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~Say No To Scanslations!~
Name:
Jamie
Age:
23
Interests:
Japan, Japan, Japan. And reading :P My world revolves around things Japanese
I am also a complete and utter addict of the tv show The West Wing, and a Josh/Donna shipper 100% ^_^v
Ever been to Japan?:
Yup, three times. First time, 6 weeks, summer of 1998, Nagareyama-shi, Chiba-ken. Second time, Fall 2001, 4 months, Nagoya, Aichi-ken ^.^v And finally, summer 2003 for a 10 day trip(Nagoya, Kyouto, Nara, Gifu, Mie)
Manga:
Okay, here goes, in no particular order:
Mars, Kanata-kara, HikaGo, IY, SekaKira, HanaKimi, NY NY, Massugu ni ikou, ItaKiss, Gertrude no Recipe, Bleach, Koucha Ouji, Nanji nayamu koto nakare, Hot Gimmick, Mekakushi no kuni, Psychometrer Eiji, KimiPe, Renai Catalogue, LoveCon, Mahou wo shinjirukai, Hime-chan no Ribon,
and a TON more!
Fav. j-pop groups, in no particular order:
V6!, Yuzu, Porno Graffiti, Spitz, Kiroro, Misia, Something ELse, Fukuyama Masaharu, Chemistry, Gospellers, Kuwata Keisuke, Skoop on Somebody, Arashi, Kinki Kids, SMAP, Matsu Takako, Exile, Mitsunaga Ryouta, Moriyama Naotarou, Tokio
and again, a ton more
Non-Japanese Adored Artists: Garth Brooks, Brad Paisley
Fav. Japanese dramas:
Long Vacation, Virgin Road, Meguri Ai, Love Story, Namida o fuite, Aishiteiru to itte kure, Nemureru Mori, Koi wa aserazu, Bokura no Yuuki, Beautiful Life, Summer Snow, Long Love Letter, Asunaro Hakusho, Perfect Love, Team, PS Genki desu Shunpei, Hitotsu Yane no Shita 1 & 2, Oishii Kankei, Itazura na Kiss, Mukodono, Kimi wa Pet! etc.
Contact:
e-mail: jun_inohara@hotmail.com
AIM: JunInohara
MSN: sueyoshi03@hotmail.com
Layout: v. 10.0! Done oh so graciously and fantastically by Kiripin, so run to her page and e-mail her about how amazing it looks. It features Nibimaru and Irori from the Konami Shouko series Nibiirogenshikou, which I love.
My Japanese Dorama List
My manga list
My j-poplist!
This gif of Jamie ddr-ing was made by Amy and it was edited from the ddring bunny. YAY AMY!
Friends:
+Kiripin
+Katherine
+Megan
+Talia
+Melissa
+Kira
+Elizabeth
+Rachael
+Masanari
+Cali
+Kevin
+Jenny
Links:
+Nagoya
+Nanzan
+Yoridori
+Masanari's Page: Serendipity
+Pitas' Main Page
+J-Ent
+Sengoku o togi zoushi
+WGN Radio
+Nakajo Hisaya
+Uta-Net
+Engrish
+Oricon
+BeccaFridge
+Peoria Greyhound Adoption
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Tuesday, December 23rd, 2003 :: Comments []
Sayounara, Pitas
After two years, I am finally joining the sheepherd that is LiveJournal ^^ Thanks for a great two years pitas, and know it's not YOU, but my sheep friends :P who have too many friends only entries that make it hard to keep up with them ^^;; So bai bai, you can now find me HERE.
Sunday, December 21st, 2003 :: Comments []
"Oh the weather outside is frightful..."
Listening to: Smile Again/Skoop on Somebody
...actually it's not at all, but dammit, it's almost Christmas and I'm in a festive mood! *is wearing all red at the moment*
Quite a fun weekend ^O^ despite the fact my boss is a fuckwit and scheduled me to work today when I asked it off a month ago and no one else did T_____T
...but I digress :P We (Meg, Kiripin, and I) headed to Chicago just after 11:30 yesterday, after I got home just in time from Jewel retrieving the photo cake (which didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped) and I made killer time (read: I drove well over the speed limit, shhhhhhh) to Arlington Heights, getting their quickly enough to pick Rachael up at the train station and still make it back to Mitsuwa before either Katherine or Kira).
