~11~ As expected, Christmas break 2011...

..Is really boring and pointless.

I just got done playing around with Waidmann's Heil on the bass and I couldn't even get through it without my wrist hurting me.

Todays been slow and boring. Nothing really interesting going on around here, but I tried to make my time somewhat productive, even if I got up pretty late.

Check out this video SNL video that makes fun of Japanophiles.

I'm not saying I take myself too seriously to the point that I don't find this funny at all, nor do I not see the grain of truth in it. Actually, it's a huge grain... it's like, the real deal, minus the fact that a lot of Japanophiles aren't in your face about it as much as these two. It makes me feel a little humiliated by the fact that some people probably see me like this, but I'm not too concerned. I enjoy cosplaying and learning Japanese, and the two hobbies don't overlap. I think it's when you take the people that are REALLY anime obsessed and mix them with actually learning Japanese at school that you get this strangeness. Luckily, the people that just study Japanese for translating anime don't make it passed 2nd quarter.

I actually did take a look at my Japanese year II Genki book. Wow, advanced stuff... it's going to get a lot harder over the next year. I just need to study as hard as I did when I started and I'll be fine. Today is Sunday, which means grades are coming out TOMORROW! Hopefully I got a 4.0 in Japanese IV... I'd hope so.

I'll tty guys tomorrow, I'm actually gonna dance around in my room a bit to get rid of some pent up energy and get some sleep at a reasonable time.

hopefully....

yours,

Emily



Finally!! My CBC Halloween event video!

This is probably going to be a quick entry because I should really be studying for my kanji quiz tomorrow. This one is going to be hard, chapters 11 in the genki book and chapter 9 in the K L&L. The problem is that, well, I suck at kanji and I haven't studied these at all until this point aside from the little we do in class. So it's gonna be a long night for me. I need to print out some kanji squares or get grid paper or something.

At the moment, I'm publishing a lonnnng late video for CBC Japanese club's halloween event. I have to say, there's a lot of, well, me in it. My face starts the movie, my face ends it, rambling on. I put all the costume entries into little clips and had a long clip of me and Hannah playing ping pong-- it's pretty cute, but I'm having a feeling people might be a little annoyed with how much of me there is in it? But honestly, if I'm uploading it to my youtube channel it has to have a bit of a format, it's a vlog channel so it's gotta have my little introductions and explaining of things. I tried pretty hard on this video, I'm not getting paid for it, and if anyone has a problem with it I might be a little saddened.


Today was a very productive math day, as mondays tend to be. I finished an ENTIRE practice final that was 50 problems long! That's 3 hours of studying, again. You know how hard I'm working at this? I cannot fail that damn final! And you know what I'm gonna do the day of? I'm gonna do what I always do on final days-- I'm gonna show up at 8 in the morning and study until my final at 5. Well, with breaks in between, definately.. but still! I'm gonna dedicate as much time as a possibly can to learning absolutely every little detail I have to know so that there are no surprises on that test. It might of defeated practically everyone else once, but it won't get me. : )

This weekend is going to be a lot of studying. I'm not getting drunk this weekend and I'm not intending on having a lot of fun. If possible, it'd be cool to see *someone* but I really don't want to push it. I haven't got many work hours this week, either. Tomorrow I work from 5-closing and then from 5-closing on saturday. That gives me a lot of free time to study for the oral exam, Japanese final and the math final. The Japanese final is scaring me, as always... I really don't understand this grammar very well because I haven't studied nearly as hard as I have in other quarters, probably because this math is so important to me. But I can do it. Having the patience I do and the endless fear of failure, I can continue to cram.

Man, what was I taking this time last year? Japanese I, uhhmmm... wow, I can't remember anything else I was taking last fall. I think maybe that stupid Speech essentials class? That sounds about right. Last winter was way, way more memorable than last fall. It's hard to believe how far I've come in Japanese and how hard I've worked in the past year. I feel like I am ready for university level classes.

That makes me think though, the people that leave to a university right out of highschool without taking any community college credits... I bet so many people have RUDE awakenings when they figure out how hard college level classes are in comparison to highschool, and on top of the stress of moving out on their own. . . I really couldn't imagine and I'm glad I didn't take that road, even though I guess I never really had the option too.

I need to dye my hair. I haven't dyed it in ages and it's starting to look this sort of orangey brown. Like, I look like a total redhead in certain lights. I don't particularily like how I look redhead, it makes imperfections come out. I am thinking dark brown with blonde streaks. A lot of people are saying all over blonde, but I don't want to damage my hair to that extent. I've already got split ends, and they're just bound to fry if I do blonde. I need a trim pretty bad, too. I just can't spend too much money because of the holidays and the fact that my hours at rite aid are awful; I'm not gonna be making too much money. I'm gonna get a box dye at Sally's and have my mom do it, works like a charm every time. My mom is fantastic at dying hair. Cutting though, ehh no I leave that to the professionals. But I dread going to the salon because I'm always afraid they're going to say all of my hair is split ends and they need to cut almost all of it off for it to look any good. The back of my hair is always sort of a rats nest, and I avoid looking at it...
PEOPLE LIKE MY VIDEO! woohoo.

yours,
emily

Why you won't EVER see me dance, Ever.

Evening everyone, I hope your day was as good as mine was today.

No honestly. Today went pretty fantastic. WAY better than planned. I expected my ping pong tournament to be a complete disaster where nobody showed up and half the people that do show up end up bailing half way-- NOPE! Everyone that signed up stuck around until either the end or until they were out, which made me so happy. The bracket system worked really well, too.

This is what the poster looked like. I ended up adding "Sports Day" and "11:30-1" at the top. I was so happy when all of the participants were respectful of me needing to use both courts to get the ball rolling, probably because most of them were participants.

