Validating Assumptions

th_amorphicshinkai04I’m back! 🙂

Exams were officially over on the 14th, but I was too dead to do anything that day or the 15th. The road home was eventful since Atlanta weather decided to take turn for a worst Wednesday night, so I barely managed to arrive home yesterday afternoon. But of course, it’s winter break and I have nothing official to study for. So life is … quite boring yet good. 🙂 So yes, sleeping off today was quite satisfying.

But then again, on the other hand, it’s already the 19th. Oh dear, where have the days gone? O_O It’s that time of the year again, Christmas parties, New Year wishes, New Year resolutions, and another year gone!?!?

-sigh- Time for resolutions and reflections again.

But then again, I don’t think I accomplished much of my resolution from last year this time around either…

Well, since it’s end of the year, I figured that I’ll change the layout that’ll stick around to welcome the new year. No idea what it’s going to be yet, but I don’t want a Christmas theme since that doesn’t stick around at all. =_=

Other than that, I still have to make some winter break plans and new year resolution. But I’m in no hurry this year. Oh yeah, I should probably work on Ichi-go, Ichi-e again.

Just a quick update. 🙂

Notice Board #1

break

I’m on break, brb…

I have final exams till Dec. 14, they are either a 20 page paper or exams that count 40% of my final grade. Nerve-wrecking, isn’t it? Anyway, I’ll be too lazy to open up my writer to blog, I’ll instead waste my time watching anime anyway. So, blog’s on break!

P.S. Spam me! Leave moi a comment on this entry. 😉

P.P.S. The winter anime season looks horrible, again… =_=

of News and Reflection

So… While I wait for my laundry to be dried, I’ll write up an entry instead of wasting time. 🙂 It feels so nice to have a weekend where you have absolutely no plans. I figured that I’ll just sleep in and catch up on the much needed sleep and enjoy some quality writing time. (Yes, must catch up on NaNoWriMo!) And okay, my roommate just absolutely freaked me out and then she just left. –_-‘ -sigh- people these days…

Some random musings:

☎ My friend just posted up links of Les Choristes songs on FB, ah, brings back good ole memories. It’s like the root of my obsession with French movies, so pretty and so moving. I think since I don’t have anything important to do this weekend, I’ll probably go rewatch this movie. I really loved the movie we watched in AP French, Au Revoir Les Enfants* too, except that’s too painful to watch.

☎ JJ Lin’s new album comes out in December! Haha, my friends shared his new song in said place above and I loved it. 🙂

☎ I came up with a new term with FBing with my friend: the nirvana of procrastination… I think I have reached it haha…

☎ Life wise, things pretty much died down this weekend since next week is Thanksgiving. Man, time goes by too fast these days, college will be over in no time. 😦 Must try and catch time! But anyway, pretty crazy weeks these past weeks have been. Paper, tests, work, and random stuff made my schedule completely weird, and I was too keen on keeping up with my anime watchlists too. Hence: no time to blog haha. ^^;**

☎ Wong Fu Productions came to our school for a presentation yesterday! They were hilarious and super nice. Hence fangirl mode kind of turned on there. I was surprised that people from other areas of GA drove here just to see them, wow. I just lived 5 min away walking distance, considering my luck haha. Well, this is why I love my school and Atlanta I guess. 🙂

Signatured shirt! XD Oh I got pictures and hugs from them too! My friend kind of scared them when she just threw herself on each of them. :3

Cut for Reflections, they aren’t that important…

Continue reading

of Holidays

kamenana_icons011Last week was such a week of hell. Well, I made it out alive and finally find the time and motivation to post again. (though I can’t guarantee that I’m not brain-dead at this point.) I’ve been not very keen on studying the past few days, since I’ve cramped too much studying in too short periods of time. Well, that means that obsessions grow in number instead. =_=

