Opeth

November 21, 2009
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Tuesday, the seventeenth of november in year 2009, from evening seven o’clock Opeth played a fantastic concert in Shibuya O-East, Tokyo. They played for two great hours. I can’t list all the songs in the setlist, but they mostly played songs i knew, with a few from the older records i’m not so familiar with.

Not only the music was great, as expected from (in my opinion) one of the best active progressive bands, but between songs Åkerfeldt’s hilarious comments made everyone laugh too. (It turned out Opeth renamed themselves Swedish manboobs, i’ll have to re-tag my mp3 library.)

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Notes

November 20, 2009
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In my phone, once again, short (sometimes too short) notes of what to blog about once i have the time to write a decent post are piling up. And after a while not only the “too short” ones, but all the other lose their value as well. For example, i had about a dozen, all of one or two words, keywords only of course—but out of their context they either don’t make any sense or just not interesting at all anymore. I found only one that’s worth noting, saying “Ichimaru – Billiken”. At least i can recall why i wrote that note…

Anyone knows the anime Bleach? There is a certain character with a probably funny Kansai accent, called Gin Ichimaru. Google a picture of him, he has a really characteristic face. Which happens to highly resemble Billiken, the mascot of (among others) Osaka. It looks totally the same to me…

The Big Bang Theory

November 19, 2009
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This article is about the sitcom. For the cosmological model, see Superstring theory.

Wikipedia

Beside How i met your mother, The Big Bang Theory is another series i’ve first (and until coming to japan, only) heard about from fellow hungarian bloggers and/or plurkies. Until about a month ago, i wasn’t watching series that much (kind of at all). But now that i don’t have time for going to club activities in daytime due to massive school duties, i guess this is the way i found subconsciously to relieve stress. And it works. I watched the second and half of the third season of How i met your mother in a month (as a comparison, the first one took about two years). And now i picked up TBBT as well. Worth it. I decided that in mealtimes, when i can’t do anything but stare out of my head and eat, i’m watching TBBT while in the evening chills after ten, HIMYM. TBBT is extreme, i’m already getting used to getting all those extreme nerdy jokes (at first a bit difficult to catch the science phrases), and i sometimes almost suffocate eating my rice because of laughter. The adventures of Leonard and Sheldon are just starting for me, but it won’t take long… (Oh, and i heard that in january the new Skins season is starting as well. Can’t wait!)

Előadás és koncert

November 19, 2009
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Előadó szerepkörben, természetesen. Egy-két hete dobta be a tanár, hogy jó lenne, ha tartana mindenki előadást az országa emberi jogi helyzetéről. A lehető legjobb időpontba rakta, ugyanis nem órán, ugyan miért, hanem a mi vizsga előtti szabadidőnket csökkentse tovább. (Amúgy is van egy ilyen szokása, a múltkor jött egy mongol lány a Kyushu egyetemről beszélni, aztán drága tanárunk ezen ürügyből szolid harmincöt perccel tovább tartotta az órát, mert megteheti…) Az előadások három után nem sokkal kezdődtek, nekünk meg a koncert előtt fél ötkor már a helyszínen kellett lennünk. Végül aztán négy tízkor bevágtam a következő előadó elé és rekordsebességben lezavartam az előadást. Nem sokszor bonyolódtam bele, nem rontottam el (túl) sok kanji olvasatát, úgyhogy túléltem (és csak remélem hogy a tanár nem rágott be, amiért az engedélyével leléptem a koncertre). Fél öttől “főpróba”, aztán öttől kezdtünk. Közönség elég kevés volt, pont amiatt, hogy mindenkinek tanítás volt még. Ugyan hibák voltak, de összességében szerintem jól sikerült. Utána elmentem venni tejet, narancslevet meg (mint kiderült feleslegesen, mivel még volt) kenyeret (azért megszenvedtem vele mire találtam nyolcszeleteset, egy kombiniben volt csak, ott is a szokásos ár nagyjából háromszorosáért). Ahogy visszaértem (fél hét körül), gondoltam benézek, hátha még tartanak az előadások – még olyan felháborodott fejet, amit a tanár rámvillantott, hogy miért csak akkor érek vissza… (Bennem meg az “ez hülye?” teljesen logikus kérdése.) Pont a vége volt amúgy. Estig meg már csak annyit tudtam csinálni, hogy bepakoltam Ankiba a kanjikat, és megnéztem egy rakás How i met your mother részt… (Ja, az előadás vázlata elérhető, pdf.)

Piss off

November 16, 2009
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Absolutely unrelated to anything, today a nice guy pissed me off totally. It was a nice day. I watched How i met your mother (season two, episode twenty), slept well, woke up, reviewed today’s kanji, did well on the test (one stupid mistake only), had a good lunch, and exceptionally managed to finish the math problems well before time. Then i decided i need hand cream (fingers very dry), so bought that and a pack of throat candy just in case, in the pharmacy-ish shop, where i went by bike. On the way back, i saw a military helicopter (looked like these), which i couldn’t really understand. Then it disappeared out of sight… And then.

There was a delivery service car on the pavement, two guys just getting out of it. They stepped aside as i neared, i nodded thanks, and then, i just heard one of them saying “邪魔だよ” (roughly “you’re in the way”, not really nice). By the time i realised i what he was saying, i was already past them, and my japanese swearing skills are still not high enough to answer with an appropriate curse quick enough, so i just swore at them in hungarian, quite elaborately, emphasizing mostly on their parents’ ancient occupations. Seriously. Obviously he was thinking i don’t understand what he’s saying, as i’m pretty apparently a foreigner. Asshole.

(And please don’t start telling me all the meanings of the phrase from the “三千年前の中国” (China three thousand years ago), explaining how it’s not that offensive, the way he was saying it in itself would’ve worth a healthy smash in the face.)

But for now, change of subject, working on the pol-eco paper/presentation till drop dead.

Culture shock

November 15, 2009
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It sucks. It’s not normal right, having something like a culture shock after half a year, but well, i can’t really find any better word for this. It’s very annoying. The working methods. At home you had to think, to understand what you were working on, and those who don’t care about social contacts just their precious work are considered low. Nerds. Geeks. Freaks. But here, people who i’ve never seen out of school, although we live in the same dorm for half a year, who’re always either in the classroom studying, or their room studying, those who memorize everything word by word and probably have trouble using it even if just the context is different, but of course for the exam they know all the words, all the stroke orders, all the grammar structures and math formulae by heart, here those people are the first. And what sucks the most, that here this thing works. I think, this is what one can consider a culture shock.

Amúgy

November 13, 2009
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Túléltem a tegnapi napot is, meg az azt megelőzőeket is. Most éppen arra várok, hogy hűljön még öt percet a teám, aztán tervezek menni tanulni megint – már megint csak másfél hét van a vizsgákig, és ez így nem jó. Kanjikat meg szavakat is tanulni kell, sokat, nyelvtant még többet (középfok, fene megeszi), és akkor még nem szóltam arról, hogy közgáz (bár legalább tételsor-féleséget is kapunk, ez is valami), meg matek (ez nagyon gáz, iszonyat sokat kell gyakorolnom az elkövetkező két hétben – másik lehetőség, hogy összeállítok magamnak egy tökéletes puskát, az összes apróbetűs képlettel, amiket természetesen visszakézből). A töri ugye megvolt, tanárúr remélem kéjesen mosolyogva csiszolja fényesre viszonyát az ötcombú partnerével a válaszainkat látva – drága ember ugyanis nem elégedett meg azzal, hogy a tananyagot számonkérje, még az ő privát véleményét is tudni kellett (persze jön az a rész, hogy reménykedek, hogy egyezik a véleményünk – ugye tipikus töritanár, azaz mihelyt megszólal, alszik a fél csoport). Plusz még vizsga előtt fél órában órát tartott nekünk, és azt is számonkérte – amikor gondolom tudja jól, hogy mindenki a vizsgaanyagot olvassa. Az ilyen után széles vigyorral átadni neki a tesztet és egy ritkaszép szitokszót (persze magyarul) elmormolni kötelező. Reménykedek. Úgy érzem, hagytam elég időt hűlni a teának.

Kaiji (gambling apocalypse)

November 13, 2009
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Last friday (among others) was the day also for a movie, a new japanese movie titled カイジ·人生逆転ゲーム, Kaiji in short (the above “Gambling apocalypse Kaiji” is the “official english title in japan”, no comment). That’s the name of the main character as well, by the way. Also, that main character is played by 藤原竜也 (Fujiwara Tatsuya), the guy who played Shuya in the Battle Royale movie and Light from Death note. No surprise he seemed so familiar… This time he’s playing a supposedly everyday guy, who has a serious problem with gambling. In addition to hoping to win huge piles of money on lottery tickets, he has problems with controlling himself after losing, hitting and kicking cars and stuff. Then once everything turns out bad, and he has to gamble for his life. That’s about the first two minutes of the movie, but the remaining parts are not much different. As usual with any japanese entertainment product, be it anime, manga, book or whatever, the central point in the plot is how Kaiji grows up and matures. For some reason though, he doesn’t really get the message of the first one and half hour of the movie: don’t gamble. Of course there’s also a multi-chillionaire, who apparently has a fetish (japanese tradition) for life-and-death games, and beside him half-mad CO’s and sadist servants. The whole thing is very japanese, but if someone doesn’t have a problem with that, it’s really entertaining.

日本事情・17,18課のまとめ

November 11, 2009
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江戸時代は、幕府という武士の支配であった。しかし、時がたったにつれて、いろいろな経済や社会的な問題が起こった。その上、欧米の国は日本に「開国」を要求した。1853年米国のペリーが軍艦で江戸へ来た結果、日本は開港した。外国と不評条約をし、物価が上がり、それとともに社会問題も大きくなった。1867年徳川氏の幕府が終わり、明治維新になった。明治時代は近代日本のはじめになり、大きな改革が行われた。地租改正をし、殖産興業を大切にした。義務教育や徴兵制度のはじめである。国家の近代化のため、外国との関係を中心にした。文明開化の時代であった。(258字)

明治維新後の日本ではまず藩閥政治になり、それは大日本帝国憲法を作った。社会的差別のことは変わらなかったので、短く政党政治になったが、大恐慌の結果で軍国主義になった。19世紀の末から20世紀にかけて、日本はアジアや太平洋地域で軍進出し、第一世界大戦でもっと占領し、列強になった。しかし、第二世界大戦で連合国軍に敗れ、ミッドウェー海戦で日本の敗戦が決まった。(173字)

The lunch

November 8, 2009
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Today after church i went to buy spices and veggies, and ended up cooking something really interesting. There was a banana in my fridge “maturing” for about a month now (totally brown on the outside, but not rotten), and since i don’t really like that state of the fruit i decided to fry it—years ago once i had fried banana in a chinese restaurant back home. On olive oil, with chicken, the banana soon disappeared, turning into sauce. Also played: the juice of a whole lime, loads of ginger, basil, some turmeric and paprika (red and ground), a bit of my beloved pirosarany from home, cabbage, paprika (yellow and fresh) and olives. It ended up really pleasant. What pleasant, great. (And i’m being modest here.) The coffee before lunch finally managed to wake me up somewhat, though i’m still not that fresh and lively. I realised what they were talking about with “coats your tongue”—it really left a nice feeling. I like to drink my orange-grapefruit juice mix after coffee anyways, but this way it’s simply magnificent.