Quick! Think of a good name!

#280. Fresh Start

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:11:00 +0000

Well, it's been a very long time forthcoming, as I promised a month a post.

But even that ceased to be.

Considering I will be going on a 1 month trip across the US, I thought it might be a good time for me to actually have a new start in this.

Therefore, I might move to Wordpress to stop being a lazy faggot.

Anyway, new blog @ http://vindurinn.wordpress.com/

Not filled with anything yet, but expect something soon.

If I'm not being a faggot.

#279. Stress.

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 03:06:00 +0000

Start of the quarter.

I spent too much money recently on going out.

I spent too much money on applying to Taiwan too.

This is all building up stress on me. I swear.

First: I would probably have spent about USD 1000 on applying to Taiwan in total.

200 application fee, 200 mail fee (about to be +200 in a short while again), 600 on high school degree, 180 on official transcripts, and other fees.

Fuck, this is really depressing me.

Secondly: my dad had to buy a high school degree because universities won't admit me in without a high school degree. This goes on to what if we're found using fake degrees.

Thirdly: What if my Mandarin level is so low that I need to get into a language school thus delaying me for 6 months and wasting more money in the process.

All this while the quarter is starting and jobs are demanding and everything.

I just don't know what to do anymore. That's like less than what I would do in order to get in a university in the US.

I'm at a state of loss and desperation.

A fucking shitty time it is.

#278

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:52:00 +0000

End of March. I still meet my 1 blog post per month minimum quota.

First, for some reason I don't know, I have this in the dropdown list in the title. I'm not good at translating naturally to English, so forgive the fuzzy translation.

ミクの日感謝祭・初音ミクソロコンサート～こんばんは、初音ミクです。～

Miku's Thanksgiving Day・Hatsune Miku's solo concert ～ Good evening, I'm Hatsune Miku. ～

----------------------------------------------

I mean, what, how did that get in there? I sure as hell never wrote anything like that, nor did I ever see 感謝祭 (かんしゃさい) before so that ruled me out of actually using it in the first place.

Weird. But I got the ミクの日 DVD anyway, and I haven't watched it, so this could be some kind of a godsent reminder.

I'm done with 2 of my finals. One more to go: economics.

Physics was.. meh. I needed to ask my friends for answers in the exams. Totally not fun. And totally not looking forward to physics next quarter too.

For now, short to-do list: go to Seattle, pick up official transcripts, back to BC, pick up recommendation letters, and then on Tuesday pick up another set of recommendation letters, before actually going back to the postal office to send it by Wednesday.

Also, print stuff out for applications for NCTU and NCHU.

I guess that would be it for now. Blah.

------------------------

I haven't watched anime for like a month. The only anime I watched in this one month is just Bakemonogatari 14. Unsubbed because I was too lazy to actually get the subbed version as I downloaded the unsubbed version when it came out.

I don't know, lately I just don't have the mood to do anything anymore.

Oh, but I still want to learn Japanese so don't get me wrong in there.

#277

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:38:00 +0000

This post is written with pretty much nothing in mi-

Wait, no, an idea is creeping out.. I'll just use this opportunity to actually list off some things that I needed to get done before the end of the month for Taiwan.

- Ask Gaia Hawkin (speech professor) for recommendation letter

- Gather NTU/NTHU/NCHU/NCTU/FJU/THU recommendation letters. Goddamn, that's like 6 universities right there.

- Print out stuff for online application

- NTU/NTHU = 15 march

- NCHU/NCTU/FJU/THU = 31 march

- recommendation letter formats

- legalize transcripts at embassy if needed

- ask universities if they need original documents for all of them

- make study plan (different lengths, some 3 page some 1 page)

- medical report for NTHU (HIV test, signed by doctor, have seal of hospital)

- 300-500 words CV / autobiography for NCHU

- bank statement

- TOEFL

- photocopies of transcripts/cover letters

I think that's it for now.

God.

more to come

#276

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:39:00 +0000

Here we go again. This is apparently my 276th blog post. Looking back, it's been a long 2 years. Not really a full 2 years, I still have like 3 months before this blog is officially two years old. But still, I realized a lot of things.

I realized how sheltered I was during my middle and high school.

I realized how hard it is to make good friends, as opposed to just acquaintances.

I realized how good my English is.

I realized how important and enjoyable learning other languages can be.

I realized how the real world works, just a little tidbit of it.

I realized that I would have to work in the future, whether I like to or not, just to support myself.

I realized how disorienting different cultures and settings can be.

I realized how hard it is to save up money.

I realized the issue of adjusting to college so suddenly from high school.

I realized the multiple kinds of people there are in the world.

To summarize, I realized a lot of things that I never did realize in high school.

It doesn't exactly help too that in high school I am almost never allowed to go here and there, do this and that.

