Mood:
Sung by Ella Fitzgerald. It was originally written by Arthur Hamilton, for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in a 1920s film, Pete Kelly's Blues, but it was dropped. The first release was by actress/singer Julie London in 1955. Fitzgerald released a recording of the song in 1961. Ever since then its been covered by many artists. An interesting song. This is one of the songs in my newest clarinet jazz book. It's really fun to play.
Mom came home really late last night. (Like 1am.) She got up at about 4:45pm today. Understandable, because of the time difference, running around the airports, her meds, etc. Sounds like she had a good time, though.
Shoulder's still bothering me. But, it does feel a bit better with all that ibuprofen. (Although, I don't feel much of a difference between the dose I'm taking and half of that. I think I'll start taking half of it now.) It's hard to sleep with whatever I have. I move to my left side, and it's like someone is sawing my arm off. I lay flat, and my shoulder blade feels like it's crumbling. I can't always stay on my right side!
Anyways, I had such a hard time last night. I probably would have been fine to get up 'naturally' at 5am. Even though I had such a hard time, I didn't hear my parents come in. Well, soon I'll be able to make an appointment for at least my primary care doctor. One of his nurses emailed me about doing the follow-up. Saying stuff like I hope you're feeling better, and that they figured it out. So, she probably only knew that I went to urgent care, not what it was about. Still nice to have them email me.
Hungry's been hilarious. I like what Eisuke's trying to do with the restaurant. It has a much more warm, friendly, and 'family' feel, than Gasterea. He lost a bet with the other restaurant's owner. Which was if he could prove that he has the same taste as his mother's, he can keep the name Le Petit Chou. The other owner loved the taste, but said it was nothing compared to hers. So, he took the name. I think it's almost better this way. He can make a name for himself, instead of just protecting his mother's restaurant. One of the employees at Gasterea once worked for his mother. He had kept the recipe book Eisuke's mother had made for Eisuke. He finally got enough nerve to give it to Eisuke. After looking through it, he felt reinvigorated, and is going to expand the menu. For some reason, I love dramas about food.
Tried to look for another drama, but didn't find anything that appealed to me. Maybe next week.
Phi Brain's getting weird. A lot of angst right now. I liked when it was just about solving puzzles. Not sure if I'm liking the way it's playing out. I read that there's going to be another season. Well, if they finally get out of this dreary/angst soon, I might keep watching into the next season. But, if it keeps up, I'm dropping it.
I understand you need a little bit of that for a good story, but it's to the point now where it feels like it's dragging and too depressing.
In Kuzumoto-san Chi no Yonkyoudai, they showed a little background on the youngest sibling. His power has to do with words. Whatever he says, he can sway his opponent with. Like if he says sleep, they'll fall asleep. If he says hate, they'll hate something. If he says do your best, they'll persevere, etc. But, since his words are so powerful, he has a problem with speaking. He thinks so much about what he should say, that he doesn't end up saying anything. But, he grew a bit in this chapter, thanks to Sora, and will try to speak his mind from now on. I really like Mayo's character. Very interesting.
I'm basically done with editing the Hetalia heritage meme in Photoshop.
I just need to put my signature somewhere, and then paste the drawing to the actual meme. Then, I can finally post it on dA! Also, worked a little more on my dragon drawing. Specifically, the scales. I like how it's turning out. Didn't play my clarinet, because I didn't want to wake Mom, and I didn't want to lug everything downstairs. (Which is what I usually do when she's still asleep.) But, hopefully tomorrow I'll get to it. Almost done with chapter 15 of Alliance. Yay! Already have lots of ideas for the next chapter. Kind of hard when you're still on this one.
deviantART fave: It's a trap! I did not make this! Another cute/funny shirt design from an artist I watch.
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:
