National Black Forest Cake Day!

Mood:


One of my favorite cakes!This was actually yesterday, but I like this cake so much why not celebrate another day? We don't have any black forest cake, so I can't really celebrate...Black forest cake is layers of chocolate cake, with whipped cream and cherries between each layer. And, on top it has more whipped cream, cherries, and chocolate pieces or shavings. Good stuff! Deserves its day. I've had it occasionally as my birthday cake.


Finally opened the envelop with my scores for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). Again, I passed every section, but didn't pass it as a whole.I don't quite get that. I'm thinking of maybe writing to them about it. I did better than last year, at least. I think I was a couple of points away from passing the listening section last time, so it's nice I passed that this time. They keep changing their grading criteria. Makes it a bit frustrating. Hopefully, this means next time I'll pass. At least since I'm getting better. The lowest score was on reading, and I've already changed my focus to it. I'm still studying the other stuff, but I started to really just sit down and read it without looking up things. Sometimes, I get overwhelmed at first when I see a full paragraph of Japanese. I just have to remember to breathe, and just tackle it from the beginning. Other times it's not such a big deal. It's weird. Like some days I'm right on it, and some it seems totally different.


In 11 Nin mo Iru, everyone in the family now knows about the ghost of Megumi. (The mother of all but one of the kids.) Their current mother (also named Megumi) admitted she recently has been seeing her. She's very open and welcoming of her. She even was the one to call a family meeting to tell everyone. Slowly everyone realizes it makes sense. Like their liqueur supply is depleting quickly, suddenly seeing a lot of food made (unsuccessfully, she's not much of a cook), suddenly having the stereo turn on when no one's near it, etc. Her killer (it was a car accident) had a thing for her, when she visited him in jail. He died of brain cancer, but came to visit Megumi anyways. Everyone thought he was alive, including Megumi.He later apologized to her, and disappeared. 


In Gintama, they acted like it was the last episode of the series, and apologized for all the parodies and dirty jokes. It was hilarious! Felt like they were messing with the fans through half of it. Felt just like it did before they did a year-long hiatus before the '2nd series'. (Really they just added a ' to the name, so Gintama'.) Towards the end, the creator told Kagura to read his letter (out of character). Seemed very sincere and serious. But, it ended with saying it wasn't really the end and that they'll come back 'someday'.I hope it won't be another year or longer until it starts up again.They love to mess with the fans. Only problem I have with this series. There's so many unanswered/started things to the main plot, they can't end it yet. Plus, there's probably a butt-load more hilarious jokes from the creator.


I think I'm going to stop reading Host. I'm not liking how things are described, the plot, etc. Kind of boring, honestly.Interesting idea at first, but there wasn't much to it. So, the next book will be an Anne Rice one. Not sure which one...


Didn't have time to start a drama, but made a nice list of possibilities. Some won't start until mid-April, but there are a few older ones as well.


Now with Gintama over (for the time being), the Phi Brain finale being next week (might drop it after this season...), Kill Me Baby is ending (possibly this week), (I think) Daily Lives of High School Boys might be ending its season as well, almost through with Pandora Hearts; there's a lot of spots opening up for more anime. There's a few I want to try from the new season starting in April, and I found a few 'old' ones as well. Hoping to have only one 'old' anime out of the week again. But, if there aren't enough new ones that I like I'll add more old shows. But, there's a lot of good looking shows coming up: Hyouka (a mystery anime), Acchi Kocchi (Place to Place. A comedy.), Sankarea (A comedy/horror.), Haiyore! Nyaruko-san (Nyarko-san: Another Crawling Chaos) (This one is based on HP Lovecraft's creature Nyarlathotep. Cthulhu appears too. One of the most famous creatures as well. Looks like it has a lot of promise as a comedy, oddly.), Polar Bear Cafe, Shining Hearts -Bread of Happiness- (Heard the least about this, but it sounds interesting), and a funny looking spin-off of Naruto Shippuden with Rock Lee as the lead, and everyone chibi-fied instead. 


The women's seder was nice again this year. I think it was shorter, since the rabbi skipped so much. We just brought some soda for the potluck. (Funny, because I don't drink soda anymore.) There was a lady next to me who was only 5 years older than me. It was her first seder of any kind. She was very nice and interesting. I think she's in the process of converting, so she had a ton of questions and was a bit nervous. 