☎ I finally found Chinese scans of the Shiki manga, read ahead and and spoiled myself with the original novel ending. –sigh- Can’t say that I’m not disappointed, the manga right now is going pretty well. Natsuno as a werewolf is super duper awesome. ❤ But the ending sucks majorly. Even though after getting spoiled I got the impression that Fuyumi Ono must ended her Buddhist studies career, since all the monks in Shiki got pretty sucky lives and endings. o.O

☎ I got obsessed with Soul Eater, esp. Soul x Maka. Jen, save me! X(

☎ Rewatched Bakamonogatari last weekend, I really love the dialogue style. Well, I’ve been pretty into the author’s stuff recently, since Katanagatari is a deep one too. Oh, I got the soundtrack, hence why the re-watch. I’d say that it’s worth it, even though I still don’t like the Tsubasa Cat arc or the girl. 😦

☎ Just rewatched Nodame Cantabile Finale tonight, I think at this point words can’t describe how much I love this series. It’s like Nodame’s piano, you just get so absorbed into the story and your feelings resonance with the character’s feelings. Maybe it’s because I’ve wrote a huge paper on it along with Honey and Clover, but my love for Nodame has just grown even deeper, it’s probably going to hit the all-time favorite mark eventually. (I don’t have one right now. ^^;;)

☎ –sigh- When am I ever going to advance on my NaNoWriMo?

Thanksgiving in a week, I’ll be going home soon! Can’t wait, and now I’ll go get some motivation to do math homework. Bleh…

P.S. I wanna watch Miyazaki films! XD

Mid-season Reivew

Current Song: Sweet Romance (Karaoke) – Mayumi Gojo

Is it that time of the year again? o.O Time sure went by fast, well it should sort of be the middle of fall 2010 seasons by now. Even though I just realized that a lot of the shows on my wachlist are actually two-cour ones, oh well, it doesn’t hurt to jot down some impressions at this point. I’ve been faithfully watching all the shows on my watchlist, even some of the continuing ones. (mainly two-cour shows, I’m still bored of Bleach and Fairy Tail these days) I’d say that’s progress amidst my crazy college schedule, shameless bragging aside. 🙂

I’ll update this as the shows reach ep 6, so expect this be constantly updated with more pages, I’d prefer to aggregate these in one long post this year. ^^;

Star Driver: Kagayaki no Takuto

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Star Driver: Radiance of Takuto. Code Geass: Rebellion of Lelouch. See the name similarities? Hahahaha. Well, jokes aside, I really enjoy this series. The first fifteen minute of the premiere made me think that this is another cheesy romance anime or something, but then boom, Kiraboshi zoomed in and flashed its awesomeness. Can’t say that I wasn’t impressed. The episodes then decided to go old-school style and developed the “monster of the week” gag, not that I mind. I actually went back and watched “Revolutionary Girl Utena”, which is supposed to be like the inspiration of some of the stuff in the show.

But plot-wise, this show is rather generic. I mean, you have your typical secret identity organization (where people have badass fashions sense), an island (oh so convenient), two bishounen (=_=), and mecha. It’s like all the generic plotline fused together and created something…mega-generic? The idea put together seems cool though, so I’m fine with it. I still don’t get the Kiraboshi naming system, or the meaning of the cybodies. But at this point, I’ve given up on finding out and will just chill and see the meanings present themselves.

Character-wise, Takuto seemed… errr… gay at first haha, especially with Mamoru Miyano voicing him. I mean, what can I say, hearing the Tamaki voice snapped on a Lelouch-type character just doesn’t seem to blend that well. But I like him well enough, his reaction to events seems fresh enough, but definitely not as fresh and strong compared to Lelouch. His calculating and wicked character probably can never be topped. ^^; Sugata, who weirdly has Jun Fukuyama voicing him, seems average. He has his mysterious background and what not, but he doesn’t stand out at all. It’s rather hard to see him as a strong main lead but rather like someone who fades to the background well. Wako, ugh, I hate Wako. Worst female character of the season. She’s too weak for a main character, but annoying too. Her song is no match to Haruka Tomatsu’s fish girl song, and she didn’t do much for the past 6 episodes either. Now Kiraboshi people, on the other hand, are very very interesting. It has a fair share of different kind of characters, I’d say if it’s a college, it has very good diversity! Some were pretty cool, like the class-president, the high school bride, and the kendo dude was okay too, others were meh, and some were utterly trashy, like Scarlet Kiss and that mermaid doll girl. But hey, it’s this fair share that makes stuff interesting, oh and Professor Green too. (haha fanservice mode, guess that’s a new mecha mode?) Honestly, I can’t wait to see what other people they have.

