¡Sarah!

"I don't know if anyone is still around, but here is an update" seems to be a common theme in my friends list these days, so - I don't know if anyone is still around, but here is an update.

The last time I posted (in December 2015!), I was working at an eikaiwa in Tokyo. In April 2016, I moved to a different department within the eikaiwa and taught for a year at a university in Tokyo. I returned to Canada in April 2017 and since September 2017 I have been working on my Master's degree in Teaching English as a Second Language. The readings and the discussions have been very interesting, but most of it has felt pretty distant from actual classroom situations, and I am pretty eager to get back there! I somehow managed to finish my coursework in three semesters, and now I am taking a semester to write my final project. Sad to say I have just as much internal motivation to write this essay as I usually do, which is to say that I have none. :) But I will do my best!

Earlier this year I started lifting weights (!!), last month I started trying to get back into sewing, and as always a large portion of my free time is spent studying Japanese, but honestly the main thing that's been occupying my thoughts these past few weeks is old movies! The combination of TCM, YouTube, the public library, and my university library's web site has provided me with an endless free supply. As usual I have been watching a lot of movies from the '30s, '40s, and '50s, but after I discovered Buster Keaton in 2016 I started watching a LOT more silent movies than I ever did previously and I am loving it! The most recently silent movie I watched was 1921's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse which was really interesting and also made me cry. So clearly I am getting pretty into these things!

For various reasons I have greatly reduced my online presence over the past couple years, but I continue to update my Trojan War blog infrequently. The current top post is ALL MY THOUGHTS on this spring's Troy: Fall of a City miniseries, which was flawed but I LOVED it. I think that kind of super long post is not really sustainable now that I am turning into someone who doesn't want to spend all her free time on the computer, so I'm trying to figure out how I might change the way I've been writing my posts there, but rest assured I still enjoy exploring the world of Trojan War adaptations!

Also, today is Morning Musume's 21st anniversary, and I still love them too. <3

I hope all my LJ friends are doing well! Feel free to let me know if you read this. :)

So I somehow managed to force myself out of bed this morning in time for my first Korean lesson! My only other classmate is travelling to South Korea later this year, so mostly what we did today was memorize travel expressions, and I was a bit like :| But at the end of the class I asked the teacher (who is CRAZY ENTHUSIASTIC, hahaha love it) if we're going to learn the writing system, and she asked if I want to learn Korean a bit more academically, and I was like YES PLEASE. So next lesson we'll be mixing it up a bit more. I AM EXCITED TO STUDY GRAMMAR.

And then I went to the university bookstore and bought this, despite the fact that I am annoyed someone got around to writing such a book before I did. The movies in it are actually not my favourites, but Tarzan is in it!! And seriously, I am just crazy surprised that a book based on learning Spanish through dubbed American children's movies (uh, and Rocky III?) actually exists, and got published, and everything. Today the world is awesome. xD

FUN FACT: One of my dreams is to one day write a super awesome but also super useful language textbook. I might or might not sometimes work on such a thing in my spare time, DON'T JUDGE ME.

Edit: (What the heck at the review on that Amazon page - the reviewer laments the fact that this book doesn't include a phonetic guide for the Spanish vocab words. Uh ... you're doing it wrong. I also enjoy how she suggests that if you can't make your own sentence using the words in the scene you just watched, the solution is to WATCH IT AGAIN. Because ... that'll help ... ???)

Today I just want to say that I am happy to have so many friends who aren't afraid to examine their own thoughts and opinions, and aren't afraid to have those opinions questioned. :)

Also, thank you so much to everyone who commented on my not-drinking post! I was not expecting to get so many awesomesauce comments. I'll try to reply to you all when I am feeling slightly more intelligent. xD

I'm late, but today was Elvis Presley's 75th birthday! My mom is a fan of Elvis and, as a result, he's the topic of several anecdotes from my childhood. Way back when, January 8th was actually the date I was due to be born, leading my parents to refer to me as "Elvis." Or, if I am to be completely honest, "Elvis Arnold." Whenever I heard this story as a kid, I always assumed Arnold was Elvis' middle name. It wasn't until we got a channel that showed reruns of Green Acres that I learned that the "Arnold" in my nickname actually came from a fictional pig. :| I ... don't even know, lol.

Anyway, so yes, that's my connection with Elvis - until I was born, I was named after him. xD Oh, and if you had asked four-year-old me what my favourite song was, I do believe I would have said "All Shook Up." xD That plus "Beat It" plus some Sharon, Lois and Bram ... yeah, that's pretty much all the music I listened to as a preschooler, lol. xD

( ~*~SURVEY~*~ )

Yay, I got interviewed again!! :D This time the questions are from frauleinfrog. ( News travels fast in Vienna. )

In other news, tomorrow I am going to This Is It for the second time in three days, and a Twilight t-shirt party for the second time in eight days. ahahaha, my life this week is so ridiculous but I love it. FANDOM ALL OVER THE PLACE!! xD Hopefully I can fit some studying in here somewhere. D:

One little compliment can make you feel amazing. So give me a compliment, anything in the entire world, even that my shoelaces are pretty. Put this in your journal. And once you get some comments, put that entry in a memory or tag and when you are feeling down, just go to that entry and this will remind you of how great you are.

lol, watch this get no comments. I will be all "What do you mean, no one wants to stroke my ego??" xD xD xD

Today is CI's made-up holiday! Happy Special Hug Day, everyone! xD; I got a letter from one of my sponsored kids today, yay. <3

Anyway, I am really just posting to say that I cannot stop listening to the preview of Morning Musume's new single, "Kimagure Princess." I have no idea why they thought it would be a good idea to chipmunkify the girls' voices, but other than that I love it! Although that's nothing new, there's only ever been like three MoMusu singles I don't like. xD

I was thinking the other day about how there was a long while where I was really embarrassed to be a MoMusu fan, to the point where I actually stopped listening to them for a year or so. Actually, I guess that happened around the time the MoMusu forum I'd been visiting closed, and so I felt like I was the only one continuing to like this group that everyone else thought was awful. Eventually I just decided WHATEVER, I love MoMusu and I don't care what anyone else thinks!! I feel like this is an attitude I need to take up in other areas of my life. Like, I continue to be embarrassed when people ask me what my hobbies are (answering with "Writing" or "Studying languages" always ends with my conversation partner asking, "... And??") or what kind of music I listen to (lol, my vague answers to this question have my managers on a constant quest to find out - although they definitely know I like Miley*), and I have been putting off telling my parents what I want to go back to school for for fear of being teased. :/ So ... yeah. I gotta stop being so embarrassed of my interests, I guess.

Okay, time to study!

* The lobby's Top 40 station has "Party in the USA" in its rotation, and there are two of us who have to constantly defend this song from everyone else who is hating on it. During one such discussion, one of my co-workers accused me of having a girlcrush on Miley. Well I guess I can't deny it, lololololol~ xD

Five questions for me from sourfacekitty! :D

( interview! )

Wanna be interviewed? Let me know! ;)

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My parents don't remember!! :(

First Aid tonight went really well again, despite the class ending right when I was feeling like an idiot for messing up my simulation a little bit. ^^; But I got to faint three times! Once with impeccable comedic timing! "Well," said my partner, "at least you're still conscious." Oh ho ho, that's what you think!! xD Man I always put off taking these sorts of classes (mostly due to being too lazy to walk down and register for them - a problem which is hopefully fixed now by my having an online code for the thing) but I generally end up enjoying them. LIKE MY SEWING CLASS omg that was the highlight of second year. *_*

Meanwhile, number one on my list of ways I annoy myself is that when I'm busy, I desperately want to have nothing to do, and when I have nothing to do, I desperately want to be busy. I feel like I shall be very happy when someone hires me because then hopefully I'll have some sort of schedule around which I can fit some volunteering and some more classes. I mean I do have stuff I could be doing right now but of course I'm the textbook example of "if you want something done, get a busy person to do it," which means that these days whenever I am reminded that I should be working on my writing my response is generally "Why do that when I can just SIT AROUND SOME MORE???"

Oh my gosh let's hope this job search ends soon, then maybe I can write some entries I won't hate. >_<;