an amazingly productive friday night
Aug. 18th, 2006 09:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
insanenekoI went to Borders tonight all fired up and ready to buy a translated version of the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon with a 25% off coupon in hand, only to find out that the store does not carry a single copy. I was rather aghast, especially since they carried three different versions of The Tales of Genji (the paperback abridged, the paperback unabridged, and the hardcover unabridged--I'm tempted by the hardcover unabridged, which is surprisingly lighter than the paperback unabridged, since I currently only own the abridged version and I like the Tale of Genji), but perhaps in the great scheme of things The Pillow Book doesn't rate must carry status? *is clueless*
In any case, I wandered around feeling lost and wanting to buy a book. I ended up in the language section and was very confused at the huge Spanish section. No one speaks Spanish here. No one needs to speak Spanish here. You are better off learning Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Filipino...or even Thai or Vietnamese. I suppose this reflects the fact that Borders is a national chain and Spanish is big in the rest of the country. *shrugs* I checked out the fairly substantial Japanese section to see if they had anything I wanted to buy. I was tempted by a Classical Japanese primer, but my mind kept screaming that I already owned one that cost over a hundred dollars (for my college course)...though I haven't been able to find it in years. So I held off on that book on the hope that I will eventually find the stupid textbook I already own. Of note was Kodansha's Communicative English-Japanese Dictionary, a new dictionary with a lot of entries on current words with lots of example sentences. A nice touch is the furigana on the kanji. I am probably going to buy this the next time I order from Amazon to add to my library.
I also went on a massive cleaning spree (well, relatively massive). I finally threw out my several years worth of Jumps, as well as very old video tapes. I had tapes of shows I owned on DVD, like KareKano and Escaflowne, as well as tons of random stuff taped off the TV or from rental videos. I also managed to find my Night Head drama tapes. When I find the time I'm going to watch them again. XDXD I only took a glance at the first episode of the anime and wasn't that impressed. I want to see if my memory is just making the original drama seem better than it was, or it really had better atmosphere than the anime. I know the drama had better music. The opening instrumental piece was haunting and tribal on the drama. The anime went for a similar feel, but pales in comparison.
I was going to go off on more doujinshi (more AU rabu), but I got sidetracked and exhausted by my endeavors. :P
In any case, I wandered around feeling lost and wanting to buy a book. I ended up in the language section and was very confused at the huge Spanish section. No one speaks Spanish here. No one needs to speak Spanish here. You are better off learning Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Filipino...or even Thai or Vietnamese. I suppose this reflects the fact that Borders is a national chain and Spanish is big in the rest of the country. *shrugs* I checked out the fairly substantial Japanese section to see if they had anything I wanted to buy. I was tempted by a Classical Japanese primer, but my mind kept screaming that I already owned one that cost over a hundred dollars (for my college course)...though I haven't been able to find it in years. So I held off on that book on the hope that I will eventually find the stupid textbook I already own. Of note was Kodansha's Communicative English-Japanese Dictionary, a new dictionary with a lot of entries on current words with lots of example sentences. A nice touch is the furigana on the kanji. I am probably going to buy this the next time I order from Amazon to add to my library.
I also went on a massive cleaning spree (well, relatively massive). I finally threw out my several years worth of Jumps, as well as very old video tapes. I had tapes of shows I owned on DVD, like KareKano and Escaflowne, as well as tons of random stuff taped off the TV or from rental videos. I also managed to find my Night Head drama tapes. When I find the time I'm going to watch them again. XDXD I only took a glance at the first episode of the anime and wasn't that impressed. I want to see if my memory is just making the original drama seem better than it was, or it really had better atmosphere than the anime. I know the drama had better music. The opening instrumental piece was haunting and tribal on the drama. The anime went for a similar feel, but pales in comparison.
I was going to go off on more doujinshi (more AU rabu), but I got sidetracked and exhausted by my endeavors. :P
