Below are the 11 most recent journal entries recorded in Karala's LiveJournal:

Friday, November 3rd, 2006
1:55 am	Daifuku of DOOM! Yesterday I tried to make Daifuku. Wow. I didn't know that would mean two hours of havoc with a burning, puffy, uncooperative mass of overly sweet glutinous rice flour stuck all over my hands. Combined with my math skills: "Where's the 3/4 tsp?! Why is there no 3/4 tsp here! WHAT WILL I DO?" I used three 60 ML to get 3/4 tsp and hoped I was right... and then proceeded adding cocoa instead of cinnamon. It marked the worst disaster known to... well, my dad -- chocolate daifuku. That's right, not bean or strawberry filled, if you even know what I'm talking about, but chocolate! He thinks they should be cooked because they're all puffy and squishy and kind of sticky. When he fist saw them they were sitting in the cupcake tin, just because that's where I'd stuck them, and I told him to eat one. He was so horrified that they weren't solid like a cookie. I don't mind them, but with the amount of sugar and cocoa and all that other healthy stuff I guess I have to like them to some extent. They're actually way too sweet, if I ever make them again I'd give the mochi less sugar. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 17th, 2006
9:13 am	I'm bored, tired and kinda jet lagged... so I figure I'd write in my Livejournal, you know, a year after my last update. ^_^; I was in Ontario for two weeks and spent two days with my aunt, I mainly want to write down some of the things she told me about Japan before I forget them, or err, ever think about living in Japan, as she lived there for 7 years teaching English is a Foreign Language. The main three things she talked about were sexual assaults, Japanese unwillingness to communicate with foreigners and the feeling of walking into the 50's, at least as far as women's rights are concerned. My aunt lived in Kyoto and outside of Tokyo for her 7 years teaching English in Japan -- '96 to '03. The first thing she told me was how 80% of the men hired for EFL teachers were gay. The guys were just as shocked as the women, and these were guys hired from all over the world. She figures that's about 600 out of 800 males that were gay. I seriously wonder why that is, I highly doubt it was just coincidence. When she was first in Japan, her main problem was getting around, like she said, even if she was in Germany at least there she could pronounce the street names, even if she'd have no clue what they meant. In Japan it was like "Ok, I see some weird squiggly lines...", she started learning Japanese at the train station, the signs there would have kanji, hiragana and then English listed. Even without studying Japanese, she did almost pass the level four test (basic level), she knew more then enough kanji and also passed on the listening aspect. She said it was amazing how much you could get across by pointing and "grunting", however, some people would see she was foreign and shut right down by saying "Sorry no English", without even trying to listen to what she had to say, she'd be like "Hello, I'm trying to use my disconnected Japanese nouns here!", she figures a lot of Japanese are afraid of being made a fool of or have some large pride issues. She never did learn fluent Japanese in her stay, but wasn't really trying, she came to Japan for work -- not to learn Japanese. She said most people that came for something other than the job, such as anime/manga/martial arts, only lasted the year they'd signed for in their contract. Not only were most culture shocked, but they were working and didn't have time to pursue those hobbies as much as they'd planned -- she said a few people even came to Japan thinking anime/manga would be in English, or have English subtitles. There was only one English book store, and a paperback would cost $30 America, and on TV she said there were two shows that aired in English, Beverly Hills 90210 and Roswell. So, she'd watch those in her free time and made sure she had things to do on weekends, for example, going with a colleague to "Kinki University", just to buy the t-shirt. Keeping busy was important in your free time, some people just shut themselves off and didn't leave their apartment while others became alcoholics. After listening to that, I was already wondering why and how she'd lasted for 7 years, but then she started talking about women's rights and sexual assults and I was shocked, she said a lot of women are treated like objects. They become an OL (Office Lady) and pay their rent until they get married. When they get married they're to quit their job and eventually have a kid or two. It's expected. She had one women come to class in tears. When she asked her what was wrong, she said she was getting married so she'd have to quit her job. She apparently had a job that she loved, so when she was asked if she wanted to quit her job, she said no. When she was asked if she wanted to get married, she said no. Well, that doesn't seem like a hard decision then, huh? Where's the problem? Well, she was already 24! She had to get married. Another example was one of the classes my aunt taught that was fairly advanced, it only had two women in it, one was a doctor and one was a rocket scientist. Literally. They were learning a lot until a man entered the class, he was a doctor as well, so as to not insult his intelligence they'd placed him in the class with the smart ladies. He slowed down the whole class because he shouldn't have been placed at that level, everything was too advanced for him, and the thing was, the women would look to him to answer first. After class one day, one of the women even complained that she felt she was no longer getting enough time speaking in class, and my aunt told her it was because she was suddenly playing the part of the women where you "always wait until the man is done speaking", and that didn't get them anywhere because he would have no idea how to reply to my aunts questions. She would see guys that looked like the biggest losers in the world, she couldn't even begin to describing how they looked, and how stuck up they were, but they'd have women hanging all over them, making their stuck up audited even worse. When my aunt asked some of the women why they wanted to hang around a guy like that, their reply was "The worst American man is better then the best Japanese man." The prime example of women's rights is to look at birth control. It was only legalised after Viagra had been released in Japan shortly after its release in America. Women were outraged over it and the men eventually gave in and legalised the pill after Viagra came out. Lowest crime rate? My aunt sees it more as, "Sure it'll be low if people don't report anything." She knew women in abusive relationships but they wouldn't do anything about it; the same with sexual assaults. A blond co-worker often had men masturbating as she walked down the stairs of her apartment building -- because she was walking down the stairs. I guess I'd want to dye my hair before ever going to Japan with that story. My aunt did have one incident with a man masturbating in front of her, he was something of a stalker. The first few times she saw him, she thought he was lost, he was driving by her in his car a few times. She didn't think much of it, because "Hey! It sure isn't hard to get lost in Japan! Totally understandable."... a few days later she heard him call out to her, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!", she looked over and he was in the bushes masturbating. WTH?! She figures he thought she'd seen him and that's why he'd called out. She just turned away and kept walking. She has another story too, she was walking by the train tracks, and it was loud so she didn't hear the man behind her, but she suddenly saw a shadow. She turned around and he was right behind her. Thinking back on it, she should've allowed him to go ahead of her, but she didn't and turned around to keep walking. Immediately, he grabbed her breasts from behind. Heh, the guy managed to run off before my aunt had finished beating him up. With stories like that, I'd rather take a stroll in Central Park at night. O_o; Of course, at the end of her horror stories, I had to ask her why the hell she'd lasted for 7 years. Well, she didn't have close to enough to out weight those stories, but she did say in some ways Japan is very modern and a lovely place, she wouldn't have stayed otherwise. One thing she loved were the "crazy festivals". She was telling me about one that was for hair accessiries. You know, hair combs and pins? The women participating all had to have long black hair and walked in a line all showing off various Japanese clothing styles from different time periods. When the women would reach the temple, they'd burn the hair accessories as homage to them, or something. There's more she talked about, like how she loved their bathrooms & Hello Kitty, and told me other stories, too. Like one of my other aunts (my mother has 10 other siblings in the family) asking her in a horror struck voice when hearing she was headed to Japan, "But what will you eat?"... her answer, "food!". Or how there were articles in the paper of "doctors knowing best", so they wouldn't tell their patients they're going to die, and family members going: "Well, he died, and we we didn't even know he was sick". Or how Japanese point and go "Oh! Gaijin! (foreigner)" all the time, like she said, it would ok if it was a five year old -- but a 30 year old man in a business suit?! In conclusion: I now laugh at the people that want to live in Japan. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 29th, 2005
8:10 pm	Home! I've been gone most of the month stranded on an island. Well, sort of... my family owns a cabin, and I go there in the summer. It's a small island. I'm talking only 60 cabins on the island and no people allowed that don't own property on the island (there's no point and no extra docking), no cars or stores... but there are trees and ocean, which I guess are supposed to pass my time. And the deer. And large quantities of racoons my grandfather insists on feeding just off the deck, so we have 20 racoons (with cute babies) hoarding around the place all day with a dog going insane and cats hissing at them. And a grandmother who doesn't know what the hell is going on, ever. I spend my summer there so joyfully. While I was there, besides being bored, my dad would take me over to an island 5 minutes away, and I'd get to stare at odd people on a slightly larger island (it actually has a use for cars, and contains about 10 stores in total)... so there was a guy wearing a skirt wandering about the gas station, a man clinging to his carton of milk for dear life while he walked with his head down and eyes bulging ahead, cats sleeping on the road and people walking into a store with their beer cans in hand. What a place ^_^; One morning I woke up to find that my dad had started playing some audio book tape, that got my interest around the part where I started thinking these two people were being described in an overly joyful way... and I was right, seeing as about two minutes later the person (who I later realised was a school master) kissed a younger male student. Aunt: What's she laughing about in bed? Dad: I think the story... So from then on I listened intently, because some guy was going to jail. I figured he'd have to raped at least once. With my family was listening I