Ship of Fools

Mood:

From the Tsubasa Chronicle soundtrack. I think this is usually when they're about to/are traveling through different parallel universes. It's one of the best ones on there. Kind of sad that they might be referred to as 'fools'. I can understand the ship and traveling part. But, I don't really think they're foolish.They just don't know about what it really means to be traveling through these universes. Like, are the people they knew in their world really different in others. They've realized that they may all possess the same 'soul', but they still don't understand much beyond that. And, just because one was a villain in one world, doesn't mean they are in the next. They may be a hero. It's become something more than them just trying to find Sakura's feathers that hold her memories and are scattered to parallel universes.

Went through more of my closet on Sunday. I think I spent about 3 hours trying on clothes and tossing out ones I didn't want.Made another big bag full of clothes for the dump. These ones have things like stains, rips, holes, etc. Not really suitable for charity. Remarkably, I fit into a lot of what I tried on.Some I haven't been able to fit into since high school. It's crazy that I've lost that much weight already. I still don't quite believe it, and yet things back then fit me so well again. I found a few nice dresses, but most are more for warmer weather. I thought I only had 1 or 2 dresses left that fit me, so it was nice to find more.I still fit into one of my high school marching band t-shirts. Also, more for warmer weather, but cool nonetheless. I went through so much of it, and yet there's so much left. I have about a third left of what's hanging in my closet to go through. Then, there's the massive pile of clothes on the right-hand side of the floor of it. Plus, my shoes on the other side. Also, there's stuff on the shelf above the things that are hanging. That doesn't have clothes-related stuff, but I'll still have to go through it. So, there's quite a bit left.Should be interesting. I might go through more during the weekend. Oh, and the clothes that fit, fit differently than they did back in high school. For one thing, I'm bigger in my chest area...I'm filled out more in that area for them. I remember back then I used to be bummed about being too small, so this is interesting. Different experience/look with the same clothes. Fun! 

Last night, I had the pesto tilapia and a vegetable soup. With the soup, I used a vegetable soup blend we got from the same place we get our spices from. It has carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, onions, parsley, and a few other things. All dehydrated. They said that it should cook in the water or broth for 30 minutes to get the vegetables to hydrate again. I added tiny star-shaped pasta to it. It was good, but you could still tell that they were once dehydrated.Maybe it needs more time in the liquid? I added some parmesan to mine, and it was even more awesome! Seemed like a pretty healthy dinner, too. Very filling. 

I tried my eyeliner on again on Sunday. Before that, I hadn't tried it since Halloween. I thought it looked bad back then. I did my upper eyelids. Thought they looked weird, but Dad said she liked them. I'm not really used to the overall look, so I'm not sure what to really expect.After a while, I thought it looked alright, too. So, I decided to experiment further and did my bottom eyelids. I looked really weird.Kind of like a sad clown, or raccoon, or something. Dad said I looked like Ozzy Osbourne. Hmmm...Maybe next time, I'll just try the upper eyelids. Eyeliner is weird. I probably won't use it much. Plus, it makes my eyes look smaller. My eyes are already small looking. (Funny, because I have super long eyelashes.)

I decided to reply to another interesting Gaia thread this past weekend. It was a PTSD support thread. I'm not used to talking about things I might personally be going through on a forum. But, I thought I'd jump in anyways. Much like I was with the trans support group with me having a trans parent. But, I haven't talked much to a therapist about my PTSD. I had 2 that were able to touch on it just before they quit or retired. One psychiatrist who I met once for something, immediately told me I definitely had it. I've never really been able to 'delve' into it. Anyways, I told them about my stuff, and I got a response pretty quickly. They said that how I viewed it was very common. (I used to think that only military people had it.) But, they said I shouldn't compare myself to others, and that my pain is just as 'real'. The first person who responded, had a really long post. Very wordy, but nice. In fact, every post he replied to after each of mine were all very long and detailed. It was interesting. I do plan to eventually talk more about it with my therapist. But, this was nice to see. 

I'm debating whether I should email someone or not.She was the person who invited us to Shabbat lunch recently. She's orthodox. Recently, she was very rude to my dad. She had read some things on a very biased and homophobic site. She said that she read that gays molest children or something. (Really bogus stuff.) She also is confused, and seems to equate trans people with being gay.(Even while we were at their place, she asked me secretly something like 'what's it like having a gay parent?', not trans but 'gay'.) There are some trans people who are gay, but they can also be straight, bi, pan, etc. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation. So, that's been bugging me a bit.Anyways, she told my dad that she won't shake hands with her again because she still thinks she's a man. (Notice, my dad didn't make a move to shake her hand.) That's one of the worst things you can say to a trans person. Basically invalidating who they are as a person. Not to mention we thought they were very nice before. In orthodoxy, they're not allowed to shake hands with the opposite sex. But, I thought 'modern' orthodoxy might be a little different. Anyways, my dilemma is that she wants me to email her. She knows that I want to know more about them, and be more into my Judaism. I kind of feel like maybe it was a brain fart. She seemed to be very easily swayed. So, if she didn't really mean it or came to her senses, what then? She still hurt my dad. I guess saying hello, and talking kind of surface stuff might be ok. But, what if she tries to 'sway' me? It won't work, but it would get very awkward.Plus, I almost feel that if I don't email her, she may think that my dad kept it from me or something. Hmmm...I don't know! Well, at least if I decide to email her, she can't hurt me...I just may correct her sometimes.

I watched the finale of the 2nd season of Jikou Keisatsu or Time Limit Detective. It's probably the series finale, since there hasn't been a new season since. There were some homages to the first episode of the series. I still remember them, even though it's been a while. Like, they mentioned that Kiriyama was wearing his glasses on a Sunday. There was a joke in the first episode where you shouldn't wear them on Sundays. It's like bad luck, and it's rumored that the British follow that too. (Not in reality. Not even sure if it was really true in the show's reality.) I love this series so much!There were so many quirky things to it. Eventually, it lead to lots of inside jokes, that if people who hadn't seen the series heard them, they'd be confused. In this final episode, Kiriyama even played the theme song on a guitar in a Spanish style. It was cool. The killer in this one is one of my fave actresses, too. She's an awesome comedian. The actor who played her husband has been in many of the shows I've seen, too. The killer mistook the person she killed as her husband. Finding out that she killed the wrong person, she felt even more stuck. She was and still is terribly bored of him. She thought she'd be free of him if she killed him. Kiriyama and Mikazuki told her that she should just have an honest conversation about it with him. He was listening in to the entire conversation. Almost felt like he was going to kill her after they left, but they didn't show that. He looked very hurt. Towards the end of the episode, it felt like Kiriyama confessed to Mikazuki in a strange way. He said that the team was more like a family. He went through the possible relationships, like the captain is similar to a kindhearted and funny uncle. He ended with him and Mikazuki as similar to being husband and wife in the family. Just when Mikazuki was going to ask him specifically how he felt about her, an earthquake hit. Didn't last long, but everyone came out to see them, so the mood was gone. I grew to really like the newest member of the team too. I wasn't sure of her at first. I'll really miss this show!

Decided to drop Mixed Vegetables. It seemed to be getting a bit dry. I could sense a lot of angst coming, too. Just don't see where it was headed. The story seemed interesting for a while. It just eventually got old.

On Saturday, I did the practice quiz for attendance on JapaneseClass' site. Did pretty well. For attendance, you have to answer 20 questions for the day. I also decided to do a bunch of chapter quizzes for kanji and vocab. Did well with all of them. Lowest score I got was 82%, but most of the others were in the high 80's and 90's. I'm apparently up to level 4 in kanji, and level 5 in vocab. I'm on the last level for vocab, so there's not much new stuff left of their list. I still have a little ways until I finish all the kanji. I've always been better with vocab. Probably because some kanji have multiple meanings and pronunciations. Some have a lot of strokes as well, and can be hard to distinguish. You can also quiz yourself on everything you've learned plus new stuff with the regular quiz. Kind of a continuation after the 20 questions. The big 'random' quiz reviews some of the stuff you might have come across at the beginning, new stuff, weak words, etc. It's very helpful. I have come across some questions/answers that are spelled wrong, or have the wrong recording. They're still ironing that out. But, with feedback from the community, it goes pretty quickly. We can also challenge others, go through new vocab that people have put up as cards or notes that might not be in the system yet, read articles, see trends in Japan, there's a forum, etc. I'm ranked at 695 on the site. That's out of 45,663 people. Pretty good, I think.Especially since I don't go on there everyday. My attendance 'record' looks kind of funny that way. 

deviantART faves: Random OC Meme of Randomness Draw My Life Meme I did not make these! The first one's an oc (original character) writing meme. Kind of similar to one that I've done before. It puts your oc's in weird situations, and you write out how they would react. I love those sort of things.The second's a drawing meme that's about the artist themselves. I haven't done one of those before, so that might be cool to do. It asks you what life was like for you in kindergarten through high school. Plus, asks where you're from, and an intro. 