Now that I was set free oh-so-suddenly when I came to the US, my early college life consisted of a continuance of dependence on my parents. That I had to get their approval in order to take this class, to buy things, et cetera. That does not seem to be the case from the start, but I sure did feel like it.

Now that I'm kind of left alone, it's pretty shocking when I learned that other people are given a bit more leeway in their activities during school. I never got to hang out with lots of people that aren't from the same school. I never got to know many places to eat. I never got to know some common knowledge I never heard of.

It all changes so drastically, and I'd bet it'll continue to change much more in the coming future. When I move to Taiwan, it will be a sort of a tough test for me. I don't like it, but what can I do. It just occurred to me that spending this time of my life doing fun stuff seems awfully fun. It seems that if this goes on forever, it would be the best thing ever. Going to school, studying, playing, going out with friends, figuring out how to mask your insecurities..

Soon enough I'll be thrust into the real world and I'll have to find my own way from there. The thought sounds pretty depressing.

.. Anyway, Chinese and physics homework due tomorrow. So that's it for today.

Obligatory title

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:28:00 +0000

This post is now my post number 275.

I am really picking up blogging again, somehow.

Some.. how.

In any case, I officially hate work. Then again, WHO DOESN'T?

It's really a stark contrast from the days of high school. I'm in college now (and I didn't even finish high school FFS), and in 3 or 4 years I will be facing this grim reality called "THE REAL WORLD". Unfortunately, it's not the MTV show knock-off. I'd love it to be, but unfortunately, no.

You know what would be the coolest thing that could happen in work?

A cool boss. A cool superior. That would be fucking awesome.

As things go now, I will most likely stop working next quarter and do fuck all until I'm done that quarter. I realize now why I feel like I have so little time. I also realize by around this time last year why I wanted to work.

See, last year, around this time, my only daily engagements everyday include: Team Fortress 2, skipping calculus 1 occasionally, going to chemistry class after that and checking my English online class, which I found really fun since I wrote down a lot of good stuff in there.

This year, around this time, my daily engagements include: Waking up at 6am everyday for physics class, waiting around in school for 2-3 hours before my workshift comes up, work (which for some reason, people that come in to get their essays checked are becoming really shitty by the second), check online classes (forgot to do this in spite of some free time, FML), osu (until 2 days ago. Good going, jackass.), and review/add new cards in for Japanese, while also trying to start Flyable Heart to get my cards for Japanese.

Oh hey, no wonder I'm so swamped. Coupled with my absolutely shitty time management, I can't manage a 9.5 hours work a week.

Sigh, I just don't know. I don' feel like working as much as I used to where I felt like I had a little bit too much free time. Certainly not now, though.

I got scolded for taking last Friday off.

fucking a. Just what I needed. Pfft.

So tomorrow my schedule is waking up at 6 am for a physics test which I understand jackshit about, and then wait for 3 hours to work for an hour. I mean, where is the fucking rationalization in that. Goddamnit.

World's not fair, you're turning emo, shut the fuck up, etc. I get the point. Might as well put a gun to my head now while you're at it by the way.

So hey, about that blog..

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:03:00 +0000

Yes, seems like it's now pretty much a monthly post.

And to think I used to blog almost everyday. In any case, I'll try and bring this up to speed. I solemnly will try to be more active. I will also try to babble less on languages, as that's a disease I'm slowly fighting (still surely!)

Just one small bit of language before I try and depart from the subject entirely:

I think I feel like I put a little too much emphasis on actually learning the language that it looks to become a chore instead of a little useful hobby. I'm probably going to ease up until I have sufficient vocabulary to actually try and immerse myself in the language. No good if you only know the words "I love you" and try to watch A Beautiful Mind without subs. That resulted in a burnout and leaves me not reviewing for a couple of days. Remember kids, burnouts are NEVER good.

Hey, in other news, I uninstalled osu from my computer. It's taking up way too much of my time that I actually don't care shit about school subjects or language reviews. I missed an online quiz that's worth 13% of my final grade, and I pretty much decided that was that. Any more than that and everything will turn to crap quickly (as if it hasn't already).

Yeah, well, everything goes. I'll just reinstall it when MY LIFE IS OKAY. Right now it's literal shit spewed with crap and some loose urine.

That might be a little bit too graphic. But that's okay! Because I'm at least definitely trying to go back to English for a little bit.

I went ahead and got my documents legalized and everything to go to Taiwan. So what's left would be my study plan, high school transcripts, uhh.. what else..

Bank statement, and.. maybe that's it? Eh. I'll check.

NTU closes on March 15, other 2 closes on March 31, other 2 closes on April 31. Most of my friends are stressing a few days ago over their applications, so I guess I'll just do that albeit a month late.

Also, I don't know why I haven't moved to wordpress yet. Wait, no, not "don't know why". It's more like pure unadulterated sloth and laziness. Again. As if I don't get that everytime.