We realized very quickly that meeting at Mitsuwa (where I bought the new Skoop on Somebody single and 1-4 of Global Garden) so early wasn't exactly the best of ideas. Meg and I both figured we'd take much longer there but we were mistaken :P So, in order to kill time we made a trip to the used bookstore (where I bought 1 and 2 of Auto Focus) and finally to Ikea, where Kira found and bought a new desk for her room.
Following that we decided after some debate to eat at Matsuya, a Japanese restaurant in Wrigleyville. Let me tell you, Meg and I were rather pathetic >D Being the WGN whores that we are, going to Wrigleyville is nothing short of an early Christmas :P "Hey! It's the Billy Goat!", "Hey! It's the Stage Left Theater where Nick's show(play) is being performed!", "Hey, it's Wrigley Field, lookit the marqee!" >D It's about as bad as taking us down to the Tribune Tower and letting us gawk into WGN's showcase studio window....we just stand there like pilgrims before a shrine. So we made Kiripin take some pictures (as I'd forgotten mine in the car, which was still parked back in the lot at Mitsuwa) and basically just effervesced in general >D
Dinner was great. I had ramen plus takoyaki and two tamago-nigirizushi before that (*droooool* and don't give me that "egg nigirizushi is for lame people!" bit :P I can and have eat other kinds of nigirizushi, but honestly, I don't like them that much) and we had a nice time just eating and talking and making merry >D
From there we headed back toward Mitsuwa, as we'd planned to go to karaoke..but inexplicably found the place closed...I'm terrified it's closed for good, but there were no signs to indicate one thing or another. So we had no choice to to ax that and go to Katherine's (who oh so graciously allowed us into her home :D), where we proceeded to open gifts, eat cake and play Taiko no Tatsujin 1 & 2.
I gotta say, Meg got me great gifts :D She got me the Brad Paisley t-shirt I'd coveted for months. It's red and looks kind of like a baseball "shirt" except it has sleeves to the elbows and a navy blue collar and two stripes on both sleeves. On the front it has an 03 (whether that's for Mud on the Tires as the third album or for the year 2003 or both I dunno :P). She also gave me a stupid ( <3 it) little cow toy >D, this certain style of geta I've coveted far longer than any Brad Paisley t-shirt (for the last two years at the very least, the shoes I mean), and a gift certificate for...er..either B&N or Borders, I forget >D).
Rachael gave us both huge Symphony candy bars (which, unfortunately, the dogs got the majority of one of them) which were heartily appreciated, and Kira gave us both $10 to the bookstore at Mitsuwa. Kiripin had sent to us a poster sized version of the drawing/collage she made along with a bunch of letters our friends did for graduating from college. It's fantastic! ^O^/ Gonna laminate it and get it on the wall SOMEWHERE :P
After that we wandered back toward Mitsuwa-way and got a hotel room and bedded down for the night :P And this morning we took Kiripin to Midway and saw her off (dropped her off is more like it >D).
Btw, I have to say having Kiripin here was soooooo fun, even if it for her it might have seemed rather boring most of the time >D I hope she had a good time and that we weren't too immature or irrtating (which is unlikely :P) ^_____^ koko he kitekureta arigatou Kiripin ^O^/
Oh, I nearly forgot. This morning as we dropped by Mitsuwa briefly (to attempt to spend the gift certificates given to us by Kira) and were in the bookstore making fun of shoujo manga titles, this Japanese woman (after consulting with her friend "Can they read it, do you think? I'll ask them" <--in Japanese of course) was talking to us about Japanese courses in the US, which she thought over all weren't that good and weren't really all that helpful and something about pronunciation being poor or what not and afterwards we couldn't help but wonder if this woman had taken high school English courses in Japan or not.
