5 posts tagged “various woes”

I have an accounting mid-term tomorrow.  I am shopping online to make myself feel better.

So "BUT" is awesome?  This is the type of stuff Koda Kumi should be doing to compliment her hip hop songs.  No more of this Suppa Kawaii J-pop shit.  Although I'm still kinda pissed that she hasn't had any stuff added to US iTunes yet (I wonder if her past US releases have something to do with it?), the sample was enough for me to pre-order the single.

...And m-flo's new album.  I didn't realize how ridiculously excited I was for this album (or that I hadn't already pre-ordered it) until it popped up during a search.  I really need some new m-flo.

In other news, I finally got the latest ViVi.  Koda Kumi's photoshoot and story was fairly boring.  She keeps taking these... monkey-ish pictures lately.  Although this magazine wasn't too bad by comparison, I know she can take a picture--beautiful pictures even.  I've said it once and I'll say it again: stop with the Suppa Kawaii crap.

Ayu's diary was really cute, per usual.  I'm so excited for A BEST 2.  I liked the changes to the "NEVER EVER" set from COUNTDOWN LIVE.  The big wigs were a bit too much in the original arena tour.

I can't decide how I feel about Utada Hikaru's new song.  It reminds me a lot of "BLUE" -- which I loved -- but I also feel like we should be over this by now.  It's like the "COLORS" single; it sounds too much like a leftover from the previous album.  I'll probably wait to get the overseas version (or iTunes?  Please?).

And Mika Nakashima has a new album?  Totally didn't realize that.  I'm not sure if the reggae tracks will help it surpass MUSIC in the Sheer Awesome department, and I'm still a little angry with her for making THE END, so I guess this will be another Overseas purchase eventually

Oh, Heisei Fuzoku!  Where are you?  You were released yesterday in my time; why haven't you shipped?

8:30 in the morning is way too early to talk about rocks.  I have to run to a computer lab and schedule/run to EB and pick up FFXII between classes today, so I'm wondering if it's even worth going to lab?  We get to drop one, but that feels cheap.  I almost skipped two labs ago because I was ready to cry, but I ended up going for the last hour and immediately felt bad since our TA was so nice about it.  Don't be nice when I consider playing hooky.  Scare me into submission!

I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to request the (miss)understood tour be shipped with boku wa kuma.  Now I won't get it until December.

Nevertheless, HAPPY FFXII DAY!  I got the guide yesterday after I ran up to EB and whined about not being able to go to the party.  I'm reluctant to thumb through it too thoroughly (I did that with the KHII guide and ended up spoiling myself silly.  I've made it this far-!)  It's so pretty.  Fran was my bonus covergirl; I'm so excited to meet her and Balthier, even if Basch is supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.  He may be so, but he's not dashing.

And the metal Collector's Edition box for the game is sexy.  I had my doubts from the promotional artwork, but actually playing with the display boxes has me thoroughly convinced it'll be a great buy for the box alone.

All in all I've been in fairly high spirits recently; it turns out pretty much everyone is coming up to visit us for some holiday or another (cousins are coming for Thanksgiving [KHII with youngest should be fun]), and Grandpa's coming up for Hanukkah [for which I can never decide on a spelling]).  The real moral of this story is that now I don't live at home so I have to do minimal entertaining.  Huzzah!  Hostess I am not.

In summary, it's almost enough to make me forget how much the Japanese direct-style perfective makes me want to shoot myself.

School starts today and summer is officially over.  I only have two classes scheduled for today (...and this week, really), so I'm not that stressed about it, but I'll still be running around until about 5 with work et al.

For the curious (which I'm sure includes all of you), I'm taking Japanese "Elements of Culture", more of the language, and Environmental Geological Science (...or something).  After crying through spring and summer quarter (statistics), I cheesed out and didn't schedule any major classes.  Those can wait.  Really, they can.

I'm both very interested in and a little wary of the Japanese culture course.  This is my first Japanese-related class in an actual classroom setting (I'm learning the language on the independent track), and the fact that this is still a pretty basic-level course has me wondering what the "otaku"-to-normal-human-being ratio is going to be.  In high school it was nearly impossible to get anything done, and I was more than a little irked by one of my former neighbors when he amicably informed me that Japanese is only useful if you like anime lolz.  Even so, taking this course is required for the minor (which I may or may not be declaring this week), so it's worth looking into.  I still can't decide whether or not I want to minor in Japanese or do something that encompasses more of East Asia (though I've been told "East Asian Studies" by itself is a joke).  I really want to become at least somewhat proficient in Japanese, but, well, Chinese is more useful in the business world and I think it'd be good to know.  Having said that, of course, I don't think I have time to become comfortable with both.

Moving right along with this drive-by update: the university was surprisingly agreeable with my complaints about the dorm; it let me break the contract without the ridiculous $800 per quarter penalty fee.  I didn't get the $200 deposit back -- which is to be expected -- but any other payments were refunded and will now be going into a new apartment that I'll be moving into next weekend.  It's a bit pricey for a first apartment, but it's convenient, and... not a dump.  It's actually only a little more than what a lot of the campus housings' charging (both university affiliated and otherwise), and it's nice. 

I have to leave now, so I'm just going to stop.  Wasn't this exciting?

How many languages can you speak?  Which languages can you read or understand?

How many can I actually speak?  One.  How many should I be able to speak at this point?  Three.  Any and all comprehension of French has just... disappeared in recent years.  I'm better at reading foreign languages than actually engaging others in conversation, though my Kanji Comprehension Skillz are pretty sad.

I don't think I posted about this yet, but I recently learned that the local store I usually buy my music from is closing.  I've been going there for about five years, and it's more than a little disheartening to see it go.

I did get  the third and final edition of BLUE BIRD free as well as some used... I don't know what you'd call them.  Mini-posters?  I don't know what I'm going to do now.  Obviously Yesasia and CDJapan will be getting even more business from me, and I'm all for the digital J-pop revolution, but there's something about picking through the actual, physical CDs that just can't be duplicated in browsing an online listing.  Even though I credit the Internet for the discovery of most of my favorite artists, there are some I wouldn't have gotten into had I not made a chance purchase based on cover art or something equally shallow.

I still have another month before I finally have to say goodbye, but it's already starting to sink in.  What's the world coming to? D:

I hate this heat; it's exhausting walking to the mailbox.  I stopped by the gym this morning for about an hour (which is probably more like 40 minutes if you take out all the trips to get a tissue.  Bad air quality = lose), and vowed never to leave the air conditioning ever again.

So I spent my afternoon scanning stuff!

Jiminy's Journal is not agreeing with me... hence why it is piled under its collectors box, a Kanji dictionary and various BoA DVDs to keep it in place for the three million years it took to scan a page.  And it still came out all blotchy.  I've been trying to scan whole pages since all the FFVII characters are -- more or less -- on one page, but there doesn't seem to be any hope of getting a nice quality scan out of that.  It's a crappy quality book to begin with, so I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a loss if the spine finally gave out, and it would definitely make scanning individual characters a lot easier.

But the stickers are safe, so it's all good.

I will close this entry with a photo of the FFXII soundtrack (and omnipresent Ayu) that was rotting on the camera's memory card: