I was reading an article for class today called 'Chimerica' is Headed for Divorce, and being familiar with Hetalia... pffft

Not the first time I've seen it been related to a marriage in journalism, but I don't remember if the other one had a ship name for it. Oh Hetalia. Oh Niall Ferguson.

I stayed at school over our short Thanksgiving break. It was all quiet and peaceful, plus our food service does a damn good Thanksgiving.

( I was honestly worried there for a bit. Bloody Monday Season 2 manga potential spoilers )

On a related note, I've sorta been working on J/Mikhail drabbles. They're on the short end of being drabbles, but still...! I have two so far and an idea for a 3rd. If Once I finish it, I'll probably post 'em up. Probably. Also, I'm working on ideas for a proper(?) fanfic about the pair.

But it'll probably be a while before I get to that, since the end of semester is fast approaching. 3 papers and 2 finals. At least I'm not really worried about my Japanese final (yet).

So I think that it was in the summer that I started reading Bloody Monday. It's a manga series about a teenage hacker fighting against terrorists. Two manga series and a live action tv show, now, I guess. I don't feel too up to summarizing it, but yeah, I've been reading it, but haven't mentioned yet because I've only recently been getting really into it. The first manga series ending and then reading the second series ever week got me pretty excited in the last couple of weeks though. I watched the whole live action series this week. I thought it was pretty good on its own, but since it was rather different from the manga, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed that a few things I really liked in the manga weren't in the live action. :<

It's really suspenseful, so I recommend it to everyone, as I have been to people here at school. I've actually gotten two people to start reading the manga! Since I've been so excited about it, it makes me kinda sad that the fandom for it is pretty much microscopic and most of it seems to be geared more towards the live action version. T_T Earlier, the best I could find was one lj fanfic community with only a few posts, but I checked again right before posting and someone's made a general community for it! With 5 members currently, including me... The fanfic comm has more members, so hopefully it's just a matter of time. Sigh~ Small fandom, I might just have to actually write fluffy J/Mikhail fanfiction... that maybe no one wants to read... especially since half of that ship doesn't exist in the live action version.

Sigh~

( School )

I'm kinda annoyed with my International Politics professor. >:< We took our midterm almost 3 weeks ago and he still hasn't returned it yet, and since I hear other people in the class complain about it, I'm tending to feel a little justified in my feelings... Oh well, I'll be upset if I did poorly on it and wish that he returned it before the drop deadline, but if I did okay, I won't mind so much, since it's his first year and he's probably still adjusting.

I had fencing tonight. We started doing bouts last week, and I got a few points then, even though I lost. This week, however, I had to do two bouts and didn't get any points. :P I don't feel terrible about it though, since last week, I was fencing against another beginner and this week against two people who've been doing it for a while. Both this week and last week, one guy who's been doing it for awhile has been asking everyone if they had fun and if they liked it. I feel like it's pretty encouraging, and I'm glad that he's asking that.

It's so much fun to meet with my Japanese tutor. ^_^ We've kinda ended up just talking about a bunch of different things for both of our meetings so far, since I haven't had any specific questions yet, but I still think it's good for learning, even if it isn't very focused. I think at our next meeting I'll ask about my handwriting and pronunciation, since that's the type of think most likely to get out of hand without individual attention.

Oh, and also, I get to host a prospective student on Thursday! Our school's autumn visit days start then, so I'll get her for more than one day, too, I think. My first one, too. ^_^

I've been on fall break from college since a little after 11 am Friday. My parents picked me up Friday evening, we stayed in a hotel that night, and came home on Saturday. Lol, I told my parents that I was excited to buy the Persona remake for PSP, since I hadn't gotten a chance to go to a video game store since it's come out and they let that be the first thing we did once we got back in town, even before getting to the house. ^_^ They really are good parents. I sometimes wonder how I feel about them, since they tended to get on my nerves a bit, although I do think they did a pretty good job of parenting. Now, probably since I've been in college and haven't been around them so much that it gets annoying, some of the less favorable things don't matter so much. College is such a wonderful thing. ^^

But yes, Persona! And the complete two-disc soundtrack! <3 The music has been really good in what I've played so far. Gameplay isn't too hard to figure out, and the story seems interesting so far. It's still early for me though, so I know hardly anything still. Slowly learning more about the characters seems like it will be pretty interesting. ( early spoiler ) I have quite a number of games I need to finish. Oh, how I let these things pile up...