I honestly don’t know what to expect from this show, I’m not even trying. It keeps entertained with new stuff every week and enough surprises to maintain my interest rate. So continuing it is not a question, but I’ll see how it will play everything out, and whether it’ll beat Code Geass. As of right now, probably not haha.

Score: 4.8/5.0

 

Otome Youkai Zakuro

otome

The typical shojo of the season, you have your typical tsundere lead,the shy one, and the bubbly twins. The dudes are generic at best too, the gentleman, the stoic one, and the shota. There you have it, the main cast of OYZ. Having the girls as half-demons with cat ears doesn’t really help either. But I guess the plot was cool enough, with the whole spirit affairs ministry and all. So far, the series pretty much met my exact expectation.

The plot is kind of still unclear, but I assume the story will involve Zakuro finding out what’s the deal with her mom and who were the weirdos after her (I got spoiled by the manga and wasn’t very impressed actually.) The idea seems cool enough, but the manga doesn’t seem to be that big since I only managed to find Chinese scans. But seeing how the series is only one-cour, I’m pretty sure that the ending won’t be as satisfyingly specific. The plot right now is interesting enough, so this is actually like one of my top three shows of the season, maybe. o.O

The characters are okay enough, they are your typical generic type, and there really isn’t anything new. I guess the past stories of each of the yokai girls were pretty touching. I love the artificial rabbit spirit, so cute and bubbly. :3 The main dude isn’t being that impressive at this point. He totally has the potential to be the shojo hero type, or the baka Tamaki type because of his looks and host club power,but he mopes too much. >.>

Well, I can’t wait to see Zakuro’s past, the mother definitely doesn’t look human, she’ll probably wind up being some sort of princess or a noble clan or whatnot. (totally the Kazama lookalike, female version…) Though as generic as it is, it keeps me hooked. Oh the fight lullaby they sing is absolutely awesome, so far I like the twins version best. Either way, I need that in my iTunes library in the near future.

Score: 4.3/5.0

 

Mornings

nefadol_holic_14It kind of sucks when you are stuck in a storage room like place for work on a sunny Monday morning. it kind of sucks that it’s a Monday morning. it sucks even more when you only got 4 hours of sleep the night before. And it sucks even more when you have a 10-page paper to write and 200 pages of textbook to read for an upcoming test that you have done absolutely zero preparation.

Oh, did I mention being behind on NaNoWriMo and still haven’t started looking for summer interns?

Welcome to my life.

Eh, this is when I should probably hit myself on the head and lock myself in my room with no internet connection till I’m done with everything.

Procrastination is such a bitch.

There’s my update on life, anime has been interesting, writer’s block isn’t.

Alright, back to work!

Friday 5 for November 5: Packing

Current Song: Toki Ni Ai Wa – Masami Okui

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1. How far ahead of time do you begin packing for a weekend trip?

Probably the day before the trip itself, unless my mom knows about my trip… then she’ll force me to pack a week ahead. =_=

2. What was your most recent purchase of a six-pack?

Never, I don’t think I’m legal enough to buy six-packs, but even if I am, I doubt I’ll end up being the one buying them anyway.

3. What do you look for in a good everyday backpack?

Honestly, I don’t really care as long as they don’t look weird and have enough comfy space for my laptop, oh and in a neutral color too.

4. Among people you know, who’s the worst packrat?

My grandparents? I don’t think they’ve thrown anything out in the last 30 years, and they now have all the furniture from our old apartment in China since we moved here. And last time my cousins visited, they said they literally only had this tiny route where you can step on the floor, and there’s like stuff everywhere else. –_-‘ Well I heard they made them clean up though…

5. How do you know when it’s time to pack it in each evening?

I don’t even have the habit to pack each evening when I technically sleep in the morning of the next day. >.>

Off to work!

