Last Friday I learnt a new, genius trick off the design artists at work.

See, I'd turned around from my desk to stretch, only to catch sight of two of them settling at their desks with a couple of mini-packs of Cheezels--and pairs of disposable chopsticks. Not quite your regular snacking combination.

I looked askance at them. "You're not going to eat those Cheezels with chopsticks, are you?"

"Yes!" they piped. "So we don't dirty the tablets."

Eating with chopsticks means no greasy fingers. No greasy fingers means no greasy keyboards. Or greasy styluses. Or greasy work surfaces.

"That's a brilliant idea! I'm gonna try it for myself."

So I grabbed a bag of Cheezels. And a pair of chopsticks. And it worked like a charm.

See, the thing about me is that I can use chopsticks with either hand. I trained myself to do this while I was still juggling the lab job and freelancing for my current company. What I'd do was to take half the day off from the lab job, sit down for lunch in a sushi place in between the lab and the writing office, and, with my right hand make notes and edit my stuff for writing, while feeding myself sushi with my left. It got to a point where I could eat cold tofu with chopsticks, left-handed.

Which means I can snack greaselessly with one hand while still making use of my mouse or stylus with the other--very useful, for example, while I'm web-surfing or painting on Photoshop.

So now I have a new method of snacking at home. Watch me, folks. Using my right hand, I will surf the Internet or color in pretty boys kissing, giving the impression that I'm just like any other ordinary yaoi-loving anime fangirl.

At the same time, using my left hand...

I will take this potato chip...

AND EAT IT!!

WITH CHOPSTICKS!!!




(Potato chips, nacho chips and photography courtesy of pkyyr, who apparently DOES NOT BELIEVE IN WARNING PEOPLE THAT SHE'S GONNA TAKE THE PHOTO. Bah humbug.)

(Also, I'm sorry, lizzu. I JUST COULDN'T HELP MYSELF.)

(P.S. Who can guess what's my wallpaper desktop, eh? Eh?)

(And also, while we're at it, anyone else want to do the testimonial thing for me? ♥)

Setsuna is being voiced by Brad Swaile.

Yes, SETSUNA == LIGHT AGAIN.

Aside from the fact that my sis can now do the "I AM THE GOD OF THE NEW WORLD" "THERE IS NO GOD IN THIS WORLD!!!" thing in ENGLISH now...

...everytime I hear Setsuna's voice I'm gonna keep thinking of I WILL TAKE THIS POTATO CHIP... AND EAT IT!.

Such an epic line.

I WILL TAKE THIS GUNDAM... AND EAT IT!!!

(I, for one, welcome our new smexy-voiced incarnations of Allelujah and Tieria.)



...so much epic from the b00bies fandom lately. I've forgotten how much I missed it.

First off, welcome to all the people I managed to hoodwink into friending me today. Hello! If you're thinking of defriending me already, it's too late, you signed a contract with the devil when you added me to your friendslists and the hellhounds will now come after you.

But otherwise, it's alright, I'm a nice and friendly person, and I'm absolutely harmless. You'll see!

So yesterday, the Prop Plus Petit figurines of cardigan T-chan and plugsuit Alle that I'd ordered finally came home to roost. I have to admit that I was quite stumped to receive them because I hadn't any idea they'd be so small.

Yes, yes, I know, "petit" is in their name for a reason. Shush. I thought they'd be closer in size to the Nendoroid dolls. But no, these things are tiny tiny.



Darling, aren't they? But the shot doesn't really give you a sense of scale. For that, you need comparisons with everyday household objects.



Or Beanie-baby-sized plushies!





The puppy's name is Spencer and he belongs to Cheryl, one of the designers at work. For some strange reason, she has sworn never to let me touch him again. I wonder why?

Anyway! While we're on the subject of photographing objects on my office desk, here's the resident L Nendoroid, chillin' and doing his thing.


The photo was actually inspired by a lovely photo of a teddy bear cutting off its own head with a pair of scissors, which logam found online.



Yes, I'm going to leave it like that.

See, folks? Perfectly harmless. ♥ ☠ ♥

P.S. If you live in Singapore or thereabouts and are of the otaku-ish persuasion you might want to keep the weekend of the 18th-19th July free. I might be, you know, up to something. Just saying.

Details to come later!

Oh yes I did.


The article in question

I should really refrain from inflicting my fandoms on one of the NYT's top 10 blogs on ther Internet, shouldn't I?

