Tass his Trash

Sar Wars?

2009-07-16T15:30:34Z

So the past week I have been watching all the star wars movies again... mainly because I once saw this snippet of Star Wars 3 online somewhere. So after not having seen the movies in about 4 yours (and a lot longer ago since I have seen the original star wars movies) I thought it would be cool to watch them again. So I did.. and when I watched the first 3 movies (in epdisodial order) I was like damn they're so cool. So I moved on to the 4th one which is Star Wars: A new hope ofcourse. And even though I knew it was going to be cheezy, it still got to me xD It wasn't so bad that I didn't enjoy the movie or anything. But the cheeziness of the movie is just so overwhelming that the sun pales in comparison, or something. But then, that's to be expected of the mother of cheeziness on SF movies.

So then I went on to look for some stuff on some of the cheezy sound effects and it somehow got even cheezier as what I found was mostly of the original not yet remastered movies, enjoy: (note, I still like the Star Wars movies as much as I did before :P they're just classic, but as I have grown somewhat, some of the stuff has just lost some of its magic.. :/)

Compilation of "Howie Long screams" in several media:

The "Howie Long scream" in the original (i think) Star Wars: A new Hope TIE-Fighter scene:

Compilation of the famous "Wihlem scream" which has been used liberally by Star Wars' chief sound technician (who also did a lot of Indiana Jones movies):

holy sick

2009-07-03T09:37:02Z

This is an RC helicopter, but, imagine you sitting inside that thing o_O;;
That dood's got some skiiiiiillzz yo!

sigh

2009-06-26T09:44:05Z

today is simply fucked up, for various reasons.

モーニング娘。－3、2、1 BREAKIN'OUT!

2009-05-13T10:00:21Z

This is the B-side of morning musume's new single. It's also the promotional song for this summer's Anime Expo in Los Angeles which Morning Musume is going to attend as Guests of Honour. The song alone makes me want to go there xD, I really like it.

C Blues

2009-04-25T19:31:00Z

that is all.

BoA + Beetle

2009-04-17T22:31:38Z

Check out these 2 clips: The first one is BoA's new dance MV (which contains some very cool chair dancing btw) and the second clip is about a 60 year old man who constructed a robot beetle which actually moves!

NEW VIDEO RELEASE - BoA - I Did It For Love

Well that was it basically. Hope you enjoyed! Oh and here's a bonus for those of you who like to surf :P http://xkcd.com/570/

Cherry Blossom Festival Amstelveen 2009

2009-04-08T18:59:01Z

Today I went to the Cherry blossom festival in Amstelveen. I can't exactly remember how I found out about it but I went there because I definitely knew the cherry blossoms were blooming (last year they apparently were not). Anyway, I took a few pictures, met a few people (an ex- Japanese classmate and my ex-Japanese teacher).

So here are the pics:

	Sakura So this is what cherry blossoms in Japan are all about. Over there they have all these cherry blossom weather reports. But over here they don't so those organizing the festival have to take estimated guesses at the correct time of bloom for the year. So you can imagine that, sometimes, the festival is held when the trees are not blooming.
	The Venue There were all sorts of displays. There was free food. There were people doing things like write your name in Japanese and stuff. It was quite funny, I got my name written in Japanese by one of my teachers, and she came up with several different combinations of characters (5 or so) and the lady at the festival also made a variation, but it was completely different from the names my teacher gave me.
	Close-Up That's what a cherry blossom looks like up close.
	Another view The flowers grow in little bunches on the trees.
	Another shot Basically like the first picture but with less trees. I think it looks nice how the flowers fill the whole top part of the picture.
	Trunk with flowers As you can see, the flowers are not always pink. There were only a few really pink trees there (like 3 or something), most trees I see in pictures are white.
	Wide shot This is what it looks like from outside the garden. The cherry blossom trees are located right next to the highway that runs through the Amsterdamse bos at the edge of the forest where the highway enters Amstelveen.

I should've stayed longer though, because moments after my mom and I left, the sun began to shine, and I did see the cherry blossoms in the sun but at the time the sun would only show itself for 5 seconds at a time, way too little time to take out my cam and take a proper picture.

Anyway, this is the end of my entry. Hope you enjoyed!

Sword Fighting?

