This cough really ruins all my fun. I hate air conditioning.
Frustrating
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
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
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)
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
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.
Okay
Today could’ve been better. Just i should’ve gone to bed a bit earlier, not at two (again). Anyway i managed to wake up so that i had a bit of time to have breakfast (really fast), and then classes. In the lunch break came the first adventure: i had to initiate a bank transfer. That in itself wouldn’t have been a problem, but i also had no idea what my pin code was for the cash card, since i never used it until now. This made it interesting to solve in an hour. And yet, i even had lunch, an instant ramen i bought at the kombini. After classes i decided to do something about my fingers—the skin started to get very dry and ragged on the end, and soon it became painful as well, so i asked at the office where’s a doc for such problems, went there, waited over an hour, had the examination, and was relieved. Lucky, it’s no infection or fungi, it’s just dry. Very. I got some ointments for it, i hope it’ll be of use. After i got back i went to play futsal at the gym, and it was great (first time with the new shoes). Won about half of the games we played, scored a couple of goals, and got home totally tired. I had a shower, and am planning to make greek salad. I’d just need a bowl for that—the one i’d use is still occupied by the cottage cheese remaining from yesterday. Have to figure this out.
Techno
This was unexpected. Yesterday after school i went around to check out a few thing, and met Theo, Ruso and Kang-san on the way back. They looked so cheerful i had to ask where they were going, and was informed that in Kichijoji they’re doing a girl party.
Then Thiwanka asked if i wanted to “go clubbing” in Shibuya with them (the above mentioned girls, though Theo didn’t show up), and after a short consideration (i’m not exactly the disco king) i still decided to go, since even that’s better than staying home bored. And i don’t regret!
Diary
Today i tried to wake up at eight, but after a well aimed hit at the alarm clock i fell back and because of that was a bit late from the church. The Hachioji pastor came to preach. It was good. After that i came home and started wondering what should i make for lunch. I ended up with the idea of some fruity stuff, of fruits of land and sea. The final one ended up like this…
I bought an apple and a mango (i still have to figure out what to do with the remaining halves), already had orange, lemon and kiwi, so i put some of these to cook with the rice, and cooked some with the seafood. It was peppered octopus, shrimp with paprika and tuna with oregano. In the end i added some yoghurt and a few olives. When i was about halfway through i realised something missing so i added two teaspoonful of corn as well (so it’s not on the photo). It was really good, very-very (almost too) filling.
Now come something, guitar, and/or studying, if i figure out what i should be studying.
It’s also funny that really since i’m here i write a lot about food. Something like Cory’s blog.
What’s with karaoke?
Karaoke is always a challenge for me. First, it’s not that easy to sing for a long time without losing my voice. Though that’s usually helped by any drinks, there’s another difficulty: finding the songs to sing. Not as if there aren’t enough choices, usually i couldn’t even guess the actual size of the machine’s music library, but to find something that not i alone would enjoy singing is not easy, due to the usually very varied musical tastes of the others. I could go on singing heavy metal, hard rock and punk all the time, but i don’t think many would enjoy it at all. It’s not easy at all to find the “good songs”, but if i can, usually they’re great success (see Nellie the elephant by The Toy Dolls (who “packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus”) or Hot dog by Limp Bizkit (just “if i say fuck two more times, that’s forty-six fucks in this fucked up rhyme”). Too bad machines usually don’t have Skindred (for We want would be great to sing) or the huge european pop hits of the ’90’s, such as Eiffel 65’s Blue or they only have just a few songs, which usually don’t include those i consider really good (for example Skinnydippin’ by Vengaboys). But for next time i really will write a list at home before of great songs and last with them from dusk ’till dawn!