I brought my clarinet for the 'theme' this time. It was if you were leaving Egypt, what was the one thing you absolutely could not leave behind? It had to be a 'thing' not family or pets. I told them that I've been playing the clarinet for 17 years, and I can't imagine not having it with me. It's kind of like my identity.I was thinking about bringing my hard copy of my novel (what I've done so far, anyways), but I didn't have anything to protect it and I didn't want to have to worry about it. Plus, my clarinet might be closer/important to me. It's easy to lug around my clarinet, because it's secure in a tiny case. Everyone said it looked like a lunchbox. I've had many people in the past say that exact same thing. Kind of funny.


Went for my bone scan today. It was interesting. Took them a really long time to find a vein, and for it not to 'roll'.I almost threw up at some point. The guy who worked with me was really nice and sweet. He tried to find a vein for a while, and then called in 2 more people to help him. We finally got the IV in my arm and the guy injected the dye. He had me lay down on a really narrow bed, moved me up in the air (which felt kind of far up), made the machine move over me, flatten part of it until it was close to my chest, made me put one hand under my hip the other out stretched on a table next to me, told me to stay still, and after a few minutes and some beeps the first part was done. He told me to come back in 3 hours, and to drink lots of fluids. 


So, we went to the Wal-mart that was close to it. Grabbed something to drink and had it with a snack we brought. Then, went shopping. I got an interesting shirt with black butterflies, and a green background. Also, got some really soft black socks.


We went back to the radiology center, and had the last part of the test done. He did similar stuff, only for longer periods of time, and moving the machine every so often. I almost fell asleep.I find tight and confined spaces to be relaxing for some reason. Like the opposite of what a lot of people feel. After he took the images, he let me look at them on the computer. It was really cool to see the top part of my skeleton.My sternum and spine were a really bright color. Which is where some of the dye collects, it's natural. To my untrained eye and having a small image to look at, I couldn't see anything wrong with my left shoulder. But, we'll see what an expert says. 


By the time we were close to home, it was already dinnertime. So, we stopped at a Burger King, and took what we ordered home. Had a cheese whopper, and shared half a small fry thing. We don't eat that kind of stuff too often, so it was nice.

National Spinach Day

Mood:


Spinach is awesome!I've always liked it. Nice to have a day for it. The only kind of spinach I don't like is from a can. It gets nasty that way.Other than that I love it raw for salads, cooked in a dish, by itself, etc. So many ways you can eat it. 


Can't believe there's only about 11 more days until Passover!It's coming up fast! This year it looks like we'll be going to 2 different congregations' seders. Instead of having one seder at a friend of the family's house, and maybe the other at ours. Kind of weird.Our friend's house is being remodeled, it kind of was an emergency for them and is taking forever. (They had some damage from a sump pump overflow? I think.) They can't even cook in their own kitchen at the moment.Since my shoulder's not doing too good right now, and Mom's getting more tired lately, it's hard for us to prepare and get things set at our house too.


One of the temples is having a seder that's catered. It costs quite a bit, especially with all of us. But, they do provide everything. So, chances are we'll still go to it. The other temple that we're a part of, is having a potluck. You have to bring things like your family's seder plate, drinks for yourselves, plates and silverware, matzah, etc. It's free though.I think I'd still want to go even if we have to bring so much stuff. And, usually it's not as organized. We'll have the seders covered then.


Yesterday night we went to a little party that was put up by the congregation we're members of (the one with the potluck seder). It was at a movie theater. Of course, as soon as people saw me they asked me about my shoulder. It was ok and understandable, but got a little tiring having to explain it so many times.There was a few desserts, and a little time to talk to people at the beginning. Then, they showed a very short 'movie' about our congregation. The audio was not great, but it was kind of a nice group of pics and the message was good. 


After that, they showed a movie called 66. It was hilarious!It takes place in 1966, England. About a boy who's trying to prepare for his Bar Mitzvah, and finding out that the finals for the World Cup is on the day he scheduled it. He wanted to be noticed, and remembered. His parents wouldn't reschedule it. I won't say much more, because it might ruin it for those who haven't seen it yet. It's pretty good.


We thought there would actually be some sort of 'dinner' at the party, so we didn't eat beforehand. Finding out that it was just some desserts, we still had to get something after the movie. By then, it was about 9pm.Just before a Japanese restaurant closed outside the theater, we managed to order something. 


I got their chicken katsu. Which comes with a salad and rice. I liked their 'creamy' sesame seed dressing. But, I wasn't expecting a regular salad. It was good, though. The katsu was lightly breaded, and nice and crisp. It was tasty.It was over a bed of lettuce. The sauce was interesting too. Had a little kick to it, and some sesame seeds. I also liked their iced green tea. Parents had these huge 'dinner' bentos. Which had katsu, sashimi, yakisoba, tempura, and I can't remember what else. Dad was able to down that plus some takoyaki, and not feel totally full.Mom had to take quite a bit home. I probably would have as well. Barely could finish off my katsu. 