knew that would made it all the more amusing. He wasn't, but his best and only friend sure was in love with him, and that didn't take any guessing to know. For most people, I should say, near the end of the story my dad asked "he's gay, isn't he?" -_- He sure catches on fast, the poor guy had obviously been in unrequited love for the whole story, and the issue hadn't been side-stepped either. Where my dad's brain went when it was continuously told that the guy was gay is beyond me. To keep sane I burned manga to take so I could read it on the 15 year old computer. That takes time to load the images, the images that will load, that is. I was reading Renai Junkie (something I didn't realise was yaoi, until I got there)... hah, so I read it with my grandfather 10 feet away at the table doing a crossword, my grandmother wandering aimlessly about the cabin, my dad sitting in a chair reading, and my aunt sitting outside... all with the opportunity to look over at any moment. Eventually, I just had to close it, the yaoiness was going on too long and too often to risk... with too many parts being shown XD my grandmother could've walk up at any time and asked "what are you doing over there?" ... Yup, so there's where I been, mostly. (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 16th, 2005
2:32 pm	Today I went and picked some strawberries... yummy... three buckets full. Which means either 80% of them are going to be moldy in a day, or 80% are going to be frozen within a day. Heh, since I'm lazy, I'm guessing they're all going to go moldy. Yay. I was watching Hikaru no Go and Speed Grapher with my mom last night... she's so funny to watch anime with! Especially when we watch Hikaru no Go... the comments she makes xD *applauds over her mothers perverted mind* Does anyone else find that there's an insane amount of birthdays in June? I've been to two parties already, and I'll be going to another two within the next week @_@ (well, three, sort of, my father and grandmother share the same birthday so it's a two in one sorta deal) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, June 13th, 2005
10:27 pm	I was bored :/ I was bored so I went and did some quiz things online ^_^ You scored as Sloth. </td> Sloth 81% Lust 50% Pride 38% Greed 31% Wrath 25% Envy 25% Gluttony 13% Seven deadly sins created with QuizFarm.com Hmm, yup, I can agree with the Sloth part, that's for sure. The image looks just like me. Except... you know, I'm female, and I don't think I'd been on the floor like that unless it was after a night of drinking... but aside from those points...just like me! Which HP Kid Are You? Innocent, eh? In some ways I guess it's true... I also took a Harry Potter personality test and found out I'm really an old man Dumbledore, but the test didn't have an HTML code attached. ( And seeing as I go on Neopets... I'll do a survey about it... ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 12th, 2005
2:27 pm	Random Crap Inserted Here -> I was at the library yesterday looking for The Count of Monte Cristo (because I want to read the book after watching the anime) and all their copies were out and about 5 people had it on hold. That's ridiculous! So, I went and looked at the really lame DVDs they have, yup... they were bad, except I saw a DVD for Queer as Folk, seeing as I haven't been able to watch most of the series I would've loved to take it out... but my friend was with me, and that would've just been weird *sigh* She thought it was weird enough I wanted to read The Count of Monte Cristo ^_^; I'm slowly rereading the 4th Harry Potter book, but at this rate I'll never finish the 5th before the 6th comes out, eek! Something that's really bugging me is that the spoken words are 'like this' instead of "like this", what's with that? That's something that drives me insane when I'm reading fan fictions and the author does that, I keep thinking they're an apostrophe, but for J. K. Rowling to do it too... *dies* I've decided after owning my PS2 for almost a year now it's about time I played some of the 10 games I have for it, so my dad can stop complaining about how we only watch DVDs on it... see? I even procrastinate on playing games. RAR, I'm gonna play FFX ... if I can find it amidst out massive amount of DVDs. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 7th, 2005
11:30 pm	Lord of the Rings While I was watching The Retun of the King extended edition last night my dad was making the funniest comments ever about the characters being gay. I think the whole "naked in the dark" comment Frodo made got my dad going on the gay comments, he was like "NAKID IN THE DARK?! Did he just say that?" xD and I said "Yup... he said that, you've seen the movie at least 10 times and you didn't notice that before?" ... well, obviously he didn't because this was the first time I remember him making so many hilarious comments during the end of the movie. When Frodo and Sam are talking at the end and Sam said if he'd ever have married anyone it would've been her (some random women I forget the name of, I'm sure she was just thrown in so Sam and Frodo wouldn't seem too close), and Frodo gets closer to him and leans his head on Sams forehead and my dad said "But what about me Sam? I love you too!" (I asked him if I could quote him on that *cough* and look, I did!) And when they were all jumping on the bed during their reunion my dad said something along the lines of "Yeah, now they're all getting in on it..." Then when Aragorn was being crowned king and he sees Legolas and puts his hand on Legolas' shoulder and says something in Elvish my dad translated it as "It never would've worked out." Just before he goes over and kisses Arwen. Then when Frodo was getting on the ship my dad said "I've kissed Sam good bye now, so it's time to leave." and as it shows Gandalf ushering Frodo on the ship he said "He's all mine now..." Haha I commented on how I never thought I'd see the day when my family members would become more perverted then me, because my dad was saying things that even I wasn't thinking. I wish I could remember more of what he'd said ^_^; It seems when my parents do odd things it makes me want to post about them. ^__^ (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 23rd, 2005