In a completely unrelated note, I just now noticed that my writing style's a bit.. I don't know how to express this exactly, but maybe you can see how I'm rambling about. Weird thing is that, once, one of my friends who didn't really talk to me much IRL but did in MSN noted that I talk really similarly as I do online. So that's one thing that you might want to note. Well, that is, if you perceive my writing to have a certain tone to it that sounds pretty similar to me. Cause, you know, I don't know. People may have different perceptions of tone and sounds that my writing doesn't sound like me IRL anymore. Anyhow, that's- yeah. Let's leave that, it's getting awkward.

I'm not sure whether to clean up my blog list or not. So many people not blogging (like at all) that I don't know man. I don't know anymore. Well, I still blog at least once a month, so I'll just let some of those that has 2 months in go and erase the hell out of the others.

No, I'm not a sadist.

I will absolutely be writing more and more as I pretty much uninstalled osu that really ate my time literally and figuratively. Wait, literally? No, that was a lame joke. Wait, no, that wasn't even a joke. In any case, now you know I'm a bad joke-teller, 悪かったな。

So I'm just gonna put up some links of the blog out, I guess. That'll do for a bit.

Hoping a rush of blogging comes through

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:51:00 +0000

I really need it now. Because I need to be in the mood of writing.

So that I can get my personal statements done and dusted. I need to write more. Christ.

Well, so what's happening?

Not a lot. I'm now becoming a civilized person, considering how I am waking up at 6 am (or 6 30 am) everyday because of a 7 30 morning class. Another class is online, and the other one is a hybrid between normal class and online class. So, yeah, not a lot of class hours. Then again, I've got a 10-hour-a-week work now, so that might be a little bit troublesome. Enduring my mental pain of seeing bad essays and trying to find a way to correct it is a bit hard. Well.

Anyway, personal statements and letters of recommendations and cover letters and everything. Letters of recommendations would be really hard to come by, I have no idea who to ask them from. More thankfully than not, they're due like March.

Deadlines for universities I want to get into are mostly around March 30 and April 30. But NTU is such a big uni they can say "screw the rules let's make it March 15" and so I'm left with one hard-ass uni to get into that wants my stuff by March 15. Goddamn it.

Let's see what's going on in life lately. Not much. Mostly getting into osu more and more (Why. Just.. why.) and trying to grasp the Japanese language with my eyes closed. Metaphorically, of course. I constantly imagine that my suckiness in Japanese right now is pretty normal, as I've only studied it for about 3 months now. That would mean like a person being pretty new in English and already trying to read news articles and watch House or CSI without subs and shit.

Why 3 months? Well, before that I was only learning it half-heartedly, so I decided my starting point would be the 22nd of September, 2009: the day I started the Remembering the Kanji book.

You know what, here's another tidbit of a language update for you.

A few months of hearing Japanese music, listening to Japanese media, partially reading (more like sighting, I still can't read shit) has actually made me able to at least discern what words are being said. Though to be honest, I still don't know all those words, so they all sound like words I don't know yet. It's like you hear the word "On the other hand.." in a TV show and you go like "What the hell? Other hand? What's that supposed to mean?!" You know how it's pronounced, but you know jackshit about what it means.

It's a pretty long path to be honest; learning languages. You need to dedicate some time to it, and actually commit to learning it, as opposed to just go "Well this language might be fun, let's take it!" Give or take another few months and then, "Fuck this language, it's too goddamn hard!" Can't do that, man. You need to go something like, "Well, if I know this, I'll be able to know more later!"

It might be hypocritical of me to say that, but I really, really want to get Japanese under my belt. It's for a silly reason. Probably the silliest reason I can ever think of wanting to learn a language. "Watching anime and reading manga and playing visual novels without having to wait for subs is pretty cool."

Well, now that I've dedicated 3 months for this, I can't turn back.　絶対にいけないだから。So I'll just have to burst my way through and get through this.

Whoo. This has been a pretty long post. It's been a while since I've done this. Well, hopefully this train of thought will continue for a few weeks before it shifts to: "I gotta do my personal statement, stat!"

And so, I make my bow out.

Touhouverse

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:11:00 +0000

I am now pretty much into Touhou. Even if I may not know all of the characters (yet), I know I will later. An immense number of characters, well-developed too (character-wise, btw) in a game of 2D side-scrolling shooter danmaku hell?

Yes.

Although it pretty much takes a while to get to know them if you don't play the games (I do, but I stumble every time and pretty much gave up), it's.. kind of worth it? Maybe? Well, of course, not worth it as a hobby, but..

You know, looking back I shouldn't have said worth it. It's not going to repay you back for the amount of time you spend on it (much like browsing). HOWEVER. The music aspect of Touhou is excellent, especially as there are a lot of fan remixes of Touhou music.

Name it, you've got it: Trance, Rock, Prog Metal, Folk, Classical, and even just Pop.

Of course, non-mainstream ones may not be there (or I may not have discovered them yet)

but god they're awesome.

