because I had my weird shoulder pain come back. That's ok, got about 45 minutes done by then, so it's not too bad. I'm sounding much better than before. Feels good.
I've realized my shoulder pain might just be a nasty cramp around my left shoulder blade. It feels pretty similar to what you might get in your leg, only slightly more painful.
When it's 'worked out', I feel the throbbing numbness I get after my regular cramps as well. Hopefully, it'll stop happening soon. Went a few days before without it happening, so maybe that's a sign?
Watched the movie, Paradise Kiss. It was surprisingly good. It's based on the anime, which is based off of the manga. Yukari is a high school student who's tired of constantly studying. She comes across a group of fashion designers in need of a model for their Paradise Kiss clothing label. (She was scouted by one of the members, and basically forced to become their model.) She's put off by the group's eccentric ways, and doesn't know much about the fashion world. But, soon she starts to admire the way they think and work together. I glimpsed at the art in the manga/anime, and it's not my style. But, the story's great. The way it was done in the movie was really good. Great actors, and music too.
I've been watching an episode of Fairy Tail every day for the last week or so. Trying to catch up to the current episodes. I'm getting pretty close.I wasn't that far behind, but I thought it'd be nice if I was up to date. Finished a pretty awesome, yet long, arc. Now Gajeel has his own 'cat' or Exceed (Panther Lilly). Carla has the ability to predict the future. (She thought it was just 'planted' memories from Edolas.) Her mother's the queen of the Exceeds, but she didn't feel that she could tell her right away. Happy met his parents, and I think he somehow knows it without them saying anything. The Exceeds went back to Fairy Tail along with the others. And, they're now living next to the guild. They just started another 'arc', this time on the S-class exam. 8 pre-selected participants go up against the current S-class mages. So, they have to defeat at least Erza and Gildarts, the 2 strongest mages in Fairy Tail.
They each get to choose a partner that wasn't selected. Natsu's going with Happy (big surprise there...), Levy's with Gajeel, Mest chose Wendy (that's more of a surprise), Juvia's with Lisanna (I'm surprised she was selected, although she's pretty cool), Cana's with Lucy, Gray's with Loke (weird since Loke's a 'spirit'), and there's a couple others.
Started reading Kuzumoto san Chi no Yonkyoudai, or the Four Kuzumoto Siblings. It's really good so far. It's funny, has a lot of action, cool skills, interesting story, etc. What more could you want?
The Kuzumoto family consists of 4 brothers with supernatural powers. They're selected to be the 'Supernatural Management Team', a grouped tasked with preventing any abuses of supernatural power that would cause a disturbance to the ordinary people of the town, or allow the discovery of people with supernatural powers. The story centers on the main character 14-year old Sora (the 2nd oldest), and how he and his brothers work to protect the peace in their town. Sora, by the way means 'sky', and they play with that a bit. He uses air. They call him an airhead as well. The youngest is 7 (who doesn't talk much), then there's a 13-year old, and the eldest is 23. I like their personalities.
Worked a lot on editing the heritage meme in photoshop. Got Mom's side (with their mochi) pretty much done. About a couple more left of Dad's, then I work on the America mochi, and myself. Then, I put it in the meme itself. Yay!Feels like I'm almost done with it. Took me long enough...
Also, working on drawing my dragon inspired by Chinese dragons. It's looking cooler the more I work on it. The head looks a bit dog-like, though. And, it looks almost water-based, since it has webbed feet and long fin-like things coming off its body. I'm just going with the flow, and seeing how it looks. I guess it'll be more original and interesting this way.
Managed to get a little writing done for chapter 15. Right now, I'm trying to figure out a name for the local park in the story. I'm trying to come up with it the same way I came up with the name for the restaurant. Where I take a word like 'nature', and look it up in different languages. Then, I try to combine them in various ways. It comes up with some cool sounding names, and it's kind of random. (That's why I like doing it this way.) I've got about 4 good sounding names for it. Hard to narrow them down. I also had another burst of ideas for the story. They usually come at night, while I'm trying to sleep. That's why I leave a notebook next to my bed. Helps me so much!
I'm having fun drawing Fray's face, too. He seems to be the 'easiest' one to draw. My idea of him is so clear.Weird how some of them are like that. I have to think about those others more often, then.
Started reading Hamster, yesterday. It's so funny, yet cute.
It's about hilarious observations and stories about the author and his hamsters. Doesn't feel like the typical manga.
Found out that the person we invited to dinner before we did the seder for Tu B'Shevat, went to the same high school and is just a year older than me! I knew she looked familiar! She's the barista at the cafe where we go on Wednesdays. We talked a lot yesterday about high school and what people are doing now. She still sees a couple of my old classmates. It feels so weird, but I haven't talked about that stuff in years! But, it was fun.
Youtube:
This reminds me of Buster. I guess any beagle would, but this one looks kind of like him:
