Hello neighbor. You've come to the journal formerly known as ella_w. A lot of what's in this journal is posted under friends lock for no particular reason. Perhaps I just like clicking the button. A lot of it is out in the open too, though. I tend to ramble on dorkily about things like Harry Potter, soul bonding tennis, gay ninjas, Oscar Wilde, my dependence on caffeine, literary characters with Daddy Issues, and various and sundry stupid Japanese stuff, along with whatever my other obsessions of the moment are. Oh, and sometimes I talk about my real life, wherein I am a dedicated and starving college student with too many majors and not enough time. If any of this sounds appealing feel free to friend me. Just drop a comment here so I know who all these people who apparently find me interesting are.

Also, I write/draw/laugh at my own jokes at shitbox_project which is far more hilarious and interesting than this journal will ever be. You should go friend it.

Why DRM and excessive intellectual property protection doesn't work, a short story:

I've been trying to figure out a way to type furigana (a pronunciation guide for Japanese kanji) above text in ms word for a while now. I found out that in order to type furigana in word, I would need to install the Microsoft Language Register, which comes on the software disk. But I left my disk at home, which is two hours away from here. And Microsoft, being a really intelligent company, doesn't offer it as a free download anywhere online. Because, idk. Someone might steal their language directory? And use it without... um... having the actual program? Perhaps some people just really like looking at language directories but don't want to actually create documents? I have no idea, but they stupidly made the disk the only place you can find the damn thing.

So I started googling. And discovered Open Office. Which not only lets me type furigana for free, the entire program is free. So now, thanks to microsoft not letting me download the stupid language register online somewhere, I have discovered a free alternative to ms word. Which I will never again have to pay over $100 for. Woooooo.

Lately I've been getting more and more irrationally angry at the health care debate taking place right now in America. Scratch that, not irrationally angry. It is totally rational to be pissed as hell at people who are willing to let 44,000 people die every year because they don't have the balls to confront the health care industry and their huge political donations.

One of the main players in this farce is Max Baucus, Blue Dog Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Baucus is a U.S. Senator from Montana. Now, not to knock Montana, but in 2008 it had a population of 967,440 according to the U.S. Census. Compared to the U.S. population of 304,059,724, Senator Baucus has been elected to represent 0.3% of all Americans, but he is currently controlling health care legislation for the every citizen of the United States.

Let's do a quick bit of math here. According to the Washington Post, Max Baucus has received $1.5 million dollars in political donations from "health-related companies and their employees" in 2007-2008.

Now, in those two years, according to the Harvard study, 88,000 Americans died because they lacked health care.

1,500,000 ÷ 88,000 = 17.045

Senator Baucus is currently holding up a public option for health insurance, which is the best (and I would honestly argue practically the only way) those 44,000 people are ever going to have access to affordable health care. Senator Baucus voted down two public options amendments in the Senate Finance Committee, despite the democrats who are intent on passing such legislation having a clear majority in the senate. This would be able to pass the whole of the senate if Senator baucus and the other democrats who are currently voting down the public option plans would change their votes.

The only conclusion I can reach is that my and your life is worth approximately $17 to Senator Baucus.

Let me repeat that.

Your life is worth $17.05 to Senator Max Baucus

I am even being kind and rounding up.

Screw this shit. My new plan in life is to convince everyone I know to show just how much their health care, if not their individual life and liberty, is to Senator Baucus. No joke.


SEND YOUR HEALTH CARE BILLS TO SENATOR BAUCUS

Show him exactly how much lack of fair, affordable, non-monopolized health insurance is costing you, and if you do have health care, show how much it would cost you should you lose your parents' insurance, lose your job, have a health catastrophe and get dropped by your insurance because you hurt their bottom line.

Mail your health care bills to:


Senator Max Baucus
Washington D.C.
511 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20510



I'm going to.

Dear Hollywood,

You and I need to have a talk, all right. Just sit down here and listen closely. Now. Hollywood. I know that many of your viewers have literally never been challenged to identify with a main character who is not exactly like them in almost every sociologically important way. Of course, by many of your viewers, I mean your white, straight, male viewers. Your female audience, your audience members of color, your non-heterosexual audience, etc., has spent their entire lives identifying with whatever main character they happen to be watching at the moment. It's a thing us girls (and the other mentioned categories) are used to. Boys get the fun roles. White boys get the fun roles, and at the end of the show they also get the girl, so we've figured out that it's pretty easy to sympathize with male characters, to jump into their brains and understand their motivations and think they're badass characters. We also love doing this with girls, non-white characters, and so on.

But listen, Hollywood, I totally understand that much of the white male part of your audience has not yet come to the stunning conclusion that just because the hero is not exactly like me (except with a more exciting life) you don't have to tune out and go find something with a whiter, maler protagonist.

(As a side note, I should mention I do know a good number of men who are able to identify with female characters, and other characters unlike themselves. Which is really cool, and always a good indicator of character! But, you know, they seem to me to be firmly in the minority of the whole guy population.)

I'm saying you need more girls, for one. For two, drop the straight until proven otherwise attitude toward characters. But in this particular instance, I'm more saying oh, my god. Brown/black/whatever people are not inherently scary. Please, please understand this. I know taking something clever someone has already written and dumbing it down for a movie is a really easy way to make a quick buck these days. "Real life stories" are being made into movies, books and comic books are being made into movies, hell, movies are being made into other, newer movies. But seriously, you guys, when your character is originally Asian (or black, or a girl, or some other frightening non-white, male entity) PLEASE GOD DO NOT CHANGE THEM.

The reason so many white men cannot fathom leaving their comfort sphere to identify with a dissimilar character is because they have literally never had to do so. Challenge them! I think, like a whole generation of girls and people of color they will find it a rewarding, enriching, and media-canon expanding experience!

For example, there are many Asian actors who would make really fantastic main characters! You really don't have to make them the comic relief incapable of properly pronouncing the letter L, or the wise old man doomed to die, or even the crazy kung fu fighter! Occasionally, real-life Asian people do other things than that! Isn't it great? It is important, though, to remember that despite being so far away, Asia is not one amorphous blob. If your story calls for a Japanese character, picking a Chinese actor to play them will irritate a lot of people. (Picking a white actor to play them will seriously piss off a lot of people. Just FYI.)


No seriously. Look how hot John Cho is. Why is he not starring in every movie ever. Why the hell do I want to watch an all white cast of Avatar? The answer is, I don't. It's like if they'd cast, idk, the sixth sense kid as Harry Potter. It would ruin it completely! Harry Potter is British! Ang is Asian! This is not that difficult, people!

Hey all, since I know so many people with fantastic taste in music, I wanted to ask for some help. I'm working on a screenplay for my creative writing private reading, and I'm looking for some music to inspire me and to hopefully work into the script itself. My general plot is (as Chris described it the other day, ha ha) an intellectual on-the-road buddy movie.

I'm looking for simple music, sort of along the lines of this:



(Ignore the video, although it's sort of cute in a wtfhipster sort of way :P)

More piano would be great, too. My main character plays the piano, so if you could rec me some great, simple, sort of plunky piano music I would love you forever and ever.

And probably thank you in my acceptance speech when I win an oscar for this movie. It will totally happen.

This weekend has been interesting, though a strange mix of exciting/incredible and incredibly lackluster. The latter is because I've been sick for the past week. (Possibly my housemate Eliot's fault; I should probably punch him just in case it is.) It started with just wanting to sleep constantly, which is not so out of the ordinary, honestly. But around Thursday I woke up with my throat trying to punch its way out of my body, and by Friday I was congested and drippy and gross. Getting sick the first week of school is probably preferable to getting sick, say, midterms or finals week. It still sucks, though. I had all these plans to get ahead on work so I wasn't procrastinating the entire semester, but sleeping fourteen hours a day effectively killed that.

I'm feeling vaguely better now, though. So yay? Currently sitting on the front porch of Sean's surprisingly large village house. Eventually I will start doing my reading for politics again. This weekend was fun, though, even though I ended up staying in most nights and falling asleep pretty early.

Yesterday Ed Helms came to speak for convocation! He's actually an Oberlin graduate (hey look, we have famous grads too. Take that Harvard and Yale.) and was freaking fantastic. I'm actually not really a big Office Fan, but I did see The Hangover, and also I am obsessed with the Daily Show. To a frightening degree. (OH MY GOD IT'S BACK ON TOMORROW. OH JON STEWART IT'S BEEN A TRYING THREE WEEKS.)

So Ed Helms started off talking about his time at Oberlin, largely along the lines of:

Oh College. I remember it so well. Friday night football games... all those fraternity parties... taking Mary Jane Simpson to the cotillion ball.... OH WAIT. That was every other college in America.

He went on to discuss how we have the world's lamest motto ("Learning and Labor", two things that no one likes to do) and most confusing mascot (The yeoman "it's a guy with wheat strapped to his back!") but somehow, even though our roommates all smell and South Dorm looks like Stalinist Russia, we love it here anyway.

After that was the surprising part, though. Apparently Ed Helms has one heck of a singing voice! Not entirely surprising -I knew he was part of the Obertones, one of our acappella groups on campus- but dude can sing. He played the piano and did a version of this for a while:



After all that was over, though, he brought out a makeshift version of his old college bluegrass group, and they played for a while.

Ed Helms playing you bluegrass... and the entire chapel was filled with insanely excited people. They did the wave before the thing started, just because they could. This is basically my school's version of a football game. A football game for complete dorks.

Sitting in my happy little personal study room in the library! Wooooo. (Now I will proceed to live here for the rest of the semester.) I'll take pictures as soon as I remember to bring my camera on campus with me. I've only had the room for about five hours, but I'm already realizing how helpful it is going to be. I can leave all my stuff in the library, so I don't have to drag around books, computer, jacket, or whatever, if I don't want to. I was wandering around today with just my keys and cell phone in my pocket, and was way too delighted by that.

My schedule this semester is pretty full, too, though it doesn't look too bad at first glance

Classes:

Security in East Asia - 11-11:50 am, T/Th

Debating Democracy - 1:30-2:45, T/Th

Japanese 401 - 9-9:50 am, MWF

Screenwriting Private Reading

EAS Honors Project

I also have work MWF from 1-3pm, Orchestra from 7-9pm on Tuesdays, and OC Dems 10-11pm on Wednesdays. On top of that I get to try to find a job or fellowship or something for after I graduate. A lot of the fellowships have application deadlines in the next month or so, which is terrifying. Ugh, go away real life.

In incredibly exciting news, you all have to hear the craziness that is my creative writing adviser. Dan Chaon, my adviser and the professor I'm working with on my private reading, is a seriously awesome person. He's a fairly famous author (you should read his stuff, if you have time. It's very good.) and has two novels and two short story collections published. Wiki him for all the various awards and things he's gotten too. Apparently now his first novel is going to be made into a movie. Which is very awesome and exciting! But not what has officially made my week. So apparently, in this movie that is being made of my professor's novel, CHRIS FREAKING PINE is going to be playing the lead character. a;lsdfkja;sdlfkj You know, Captain Kirk Chris Pine. This Chris Pine:


Aka Captain Fine~

Dan told me about this when I met with him today to discuss my private reading. (He is a seriously awesome person and professor, by the way. I got him hooked on Supernatural my sophomore year, and we'd always get into tangents about it during screenwriting workshops. You have to love a professor who will watch trashy television with you.) He mentioned Chris Pine and I tried very hard not to spaz all over the coffee shop we were in. I did inform Dan, however, that I was going to go tell my eljay about this right away.


There can never be enough images of Chris Pine being bad ass.

Happy back to school, everyone.




Just watched (finally) this whole thing, and it was surprisingly fun. Especially the first song, which is insanely dorky and perfect for this time of year. Happy start of classes everyone (mine start Monday). Try not to die from work.

So the end results of my request for advice on lime flavored cakes was this:



Thanks to everyone who gave me advice~

( more tequila cake! )

Also, I've failed at being a life sempai to Abbey. :( Unlike Smap-sensei, I have not given her copious advice on living in Japan. So! Open question time for Abbey or anyone else who wants to ask about studying abroad, generally or specifically in Japan!

From my last post:

"I would totally appreciate advice on some basic Getting Settled stuff, if you get a chance. Public transportation (what is it like? what kind of passes can you buy? secret tips for avoiding creepers?), getting your cellphone (how long do you have to wait? how the hell do you even go about setting that up?), ADVICE ON SETTLING IN WITH A HOST FAMILY"

(ha ha, you have been officially quoted, Abbey~)

( advice this way! )

Anyway, that was some pretty prolific ramblings. aldsfjk If you have more questions feel free!

All the new first years arrived on campus today. I walked around with Sandhya earlier watching all the tiny confused and excited people wandering around with their parents, clutching campus maps and the stuffed moose you get when you open a bank account with First Merit. It was pretty adorable. We also went and mooched free ice cream from the ice cream social they were having for the first years. We're pretty sure at least half the people there were older students here early, looking for free food. (Speaking of free food, we're going around six to the free dinner they're having for first years. Ah ha ha.)



I redid the library archives homepage feature before leaving work this past week (I'm off work this week. Yay~) so now you can see the above image if you go to the page. Not that anyone ever actually goes to the archive's website, but that's what I get paid to update. :P

The above cow is from 1909, and was decorated by Oberlin upperclassmen for the incoming freshman. If you can't read them, the signs say "Give the Suckers a Chance," "The Freshman Cow," "Freshman Milk Depot," and "Milk for '09 Babies." Nice to know we always lovingly abused the newbies~

When do you all go back to school? (Those of you in school, that is.) Classes for us start next Monday and for the first time since college started I really wish they would wait a while. Partly because this is probably my last summer break unless I go to grad or law school at some point. But also just because this semester is probably going to be hideously busy, and I'm not feeling ready to study my ass off yet.

Here's hoping I get an honors scholar study room. They're little personal study rooms on the third and fourth floor of the library that you can apply to have if you're doing an honors thesis your senior year. I guess they tend to run out pretty quickly, but I would love not to truck 15 books back and forth from my house to campus every day.

gasp shock horror. Take a look at this document a trusty source of mine found on his most recent trip to Kenya. It's a birth certificate that I think most of you will be HIGHLY interested in. There are some stunning facts on here that will make you question everything you thought you knew about a beloved public figure.

( omg u gaiz )

So I think my new favorite hobby is looking up celebrities on a campaign donor search and seeing how much money they've given to various political campaigns. aslkdfj So dorky. Apparently Aaron Sorkin (writer/director of the West Wing) has given a shit ton of money to the democrats -no surprise- including a bunch to Rahm Emanuel (ah ha ha, awesome. Donating to his real life Josh Lyman~) and hilariously enough what looks like every candidate in the 2004 presidential primaries except John Kerry.




Both of them have given money, but Bradley Whitford has given a lot of money to a ton of candidates and organizations (especially Planned Parenthood, actually.)

Also, apparently Jon Stewart has only given money to one candidate (at least under that name, I forget what his original last name is). He donated twice to Democrat Anthony Weiner's group "Friends of Weiner" aslkdfjas;df How appropriate.

You can also look up your relatives and people you know, which is surprisingly interesting~

ETA: Also, in the spirit of being a complete and utter dork: オバマ大統領、お誕生日おめでとうございます。

Last year for my housemate Adam's 21st birthday we made the mother of all cakes, pictured below:

There were M&Ms, peanut M&Ms, chocolate chips, and sprinkles baked in and on the top, as well as whole mini snickers bars and raw cookie dough shoved on top. It was the best cake ever, especially since you could only eat about two bites before starting to feel like the diabetes was setting in.

His birthday is coming up again (next week, technically, but since half the house including Adam will be on vacation, we're celebrating it this Tuesday or wednesday, I think) and obviously we have to top the last years cake. At first we though of just shoving more candy into a cake, but I really think something new an innovative is the only way to match last years attempt.

So we started thinking. The thing you need to know is that almost everyone in my house has an unnatural affinity for tequilla. Adam and I bought ourselves a bottle of 1800 a while back that is very well loved. I suspect if I tried I could catch Adam cuddling with it at night some times. :P So I eventually came up with an idea for this years cake fiasco. I thought that I we could bake a lime cake, and shove shot glasses of tequilla on top~

The only thing is, I don't actually know if lime cake is possible. Has anyone ever made something along those lines before? If so do you have any good recipes? Help please~

Wow, it has been a long time since I have updated. Uh... sorry about that? I still am reading my f-list all the time, I just keep... not updating. Probably because I am a lazy bum.

Anyway,

abbers44 told me I had to give her advice about living and studying abroad in Japan, and I thought that would be a good way to procrastinate while feeling somewhat productive! So here goes. This will probably be a multi-part series, as I have always wanted to do one of these, and because I don't think I could fit everything into one post. Also, I feel like using this as an excuse to post some of my pictures I've only put up on facebook before~

日本に住み方　ー　Living in Japan

( Part One: The Trip )

Holy crap! I think I just got a four day extension on my creative writing portfolio. Can we discuss how awesome that is? Finals are actually looking fairly do-able at this point, if I make myself buckle down and actually study instead of just watching old episodes of Psych.... But omg, dule hill is like, the hottest thing ever. in that adorable, uptight dorky boy way. so greato.

Sorry I haven't updated in forever. Between the three projects I had the same week my ten page honors project proposal was due, having a lot of trouble finding summer work, the semester ending, blah blah blah, I've been psychotically stressed which leads to some pretty talented freaking out. I started out last week feeling pretty shitty, but by the end of the week things started getting better, which, you know, yay?

Let's see, I got elected publicity chair for the oberlin college democrats! Which is pretty awesome! Especially since I really just started being an active member when I got back from Japan this semester. I really wasn't expecting to win, because I was running against another girl (who was actually in my first year seminar, and is really nice!) who has been in the Dems longer than I have, and has actually, you know, worked on political campaigns before. I guess I gave a really good "vote for me please" speech at the meeting? woo.

Also, I finally found a job for this summer! Which is actually currently causing a bit of stress. I got offered a summer job as the web master for the oberlin college special collections archives, which would be a good job! But I also interviewed for another job, that would be my first choice I think, but I haven't heard back from yet. So I sort of have to tell the archives job one way or another today, but I don't know what to do if I don't hear back from the other job really soon. :| But I have a job, at least!

Anyway, exam schedule:

Today 3:30 - Final Japanese paper due (almost done, actually. the one thing I actually worked ahead on. mostly while procrastinating other work. ha ha)

Monday and Tuesday - Reading period
Wednesday 9 - 11 am - Japanese final
Thursday 7 - 9 pm - Comp Sci final
Saturday 9 - 11 am - Econ Final
Saturday noon - Creative Writing portfolio due

So luckily things are fairly evenly spaced, too. Though I've got a ton of studying to do for all the finals, and my portfolio is probably only half done at this point. :||| The break I get between the end of finals and when I move back to Oberlin to start work will be really, really nice.

Hey guys, you know what I just learned from the news? Tim Geithner is apparently destroying capitalism by not bailing out every bank ever, and then letting them do whatever the hell they want with the bailout money. Because while being able to keep your business afloat without billions in help from the government is not a requirement in private, capitalist industry, anything even hinting at nationalization of the banks is for dirty, dirty commies.

The more you know.

...

idk, I clearly need to sleep. This is what not technically having anything due tomorrow and stupidly watching the first episode of a four episode massive west wing cliff hanger story arc does to you. I was watching msnbc clips while waiting for season five, episode two to load more. I don't know why I did that. Seriously. Is the entire 24-hour news industry absolutely psychotic? Because I have never seen more self-obsessed, self-congratulatory, heads in their asses commentary on the media and the economy than what's said in the first clip here.

This guy is actually proud of himself for apologizing on air about giving ridiculously wrong investment advice on his show. They ask him how he feels about possibly leading people to lose their life's savings by following his bad investment advice, and his response is basically "I'm a pretty awesome guy for apologizing about being wrong, aren't I?!" And I swear the way they have the table set up there is specifically designed for optimal circle-jerk capabilities.

bah. you should probably just ignore all that. I'm in the weird, haven't slept in forever place at the moment, where political rants on lj seems like a really nice idea.

Back at school! I somehow manage to always be stressed during the end of winter term/start of second semester. I have no idea why, except I'm apparently not very good at wrapping up my winter term before it starts to bleed into my preparing for a new semester time. :|

Anyway, I'm all moved back to school! And currently sitting in my brand new single, which is fairly small, but not as bad as I was worried it would be, and pretty cozy all things considered. I still have to go out an buy more poster hanging sticky stuff before I can put up all my posters and pictures and things, but here are some pictures of the room as it is at the moment.

( my walls are so bare )

My schedule for the semester is finally all worked out, too:



MWF 11:00-11:50 - Introduction to Computer Programming

MWF 1:30-2:45 - Japanese 302

TH 1:30-2:45 - Principals of Economics

W 7:00-10:00 pm - Creative Writing 330 Fiction



It feels like such a bizarre schedule, too. Two three hundred level classes in my two majors, then two... completely random, not even humanities classes. I don't think I've taken this few credit hours in humanities the entire time I've been at college. Hilarious.

Also! ExCo fair is coming up, and there are some seriously awesome looking classes. I'm so tempted to sign up for a million, but possibly that would not be a clever plan. There are two that I really, really want to take, though. One is supposed to be focused on grass-roots and community organizing, by organizing the Big Parade that happens in Oberlin every spring. alskfdj I love parades so much, guys. And Big Parade here is always really fun. Plus the thought of organizing things and getting to help plan events is, bizarrely, making me really happy. (follow in President Obama's footsteps, self! Woo, community organizing!)

The second has this as a course description:

Oberlin OutLoud: Audio Journalism and Podcasting

Annie Strother and Emmy Brockman

Are you a compulsive listener of public radio? Do you dream of being the next Ira Glass? Has Terry Gross ever been the highlight of your day? Then let's hang out! This class will discuss audio storytelling and documentary, journalistic responsibility, sound production, new media technology, and peer editing. Together, we will produce a series of podcasts telling stories from the Oberlin community, past and present. We all know Oberlin characters whose amazing stories deserve to be shared. Now's your chance to record and present their experiences to the rest of the world.

Ahhh, so cool you guys. So cool. I would have to get over my terror of approaching people I don't know and talking to them but, you know. that's probably a good thing to get over.

Then there are a bunch of other excos I really want to take, and most likely don't have time for aslkdfj but I was thinking of picking one and seeing if I can fit it in? I made a list to choose from:

*Storytelling Workshop
*Elementary Korean
*Introduction to Japanese Taiko Drumming
*Fearless Knitting
*Go (yes, the Hikaro no kind :P)

Probably going to try to get into storytelling, if I decide to do one of these, but gosh I really want to take the korean class ahhh. And I also have always wanted to take the taiko class too. And I could finally actually learn how to play go! And knit sweaters! asdjasdf

So help me out, people.


Poll #1342517
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

Should I try to do both the big parade exco and the audio journalism exco?

Which other exco should I sign up for?

Blah. Now I actually need to do my work.

I got bored while watching, like, the 20th hour of inauguration coverage of the day. (No, I can't just turn it off. I need to see the Obama's dance to the same song for the 10th time, all right? Need to.)

Anyway, abbers44 gave me part of KAT-TUN's January 2009 interview to translate, and while this took way longer than it should have (Kept getting distracted by hopey inauguration stuff and the msnbc people making fun of Obama saying the same thing at every ball he went to) here's the bit where all of KAT-TUN is asked a question. Possibly coming soon Nakamaru's question and the little snippets they have next to pictures of teeny tiny 2002-era KAT-TUN.

Disclaimer: I'm translating because I want to practice my Japanese, not because I'm anywhere near fluent. AKA if you see any problems in here, or even just things you think could be translated better, please tell me! I'm using this to help my Japanese, and could definitely use any and all advice.




Q: In 2009, what is KAT-TUN’s goal?

[Work hard while finding a dream (laugh)]

Kamenashi: Of course, we definitely want to do a live! And then, the truth is I'm doing a lot individually, but I wonder, wouldn’t it be good if I could go do proper six-person activities?

Tanaka: Probably, but up until now we haven't changed, have we?

Ueda: (To Akanishi) Do you have anything?

Kamenashi: Him? He's totally unreliable! Twenty-five years old (laugh)

Akanishi: I'll find a goal!

Ueda: Do your best while you're looking for a goal!

Akanishi: Yeah. A goal is that kind of thing.

Tanaka: Well, anyway, I think I work my hardest on whatever thing is in front of me.

Taguchi: Every year, we have such high spirits, we don't change anything, right?

Kamenashi: Yeah. Up until now, we've always had a lot of things done for us, so like, how are we going to shift direction, right?

Nakamaru: Yeah. We haven't had anything new, right?

Tanaka: Honestly, I haven't changed from my 17 year old self.

Akanishi: Well then, let's become responsible adults! (laugh)

Tanaka: Our 2009 goal is "to become adults!" (laugh)

Taguchi: or rather, just satisfactory adults for our age, right?

Akanishi: Practically speaking, while focusing on reality, let's steadily keep working on it.

Tanaka: We need to get "real."

Four people: Amazing!!*

Nakamaru: No, but, that sentence is good, but when I think about it, it's cold. (bitter smile)



*they said 「うまい！！」in response to Koki, which I really wanted to translate as “that was so deep!” but abbers44 told me "you can't have kat-tun going 'that's so deep'" It literally means something along the lines of "skillful" or "wise."


ETA: Nakamaru's question finished as well. This actually comes before the previous question. Also, Ueda is an insane person.

---

Q. At college, what do you find interesting to study?

[Of course, ecology is essential]

Nakamaru: Lately, ecology is showing up everywhere, but I was taught about real time data. They had a thing called [地域地球環境論]*......

Kamenashi: However, it's a bit weird to talk about ecology after all this time.

Tanaka: Mankind should have taken noticed before now, right?

Nakamaru: That's right. The truth is, they've been talking about this for fifty years.

Tanaka: After half a century has passed, the whiteness of the north pole is being destroyed, right.......

Ueda: Speaking of, it seems like natto is saving the world!

Five people: What???

Ueda: When you reduce natto** once, then put the natto ukin*** back and dry it out, they say you can use the stuff you end up with. They say if you spread it on the ground, it will lower the ground temperature. Ultimately, you can also grow food more cheaply.

Kamenashi: It can protect against the greenhouse effect?

Ueda: Yes, that.

Five people: Ahh

Taguchi: despite that, there really isn't the feeling that Nakamaru-kun is a student, is there.

Tanaka: Well, that's because you never see him looking like he's studying. Eh, if Nakamaru would wear a school uniform to work, I think people would go “ahh, he's a student,” but... (laugh)

Kamenashi: He's been going to school for forever, so we want him to finally graduate.

