Tag: english

When

May 15, 2009
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When i wake up twenty minutes before the alarm clock goes off, put the coffee on the stove and go back to bed “just for a little more”. When i somehow learn thirty-stroke kanjis just like that (憂鬱 (yūutsu, melancholy) and 薔薇 (bara, rose); with these i could even start and manage a hardcore teenage emo girl band, called 薔薇の憂鬱, Melancholy of Roses). When i tag along the tabletennis club and end up as a guest for a great dinner chatting for hours. When i manage to make a lunch without cutting or burning myself, and it turns out to be one of the best smelling food i’ve ever seen… or smelled. When i can once again start writing stuff for class as well as this blog (actually very happy about that, because if i don’t have to, it’s very hard to get myself to write something quality, since usually when i’d be free to sit or lay down to do something like that i’m usually so tired i’d fall asleep immediately). When i get a korean cookie, then talk about georgian names and sounds, how romanian folkswear is related to others, how the cambodian scarfs are worn, how chinese people celebrate the new year in Malaysia—and all this from people of those countries, live. When there’s always someone to hang out with, no chance to be alone if unwanted. When parties are always great. When i act totally western with friends in the crowded train, and think it’s very funny. When the author of the post this one is sent as a trackback to reassures me i’ll surely find a cosplay and tentacle hentai (though because of similarities in the hungarian version without accents, i thought this was “draught hentai”) festival in Tokyo (joke). When i’m just happy, and it will only get better.

That’s when i feel i’ve become something new.

The evil blade

May 14, 2009
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For some reason it seems i couldn’t get to bed before midnight anyway. At least i could wake up this morning (i almost wrote 今朝), get to class in time and even enjoy the classes more than usual. The lunchtime was funny. Decided to eat 牛丼 (japanese-style beef), but to make it richer, i chopped up tomatoes and half a lemon—and my left thumb. Twice. (The food was good, by the way.) Lucky it stopped bleeding quite fast, unlike the leg of Väinämöinen, when the evil steel of the axe decided to bite him (around the seventh canto). This blade won’t cut me any more i hope. In five minutes i’m leaving for the party that even the ambassador of Hungary will attend. It’s not that oft that i could hear hungarian voice around here…

In my fridge

May 12, 2009
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In my fridge are the following things:

  • 6 eggs
  • one and a half cucumber
  • 6 tomatoes
  • 2 lemons
  • one can of corn
  • 6 garlic
  • an open half litre bottle of soy sauce
  • an open about half a litre bottle of olive oil
  • a bottle of white wine
  • 2.5 box (1 litre) of orange juice
  • 3.5 box (1 litre) of milk
  • one opened butter
  • 1.5 pack of ham
  • a small piece of Gouda cheese and another 1.5 kilo pack unopened
  • a bag of まろやか (that strange fish thing in the last post)
  • a small bag of a sauce for cooking shrimp
  • a pack of some veggie mix to cook with the rice, and two packs of an other which i think has meat as well
  • a pack of topping for pasta, probably with shrimps
  • a pack of beef topping for rice (牛丼)
  • a pack of soba pasta
  • a pack of curry
  • a slice of fish to cook
  • half a pack of shrimps
  • a pack of octopus cut into little cubes

That’s all. Not that much…

Gigs

May 4, 2009
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In the coming times i only plan to go to three concerts: a Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra one this weekend (i badly need to buy the tickets, before it sells out), a The Earth Explorer on the sixteenth, and the metal fest which will have Maximum the Hormone, at the end of the month. Out of these, on the TEE one i surely won’t need earplugs, but i think on the other two i will, so i’m planning to buy them soon. (That other two will be at the ZEPP as well, so if the audio technician is the same, i can expect some terrible over-amplification.) Too bad i haven’t yet found a way to buy the tickets easily… I really would need to know japanese a lot better for that. Also, so far as i know there’s no programme magazine of Tokyo (something similar to the hungarian EST’s), which would have all the gigs, exhibitions and movies listed. I know it’d be pretty huge for a city of Hungary’s population, but i couldn’t yet find it online either. I want to go to a punk gig too sometime, just to see if the rebels of music are just as passive on a gig as the Sex Machineguns fans. Hope not.

Verbs and nouns

May 3, 2009
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It’s interesting which words are nouns and verbs in different languages. In japanese there are a lot of verbs which are in fact nouns with the auxiliary verb to do, to make. Example (in this post i won’t write japanese characters): in english, you say you study – in japanese you say you do study. Sounds awkward, nay? And there are a lot more of these, loads of suru-verbs, and i think this is due to a difference in the way the cultures look at the activities. Verbs are words expressing action, while nouns are a lot more static, even if created from verbs, and so are the verbs created from nouns. I think the difference is that we “western” rather emphasise the action, the way the action is performed by and related to the actor (now meaning doer), instead the “eastern” (at least japanese) way to rather look at the act independently of the actor, as a platonic idea of the act that exists even if there was nobody left to actually act the act (a bit too many act’s). Maybe.

Clementine

May 2, 2009
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In the first class of friday the subject was the “te-form”. Whoever learned japanese probably knows that in the beginnings (and so far i’ve got, ever), this is the most difficult thing, because the last sounds of many verbs change a lot. Lucky enough i’ve learnt this by myself before, so not that much trouble. But Suzuki-sensei sang an interesting rhyme to remember the changes, something like the english abc-songs and stuff, to the tune of “Oh my darling Clementine”. I don’t know if i wanted to write more about that, but i put a note in my phone saying “Clementine”, to write about it. And since this as of yet doesn’t really worth posting, here comes a deviation, titled Sweet Clementine, by ~MissTrashyPants. Hope you like it.

ちょっと～

May 1, 2009
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I’m dead tired and. I’ve been to school all day, and that still means less than what i had at home, but still it’s exhausting. In this one day we’ve learnt more new grammar than in all the past week and the multicultural communication class was very interesting as well (that’s not something usual). Yesterday was long as well and so was the day before that and so on, but i’m not getting to sleep before midnight tonight either (it’s already pretty close). Why am i tired? After school i fixed the front tyre of my bike. Works all fine, tested it: went with a few friends to a second hand shop in Mitaka. I’ve seen interesting stuff (the most tempting was an electric guitar which would’ve costed under 10000 yen with the amp and sunglasses Sors was asking about just a few days ago), but lucky i had almost no money with me so bought nothing. Then because Rado bought himself there a new table-tennis racket, we started playing, and i finished at ten. A bit exhausting. Especially since tomorrow i’ll have a full day again: in the morning have to wake up early to go get myself some food for the Golden Week, early because i’ll go with the newly (to be) formed debate club somewhere in a park to have fun, then from two i’m having a three-hour-long table-tennis practice with that club, then have dinner with the Hungarian senpai’s (“‘s” indicating plural). And i wouldn’t be surprised if around 11pm someone rang me to go out karaoke… Now i’m left with two emails to respond to and to figure out why my phone wouldn’t let me set the music i sent via infrared from the laptop as ringtone or morning alert. Any ideas?

On the streets

April 29, 2009
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Just now in the evening i had a walk to check the stores near the station for shower gel (couldn’t find it) (walk because my bike’s front tyre died in the morning), and on the way i decided to write this post, a post about and of the streets. First, there are vending machines everywhere. Most of the time it’s just drinks, tea or coffee, rarely cigarettes. At first i was surprised to see these even in the smallest alleys in the residential areas—then figured that they must be very popular among the natives, so they buy stuff from there even when they’re not in a hurry on the streets, but also when they just feel like at home. I don’t know coffee prices around here, but the ones i got from vending machines were cheap in my opinion (surely cheaper than Starbucks), and had some power as well. Sometimes these machines are the only light on the streets: the public lighting is nowhere as bright as at home. Sometimes there’s none at all, and here i’m talking about Tokyo. I wonder in smaller towns how is it. There i guess one could see the stars. Here only the brightest ones are visible, and the moon. Maybe when the sky is totally clear and looking from a darker spot in an alley, maybe then i could see a few constellations as well. It’s fun i could walk around just staring at the sky without bumping into anything: there are yellow lines on the ground, that one could follow by stepping on them, because they’re embossed (?). I guess it’s designed for blind people, but it’s also useful if you’re a sleepwalker.

Food and traffic

April 27, 2009
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Today in Sengawa we had to wait for the chicks at the phone store to get everything ready, so in that time we went around town and checked a few stores. There was a Seiyu nearby and i wouldn’t have been me if i hadn’t gone in for a few stuff—naturally only forgetting the most urgent ones. I got food for lunch for the coming week, five packs of instant stuff for rice, a fish to make it like the sunday one on the wednesday holiday (birthday of the past Showa emperor, or something like that), with which the Golden Week will start (more about that during). That leaves one day to eat some soup (i think this time soba) for lunch.

On the way home by bike from the nearby station where we left them, at a crossing a bus stopped to let us cross. Now that’s something that made me think. I Hungary it’s a rarity if a bus wants to stop, since that’s a lot of fuel for them, and i can understand that BKV is very poor (though the buses here are small and cute compared to our ancient Ikarus beasts), not to mention even if they wanted to it’s not sure they could stop. But here cars also, and just everyone are more tolerant and less aggressive in traffic. Well, except for us, but since we’re the stupid gaijin anyway, doesn’t change that much. Second huge difference is the left sided traffic. Everything’s inverted, and it’s hard to get used to when going around by bike in all the small streets. Third, trains are the rule here, it’s cheap (the Keio-line at least is), quick and convenient (except if you’re on one of the last trains, full of drunk and strange people, either gay or throwing up in the middle of the crowd (luckily into a sack), crowded as in peak hour). One more difference: people are very polite here when you communicate. And very rude and crude when it comes to getting on or off the train, or just walking in a crowded place.

And they love Maximum the Hormone, at least that’s what i guess, since all their coming three shows in Tokyo are sold out, and were already when i checked at the kombini about two weeks ago. Thanks. I want a raw and hard gig! Soon! (Just checked, and there’ll be a ‘Hormone gig in the end of May, i’ll be buying tickets tomorrow. Also, tomorrow there’ll be a Sex Machineguns gig in the ZEPP, and i’m going, if i can get a ticket.)

自発に新宿へ

April 27, 2009
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The title may not be as correct as should be, grammatically—i wanted it to mean: “spontaneously to Shinjuku”. Sunday afternoon was fun. After i finished my long awaited fish dinner i helped Rado with his bike, and we managed to fix it. Then accompanied by some fuel we played table tennis for a while. A pretty long while. Then i decided i really need to review that two hundred kanji due (and today 150 are again due, though i won’t start reviewing them now), so i did. With success, i managed to finish it sometime around half past nine—naturally meanwhile in those short intervals when i got fed up with all the stroke orders and silly stories, i took a few Facebook quizzes. During one of these i’ve seen Adina writing in her status that she wants to go to Shinjuku. (I think i knew under conscience that the night was lost then.) In the end five of us, Adina, Plamena, Jaeyeon, Rado and i left for Shinjuku, sometime after nine. Ate something small and very expensive at a restaurant where all the waiters spoke korean, looked around, laughed at people and came back home with a train around midnight. But then the girls decided that they wanted to study, so we all ended up in Plamena’s room “studying”. I was having fun with a kanji app on Plamena’s iPhone (she could get one, cheater!), the others with their homeworks. And i managed to get to sleep around three… I guess it’s no surprise i’m a bit tired now…