I'm not all that sorry, trust me. And I'd do it again

Because I've signed myself on to dilettantka and hinoai's english language b00bies dooujin project, I've been spending my spare time (on the bus, in the shower etc) agonizing about what to do about it. I've already got the story I want to tell in my head, but I was worried about the page count and art style.

I dislike using screentones but my lineart seems too plain to go as-is, but in the past couple of days I've started reading Death Note again (this time in Japanese), and I realized that Obata-sensei's art style actually makes very little use of them. So I'm going to go with his style: heavy on the inks for linework and shading, and screentones primarily to indicate blocks of color, like hair. It probably suits me since I learnt to draw from Western comic drawing how-tos anyway.

On Friday I made a bunch of headsketch turnarounds just to practise and get a hang of what I want the kids to look like:




Tieria's look still bugs me. I wanted him to look closer to Allelujah in terms of age but my pencil simply insisted on the cherubic tantrumy three year old. I think I might have a thing for cute round pinchable cheeks.

In any case, I figure the doujin would look more surreal with TinyTieria, so I'm sticking with it. Next up, test sketches of Halle and Regene.



And just some random guy I doodled in on my work Moleskine during a meeting with Animax that I merrily inserted myself into (because I think the project is awesome and I want to watch it while it develops). I have no idea who he is or where he came from. Since I pretty much only draw girls and bishieboys this dorky-looking dude caught me by surprise. He looks a bit like Milo Ventigmila. Except not as pretty.

I've been sitting on these for a while, but I decided now was as good a time to share as any.

The story goes: I chanced upon L File No. 15 in Kinokuniya during one of my visits there, and bought it on a whim because it was a) pretty and b) had Ken'ichi Matsuyama on the cover. I brought it home, opened it up-- and my jaw fell open, because the last thing I expected it to be was a collection of gorgeous photos of Ken'ichi-as-L posing with various rainbow-colored confections.

I am a sucker for pretty, cutesy, rainbow-colored things. It's part of the reason things like Friends With You appeals to me so much. So therefore, when you put together the combination of a) MatsuKen and b) pretty, cutesy rainbow-colored candy, you get the epitomy of edibility.

So I decided to scan my favorites and share.



( Selected Pages with mid- and high-res D/Ls )

Okay. You know what? I never go on 4chan. That place scares me. It's like jumping into whitewater rapids composed primarily of toxic waste, man-eating fish, and other shades of DO NOT WANT. Therefore, it was a very unusual occasion last night when I decided to pop onto 4chan's /m/echa board for no rhyme or reason.

And guess what was the first thing which caught my eye?



Wait, wait... JUST FUCKING WHAT? What kind of crack do the people on 4chan smoke, precisely?

The rest of the thread was full of equally surreal FUCKAWESOME.

( ...but who would that make Vir? )

( Mr. Ribbons: What do you want? )

( Who would Sheridan be? )

Also, Anon got it right. Lockon is G'kar. Londo is Tieria. Haughty air, fabulous hair, mysterious genitals... why the hell not?

I am so very glad I saw this. All the while I thought I was the only person on the planet who thought, "Hey, B5!" when I watched the very first ep of b00bies. Just to make my case:THIS was the first ever mention of Gundam b00bies on this LJ. Ever.

But I'm not alone in this world! I'm not! I'm not!

Alright, you don't understand a word of what I'm saying. Nevermind. Here, have the most fuckawesome crossover video ever made. I don't even like Spongebob Squarepants and I laughed out loud watching this video.

DEATHSPONGE NOTEPANTS


The timing was spot on and perfect. Plus, having SeriousMode!Miyano Mamoru voice SpongeBob? How much more deranged can you get?


Alright, now that the insanity is over, a moment of silence for Arthur C. Clarke, please. His writing helped shaped the world of my youth in more ways than people can imagine. It's probably TMI, but, amongst other things, I personally acknowledge his Rama series for introducing the concept of female sexuality and self-pleasuring into my young mind. The twisted lech that I am today? I blame the scifi authors I read when I was a kid. Trufax.

What's it with all the awesome people passing on this week?

Oh man. Just when I thought the string of atrocities happening around the world can't get any worse, they do.

I'm not even sure if I can lay the blame of this one on Battle Royale anymore. What is the world coming to?

People are sick, sick fucks.

17th October 2307
Mystery surrounds Tokyo dismemberment case

Artist's impression of crime scene as discovered by Ms Halevy

TOKYO, Special Economic Zone -- Police are appealing for witnesses after the dismembered remains of a young boy were discovered in an public park here.

The grisly find was discovered by an acquaintance of the victim. Ms. Louise Halevy, 17, had been going for an early-morning jog when she discovered the torso hanging from a tree.

Recognizing the victim as a neighbor of her boyfriend's, she immediately called the police.

The severed arms, hands and lower body of the victim were also recovered from the scene of the crime.

Acquaintances have given the victim's name as Setsuna F. Seiei, but it appears to be a pseudonym, according to police sources.

The victim's real identity is still unknown, although he is believed to be of Middle Eastern descent and approximately sixteen years of age.


"Mistaken identity"

Forensics experts uncovered a note in the ground nearby with a mysterious message reading "You are not fit to take my voice. I am justice, now give me your bloody Gundam", signed with the name "Kira".

A Mr. Kira Yamato has been taken into police custody to assist with investigations, although he has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

"I'm sure it's a case of mistaken identity," Mr. Yamato told reporters.

The mention of a specific mobile suit in the note has led to speculation that the killing may be a hate crime related to the recent activities of international terrorist group Celestial Being, although investigators say that this is highly unlikely.

Investigators have drawn parallels to a similar case reported three centuries ago, sparking fears of a copycat killer.

The 21st Century Kira cases were famously never solved, and eventually closed after the turn of the century.


"A nice guy, just a little quiet"

It takes a lot to shake a city still reeling from a brutal wave of terrorist attacks.

But the mood in Tokyo surrounding the case is one of both disbelief and horrified fascination.

It is not just the brutal and grisly nature of the crime which has captured locals' attention, but also the mysterious nature of its young victim.

Described as withdrawn and a loner, he was hardly ever seen by his neighbors, and even then, he rarely talked and never smiled.

Extensive investigations into his background by the police have turned up nothing.

"We never really got to know him because he never talked to people or brought anybody else home," Ms. Halevy said of her boyfriend's next-door neighbor. 

"Sometimes he would disappear for days at a time."

But she dismissed rumors that the victim might have been somehow connected to Celestial Being, saying, "I think that's nonsense, he was a nice guy, just a little quiet."

"We're all very shocked and a bit sad that such an awful thing happened to him."

"I don't think anyone expected it."

It is, however, known that Ms. Halevy suffers from a broad range of personality disorders, including histrionic personality disorder and borderline sociopathism.

Police have appealed for both witnesses and relatives of the deceased to come forth and assist with the investigation. --Kinue Crossroad reporting for JNN

The real cause of death is still unknown

Related links: Body Parts Murder In Japan

...in case you're wondering, yes, these photos are the reason why all my pictures of my Setsuna gashapon seem oddly and extremely red. Copic marker ink does not, by any means, come off plastic. And this happened quite a while ago, the day after I got the gashapon (the Setsuna-drowning pictures are the only ones you'll ever see in white). Also, no, I've not watched Gundam SEED yet. I just thought it would be hilarious to throw a bit more Kira in there.

Sick and coughing lungs out, angsting about what to do for concept proposal for work, feeling tired and cranky and generally out-of-the-wrong-side-of-bed.

Then I came across someone who looked like he had had a worse morning than I:



In truth, I first saw this poster's brethen in town on Saturday. Down the escalator, across from us on a distant wall, I caught sight of its glory and was reduced to a voiceless, gibbering wreck tugging at my sister's sleeve, one hand flailing in the general vicinity of awesomeness incarnate. No photos that day, though, because the crowd was insatiable and because we were rushing off to Japanese class.

There is at least one poster in every single train station in this country. No clue as to when the movie opens here ("soon" is not an acceptable estimate, Golden Village), but until it does? A daily dose of Kenichi Matsuyama glaring disparagingly out at me every morning as I head to the nosegrind. FUCKING HELL YEAH.

But MatsuKen, why the long face? Why the "somebody pooped in my cereal this morning so heads are gonna ROLL" expression? Is L being a grump because Light isn't in this movie and therefore no buttsex?

I see.


( CROSSDRESSING MEN UNDER THE CUT! )

Yesterday I got to proofread a Mandarin dub script to check that it was okay for lipsynching with the original English audio.

Me. Proofreading a script. In Mandarin.

It is as I said to thurisaz83: people at my company need to stop letting me do things in Mandarin, or I might start thinking that I actually have a grasp of the language that is halfway decent.

