The low down on blogging & more good news

mou ichido, omedeto marie-sensei! Your baby is so cute and tiny!

I went shopping for baby clothes today, that was fun! Everything was so cute.. and then i visited marie-sensei at the hospital.. we had a pleasant visit, and i enjoyed holding the tiny baby =) Then a Japanese friend of marie's dropped by and i got to practice my Japanese on her ;)

I got more good news from reemy-chan today! That made my day! Thanks for sharing, its nice to see everyone so happy for a change! LOL. Another great piece of news i got is that fefe-chan and her sister(s) will be going to the Japanese restaurant with me on Sat! Bash, you still didn't answer! please do!

Overall, this has been a great week. So much good news! I wish it would stay this way, or i wish i could give others good news too and make them happy! When your happy, you just feel its not fair for others not to be, and you just want to share some of your happiness, trade it in and give others some!

Today when me and my mum were leaving to go shopping, i got in the car with a bottle of green tea (thanks reemy-chan!) and some sembei and my mum was like, wow you're really turning Japanese! LOL

I'm dreading Thursday because i have an appointment with my doc and i feel like i wont be happy to hear what she has to say.. hopefully not! So i get to miss a class on Thursday, but its going to be a long day. I have the appointment, then i need to go to uni and practice for the ICDL which begins on Sunday, and then a class at 11, and then a club meeting at 12, and then i need to go to the mall to get some bits & pieces.. I'm going to be busy!

I was just talking to my sis about blogging. I was telling her how reemy-chan and I have become closer since i started blogging, not sure why but i guess because some kind of barrier has disappeared! and i was telling her that it would be a great idea if she read my blog, i know our relationship would improve dramatically if she read my posts because she'll just understand me better.. Her, more than anyone, we have never been that close and just never understood each other. and a few months ago she started blogging, and i used to read her blogs (she didn't know it then) and i just understood her more, and knew what she likes/didn't like and when she was upset and when she was happy so our relationship was so much better coz like when i knew she was feeling down, i wouldn't confront her but i would in a way try to comfort her. She stopped a while ago and i miss knowing how shes doing even thought we live together, there are things we just don't come right out and say but in a blog its easier to say. So i was telling her about that today, and she was like, yeah.. but i don't think she'll read my blog.. too grown up and boring for her.. she wants some entertainment! LOL

No photos today so im putting stills from one of my favorite songs at the moment: Sayaendou by NEWS
Missing both my other sisters, hope to see both soon! I miss my older bro too, haven't seen him for at least 5 days!
Oyasumi!

Gosh, what a day!

Fefe-chan sent me cool song called fields of hope, i loved this part:

umarete kita hi ni dakishimete kureta, yasashii ano te wo sagashiteru.. On the day we were born, we were embraced, And now we search for those gentle hands again..
On to another thing, Omedeto marie-sensei! My Japanese teacher/friend gave birth today to a healthy little girl! Can't wait to see you, little baby!

You know how life has its many ups & downs? Today i got up having a cold and feeling depressed as ever. A few hours practicing for the ICDL were the beginning of the many good things that happneded today. The practice showed me that theres nothing to fear, the ICDL seems quite easy! Thank god!

Then, my sensei had her baby! Then, something else i've been doing has been going smoothly! Then, my sister M called, and i havnt talked to her in a while so that was nice!

Then, i was on MSN and my dad came home and he wanted me to help him cook something (neither one of us knows anyting about cooking, but my dad somethimes likes to pretend to be a chef) so i went to help him but before i went i wrote something like "i love my dad" as my nickname. We cooked some Chinese noodle thingy, which turned out really good!

Then the whole family was sitting and my uncle John called and hes like "Nana (my grandma's nickname) might be coming over to you guys earlier than ususal". She usually comes in Jan but shes just moving house and stuff so she'll come earlier and stay for a bit longer, till the end of March maybe. So that was another good thing. I LOVE YOU NANA!! can't wait for her to come, she is the CUTEST BESTEST grandma in the whole wide world! (i never actaully knew my other grandma).

Then just when i thought it couldn't get any better, i was casually talking to my dad about how hot it would be in Japan in the summer, and he turned around and said, if you dont mind the cold weather then you could go in the spring break! He said it ever so casually, and i was like "YESS"! So hopefully i will defintiely be going in Jan! I need to study more Japanese, i have to get more serious about it!