2009-04-05T22:43:06Z

So i went to a birthday party yesterday. And who was also there was this friend who happens to train European sword fighting for almost a year now, and because he just came back from training he had his training swords with him.

There are some very old texts which they use to learn different poses and ways to strike your opponent and contrary to popular belief European sword fighting is every bit of a martial art, just like kendo and jujitsu. The main difference is, it's European.

After basically all the guests were gone, we (me him and another friend of ours) stepped outside so he could show us some of his moves. In what I thought was going to be a demonstration of a few minutes ended up in a full blown medieval sword fighting lesson of a few hours. When we were done my friend and I had been taught all the basic poses and most of the basic strikes. Looking at our watches it was 2 in the morning. That whole thing took place on the street and occasionally someone would leave a house and those remaining would stand on their doorstep and watch what we were doing, how often do you see guys with real (blunt) swords striking at eachother right?

Anyway here is a clip of the club where he trains his sword fighting. In the beginning you can see a guy doing a great deal of quick fluid strikes towards the camera, I believe those were the moves we learned as well, although a lot slower of course. The rest of the clip has a few demonstration duels and some practice duels. (Oh and do ignore the rather cheesy intro, AND the fact some of the guys look like banished dwarves from Lord of the Rings.)

So this concludes my entry for this time, hope you enjoyed.

The chords the chords the chords the chords

2009-03-17T22:22:03Z

Checkit:

the chords the chords the chords the chords the chords the chords are so nice!
Can someone -please- help me figure out what they are?

sneak attack

2009-03-12T20:58:09Z

So there I was, sat in the lecture room, half listening to thermodynamics. And all of a sudden this guy in full EVA gear stepped in: The Lecturer (who is italian with accompanying -heavy- accent) "Oh, Hello. How nice of you to join us."

But before I could take a picture the guy raised his hands in confusion and ran off, with the lecturer saying, rather loudly, "No don't go so soon!" which was quite a hilarious ending as you might imagine.

So that was rather sudden :P anyway, I think it had to do with the information thing that was going on at the building I had my lectures in. So it was probably for the Aerospace info for applying students lecture or something, and the guy just stepped into the wrong room.

(btw, the suits in the picture are not the same as the one I saw in my lecture room but you get the idea.)

Goth in Japan

2009-03-11T08:10:38Z

Check what came up in one of my feeds:

'nuf said.

ZOMFG!!!!

2009-03-05T18:30:44Z

So there I was casually going to the mailbox at the front gate, opening it, and seeing a large brown envelope with a peculiarly familiar sticker on it and the words in bold red saying "Please do not bend" on it. And so i thought, "FUCK! it's here!"

Took the envelope upstairs. Getting more nervous with every step. And by the time I saw down at my desk with the envelope in front of me I was completely prepared to see the words "FAILED!" somewhere on something that was in that envelope. But when I opened it I saw a large piece of paper which I recognized from my quest for information about the JLPT. And sure enough,

I HAVE PASSED THE JLPT 3 TEST! O_O;;

And it was quite unexpected I might add. I really thought I had failed it with only a few points to spare. Especially when I heard those people at the actual test site saying "yeah this is my third time here but this time it's so much harder omfg!" so that wasn't exactly motivating.

	Certificate The certificate that comes with passing the test.
	Scores As you can see I didn't really do too well but it was way better than I had expected. I had actually expected not to pass at all and that I would actually completely fail the listening part. But it turned out I did rather well on the listening part. The grammar part went really bad as expected as well, because I had only actually covered one 3rd of the prescribed material as set by the writers (AJALT) of the method (Japanese for Busy People) I use. The first part went very well as expected too. Characters and vocabulary are my strengths.
	What was also in that envelope This was just included with the other 2 things. There was nothing else in the envelope.

So now I have actually passed this thing i'm quite happy.. It's also a sort of turning point in the past year or so because I have passed barely anything during that time. So, woo!

Chance encounter

2009-03-05T16:59:50Z

So I was done for the day, the lecturer was kind enough to release us 10 minutes or so earlier than planned, so I rushed to my bike, rushed to the station, nearly ran someone over, rushed to lock my bike, rushed to padlock my bike rushed back to the platform because I saw the train standing there.

*smelt a very familiar smell*

Turned out a train was standing still in the station because its breaks had caught fire *that smell* so now no trains were allowed to ride between Den Haag and Rotterdam because the Fire Department had said so. There was not actually a fire to be detected, as the train operator had extinguished the fire himself using his emergency fire extinguisher, but now, with all the fire fighters crawling over the train tracks, train traffic had been halted.

Anyway, after a few minutes I decided to go to the tram and just take the tram to Den Haag and continue my journey to my Japanese class from there.

So I got to the tram, and it was -really- packed. Next to me was this not so tall woman reading 2 mangas, or Japanese style comics, at the same time. So I looked a bit closer and I noticed these peculiarities:

Caucasian female reading manga (maybe not so strange but I swear I have never seen this before)
Adult reading manga in packed tram in the Netherlands (the tram was -packed- i tell ya)
Person reading 2 mangas at the same time (who the hell does that?)
Person reading 1 manga in Japanese (who the hell knows Japanese in this country xD )
Adult readong shoujo (= name of genre translating to basically mean "little girl") (that genre is for -little- girls!)

Turns out she had 2 of the same mangas (Cardcaptor Sakura) but one in Japanese and one in English "for comparison" as she had put it. Anyway, as you may have guessed, I began asking her about those mangas and she said she was heading to Japanese her lesson so I promptly replied "me too". So that was a very funny coincidence. So we talked all the way untill we got to the train station in Den Haag and we parted after exchanging e-mail addresses. That was quite a funny encounter.

Wordle

2009-03-02T15:03:39Z

apparently I use the word "equations" a lot? x_X :P

boom!

2009-02-26T20:57:43Z

So most of you probably know about that airplane crash right? Hard to avoid any news about it especially here in the netherlands as all the papers' headlines are concerning that crash. CNN has been showing news items about it and well.. it's pretty huge apparently.

What's also interesting to know is that that crash happened right up my street! It's a long street so it's still 2 miles away but still! It is my street that plane's crashlanded next to. I didn't notice anything about it btw. I was at home at the time. But i only found out about it when i got to delft. And after a day i actually figured out it happened so very near me.

As for my comment on the crash itself. I was watching the news about it and the commentators and some of the "experts" were all shocked that the plane was devastated and whatnot. But when I saw actual footage of the plane I couldn't help but be amazed at how -not- devastated that plane was! And the number of dead people (9 at the moment out of 135 people on board) is so incredibly low that I am really interested in what had actually happened up there. It's kind of funny, because I'm used to learn about crashes and the death toll is mostly around 80%, also, the wreck of the plane is usually not exactly a wreck but a large collection of tiny bits in most cases. Especially when they land in the water.

Which takes me to that other recent crash in the Hudson in New York. The pilot of that plane apparently was a very experienced sailplane pilot so he managed to set down the plane in the water without any fatal damage! Now that's so unique it'll probably not happen again for many years.

I was also sort of amused at those people who were saying that they didn't want to fly anymore because of that crash, but yet they do drive their cars and stuff in which the chance of death is probably more than 6 orders of magnitude higher than the chance of death in an airplane.

I was also wondering what I would have done were i sitting in that plane while it crashed. I'd probably still be alive because I always get the crappy seats in the middle which are incidentally the safest, and i'd probably get all excited and would've taken out my camera to take snapshots of all the broken bits after i'd have tried to help some people to get out.

Anyway.. maybe i'm gonna take a look tomorrow or something, and take a few pictures.

It's an entry!

2009-02-20T15:31:56Z

So it's been quite al ong time since my last entry but here are some funny/interesting pics.

	Lecture Notes I've decided to reduce the size of my note taking in order to fit them on the lines of the 0.5x0.5 cm squares (light blue, you can see them if you zoom in). What you see here is the result of 4 lectures of Engineering Vibration. It's rather interesting if you know what's going on. The lectures are basically about deriving equations for vibrations in certain systems that can be simulated with masses and springs. What is also funny to note is that the equivalent amount of notes of "normal" people of what you see here spans about 10+ pages or so. Also interesting is that my notes are far clearer in order than what the lecturer actually chalks onto the blackboard, as in.. my notes are all in logical order. the words from left to right and the lines from top to bottom. compared to my the lecturer who writes it down diagonally on occasion, jumping al over the place, wiping out and writing through previous writings as he goes, or even writing around previous equations. Very difficult to follow. He does have a system of numbering the equations as he continues though, but sometimes he forgets where his numbering was at so the numbering is also random on occasion. (You can see the numbering in my notes as well by the way, they're the numbers within the circles.
	Herbology When i went to the Siebold Huis in Leiden with my dad we went to the hortus of Lieden's uni(Dutch) afterwards. The greenhouses there are rather old (1930ies) and filled with exotic (fles-eating) plants, so they reminded me a bit of the hogwarts greenhouses the ones in Leiden are just.. more crowded with plants.
	Instant Office Behind those office buildings is the station (Hoofddorp) from where i take the local train to Leiden and then the express-train to Delft (almost) everyday. I happened to be standing all the way over here because they had decided the Park+Rail parking lot should be a mile away from the station in the middle of an empty field. This was taken during my dad and my commute to Leiden to go to the Siebold Huis. Usually I go by bus though, the bus station is next to the trainstation.

Hope you enjoyed this entry!

Cats and Exams

2009-01-24T15:27:15Z

As for the exam: I had my last one on friday, and I overheard the following -whispered- conversation during the exam.
Examiner/Lecturer who I believe is from Canada = L
Examinee who's native tongue is -not- English = E

E: *walks up to L looking like he has a serious issue with one of the question and whispers* *murmur murmur*
L: You are going to do WHAT?! *not whispered*
E: *murmurs some more*
L: You want to buy a chocolate?? *not whispered*
E: Uh, yes.. do you know.. where is the machine?
L: *looking a bit flabbergasted, points* It's out there in the hall I think.
E: thank you.

As you might imagine.. it was rather difficult for me to contain my amusement. But luckily I managed. It also did not help me very much that there was this person in the courtyard whistling some out of tune folk-song that echoed around like crazy.

I went ice skating!

2009-01-09T13:14:53Z

I went ice skating here. And it was very nice, as i hadn't done any ice skating for some years.

I went onto the ice and some people saw me and asked me if I was going to try the ice. And they started saying things like "good luck!" , "if you fall through the ice just yell because we are going to walk here!" and "very brave of you!". But I didn't really think it was that dangerous so i just smiled at them xD.

When I got there by bike there was only 1 person on the ice who I only found after I had already gone onto the ice and skated along the edge where I saw that person very close to the edge somewhere further down towards the north-western side of the pond.

After a while a few more people came on the ice, but it was never more than 10 I think. Anyway.. I did some skating, made a few laps, crossed the middle of the pond in various directions. I noticed I was the only one doing that, but there was no cracking noise or whatever so I'm sure it was safe. There also was this guy on a moped who went onto the ice and a bunch of kids fooled around somewhere on the middle of the pond. They set off some fireworks, the noisy kind, while i was standing somewhere near the edge, and because sound travels faster through ice i heard this chirp increasing in volume followed by a bang. It was one of the strangest noises i had ever heard. It reminded me of some of the epic explosions you hear in SF movies.

	on the ice This was the western part of the pond looking in south-south-western direction somewhere around noon. Btw, if you look closely. You can see a sort of red mickey mouse with a very bright nose in that red glow.
	Looking towards Vijfhuizen This is about the furthest distance on the pond. It's about a kilometer long and about 200 metres wide.
	My skates. Dunno exactly what they are.. they are either "lange noren" or "korte noren" dunno what those are called in english. They're basically the same ones they use in distance competitions.

All in all, I had a great time but I went home after my feet began hurting a lot. Last time i skated my calves started hurting, but this time they didn't hurt at all.

Movie meme

2008-12-21T13:54:13Z

stolen from prof_blink

Checkit:
サヨナラのかわりに by モーニング娘。

キラキラ冬のシャイニーＧ by 田中れいな (who is a member of モーニング娘。btw)

Here are the 100 top grossing films of all time (not adjusted for inflation): bold what you've seen, underline what you own.