Trying new stuff

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:11:00 +0000

I recently finished Remembering the Kanji. The time I finished was 17 December, 2009. It was almost 3 months from the date I started, which was about 22 September, 2009.

I am now slowly going through the grammar and everything on Tae Kim's blog: www.guidetojapanese.org

Now, once that's done, it's time for me to actually learn some real vocabulary.

Until now, I have considered my starting date of learning Japanese as around May 2009, but it was some half-assed effort with some half-assed will. I had a real basic (REALLY BASIC) premise of Japanese but I pretty much overestimated myself because I have learned a bit of Chinese and I'm not a baka western gaijin. But that time has passed.

I would now probably consider the time I started learning Japanese as the time I set out on my journey with Remembering the Kanji, which is from late September.

Let's see, what else is going on in my life..

Oh yes. My fucked up sleep schedule. I now sleep around 3am or more. HOWEVER, I WILL TRY TO PUT A STOP TO THAT. How?

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-early-riser/

Basically, I'll try to wake up at 6am every single morning. At least, that's what I'm aspiring to do. First step is probably tire myself out until tomorrow so I can make some headway on sleeping until 6am. That website's full of great advices, and excellent stuff all around. I'll read more of them tomorrow.

In any case, well, for now, I guess I'll bide some time until this evening. Somehow. I'm starting to feel like I'm wasting my college life.

What actually partially relieves me is just that part of that time wasted is for learning Japanese, so I guess it's a bit of a trade-off.

I forgot something else I wanted to blog about.

I'll just leave these in for now.

DECEMBER POSTO

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:30:00 +0000

This December post, once again, features my progress on Remembering The Kanji. I know all of you are bored stiff already, but fuck you guys, this is my blog.

I am now up to kanji #1573. That means in 2 weeks I managed to churned out more than 500 kanji (mostly because of staying at home and forcing my way through kanji during thanksgiving). So then, my guess of the time I'll be done with RTK1 will be around.. the middle of December. Maybe around 15 December or so.

Wait, what? That's like a week from now!

Okay, maybe not. Maybe around 20 December or something. Before Christmas. Now that is plausible because my finals will be done on 9 December, and I'll have my hikky time then. >_>

It sucks not having anyone I can really hang out with or keep in contact with. But oh well. All for the good of understanding moonspeak!

Alright, time for a change.

I've been babbling on about kanji lately, but I never talk about anime and such lately.

Well, let's see.

I don't watch animu as much as I did during summer anymore.

Well maybe in a sense I do, as there's a shitload of series that I follow now, but I don't really watch as much now because I feel guilty when I'm watching with the subtitles on. That maybe because my mindset is now geared towards actually understanding animu without subs. This desire is much larger than the desire to watch manga without scanlations, and as a result I went through around 50 chapters of One Piece yesterday (still 400 left to go to catch up. Sigh). On another note though, I did download raws for Onidere and Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu, so hopefully 30 chapters and 6 volumes will be enough for now (It will be, I have troubles even finishing the first chapter of Onidere).

So basically, yeah. Not much animu. I've only watched like 2 episodes of animu this week alone. Railgun 9 and Seitokai 7. I'll prolly try and catch up to Seitokai and Railgun, before actually using my winter break to catch up shows I haven't finished in the summer and in the fall. And that's a lot.

Hayate no Gotoku!! (3 eps left)
GA (might drop this, watched 2/12)
Kampfer
Kimi ni Todoke
Kobato
Needless
Nyan Koi
Seitokai no Ichizon
Saki
Haruhi
Railgun
FMA: Brotherhood (lol, 13/30something)

those are what I've watched that needs closure from these 2 seasons.

What I plan to watch but didn't have time or mood to:

11eyes
Sora no Otoshimono (high on priority list)
others I forgot

Before that though, I'm so not looking forward to physics finals.

Lord knows what questions he'll dish out now.

A week of kanji (among other things)

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:03:00 +0000

And this is after a 5-day weekend.

400/5 = 80 kanji per day.

SEE? I SHOULD TOTALLY BE A NEET NOW!

state of mind

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:08:00 +0000

i've been easily irritated recently

like really easily

idk how it came to that as I usually am really easygoing in the sense of "Oh, it happened. Well, that's nothing to be fussed with."

Not lately though.

I'm not sure what really happened, but yeah. My best bet would be that I'll be having PMS soon.

Setting that tidbit aside, I've finally figured out what went wrong so that I didn't get paid for like one and a half month. To make it up, I'll have a massive payday like 1 week and a half from now. Projected pay would be around.. 250 bucks. Well, that's much lower than I expected, but at least that's some money right there.

Anyway.. I'm now in for some osu!. http://osu.ppy.sh/

Go play it! If you do, add me as a friend. Name there: intermu.

no progress

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:54:00 +0000

My schoolwork is kind of falling behind, my kanji study is also kind of falling behind (have only done around 25 this week alone), and I feel like doing nothing already, while finals is still like another month. Physics is a bitch as always, maths is fine since I have someone to cheat (lol), public speaking is certified, guaranteed A since the teacher is so nice.

I have been playing Sengoku Rance and osu (not Ohio or Oklahoma State U, but http://osu.ppy.sh/) and L4D and TF2 (the usual deal). I also have been watching my animu on a (not-so-consistent) basis, but you know, I feel this physics thing is really dragging me down.

Work is still okay now that I've reduced the hours (because shit schedule is shit), but it's still kind of a drag, and I haven't been paid for like 1.5 months now?

College is crap. I want to get the hell away from uni now. Well, not possible, but you know, at least AWAY from engineering. I'm much more comfortable with writing stuff up. Or just maybe deal with numbers with no extremely DEEP concept that I need to understand and apply to real life situation (see: physics)

tl;dr

fuck physics

Ack. Another stretch of barren updates.

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:03:00 +0000

I've originally planned to update youse on something. I forgot what though. Hm.

Well.

Oh, I remember now. But I fear I may not have the time required to successfully pour down all my thoughts. For now, bear with me.

You know that website I gave out links to, alljapaneseallthetime.com?

Yeah, it's pretty much an adaptation from a bunch of Polish guys' site on learning English: Antimoon.

I haven't really read through Antimoon, but from what I understand they are similar in content to alljapaneseallthetime.

That said, my point is that I was surprised when I finally realized it. The characteristics of the guy who made antimoon was similar in regards of situation. I used to watch a lot of English programmes, read a lot of English books, and English music (come on, who doesn't like English music again?), and before I knew it happening, I was fluent. Dead on fluent. Well, I may have difficulties here and there, but Khatzumoto (the guy who runs alljapaneseallthetime) said speaking comes later as what we need to do first and foremost is input. In other words, we need to be stuffing down English/Japanese music, shows, whatever into our brains like 24/7. Of course, I'm a lazy bastard, so I don't do 24/7. But considering how many years it took me to master English (and unconsciously, too.), that means as long as I keep stuffing all these Japanese stuff into me, I'll probably be fluent in 3 years or so. However, I was helped in that English was also the language of teaching in school, and instead of grammar drills the teacher had us write a bunch of things. So, that may take longer lol.

Another funny thing is that I know when the grammar is wrong, but have no idea what the grammar terms are. This also falls in line with what both of them said. The Polish guy said that when he was given grammar drills he found it easy enough. Khatzumoto said that he didn't know whatever terms of grammar there are in Japanese.

Yeah. So as a coincidental result of the Antimoon method of learning, I can safely say IT WORKS!

That thought occurred to me yesterday, when a bunch of people from my speech class went ahead and asked me where I'm from, and subsequently how many years have you been in the US, and subsequently why is my English so good.

There's your answer.

Exposure to English. Now I'll need to do the same with Japanese.

I'll have to stop now, bus coming in ~5 minutes.

PS. look for The Pillows. They are like alternative 90s music, and awesome, too.

I have officially passed 500 kanji!

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:16:00 +0000

I'm doing RTK1 right now. Out of 2042 jouyou kanji, I have passed the quarter mark, which is 522. 1500 to go. Damnit.

While we're at it, some stuff off my Anki.

Oh crap did not see that 3000 cards. I- what. Oh, 2042 + 965 from RTK3. Well okay. so 522 in 3 weeks. It's not bad. I was gunning for more, but well, it's decent enough and in my scope of expectations.

Assuming I do kanji constantly, 522 in 3 weeks mean 174 kanji in 1 week, which means 28.8 kanji per day. Let's round that off to 29. Let's make that range from 25 to 30 for estimation purposes.

Total kanji is left is 1520 kanji. Assuming I do 25 a day, I still have 60.8 days, or 2 months more. Assuming I'm dilligent enough to do 30 a day, I have 50.7 days more, or around 1 month and 3 weeks.

Next, the midpoint. 2042 divided by 2 is 1021. I will reach that mark by 20 days if I do 25 a day, or 16 days if I do 30 a day. That would be around 2 to 3 weeks' time.

This little math show of ours show that I will be done with kanji BY THE END OF THIS FALL QUARTER.

FUCK YEAR.

MOTIVATION LV 10 CASTED ON SELF.

PS. fixed image. sorry about that.

trippin

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:48:00 +0000

i don't really have time to blog now, and when i do, i have nothing to blog about lol.

well i was going to start blogging on the concert, but somehow ken interrupted it. so yeah.

till my next blogging mood!

taiwan trip #2

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:45:00 +0000

ok so this is done like 2 weeks after the said trip so some detail may be trippy or something. Anyways, NTU was HUGE. No, seriously. It was really huge. To get from one part to another, we had to use a car to drive around. The roads were wide as hell, and a hell of a lot bikes can be seen. Bikes as in bicycles, not motorcycles. Palm trees adorn the sidewalks of the roads, and even though it's unbearably hot, the vegetation actually made things easier.

The library was again, very large. It's well-built, and the interior was certainly not bad either. It's actually a pretty good place to go read something, or maybe just to find that certain book.

Next up, the cafeteria (which also doubles as the club activities building, apparently). As I walked up the clubs to look at what's available, I saw an anime club (Yes, I had to mention it.). Shelves full of manga, and a few guys playing PS2. I would say they were playing.. some VN or something. It was a beach scene with a loli rofl. Anyway, there are also some interesting clubs. I think there was one for music appreciation or something, one for bicycling, one for aviation, and so on.

After that, apparently, I then found out that in every university, they have a lake to signify.. something. Well point is they have a lake.

.. That was a pretty trivial fact, but let's move on now shall we. *checks earlier post*

Oh. Okay, that other maid cafe. It was better than the first one (comparing a one-level-floored cafe with 2?), and certainly the food looks more appetizing than the first one. I had really, really average food in the first one (which is called Fatimaid). Well, it's kinda confusing anyway. This guy had Fatimaid as: this. I saw Fatimaid as this:

Please open the image and magnify that thing so you can see where it actually is. Or, to see clearly, off a Japanese blog:

I'm confused. Well, that might be because the author visited it while it was still good or something and still hasn't moved. My experience tells me that that particular cafe was very average. Factoring in the cost and the amount of manga available, bad. Or, like, you know, maybe it's just a personal preference.

That other cafe I was talking about was Cafe Cosic, located in Ximen Ding. Apparently, another google search that I just did reveals that it was actually in another location in Taipei. This was how it looked like. Looks awesome, right?

What I saw was this:

Yeah, quite different. Apparently, they moved in July or something. No luck in google for finding pictures of the interior. The place was actually right beside Animate, a Japanese magazine/book shop.

Also, I've just realized from the google search just now.

There's also this in Ximen Ding. Here's another recount of Moe2 Center. It's in English.

No, I didn't go in. Too conscious about what people who I've never met and will probably never see again will think of me.

LOOKS LIKE I DO HAVE SOME BALLS TO BE ABLE TO ENTER MAID CAFES. BWAHAHAHAHA~

okay that was not a good thing to be proud of. I don't know why I was able to go inside anyway. Might be because of the feeling I get that I would probably regret it if I didn't go. So I swallowed my pride, and off I go. It would be certainly FUCKING AWESOME to be able to go with a friend or two, though, but NO ONE JOINED ME. Idiots, the lot of youse. In any case, I was glad I manned the fuck up for the occasion. :D

Well, anyway, I'll be sure to visit that when I go to Taipei next time. Sigh, I even recognize the place.

Yes, I've actually saw this same exact sign.

The place below was a game center though, so I thought "Oh, it's a game center." It's a really improbable name for a game center, but it being Taiwan, I relented. If only I realized when I saw the characters for SECOND FLOOR.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF- DAMNIT.

Oh well, let's save that for next time. At least I don't have a lot of regrets while in Taipei. Not a lot, but yeah, there still are some regrets. Whatevers.

If you're curious, here's my hotel in Taipei.

To the left of that hotel is immediately a part of Ximen Ding. To the right of the hotel there's a Mos Burger. Awesome.

So who's up traveling with me when I go to Taiwan again? I mean, you know, if you insist, I'll stay away from maid cafes and the lot, since there are a lot of other fun places. It's just that I didn't focus on them in my 2 days there, else you'd get a blog post of the shopping malls near Taipei 101.

.. Which will probably garner more attention and get more people to go with me.

....

taiwan trip

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 08:42:00 +0000

so like you know, i'll never get around to doing this and eventually forget about it, and it IS one of my more memorable events, so here i go, forcing myself to write this crap i'm spouting.

So when I waited for boarding, it seems some people I know who's going back home to Seattle on the same flight as i was met me by accident. To be honest, every time I go to the airport alone to go board the plane somewhere by myself, I always, ALWAYS meet people I know in the Starbucks lounge, even if I'm not actually going to Starbucks. It's weird, it's like an impulse people have to gather at Starbucks, then recognize me even if I don't recognize them since, you know, I don't have any will to go to Starbucks after seeing such a queue.

So anyway, we parted ways in Taipei, and I went to the immigration thing by myself. Filled a form (helped by a kind officer in my very limited Chinese, where I can ask him stuff but can't understand jackshit what he's talking about), and poof. Took my luggage downstairs, and went out. The airport is pretty much the same as I remembered it was. Not that I remembered much, but it looks pretty similar. I got picked up by my dad's partner (or friend, or whatever relation he has to my dad), left the luggage in the airport (not just anywhere, in a particular shop for that), and waited for the bus to go to the high speed train station. Maybe I'll just call it shinkansen since it's really similar to it.

Long story short, got to Tainan in around 1.5 hours (Tainan literally = Tai South) from Taipei (Tai North). Got picked up by the dad's friend's boss (!!!!!!!!!), and dropped off in a nice hotel. Seriously, it was batshit insane. I could not believe I could have stayed in a hotel like that in my age, alone. It was fucking awesome, and I can not stress that more. Free wi-fi internet too! The name of the hotel was so fitting. "Justwin". Just. Win.

Breakfast was actually more decent than the buffet I had in the hotel in Taipei (it's Tainan anyway), but well, to cut to the chase, the boss' son and dad's friend (let's call him R from now on) took me around to places and accompanied me in seeing NCKU. It was like.. I dunno. It was really crowded, the road was really congested (mostly by motorcycles too), and it was hot as hell. Hot as in OH MY GOD IT SCALDED MY SKIN hot, not DAYUUM hot. Wasn't too fond of the place.

Next, we took a shinkansen to Taichung (Tai Middle/Center lol) to see NCHU. It was smaller than NCKU (which is HUUUUUUUUUGE), but by its own standard, NCHU is LARGE. Lots of vegetation, it was pretty nice.

After the tour, we went to the night market early (around 5pm) to apparently a place where R has worked for 4 years. A lot of food they gave; dou hua, pork and egg and bakut and whatever wrapped in a bun, ice thingy, shao mai, and ji pai. I tried chou dou fu at the time, and GOOD GOD IT DOES TASTE BAD. I knew about that particular delicacy from the last time I went to Taiwan, but I didn't actually bother to taste it after seeing a black liquid being poured while making it.. which smelt like the sewers.. now I know. It tastes like crap.

By that time the boss and his daughter has came as well, so after all is said and done we went to the shinkansen station to drop me off as I am going to Taipei. By myself. Alone in the train.

Welp, nothing really happened, so let's skip ahead to the Taipei station where I wandered around trying to find uncle Henry (not really an uncle, but an old friend of my dad) who said he's going to pick me up. I was thinking of picking up a public phone to call him, but he found me at the right time.

He's Taiwanese (or Chinese, idk), born and bred, and he's really, really, really, really kind. I can NOT stress that enough. He really does everything to make sure I'm comfortable, even though I'm only staying there for like 2 days. After he took me around to Ximen Ding (which he explained, is also a huge hangout place for youths), he brought me back to the hotel (which is just beside Ximen Ding) and before leaving, gave me a red packet. "A little gift from uncle", he said. IT'S 10,000 NTD. TEN THOUSAND TAIWANESE DOLLAR. IT'S A $300 BUCKS' EQUIVALENT.

Jesus. I was shocked. I panicked for a while.

The next day, I walked around with no particular place in mind, until I realized that I saw a maid cafe in Ximen Ding. Went to the hotel, used their computer and got onto google (no wifi there, pfffft. cheapos.), and searched around for the best rated maid cafes around taipei. There's one called fatimaid, so I went there by taxi (can't find the place). Checked out my things, kept them in the hotel, and there I go. It was.. meh. Seriously. I would give that place a 6/10. If it was a tad bit cheaper I would've given a 7/10. Not worth it for me. Small place, a really really western environment (which admittedly is quite calm), and only a small selection of comics, Japanese or Mandarin.

After I walked out I found out that the Taipei Underground Mall is nearby, so I walked there. I remembered from google seeing some mentions of it being great to search figures, etc.

It was amazing. Lots of imported stuff from Japan. Too much for my eyes to handle, I daresay so myself. In one store, I caught Vocaloid music 「ワールドイズマイン」 and some Touhou music (I'm not sure, but I'm sure it's one of those doujin music). Cool store, seriously. It has 2 of the figures that actually caught my eye during my short trip to every store I could find. (in a certain radius). KnK Ryogi Shiki PVC fig and F/HA Rin PVC fig. Ended up buying Rin since it was cheaper (less than $50 ffs) and smaller, so I can carry it easily. Not to mention I still favor Rin more than I do Shiki. Pics if I can be bothered.

I bought lots of Jap magazines, and I am delightfully surprised by the posters that are in the magazines. I didn't ask for it, but it's still awesome. Also bought 2 posters for around 10 bucks each, and they're in a shop called "Animate". Google it. It has shops in Japan and Taiwan, but none anywhere else.

It's getting late (2:24am), and I'm getting sleepy. Saving more for tomorrow, I haven't blogged about the other maid cafe. It's too bad there are no pics, since I am too retarded to bring a camera along with me (left it in the US). The other maid cafe was awesome with the gundam model and the figs and the atmosphere and all. Oh well, that's for tomorrow. Hopefully, next time I'll be able to blog on the concert too.

