Tag: english

That little engine

July 4, 2009
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First, that “Little engine that could” or something like that. I don’t know that story, but the words “can” and “could” always remind me of it. The reason is that when i was heavily into learning loads of new kanji in april (a habit i since gave up), in the Heisig (pdf) book that Robert gave me was one: “可” that according to there had the meaning “can” (as in “be able to”) (though that book gives no readings so i had to browse the unicode charactertable to write it now), and the example story to remember it has something about a “little engine that could”. I could remember it only because it didn’t make any sense to me. So instead of that “little engine” it was “the kanji with that strange steamtrain story” for me.

Yesterday luckily by lunchtime my stove was working all right so i could make my meal without trouble. I also realised i have nice corn-pea-carrot mix in the freezer, so i put that in the rice as well. Makes it a lot more filling. In the afternoon we had a tanabata party, we talked a lot and did origami. I really like the story for that day. Or rather the whole day like in itself, the feeling. The wishes (i think mine was the shortest)…

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Or what?

July 1, 2009
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Morning, was lazy to do anything. Just the coffee and the breakfast (the first load of coffee is gone, i used now the second half, and it tastes a lot better), and rush off to school. I had lunch at the cafeteria (i hate this word, i have a totally different meaning associated with it), some kind of strange noodles, but it was really good and refreshing. Though didn’t really wake me up. We practised one minute speech with the others from class for the exam, and i really enjoyed it. For some reason our improvised random topics seemed to be more interesting and easier to talk about than most of the previous ones.

I was dead tired on the third lesson, almost really fell asleep (really close). I very much hope the teachers are not offended by this habit (too much), since i usually pay attention. I had guitar lesson as well, then i was so hungry i decided to make something real to eat. Potatoes, with cheese, one egg and yoghurt. For spice salt, oregano and pepper. It ended up good, unexpectedly, because it really seemed totally burnt. Then i wrote about a city i really like (in japanese) (Paris). Troublesome. But at least nothing else important to study for tomorrow.

Halfway

July 1, 2009
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I’m almost on schedule now. Yesterday i reviewed most of the grammar, but tomorrow afternoon i’ll be busy with the composition about a town or city i like. Guess what, it’s naturally Paris. I love that city… So many memories. But i’m trying not to think any about it until then because i have to prepare for the exam, where i’ll only have 90 minutes to write about something totally unknown. (It’s not even something we learnt about, so i have no idea how i’ll cope with the vocabulary.)

My rice today for lunch turned out strange. I don’t know if it was the rice or the instant don, but it always felt like having a huge pile of dust in my mouth. Strange. Now in the afternoon after the table tennis practice i retired to my room to have shower (i would’ve went with the others to have dinner, but in this weather i’m constantly sweating large scale, and that exponentially worsens if i’m doing sports, not to mention for hours…), did most of the homework (though my kaiwa book is still missing), and something that was intended to be like what Cory wrote about some time ago. A thick pancake, with salad, tomato and egg. In my case it was salad, tomatoes, eggs and yoghurt. (Though next time i’ll drop the plurals.) And i realised i can’t make a pancake. I can’t turn it. I’d really appreciate if someone explained how that should be done. It ended up a bit too much, and the pancake was not only torn up but sweet as well, because i decided some vanilla would fit well—next time i’ll stick to salt i think.

Now i really feel happy, at least what i call happy, though i still have to wash the dishes. And that’s a pain. Tomorrow will be fun. (Guitar.)

Bamboo

June 29, 2009
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Today in the morning i went to church. On the way back i found a nice bunch of bamboo chopped down in front of the tree. For the sake of the tanabata, i was thinking about taking one, so i asked the lady nearby and she told me to take as many as i want. I only took one, it was troublesome enough to carry home by bike. A five meter long bamboo with leaves. On the bottom of a steep part i almost got impaled by it, but made it back. I stuck it to the ground near a metal something sticking out of the ground to support it, but naturally the rain and wind blew it over. I went out once to help it back, but no more. Bad luck.

Also, my good old yellow rotring pencil broke. I don’t know how i managed, but the outcome is grave. Furthermore, it’s late, tomorrow i’ll be dead all day, i’m off schedule with studying, i probably still have a presentation to write (hope not), the computer’s stupidities while typing are pissing me off, and i’m sleepy. Please note that the emotionally appropriate amount of swear words would’ve triggered a presumably too negative reaction from the readers, so i stripped them (the words, not the readers).

Happy to present you the pissed-off-ness of tonight.

Untitled

June 24, 2009
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This cough really ruins all my fun. I hate air conditioning.

Frustrating

June 22, 2009
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When it proves to have been totally pointless to learn how to think for maths at home, because that’ll just screw me up here. Seems japs think about as much as a screwdriver and only solve the problems like a good robot would do. (Nice one R2D2, you’re getting an A.)

When i try to tell a few kids usually playing in the dorm not to break all the table tennis balls if possible, since we’d like to play sometimes as well, and screw up (again) miserably. Somehow they doesn’t seem to understand the japanese we learn in class at all, so it seems. See, the pros and cons of not being allowed to use any conversational forms in class, just those kind polite stuff i haven’t really heard in conversation at all… in three months…

When the internet only works when it feels like, because some great specialist must’ve set up the router so that downloads go fast like hell (meaning megabytes per second), but loading a plaintext webpage takes like five minutes and a dozen of timeouts. (Not to mention Firefox usually starts to clean its cache (half a minute freeze) when i want to type or submit something.)

And to top it all, it’s rainy season, hot and humid, so much that i’m sweating inward, because the air is already totally saturated.

… or maybe i’m just a bit grumpy from not sleeping enough this weekend.

Za kuukii rorru

June 21, 2009
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Yesterday i made another “little sweetie”, a cookie roll (literally translated). It looked like this, but was gone pretty quickly after its appearance on stage…

The brown part is ground cookies, coffee, rum, walnuts and sugar, the white part is butter, sugar and rum. It ended up nice, though as usual with foods i make, it didn’t look nowhere as beautiful as how it is at home. At least it tasted the same.

We had a little “party” in the usual place last night, drinking tea and grog and eating for example this cookie roll. Nice “quiet” evening…

Paper coding

June 18, 2009
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It’s really worth it. Today that noon coffee gave me a lot of speed, so i really enjoyed the last class—instead sleeping through it as usual. But still it was slow for my level of consciousness then, so i was planning the blog coding again. I realised a few basic mistakes in the planning of the recent engine, so i think i’ll have to rewrite a nice bunch of it, but no problem, since the most troublesome parts (replacing special characters, turning numbers and dates into words in a normal way) need not be changed. At such times i’m really happy i paid at least some attention at the home university classes about program planning…

But that’s not to come today. I still have to study (still still still) and Huyen-san just treated me to an ice-cream, and i’m joining them down in the library instead of pretending to learn in my room (actually checking plurk and facebook and last.fm and my mail about every second for something, thus ending up not studying a bit).

Cooking (again and again)

June 18, 2009
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I realised that i like to cook. This way i’m able to create something without getting annoyed by the small troublesome results. Of course, the same goes for writing, but writing needs a subject, while cooking only needs the ingredients, that could be bought anywhere, and not a whole load of inspiration like writing.

Today i made something i wouldn’t usually think of, the so called “drunken chicken”. The reason is pretty simple: when i went to buy some orange juice, somehow a can of beer caught my attention and i decided to buy it—exceptionally for cooking purposes. And what else, than the drunken chicken then, chicken cooked in beer (and a few other ingredients). I cooked much, because when i mentioned it, many people said that they wanted to try it… I still have a bit left, probably i’ll eat it tomorrow. (Or could give it to somebody interested, just mail me about it…) As usual for what i cook, it was not exactly beautiful, here’s how it looked in the pot…

華果西遊記

June 14, 2009
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Today we went to a kabuki play near to the National Theater, and it was great. The title is as it’s in the title of this post, read Kaka-Saiyuuki. A show outline of the story goes something like Genjou (Sanzouhoushi) is travelling to India, when he and his companions pass a place where only women live… (Side note: kabuki is performed by male actors only.) The queen and his sister treat them well, but they turn out to be spider spirits, and capture the travellers. But Songoku, the monkey god saves them, showing off his great powers. (I think the Dragon Ball Songoku is based off him, so is the Monkey King in the Forbidden Kingdom.) Even though i hardly understood a word of what they said, i got the main idea of what was going on, and it was very entertaining. (Made easier by an english summary of the plot on an info sheet.) Really great experience.