11:35 pm	Harry Potter I was watching the Chamber of Secrets tonight with my mom (after we saw some lame murder mystery movie) and I got to thinking about how I lent my friend my box set (which might be first edition) for the first 3 books... like a year ago, or more. What the hell was I thinking? So I asked her for them back because I realised I want to read them again before the next book is out and she said something lame like "My mom was the one that wanted to read them, so you'll have to ask her next time you're over..." Pft. Why can't she just ask her own mother? And when the hell do I see her mom anyway? Once a month? I bet they're lost forever. I'll end that rant... at least there were a few interesting things said while watching the Harry Potter movie, to make up for my really pissed off mood. Mother- "Does Draco like Harry?" I started laughing, I'm pretty sure she didn't mean it in that way (though she's watched all of Gravitation, Kyou Kara Maou, etc., so who knows) ... anyway what does she expect when she's talking to me? I couldn't see the question any other way. I just said "Yeah.. maybe, he wanted to be his friend at first." And my dad walked in at the end when Harry was giving Hagrid a bear hug (his head was mighty close to Hagrid's nether region) and commented "It's a good thing that guy isn't any taller" ... it took a second for it to sink in and then my mom and I both started laughing insanely. Also, my dad trying to figure out what we were watching "Peter Pan... Peter Potter..." Then my mom said "Harry." to correct the fact that his first name wasn't Peter, and he was like "That's right! Harry Pan!" Oh. My. God. The way he said it so positively too... I think by the time he said the right combination of names he'd used up every other option. *sigh* I wonder about my dads sanity more then my own sometimes. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 5th, 2005
2:40 pm	Naruto Episode 133 I'd read some mixed (aka horribly conflicting) reviews on episode 133, some saying it's the best ever with awesome animation, and others saying it's awful with shitty animation. I'm in between on the issue, happy that it's animated, but disappointed. I liked the fluid sequence to the fighting, but the animation in its self wasn't spectacular, Naruto looked fat, and some of the panels were just plain ugly. With no blood. WTH. AND FLAT. There wasn't enough emotion in their voices, or build up to the important things that they were saying, the music seemed off too. I think the manga portrayed their emotions better, if that makes any sense. When I was reading the manga, I could imagine how they sounded, and the anime just isn't similar at all to what I imagined their battle like in this episode. Maybe it's not that the episode is bad, just that I've been looking forward to it for so long with a set idea in my head that when it doesn't meet my expectations... I'm incredibly disappointed. Oh well. Screenies were taken anyway... ( First, I'll tell a story xD ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
12:33 pm	I wrote a huge update, then randomly closed the window, figures. I've sorta forgotten about updating my journal... it's been so long since my last (and only) update. So... what have I been doing? Everything from watching toilets over flow through the house for 10 minutes, to random drunken adventures. Uh, yeah... both of those are always fun. And the cleaning up afterwards. The other thing I've been doing, of course, is watching anime! And reading manga. A few notable mentions to shounen-ai/yaoi manga I've read recently are CUT, Keijijyou na Bokura and Color. <3 I've started watching some of the newer series/OVAs! Loveless (which I have much love for), Speed Grapher, Tsubasa, MÄR, Eye Shield 21, Haru wo Daiteita, KARAS, Sosei no Aquarion... Loveless is my new God. The animation, music, and shounen-ai are all beyond my expectations. Speed Grapher is great, with it's maturity, blood, and questionable sexuality of random people. That's GONZO for you. Tsubasa is good too, though the flashbacks I've found sort of annoying, it's only 4 episodes in and there are already so many flashbacks to things that happened in the span of 4 episodes. I don't think it's necessary for all the flashbacks. Maybe the Naruto flashbacks are just getting on my nerves and it's crossing over to other series when I see flashbacks... The other series & OVA episodes were mostly good too, especially Haru wo Daiteita ;D And KARAS, even though neither were subbed in English. I'm now going to watch Naruto episode 133. I might post screenies later of all the gay UST action in the episode. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 3rd, 2005
5:48 pm	Oh the... Eroticness la la la... so I got a Livejournal... and decided to post something =O Today in art class, I had to pick an artist I knew nothing about, I ended up picking some dude who mostly drew erotic nude women, and now I'm suppose to draw myself using his "style" ... which would more or less involve me being drawn nude. Gah... I think I'll have to go pick one of those rare pictures where he chose to draw the women with their clothes still on... Current Mood: weird (2 Comments |Comment on this)