Not forgetting I often to cringe at some people's pronunciation of Japanese (considering how easy it is NOT to completely fuck it up) I rather think a typical American's ability to pronounce Japanese decently is astronomically better than a typical Japanese person's to ability to pronounce English (and by this I mean just if you pulled any old John Q. Public off the street and said "Repeat these Japanese/English words after me"). This isn't me bashing Japanese people. Hardly! But the fact is English contains a far greater amount of the sounds that occur in Japanese than Japanese has of sounds that occur in English (after all, the consonant-vowel set-up isn't conducive to consonant endings so often found in English). I dunno, I just got this vibe from the woman that she didn't quite get that Japanese courses in America are no worse than English courses in Japan, and probably better from what I know of typical English courses up through high school level. It was a very "...." kind of conversation :P
Friday, December 19th, 2003 :: Comments []
A Trip to Champaign and other Random Ramblings
Listening to: Nothing
Took Kiripin (who, btw, I don't actually call Kiripin IRL) over to the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana so she could check it out for grad school. I never quite realized how %@$% big that campus is. Three quads, can you imagine. ISU has only the one "big" one and where you'd have to amount to something like a Complete Idiot to get lost at ISU, I imagine it's quite easy to if you're unfamiliar with Illinois's campus....so in other words, I'm a prime candidate. But it was a pretty campus, and nice...I felt something like being in Disney world...that is, I felt I was in a kind of simulated town *lol* which is, I realize, what many universities are. One dormitory though, had me thinking of the Really Ugly public Japanese universities. For all the beauty you can find in that country, it's unversities are (generally) not among that category :P
We then headed home and proceeded to get gas just as we came into town. Now, here's where I made my Huge Blunder of the Minute/Hour/Day/Week/Month. I picked the kind of gas I wanted and stuck the thing in the car, pushing the lever up so that I could just sit in the car and wait for it to "click" to a stop, as I often do. At around the $22 mark I make some comment to Mom that we're getting an awful lot of gas. But I'm sitting there in the car and I call Meg to ask if we had enough bacon to put on our okonomiyaki and while I'm finishing up, this car pulls across up across from me and starts pointing toward are car. I jump out and there's gas just pouring out of the tank.
This is a pause while you get a tissue to wipe your eyes from the laughing.
< / pause >
So this woman comes running and grabs the gas thing out of the car and it finally stops. I remind you that the damn thing NEVER CLICKED TO A STOP. I always wait to hear that. It's never before NOT clicked to a stop once the tank is full >____________________< Anyway, as a result, we ended up with a $37 gas bill >D!!!!! bwahahaha
I'm thoroughly perturbed with my mother at the moment (and you can really tell...when I'm pissed with her she becomes "mother" :P). She was using my AIM name this morning >_____________< A complete violation of my privacy in my opinion. Nevermind that she has a fair idea of my password and NEEDED it to type it in, just the fact she did it without consulting me pisses the hell out of me. She knew she shouldn't have and did it anyway (you can always tell with mom, cause she tries to tell you in the form of it being a funny situation). I don't go logging into her hotmail simply because I know what her password is >_________________< suGGGGOKU okotteta >.< She just better thank her lucky stars it wasn't Meg's name she used or I think there might have been bloodshed :P
It's been quite a bit of fun to have Kiripin here, even if the poor girl has been bored out of her mind >D There's not a lot to do here in central Illinois I'm afraid :D But I'm glad she was willing to bear the burden of the force of weird that is The Cow and The Mare and come here *lol* I feel incredibly loud next to her though, cause she's all polite and quiet voiced....I envy that >D
Oh and yes...I'm a Snob Extraordinaire! I read a thread on some forum that talks about Bleach being in a list of unconfirmed manga to be translated by Viz. I imagine it's not untrue, as Bleach is an SJ series and it was just a matter of time before it would be licensed. So I'm a snob for wanting it to stay in only Japanese for a while longer >D sue me! BUT, I'm happy that people who don't read Japanese will now BUY it instead of stealing it via the scanslation. So at least in that respect I'm happy :P
Wednesday, December 17, 2003 :: Comments []
A Little Self Indulgence
Listening to: le tv
*takes a deep breath* Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy BIRTHDAY to meeeeee, happy birthday to me!
Ijou desu.
Monday, December 15th, 2003 :: Comments []
If My Friends Aren't Great...
