Opened my home page

I made my own home page!
(though I just re-made my old home page...)
It has a photo gallary and essays. I would be glad if you leave some comment on BBS(掲示板).
If the words on the HP are unencoded, encode it to Japanese (under "View" on the browser).

＋記まぐれ＋(+Kimagure+)
Enter→http://www.geocities.jp/ampbox69/

ホームページ開設しました～☆
（というか昔のホームページを改装しただけだけど・・）
メインコンテンツは写真とエッセイです。もしよかったら掲示板に足跡残して行って下さい^_^
文字化けしてたらブラウザの”表示”にある”文字のエンコーディング”で”日本語”に直して下さい◎

故郷

今日本にいる。１１ヶ月ぶりの日本。

ちいさいものが変わったけれど、やっぱり一番見覚えのある故郷の景色。

雲のもやがかかってグラデーションをつくる山々。

そこに沈む夕日。

木々を靡かせる風。

その風が運ぶ故郷の匂い。

一番落ち着く場所。

誰にとってもそれが故郷なんだ。

Recently..

I went to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico for six days with my boyfriend, Mike, and it was great and so much fun!! we wanted to stay longer... we got lots of tan and ate lots of Mexican foods! the best food I had in Mexico was these...




















I ate these in a locally-popular Mexican restaurant, so (I think) it followed more traditional Mexican style dishes. the place wasn't totally like for tourists though it's in such a big-tourist-industry city. (many things sold there were for tourists and the prices weren't that different back from US...).

now I moved in a new apartment in Bay Area and I am looking for jobs...

but I'm still on a long vacation~ and going back to Japan for two weeks this Sunday!! I will see many old friends and probably drink (and eat Izakaya foods) a lot! Although I will eat lots of Japanese food, which is usually healthy and low-calories, I hope I won't gain weight by eating out too much... It will probably be hard to not gain weight though if I often eat out in Izakaya (the traditional Japanese style restaurant/bar which usually opens around from 5pm to 3-5am) because Izakaya dishes are usually fat, salty, and high-calories... and of course I will drink lots of beer along with them... maybe I should try to eat lots of Sashimi dishes since it's raw and uses no oil...

I'm only talking about food in this blog... but food is one of the things I'm looking forward to the most in my trip in Japan!

By the way, I am technically a NEET (which stands for "Not Educated, Employed, and Trained" - I guess it was something like that...). I never thought I was going to be a NEET, but here I am! I guess it's so easy to be a NEET haha. but there is nothing I can do to avoid being NEET because I'm waiting to get a working permission from US Homeland Security. I just called them to know how long it's going to take (I applied about one and a half months ago..) and they said it will take another two f*cking months.....!!! sh*t it takes too long......
Without the permission, I can't start working! so even if I find a job right away, I have to wait to start working till I get the permission... and I don't know if companies want to hire somebody who can't work right away and is waiting for a working permission that's going to be sent in two fu*king months.........

I can't do anything but being a NEET wating for a working permission! So, I should just enjoy my summer vacation for a while. yes... enjoy the vacation...!

I'm going to Mexico!!

I'm going to Mexico tomorrow and stay in Puerto Vallarta, a resort town on the west coast. I have no idea what it's going to be like... is it just going to be like a boring colorless resort place full of tourists that will look nothing like Mexico? I hope not.. but it probably will... but but but I will try to explore the town with my big fat backpack and eat REAL(?) Mexican burritos and tacos!
I hope it will be sunny all the time, but the weather says it will shower everyday while I will be staying there... that super sucks... because I want to get tan in my bathing suit and look like a REAL Californian Japanese American girl before going back to Japan!

楽しみ！

^_^

Linguistics - useful or useless?

So, I graduated from UCSC with B.A. of Linguistics!
I technically finished my "studying abroad". wow... time goes so fast... it's been already four years since I started studying abroad in the US...
it's time to look for jobs with this college degree. well, I want to teach Japanese while I'm staying here and get experienced in teaching. After I go back to Japan, I want to teach English. I wonder if what I learned in studying linguistics will be useful in teaching English as a second language (or as one of the subjects) in Japan? Maybe it will.. but I don't think any English teacher back in Japan made linguistic-linguistic explanations in teaching English..? but maybe explaining some English grammatical functions by using "easy" linguistics would make more sense to students than just by using "this is this.. because this is what it is in English grammar" explanations... But, who in highschool or junior-high school wants to know (or can understand that hard) linguistic reasons/explanations in learning English? (maybe a few who have potential to become a future nerdy linguistic mania get interested..) Still, I think knowing linguistics or having some background in working on linguistics would help to answer some innocent students' "pop" questions. Anyways, it's always better knowing too much than too little in that kind of situation even if I might look "nerdy and geeky" to students...
If I go to graduate school, I don't think I will want to major in linguistics again.. but I will probably (maybe?) keep reviewing the linguistic stuff I learned in this college while studying English!

あたしメリーさん・・・ ~ I am Merry... ~

I LOVE HORROR MOVIES and STORIES, especially Japanese.

If you want to be scared or excited or something by watching scary movies, I would recommend you watch...

リング (Ringu)
呪怨 (Juon)
着信あり (One Missed Call)
The Grudge 2

I LOVE PLAYING HORROR VIDEO GAMES too.

when I was an elementary school student, I was sooo into,

クロックタワー２ (The Clock Tower 2)

This game is fu*king GREAT!! It definitely will make you PANICKED!

トワイライトシンドローム (The Twilight Syndrome)

was good too! it's all about Japanese 都市伝説 (toshi-densetsu; scary city folklores) and 学校の怪談 (gakkou-no kaidan; school ghost stories), such as 花子さん "Hanako-san" and メリーさん "Merry-san".

I found a nice, funny but scary CG movie about メリーさん (with English subtitles).
The voice actor of the teacher did a good job speaking Kyushu-dialect (it's funny that he speaks like yakuza or 不良(furyoo; anti-social teenagers who have gone bad smoking cigarettes and etc..))!

Enjoy!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vlf-3xo76yA&feature=related

あたし、メリーさん。今、あなたの・・・

う　し　　　ろ　　　に

い・・・　　　　　る

HamBurgers!

you know... hamburgers and fries are junk foods. but it's good to eat em' once in a while!

so i went to Betty's Burger, five minutes by car from my house.
i ate a regular Betty's burger, crispy fries, and onion rings.

it was goooood!

but, my stomach still feels oily, greasy, and heavy and
now i want to eat something light.
so that's why it's good to eat em' only once in a while.....

by the way why doesn't Japan have nice and good hamburger restaurants that are not just regarded as "junk fast food places" like McDonard's? maybe MosBurger (i hope the spelling is right) is the one that's nice and good...? or maybe if i explore especially places where many young people hang out i will find some nice places? anyways there aren't so many good and pretty hamburger places in Japan.

たぶんハンバーガーで健康的じゃないしジャンクってイメージがあるから、健康志向で高品質嗜好の日本人にとってはあまり好ましい食べ物ではないんだろうと思う・・・。美味しいけどね、たまに食べると。でも毎日食べたい？って聞かれたら絶対にNO!!!だなぁ。。
てか毎日食べたらそれこそSuper Size Meみたいに、病院行きになりそう。

anyways, after all, I love Japanese food...

日本人はやっぱり米と魚だよね。

what I want to do..

I will just list what I want to do for the rest of my life.
(the ordering doesn't really matter)