Fefe-chan might also go! That would be the best thing ever! I really hope her parents agree.. Fefechan, now i can use the sentence you taught me "Nihon a ikumae ni, nihhongo o benkyoo shinakereba narimasen" = I must study Japanese before I go to Japan.

I'm so excited! Oh and i want to share a little story with you about my littlest sister =)
When she was little, like 3 1/2, my mum's friend once asked her at a picnic "Whose plates are these?" and she was like "its weez" (intead of its ours) LOL.. so cute! That was the first time she said it and then after that we noticed that she always said it that way, "meez" (mine) and "weez" (ours). Isn't that just so cute? LOL i was teasing her about it today. She used to be so cute, too bad shes not anymore.. LOL just kidding, shes still a cutie pie!

Heres a secret I'm going to share with you, ever since i was a baby my mum used to call me, Toomikins.. she only stopped about 2 years ago when i was 18 or something. She says its cute..LOL.. she still calls me that somethimes when she wants to be funny.. or extremely nice! LOL (if you know my real name, you'll see how that relates)

Some photos of my littlest sis in England when she was 5 (i think & the pix are not clear for a reason!) I want to go back to those good ol' days! LOL i spy missing teeth ;P (click to enlarge)

Feeding the duckies!

Who said im angry?! LOL

Can you see my missing tooth?

Thats it for now. Golly gosh, what a long post this has been!

Tara!

resutoran ni ikitai kibun desu!

(Baby-script aka hiragana & katakana)

レストラン　に　いきたい　きぶｎ　です。みんな、こんしゅう　の　しゅうまつ なに　を　する　よてい　です　か。いっしょ　に　にほん　の　レストラン　へ　いきません　か。きて　ください！

Resutoran ni ikitai kibun desu. Minna, konshuu no shuumatsu nani o suru yotei desu ka? Issho ni nihon no resutoran e ikimasen ka? Kite kudasai!

I feel like going to a restaurant. Everyone, what are your plans for this weekend? Would you like to go together to a Japanese restaurant? You should come/please come!

Just thought I’d write something in Japanese for once. This is a real offer, so how about it? I already know BASH-chan won’t say no. Meme-chan, you said you’ll ask your parents, please do! I want you to come! Fefe-chan, is there any way you could come too? I’m not sure about your family, would they let you? Please come and brings your sisters too.

The place I go to is great. It has great food (not all seafood, bash!) and they have little rooms so its really private! Meme-chan, tell your mum that my mum is going too. I’ll make her go with her friend and sit in the room next to us. LOL, we don’t want any old ladies with us..

Please come guys, it would be so much fun!

Since this post is so boring, I'm going to include a photo.

Waiting
(click to enlarge)

later mates!

PS arigatou fefechan for the songs! I’m in love with NEWS. The Gundam song is really good too. (correct my Japanese please if theres anything wrong!)

What i've been up to..

What have I been up to?

Ja, kinou wa eigakan ni ikimashita. Tanoshikatta desu yo!

(Well, yesterday I went to the cinema , it was fun!)

I watched keira knightly’s movie Atonement. It was good, but not great. However, I enjoyed myself!

And today we had visitors, my mum’s friend A and her kids. They came at 10 AM and just left a while go, at about 6:30. I had fun coz I turned one of her kids, a 3 ½ year old girl, into my model. I was snapping away, making her do a hundred poses just to get 5 or 6 good photos in the end. But I really enjoyed it! I’m putting some of the photos on DeviantArt. Please check them out!

Oh and my sis got a cinnamon rolls recipe from her friend that is supposed to taste exactly like Cinnabon’s. So she tried it, it was a success! Exactly like the original, we all loved it!

What else? Not much. Recently I’ve been feeling a bit down so I’ve been finding all these phrases & stuff to stay positive. Here’s a new one I found in a song I like, its loosely translated as “my friends are beside me, so there’s nothing to fear”. I hope that’s true, that as long as my friends are by my side, I shall be strong! Fefe-chan, remember this one!