It's been fun playing Persona, but I've also gotten bored at times. There's so little to do compared to when I was at college. I've been procrastinating on homework, so there's still that to do... ^^ I also miss my college friends a lot, too though.

As for other interesting things I've done over break so far, I went to a Renaissance festival on Sunday and got a bit of jewelry, and I watched an anime called Time of Eve today. There are only 6 episodes for now, and the first 5 are all < 20 minutes, so it's super short. It was kinda a sci-fi story with a slice of life feel involving relationships between androids and humans. I thought it was pretty moving and hope that more episodes get made sometime. I might check out the director's other works.

It's been a while without posting... And it's not even like nothing's been happening, since I went to college and all that... And now it's gotten to the point that it's been so long that it'll be kinda overwhelming to talk about everything that's happened. ^^

Classes: First-Year Seminar - Supernatural Japan: The professor's pretty cool (he's also my adviser until I declare my major), the subject matter is all interesting, and the other people in the class all seem pretty good. First-Year Japanese: The professor is really nice, and I seem to be doing fairly well in the class so far. Roman Laughter and Society: It's a Latin class, there are 4 students in the class (5 before one dropped), we're reading Miles Gloriosus, the professor is cool and a former student of the college, and we had a translation quiz yesterday on which I think I did well. International Politics: The subject matter is interesting, but with the way the professor talks during lectures and the reading assignments we have, I'm not so into it anymore. We have a short paper due next week, and I have to look up news stories for it. I mentioned maybe dropping it to my adviser when I had a meeting with him anyway on Thursday, but he pretty much told me to withhold judgment for a bit. Meh, I'll see.

Clubs: I joined Japan Club. Since it's so small and I showed up to the first meeting in which officers were decided, I ended up co-head of Public Relations. I've already made one poster for the club and got to put them up around campus. I guess I've pretty much joined fencing club. One of my friends here fences, and I'm already sorta interested in it. Since there are plenty of other beginners, I won't feel too awkward. I've gone to a couple things with our school's Alliance, but their weekly meetings are at about the same time as Japan club, so yeah... I'll go to a few of their events if I can, but Japan club is more important to me. There are some other interesting clubs on campus, but I haven't done much with them yet.

Other social life: I guess I've already made a few good friends on campus. And those friends occasionally do smut readings and bad fanfic readings together. We have a pretty fun time together. A few of these people also convinced me to watch Torchwood. I've gotten through Day 1 of Children of Earth, but I've been spoiled for what happens on Day 4. My favorite episodes so far are "Captain Jack Harkness", "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", and "To the Last Man".

Also, I have not been playing video games very much since I got here. It's kinda sad and makes me feel so busy even though I'm not really busy. And I have a food service job washing dishes. It is what it is and pretty tiring too.

Way back on Monday, I bought, used, a PSP, a memory stick for it, and Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology. I soon, however, figured out that they the previous owner put custom firmware which blocked official firmware updates and had to downgrade to a previous version of that same custom firmware before I could update off of the UMD, which I had to do to play the game because although Radiant Mythology came out years ago and is now discontinued, I bought the oldest version of PSP I could and that stupid custom firmware wasn't up-to-date enough. Anyway, all that has been fixed, and I started playing the game.

It can get kinda repetitive, but it's still pretty fun. All the little character interactions and everything makes me want to play the games the characters are from which I haven't played yet.

... Oh snap, I just realized that the game I'm playing is a marketing ploy to make the players buy more Tales games.

NAMCO!!!

Anyway, I'll have moved into my college by this time next week, which leaves very little time left to hang out with friends here. I haven't even hung out with them very much at all this summer... oops... T_T

I just finished spending over a week in California yesterday. I was there for the NJCL Convention at UC Davis, but I also did some sightseeing with other students from my school district and some Indiana delegates in San Francisco before the convention. The best part of sightseeing had to have been going to Alcatraz. We had fun on the ferry ride there, and that island is so pretty and has a fantastic view of the city.