Titanic (1997)
The Dark Knight (2008)
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
Shrek 2 (2004) - Not 100% sure about this one but I have this friend who has a rather weird childish taste so she's probably forced me to watch it.
E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Spider-Man (2002)
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Jurassic Park (1993)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Finding Nemo (2003)
Spider-Man 3 (2007) - Should see this one as I basically grew up with spiderman cartoons.
Forrest Gump (1994)
The Lion King (1994)
Shrek the Third (2007) - I'm sure I haven't seen this one because the last time she forced to watch us stuff was before 2007.
Transformers (2007)
Iron Man (2008)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
Independence Day (1996)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) - Can't remember having seen this one but I think I should've :/
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Home Alone (1990)
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Meet the Fockers (2004)
Shrek (2001)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
The Incredibles (2004)
Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
Jaws (1975)
I Am Legend (2007) - Want to see this one.
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Batman (1989)
Night at the Museum (2006)
Men in Black (1997)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
Cars (2006)
Bruce Almighty (2003)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Twister (1996)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) - Not sure about this one either but i think i saw it on TV once.
Ghostbusters (1984)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984) - Lol I love this one :P but after having seen it so many times it becomes a bit corny.
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
War of the Worlds (2005)
Cast Away (2000)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Signs (2002)
Hancock (2008)
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Rush Hour 2 (2001)
WALL·E (2008)
National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
King Kong (2005)
Ghost (1990)
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Aladdin (1992)
Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)
Kung Fu Panda (2008) - Wanted to watch this one.
X2: X-Men United (2003)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) - Austin Powers really does not appeal to me.
Back to the Future (1985)
300 (2006)
Wedding Crashers (2005)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Ratatouille (2007)
Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
Batman Begins (2005)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
The Exorcist (1973)
The Mummy Returns (2001)
Armageddon (1998)
Superman Returns (2006)
Gone With the Wind (1939)
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Happy Feet (2006)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)
Madagascar (2005)
Toy Story (1995)
Men in Black II (2002)
Gladiator (2000)
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

Okay so maybe I was exaggerating a bit when I said there were only 2 movies I - hadn't- seen on this list.. in reality it's probably 16 (or less because I don't really remember all the movies very well). But that's still 84% that I have seen!
As you can also see.. I own none of the films on this list (except the 2 obvious series of Harry Potter and LotR).

London + JLPT

2008-12-08T14:10:05Z

So I went to london yesterday to do the JLPT.

London:
I got up at 5 in the morning and got to Xochipilli at around 6. Got to the gate at 6:20, and boarding was at 6:25. I didn't have any luggage to check in so i could just walk past everything quite easily. Anyway, i had these packs of chocolate in my bag for lunch, because that's what i take with me when i go to Delft anyway, but this time i forgot i was going by plane. So they had to be removed.. which was pretty stupid. That liquid prohibition is quite pointless if you ask me.

So after the plane ride which departed at 7:10 I got to london at 7:40 orso (local time of course). Changed too much money, got myself a day travel card and then took the tube to covent garden where i met up with prof_blink! At 9:30. The ride took less than an hour I later found out so i wonder where all that time had gone. I was quite surprised there were so many people on the subway btw, as it was a sunday and you don't usually go anywhere during that time of day. The weather was very nice though.. clear skies the whole time! And lots of sun.

Anyway, met up with Kiran. Went to a cafe nero, had a sort of breakfast. It was quite nice to see her again, tiny as always. After that we walked around for a bit, we went to Trafalgar square to see the tree, and then to Oxford street to check out the decorations. But it was daytime so the lights weren't on obviously. And because it was sunday all the shops were still closed at that hour so that was pretty stupid too.

Eventually we headed towards Russel Square and my test location at around 12 o' clock, there we went to a Waterstones with a cafe in the basement (they always have a Costa cafe right?). We found Tales of Beedle the Bard there! so we bought that obviously. And then we sat there untill 1 at which point we went back to the SOAS which had gotten quite busy by then.

JLPT:
After a while we said goodbye and I went inside to take my test. Lots of oulde people. Which was quite surprising to me as i had the impression that only people like me were taking this test. Maybe it's because of the difficulty level that's not very high that makes it more accessible to a greater group of people interested in Japanese?

So I went to the test room at around half past 1. The room was a small quite... dirty looking one. We had 3 proctors and there were about 20 candidates in the room.

