National Cocoa Day!

Mood:


Yay for hot chocolate!I love that stuff!We still have some, plus little marshmallows, so maybe I'll have some later. Yesterday was International Mountain Day. Mountains are cool to look at, hike, camp at, etc. So, it's good to have a day devoted to them.


It's gotten much colder.There's a possibility of some snow later this week. I hope it doesn't. Too much of a headache.Wow! I have 16 followers now!Didn't expect anyone to, so that was nice. 


Finished watching the anime, Ikoku Meiro no Croisee. It was a really sweet and cute series, with a tinge of sadness. Characters were very well developed, and the scenes of 19th century Paris were awesome. Also found out that they worked with people from France for the project. And, that the French are hoping to make a second season with the Japanese staff soon. Not sure if it'll happen, but they're asking for one. Kind of cool! I would so watch another season of this!


Dropped Kaze no Stigma or Stigma of the Wind. I could not get into it.Characters had no real depth to them, got a bit boring, and it's a bit more ecchi than I'd like. (Skirts were unbelievably short. Frankly, the less ecchi-ness the better for me.) 


So, I'm thinking of watching the Ao no Exorcist specials on Fridays until the new anime season. I've been wanting to watch them for a while now.I love this show! Plus, the anime ended kind of abruptly. When the next anime season starts, I'm thinking of watching Another and Kill Me Baby. One looks like a good mystery/horror anime, the other a good comedy. (Genres I really love.) Let's hope they don't blow it. Didn't see anything else that appealed to me. Kind of slim pickings, but this season I only liked Phi Brain. When that ends, I'll go down my list of other older anime.


Watched Inglorious Bastards. What a crazy movie!It was very brutal/graphic, but I oddly liked it. Weird ending. But, I guess they did wrap up everything. Felt funny after watching it.


Went to Himalayan Chutney Saturday night. Apparently, they're revamping their menu soon. I had one that had a page missing. Got my fave, which is Chicken Tikka Masala. They do the sauce awesomely every time.The chicken was a bit drier and bigger chunks than normal, but not bad. Their chai was good this time too. We ordered a garlic naan to go with it. A bit greasier than I expected, but good. 


Found a lot of songs this time. I wanted the Beatles songs we have on tapes, so I looked online for some. (Don't have something to convert it to CD.) I have more ideas for finding more music now.


Been able to play my clarinet everyday since Wednesday. Yay!I usually don't do it during the weekend, but it felt really good. Getting in touch with my 'voice' again. Starting to feel comfortable enough to make it 'wail' or 'cry'.


Put up a ton of Hanukkah decorations on Friday. Haven't had the dreidel lights up in a looong time.But, they make it festive, and the holiday's referred to as the festival of lights. Also put up a ton of wall clings. Put up an old 'Happy Hanukkah' banner, and some hanging dreidels with stars in them. For a while, I've wanted to put up a hanging decoration thing that I used to do at the dorms.Just didn't know where to put it. It's 12 ft long. It's like a long ceiling banner with streams of dreidels/stars coming down. It's fun. Well, we found a spot.In between my room and my mom's office, just over the top of the stairs. Tacked up a few times in the middle to the ceiling, since there's definitely less than 12 feet in between. Dad said it's like walking through a forest.Also, found in old tissue paper dreidel centerpiece for the kitchen table. So, yay! It feels like Hanukkah's actually coming. It starts the night of the 20th. So just in time.


Still keeping up with my little Shabbat services on Saturday mornings. I feel like at least I'm doing something for it. Rosie still tries to chew on my tzitzit.The portion was about Jacob wrestling with an angel, changing his name to Israel, meeting his brother Esau who warmly greeted him, etc. Interesting. 


Found a Japanese recipe that I started to translate. It's for Potato Mochi. Sounds good so far. Also found a lot of good looking Finnish recipes online. Here's a few of them: borsch soup, salmon soup, date cake. Actually ran out of time, so there's a lot more out there than what I found. Next time I'll look at Lebanese recipes. 

National Sundae Day!

Mood:


Sundaes are awesome!There's a day for it? Cool! It's also Veteran's Day. All those great men and women who served deserve to have at least a day, if not more.