The convention itself was also a lot of fun. I got to hang out with people from my school district and also from Ohio as a whole plenty, and got to hang out with the Indiana people, too. In ways, I didn't do as much as last year, but as a whole, I felt like I did a lot more. Next year's convention is in Fargo, North Dakota, and I think it'll be really fun to go, since the delegation's invitation was so cute and made North Dakota seem like a really fun place to visit AND I heard from adults that the last convention held in Fargo was one of the best conventions most of them had been to. Quite a lot happened, but I don't feel entirely up to typing it up, and I'm not sure anyone really wants to read about it, so I'll end with that.

Yesterday I looked at the website for the remake of Persona for the PSP, and now I want a PSP badly. Tomorrow, I'll probably look around in local game stores for used PSPs and might even buy one if I find a nice price. So I'll have a PSP but not any PSP games! Lol, I'll probably try to get Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology while I have a PSP anyway, and look up other PSP games online or something.

So just tonight I finished reading Prince of Tennis and read what's up for New Prince of Tennis, making me caught up more or less. It was strange to go so through much so fast. It made it feel like I couldn't fully process it all right away. Hahaha, so many chapters covering such a short amount of time, wow. Ahhh, I don't know what to think right now.

But I know that I had fun and that it was a nice way to end and that I'm curious what track it's on now. Time to wait, like the rest of the fans. And get back to doing other things. I'll definitely have to watch the anime sometime, though. And Kirk Thornton is in the dub so I'll even watch at least some of the episodes both dubbed and subbed if I ever get the chance. ^_^

( Devil Survivor Day 5 )

I've been reading a lot less tenipuri the past couple of days since I'm a little nervous about starting the national tournament arc. Lol so weird, when it was so hard for me to stop a little while ago.

Starting last night, I've been reading Prince of Tennis, since I decided that I should... I dunno, I'm not entirely sure if there is any good reason, but I'm glad that I'm reading it. It's so intense that it's very difficult to stop reading it. I'm kinda sad that I don't have much of anyone to talk to about it, but even if I did, I'm behind anyway, lol. I've read through chapter 118, now, I guess. As things are going right now, I'd have to guess that I'll enjoy it all the way and not really know what to do when I'm done. Whatever, I'll figure something out. But yeah, SO INTENSE and the characters are all so much fun, so I'm happy. I think I'll probably want to try to buy the volumes of manga at some point, if I keep enjoying it, but really, there's so many. T_T There's so much other manga I want to buy that it gets super pricey super fast. Sigh~

( (Lots and lots about) Devil Survivor (including part of Day 4) )

I finally bought Devil Survivor yesterday. I'm only early in Day 2, and for now, so far so good. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to grind, but luckily, free battles are readily available and don't spend any of the in-game daytime. The music and art all seems good to me. The battles are difficult to do well, but I haven't run into anything super difficult yet. Even though I know hardly any of what's going on, the story seems interesting to me, and I'm curious about all of the characters and their backstories. I can hardly wait to figure out what's going on behind the scenes. Gosh, and find Naoya again. Bahhh, Naoya, SO MYSTERIOUS. (And handsome, can't forget that, pffft.) I really love how the game described that: "His handsome face." Oh the subtext. ^_^ The Laplace System and the death clocks are pretty cool. Especially since we can kinda defy it and change things.

The Devil Auction feature is super fun! I totally use it more than I need to, but it's okay since I have so much more macca than I probably need from all my free battling.

( P4 spoilers for 3/20 )

In non-video game news, there was a young possum in my house yesterday, eating our cat's food. Due to our difficulty in getting it out of the house, my brother discovered that both our township and our county don't appear to have an animal control service. Lucky us. Eventually, my dad was able to pick the possum up with a towel while wearing two sets of gloves and get it outside, but still, why don't we have animal control? Also, my mom got to laugh at the rest of us and our lack of experience in dealing with wild animals where they aren't supposed to be since she grew up on a farm and has had to chase possums out of a chicken coop on more than one occasion.