National Parfait Day!

Mood:

I love parfaits!There are so many different kinds. The original frozen parfait was created in France in 1894. Apparently, the popular variety for the northern US and Canada is with layers of yogurt, fruit, and granola. Kind of wish there was more of a variety of them in restaurants here. But, then again I haven't tried too many, I guess. A lot of convenience stores, markets, etc. carry this version. I have to be in the mood for yogurt, though.I think I've had one with layers of cream. That was even better. I'd like to try some of the other kinds in the future.

Can't believe Hanukkah starts Wednesday night!It's coming up quick! It'll go until December 5th. There's a big hoopla around the first day being on Thanksgiving. I frankly don't understand why it's such a big deal.I know people are saying things like this won't happen again for another 70,000 years. (People keep changing this number around.) I feel like they don't have much in common. One's a national holiday, the other religious. For other Jews around the world it's just another ordinary day that it lands on. People are still trying to combine them. I think it's kind of ridiculous to do things like menurkeys or turkey shaped menorahs. Almost seems wrong in a way.I kind of get the food stuff though. Latkes (potato pancakes) go pretty well with Thanksgiving food. Having them with cranberry sauce would be interesting. Not sure what our friends will serve. We probably will do something Hanukkah related, like lighting the candles. Not sure if they'll have latkes. I think, if I remember correctly, we were told to bring some sort of salad like usual. Guess I'll find out what they'll do when we get there...They usually smoke their turkey, so that'll be nice. 

Managed to get back into playing my clarinet during the weekend as well. I decided to play for a longer time during the weekends. I feel even more connected to it now. Still slip up a bit, but I'm improving greatly. 

Also, got back into writing during the weekend. That's been great, too. The story's progressing much quicker. Might finish the 3rd short story for my nightmare anthology soon. Yay!Then, onto the 4th. (It's taking less time than I expected...Should go even quicker now.)

Ando Lloyd is getting really interesting. Lloyd is clearly developing feelings for Asahi. He's new to emotions, and isn't quite sure what to do with them. He even felt jealous of Reiji. He was told to pose as Reiji to fool Asahi's mom for a pre-wedding photo shoot. Her mom had told her that she was dying of breast cancer and didn't have much time left. She said her only regret was not seeing Asahi in a wedding dress. Later, they find out that her mother lied about the whole thing. Lloyd was semi-going along with acting as Reiji until her mother kept saying Reiji when referring to him. He got angry and stormed out. Apparently, Reiji's brain had been uploaded to a huge server. The 'future police' decided he was too much of a threat and terminated him. Even though Lloyd's repair unit, Suppli, was destroyed, there might be another one coming. Lloyd was told that an android only gets one unit for its lifetime. So, this should be interesting. I liked Suppli, so it was sad when they killed her off. But, she was the one who gave Lloyd an 'emotions' program before she was destroyed. It'd be interesting if his new unit is really like an upgraded version of her, or it might even be Reiji, or at least what was left of his brain before they terminated it. 

Log Horizon was interesting, too. Mainly about how the guilds in the game work. Talking about business deals and trades. Without revealing too much of their plan, they managed to get the top 3 merchant guilds into enthusiastically donating to them. One of the guild masters even suggested that he'll pay the full amount. I thought it'd be boring, but the way they went about it made it kind of amusing. Shiroe's planning to make the region better somehow. He hasn't revealed everything yet. 

In Mixed Vegetables, Hayato finally opened up to Hanayu. He was very close to his grandfather. His grandfather had always wanted Hayato to eventually take over the family's sushi's shop. He knew Hayato loved to make sweets instead. But, didn't know that Hayato didn't want to take over, and instead wanted to become a patissier. Hayato kept putting off telling him. Eventually, his grandfather passed away. Since he never told him, he feels he owes it to him to take over the sushi shop. Hanayu had thought that he had just gotten cold feet or something about being an apprentice to her father. She didn't know the actual story. It's been an interesting story so far. 

