insaneneko

When my mom told me I needed to go buy something, I ordered my cat lounging nearby to do it instead. Of course she totally ignored me. I then said "Why doesn't Moki [my cat's name] hannoushinai?" One second later I realized that doesn't make ANY sense. XD; Sometimes switching languages mid-sentence just fails miserably. I do it often.

Ugh, looks like I need to take a break from cleaning after all. The mind's willing, but the body is exhausted. I do need some energy for work, after all. ^^;

I seriously need to read the afterwards of books. Today I was rereading a BL book I rather like and have reread quite a number of times. This time, I decided to read the afterwards as well. Imagine my utter surprise when I read that the book was actually the first book of a series...I was pretty excited, but as the book more or less wrapped things up I wondered if it was a "series" in that the books were focused on different but interconnected characters as opposed to books all featuring the same main characters. I checked amazon japan to find that two books to complete the series had already been released and that they both were about the main characters of the first book! I can't believe I was missing out for at least a year! I was not going to order anything before my trip, but...I'm sorely tempted to now. :P

I hope the sequels don't suck. I really like the first book.


I discovered a favorite book from my childhood during my cleaning. It is a kanji dictionary specifically targeted towards elementary school students. Even when I hated Japanese I liked looking at this dictionary because it packed a lot of information and lots of color. Some of the pictures are hilarious and tongue in cheek, some just plain illustrative. I have no idea if the origins of the characters they give are in any way true, but it's still fun to read the explanations.

I did a search on amazon japan, and unfortunately it looks like it is out of print. I scanned in two sample pages just to show the format.


( birds and knowing )

Oh yes, the Yamane Ayano interview in Pafu I had summarized earlier has been scanlated, available to members of yamane_ayano or club_sion. I...find it a bit odd to scanlate an interview...but whatever. It was a good interview, so the more people who get to read it the better, right?

I 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

I love having moments of epiphany about really trivial and obvious things. I was listening to a drama CD (my new way of making my commute seem shorter) this morning when it hit me. I always knew "hansuto" meant hunger strike. Hearing it spoken in the drama CD several times made me realize:

English: HUNGER STRIKE
Japanese pronounciation: HANGAA SUTORAIKU
Take the first two syllables from each word: HANSUTO

XDXD