Haven't posted in a while, as usual... Stuff has been happening, but I didn't feel like posting about it.

Anyway, today I kinda just finally decided to get on with it and finish up Persona 4, so now I've seen the normal ending! Since I already saw the bad ending way back when, this means that I only have one left: the true ending!! Lol, after the build-up to the true ending, I'm so totally psyched to see it. Go go find the truth!

Something I just sorta noticed as I was playing today is how all the characters still act like the bunch of dorky teenagers they are, even while they're doing the very serious business of saving the world, like it's showing that they're real people and they goof around and do silly things and tease each other for it. It makes me sorta realize that there's probably not a single person who couldn't be called a dork, and if they escape being a dork, then they can't be any fun. I guess that means the people responsible for this game did a good job at making the characters believable and real.

So I might be totally done with the game tonight... or I might finish it up tomorrow. Actually, either way, I'll probably wanna do a second play-through sometime to see the other sides of the strength and sun social links, and try to get the social links I missed or didn't finish the first time through, and... ^_^

Not much has been happening... or really, there's been stuff happening, but I haven't felt like posting about it. The first two weeks of May, I had AP exams, so I actually was busy then, but after that, I was just being lazy. I think I did decently on most of them (at least the ones I care about), but I'll see come mid-July. The last day for seniors at my school is Tuesday, so there isn't much left for me to worry about, so that's nice. The only things I have left to do are an in class essay over Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead tomorrow and a (I think somewhat small) project for computer science which I guess I'll have to finish by Tuesday.

So yeah, last day of school Tuesday, graduation rehearsal Thursday, and then I graduate on Saturday. Then I'm done with high school... Yeah...

Then I'll probably not be doing much of anything over the summer, unless my parents convince me to get a job, but I think it might be hard to get one, since the last week of July, I'll be going to California for NJCL convention, and then college starts for me on August 15.

Not a whole lot to say about that. I've been feeling kinda meh today. I wish I had gotten to know some people I'll be leaving better, but I've felt that way about people who graduated last year and the year before that. I didn't really bother, and then it was too late. Besides, I'm not really sure I'd want to know how most people would react if they got to know me better.

Anyway, sorry for the boring post, but I felt kinda obligated since I said I forget how long ago that I'd post at least once a month.

"Aspice num mage sit nostrum penetrabile telum"
Vergil's Aeneid, Book X line 481

I know I haven't read anywhere near all the lines of the Aeneid, but I still have to say that this is probably one of the most powerful lines in there. It's not all that striking out of context, so it might be hard to understand out of context. Still, when I read this line I felt pierced, struck, probably not unlike how Pallas felt with a spear sticking out of his chest... Okay, not quite so completely struck as having a spear sticking out of me would probably feel, but this line left me completely awestruck. So awestruck that I felt I needed to say it.

See whether our weapon is more able to penetrate.

This one-line quotation from Turnus after he throws his spear after Pallas' spear only grazes him is all the more powerful since most quotations in epic poetry run for several lines. This is the kind of thing that makes me believe that Vergil was actually an honestly good writer.

( Some things I probably should have posted about a while ago )

In other other other other news, I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, in which I will hopefully learn what the results of all those blood tests mean. Hooray!

I've been on spring break since Saturday, and I suppose it's been going okay. My friend Ian and I started our spring break off right with our murder mystery party. We had plenty of people who had to cancel at the last minute or who simply didn't show up without telling us why at all, so it was a bit hectic, especially since Ian and I hadn't quite prepared everything we should have had ready. The murder ended up happening so late that some people had to leave before the murder was solved, and they didn't correctly solve the murder, although that was probably partially our fault for making it someone so unexpected whose motive wasn't apparent. Plus, I kinda distracted everyone by bringing up the wills, making them all think the murderer was someone who was in one of the wills, but all in all, everyone had fun, so I'd call it a success. We're probably gonna do our next one as a post-AP test fun time extravaganza, if we can find the time to plan it all. Oh, and I really enjoyed doing some of the character background info, so I was thinking about posting some of them up on here.