Language shenanigans aside, though, I am enjoying myself at the new workplace, as many people seem to have observed over IM. Life is, for most part, is peachy.[1]

The new office is far from ready, though, so we still have contractors walking around fixing up floorings and doors and suchlike. Today the head contractor/designer, Clement, was walking around when he passed by my desk and said, "Hey, isn't that the dude from Death Note?"

"Yep."

"He comes with a chair?"

"Yep."

"That's L, isn't it?"

"Yep."

I passed him the Nendoroid box, with its assorted and vaguely-bloodied other-L-bits, and explained how all the bits were switchable. He thought it was cool, and asked where I got it from. I told him I'd preordered from a Japanese website and no, they didn't retail it locally. You could get it from online American anime shops, but the prices were grossly overinflated, even with the weakened dollar.

"Oh, it's okay. You leave this guy here at night, don't you? One of these mornings you're going to come in and find him missing. Heh."

I shall set a trap.




Post-It pads were distributed today and that made me a happy puppy. In celebration I doodled something on one of the smaller ones and stuck it to my computer.



In other news, they're still letting me write for preschool programming. I can write something like the old-school Sesame Street, right? Right? I mean, shit, I grew up on that stuff when I was a preschool kid, and I turned out just fine, didn't I?



[1] I belatedly realize that this constitutes the Worst Pun Ever. I know. You don't get it. It's okay. The people who get it know what I'm talking about.

Anybody remember Castle In The Air, Diana Wynne Jones' sequel to Howl's Moving Castle? The one with the Arabian-themed story in which there's a giant flying castle in the air with a harem full of kidnapped princesses? That might not be such a fantastical idea, according to this CNN report.

Airbus: Prince buys flying palace

The dude bought his own private A380. How insane is that? When Duckling passed me the link I spent ten minutes spazzing out about giant seven-storey flying palaces. Jesus Christ, that thing's about a million times more spacious than my teensy apartment home. And it flies.

I want to live in one.

___

optical_nerve clued me in to this one:



HOLY COW BUT I DO WANT TO WATCH THAT MOVIE RIGHT NOW. It looks like seven kinds of awesome and it has cute, weird kids in it. MatsuKen on a bicycle! MatsuKen riding the densha! MatsuKen...fishing? Anyway. There's a whole bunch of sequences looking like somebody transplanted L onto the set of 24 Season 3. L as Jack Bauer stuffing his face with candy bars?[1] What the hell is going on!? Really, I wish I understood spoken Japanese better, because the only distinct phrase I got out of that was "rainen no nigatsu kokonoka".

Also, WTF was Amane Misa doing there?! I get that the actress was promoting the movie, but is she even in it--? I seriously can't tell, from what she's saying--all I get is that she says she's from the previous DN movies, can't pick out if she's talking about this one as well.

I still find it cute that MatsuKen prefaces every other sentence of his with "anooo..." But seriously, what's with the farmer hat?

___

Note for future reference: The folklore section of the kid's department in the National Library is a living, breathing pit that the unwary enter, and crawl out utterly traumatized, and permanently scarred for life.

This is why I do research by Googling.

___


WAIT, WHAT, TAKUYA KIMURA VOICED HOWL IN HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE?

...how the hell did I not know this? I am dead of utter cluelessness, let me tell you that. ASDFGHJKLDAD. [2]



[1] As an interesting aside, the first ever mention of Death Note on this LJ ran thus: "WHY HAS MY VOLUME OF DEATH NOTE TURNED INTO AN EPISODE OF 24. WTF, writer?"
[2] And all of a sudden, I am seized with the soul-eating, irresistable urge to write Howl's Moving Castle/Kyou Kara Maou! crossover crackfic. In particular, I'd like to add Howl to the growing ranks of People I'd Like To See Getting Into Shibuya Yuuri's Pants. Hahahahaha OH HALP

I've not posted art in a while. This is something I did a couple of months ago-ish, but I never got around to sharing with you guys, for reasons unknown. My favorite bit is Light's hair, and how the Copicking turned out on it. My least favorite bit is probably how much I fail hardcore at watercolor painting-- all I can say is, thank goodness Copic inks are waterproof.

Title: 漂う俺もあなたも真夜中 (Tadayou ore mo anata mo mayonaka)
Medium: Pencil, Copic marker, watercolors
Genre: Death Note, Light/L, PG
Remarks: Old drawing. Experimenting with watercolor. Title lifted from a BUCK-TICK song named CAIN, which is actually a far better fit for a Trinity Blood theme song than DRESS is. Even if I love DRESS to bits.