Love at First Sight

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☎ Just read CLAMP’s new Gate 7, I don’t really know what to say. It’s nice to see new CLAMP work though, I have to say that it’s rather typical of them. Mokona is definitely doing the artwork for this series. Story-wise, I thought it was typical of CLAMP, which means it’s confusing as hell and fresh as 6am’s steam buns. It remind me a bit of Kobato though, no idea why. The characters don’t see that strong, to me at least, but then I’m picky now after reading Bakuman. Design-wise, I only like the Domeki look-alike. Main dude reminds me a bit of Watanuki, but Watanuki is definitely more awesome than him. 😛 Well, I’ll definitely read this when it comes out next spring, even though I’m having some doubts of it being shounen and good in general. >.> Darn, when’s CLAMP ever going to continue X?  T_T

☎ Been pretty busy this the past week, too many tests to study for and too many papers to worry about. =_= College life is hard… –sigh- Especially when you are trying to do a million things at the same time trying to challenge yourself to the fullest. And then there’re sadist professors who make you read 200 pages of textbook and give out tests when you just had one two weeks ago.

☎ I’ve been pretty obsessed with Bakuman these days. I knew that it was a promising work when I first heard the anime was coming out, but reading it was even better. The shounen kind of slice-of-life is awesome too, and I just love the two main characters. XD I don’t know if I’m going to continue watching the anime though now that I’m catching up on the manga, but looking at how awesome it is right now, I’d say I’ll continue it. (even though Fairy Tail started this way too, and now I’m just watching the fillers like Bleach…>.>) Well, reading Bakuman made me picking Death Note back up again, guess dropping it last year was a mistake since it’s pretty damn good. ^^;

☎ New layout, guess “Simply Umi” isn’t going to come back, Bakuman is on the top of my list now. ^^;;

☎ I marathoned through Revolutionary Girl Utena a few days ago. Got interested while researching for my Japanese paper, plus Star Driver this season is supposed to be heavily inspired from Utena since the screenwriter did Utena too or something like that. So, I decided to check it out. Man, it was a mistake. >.> Well, not completely I guess. On one hand, I got a good laugh from watching the typical 90s shojo anime-adaption with cliché “Monster of the Week” episode conception, long-haired bishonen, and typical awesome 90s anime theme songs(totally obsessed with Rinbu Revolution now). But the completely messed-up new concepts that supposedly “revolutionized” the shojo genre were a bit too much for me I guess, all the incestuous relationships between every single pair of siblings existed in the series, pretty outright yuri between the two heroines, and the last bit of yaoi subtly scattered around the episodes, ugh. I’m all for the magical girl genre, but the twisted plots with illegal relationships all around definitely wasn’t what I imagined. =_= I think I’ll stick with good ole Sailor Moon. Well, I might do a review after I’m done, if I’ll bother to finish the middle episodes I’ve skipped. =_=

☎ Got a perfect score on my math midterm. <33 How I love math now…

☎ Well I did start my NaNoWriMo novel, so now I’ll feel guilty if I don’t finish it. I have no clue what I’m writing though, it’s like a mix of my 30-narrative idea and the past-future train idea from last year. Hopefully, it’ll turn into something interesting, well, if I start writing. So far I have four characters: the narrator with a million name choices possible, Asakura who’s supposed to embody the past or something like that, Christina (I ripped this off from W Juliet haha) who has the future motifs all around her, and a Charlie, who I have no idea what to do with him yet except paring him up with the narrator at the end. You can call this a slice-of-life novel with fantasy elements and a twist of romance at the end, mwahahaha…

☎ I properly did cleaning today, living the college life isn’t half bad at all. Now, if only our cafeteria food can get a bit better…

Off to write paper, read textbook, write novel, and sleep… Story of my life. 🙂