Allow me to get on my soapbox for a minute...

Preface: In college, I came to the conclusion that you don't do yourself any favors by being ignorant. When I restarted this blog, I told myself I'd start writing about politics and serious subjects, in addition to the fluffy stuff. I purposely made the layout more friendly to the fluffy stuff, in part because I wanted to present such things to people who wouldn't normally care about such things. I can kind of understand why people don't care about politics or feel that it is beyond their control, but I feel that such an attitude is generally inexcusable. Roll your eyes as you will at the talking heads on the news networks or politicians in an election year (like this year!), but the things they do and say affect everyday people, including you and I. To me, choosing to be ignorant or apathetic about politics/current events/why shit matters is the same as choosing to let people walk all over you, because you've taken yourself out of the conversation and taken away your own voice. Even worse, in some instances you've made yourself unavailable to help others.

This so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" has been a big shitstorm for a little while, and I find the discussion fairly ridiculous. It's not a mosque, it's not at Ground Zero, and it shouldn't be a big deal. It's a community center, currently named Park 51, that happens to be run by a group of Muslims. This is America, and everyone gets to practice whatever religion they see fit to practice. Your relationship with your higher power or whatever is your business, not mine. If you own land, you get to build whatever you want on it.

Those responsible for the 9/11 attacks were part of a militant Islamic group, and I'm pretty sure most Muslims want nothing to do with those guys. Grouping all the many branches of Islam* together and labeling them all violent jihadists is like saying every Christian church is like the Westboro Baptist Church (the group that protests everything and everyone with signs like GOD HATES FAGS, they're pleasant). But the discussion on TV and on the internet will inevitably affect everyday people, and that's what really bothers me. All the hatred and fear that gets stirred up with such inflamed discussion of Islam or Ground Zero or Al Qaeda affects people who just want to go about their lives and be happy. There's enough racism and xenophobia and fear already out there, why would you want to make it worse?

My dear Japanese grandmother experienced stuff like that after Pearl Harbor was attacked. She's told me people would hurl racial insults at her or treat her badly just for being Japanese, despite having brothers who fought in the war for America. I can't help but assume that Muslims go through that kind of crap everyday after 9/11, even though a few hundred victims of the attack were Muslim. Given the extent of the news coverage of this community center, I'd bet that innocent people using Park 51 for knitting class or playing basketball or prayer will get harassed, too. It's not fair.

I have no big influence on this issue, but I can put my two cents out on the internet and hope maybe someone thinks about it a moment after reading this post.


*Fun semi-related fact: Jesus is totally in the Qur'an! Check out the Wiki page.

I hate kanji, part 298482910

I was too lazy to post this to Twitter, but my story in a nutshell:

For Americans, kanji is DIFFICULT. For example~

My "classmates" and I were reading through our yomimono, like theいい学生 that we are, and we came across the first character in the equation. None of us had ever seen it before, though we were all familiar with the radicals (the individual components that make up a character - the roof, the water splash on the left side, the katakana マ thing in the middle). The textbook didn't show us that exact character and my DS jisho didn't want to cooperate when I tried to write it, so I took to Twitter. The almost unanimous answer from my Japanese followers was, "IT'S 冷たい (tsumetai - cold to the touch) YOU NOOB."

I know the differences between Japanese fonts can sometimes make reading kanji difficult, especially with the complex ones (機械 kikai - machine is a favorite), but these were clearly different since THAT RADICAL UNDER THE ROOF IS TOTALLY NOT THE SAME. It's not even simplified, it takes three strokes to write either radical! UGH. I HATE KANJI.

Aside from looking like a total waste of space on Twitter, I got my nails done last week.

Not quite how I wanted it to look, but it's still nice. I went to Smiley Nail and they did a good job, the gel is all even and was perfect before it started to grow out, but it was about $20 more than the first salon I tried.

Also had a chat with the big cheese owner of my working place, in regard to moving up in the company. It wasn't all that productive, and the thought of not having an opportunity to live and work in Japan made me sad. I've been dragging my feet about what I want to do since I won't be returning to UH next semester - move up at my job, get another job, continue to wait for that teaching position, apply to JET again (UGH). I definitely don't want to get stuck in management (not until they pay more, which is probably never), so I guess I'll entertain the idea of getting another job and wait a little longer.