Nakama ga soba ni iru nanimo kowakunai.. (click to download (its a tiny file))

なかま　が　そば　に　いる　なにも　こわくない。

Random Post-Random Stuff

Due to popular demand, I've made a tutorial movie about how to make the origami bookmarks. I couldn't upload it on Youtube for some reason, so if you want it you have to download it (takes about 3 minutes), but its pretty small so that shouldn't stop you! Here it is.

Oh by the way, I opened a DeviatArt account a week or so ago. I'm no artist! but i will be posting some everyday photos that i like. So i thought I'd put the link up here in case anyone wants to check it out (Ima-chan on DeviartArt)

These are some photos from this past week:

Eating oishii Cinnabon Stix!

A visit to the 2nd hand book shop!
A visit to Sanrio "The one-stop smile shop" as they claim!

Getting some Japanese studying in whenever i can!

Shout outs:

BASH: Sorry your week was so bad with all the PURPLENESS in the world sticking to you! LOL and I'm sorry i keep laughing about it! :P In a week's time you will be laughing too!

Reemy-chan: Thanks with the help on the last post =) you have a really good memory!

Fefe-chan: Thanks for being my muse! =) and encouraging me to write!

Washy: Miss you loads, and you still didn't send me the pix!

Thats all for now. Thanks for reading & commenting!

PS sorry the pix look so bad, blogger makes them that way, click on them to see a better higher quality pic.

Mnemonic Musings

Cute books & charts make studying fun!

Most of us will have used these when we learnt something new, wether at school or outside. According to Wikipedia, Mnemonics are "memory aids that generally serve an educational purpose". They can be verbal such as using the first letter of a list of words to form a sentence that you can remember in order to remember the list. For example, in biology to remember the order of evolutionary relationships which are:

• Kingdom
• Phylum
• Class
• Order
• Family
• Genus
• Species

A verbal mnemonic would be "Kings Play Chess On Funny Green Squares". Mnemonics work best if they are weird or funny because you remmeber them easier. Theres also visual mnemonics which is what im mainly going to rant about ;)

When learning a new alphabet, all the shapes look weird and foreign. So, to remember them most people use mnemonics. When learning hiragana and katakana, i used mnemonics extensively! Almost every letter out of the 94 or so that I've learnt, i have learnt using mnemonics! And i havn't forgotten any of the mnemonics (even thought i've forgotten some of the letters LOL), the trick is having them be funny or stupid, that way you WILL remember them! Some of the ones i made up were obvious but others you just couldn't see even after i told you what it was. My little sis used to help me study them and she sometimes just couldn't make out what i saw in the letters' shape! you probably didn't understand half of what i said, so let me give you examples:
ん　N- this is an obvious one coz it actually looks like a lowercase "n"
と　 to-this is a toe with a needle sticking in it.
に ni (pronounced like knee)-this is a knee with one line missing, can you see it? the creases like a knee and the incomplete leg? My sis could never see what i was talking about here but to me it looks exactly like a knee.
ね ne-looks like an n and a little e on the end of the n. Do you see it?
ひ hi- a smiley face (minus the eyes) laughing/smiling (pronounced hee not, so hes saying hehehe)
ふ fu- a nose surrounded by smells, saying "fuuu, what a horrid smell"
む mu-this is a cow, can you see it? a head with that nose ring thing? saying "muuuu"
シ shi (pronounced she)- this is a smiley face-obviously- sating "sheesh, aren't i happy today?"
ソ so- this one is related to shi, its the same guy from shi except hes saying "SOrry but i think i lost an eye"

LOL you see what i mean? some are so stupid that i just can't forget them =) but some of the letters' shapes are so meaningless that you can't find anything to relate them to!

Don't know about you but I'm more of a visual learner so this helps. Do you use mnemonics (even thought you might not know what they're called)? Do you use verbal or visual mnemonics? I'm interesting in knowing so please leave a comment.

Thats it for now. Will post later, hopefully!

A day online with Ima-chan!

I couldn't be bothered to write anything to do, so i made a random video (which i made in 5 minutes and didn't even edit, so it basically crap). If you want to watch it, please do! If not, i don't blame you.



Other than going online today, me, my mum, & sis had to go to my uncle's house coz they had English people who are on holiday here, going over and my aunt doesn't speak English so we had to go and sit with these people. There were two young girls, we had a blast!

Cheers people! n'night!