¡Sarah!

If anyone actually wants to read this, here it is, in all its terrible, unedited glory. :) I took out some of the identifying information but left the rest in because I wanted to show off my fancy pants right alignment, ooh aah.

( tokyo disneyland essay (in japanese!) )

A couple months ago, Reina Tanaka, one of my favourite MoMusu members, was in the magazine Friday, which caused a wee bit of a panic because if an H!P member is in Friday it has the potential to be scandalous and spell the end of her career as we know it. But Reina's article was just about how she went to Tokyo Disney Sea one day and tripped and lost her boot and did not enjoy her day off as much as she could have. Hahaha, poor Reina. XD

In other news, I absolutely love that Miki, another MoMusu, has a song called "Namida Girl," because I had that as a random screen name way back when she was solo and I barely even knew who she was. XD

Haha, I just woke my mom up because I was walking through the living room in the dark and I slammed my toes into a box of books and my yelps of pain woke her up ... hahahaha ... I'm the worst daughter ever but man! It still hurts!!

But what I was really going to write this entry (haha, first I wrote "essay") about is how sometimes with school I don't feel like I'm really learning anything, or I feel like what I'm learning is so much less substantial than what other people in other departments are learning. Just because I hear people talking on the bus or in the hall about their classes and it always sounds like they've learned so much stuff at university and I always feel like I could never talk in very much detail about anything I'm supposed to have learned. (Like it would be beautiful if I could remember all the names in Tale of Genji, but alas.) But this year I am taking my Indonesian lit. class and in my PACI class we've started a unit on Indonesian economy and it's kind of stupid but this makes me feel so much smarter than before! I mean, back in August I couldn't have told you a thing about Indonesia and now I know all kinds of things! Although most of them I only know in a rather vague and general sort of way ... :p

But what I was going to write this entry about before that was how my brother is a jerk. You don't want to go through this again, though, right? Right. Moving on.

What I was going to write this entry about before THAT is how I didn't go to PACI on Tuesday because I am sick and a bad student but mostly just sick, and today I pulled the week's question sheet off of WebCT but of course the day I skipped is the day he didn't write on the sheet which questions he wants us to answer for the weekly response, and so I posted panicked questions on both the WebCT discussion board and, figuring no one actually ever looks there, on LJ, and in two hours I had three responses telling me which questions to write about. To which I say: Maclean's can go on as much as it wants about how the Internet supposedly sucks, but if you ask me, the Internet is a freaking lifesaver. And those three people are now my favourites. :3

And what was I going to write before that ... oh right! leaf_green may well have figured this out before me, but last year in Japanese we had a guest speaker that we had to interview in order to guess his profession, and I recall asking several questions but the only one I actually remember is 「カラオケが好きですか。」 because it was the day after karaoke, and in the Japanese class I'm in now we are reading this essay by 平田オリザ (hirata ORIZA), and today I was looking at it and I thought, "Hm, that name looks familiar," and I looked him up on Google Images and I think that's the guy! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Here are my two reactions: 1) I feel like I have met a Japanese celebrity and isn't that awesome I don't remember if he likes karaoke or not!! 2) I think it is rather fantastic that our prof is bold enough to stick her friend's essay in our course pack and hope we wouldn't notice. XD!!!!!

I have been rather slacking off this week with the excuse that I am sick. :( So today I played The Sims and made a family of seven people and made some of them mean and some of them nice and cheated so I could buy the mansion and I haven't been intervening that much. So far it's more interesting and less bothersome than the way I was playing before, where I was actually trying to keep everyone happy, but still I do find this game a bit of a disappointment ... just because there's no goal, so you play for hours and hours and never achieve anything. At least with Katamari Damacy you can pretend you feel you've been productive!! XD

Sigh ... I'm kind of sad about tomorrow because I have to work on a project during the time that I usually spend with my friend. :( And I wonder if we'll be able to do something this weekend, last weekend when we went out and about her car was threatening to die on us. :( :( Oh well ... at least I get to sleep in a bit, for once. :)

So the song "Poor Unfortunate Souls" was the basis of an article I read for the part of my paper that was about The Little Mermaid (because it is in that song that Ursula shows off her drag queen persona and Ariel learns that gender is a performance, EH? EH??) and as a result it has been stuck in and out of my head for a week now. But I gotta say, Ursula doesn't lip synch it half as well as this guy, ahahahaha.

Anyway! This post is filled with EXCITING THINGS!! Which I have told to everyone already, is how exciting they are. Never mind that!! I'm sure you're all dying to hear about them again anyway!!

ONE!
I fiiiiiiiiinally got my JLPT results! What a ridiculously ridiculous wait that was. But I passed! v(^_^)v

Writing/Vocab: 75/100 (six times better than I thought I did)
Listening: 57/100 (... ouch)
Reading/Grammar: 188/200 (worse than I thought I did but I think I got kind of cocky with it, haha)
TOTAL: 320/400 = 80%

YAY PASS PASS PASS

But please don't ask me if I'll be taking Level 2 any time soon ... ^^;;

(Oh, and they also confused my name very terribly on the envelope, but on the certificate it's all right.)