Listening to: Nagaiaida/Kiroro
No one's are, and this proves it! :D
Saturday, December 13th, 2003 :: Comments []
They're GONE
Listening to: Old Rugged Cross/version sung by Brad Paisley
WOO-HOO!! Today was the graduation ceremony, the one Meg and I chose not to attend (see November's archive for an explanation as to why :P) and now the campus is DEAD. It's a beautiful thing. WONDERFUL. As a "townie" the day when the students leave is blissful. No traffic jams, no students to screech to a halt for, streets used for driving on instead of parking. Let's all breath a sigh of relief :D
Anyway, so we had our "formal" graduation open house (mostly friends of my mom's, a neighbor or two, etc.). It was pretty successful, although there were a couple of no-shows I'm a little disappointed about ^^;; Can't be helped. Plus it started snowing shortly before 2 p.m. and started coming down pretty heavily, so that could easily have been the cause for a few people. Ah well :P It was great to see the people who came, and while I thought it was going to be hard making small talk all over the place for 2 hours, it was actually a great deal of fun. And I looked great, dammit >D
Speaking of looking great (what a great segue, huh? :P), one great guy sent me a fantastic gift ^_____^ A gorgeous cranberry colored toggle coat ^___________________^ It's fabulous. Exactly what I would have bought for myself two years ago when I studied abroad in Japan, if I'd have been able to find one like it. Although they're a mainstay in Japan, it's harder to find them than I had ever thought. So THANK YOU, Masanari. I LOVE it ^____^/
Between last night and tonight, I have bought 4 books for myself. I tell ya, if there's one better than being in a bookstore surrounded by manga, it's being in a bookstore surrounded by books >D Of course, being the hopelessly unsophisticated reader that I am, they're all fantasy based books. Even more, two of them are "young adult" books...one by the same author as the Artemis Fowl series (which, if you haven't read, GO BUY THEM. They're fantastic books) called the wish list. I don't know about you, but as often as people gush over the "classics", some of the best reads are books for "young adults" (although many times I find the same books in both "young adults" and "adults).
Anyway, I'm just happy to have some reading material for the next few days ^O^
Friday, December 12th, 2003 :: Comments []
Finding Nemo -Nihongo Ba-jon-
Listening to: Nothing ^^;;
If you go here, you can take a look at the script for the Japanese fansub of Finding Nemo ^___^ I'd been wondering how some lines were translated and who was using what personal pronoun, etc. I have to say though, I can't tell if my favorite line quite translates the best. It's the part when Marlin believes Nemo is dead after the incident in the dentist's office and Dory is pleading with him not to leave her behind, and she says (in Japanese) "Anata to iru to...ochitsukuno". Now I know "ochitsuku" has all manner of definitions...but I can't quite tell if it's quite the same as her English line that goes "When I look at you...I'm home"....so someone who's better at Japanese tell me. *lol* Not that I'm that picky. I've done enough translating of stories and manga that I understand the difficulty in crossing the language and culture barrier. Clearly the fansub, from what I DID read, is quite good indeed.
Thursday, December 11th, 2003 :: Comments []
I Despise Bills
Listening to: Long Black Train/Josh Turner
I really do U___U Okay, I'm really grateful that I have insurance through my job. Really I am. Except for the fact that it's only medical insurance, which means that yours truly gets to pay the entirity of the cost for her new contacts plus the two appointments with the optometrist. Oh. Goody. $240 for contacts and the appointments. Isn't that beautiful, so close to the holidays :P That's $60 alone for two appointments that combined totaled no longer than 20 minutes, tops.
On top of which, the fuckwitted machine at the post office for some god knows reason misread my envelope and read MY zip code, instead of the credit card company's. So instead of my check arriving at the credit card company ON TIME on Monday, it instead arrived back to me yesterday, which means it was already two @#$ing days late T________T The damned postal system has cost me a $20 fee!
Hye-jin came over for a bit this evening ^^;; She's going home tomorrow (home being Seoul) for the winter break ^^ Haven't gotten to see her much at all this semester, but I think next semester'll be much better for her (and for us, considering I'll just be working ^^;;). Buuuuuuut, she gave us something for X-mas: The second HanaKimi drama CD >D! woo-hoo!
Tuesday, December 9th, 2003 :: Comments []
Mou Daigakusei janai
Listening to: Sleigh Ride/Boston Pops
So I took my last final (well, first and last this year, but actual last final off my undergrad career) yesterday...much harder than I thought it would be. I expected short answer, fill in the blank, matching and essay...not a test that was ENTIRELY essay ^^;; (Thanks Proff. Stanlaw >O!)
My mom keeps making remarks like "Aren't you relieved?!", etc. and I'm trying to see how I should be :P I've only had two classes this semester, and one of them was choir...so it's not as if it's been like a regular semester anyway. I've always enjoyed school...I love learning...
So pretty much all I feel like now is a college grad (which I won't REALLY feel like until I have that diploma) with a loser job *lol* Granted, I can't really change that right now, since I'm waiting to hear from JET, but still. Hell, I'm not even feeling nostalgiac yet, which is rather unusual for me >D
I'm hoping this'll give me a chance to really do some studying and translating...although I think I want to join ISU's Civic Chorale just to have something to do and to keep singing ^^;;
Friday, December 5th, 2003 :: Comments []
You Know When You Just Can't Wrap Your Head Around a Concept?
