( Enter at your own risk, and such-and-so-forth. )
 

So, I've rummaged up some fandom things I'm planning to sell, but I figured I'd let you guys get first shot at them before I posted them on communities.

I have for sale:

1. A spiffy Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince folder
2. The issue of the magazine "Actors Wave" that features Seto, Araki, Endou, Aiba, Kazuki, D-Boys Stage 3, Rookies, etc.
3. Three Tenipuri doujinshi: One MomoxRyoma, one FujixTaka, and one Golden Pair.

If any of those sounds like something you'd like to take off my hands, venture below for pictures and pricing. And don't let my grievous state of poverty influence your decision in any way. :P

( Sales pictures and info )
 

If there is one person or more on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Yeah, I know everyone's doing it, but it's very, very true. I've told this story probably too many times, but the fact of the matter is that I wouldn't be in Japan right now if it weren't for friends I met over the internet--I wouldn't have left my hometown to move to Chicago, I wouldn't have gotten into Tenimyu and thus met a ton of amazing people that way, and I might never have found the strength to get through some really, really tough times. I can't say it enough: Every one of you is amazing, and so, so important to me. I love you guys. ♥


In other news, some things:

1. I am moving! I actually made this decision about...a day after I said I was thinking about it. :P And then, of course, I completely forgot to mention it here. XD;; But yes, as of July 10th, I will no longer be a resident of a guesthouse! \(^O^)/ I've really come to feel like this place is home, but at the same time, there are manymany things here that make me insane, so I'm really looking forward to the move. I'm really going to miss Andrew and Karl, who are like brothers to me (and who I'm a bit worried about - who will chide Andrew for drinking too much? Who will make sure Karl eats something more than curry out of a pack from the 99 yen store??), and I'm also going to miss the river view and the fairly convenient location. But overall, I am really, really looking forward to moving. *_*

2. I mentioned to my Japanese teacher last week that I wanted to practice using casual Japanese (since I tend to use formal Japanese in all situations, regardless of appropriateness - -;), and today we did almost nothing but casual Japanese stuff, working from a very informative worksheet from Book 3 in the Japanese For Busy People series. And now, FINALLY, I understand something that I've seen a billion times but could never figure out before. *_*

So, if you have a -te form verb + "oku," it means to do the verb in preparation for something. For example, to say that you're going to study in preparation for something (an upcoming test, I'd assume :P), you can say "benkyou shite okimasu," or "benkyou shite oku" in plain form.

BUT. If you use the "te oku" form in casual conversation, you can shorten it to:

とく
TOKU.

So, 勉強しておく (benkyou shite oku) shortens to 勉強しとく (benkyou shitoku).

Fuuuuuurthermore, when you then have to conjugate this new word, "toku," it conjugates like this:

Te form: といて　(toite)
Ta form: といた (toita)

Furtherfurthermore, there's another word "oku" with a different meaning, namely the meaning of "put" or "place." For example, putting/placing an object on a table. （テーブルの上に置きました　teeburu no ue ni okimashita - I put [it] on the table.)

SO. If you use these two together, saying that you put something somewhere in preparation for something, it becomes:

置いておく　(oite oku)

Which THEN becomes:

置いとく (oitoku)

Or, in te form and written in hiragana: おいといて (oitoite)

Which is, of course, hella fun to say as well as being useful. :P

I've seen this before in blogs and things and had absolutely no clue as to what it meant. XDD;;; And now, several years later, at last I know. :P


Anyway, long explanation over. :P I have more to say, I think, but I'll end here to spare your f-lists. :P
 

Will write more about other stuff later, but:

Today was Abe's fan club only birthday event. His mom and grandma both attended, there was an impossibly large cake, and as the main event of the evening, they showed a clip show of baby and little kid pictures of Abe that his mom had contributed. XDDD

Abe, we soon learned, had never seen most of these pictures before. :P When the first one, the baby picture, came up, he kept saying, "EHHHHHHHH?? That's me?!!" and looking back at his mom for confirmation. :P She confirmed that it was indeed him, saying, "There's no mistake; it's you. You look like a girl, ne."

:P I like his mom a lot. XD

Abe as a baby was...very chubby, and with a LOT of very wild dark hair sticking up all over the place. XD As a two-year-old, he was still chubby, and had one of those horrible bowl cuts that are so popular on Japanese boys. We also saw pictures of him playing baseball in middle school, which he admitted that he quit after realizing that it wasn't very fun, and after which he started playing the oboe due to a general interest in music. XD (There was also a picture of him playing the oboe, incidentally. :P) The only picture where I could really recognize him was one where he was wearing this big T-shirt and doing a crazy pose with two friends--his hair looked a little lighter and was hanging around his face, and the expression on his face was totally Abe. Other than that, though, I'd never have guessed that it was him in the pictures if it hadn't...you know, been his birthday event and thus obvious that it was him. :P

At one point, when they showed a picture of chubby-child-Abe sprinting his little heart out at some school race, Abe made a comment like, "What a fine boy!" and stared proudly at the picture. :P He also had to ask his mom if he'd been a fast runner, and when she said he had, he echoed proudly, "I was fast! :D"

Anyway, after the slide show, we all played Jan Ken Pon against Abe. (I lost in the first round, by choosing paper--Abe also chose paper, so only the folks who picked scissors got to stay in the game. ...it took me a few seconds to realize this, and I probably looked like an idiot standing there endlessly with my hand stretched into "paper." :P) The woman who won got to go up on the little stage and sit next to Abe and share in his "sweet love," as the fan club president put it. :P The two of them shared a cocktail of some kind mixed by Abe himself, and before they drank it, Abe said something gushy and romantic to her, like, "All the work I did on Cyrano and in my music....I did it for youuuu. *intense gushy stare*"