I went to a doctor yesterday for, I think, the first time since junior high, mostly for a physical for college, but I actually also have a minor health concern, so I had to have fasting blood work done. I did that this morning and threw up after the blood was taken, but I'm feeling fine now.

I've also been playing P4 some. ( Potential spoilers to Dec 3? )

I still haven't worked on any of my homework for the break yet, but I've got time. (Except not... AP tests are so soon T_T)

I do not like the story of Dido and Aeneas (at least as it is told by Vergil in Aeneid.) Why? It's a trainwreck. TRAINWRECK. It's such a trainwreck that it can still be called a trainwreck even though it was written in and took place in a time that didn't have trains. Humans, gods, EVERYONE makes mistake after mistake, and then (SPOILER ALERT) it ends in suicide. Miserable, lonely, hopeless, pointless suicide. And I'm left asking over and over again, why was this mistake not averted? Why did neither Venus nor Juno realize the Aeneas/Dido would not work out? Why did both Anna and Dido think it would work out when they'd heard MORE THAN ONE TIME that MORE THAN ONE PERSON had prophesied that Aeneas kinda sorta needed to go to Italy (and NOT Carthage)? Why did Dido think that she and Aeneas were "married" when Aeneas had said no such thing? Why didn't Aeneas or Dido suggest that Dido go along with Aeneas? Why didn't Dido decide that she could live on without Aeneas after he left? Why does no one have a brain except for maybe Iarbas, Jupiter, and Mercury? Why was this story even told?

Now, I'm assuming there's supposed to be some lesson that we learn here. What is it? Don't go for guys who're gonna have to leave anyway? Don't recklessly get into romantic relationships? The gods rule your life anyway, so who cares? Carthage sucks? I can't figure out what I'm supposed to learn with all of this. Which mistake am I supposed to avoid? Can I avoid these mistakes? Am I screwed in life 'cause I'm a woman? If the people reading something are supposed to learn something from it, but don't learn what the writer wanted them to learn, then that writer has failed his or her purpose, which nobody knows anyway... Great...

Now, it might just be me, but I think that if people really wanna teach us something in a story, they should teach it with happiness and success, not misery and death. I can tell from Crime and Punishment that the author wants us to follow Christianity, but I can't tell anything for certain from Book 4 of Aeneid what Vergil wanted us to do or even if he wanted us to do anything.

Sure, sure, "There's more lessons to be learned from failure than from success" or whatever it was. I disagree. I don't think there's necessarily any more lessons to be learned from failure than there are from success. We do need to be reminded more that there's lessons from failure than we do that there's lessons from success, however, but that's psychology. We learn more easily from reward than from punishment. When we're rewarded, we do what we did to get rewarded, but when we're punished, instead of not doing what we were punished for, we may instead learn how to not get caught doing it. When we see other people rewarded for doing something, we know that it must be a good thing to do, but when we see someone punished for doing something, what do we do? Do we not do the thing, thinking that we, too, will get punished? Do we do the thing regardless, not caring about the punishment? Or do we figure out a way to do the thing without being found out, so we won't get punished?

This may be somewhat simplified from how an adult reacts to information and makes decisions, but I think the essential points still apply. If you want to teach someone something, reward them, or in the case of telling stories, show them someone who was rewarded for doing what it is you want them to do.

So tell me a happy story! That'll teach me!

My friend Ian and I are currently in the process of planning a Victorian Murder Mystery Party! We decided that we wanted to do it months ago, but we just recently actually got around to planning people's characters and the situations surrounding the murder just recently when we decided that one of the people we had told about it was similar to Mercury during Latin on Wednesday last week and decided that his character for the murder mystery party should be named after Mercury. Thus, he will be Mercurio Valiente, an Italian wine merchant! Then we kinda just went from there, deciding on the Victorian England setting. We've been inviting a lot of people since then, but since we still haven't invited everyone we want to invite, this could end up getting kinda big. We've been writing some of the characters with specific people in mind, and that's been a fun experience.

