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[09 May 2009|08:02pm] I'm currently in Frankfurt, waiting to get on my flight to Tokyo. They charged me 8 Euros for internet, and although I don't really know how much that is, I am not impressed in the slightest. So it goes though, and at least it gives me something to do for the next hour. I feel like I should have more to say, but I am essentially just faffing on the internet in order to make the money worth it. Tokyo soon! Ophey Ikura?

[02 May 2009|12:12am] [ mood | happy ] [ music | The Park // Feist ] You guys, guess where I am updating from. Ok, I will tell you. I am updating from my new Macbook, using wireless in my room in Sweden. There are very few things I miss about Windows, and the things I miss are made up for by all the functions I have on this. I just can't believe how easy it is, how convenient it is, and how much I can customize. Awesome! Ophey Ikura?

[28 Mar 2009|08:02pm] [ mood | amused ] [ music | Ion Square // Bloc Party ] I don't mean to speak lightly of the Maguindanao rebel conflict, but does anyone else find it hilarious that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is acronymed to MILF? Because I totally do. Ophey 1 Yen| Ikura?

[21 Jan 2009|08:55pm] [ mood | bouncy ] HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY JEANNIE! <3 <3 <3 Please enjoy your last year of being an underage drinker in the U.S. and your first year of being able to buy cigarettes in Japan. Love, Ophey 1 Yen| Ikura?

[13 Jan 2009|04:53pm] [ mood | annoyed ] I've decided to quit teaching the kid. I am 95% sure I will do it, but seeing as I haven't been there in like 4 weeks I'll see what happens when I go on Sunday. Emma and I are quitting our jobs together and are both saying that we got an internship so we have to stop teaching English. I feel a little bit bad lying though, but the irony is that in Japan I feel more comfortable lying and saying something like this than being direct and saying that her house is too far away which makes it too time-consuming, and I should probably focus on my studies. I am drafting the e-mail now and I do plan to say that I need to focus on my studies (the Japanese Proficiency Test in June, in particular) but I am being a lot less direct than I would be in English or Swedish. In English or Swedish I would be pretty comfortable being honest (minus the fact that her kid is ultra-spoiled and gives me a hard time) so I guess this is one time when I wish I wasn't in this sort of culture. We'll see how it goes. I'm pondering sending it this week, then saying that I have to stop teaching by February 10th. Ugh, I should've thought about the fact that it's far away and that I'm gone for most of spring. Ophey 1 Yen| Ikura?

[24 Dec 2008|08:23am] [ mood | bouncy ] [ music | The Boxer // Simon and Garfunkel ] Merry Christmas! It is a shame I have so many things to do today. I need to finish my dad's present (he wants a CD of me playing guitar, or "jamming," rather), wrap some more presents, and write rhymes/poems. It's a Swedish tradition where basically we write little rhymes or poems on packages with clues as to what we've given someone. An example off the top of my head which is well below the standards of my award-winning writing is, "On days when you can't just stay in bed, At least this will warm your head," for a hat. 4 lines are usually my minumum, and last year I wrote two that were about 14 lines long. My brother in particular goes all out and has written some brilliant stuff. Basically, I am swamped today. I went over to Johan's yesterday to give him, Hikaru and Shannon (my niece, in case I have never mentioned me having one) some presents. Got 3 month-old Shannon adorable socks and a long-sleeved *insert English word for baby clothes here*. The experience of buying stuff for her has made me realized that I hate shopping for little girls' clothing. I will go as far as to say that the process depresses me. It's because of the obnoxious gender stereotypes where everything for boys is blue, green, red, with writing about sports, outdoor activities, and the word "cool" whereas clothing for girls is exclusively pink, purple or white with stuff like, "Princess," "Cute," "Daddy's Girl," and variations on some line about how spoiled and fussy girls are. The colours are obviously quite obnoxious and inconvenient as I hate pink but Hikaru is the ultimate girly girl. More than that though, I hate the assumption that girls are just supposed to look "cute" and not do anything while boys are supposed to be "cool" and are supposed to be challenged by sports and, in the holiday season in particular, by building snowmen, snowboarding, and being in snowball fights. It's just a very early indoctrination into the roles of cute, docile girl and strong, physically active boy. You shouldn't impose these stereotypes on either sex, but it's blatantly more harmful to girls when you heavily imply that they can't do things that boys can. Speaking of Gap where I found all this stuff though, the division is perpetuated in toddler to 10 year-olds' clothing and isn't just restricted to 3 - 6 month baby clothing. I was shocked at the fact that they sold little purses in Gap for 5 year-olds and shoes which blatantly were not fit for a lot of mobility. It reminds me of how reflected this attitude is in how adults act towards babies. Yesterday when we were all with Shannon, all anyone ever said to her was basically, "You're so cute! Yes you are," or "You're sooo pretty!" Whereas with Hugo in Sweden it's all about, "You're so strong, you're a real tough guy now"-sort of thing. It's no wonder that nearly everyone starts fitting into their assigned gender stereotypes at an early age. In my perfect world you would say the same thing to either sex, and the idea of "cuteness" as an ideal trait would be abolished. Oh, us young'uns (me, Philip, Julia, Sebastian, Fredrik) made a gingerbread house yesterday. It is totally fug, but I love it either way in its uniqueness. We also decorated the tree which was basically equally fug. There was a distinct paucity of branches; we didn't exactly luck out in terms of the tree this year. We did our best though and had fun in the process. Off to jog, shower, record, write rhymes/poems, wrap presents, and get ready for a kickass day. I asked for a melodica, will see if I am lucky enough :D - Ophey 2 Yen| Ikura?

