ant power

Hey, are any of you guys a member of the fanclub for any of the JE groups but have no intention of balloting for the countdown and wouldn't mind loaning their membership number to a fellow fan? I'm going to be in Japan for NYE and my sister is balloting but because my Arashi fanclub membership has lapsed she can't ballot for me as well, so we need a second membership number.

If anyone is willing to do me this favour, I'd be happy to purchase any goods you'd like on your behalf, or anything else within reason!

Anyone doing nanowrimo this year? I'm ant-power on there, be my writing buddy!!!

stolen from missmomoko

( 2012, a retrospective )

One day soon I am going to make an awesome post about Arafes but I think I will need to take screencaps first to properly express my feelings!

Arafes DVD released on Boxing Day???

So fast! Come on, Johnny-san, I need to pay my rent, you can't take all my money!

Wowsers, I haven't updated since March! That seems like a bizillion years ago! Anyway, I am procrastinating studying, so I will try to neatly summarise the last six months!

April

April was mainly just settling into my new flat and classes in Japan. I missed my dog a lot but everything was all new and exciting. I got placed in a higher level of Japanese than I'd expected, so there was a lot of work and I wasn't in the same class as any of my friends, but my teachers were all super nice and the two other guys in my class were okay.

My futon was super uncomfortable.


May

By May I'd settled into a routine. On Tuesdays and Fridays I finished early so on those days my sister and I would go sightseeing or to karaoke. I still really liked my classes and everything, especially haiku class. My haiku teacher was the loveliest lady and she'd read haiku to us in this amazingly soothing voice, and take us on these excursions where we'd sit in gardens and write haiku and stuff. It was tops.

I went to the Hey! Say! Jump! concert in Yokohama, which was fun, even though I only know like three of their songs and couldn't do the furi at all. Yamada was hilariously princess-like, which was super entertaining, especially when he tried to push Chinen off the stage.

I went to the baseball a couple of times, which was fun. I'd never been to the baseball before on account of I'm Australian and here we have cricket, but I knew the rules from baseball movies and Rookies.

Near the end of the month my other sister came to visit. Three sisters in a tiny little Tokyo flat - you can probs imagine how fun that was.

For my birthday we went to Chiba and watched the Marines vs the Giants and then to the Aiba restaurant for dinner. It was delicious and I ate a lot but refrained from buying merchandise this time.

I bought a new futon but it was still uncomfortable.


June

Because my sister was visiting, the three of us went to Aomori for a few days. It was good to get out of the city and Aomori is so beautiful. We ate a lot. I had the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten which was this scallop from the fresh seafood market. It was so delicious it made me cry. Even now when I think about it, I want to cry. I also had very delicious curry ramen. If I ever live in Japan again, I would want to live in Aomori.

When we got back, my other sister left and my remaining sister and I decided to go around the Bosu Peninsula for the day. We went to the cat town from 1Q84, which I don't recommend because it's even more isolated and creepy than in the book. We also went to this other town because there was a big sign promising steak and lobster dinners at the train station, but there was no steak, there was no lobster. No lobster town was the worst!

After that I started getting really sick and spent most of the rest of the month sleeping. When I did go out, it was mostly to Shin Okubo for Korean BBQ, because meat was the only thing that made me feel better. Also Korean cosmetics and cute boys.

I did go to Waku Waku Gakkou, because I'd taken my Arashi concert outfit the whole way to Japan and it would've been too depressing not to wear it. That was fun but would've been more fun if I'd got ballot tickets instead of expensive tickets.

Because I was so sick and couldn't go to class, I went to the hospital. It was horrific. Well, the administration was amazingly well organised, but the doctor was an arrogant pig. He told me it was all in my imagination and to just get over it. I told him he was an incompetent arrogant dick.

My sister went to Kochi and Korea, so I got to sleep in the proper bed instead of the crappy futon and that was awesome.


July

I contacted my doctor in Australia for a second opinion and she said to come home early. My last week in Japan was the most fun I'd had there, even though I was still sick. It was mostly meeting up with people for farewell dinners and karaoke, which was nice.

I didn't go straight home, but to my mum's house for a few days so I could get my dog. I am never leaving my dog again. Or my bed.

July was mostly having doctors appointments and tests and fun things like that. I started back at uni here part-time so that the year wouldn't be a total waste, as I couldn't get credit for the Japan semester because I finished early - which also meant I couldn't do Japanese this semester. I'm doing two literature subjects instead. One of them is quite hard but I'm in love with my tutor so I have to put it lots of work so I don't look dumb. I'll post more about him another time.


August

August was a blur of trying to get all my uni work done in advance before going into surgery. As a result, I now really hate Keats.


September

I had to have my thyroid taken out because it was very big and strangling my windpipe and like crushing my internal organs and things, so September was spent in hospital and then recovering from surgery. It went pretty well but my neck is still sore and I have a big freaky scar and I'm still tired and feeble most of the time. I decided to spend my convalescence time rewatching Supernatural before the new season started, but only made it up to season 6
\\\\
]] => my dog typed that.


October

So far it's mainly just been trying to stay awake and catch up with uni work. I am definitely not doing my major essay on Keats, Keats can stick it.

- Got back from Japan today, have Japanese midterm exam day after tomorrow and haven't studied at all. Oops.

