Voice

Mood:

By Perfume. I just found out why they call themselves perfume...The original 3 members all had the kanji character for fragrance in their names. (One dropped out almost right away after they formed the group. Another girl replaced her a year later, and has been with the group ever since.) So, it makes sense. I don't like too many of their songs, but there are some good ones. The band is very popular worldwide. They use elements of electronic dance music, synthpop, and house music. Some have called their 'style' techno-pop. This is an interesting song. Basically talking about getting in touch with our inner voice. The video is kind of fun and creative.

Went to the support group last night. Had one new person, so that was nice. During the 'discussion' part we kind of went off on tangents that weren't entirely relevant.Seemed like everyone was kind of distractible this time. For some reason me being a 'unicorn' kept popping up.Since I'm the child of a trans person, I'm apparently considered one. Since many think we don't exist. We're magical!~Kind of funny. Oddly I haven't seen very many of us either. I'm not sure if I've ever talked with another 'unicorn'. I've heard of others, but they seem to never go to these things. Which makes me feel even more 'unique' and/or alone.Anyways, they were talking about how I should apparently get a unicorn horn and wear it during meetings and to any other trans things I go to. I would think that would be distracting in itself...One person showed me one that was from Etsy. It was very elaborate. I didn't know that they'd have such over the top ones.

After the meeting we went to Shari's. I was just going to have scrambled eggs with cheese, and a fruit platter. But, I was kind of suckered into getting the new pie special this month as well. It has chocolate ganache, strawberries, and strawberry jam in it. It was really good, although intense.I had BBQ sauce with my eggs. The sauce was a bit spicier than I'd like, but was still good. The eggs and fruit would have amounted to a decent amount of calories for a small meal. Which is what I'm trying to get back to. The fruit platter had strawberries, melon slices, and grapes. It seemed like a huge amount of them to me, but was also a good mix.

Most of the rest of the group that joined us there was trying to make me have a laughing fit.Sure it's more than ok to laugh, but when it gets to be a long time it's not that great. Also, I've thrown up from laughing too hard before.You can actually die from that. Won't go into detail on how, because it's disgusting. Usually just before that I can't breathe either. It's like my lungs shut done from all the violent movement around it. All that can be serious.Even after we told them this, they essentially said we don't care and continued to try and get me to laugh harder. That's just cruel.I was having a hard time eating my pie during all this. 

日本語

Studied the kanji: 落. It tends to be pronounced as らく (raku) in compounds. As 落ち or お.ち (o.chi): slip, omission; outcome, final result, the end; (usually in kana) (often as オチ) punch line (of a joke). As 落ちる or お.ちる (o.chiru): to fall down, drop, fall (e.g. rain), sink (e.g. sun or moon), fall into (e.g. light or one's gaze), be used in a certain place (e.g. money); to be omitted, be missing; to decrease, sink; to fail (e.g. exam or class), lose (contest, election, etc.); to crash, degenerate, degrade, fall behind; to become indecent (of a conversation); to be ruined, go under; to fade, come out (e.g. a stain), come off (e.g. makeup), be removed (e.g. illness, possessing spirit, name on a list); to fall (into someone's hands), become someone's possession; to fall (into a trap), fall (for a trick); to give in, give up, confess, flee; to fall, be defeated, surrender; to come to (in the end), end in; to fall (in love, asleep, etc.); to consent, understand; (comp) to crash, freeze; (of animals) to die; (of fish when it gets cold) to move the depths. As 落とす or お.とす (o.tosu): to drop, lose, let fall, shed (light), cast (one's gaze), pour in (liquid), leave behind; to clean off (dirt, makeup, paint, etc.), remove (e.g. stains or facial hair), lose, spend money at a certain place, omit, leave out, secretly let escape; to lose (a match), reject (an applicant), fail (a course), defeat (in an election); to lower (e.g. shoulders or voice), lessen (e.g. production or body weight), worsen (quality), reduce (e.g. rank or popularity), speak badly of, make light of; fall into (e.g. a dilemma or sin), make one's own, have one's bid accepted, force surrender, take (e.g. an enemy camp or castle), forcefully convince, press for a confession, deal with; (comp) to download, copy from a computer to another medium; to finish a story (e.g. with the punchline); to finish (a period, e.g. of fasting). I'll go over it's common compounds list next time. This one seems to be used a lot. Although, 'fall' (and words relating to it) can be used for a lot of things in English as well. 