[12 Nov 2008|08:23pm] [ mood | nervous ] I think I have a job! I put my profile up on a teaching website a while ago, and as I mentioned earlier I hadn't gotten any offers. I was pretty sure it was because I specified that I'd rather teach women or children (to avoid lots of offers from lonely Japanese men). I got a reply a few days ago though and now I may have a job teaching these two kids. They are hella young - 2 and 6, and both have learned English before - but I think it could be fun. I am especially proud of the fact that the conversation with the mother was entirely in Japanese and I spoke more coherently than I have ever spoken in such an official situation. It was a much-needed Japanese self-esteem boost, honestly. I am nervous because I haven't taught before and I am not around children a lot, but I will have to figure out a general plan. The mother and I agreed that cards, games, and songs would be the best and I plan to do some stories. Yay for work experience! Yay for jobs! - Ophey 1 Yen| Ikura?

[08 Nov 2008|10:02am] [ mood | calm ] First off, yay for Obama, but secondly, I am pretty disappointed in all the anti-gay measures that were passed on Wednesday. So it goes. Remember those days when church and state were separate? A serious question that I would really like some input for: Before I leave for university - perhaps sooner rather than later considering the state of my desktop - I need to buy a laptop. The problem is that I am incredibly undecided about which one. The main decision I need help on is whether to get a Mac or a PC. I don't know a lot about computers (I can use them, but I have no knowledge of graphics, hardware, etc.), but basically what I definitely want at this point is a built in microphone and webcam, iTunes, a DVD-viewing program, pretty fast processing capability, and internet obviously. I do want a fair bit of memory space - perhaps 160gb or so, which they do have for both Macs and PC's - but beyond this list I don't care very much. I was pretty ambivalent the other day so I e-mailed my brother's York psych-major friend, but she just told me that you could get by with both but you really just needed the basic programs, e.g. Word, Excell, or their equivalents. So please, can anyone here who has a laptop give me some input? If you're a hardcore Mac-user, tell me why and give me some reasons, if you're a hardcore PC-user, let me know why and tell me what you think I should do. PC's have the benefit of me knowing how to operate them, but after my recent spyware problem, I have realized how nice it'd be to have a pretty much virus and spyware free computer, and how nice it'd be to know where to take my computer and what to do with it. Then again, I don't want it to be like my old Mac days (middle school) where I constantly have problems converting files and everything. Please! Help! - Ophey (longer entry coming up later maybe) 6 Yen| Ikura?

[25 Oct 2008|03:44pm] [ mood | happy ] You guys have got to watch this: http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=9nlwwFZdXck&eurl It's called the Palin song. Not sure if it's something everyone's already seen. It's someone playing the piano to the Palin Couric interview, and it actually sounds like a song. I lol'd very hard, I recommend it. - Ophey Ikura?

[06 Oct 2008|10:15pm] [ mood | okay ] Quick question: Why aren't all Americans automatically registered to vote? I don't mean this as a rhetorical question or criticism of America. I assume that there's a good reason, I am just curious. 5 Yen| Ikura?

[10 Sep 2008|01:01am] [ mood | ecstatic ] Oh. My. God. I think... I'm making friends? Or something? It's such a crazy feeling. I've added three people from Sophia University on FB - Michael, Jonathan, and Miriam, in case I reference them again - and I'm actually talking to two of them. I may have made the error, however, of speaking French with Jonathan. I will see if I end up regretting that but so far so good, as long as I don't have one of those awkward moments where I have no idea what he's talking about.  So, in case you can't tell from my past two entries (and probably more to come, sorry), it really has hit me that I could possibly be having a great year as opposed to one where I'd just be killing time for York, as I originally anticipated. - Ophey Ikura?

[23 Aug 2008|06:29pm] [ mood | hungry ] So I finally saw The Dark Knight and unfortunately I found it massively overrated. I guess it was interesting and exciting but I really don't like action movies so I wasn't really engaged in all the chases and fighting scenes. It doesn't help that I didn't really understand the ending or even appreciated it. I'm glad I saw it so I know what the hype was about but I won't see it again. Also, wtf @ the Cuban Tae Kwon Do (sp?) athlete who kicked the judge in the face. I am sad that Sweden has massively sucked during these olympics, but so it goes. When you tally up all the summer olympic medals ever, though, Sweden ranks 9th which I find quite impressive. But who am I kidding: we really have sucked ass this year. Apparently Joe Biden is Obama's running mate. I am sure I will be enlightened by one of Will's entries soon but I really have no idea what it means, or what Biden is like. I was secretly hoping for a woman because it seemed like a pretty bamf idea but whatever, really. Still just sort of chilling, still waiting to go back home on Friday. - Ophey Ikura?

[16 Aug 2008|05:17am] [ mood | sleepy ] Can someone tell me the difference between: 熱い　and 暑い and 生きる　and 活きる I am stumped :/ - Ophey 4 Yen| Ikura?

[14 Aug 2008|09:37pm] [ mood | okay ] There's this 40 year-old-ish French woman here for lunch and when she speaks Swedish, she speaks it like it's French. That's beside the point though. Apparently she and her ex-husband both take in foreign/exchange students in Paris, and I have decided to make that my plan. If York doesn't allow me to take a year abroad I will go there after my BSc degree or something. How exciting! - Ophey Ikura?

[02 Aug 2008|06:19pm] [ mood | apathetic ] I'm still at my cousin's just to eat dinner for the night. My parents arrive in like an hour or something. I'm just updating because I'm in a slightly awk' situation. They're having two other couples over, so now in total there is a 3 year-old, a 2.5 year-old, a 1.5 year-old, a 2 month-old, and a 2 week-old baby here. It's not that I mind children, but I can honestly say that I am not that great with them, beyond what little skills I had with busmonitoring. I went upstairs to go on the computer but I'm not sure if that is a rude thing to do. Eh, whatever. I've been watching a bunch of reality/trashy TV lately, and I have come to three conclusions. 1. I generally hate Chef Gordon Ramsay. 2. I love the MTV show Next, even though it is horrible. 3. I will never understand the girls who aspire to be in a group like the Pussycat Dolls, and actually willingly compete to join Girlicious. I finished The Color Purple today and it was beautiful. I loved it, and the last few pages were incredible to read. Wow, definitely. It makes me regret not having any more fiction to read except for the book Erica sent me. So it goes. Also, fuck this insane heat. It is driving me crazy. The weather was terrible for a while - rain every day, and no temperature above 20 degrees - but now it borders on 30 every day and there is not one gust of wind, like, ever. What makes it worse is that there is absolutely no AC in Sweden anywhere, and I would like to work at the chocolate store but we are not able to until it cools down a little bit or else nothing will work. - Ophenator Ikura?

[29 Jul 2008|01:32am] I will make a more proper update later, but I was watching a re-run of a Swedish children's program just now and there is a segment called "Pimp My Porridge." For serious. It only adds to the humor that the words "Pimp My" are in English and "Porridge" is in Swedish. One of the hosts, a 20 something girl, makes interesting porridge. <b>Yes</b>. - Ophey Ikura?

[24 Jul 2008|06:17pm] [ mood | Horrified ] OMG! NO! http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/26050026.html 2 Yen| Ikura?

[30 Jun 2008|08:23pm] [ mood | bouncy ] P.S. I got a haircut. It's barely shorter - I really only changed a few parts - but it has enabled me to change my hairstyle quite a bit. I look significantly girlier when I do it but it's liberating not having hair all over my face anymore. ( What do you think? ) When it's down it's completely straight which is also quite a change for me. Maybe this was really uninteresting? - Ophey 5 Yen| Ikura?

[30 Jun 2008|07:03am] [ mood | OMFG ] OH HAI GUYZ. AP GRADES ARE BACK AND IT TURNS OUT I GOT INTO COLLEGE! And now I must tell you a story. Junior year, I pwn'd English. It was my favourite class, and I did very well on all the essays and such. But then, I got a 3 on the exam, and pathetic as it may sound, I cried many tears over it. But then, in the glorious year of 2008, I re-took the exam and got a 5. Fuck you collegeboard, that's what I say. Assuming that phone-reporting services from collegeboard are accurate and my mom and my hearing are not off, I am very pleased, I am going to York, and, well, OMFG. - Ophey 9 Yen| Ikura?

[08 May 2008|09:08pm] [ mood | nervous ] I am studying like crazy for my AP Euro exam tomorrow, but I'd just like to say, on that topic, that Joseph Stalin bears a striking resemblance to Super Mario. It's a little silly, really. - Ophey Ikura?

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