- Didn't get Arashi tickets, so we went and stood outside. You could hear perfectly, and apparently there were like 12,000 of us out there? It had a very festival-like atmosphere and was very fun, there was even a dude in a kebab van! Everyone was dressed up and singing along and doing the furi, one girl even had photos of the member's outfits so she could look at them while listening! And we saw the balloons and fireworks (I got ash in my eye, if I go blind those guys are in big trouble!). The most amazing bit was when it started raining in Gori Muchuu on the Saturday night. I really don't think I would've had more than $1000 worth of fun being inside as well.

- Spent a lot of time on the Izu Peninsula and also the Chiba Peninsula. Who knew Chiba was so pretty.

- Went to the Aiba restaurant on Friday. Damn the food there is delicious. Well, anything would be delicious after waiting in line for two hours, but it was super good. I bought a t-shirt and used complete sentences in Japanese with Aiba's mum. Well, I'm not sure they were grammatical, but they were sentences. Maybe I should've got her to write me an exemption for my exam. I said I go there every time I go to Japan and the food is always delicious. Then she shook our hands. Her hands are very soft. They are the hands that raised Aiba Masaki!! She had all her washing drying on the balcony upstairs - if I had hundreds of fangirls lining up outside, I would probably dry my underwear somewhere else. I really wanted to see the monkey but I guess they can't really keep it in the restaurant.

- Does anyone know the connection between Sakamoto Ryoma and the town of Shimoda? They have statues and crap of him all over the place but I never even knew he went there. I bought an I ♥ Sakamoto Ryoma notebook, because I do.

- I probably did other stuff too, but I am very tired. They started serving breakfast on the plane at like 4am, wtf? I had just got to sleep. Arashi hooded towels are very convenient when travelling by plane, just so you know.

- I really don't want to study.

does anyone have an invite for google+??? Is it any good??

Don't you think that Nino, David Duchovny and Charlie Sheen should form a support group for sex addicts and then (after their sex addicting is under control... or maybe not) they should BAND TOGETHER TO FIGHT CRIME!! They could actually FIGHT CRIME THROUGH WITH THE POWER OF THEIR SEX ADDICTION.

And then after they have defeated the criminals, Nino could sing a song.

This would be the most awesome thing ever, y/y?

Man, someone should make this into a drama, it would be the most hilarious thing ever. They could make Sho play Charlie Sheen.


I want to post clever things about my M5 reactions and other stuff, but I have had a terrible headache all day and my brain just got further exploded by the AMAZING CRIME FIGHTING TRIO OF AWESOME.

Okay, so ages ago, karasu_0 tagged me for this meme, and in true lazy-person form, I've had it open in tabs ever since!!

A) People who have been tagged must write their answers on their journal and replace any question that they dislike with a new, original question.

B) Tag eight people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you.
I think most people have done it already! But I will tag kerrol, hobbitheart, wirepatch, thethirdbar, sandy_phoenix, slumber, fujiko1601


( meme about stuff, and stuff )

I didn't replace any questions, because I'm lazy.


I also had this one open in tabs for ages, stolen from jadeswallow, I'm not tagging anyone, do it if you feel like it.

( It's another Q&A type thing )

This post has been way too long already, but I need to give my opinion on the Mannequin 5 special.

( It took me three days to decide )

I love food. It is one of my pleasures in life. I am like Sakurai Sho, because I don't really have any hobbies, enjoying my food is my hobby. I love going to delicious restaurants and eating delicious foods, and I love cooking at home and making delicious experiments.

Anyway, ever since I got diagnosed with CFS, I have been seeing this awesome physiotherapist. She is really a lot more than just a physio, and out of my whole team of medical professionals, she has been the most helpful and supportive. Well, she's very strict, but she's always motivated me and done loads of research into different things to help me get better. She moved to Germany for a few years but now she is back.

So, there's this low chemical diet that she thinks would help me. It's kind of involved, but basically what it's about is there are certain foods (most foods) which contain different chemicals, and when the chemicals build up in your body, you have a bad reaction to them. Like, you may be fine eating a strawberry every day, for example, you can eat them for ten days straight and you are fine, but on the 11th day, that strawberry makes you sick. But because you're also eating other stuff, you probably think "oh, I feel sick from that pizza last night", instead of blaming the strawberry. It's really impossible to tell.

Which means that you have to cut out basically everything that has any sort of chemicals and gradually add things back in after you've got it all out of your system. Makes sense, right?

So, I started yesterday. These are the foods I can have while I'm in the detox phase: pears (peeled), potato (brushed white, peeled), lettuce (iceberg), bamboo shoots, beans, bean shoots, brussel sprouts, cabbage, celery, chives, choko (I don't even know what this is - fruit of the chokobo?), garlic (a little bit), leek, mungbean sprouts, shallot, swede, chicken (no skin or stuffing), lamb (yuck), veal (yuck yuck), beef (fresh), various fresh seafoods that I don't eat.

I can also have dairy, as long as there's no colours or preservatives in it (which there is in a lot of cheeses) and wheat-type things, as I'm fine with gluten, and eggs. I think sugar is fine, but most things with sugar in them have a whole bunch of other nasty stuff anyway. And I'm not giving up coffee!! It says nothing about coffee, so I am pleading ignorance.

This is very restricting. I can't have condiments!! What is life without condiments? It is very hard to think of what to eat. Last night, I had mashed potato. It was delicious mashed potato, but it would've been better with bacon. I can make vegetable soup, but that will also not be delicious without stock and things. Everything I can eat is like something from a Shukudai no-money special!

Ah, I am hungry!!! I want donburi!