Practiced my kanji/vocab on that JapaneseClass' site. I made it to the 2nd highest rank for the day, but it was early in the morning. Someone probably beat me right after. But, it's still nice.Started translating the current section from an article in You Maga. The topic kind of gives me the creeps, but I'm also kind of interested in what they say about it.Read an article in Japanese on Asahi's site about how a lot of the most popular books in Japan are criticizing China and South Korea. And, as a result there was outrage online from people on social media outlets. There was a meeting of publishers recently to discuss the problem. Saying they don't support hate speech, and are looking into it. They may take those best sellers off the shelf. One person said it was about time they are at least discussing issues like these. Very interesting on how they're dealing with it. 

There's a channel on Youtube that I subscribe to, that puts out vids of commercials from Japan every couple of weeks. It's really cool.So, I watched the one that was just put out a couple of days ago. It was just about as weird and interesting as always. There were a couple of them this time that are also shown here in the US. So, that was interesting to see. I kind of want to try those fruit ice cream ball things now.They sound good. Came up with more sentences to practice my Japanese with. It was kind of fun, and it's coming quicker/easier for me. 

Rurouni Kenshin is getting more and more intense. It certainly seems like a mature show now. (drug references, violence, etc.) It started off kind of lighthearted. But, it's also getting more complicated and better, including the animation. They're finally delving more into Kenshin's past. This time they introduced the Shinsengumi, which was a special police force. (Shinsengumi lit. means the New Squad.) He had a few run-ins with them. A lot of them were corrupt. Historians have described them as a 'ruthless murder squad'. (They're also featured in Gintama. They do seem slightly corrupt, yet good at heart in that show. Kind of hard to describe. They also have similar names to the actual people that were in it, their characters are loosely based off of them.) Currently in the story, they've disbanded, though. One of the main squad leaders works as an assassin for hire. His next 'job' is to kill Kenshin. They've fought before, but it ended up being a tie. Kenshin made a vow not to kill people anymore. But, he's unsure if he'll be able to keep that if he runs into him. That former squad leader already fought Sanosuke to send a 'message' to Kenshin that he's serious. Sanosuke didn't stand a chance, but luckily will pull through. 

Wrote more of the 9th short story from my nightmare anthology. I keep thinking it's ending soon, and then I come up with more.I really do think it's close to ending this time. It's the longest one so far. Might take out a little when I edit it after I finish the writing part. Although, it's not really that long. We'll see. 

Played my clarinet. Did some Gershwin, tunes from my advanced classical solo book, and some tunes from my general jazz book. Didn't make that many mistakes. I'm getting better and better as I go. 

Drew out all of Nico's clothes/accessories. (Nico's from my story, Alliance.) He has a lot of accessories, and 2 different outfits. It was kind of fun, though. Next time will be Rakesh's stuff. That should be interesting. Edited more of the exaggerated expressions meme in Photoshop. Finished the first 'sad' panel. Started editing the second one. Weird to see Junko this way. (Junko's also in Alliance.) Fixed up Shadow's face, and am in the process of drawing his hair. That's been one of the hardest things to draw of him.(He's the main character in Alliance.) But, maybe I'll come up with a better design for him this way.

Shinigami-kun has been kind of a tearjerker.You learn to really grow fond of the person who's about to die, and then it gets even more emotional when they do. No. 413 is still struggling with not giving in to sympathizing with humans. With the episode I just watched, he did pretty well. But, his supervisor ended up sympathizing with one of the humans. She was supposed to stop an unscheduled death of a woman who was trying to kill herself. The person that was supposed to die was running a marriage scam and leading on several women. It was especially easy for him, because he had a little daughter. He had a relationship with the woman who tried to kill herself, and then stopped all communication with her. Thinking she would never have anyone, and that no one cares about her, she was serious about ending it all. Yet, she was an extremely successful businesswoman who was in charge of a women's magazine that was about strong women. Women who aren't dominated by men, and who can do perfectly fine without a man in their lives. Finding out that he'll die soon, he called her again. He didn't want his daughter to be alone. Later, she said she knew she was being used, but was using him in order to feel like she was living a dream. They finally settled their differences, fell in love, and got married with only 24 hours left for him to live. His daughter genuinely liked her, and she was able to take custody of her since they had just gotten married. The shinigami's supervisor sympathized especially with the woman. She tried to rewrite the date of his death for a year into the future, so the couple could be together for a little longer. For her punishment, both her's and 413's life candles diminished a lot. Usually it was 413's problem, but he thinks better of her now. She's usually so mean to him. The Devil is waging an all out war on the shinigamis. He's making their candles blow out by tricking them into things. The next episode looks like he'll go up against 413 again. Should be interesting.