The Ugliest Jacket I Have Ever Seen

Remember Giant Lady?  Well, here is another department store gem, this time from JCPenny:

Auuggggghhhh. Not only is the color and puffyness ugly, but it's also cropped!  Short sleeves, short length.  It's stupid.  To see more pictures and what not, check out the product page here.

Do not buy it.

Book Reviews: HP Lovecraft's the Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories and Amy Tan's the Bonesetter's Daughter

Two book reviews today!

First is the Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft.  I've mentioned this book and his stories before in this post and this post.  Overall, I found the book to be good.  There were some stories I couldn't really get into, and some of the stories seemed like repetitions of others. In these latter cases though, it seemed like he was trying to either build on an idea he previously had and make it better, or sort of try to take it in a new direction.  I only found a few of the stories to be really creepy to me.  There are some pretty good stories in the collection, and if you look in this previously mentioned post you can see some of my recommendations.

Buy @ Amazon.com

If you don't want to/can't buy the book, you can read his stories online here.


On to the next one.....

the Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan.  Unlike a lot of what I read, I didn't set out to read this (wasn't looking for it in a bookstore or anything). I saw it at the paperback book exchange at my work though, and remembering that I had read the Joy Luck Club at one point and liked that, went ahead and picked it up. Originally intended for a "light read," I actually ended up really enjoying it. Maybe if I went in to read books like that more often, without believing beforehand that something will be great, I would be more impressed with what I read! Anyway, it's a mother-daughter story, which I thought would be a turn-off for me, but it wasn't. It had some really sweet parts and some others that made me feel sad; I suppose I felt a bit emotionally tied to certain events in the characters lives, though I will say that this "bond" isn't as great as that statement makes it sound.  If you liked the the Joy Luck Club or others like it, you would probably enjoy this one as well.

Buy @ Amazon.com


The only thing I really remember from the Joy Luck Club now, aside from something about mahjong, is a scene where a daughter is having a conversation with her mother who is a landlord, and mom says something like:

"He say I worst Fukein landlord. Hmph!  I not from Fukein.  He know nothing."

I thought that was a bit funny.

I think I will do manga reviews in the future, but only when I've finished the entire series.  To me it would seem sort of silly to review each and every volume.  I'd rather give my opinion of the entire, overall story.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Happy 21st Birthday to Me!

Yay!

I've been wished a happy birthday by many, and my grandma did not forget it this year (she has the last two years, I'm not sure why, haha)! She almost did though, because she thought today was the 23rd.

I haven't done anything exciting yet, and...I'm actually....at work right now, till 930PM. *insert sad face here*
But, Bryan and I are going to a bar later (that seems so weird to say!).  So that should be nice. 

Well, since the 21st birthday is the day most people celebrate that they have reached legal drinking age, here is a story involving me, alcohol, and a pretty funny joke made by my お母さん, or my host mother in Japan:

At some point during the first day or two at my host families house, Okaa-san asked me if I drank.  Since I wasn't of the US legal age and hadn't really drunk much alcohol at all before coming to Japan, I said "no."
The day before my group left to go back to the US, there was a going away party for us, with all of our host families and some students and a few other people from Utsunomiya.  It was a lot of fun.
Anyway, they had some beer there, and a friend had some Jack Daniels, so I drank a bit of both.  I think she (Okaa-san) said something about it, and I said something like, "Well, I only drink a little."
Later, back at the family house, one of her friends came over and brought this bag of nuts+spicy-ish cracker types things that I don't know the name of but I remember seeing them at a grocery store here in the US.  Her friend mentioned that they were good with beer.  Okaasan then says that I don't really drink, well, except for a little.  Then she said,
"A little?" Her forefinger and thumb are held about an inch or so from each other.
"A little?"  She uses her hands now to indicate "a little," which has now become 5 or so inches.
"A little?"  Now her hands are about a foot apart.

That's probably one of those "you had to be there" or you have actually be speaking to me stories for it to be really funny, but I still think it's a good story to tell.

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If I could have any drink right now, it would be this lovely thing:

(photo credits CNNGO)

It is a drink described as chocolate covered strawberries doused in alcohol.  I don't know if you've noticed, but I like strawberries, and I like chocolate.  The two of them together is wonderful.  So this drink sounds pretty amazing!  You can read more about it on CNNGO here.

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I'm not really a purse fiend, much less a designer purse fiend (I'm not much one for owning a trillion shoes either; you can fit all the shoes I wear into a milk crate), but I like this Coach purse I saw through this Fifi Lapin blog post:

I like this particular one because the leather looks like chocolate mousse.  Mmm, I could go for some chocolate mousse right now.  Doesn't it look delicious!?  Other than liking the outside of the bag, the inside is pretty nice too--the lining is a really pretty, soft, purple color.  The only thing I don't really like about it is the huge brass details, but over all those still aren't that bad.  You can check out the purse on Coach's website here.  I think the mahogany color is nice as well.