I showed up today and Jon was wearing this karate outfit thing with a cloak with the Japanese flag on it. I thought it was interesting, very spirited. I didn't really advertise the fact that the event was for the club very much, aside from the obviousness in the poster. But all of the guys that did play were super stoked to have a formal tournament to see who was the best. The winner got a ping pong raquet. Jon ended up getting second place, and I was nervous that he was actually going to win. . . I wouldn't of wanted him to win because the purpose of this was to advertise the club to other people around the school so we can get more members. It's weird though, I feel like the club itself has become sort of exclusive without realizing it.

I like someone, don't know if I've brought this up yet in previous entries. Probably not. I seem to like someone new each week and get over it quickly because I don't end up really being into them for one reason or anyother. But I DO like this one. Like, he's got... "It." I've yet to find out what "It" is but I know that if things do work out, I'm gonna be pretty content with this one. That being said, I'm going to really not try to push it talking to him wise... This definately seems like a guy that likes space. We haven't texted all day... So I'm gonna be very patient and not worry about it. If things are meant to work out, they will. But if not, well that's no loss for me because nothing ever does in that aspect of my life so it's not a big deal.

Math class was good today. I actually talked to Lambert for a little while because I brought her a problem after class that I needed help on and she spent a good 10 minutes helping me with it. That thing was AWFUL. Another one of those stupid motion problems that I dispise. She seems so have noticed how hard I work, and said that it seems like I'm "getting it." That alone means a ton to me. She seems pretty cool. She's probably only 27 at the oldest, so I felt like I could talk to her pretty easily. I told her that I intend to be a business major which means I'm going to have to take a bit more math down the line but this is my last algebra class and I really need it to move forward in my life. I have been studying very hard and doing all I can do to pass that class, and I'm pretty proud of myself for my dedication. I'm gonna need TWICE as much dedication for next quarter though when I'm gonna be doing the double hit of accounting and visual basic-- which are both pretty math based. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do it.

I've begun considering other college options as well. I'm going to start looking into Portland. Not only is it closer, but it's a city and it's way less expensive than Bellingham.

Dancing. I fucking dread this word. I hate dancing, I'm terrible at it, I have zero rhythm, and I feel like because I'm so bad people stare at me. Apparently, someone wants to ask me to go to some company party with them but this person wants to know if I'll dance if I go. Uhm, no. Just, no. I can't dance at all, and I refuse to be anywhere where dancing is an obligation. It's funny, there are two situations in my life that I avoid at all costs-- Dancing and rollarcoasters. And it's had an impact on many instances in my life where people either want to dance or want to go ride rides at the fair or something and I just flat out refuse and then feel like I missed out on something. But in the times that I HAVE agreed to dance or go on a rollar coaster, I've been completely miserable and either get made fun of or laughed at. So no, they'll have fun without me. I'd rather be at home alone. I'll just make things worse for them anyway because when one person is feeling awkward and not having fun, it's magnetic.

I'm pretty sure my 100% opposition to dancing is rooted from both highschool and my mom/sister. Whenever I was at dances in highschool, I'd never be having a good time so I'm sure I wouldn't be smiling-- so I'd just be trying to copy everyone else, almost every 15 minutes or so looking at the clock and hoping it gets over soon so I can get the hell out of there. But there'd be people like Kirsten Kunkel that would be like, "Are you okay?" Like, you look weird, basically. I don't know if these people were directly insulting my bad dancing or the expression on my face. Probably both.

Then there's the fact that my sister's a cheerleader, and she's always been really good at dancing. I remember this one time that Denae was over and they were trying to learn some stupid fucking Miley Cyrus dance that I'd learned at Evergreen girls state. So I went out and started dancing to it, joking around, and my sister chuckles and goes, "Spaz." I've never in my life been so insulted by her, and I right there wanted to punch her in the face so hard, again and again, then kick her in the groin and spit in her face. I'm a spaz? You're a weak piece of shit. That's what was going through my head, and was for about three days. I was sincerely hurt. So from that point on, I swore to NEVER, EVER dance again. And it doesn't help that my mom and sister like to remind me of how bad at it that I am, even jokingly. I think it gets them off that I'm not good at something.

I discovered I was a shitty dancer a few years before high school though, at Katharine's birthday party back in the 7th grade. Back then, Katharine liked to invite a bunch of girls from her class over, some of which being the "popular ones" that probably didn't particularily care about Katharine what-so-ever but she was probably seeking some sort of approval from. I'm not saying that Katharine was a wannabe, but as she got older I think she realized that a lot of those girls weren't her actual friends, and rightfully so-- Katharine ended up being a record breaking athlete and one of the top students in her class when I remember seeing a different girl that was at her parties in middle school smoking cigarettes on her lunch break with bags under her eyes out on Windy street behind the highschool looking like complete garbage. Anyway, we were all dancing out in their family's shop, and I remember thinking that I just couldn't do what the rest of them were doing, and feeling like I was an ugly joke. That dancing went on for like 3 hours and it was one of the most miserable, self loathing moments of my life that I can look back on.

OMG THIS LITERALLY LOOKS LIKE MY WORST NIGHTMARE.
I think I would rather eat a live mouse in front of everyone.

So yeah, no dancing for me. Ever. I'm pretty sure if I have it my way I won't be dancing at my wedding reception. Lol, you recently I realized that it's a tradition for the bride and groom to dance in front of everyone for one dance. Even if it's slow dancing, that sounds terrifying.

I guess the only circumstance that I will dance is when I'm alone, playing Just Dance, on extremely low volume, strictly for the cardio exercise of it.

Alright well I'm gonna get going, peace out.