Taguchi: But in college it totally seems like you would have to study a wide number of things.

Ueda: Doesn't Akanishi help you study English?

Akanishi: Yeah, yeah.

Taguchi: Have you gotten so you can speak it?

Nakamaru: It feels like I'll be able to soon, doesn't it? (laugh) But English is a compulsory subject, so you're required to do it. But it's completely impossible without someone else, isn't it. So I have a good one nearby. (laugh)

Akanishi: Oi! You! Who are you calling a "good one!" (laugh)


*I spent so long looking up the kanji in this thing, and still couldn’t figure out what it is. So I’m going with bizarre long scientific name for the win. A recent google search revealed this which contains that entire name! So if anyone feels like digging through that and figuring out what he's talking about, be my guest. ^_^
**Natto is a insanely gross and apparently very good for you, much loved by Japanese people because they apparently have no taste buds sort of… slimy soybean thing. Not that I’m biased at all.
***The dictionary gave me bacillus subtilis natto as a translation. I AM ASSUMING THIS IS SOME BIZARRE TYPE OF NATTO

ETA2: Ah ha ha, the following is not in the article. It's me, being stupid, because they spent so long talking about ~saving the environment~ the Japanese literally translates to "a not convenient truth"

In conclusion, watch out for KAT-TUN's next concert tour, KAT-TUN: 便利じゃない実. I hear Jin, Nakamaru, and Al Gore will be rapping together all in English!

Happy Obama Day~ I've had the news on in the background constantly today, so I probably know a bit more than is strictly necessary about who all was wandering around DC, how many porta-potties they had, what Michelle Obama was wearing, etc. etc. but that's okay. Barack Obama is a pretty classy guy and I'm pretty happy he's the president now.

Similarly, I've been trying really hard not to spend the day being happy Bush is gone, because one of the best things about this election was that I got to vote for someone, instead of against Bush. It's... sort of working. :P There were definitely a few thoughts of "woo! no more Bush!" when the cameras kept panning over to him during the section of the inaugural address where Obama was basically saying "all that stupid stuff he did in terms of foreign policy? Yeah, we're not doing that" while Bush was sitting a hundred feet away, smiling like he didn't understand who Obama was comparing himself too. (Possibly I should be a better person, because that may have been my favorite part of the address... >_>) But generally I've just been enjoying the history and pageantry and all the happy people all over the news. Tomorrow we can worry about the Great Depression 2.0 and fixing all of the other problems we're buried in. It was just nice seeing everyone being so happy all over the place today.

:D

Also, have you all checked out the new white house website? It's pretty snazzy Also, our president has a blog~ Do you think he'd friend me on eljay if I asked nicely?

Also also, I'd been meaning to do this all month, and somehow it's now the 20th and I haven't done any at all, but I want to start trying to translate stuff (Japanese to English) as an attempt to get more practical work on my Japanese. SO! If there's anything you have or happen to find that you want translated! Movies might be a bit hard (aka could take ten thousand years for me to do well) but short movie clips and definitely magazine articles or other written material! Send me links or scans or whatever, and I'll try my best.

I told Abbey I'd take pictures of the planner I got while in Japan, and since I rediscovered where I put my camera (note to self, oh my god clean up room. It has been two weeks your suitcase should not still be sitting around :|||) here they are!



( sorry for the bizarre lighting. This doesn't work well either with flash or without it. :| )
On a final note, this was also in the batch of pictures I uploaded. :D Remind me to actually post Japan pictures and stories soon. For now, though, Ebisu Garden Place in Tokyo. Kelly and Vicki were so confused why I was dragging them here, until they realized we actually had to wait our turn to take pictures here of us pretending to be Domyouji. The other people included two girls and their dates, two chinese girls (I think) and a little old grandma and grandpa. Such a wonderful happy let's-pretend-to-be-matsujun feeling to the whole thing. alksdfj