Reminder for next part:
- NTU (this happened before the maid cafe fiasco thing)
- factory
- how TAIWAN IS FUCKING AWESOME AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD IF YOU HAVENT GONE THERE YET
- lol dorms
- etc

ok this is now ridiculous

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:48:00 +0000

lol

so much stuff happened

but gone are my usual motivations to blog

summary before I expound on them later on

- Taiwan is fucking awesome
- bought another fig.. this time at least it's really cheap for a rin pvc, so fuck you too
- went to 2 maid cafes.. well. yeah. experience etc
- arctic monkeys concert (FUCK YEAH I THINK MY EARS ARE STILL BORKED)
- school
- WORK. FUCK WORK. at least i get some money off of it, but seriously, damnit.
- more work. more. more work. more.
- public speaking class is ehhhh...
- had another talk with the japanese professor to see if i would pass the first course of japanese. i have skipped 2 courses of japanese (and potentially 3 if i can work on my kanji) in the course of around 3 months

i havent had much time to play. nor watch anime. nor read manga. work and stuff got in my way.

fuck yeah. i love my life. not really, i just want to graduate quickly and get my sorry ass over to taiwan. the only thing i'd miss in the us would probably be the internet. 20mbps ftw. and maybe friends now that i have some rofl.

eh?

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 11:57:00 +0000

えとさ、今日は、何とか。。僕は書きたいよ。ボールペンで書くじゃなくって、コンピュタで書くよ。最近、僕は月姫をやったｗｗｗｗ

本当に、今は何もしない、漢字まだ勉強しない、本まだ読まないよ。あぁ、さすが僕は、これでも十分、これで書くよく難しいよ。。それでは、これまで。

>___>

haven't updated in a week, so.

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:18:00 +0000

well, i pretty much am doing nothing these past few days. I didn't even get to watch a lot of anime lol. Pretty much left 4 dead the whole time.

Uh.. let's see. I need ideas on what to bring back to the US. I know I'm going to bring some notebooks, pencils, pens, and some clothes. And books. What else?

I would have started on my study of kanji, if I have the "Remembering the Kanji" book right now. ... I don't have 'em now, so..

But seriously though, it's going to be pretty tough, the next three months. I'm starting work, so less free time for me. I'm going to take public speaking too, which hopefully should be a blast (I'm quite fond of public speaking anyway). Besides that, I would have to do my kanji study and my dose of Japanese media over my free time as well, which severely reduces the amount of time I will be able to play TF2 or L4D. I also probably prioritize keeping up to the current anime more than that, plus MW2 and L4D2 are coming up, so it'll be kind of hectic.

Also, for all those who don't know, I'm pretty much set to go to Taiwan by next year, probably fall. If my plans go well, I'll graduate this next spring (graduation for the 2-year degree), and apply to go to a Taiwan university. More surprisingly, I might change my major after all. Until now, I have chosen materials engineering as my major. Then again, recently, I've been thinking that economics and finance are kind of interesting after all. I like reading up on current economic news, and I like reading articles on why this and this happened and such. So, yeah.

lol that turned out to be a long post. Here's three cheers to all struggling college students who are still unsure of their majors!

NP: IOSYS - 魔理沙は大変なものを盗んでいきました

dorama shidi?

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:57:00 +0000

Drama CD. Yes, they actually make those in Japanese, too.

I listened to it on a whim (downloaded it but never bothered to listen), and to my surprise I actually understand bits and parts of it. So yeah, pretty much, all I need to do now is to do the kanji to widen my vocab.

:D

The time this post was written: 3:21am, GMT+7.

I need to stop sleeping at around this time. >_>

very helpful site

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 08:35:00 +0000

www.ajatt.com

You know, I might actually really follow this and actually try and phase out non-Jap websites. That means the blog will probably be in Japanese in the near future, and my browser and everything in Japanese.

Not now though, I need to get Remembering The Kanji first by Heisig.

For now, downloading raws..~

list update

noreply@blogger.com (~) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:38:00 +0000

1 finished nanoha strikers
2 catch up on fma: brotherhood
3 make significant progress on aria
4 finish ep 3 or 4 of umineko VN
5 make significant progress on gintama
6 make significant progress on cromartie high school
7 finish kara no kyoukai until ep 6
8 start watching sayonara zetsubou sensei
9 start watching tengen toppa gurren lagann
10 finish 1 of the routes in clannad, f/sn, or tsukihime

right, made it into numbers. so far.. I'll strike off things I've done.

~~1 finished nanoha strikers~~
2 catch up on fma: brotherhood
3 make significant progress on aria
4 finish ep 3 or 4 of umineko VN | now up until episode 2
5 make significant progress on gintama
6 make significant progress on cromartie high school | up until episode 15
7 finish kara no kyoukai until ep 6 | up until ep 3
8 start watching sayonara zetsubou sensei
9 start watching tengen toppa gurren lagann
10 finish 1 of the routes in clannad, f/sn, or tsukihime

...

right. shit. I'll probably do FMA, Aria and TTGL if I have the time.