Since both of us will know pretty much everything, we've come up with reasons for our characters to not care a whole ton about solving the mystery, even though their grandfather'll be the victim, lol. We haven't really done much about rules yet, but I'm going to think some more about that after probably googling for guides to murder mystery parties or something. Ian seems to want to have the murderer chosen semi-randomly so that we won't know exactly who it is, only who it could be, but I'm not so sure about that, since I want to make sure that the murder's solvable somehow. If the conditions of the murder aren't controlled enough, I'm afraid that there'll be no sure-fire proof of exactly who the murderer was.

Rules and stuff aside, the biggest problem we have right now is figuring out where we're gonna hold it. Each of us has already decided that our homes aren't well-suited to what we want to do, so we've been thinking about maybe using the house of someone we've invited to the event or holding it in a nearby park or something. My parents suggested holding it in a church, so we're gonna ask some of our more religiously-inclined friends about that. If we were to find a place to rent, we'd have to make sure it was relatively inexpensive. Anyway, I'm sure if we ask the people we've been inviting, one of them is sure to know a good place.

It's gonna be so much fun to type up the invitations, character information sheets, the deceased's will, etc. I can hardly wait.

Last night, my brother decided to show me some videos of Eurovision performances, and Norway's entrant is so amazing!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtVDRha4PIA
I kinda wish I knew how to embed videos, but a link is good enough for me for now. Watch and be amazed! He soooo needs to win. Dangit, why are Europe's contests so much better than ours?! Why can't America make better music competitions?! These people make their own music to perform, but in an American competition, like, oh, IDK, American Idol or something, the people are lazy and just do covers.

I was REALLY busy the last couple of weeks of February. And it's not actually over yet, because I have an essay to write tonight, hooray! Yeah, I've been so busy that I haven't been able to post on lj, really keep up with lj, play video games aside from a very tiny bit of Disgaea (I wouldn't've been able to do that if it didn't have the DS version), and, the thing that made me feel compelled to post tonight (aside from not wanting to write the essay yet, although I have a general idea of what I'm gonna do for it):

My Ghost Hunt dvds arrived over two weeks ago.

I still have not found the time to watch any tiny bit of any one of them.

...

^^; I think I'll be fixing that tomorrow.

When I have time again which might not be until after the first couple of weeks of May spring break this weekend, I might post some of the highlights of this busy life... Hopefully... some really funny things happened, so I really ought to post them... I hope.

Now back to trying to compel myself to write an essay.

Not a whole lot going on lately, except for doing school stuff, not playing video games much, and messing around on the internet. I started getting sick on Thursday, ended up physically exhausted for no apparent reason, threw up, and couldn't go to school on Friday. I felt kinda bad since Friday was a day we were originally gonna have off, but had school on that day anyway because of all the school closings for crazy weather this year. Oh well, I ended up just sleeping off and on during the time I would've been at school had I gone, and I don't think I missed very much anyway. I'm still not totally recovered, I suppose, since I'm rather congested nasally. (sorry for the bizarre phrasing)

I'm reading Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge for my English class right now, since our teacher decided that we ought to read some Victorian novel or another. Aside from lolling at the weird plotline and that funny Victorian way of saying things: "writhing in vegetable agony, like leafy Laocoons", I can't help but have certain thoughts and make certain inferences when reading any scene with Michael Henchard and Donald Farfrae. Never mind that Farfrae is ever so clearly being set up for Henchard's daughter. Not that Farfrae knows that she's Henchard's daughter, since Henchard sold his wife and daughter (not entirely seriously) to a sailor for five guineas years and years ago. Not that she knows she's Henchard's daughter either, since she was just a baby when it happened and her mother was far too ashamed to tell her. Lolwhut, Victorian novels!

But how am I supposed to help myself when Thomas Hardy makes it so...

"Donald had wished to get to his lodgings; but he already saw that his friend and employer was a man who knew no moderation in his requests and impulses, and he yielded gracefully. He liked Henchard's warmth, even if it inconvenienced him; the great difference in their characters adding to the liking."

There's more than that lurking in The Mayor of Casterbridge, but it's mostly in little bits and pieces sitting within larger quotes.

So, in conclusion: I'm insane. Thomas Hardy was insane. HOORAY!

edit: From reading just a little further in, Henchard decides to tell Farfrae the whole thing, so now Farfrae DOES know that she's his daughter, although she still doesn't know.