This last Torah portion was on animal sacrifices. Kind of gory. The extra portion was basically about eating unleavened bread on Passover. Not much more. I guess it's another reminder that it's coming up, and we better prepare for it. 

Saw Cowboys and Aliens. Much better movie than I expected!A friend told me she was surprised by how good it was too. The story was interesting, the characters were likable (even the ones that seemed 'evil' at first), the aliens didn't seem badly designed, had a pretty fast pace, etc. I loved how the main character was someone who didn't sit around planning out things, and just did it. The humor was great as well. The ending was sad, but good.I won't reveal too much more. 


Managed to Gaia-fy a few more of my original characters. So far 3 out of 7 of the characters that are done, look somewhat close to what's in my head. The main character, Sin (one of the professors), and Zero. Tried the other 4, and they didn't have the clothes in the colors or styles I wanted. There is a new thing on Gaia where you can send in ideas about stuff like that, but if it's just for fun, I don't think it matters. Interesting to see them in the closest things they had, though. 


My chair just gave up the ghost, so to speak, today.Apparently, I had twisted it in weird directions. And, eventually it couldn't hold up like that. It was also really old. Just one of those fold up chairs. Not really expensive, but it's a pain. Luckily, I can use my fold up chair that's usually at the dining room table for the time being. It's roughly the same height, and seems sturdier.

Breathe

Mood:


By The Prodigy. This is another old fave. But, I think I'll always like it.It's older than I thought. It was released as a single in November of 1996. This was a huge international hit. The band started in 1990, and are still going. Their an English band. They're credited as being pioneers of the big beat genre. Sold over 25 million records worldwide, and won many music awards. I really like a couple of their songs, the others seem kind of boring, honestly.But, I can still recognize how talented they were, not too sure about now. Stopped hearing about them at some point.



I was able to play my clarinet today and yesterday. Not for the full amount of time I would have liked, but it's something.Played some jazz today. 

日本語

Went over another lesson in my Japanese sentence patterns book. This time it was about how い(i)-adjectives used as predicates behave like verbs. When 新しい(あたらしい or atarashii) is used as a predicate, it means 'is new', not just 'new'. So, in informal speech you can drop the だ (da or 'is') at the end of the sentence. But, if it's polite speech, you'd still use です (desu) at the end. な (na)- adjectives used as predicates behave like nouns. So when 有名な(ゆうめいな or yuumeina, or famous) is used as a predicate, the stem form (without the な) must be followed by だ or です. Kind of interesting. And makes a whole lot more sense to me now.Also got the practice sentences correct. Yay!The words they went over were: 若い(わかい or wakai) or young, 冷たい(つめたい or tsumetai) or cold (to the touch), コーヒー (koohii) or coffee, 正確な(せいかくな or seikakuna) or accurate. 

Also, went over a kanji. It's 現, which can be pronounced as: あらわ.す(arawa.su), あらわ.れる(arawa.reru), うつつ(utsutsu), or げん (gen). It means actual, existing, present, indicate, reveal, emerge, materialize, reality, consciousness, current, now. For some reason, I have trouble saying the arawareru. But, I'm getting there.

Found 2 Passover recipes. One's for meatballs, and the other one's a non-alcoholic drink called Orange Cream. They sound so good!Hope to find more Passover recipes next time.

Kill Me Baby had one of the most humdrum episodes yet.Almost fell asleep. Apparently, next week will be the last episode. I thought it'd be like a more demented Azumanga Daioh or something, but it really flopped. It wasn't so bad I couldn't watch, or hope for it to get better. But, it's still sad. 

In Buster Keel, Keel and Lavie's souls were sucked into a gourd, because they wouldn't get out of the way of 2 'adventurers'. They wanted to kill the Bird of Paradise monster. The bird's protecting the village and its treasure. The adventurers had told the villagers that the bird was poisoning their water supply. The adventurers were just after the treasure, which if moved, the volcano would explode and wipe out the village. Keel's soul shown his true form as a dragon ape. Keel crushed the soul eater inside the gourd. Then, their souls were spewed back into their bodies. Blue and Keel beat the crap out of the adventurers. The adventurers were the ones who poisoned the water. They revealed their true form at the end. They're actually Gold and Silver of the Ayakashi group.

deviantART faves: Best Friends Ming Dynasty 2 I did not make these! First, another great drawing from an artist I watch. He usually does a lot of flash kind of stuff. Second, an amazing drawing of China from Hetalia in clothing from the Ming Dynasty era. Really cool. It's odd that a lot of fanart of Hetalia is better than the original art... I've been noticing that lately.