Everyone laughed, and then the two of them drank. :P

Towards the end of the event, Abe gave bouquets of flowers to his mom and grandma and said some special words of thanks to them. His mom started crying XD, but his grandma just stood there like the sweet, tough old lady she is and listened to him saying these beautiful thankful things to her, then thanked everyone and stood there beaming at him with her bouquet in hand. It was a touching moment, and I have to say, I adore his grandma. <333 She's one of those very short, plump, sweet old ladies who you just want to hug. And since I was seated right next to her, I had to fight a very real urge to do just that. :P

Anyway, the event was really fun, though as usual, I was left feeling like I'd flubbed big time on manners throughout it. I just never know what I'm supposed to say in certain situations, like when we're on our way out--do I thank people? Do I tell them "otsukare?" And if they say "otsukare" to me, do I say it back? SOMETIMES I JUST DON'T KNOW. XDD;;; Also, I think I made a total of three sentences of conversation during the whole event, all of them extremely simple, like--"Demo oishii, ne," or "Himitsu da yo~!" or "Udon wa muzukashii desu." <--This last was regarding the difficulty of using chopsticks to eat udon. :P

Oh, and when I asked to buy two of Abe's CDs, I said "ni-satsu" instead of "ni-mai"--DAMNED COUNTERS. Basically, I said, "Two books/magazines, please! :D" instead of "Two CDs, please!" D'oh. >_< Abe was very nice about it, though, and kindly asked me if I wanted "futatsu," which is the general counter for two objects. XD;;

Anyway, though, despite not saying much (and screwing up some of what I did say), I think I understood a lot--more than last time, which was more than the time before, which was more than the time before. So maybe, just maybe, I'm actually improving. *__* Hurrah!

Anyway, though. I need to get to bed, as I have a Japanese lesson and kids classes tomorrow (blech), but I wanted to share some tidbits about the event before I lost them. The food, by the way, was delicious--sandwiches, sushi, yakiniku, salad, and of course gigantic slices of cake for everyone. And someone made special coasters for everyone's drinks that have Abe's name stitched onto them, so...I have that now as a nice keepsake. :P

Anyway, that's all for now. ^_~
 

In case anyone's interested, I've been playing around with a flashcard-making site to help me in my Japanese studies; I've made one for cooking terms vocab (with kanji as the flashcard, then hiragana and an English definition as the flip side of the card), as that's what chapter I'm on right now in my lessons. :P In the unlikely event that anyone else is interested in checking out the flashcards, doooooooouzo:

Flashcards - Japanese Cooking Terms

Just click "view," then choose to shuffle or not and have at 'em. You can click to repeat a card if you don't get it and want to review it (though the repeat sequencing is always the same, alas), and you can also click "Flip" to have the answer card show up first (e.g., the English translation and hiragana) with the kanji then as the hidden card. <--I suspect this explanation doesn't make sense. :P

It's a good site, in any case - it's free to sign up, and you can make custom flashcards for whatever you're studying, plus make them available to anyone else who might want to use them. /commercial

I wanted to add more to this batch, actually, but sadly my language bar decided to quit on me, so rather than wait and restart my computer, I just kind of...stopped. XD;; This is mostly a test run, anyway. :P

Yosh, back to studying~~~



PS: ( Here's the vocab in a handy list: )
 

So, apparently they're renaming the Sears Tower. It will now be called the "Willis Tower."

....


I can't even comment on this. :P Article on it here.
 

Yikes. O_O Have you guys seen this video about how to put out kitchen grease fires? My mom, being ever diligent in making sure I know the dangers of the world :P, sent it to me, and MAN. I always knew that putting water on a grease fire wouldn't work to put it out, but I had no idea that doing so could make the fire so much worse. Like...fireball level worse. o_o

For those who don't feel like watching the video (though definitely watch it if you can, I say), the steps they suggest to put out a kitchen grease fire: First, turn off the burner. Then, soak a dish towel in water, wring it out, and then flop it over the pot or pan to cover it completely. (I assume what this does is prevent the towel from catching fire while it takes the oxygen away from the flames. ....but I have no idea, really. :P) Then: Wait until the pot or pan is cool before touching it or moving it.

..............this has been a public service announcement. :P
 

If you can afford to, please donate a bit to the Australian Red Cross to help survivors of the bushfires. Any little bit helps. Thanks to Lil for the link. ♥
 

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the 12:30 showing of Titanic: The Musical. I wasn't sure I'd be able to get a ticket, actually, because I waited until Wednesday to try for one (XD;;;;), but with a lot of luck and a long time spent with a Lawson machine, I finally managed to snag one for Sunday. \^O^/ I paid full price, hoping to get a good seat, and ended up on the second floor--but as it turned out, that WAS a good seat, as I was in one of the front second row seats, along the left side of the theater and right in front of the stage. *_*

Anyway, venture below for my rambling review about the musical, Kime's romantic escapades with women, and a surprise encounter after the show with A Dark and Mysterious Gentleman In A Face Mask...! /drama :P

( Titanic: The Musical (review) )
 

This has absolutely nothing to do with Thanksgiving, except that I often used to watch Star Trek: TNG and/or Star Wars on Thanksgiving. :P



Happy Thanksgiving. <3 Late, but...still. :P