Just put up my new Jewish calendar yesterday.This month's pic is weird, but somehow cool. It's a Torah shield, that has letters written as a mirror image. So, they're perfectly fine in the mirror. But, looking at it by itself, it's a bit trippy.This calendar's put out by the Amsterdam Jewish Historical Museum. And, they show various things from the museum each month. I've used their calendars before, and they're usually pretty interesting. Can't seem to find a pic online of this month's. It'd be cool to show. Oh well. 


Last night was really cold!At least cold for the area. I'm just hoping it's not like last Thanksgiving, where it snowed and there was record lows. Barely was able to go to a friend's house for Thanksgiving. The power went out, and it was in the single digits at one point. Scary! 


This morning I woke up to high winds and pouring rain. Yay...Also, when I got out of bed, my left side of my neck and my lower right side of my back were really aching. It hurt to move.Neck seems to be a little better, but my back is still killing me. I think it probably was from sleeping in a weird position or something. But, I've slept in weird positions all the time, and it hasn't hurt this much. I don't know. 


Yesterday, I brainstormed a bit more on my possible 'revamped' schedule.It looks pretty fun (yet still work) so far. Finished translating a very short sentence in the You Maga article I wrote out. Oh, and tonight we get to have lasagna! Haven't had it in a long time! *q*


Naruto Shippuden still hasn't gotten back to the main story. It's been several months already.The story this time was semi-ok. Same formula they usually do for side stuff. I like Shino and his group, but it was all about him becoming strong when he was younger. Just blah. I hope they get to the story again soon. I've already seen some fans say they've stopped watching because of it. 


In Iryu Sousa, the main items were a fancy looking button, someone else's clothes, and a key to a suitcase that had a formal kimono in it. Interesting story, but seemed to not be as emotionally charged as in previous episodes. It was a victim who abandoned his family just because his business tanked. He decided to live by sleeping in internet cafes and capsule hotels, and having a part-time job. His daughter was searching for him, and started to post a blog with her name and pics, trying to get his attention. His wife had declared him dead after he didn't come home for about a year. 


One day his daughter posted some info about a party she was having to celebrate her upcoming wedding. He saw, and feeling a bit ashamed of the way he looked, he stole someone's clothes in the next cubical at an internet cafe. He really wanted to see her. Later he gets attacked by a yakusa, because the clothes he stole were from his dealer who had put drugs in the pockets. Being mistaken for someone else, the guy killed him. The victim wanted to give the kimono to his daughter for her wedding day. Since, her mom and grandmother wore it too. She eventually gets it, and everything's sadly cleared up.

In Kaze no Stigma, Kazuma comes back to the Kannagi family to talk to Soushu. Telling him that Ren's been abducted, and that he wasn't the one behind the killings. Soushu believes him. He believes the people behind it all are the Fuuga. That clan's been planning a rebellion for centuries since the Kannagi defeated them. And, they became, essentially, their slaves. The Kannagi's barely won by sealing the Fuuga's source of energy, called the Youma. They revered it as a G-d. They plan on sacrificing Ren to revive it. Kazuma and Ayano have to work together in order to save him. Kazuma kept having flashbacks of the person in the pic. Don't know her yet, but apparently she was a sacrifice, and someone he knew.

In Buster Keel, Ravi and Keel go to Siva's place first to look for clues to where he might be. It's cool that they have an adventurer class that uses music as a weapon! They find a monster dictionary that Siva compiled. Even Keel had an entry. But, before Ravi could read it, he ate it. Siva's looking for the '4 Sacred Treasures'. So, they decide to look for them too, in order to meet up with him. They head to Shiton for info. They meet a Magic Warrior, named Bull, on the carriage ride over. Magic Warriors are both highly skilled in magic and 'warrior' techniques. (Supposedly, really powerful guys.) He saved them a couple of times when a giant monster attacked them. He's kind of a jerk. But despite that, ends up joining their group. 


deviantART faves: True Nature A hilarious lolcat. Just their expressions alone are funny! 

National Candy Day!

Mood:


A whole day for candy! Wow!I love candy!So many different types. I finished all my candy from Halloween, so I guess I won't celebrate this.