Larger on DeviantArt

I like it. It's very dreamy. Except for the part where I fail at watercoloring.

Internets, I hate you.

I was about to come up with a spiffy summary of things that made me ":)" and ":(" over the days I hadn't updated. I was. I was.

Then I discovered the crack that is fandom_secrets and was consumed by an overwhelming urge to write out ill-advised fandom opinions and illustrate them pictorially.

And so I did. MY thoughts on Yuri FANDOM SECRETS, LET ME SHOW YOU THEM:



...it's totally true. It would be like Kyou Kara Maou!HARDCORE. Like, I want to see Wolfram do a Mello and BURN down the fucking CASTLE with his CAPSLOCK OF RAGE. I want to see Yuri go all MikamiMode and scream "SAKUJO!" at terrified peasants before he opens up the can of whupass. I want eviscerations by pencil. Horrible deaths by carwrecks. Helicopters. Shinou saying "JUST AS PLANNED". Gunter twirling his hair and calling people chicken bastards.

It would rock. So hard.

It would.


...incidentally, in the course of producing the above brain-warping awesomeness, I somehow managed to stumble upon the Wikipedia entry for Death Note. In Croatian.

Light Yagami je jako pametan teenager kojemu je većinu vremena dosadno. Svaki dangleda kako se kriminal u svijetu povećava ali on nažalost to ne možespriječiti, sve dok jedan dan 2003 godine ne nađe na podu magičnu bilježnicu, Death Note.

NAWWWW, PAMETNI RAITO! KAWAII DA NE! JA VOLIM MOJA PAMETNA RAITO. [1]

I think the thing on that page that really killed me, though, were the declensions of L's name in different cases, e.g. Light se da u potragu za L-ovim pravim imenom (Light quests for L's real name). I laughed, and I laughed, and I laughed. As a former student of Croatian, I would have yelled bloody blue murder. "How the hell do you conjugate a letter of the alphabet!? WTflyinF!"

I have also, in the course discovered that there Croatian anime website called Crotaku. I shouldn't be surprised, since I've known that milos watches anime and therefore it's not an unknown phenomenon in the Balkans, but I am highly amused nonetheless. Crotaku. Jesus. Leng xiao hua bi bing chu hai yao leng (冷笑话比冰厨更加冷).


[1] It was a knee-jerk reaction. My ex and I used to have totally silly IMs where we would affectionately refer to my then-single dog as "glupi pas" or "pametni pas", depending on how good his behavior had been. "Glup" and "pametan" are about the two cutest adjectives I can think of in Croatian.
[2] No, I am not about to go around picking up cute Croatian otaku. As much as I might be tempted to.
[3] Also, re: Light-- "On je tipičan sedamnaestogodišnjak". Um, yeah, Light's a totally normal seventeen-year-old, EAT MY ASS, Croatian Wikipedia entry writer. I don't remember wanting to take over the world through mass murder when I was seventeen, unless it was right before my math 'A' levels, in which case it was perfectly excuseable. In any case? Light? Tipičan sedamnaestogodišnjak JA NAI.

Wow. This is kind of disturbing. But not surprising, I guess, given the history of such things.

I blame Battle Royale.

17th October 2007
Body parts found in Tokyo hotel

TOKYO -- Police are appealing for witnesses after the dismembered remains of a 23-year-old man were discovered in an upscale hotel here.

The grisly find was discovered in the presidential suite by Hilton staff at approximately 6AM in the morning, after guests in neigboring rooms reported hearing strange noises near midnight.

A message reading "I am justice" was inscribed on the floor with the victim's blood and purportedly signed by "Kira", but police say connections to the ongoing Kira investigation are unknown. 

Police spokesperson Hideki Ide said, "It's an unusual case, we've never seen anything like this before, where everything was is very cleanly severed, and we have not been able to recover any forensic evidence despite the amount of blood involved.

"Obivously, this was someone who knew exactly what he or she was doing."

The unidentified victim was described as being of mixed Caucasian and Asian ethnicity, approximately 1.8m tall, with dark hair and fair complexion.

Police have classified the case as murder and investigations are ongoing.

...yes, that is the first thing I did when I got the figurine out of the box. The. First. Thing. My dad came in, asked, "What are you doing?" I said, "What does it look like I'm doing?" And then he wisely decided to leave me alone.