The proctors were quite funny btw, we were in england so all the instructions were given in English, but none of the proctors were actually English it seemed (1 Japanese, 1 Chinese probably and 1 from an undisclosed non-english speaking part of the world). So all the instructions, which were given by the person with the mysterious ethnicity, had this slight accent to them with stresses on words placed all over the place but at the correct position, which was quite humorous.

The instructions/rules themselves were quite funny too, like not opening your booklet before told to do so, and you were not supposed to talk during the test. And if you broke the rules in any way you would invariably get the capital punishment apparently, which was ofcourse disqualification.

As for the test set-up, there were 3 parts. Writing & vocabulary (35 mins), Listening (35mins), Reading & Grammar (70 mins). Now the whole test was multiple choice, so one might wonder how one would test writing, but there were questions like "which character goes here". The listening part was quite difficult, because the japanese spoken was well.. somehow quite colloquial :/ And they'd somehow manage to mention all the possibilities lol so that was quite annoying. And the grammar section was the one i had dreaded the most but that one didn't go bad at all.. i had 20 minutes to spare.

Between each of those sections was a 20 minute break, during which i would drink my fruitshoot which i bought at a tesco's across the street from russel square station, because i had obviously lost my chocolate to the security monkey at xochipilli. And i would eat one of those italian bread things my mom had put in the oven at 5 in the morning. They were quite flat, cold and moist by then ofcourse but they were still good. I noticed i was the only one drinking and eating something, which was quite ennerving. During those breaks i'd also hear others talking about the test "I failed this test last year. Yeah me too! And I think this year's test is way harder than last year's!" so that was sort of annoying to hear.. lol..

The way home:
So yeah.. the first section began at 2:10 and the last one ended at 5:20, at which time i went straight to the tube station to head off to Heathrow. I had become quite tired by then actually.. even during the test I was trying to sleep after I had finished each section waiting for the break. So I slept during most of the tube ride.

What's also funny to note is that before the test began, I didn't know from which terminal my flight would leave, so Kiran found that out for me when she got home and she texted me the terminal. That was quite convenient because the distance between terminals on Heathrow is quite large. And even when i got to the correct terminal, i didn't know which gate i had to go to, as i had already checked in at home, and my boarding pass said find out your gate information at the airport" so that was sort of.. interesting :P Eventually I waited at Heathrow for about an hour after which the gate would finally show up on one of the screens.

I also had 40 pounds left over :/ So i bought 2 books which were both about Japanese history so that was cool. I also managed to finish my fruitshoots before the security check btw! :P as i had to 2 bottles left over.

Boarding was at 19:45 and the plane left at 20:15. And the flight itself was quite uneventful. I slept during most of it. Landed at 22:something (local time again), and caught the bus. Arrived in my town at 22:39. Rode my bike home and was there before 11. So from 5 to 23 it was a busy day that lasted for 18 hours. I also walked quite a bit with my heavy bag so my legs were quite sore.

	Busstop at 5 in the morning. What my bus stop looks like every morning. But this time i was an hour earlier than usual.
	Sun behind covent garden. The sun was very bright!
	Chrsitmas decoration in covent garden. I had been here earlier, but it was summer and hot and not as decorated as it was now.
	Tree at trafalgar square. The Christmas tree! It rather looks the same as the one they usually put up at Dam square in Amsterdam.

So that's it! I hope you have enjoyed this entry. I haven't taken any pictures of the test building or anything which i think i've should but the building didn't exactly look very cheerful anyway, despite those two incredibly orange palm trees with flashing lights they had put up on the square in front of it.

Hueah?

2008-12-01T12:32:54Z

So I haven't posted anything in a really long time.. so i thought maybe it's time to do that for a change.. But what should I tell you guys? I think i'm going to tell you about my Japanese progress and the test that's coming up.

As for my progress:
I'm now doing the 2nd book of the method I'm using now, so that's equivalent of the 2nd year, however I feel it's all going to slow and the upcoming test will actually encompass all 3 volumes of this method, so that's going to be sort of exciting. I have also bought last year's test so I will do that as a checker to see if there's anything I really do not understand. But so far I haven't found that much which I didn't know so that's a good sign I guess.
I have started learning directly from the grammar dictionary because I don't want to be too far ahead of my class in terms of exercises. But maybe that's not the right way to go about it :/.. maybe i should just do as much as i could :|

And concerning the chinese characters.. I'm way behind schedule x_X I figured I'd be at around 1000 kanji right now but instead i'm at 730 or something. Which I think is bad.. but it's still more than twice as many kanji I need to know for the test. So i guess that's okay.