日本語

Today's kanji was: 定. Pronounced as 定か or さだ.か (sada.ka): definite, sure. As 定まる or さだ.まる (sada.maru): to become settled, be fixed. As 定める or さだ.める (sada.meru): to decide, establish, determine. 設定 or せってい (settei): establishment, creation, posing (a problem), setting (movie, novel, etc.), scene. 勘定 or かんじょう (kanjou): calculation, counting, consideration, reckoning, settlement of an account, allowance. 予定 or よてい (yotei): plans, arrangement, schedule, program, expectation, estimate. 定義 or ていぎ (teigi): definition. 

Started translating another section from an article in You Maga. Read in article in Japanese on Asahi's site. It was on Caroline Kennedy becoming the US ambassador to Japan, and her visit there. Very interesting. For studying Japanese over the weekend, I've added more quizzes, more of a focus on practice sentences, and on grammar. Its helped a lot already. 

Youtube:

A cool Naruto amv:

A nice Hitman Reborn amv to one of Tsuna's themes:

Funny moments of Lambo from Hitman Reborn:

Caramel Apple Day!

Mood:

I love caramel apples! I rarely have them, even during autumn. Although, I think if I had them more often, I'd get sick of it and would probably lose my teeth.So, it's better for me to have it as a rare treat. I like those caramel apple lollipops that come out this time of year, too. If I do have the actual apples dipped in caramel, it's usually store-bought. Some of the ones at our local grocery store can get pretty fancy with putting a bunch of things on the caramel. The plain caramel ones are still the best to me, though.

Last Wednesday, I apparently had eaten too little. So, the next day I felt like I had been hit by a truck, and was pretty sluggish.I had started to eat less the Friday before that. I was ok for a while, until I decided to see how little I can actually eat in a day on Wednesday. I noticed I can still eat small amounts, just not THAT small. I'm still eating less than before that Friday. With leftovers I've decided I can also spread them out for snacks. That way they won't go bad, and I won't feel like I'm wasting food.

I'm up to 70 sit-ups twice a day this week. Hopefully, I can keep it up. Hope to get back to my walks soon. I finally will have my first appointment with my new therapist this Friday. Haven't had a session in about 8 months.At least I'll see someone now. On Saturday, I'll have my annual eye exam. I can tell I need it, since my contacts go out of focus quite often, and I'm squinting more. 

Decided to change my wallpaper. I had mentioned before about switching it to one featuring Chrome from Hitman Reborn halfway through the month. This is her. The wallpaper I had before featured Mukuro. Thought this seemed a bit more Halloween-ish. Her name is an anagram for Mukuro in Japanese. (Chrome in romaji: Kuroomu. Or: ムクロ and クローム.) Those aren't really her normal clothes. I don't think she has Dying Will flames coming out of her eye, either. (Or where she used to have an eye.) But, she carries the staff with her everywhere. The more I think about her 'situation', I'm realizing she's more like a zombie. She doesn't bleed either. The only things keeping her 'alive' are organs made out of illusions that Mukuro created. So, she really does fit the holiday.

Watched a Syfy movie Saturday night called Grave Halloween. Thought it'd be interesting, since the story's based off of the 'Suicide Forest' in Japan. Some of the Japanese was very poorly spoken. (I checked some of the words just to be sure. Some of them weren't actual words.) Some of it was spot on. So, on that front, it was kind of mediocre.It had a very slow beginning and middle. It could have probably just been 30-45 minutes. There were some really gruesome/graphic deaths. I usually like the more psychological stuff rather than gore in horror movies. I love horror movies in general, though. Didn't like the ending, although I kind of saw it coming. Or, at least a similar scenario. A lot of it was predictable. I like the ones that keep you guessing. So, it was just ok. Not great or bad, just ok. Also, it was filmed in Canada instead of Japan. They tried to make it 'look' like Japan, though. 