Watched Iryu Sosa. It was such a sad story this time.They're all sad, but somehow each one makes you really feel for the victim. The victim this time was a bar owner, who had just given up on his dream of performing Rakugo, to settle his debts. Rakugo literally means 'fallen words'. A storyteller sits on a stage using only a paper fan and a small cloth as props, and without sitting up from the seiza sitting position. They depict long and complicated humorous stories. I've seen them before on TV, they're interesting. Anyways, He also wants to help his younger brother go into pro baseball. He was having a hard time coming up with the money, so he created a bank scam. Later, his bro's girlfriend gives him more than enough money to pay it all back. But, he wanted to come clean and turn himself in. His 'friend' who helped him with the scam, stabbed him to death, because he couldn't bare the thought of getting exposed. The items this time were a green towel with a 'little dragon' kanji symbol, and a piece of drift wood. Both having symbolism in Rakugo. His younger brother didn't want to have anything to do with him, but the victim tried his best to reconnect just before he was killed. Now, the younger bro's mortified by it all. 

In Kaze no Stigma, Kazuma fights his father who's asked to get him, and to go back to the family to see if he really did the killings. Kazuma wins. He was nice enough to call an ambulance for him. His little brother, Ren, finds him at his hotel. He's extremely happy to see him again. He wants to persuade Kazuma to explain himself to the Kannagi's and to help them if he didn't do it. Kazuma refuses and says that the Kannagi family will be destroyed soon, because whoever's killing them is stronger than himself. Kazuma lets him stay the night. But, the people who are targeting the Kannagi's show up, cut the hotel in half (in pic), and kidnap Ren. The preview looks like they'll have to cooperate with each other in order to get him back, next time. 

Started another manga called Buster Keel last week. It really reminds me of Fairy Tail.The art, the story, the characters, etc. Heck, the 2 main character look very similar to Natsu and Lucy. One of them even has a flying companion. There are slight differences that make it interesting. Keel's the main character of the story, (much like Natsu) and he's desperately looking for Siva. Siva, the so called 'best monster fighter' took away something precious to him, and he wants to retrieve it. On his search, a beginner monster fighter girl, Ravi (very much like Lucy), along with her pig devil, Mississippi or Mippy for short, join him. And, they go on an adventure to find Siva, who's been missing for 2 years. Sounds like how Natsu's been searching for Igneel, who disappeared mysteriously. But, Keel's a dragon ape monster, that Siva transformed into human form. (Where'd they get the idea for 'dragon ape'?) It's interesting. Also, Dear has been updated with all the missing chapters. So, I'll be reading that instead of Ao no Exorcist on Thursdays for a while.


Got to play my clarinet again! Yay!Didn't sound too bad. I think I actually played better than before. Played some classical pieces, Irish tunes, and jazz tunes. 

日本語

I'm finally done typing up and translating that article on stress relieving exercises from You Maga.Here's the last 2 sentences that I finished today: すね内側を、膝の下からくるぶしの上まで、ところどころ押しながらさすりましょう。(Sune uchigawa o, hiza no shita kara kurubushi no ue made, tokorodokoro oshinagara sasurimashou.) Inside the lower leg, from below the knee to above the ankle, rub while pressing down in places. ①~③を行う前に、左右の足どちらも行います。(1~3 o okonau maeni, sayuu no ashi dochiramo okonaimasu.) Before doing steps 1~3, do both your right and left legs. 

deviantART faves: ragu Broken Heart :Collab: Snake Man I did not make these! First, found this by accident, but it's an awesome drawing of Lag from Letter Bee. Second, an amazing drawing/flash(?) by an artist I watch. It's almost chilling. Perfect for Halloween. Third, an awesome drawing of England from Hetalia. On the original creator's blog he suggested that maybe England would be Snake Man for Halloween. The fans took this and ran with it, almost as soon as he posted it. Some of them have been really good, this one especially. Apparently, America was Superman for Halloween.

Youtube:

2 cool amv's (one with just Soul Eater clips, the other with a mixture of different shows.) based on Marilyn Manson's version of This is Halloween (I think it's the best version, personally...):