The test:
I found out where it's gonna be exactly!
"Test Levels 3 and 4 will take place on our Russell Square campus, WC1. See our map. Rooms are located both in SOAS College Buildings and in the Brunei Gallery Building opposite."

And it's nice that there's a direct connection to Heathrow. Because I will be flying to that airport on the day, the 7th of December. What will be very interesting as well is when the test is over, I only have 2 hours and 15 minutes to get onto my plane.. lol.. But now I've found the connection is quite direct.. just need to remember to get on the right tube as the line splits at Acton town.
Still need to get a day-pass for the tube though.

Anyway:
Like I've said before.. It'll be really interesting to experience a day on which I fly away from my destination on the same day. I've never done that before, so it'll be quite cool. Also the check-in.. which will be non-existent.. I will just check in online and as I'm not bringing any luggage I don't need to check that in either.

The Checklist:

Test voucher.
Passport.
Day-pass.
Goldpieces.
Check-in online.
Trail rations.
Japanese stuff.

What else? Any suggestions?

the link says it all: and the results too.

2008-11-04T23:18:31Z

http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/

conclusion:
duh!

BoA - Eat You Up (American Version)

2008-10-24T13:15:28Z

So this (please do watch in high quality) is the full american version MV of BoA's new single. It's got a musical summary of her work as an intro which i think is cool to watch if you haven't seen a lot of what she had done. As you can see, she's quite the entertainer. She's probably the best dancing popstar in Asia.

As for the MV itself.. i like the korean one better, which i had already posted in a previous entry.

BoA - Eat You Up

2008-10-17T21:42:36Z

Her american debut single full version MV has been released!

korean version (well just the director is korean, the song itself is actually english)

american version hasn't been released yet.

Breintje Beer (= Breintje Bear)

2008-10-17T00:15:35Z

So i went to this... place.. where food can be had, and i thought i would be going there purely to ensure an appropriate score on my peer evaluation. (during the project we actually have to evaluate each others achievements and stuff because the studnet assistants don't see us too often). But it wasn't too bad so that was good. Some of them had brought along their girlfriends one of whom was sort of indonesian like me. The atmosphere was quite okay and everybody was pretty happy, as we did finish the project about half an hour early and we were quite confident we are the best group (we saw designs by other groups and we were quite flabbergasted at how simple it all looked, and our student assistant who won with his group 2 years before kept telling us we were doing such a good job), in which case we get a trip to Dutch Space. Which is a company that builds lots of satellite equipment (solar panels etc.) for the International Space Station for instance.

To go back on the topic of Breintje Beer: What was rather disappointing however was the food >_<. As is normal with towns with lots of students, a lot of the establishments in such a town have some sort of student discount. The discount here was that students were allowed to have a "all the ribsteak you can eat" deal. But of course, rib steak usually is pork, and it was in this case, so i couldn't have it. All the ribs came quite quick, and it was the first time i had smelt pork with honey. And boy did that smell strange :/.. I'm quite sensitive with taste and smell and i could -really- smell the bad combination that is a pork rib with honey. x_X (When i asked my dad if he had ever had pork rib with honey before he became muslim his comment was "Nee, Gatver!" which probably doesn't need a translation :P)

However i went for the "Kogelbiefstuk" (=beef), which is a typical dutch steak which is neither the sirloin nor the entrecote, it's a cut that is unique to holland. Anyway, it's my favourite piece of steak. So i ordered it medium (one other guy did as well, the rest had the ribs) and it was too rare! Damn them. It was actually very disappointing. It seems to me they had the fire up too high when they grilled it or something. The other guy had the same problem. So that's 2 x €14,50 down the drain.. or down the esophagus rather. The other one actually said "well.. i can surely make a steak better than this!", which i find quite a strong comment concerning food as it came from a student :P.

So this was pretty interesting, i was expecting a very stupid evening with sort of good food but instead i got a sort of interesting evening with.. very stupid food.

So yeah.. this has been a pretty lengthy incoherent entry as it's been one of the first real entries in a long time, so.. yeah.. :P and this clip must be added for contrast.