HELLO WELCOME TO THE TWILIGHT ZONE. In the continuing saga of June's Two Weeks Offline Getting Absolutely Nothing Done, I stayed up past midnight finishing all 78 episodes of Kyou Kara Maou--whose anticlimatic final battle is something I will rant about later--before spending all of today... getting absolutely nothing done. As promised on the tin.

Oh, but I did get some sketchthings drawn. Aside from beginning manga drawing lessons I'm also experimenting with shoujo-ish art styles, since I want to do a DN/Ouran crossover pinup to possibly mount on my room orr future office cubicle wall.

Hence:

Of course, by all means Haruhi should be Takada, to go with Kyouya being Mikami and Tamaki being YAGAMI LIGHT, but a Death Note cosplay would not be a Death Note cosplay if you didn't have an L to go along with it (Death Note retail $12.99, L sold separately). So. HARU-CHAN metamorphosis into ERU-CHAN, courtesy of the Hitachiin twins, whom I tried fitting into Matt and Mello's roles but FAILED in an EPIC sort of direction.

And of course I had to do one of Tamaki, except that I can't draw Tamaki, but I can write the kanji for BOKU GA SEIGI DA and so I did, with bonus Shibuya Yuuri on the side because I couldn't stop giggling during any episode of Kyou Kara Maou in which Yuuri gets to write 正義 in big swirly letters with his magic. BOKU GA SEIGI DA means something like I AM JUSTICE AND I AM INVINCIBLE, KRAKABOOOOOOMM!! Yes. I realize I do not know how to write "KRAKABOOOOOMM!!" in katakana. Unfortunate.

WIMP.

At this point I realize that I am no longer making any sort of sense whatsoever. So, why bother making sense? Since I'm already here at the pits of incomprehensbility, while we're at it...

I was tempted to do this for Gwendal except that I realized he would turn out looking American Indian, and then I walked out into the living room and my parents were watching one of the million Steven Seagal vigilante movies and I realized that that would be exactly who he would look like, STEVEN SEAGAL. With a fringe and a spiffy military uniform and a sword and maybe a longer ponytail.

The sad thing is that after all this I still can't tell you what exactly makes an anime or manga character look that way. I fail at art, proportion and huge quantities of both. Huh, what?

POPE LANDS REGULAR ROLE ON FOX'S 24 For reals, and that link makes more sense than this entire post does.



Incoherently yours,
June

(I'll consider this a failed experiment in journalistic experimentation. Brain-to-keyboard filter OFF is NOT the way to go when it comes to writing your Internet journal, folks.)

The ヌマ　ヌマ Culinary Commission presents RAITO-KUN ROADKILL!, lovingly tenderized via Monster Truck and pan-fried to perfection.

On the plus side, my room is now neat, organized, and clean.

I must have thrown out some fifty bags of trash, including the last remnants of my college stuff, a whole ton of scientific papers and back copies of the New Scientist that I had been hoarding. Everything not needed, gone. Now I have an entire shelf dedicated to CDs, another dedicated to books, a third dedicated to manga, and a fourth for all my Japanese language stuff.

I made sure to leave expansion space. Lots of expansion space. The last time I tidied my room I made the mistake of packing everything neat as a can of sardines, with the grand effect that everytime I came home from Kinokuniya with an assload of swag I would have to go through the ritual of "Shit, where'm I gonna put this stuff?"

Of course, if the size of the shojo manga magazine I bought from Kinokuniya yesterday is any indication, all the packing, repacking, OCD purging & self-cleansing in the world will never be enough.



They're sparkly. They're full of pretty art. They cost nine dollars each. I could buy ten of each and not go broke. At this rate, I'm going to have to buy a new room to house them all.

...I must catagorically state that I did not buy the abovementioned manga magazine because it had Tamaki-senpai was splashed on the cover in all his fabulous, sparkly KIRAKIRA glory. Come on, how shallow do you think I am?

In closing remarks, yesterday's Japanese lesson brings you:



( Meme stolen from my sister )

It was strange, the last day of work, wondering if I would miss the place, and realizing that I probably wouldn't.

I had almost never left college, it seemed, leaving one part of the campus three days after the finals ended, for another part of the campus just over the hill, where I lingered for the next year and a half. Faces and places remained familiar. It was simply a continuation of something I had not wanted in the first place.

I spent the day largely doing nothing, and adding to drawings on the whiteboard.