TWO!
Tomorrow I am going to karaoke for the first time in my whole entire life.

AND I AM SO EXCITED YOU CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE IT

HOLY COW HOLY COW

My excitement was only dampened slightly by the realization that my knowledge of popular English songs is, uh, lacking. And so I am going through my folder of English-language MP3s, and realizing that they are all rather risqué. Well, the ones that have any chance of being at the karaoke place, anyway. Hahaha, oh man, I somehow doubt "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" will be there, despite it being only THE BEST SONG EVER WRITTEN EVER holy man. Perhaps I will end up singing "La Tortura" and showing off my hideous Spanish OH MAN AWSM.

( More about karaoke, bad things people do to popcorn, and hilarity ensues daily. )

... the end.

So I am looking at the list of suggested essay topics for our Japanese film class. There is one on the way gender is presented in Japanese animated films versus how it is presented in non-Japanese animated films (what a wacky large category; I guess he means American but doesn't want to sound like he means American). So that would be pretty cool. It's not analyzing Disney characters for money, but it could be analyzing Disney characters for marks, which is almost as good. ;D

But then! But then! The very last suggestion is about the way men and women are visually presented. Which is a question I'm not really sure I understand, but never mind that because the suggested movie to use for this essay is After Life.

OMG MY FAVOURITE MOVIE EVER
(if you don't include all my other favourite movies ever)

Yeah. So that's all I have to say about that.

Today I watched Jon Stewart totally pwn Larry King on his own show. I like to think it's Jon getting Larry back for that ridiculous interview he did with the Murderball guys, in which Larry appeared to find it impossible to believe that they could possibly manage to lead normal lives. Man, Larry, get a grip.

( Escaflowne and GALS! )

And so you don't think I spend all my time watching TV, which I do: today I spent an hour cleaning my room. Not a huge amount of progress, but it's more than I've done in a while, so I say good job!

Also, I rode the bus with someone from my high school who I only used to see sporadically but whom I now see all the time. And it is really awesome to talk to her! My bus ride doesn't feel like twenty minutes when I have someone with whom I can pretend I am all knowledgeable about everything! XD XD XD;;;;;

Also, I think today I produced the least mangled Spanish I have produced since the beginning of the semester, which is nice. Today marks a whole month without any skipped classes or missed shifts! I guess it is kind of pathetic that that feels like an accomplishment now. But compared to last semester ... ~_~;

Hmm. Perhaps I should make a real entry here.

I wish I didn't talk about TV and J-pop in here so much, but at least ( I can hide it all behind a cut. )

Now that that's all done with, let's see. I voted today. I was going to talk more about my classes but I don't feel like it. I got Tarzan of the Apes out of the library. I read it when I was in eighth grade but I don't remember it very well except that I liked it even for all its strangeness. I like how sci-fi-y books from that era just do whatever they please. Well, I mean, I don't know much about them and am very much an outsider, but books like that and even Around the World in Eighty Days, where when they don't know certain things they just make them up. It reminds me of how I used to write when I was in middle school, but not in a bad way. Just like, the need for research won't stop my creativity!!! Not that I pay attention to the facts in my writing now anyway. OF COURSE JESSE WOULD BREAK BOTH HIS ARMS WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT.

Oh! I forgot! My big news is that I am twelve years old. Some lady came to the door on Saturday handing out pamphlets for the Conservatives, and when I answered the door (admittedly a rare thing) she asked, "Are your parents home?" And then today at school some guy was handing out pamphlets for the Green Party, and he totally skipped me! Most obviously so! So yeah. If you ever want to come see me, I should be easy to find, seeing as I'll be the only twelve-year-old wandering around campus ...

I have been dating all my writing since November. At some point I will get around to typing it up and I will see how much I actually write. I sort of kept a record of my word counts in summer 2004, but only sort of. It was really loose. This one will be SCIENTIFIC.

Also, I am getting really antsy re: the JLPT results. I want to know if I passed, man!! ;_;

Edit: I forgot I forgot! A week before the Soup Nazi I went to see Jack Layton (mostly for the novelty -- the most exciting bit was that we had to sneak around the side of the building and peer in the windows in order to see him), and then last night people were getting phone calls with a recording of his voice being all "vote for me!," and my grandmother totally hung up on him because her dinner was getting cold!! Hahahahahahaha MOST EXCELLENT.

Today I was sitting in the cafeteria eating my expensive pizza and I heard someone call, "Have a good Christmas!" And oh man, now I really want to say that whenever I say bye to anybody. I can't do it now because it would be annoying, but in the summer? I think it would be fantastic.

Also, the top three people I wanted to go see HP4 with? The three people I discussed going to see HP4 with? All three went to go see HP4 without me. NOW I HAVE TO GO SEE IT WITH MY MOM. I always knew my lack of cool was not my fault, and now I have proof.

Actually, to be honest, at this point I am kind of indifferent as to whether I see it or not, but dude. Shafted.

AND HERE IS AN AMUSING DIALOGUE THAT mydochasたち DIDN'T UNDERSTAND SO MAYBE SOMEONE CAN EXPLAIN IT TO THEM YEAH I SAID IT!!!

Telephone: *ring ring*
Sarah: Hello?
Sarah's Co-Worker: Hi, Sarah? Are you busy on Friday?
Sarah: ... I'm scheduled to work on Friday.

OH SNAP--!

Edit: ( Special Generation )

One of my friends got her N ("novice" driver's license) after I think three or four failed attempts, so that's awesome, but to be horribly honest my favourite part about it was the conversation I had about it with someone else that went something like this:

Me: Did you hear? K-- got her N!
Her: Oh? That's ... good. [pause] I'm scared now.

XDXD;;;

Also yesterday I walked to school with betaraider, which I wrote about in great detail before the entry was eaten for unknown reasons. XD;; It was awesome anyway.

This morning one of my classmates ran into our Japanese class crying, "There's a Japanese TV station here and they want to film our class!" I don't think anyone believed her at first, she is a little crazy. But it turned out to be true and so I may on TV in Victoria's sister city, Morioka. (That link goes to the "sister city" page on Morioka's web site. I have just now visited Victoria's web site for the first time and am ashamed to find that it pretty darn ugly and the menu is pretty darn useless, but nevertheless here is the "sister city" page on Victoria's web site. Victoria has three sister cities??? That strikes me as kind of greedy! Victoria-Morioka.com??? Hahaha how cute!) Anyway, apparently they are putting together something about this Dr. Nitobe fellow, and they wanted to film something to link the two cities together, and they thought, why not a Japanese class? So there you have it I guess. They filmed a lot so perhaps I will be cut out, but anyway they did film me asking a question about whether it was ~に住む or ~で住む and asking the prof why she corrected us Wednesday when my group used the first one ("It was on our overhead," I said, drawing a rectangle with my fingers, awsm), and afterwards those of us who didn't have a class went outside and did a joke-y sort of interview in which I said the deeply intelligent「日本に行ったことがありませんが、日本語が大好き。。。です。」So actually if they cut me out I don't blame them, but it's all good. XDXDXD I am an international celebrity yah! XDXDXD!!!

In French lit. we are studying Duras' L'Eden Cinéma which to me seems to be nothing more than this:

Suzanne: This happened. Then this happened. Then this happened. Then this happened.
Mr Jo: I'M CRAZY 4 U MARRY ME!!!!1!1one!!!
Suzanne: No. Then this happened. Then this happened. Obviously I am not Marguerite Duras, because my name is Suzanne.
Audience: Tell us another one.

My poor prof, today I had a question and he seemed all happy and expectant like I was just about to say the deepest thing ever said about this darling play. Little did he know I only wanted to know the age of dear Mr Jo! Wahahaha! Thwarted!!

Also I phrased my question like this: "Quel âge a ... Mr Jo ... dans l'histoire ?" As you can see, I am big on dramatic pauses. AWESOME!

Just for Athena, here is my stupid Petit Prince fanfiction assignment, the prof's corrections included so it actually looks like I knew what I was doing.

( La Petite Princesse )

If that's not the best thing you've ever read in your whole life ever, then I must admit I'm confused.

In other news, today someone asked me if I was fluent in Japanese. Why does this keep happening to meeeeeeeee?? We have to write a composition on the Tuesday after reading break and we have to write it vertically and from right to left, which I have never ever done before. My hand is going to get all inky! This doesn't seem at all practical! XD;;;

I had an epiphany regarding Spanish grammar last night (oh shut up), but now I have forgotten it. Siiiiiigh.

Also, when I was walking home today (a longer walk than usual, 'cause I took the wonky bus), a school bus drove by and one of the girls sitting in the back blew me a kiss. I ... really don't know what to think of that.

XDXDXD;;;;;;

And then when I got to my street my mom was sitting there in the car and I was all "--???" and she said that she and my brother had driven past me walking across the bridge and so she had stopped in order to give me a ride up the hill but my brother didn't want to wait and so he got out of the car and walked home by himself. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AWESOME. I always knew I was the favourite. XDXDXDXD!!

Edit: The Disco Ascenseur!!!!! Be warned, it's a video, but such a cute one! XDXDXD!!

Aaaand I think I'm going to get off this computer now. @_@

( It is the little things like this that make me love learning languages. )

Also, today someone called me "cute." This makes twice in the past few months. I think this is very interesting. K says it's because I'm "so energetic." Hmm? ^_^;