Started watching Ando Lloyd. It felt like a cross between the Terminator and the Matrix. Saying the title in Japanese also sounds like android. It fits it well, too. Reiji Matsushima is a genius physicist who studies wormhole theories. He somehow came up with a list of people who were 'destined' to be murdered. It has the exact date and time on it. His and his fiancee's name are the next ones to be 'killed'. (His fiancee's name is Ando Asahi.) He predicts his own death, but tries to change it. He ends up getting killed anyways, but he vows to protect Ando forever. A robot who looks like Reji, shows up in front of Ando just before she was about to be killed. He says his 'client' told him to protect her at all costs. Even from herself. He destroys the other 'robot' before it carried out its mission to kill Ando. Now, he apparently has to deal with 10 other 'agents'. These 'killer' robots seem to come from some sort of different dimension, where when they target you, no one in the 'real' world will notice. That's about as much as they revealed in the first episode. All the summaries online that I've found weren't entirely accurate. Oh well. I like his fiancee. She's funny, smart, has confidence, and is spunky. The couple were very cute together. It'd be interesting to see how this one turns out. The pace of it was great, too. Has one of my fave actors as the android or robot that looks like (and was) Reiji. 

Log Horizon is getting interesting. They're still on a journey to find a girl named Serara, and help her escape. She's being taken care of by a cat character or 'player'. Serara's class is a maid. So, she's constantly cleaning things. She's angry at herself for choosing that class, since she feels you can't do much with it. Both her and the 'cat' are hiding from a guild of PKers or Player Killers. For some reason the master of that guild is searching for her. He'll kill his own guild members if they suddenly grow a conscience about killing other players. 

In Mix Vegetable, Hayato and Hana found out that Saki fell in love with their teacher when he was in school. When their teacher showed up at the sushi place to do a home visit for Hayato, Saki couldn't bring himself to talk to her and hid. When she left, he became incredibly clumsy and kept cutting himself while trying to prepare the sushi. So, thinking it'll get Saki back to normal, Hana and Hayato decided to ask their teacher how she felt about Saki. She told them to never say his name or bring him up ever again. Kind of sad. She apparently had feelings for him at the time. When he refused to go to college and became an apprentice to a sushi chef, she did things like vowed never to wear skirts again. (Students are constantly wondering what gender she is...) It'd be interesting to see how this is resolved.

Played my clarinet. Did some Irish tunes. Wasn't too bad. Was more aware of how I was playing, and sounded a bit better. (I sometimes get lazy with the Irish tunes and just rush through them without really being aware.) Wrote a bit more of the 2nd short story to my nightmare anthology.

日本語

Studied some more compounds for the kanji: 代. 代償 or だいしょう (daishou): compensation, reparation, consideration. 代人 or だいにん (dainin): substitute, deputy, proxy, representative, agent. 代置 or だいち (daichi): replace. 代入 or だいにゅう (dainyuu): substitution, assignment. 代任 or だいにん (dainin): agency, acting official. 代表 or だいひょう (daihyou): representative, delegation, type, example, model. 代品 or だいひん (daihin): substitute article. 代稽古 or だいげいこ (daigeiko): substitute teaching. Still have a lot more compounds to go over for this one. Read an article on Asahi's website about how morning exercises for junior high school students who are involved in sports, is affecting their grades. Most students felt they didn't have time for sleep or even breakfast. A proposal was brought up in Nagano to end those exercises, and was passed. It's one of the first districts to do so. They're expecting some backlash though. Kind of interesting.

Stand Up!

Mood:

By Lead. This was Hitman Reborn's 6th ending theme song. I really love this one.The harmonizing is awesome, and even the rapping part is cool. Has a fun jazzy feel. Looked through some other Lead songs, but it doesn't seem like this is their normal 'style'. So, it's interesting that this is so different. Lead debuted in 2002. The music video with the band is kind of weird with all the corn, but it somehow grew on me too.I like the ending sequence to Hitman Reborn more, but it's not the long version. The band looks like they're having fun, though.

I didn't feel very well last Friday. (Or most of last weekend.) So, I didn't go to the mini-reunion event at a local bar and grill. Sounds like it would have been fun. Although, for some reason, I feel like I made a fool of myself at the mini-event before that. Maybe that was just because I was so nervous.Probably a lot of other people were too. 

The next one is Friday night. But, I won't be going to that one. There are 2 other events happening at the same time. One of them seems more personal to my family, so chances are I'll go to that. That would be the Trans Pride march. I'm an ally, and my dad's trans. Plus, I've gotten to know a lot of other trans people. There are other fun things after the march related to it. The other event would be Pride Shabbat. That can be fun, but we don't really know anyone that's going. So, the reunion mini-event would be least important to me.