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Oh, I have a new cellphone.  It's just a Blackberry, so it's nothing super-special, but it's kind of cute now that I've been able to "accessorize" it.  I even made my own little theme!

Let's see, coming up in future posts will be two book reviews, and this little one on songs that sounds ok at first but are actually a bit awkward once you register what the lyrics are.

So, thanks for bearing with me on my birthday!  I think Bryan may have a small surprise for me planned, he said something about "getting to work" on something he didn't tell me about.  Maybe I'll make a post birthday post as well!

<3

I Cooked!

Actually, it should be "we cooked," because Bryan helped me.  We made Chicken Penne Primavera, which you can find the recipe for here.  Usually we just eat sandwiches or some sort of microwaved thing, so this was sort of special and I'm happy with how it turned out.

Cutting up the veggies:

Isn’t the inside of the pepper so interesting?

Before the noodles:

 
Broccoli is tasty. 

And after!  This is what the finished project looked like:

It was pretty yummy!  I also liked that it had vegetables in it, as I don’t get much of those.

Try it yourself—it was pretty easy.

A Post with Random Things

I thought I should make a post but I'm not really sure what to write about plus I feel sorta busy, so here are some things I just found today online:

DIY Miu Miu Thigh Highs @ NYLON
I guess the Miu Miu originals are something like $400, but you can easily make your own for like $10 (depending on what materials you used).  I think they are sorta pretty.  Definitely eye-catching, and would add a nice shimmer to a subdued winter outfit.

Brownie Pops @ Sea Salt with Food
Just look at the first picture!  Don't those look delicious!?  I need to get some cooking practice in so I can make stuff like that.  Recipe is included in the post.


Love Hotels @ Universal Doll
I like how straightforward and honest her post about love hotels is.  Usually when love hotels are mentioned it's in a sensational manner.  It's a pretty interesting post!  I think it's funny that in Japan lube is known as "lotion."

What I Learned in Japanese I Last Week: Frequency Adverbs, More question sentences, Invitations

This is it for new stuff for this class!  The rest of the semester will be spent reviewing material and taking tests.  So I suppose this will be the last  “What I Learned in Japanese…” post for this year! Unless I think of something worth covering.  But it’ll be back next year with Japanese II stuff.  So, let’s get started!
1.  Frequency Adverbs

	あまり +negative	not much
全然	ぜんぜん +negative	not at all
大抵	たいてい	usually
	ちょっと	a little
時々	ときどき	sometimes
	よく	often; much

These are used, obviously, to tell how often you do or don’t do something.  the “+negative” next to the first two words means that you use the negative form of the verb (ません) instead of the positive (ます).
As for their placement in the sentence word order, you can put them in the same place or right before where you would put time.  Here are your examples:
私はあまりテレビを見ません。
わたしはあまりテレビをみません。
I don’t watch TV much.
私は大抵月曜日学校に行きます。
わたしはげつようびがっこうにいきます。
I usually go to school on Mondays.
This isn’t really the same as the other examples, but you can use ちょっと to say “Please wait a bit” in this phrase:

ちょっとまってください。

2.  More Question Sentences
As before, you can just smack か onto the end of a sentence and it’s a question:
朝御飯を食べますか。
あさごはんをたべますか。
Do you eat breakfast?

Nothing new, really.  We did learn how to take these new verbs and pair them with old question words to ask things like “何時ね寝ますか。” which is “What time do you go to sleep?” 

何時にＸか。	なんじにＸか。	What time do you do X?
	いつＸか。	When do you do X?
何をＸか。	なにをＸか。	What do you X?
	どこへＸか。	Where do you X? (used with にand へ refers to movement; ex. going, coming, etc)
	どこでＸか。	Where do you do X at?

Examples:

何時に晩御飯を食べますか。
なんじにばんごはんをたべますか。
What time do you eat dinner?

どこで勉強しますか。
どこでべんきょうしますか。
Where do you study at?

3.  Invitations

Asking someone if they want to do something is pretty easy.  You just use the “ません” form of the verb and tack か on the end. So…..

ねまっせんか。
Do you want to go to sleep?

and you can be more specific….

宇多田ヒカルさんのコンサーとに行きませんか。
うただひかるさんのコンサートにいきませんか。
Do you want to go to Utada Hikaru’s concert?

And to such invitations you can reply either:

いいですね。
Sounds good.

or

うーん、ちょっと。。。。。
Um, it’s slightly…(inconvenient….).  [A polite way of saying “No.”]