Listening to: Love Love Manhattan/Tokio
Meg and I are watching PBS, and they're broadcasting the 1998 London production of Oklahoma. Okay, not a very difficult thing to imagine, I realize. The thing is, in that particular production Hugh Jackman played Curly >D
Not that this should really surprise me. I've known for a long time that Hugh Jackman had a background in theater...but you know....when you acutally see it it's surprising. Neither of us recognized him at first either, because of course, as the name says his hair is all Curly :P Damn fine singer, that man O_____O
Had an interesting exchange last night :P Was chatting in Channel Japan on WinMX (not unusual, been a regular there for a year and a half now) and I was talking to one of the very few Japanese people that come to the chat (there used to be 4, including the host...now it's 3, but the host rarely talks ^^;;)...his English is fantastic by the way....anyway, someone mentioned Kill Bill (not for any particular reason relating to Japan really, I think the discussion was on movies in general) and one of the regular Japanese chatters (who's name I shan't write here ^^;;) mentioned that although he knew Tarantino greatly respected Japanese culture that the opinion of many Japanese was that his movie was just another example of what stereotypes Americans must have about Japan.
After I assured him that we don't all carry those stereotypes I also commented that whenever there's a non-Japanese female in dramas she's 99.99% of the time bleach blonde, blue-eyed, speaks stupid and babyish Japanese and tends to fawn over the main male protagonist. In other words, ridiculous stereotypes are abundant on both sides of the ocean :P
Thursday, December 4th, 2003 :: Comments []
I never realized...
Listening to: Message/Tokio
....that the sitcom The Nanny was so damned funny. O.o I mean, Meg and I watched it all the time when we were younger, but the majority of the humor CLEARLY went over our heads. I had no idea it was so dirty, even thought the majority of the humor relies on innuendo....but damn...either I laugh to easily or this show is hilarious. Or maybe I just like shows that take everything tounge-in-cheek :P
Anyway, I checked the online site and I know our applications made it to the JET Program's offices...so just keep your fingers crossed for us :D
Monday, December 1st, 2003 :: Comments []
Application Sent!
Listening to: Love story wa totsuzen ni/Oda Kazumasa
Finally, after countless meetings with our advisor to get school straightened out and to assure we would graduate, our JET applications have been completed and sent off today ^___________^/ Of course, it cost almost $18 a piece in order to make certain they arrived overnight (the deadline is Friday, and I'm not messing around with the mail system to send it 2-3 days), but it's done. Now it's all up to JET whether or not we get an interview in January.
I'd feel more elated, except for the fact I still have a concert, the other half of my 15 page paper, and a final between me and the end of the semester, and that's all between now and next Monday evening :P So wish me good luck ^O^/
On a more solemn note, I happened to catch an episode of Living Wild on the National Geographic channel this afternoon. This particular episode was about Greyhound racing, and I don't know if I'm glad I saw it or not.
The harsh reality is, even though the number of retired Greys being adopted has risen annually to approx. 18,000 it still means that double that number and more are just killed, and not always the "humane" way. One part showed a facility in Florida that (at the time the show was made several years ago) euthanized 800 Greys a year....imagine, that's nearly 3 Greys alone every day ;_____;
And they showed it done, just them sticking a needle in the dog and boom, the dog just melts into oblivious sleep. Not only did it bother me they did it in a room packed with other greyhounds (and I can't believe they don't get what happened O.o;;) and just wheeled this wheelbarrow in, drop the dog in it and took outside to an awaiting truck bed where they threw it in with a "pile" (and that's the nice way of putting it) of other euthanized Greys. Honestly, it made me want to cry, and all I could do was grab my dog and hug him tight. That anything like that could have been Gryffin's fate appalls me to the core. And that's the relatively "humane" fate.
Of course, there was also the lingering sadness for me in regards to North. I had to ask mom if North fell asleep as fast as the greyhound had, but I think it was a slower process. I dunno how that makes me feel. Of course, being at the vet and this other facility are two different things, and my parents were with North when he fell asleep, but it still made me unhappy (not that euthanization is ever a happy subject), and not something I care to think about.
Just made me so sad. Such beautiful, gentle dogs destroyed every year and for nothing. And all those people who go the track and make bets, who in one way or another continue to support this awful industry. Makes me physically ill.
Sunday, November 30th, 2003 :: Comments []
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