At some point, either Wednesday or Thursday, I might get to see one of my cousins, too. I've never met her before, but should be fun meeting another family member.

The next day is the reunion's main event. So, I'll definitely be there!It's for a good chunk of the day, which is nice because we'll get a chance to catch up a bit with people. Apparently, dinner's going to be a buffet. They told us to pick what we wanted, so I thought it would be like they serve you or something.I picked the salmon dinner with mashed potatoes. Another thing is that they said they won't be able to make the mashed potatoes, and now it's just going to be roasted potatoes.I think the food part could have been better planned, but they're doing what they can. A classmate's going to be playing a large portion of the music. So, that should be interesting. There's going to be a slideshow, open mic, dancing, and more. They'll be selling memory books too. With answers to the questionnaire people filled out online. They're going to be checking everyone at the front door, so nobody needs an actual ticket. Should be a very interesting experience. I'll be with people I was more comfortable with in high school. So, I might be a little less nervous.They're up to 130 people so far. Seems like a lot, but we had a large class of 500. At least some are coming. The next day is a potluck at a local park for lunch. I might go to it. Still semi-undecided about that.Not sure what I'll bring. 

Then, not too long after, a couple I've known for a while (who are also our neighbors) are finally getting married. They were essentially waiting until they legally could in this state. I'm so happy for them!About a month after that, another couple we've known for a while (I'm not as familiar with them) are getting married. For similar reasons. So, yay! Happy times for people!

In Tokage, they found out that Terashima is really the spy who's working for the Spider. But, even he doesn't know who the Spider's real identity is. This is getting intense, but interesting. 

In Kaichou wa Maid sama, they held their athletics tournament. Almost every anime seems to have at least one episode devoted to this kind of thing. Kind of like the obligatory summer episodes too. Anyways, Misaki tried to participate in as many events as she could. It was boys against the girls. She nearly collapsed from winning so many events. The last event was a cosplay one. Usually it's so the people who aren't very athletic have a chance at winning something. You have to run over to some bags full of costumes, grab one, get dressed in a tent with no light inside, then run back in costume to the finish line. Supposedly, this way you can't see what you get until you're already in costume. She helped one of the boys in the end for that event. He was being laughed at, because he was stuck with a maid costume and kept tripping over it. And, he's a serious cosplayer. She stuck up for him, saying what's so wrong about being serious about it? She purposely disqualified herself by using a bunch of miscellaneous costumes she found lying around, and ripped them up to get a certain look. Usui helped with it all. I'm starting to really like this show! 

In Mix Vegetable, Hayato introduced Hanayu to his father. Apparently, he was the sushi chef that made the tamagoyaki that made her want to become a sushi chef when she was little. She tried to get that same taste, but nothing worked until he made some again for her. His dad offered her an apprenticeship at his sushi shop. She told him that she wouldn't agree to it until she finally told her parents that she wanted to be a sushi chef, instead of becoming a patissiere and taking over their family's shop. The chapter ended with her saying she needed to say something to her father. Hopefully, she'll finally say it.

Played my clarinet. Did some klezmer tunes. Sounded pretty good this time. Wrote more of the first short story to my nightmare anthology. For some reason, I think this will be the hardest one to put into a story-form. But, I'm giving it a shot!

日本語

Did 2 kanji for today. 商 and 章. When the first one, 商, is pronounced as しょう (shou): (suf) (math) quotient; dealing, dealer, store. As あきな.う (akina.u): to trade in (commercial goods), deal in, sell. The second one, 章, is just pronounced as しょう (shou). It means: chapter, badge, composition, design, poem, section, medal. This one only had one compound listed. (Well, common one.) 文章 or ぶんしょう (bunshou): sentence, article, composition; (writing) style. Translated more of a You Maga article. Read an article in Japanese on Asahi's site about how they're celebrating Mt Fuji becoming a World Heritage Site with chocolates and souffles. The chocolates are milk chocolate at the 'base' and white chocolate is used on top to look like the snow on top. They look interesting. The souffle looks huge. And, it seems like there are many different flavors. All kind of shaped like the mountain, too.