The Woes of the Balladist.
03.01.14
E14:58
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Music o' the Entry:"Kono Machi", Hajime Chitose
Yeehaw, more Hajime Chitose funstuff for ME~. I seem to dig on her
more ballady-stuff like this (other examples include the almighty
"Wadatsumi no Ki"), which I'm now contractually obligated to locate
the lyrics, sing the song over and over again to where my neighbors
have all moved quite far from me and the lyrics are burned into the
surface of my cranium, then once I arrive in Japan go r0x0r the
universe with my MAD karaoke SKILLZ and...yeah. No, I don't actually
have that high of an opinion of myself in regards to singing and
everything else, though enough people have told me that I do it well
to the point where I guess I believe them. What strikes me as retarded
is that while I can sing, I seem to do best in a particular style:
ballads. I DON'T WANT TO SING BALLADS. YA. Yeah, we're talking stuff
in the line of Celine Dion, Chihiro Onitsuka, the like. Not that
there's anything wrong with Madame Onitsuka, but...I mean, I like some
of her songs, but it's just not me, you know? Tragically my voice
seems almost TOO well suited to such things, and I shall forever live
with the pain of the knowledge that in no way will I ever be able to
vocally "rock"...yet. Thusly it is my goal to prove all wrong and
somehow become a torch/opera singer in the process, which, by the way,
is my Romantic Dream of the week. We're talking old-school here,
singing in a smoky dark lounge, filled with people who drinking away
their sorrows for a night of relief, wearing a wine-red dress,
spike heels with ribbon ankle straps, too much makeup, and dark red
lipstick, singing "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" and "Gloomy Sunday".
Which, of course, if one knows me, is a rather goofy picture-I avoid
dresses like the plague, have stopped wearing makeup only than when being
knowingly photographed and/or my face is freaking out hardcore, have
actually never worn lipstick (I've always been a lip gloss girl/thing, more
for prevention of cracking and bleeding than anything else), and am
relatively shy. In regards to this, I have proposed the perfect solution:
I'll just pretend I'm in drag! Which, in a way that secretly delights me,
would work marvelously.
But yeah, anyway, if you like "Wadatsumi no Ki", I suggest listening to
"Kono Machi", although I can't provide any information on if the translation
is just as crazy as the aforementioned song, thanks to Miss Hajime's nutty
dialect (i.e. "wadatsumi" means "sea god"). Heck, I asked Miho to explain it
when she was present and she had trouble with the thing...ah well.
So school's back in session and it's...going. A couple days prior to the
advent of class I received a call from my workplace informing me that
the area where I work will be under construction until the 21st, which means
I get to miss one paycheck. Oh well, that's what scholarships are for, but that'll
only cover rent; hooray for the coming of my birthday, which promises
to pay for the copy of Xenosaga I reserved last week! Yes, I'll be 19 come
this Friday (January 17th), and it seems to be creeping up on me. Heck,
most holidays seem to these days, perhaps I'm too preoccupied to really
bother acquiring any anticipation. I know this happened with my Christmas
and the coming of my birthday...hooray GETTING OLD. It's creepy, this is my
last year as a teenager, which isn't really something I'm going to miss, but
I've always been overly-aware of my mortality and that I'm rapidly
being hurled towards my second decade of theoretical existence only makes
it more noticable...wow. Not really sure what I'm going to do yet,
traditionally my family takes me out to dinner and I have a variety of
choices, which I shall present on order of their pro's and con's:
Red Lobster
PRO'S:
-Seafood. TASTY seafood.
-Cheddar Bay Biscuits, some of the most magnificent things on Earth.
-I've seen bottles of Suntory Melon liqueur there, but do not know
whether or not they would prepare a melon margarita.
CON'S:
-Pricey. Sure, I'm not paying for it, but I still feel guilty.
-It's in Idaho. Which actually isn't too far from my family's home,
about 25 mi. or so, but STILL.
-Is frequently painfully crowded.
-Fried seafood contains grease and makes me sick. However, nearly
everything I eat, regardless of relative health value, makes me sick.
Casa de Oro
PRO'S:
-über-tasty Mexican food.
-Arroz y Camarones is a dish that approaches divinity.
-Definitely make melon margaritas.
-Give you free dessert. It's small, but still.
-A bit closer.
-Cheaper.
CON'S:
-Still a bit pricey.
-Serves chips and salsa as an appetizer, not wonderful cheese biscuits.
-Has seafood, but it's Mexican. Which isn't a bad thing, but...Red
Lobster has seafood that's prepared in a style more familiar to me.