Maybe I can work in Waikiki with all the J-boys wandering around, especially now that I know the two kanji for tsumetai.

Can retainers be gyaru???

I'm finally at the last stage of straightening my teeth (again!), and I got fitted for plastic wire retainers. I GOT TO CHOOSE WHAT COLOR I WANTED!!! I was excited. I chose *sparkly white* because retainers can be cute, too!

Right?

 Do you see the sparkles???

And if you don't wanna think about retainers *omg* then have a picture of Bobby (大石一聡) from PlayZ, he's easily the best of the five since he can actually sing.

I'm usually partial to the "girlier" looking models lol.

Maybe I'll put sparkly rhinestones and stuff on the case hahahahaha.

So now the A in KAT-TUN is... auto-tune?*

*SWEARSIES IN THIS BLOG*

Dearest Jin formally announced he's leaving KAT-TUN. Oh. Let me recap it for you so you don't have to hunt all over the internet for articles:

Jin is all AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!
The other members of KAT-TUN have been saying nice things like "Please support us in our efforts and Jin on his solo project!" or whatever, but supposedly they're glad he's gone behind the scenes (I'd say they're fairly boring without him, but that's just me).
Johnny's been harsh, "Don't come crying back to me when you failwhale all over America. Not saying that you will failwhale or anything... because you better make me some money."
And all the rabid fangirls are crying and upset and hoping Jin will fail. Very mature, ladies. He didn't run over all of your dogs and laugh at your misery, stop acting like it.
And all of America is like ULTIMATE GAIJIN SMASH!

Director's cut

I'm just hoping that this incident hasn't created anti-fans similar to those in Korea. As far as I can tell, anti-fans spend their time spreading rumors and generally trash-talking whatever pop groups or celebrities they don't like. I've even heard of them buying the merchandise from whatever group they despise only to destroy it and post pictures of it on internet forums. Yes, really. I'm not sure if they harass or personally attack fans of the groups they don't like, but I wouldn't put it past them because most of them are some kind of crazy.

Otherwise, I haven't been doing anything incredibly interesting lately. I did get the jisho (dictionary) game for Nintendo DS and I highly recommend it. It's not as detailed as an EX-word but it's useful.

*KAT-TUN's name comes from each of the members' surnames:

K(amenashi)A(kanishi)T(aguchi)-T(anaka)U(eda)N(akamaru - often misspelled as Nakamura)

I think they should rename the group KUNTT for teh lulz.

日本語の勉強

ある日, 日本語で書こう...  Just not today.

Today I had my second broke-ass summer school session for Japanese! I'm not actually taking a Japanese course, I'm learning through helping my friends with their homework and following along on their worksheets. Cheers to spending money on flying to LA for concerts and not formal Japanese classes! The university is still using the same textbook that we had last semester, so I'm comfortable with the format of the lessons and whatnot. We use Tobira (literally "door," but they translated is as "gateway"), which is a traditional textbook and quite a few online resources for listening practice, kanji, videos, etc.

One really useful site is smart.fm. As far as I can remember it's a free service - you set up a profile and add activities or quizzes from textbooks. I just started the kanji practice for the lesson we're working on, IT'S SO HARD but it is a nice way to study.

Aside from studying, I'm getting into gyaru (the Japanese transliteration of "gal") and hime-gyaru (hime means "princess") subcultures. I discovered a super cutesy brand at Sephora called Tarina Tarantino and bought a bright pink blush. I've been seeing all the Japanese tourists wear this kind of blush and I wanted to try it out. Here's the blinged-out pink packaging:

Look at the rhinestones on that case!

Not the best lighting, but it's awesome.

And before I left for LA, I got my nails done. Mother chided me for spending $40 on my nails, but it's so pretty and my nails aren't dying from all the chemicals in nail polish. I offered to pay for her to get Calgel done on her nails, but she declined. It's been about three weeks and they're only starting to chip now:

I'd write,"すごい!" but I usually say, "すげえええ!"

because I don't like sounding like I'm in AKB48.

And as much as I love Egg/Men's Egg/Men's KNUCKLE (yes all caps, it's such a manly magazine) I still LOL when they publish things like this:

Yay for misspelled everything and not changing graphics around to suit the layout!