As children we get so attached to locations. The homes we grew up in, the classrooms we fell asleep in, the hostel rooms we slept in when we had school camps: they all carve places of their own in our little hearts. As adults such quaint nostalgia fades out favor. I do not miss places. I miss the parts of my life that I associate with places-- people I talked to, music I listened to, food I ate. But I do not miss places.

I will not miss the place I have just left, I am sure, and it will not miss me. The real question is, will I miss the part of my life that I spent here? Will I ever look back, and wish that maybe I shouldn't have left?

I don't know.

I spent my last Friday staff seminar doing the same thing that I've been doing for the past year and a half.

( 20 minutes, a pen, and sheer boredom )

We had the farewell dinner at a North Indian restaurant, which was excellent, and also easily located, so that I can go back there any time I want to. As a going-away present, my lab bought me a couple of sketchbooks, and a music store voucher-- guess all the singing and drawing I've been doing on the fly hasn't gone unnoticed.

As my going away present to the lab, I left this:




(Duckling added the "デスノート" signboard to the picture. In response I drew the notebook with "ノートです". The pun doesn't cross language barriers. I'm sorry.)

~~June

Today, by the reading of the Chinese Lunar Calendar, is the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the year, which marks the Mid-Autumn Festival, or zhong qiu jie (中秋节). Supposedly, it's the day in the year where the moon is the brightest, and traditionally, we hang out at night, eat mooncakes (月饼), play with laterns, and generally try to avoid burning buildings down; in this post I have pictures of my family's 2005 event. We have a Chinese phrase for this lovely activity: shang yue (赏月), to literally "admire, enjoy, or bask in the moon".

Earlier today, someone on my friendslist complained that she hadn't gotten any mooncake yet, not this year.

I, being the wonderful and kind friend that I am, have decided to remedy this.



For the record, a) I FAIL AT DRAWING MOONCAKES, and b) thanks to reading the Death Note manga in Chinese, which preserves kanji names for characters, I was clueless about Light's name actually being read as LIGHT until it was spelt out for me the second volume. I still call him "Yeshen Yue" (夜神月) just plain "Yue" (月) from time to time.

The line in Chinese reads, "Let us admire the moon (月!) together, shall we, then?"

In related news, this post of Neil Gaiman's, relating his trauma at being brought to a Maid Cafe in Japan, had me torn between destroying my intestinal integrity with laughter, or clutching my head and whimpering in sympathy for poor Mr. Gaiman. OH DEAR NEIL! I can't imagine trying to explain the appeal of these things, beyond, "It's a fetish. For French maids in frilly dresses."

Perhaps someone should reccommend watching Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu.

~~June

After an agonizing wait of more than a week, the US$150 worth of doujinshi[1] I bought on an insane (and hopefully, one-time-only) spending spree arrived yesterday. All. At. Once.

US$150 of merchandise, by-the-by, looks something like this.


EPIC STACK OF DOUJINSHI DESU.

Want to know exactly what they are?

( 8 doujinshi and short reviews thereof. Which ones should I scan for deathnote_djs? )


...Speaking of doujinshi, just as I had resolved to stop with the buying, as my wallet could not withstand any more stress, people on my friendslist discover that somebody made a Supernatural doujinshi. I.E. Sam/Dean shounen-ai. With pretty manga art. IN JAPANESE.

Needless to say, RESOLUTION NOT ACHEIVED. My wallet hates me even more now.

And, speaking of Supernatural in Japanese, I must pimp out shibbyfangirl's new community for us folks both interested in SPN and Japanese culture: spn_japan!

Why Supernatural and Japanese stuff, you may ask? Because of the existence of things like these.


Sam & Dean. Speaking Japanese. My brain died; it was glorious. The community is friends-only so I encourage y'all to join and partake of the fun that is to come. I know that there are people who are into SPN and Japanese stuff on my friendslist, so-- JOIN US AND WE WILL RULE THE GALAXY TOGETHER!


~~June


[1] Doujinshi: You know how fangirls write fanfic? Japanese fangirls do the same thing. Except with pictures. In comic form. Which they publish. In book form. Other than that it's completely the same: the angstfic, the AU fic, the crack!pairing!fic, the deathfic, the WHAT-THE-HELL-WERE-YOU-SMOKING-WHEN-YOU-THOUGHT-THAT-UPfic. All gloriously familiar to anyone who's been in fandom for any length of time.