1. have a very short hair (soon)
2. get a teaching certificate for a high school English teacher (高校教員免許) and work in a high school in Japan as an English teacher
3. get lots of experience of teaching English (and Japanese)
4. go to a grad school someday to study 'teaching Japanese/English as a second language' or education or linguistics (unlikely)
5. have a life without a car in Japan and travel by train
6. OHANAMI(お花見; it's a Japanese traditional outside-party to enjoy seeing cherryblossoms while eating and drinking)!! belive or not, i have never done ohanami even though i was born and grew up in Japan for about 20 yrs.....
7. go to see my best friend in Poland
8. read all of Haruki Murakami's books
9. take Eiken 1kyu (the highest level of the official English proficiency test, which is the most common English test in Japan)
10. read lots of books about Japanese education (esp. problems regarding Japanese education. e.g., bullying-いじめ, Compulsory Education-義務教育, entrance examination-受験, etc..)
11. learn another language (Italian?, Polish?, I don't know yet...)
12. go to Okinawa-沖縄 and maybe live there for a few years if I like it there
13. travel to Indo-Chinese Peninsula (Vietnam, Thailand, Syngapore...)
14. be a cyborg like the main character (素子) in Ghost in the Shell (攻殻機動隊) and jump from roof to roof, have a nice voluptuous body, and never get old

I should have a lot more things I want to do for sure but I just can't come up with them now so I just finish it for today...

bai bai!

The Professor's Beloved Equation

So last night I watched a Japanese movie, Hakase-no Aishita Sushiki ("The Professor and His Beloved Equation").

It was GREAT!!

This is the equation the professor loves.

e π i + 1 = 0

(e to the π and to the i (ROOT-1); e のπ乗のi乗)

You probably don't think this equation is romantic.
But you will think so after watching this movie!

220 and 284.

They are called 友愛数（ゆうあいすう）(literally translated as "the number of friend and love" - "amiable numbers"). They have a deep friendship.

ROOT　√

is a tough and gentle guy with "a wise heart" who protects anyone, any number.

『博士の愛した数式』を見た後、数学をいつか学び直したいと思いました。

"No one knows when numbers were born."

Numbers are like the nature. They just exist.

my 23rd birthday~!

wow... I turned 23 years old today... (technically yesterday in Japan because I was born in Japan). I feel like there is a big gap between 22 yr-old and 23 yr-old... because if they go to 4yr university in Japan, 22yr-old people are still students, but 23yr-old people are supposued to be 社会人（しゃかいじん）(literally translated as 'society-person'; a person who finished a college or highschool or whatever and is working full-time in some company).
[Note: there is no such thing as 'super-senior' in Japanese universities.]

But, I am still a student! Why????
Because in the US universities (and other types of schools) start in September with a new academic year which ends in June. On the other hand, Japanese universities start in April and end in March. Besides, students in Japanese universities cannot graduate in any semester, but have to graduate academic-yearly (in March). Also, Japanese companies usually have some specific number of "new-employees" or 新卒（しんそつ）(literally translated as 'newly-graduated'; people who graduated from university within the past year) they want to hire every year. Those 新卒 people all start working in April (because they all graduate in March).

Therefore, I wasn't qualified for this year's 新卒採用（しんそつさいよう）(hiring of 新卒 people) because I couldn't graduate by March...
BUT I am qualified for the next year's 新卒採用 because I'm graduating this June!!
BUT, I am not going to work in some Japanese company by 新卒採用 cuz I first want to work as a teacher in some juku (cram school; after-school school), which irregularly hire teachers.

なんか誕生日とは全然関係ない話になっちゃったけど・・・

ima kara, I'm going to watch a Japanese movie called Hakase-no Aishita Sushiki ("Professor's beloved equation") on campus~^_^*

Ittekimasu!

started a blog! - aisatsu

Hi everyone!
I started a blog as you can see... honestly I'm not good at keeping a diary or something like that because I don't know what to write about and it just takes me three hours to think about topics and usually start feeling めんどくさい(lazy) to keep writing in like a week. but i just read my old blog and it reminded me of some old memories and it was interesting to know what i was thinking about and what i was feeling at the time i was writing.

In addition, i'm in the US now and experiencing something i can't experience in my country Japan! there are many weird, funny, and suprising things (to me) going on here and probably i should record them with how i think about in this blog so that i will easily recall those memorable events someday in the future.

I will also sometimes write in Japanese (when I'm too tired to use English or somethin..) but try to write in English as hard as I can to improve my damn English writing!

YOROSHIKU!

Kaori