Papa John's Pizza
PRO'S:
-I'm drunkenly obsessed with having some of the garlic/butter juice
that they pack in with pizzas. I had it once at Misha's house when
Rika-chan was there and it has haunted me to this day.
-Tasty pizza.
-Cheap.
CON'S:
-It's pizza. Part of the birthday dinner thing is that I usually try
to choose some place I seldom go (a la Red Lobster), so I can, you
know, GO there.
-My pizza consumption is generally of the Eatza Pizza variety, which
means it's REALLY cheap and a good value, which in turn makes Papa
John's look worse.
Also on the list is Pizza Hut's Stuffed Crust, given I'm a cheese-whore
of the highest order, but most of the same stuff about Papa John's can
be applied. I suppose the one thing I really want are real, Louisiana-
style hushpuppies, which to my knowledge are completely impossible to
obtain in eastern Washington, and that I haven't consumed in years. I
have attempted making them with my mother, but all of my attempts have
been in vain.
Which brings me to my next topic-my burning, more-than-likely unhealthy
borderline obsession of the week is my hometown of Sulphur, Louisiana, and
the state itself. Yes, it may have a 74% literacy rate in some places,
a history of infamously corrupt politicians, casinos leaking out of the
sewers and bound for being swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico someday, but
it's still my home and it and Japan rank as the places I've lived where
I've been the happiest. Anyone who knows me knows I have a fierce
attachment to the one place I still call home, and it's been...probably
4-5 years since I've seen it, 8 or so from when I last lived there.
And so I've been devising ways to get there before I (in theory) take
off across the ocean to once again terrorize the nation of Japan in
approximately 18-19 months.
Flying is too expensive (everything I've seen is $500+, and I fly to
Japan for less than that) to justify, so the only other option I have
is a doozy-driving. I've checked with Yahoo! Maps, and it's a 2,345 mi
drive that takes 35 hours each way. I can't really begin to imagine how
much that is in gas prices, and on top of that I'd have to arrange for
lodging, seeing as I would more than likely have Matt in tow. Still, I
have to go. My mother has immediately decried it as lunacy and forbade
it, but she also did the same thing prior to my winter break trip to
Seattle. Which means between now and the summer of 2004, I need to save
enough cash to make my pilgrimage...or hitch a plane ride with my family to
Texas, which is a mere 6 hour drive to my home town, but that would be
without Matt and I'm interested in showing him the place that I prattle
on about with ceasing, plus my family is more than likely not interested
in going, given we've no family there; the only real connection is that
my brother and I were born and raised there, though my brother would
probably claim Washington as his home. So yes, I want hushpuppies.
In addition to my always-present-now-distracting obsession with seeing
my home, I'm seriously considering taking some French classes. I've
studied French two times in my life, once when it was compulsory in
elementary school and in high school prior to studying Japanese. I dropped
it shortly thereafter because credit-wise I did not need to take it.
However, I was always decent at it and it crops up unexpectedly from time
to time; for example, Matt said something about a "te" the other day
(Japanese for "hand"), but I heard "tete", which is French for "head"
(minus all the silly accents)...which is goofy, given that the only
foreign tongue Matt and I regularly converse in is the ol' nihongo...
in addition to this, I feel a cultural obligation from being raised in
one of the few sort-of bilingual regions in the United States and a
practical one given there's a very high probability that I will be living
in Canada in the future. Along these lines I also feel an obligation
to learn Czech in honor of my ancestry from my mother, which I feel
most akin to (I'm equally Polish and German, though not in appearance).
So we'll see what's going on, no decisions yet, but I think I have some
credits open that need to be filled to facilitate graduation
so perhaps French it will be.
Now, I shall speak of my classes this quarter, which thus far appear
to be less brutal than those of the previous. First up in Geography 300.
Being a 300-level geography class, I expected a small class of
mostly majors, since there's something around 20 geography majors in the
entire school, myself included...man was I wrong, for some reason that
I can only interpret as "cheap", the class is a combination of Geography 100
AND 300...the 100-level is a general education requirement class, which
means FULL OF FRESHMEN. Which isn't meant as a direct insult to freshmen,
but most of my general req classes have been disappointing due that my
classmates literally dumb down the material. It happened in in astronomy,
it's happening in my geography class now. YARG. Other than that, my
geology class, while being a general req candidate, is not so much of
a royal shining disappointment for the ages; on the contrare, I'm kind of
digging on it. Which is troubling to me some how, I suppose it just
reminds me of how I love the sciences and how that's not going to
happen. But other than that it's keen, I like the prof and whatnot...
But now it's tomorrow, I was going to post this yesterday but ran out of
time due to guests, so I should probably shut this thing down soon.
My entries are always these ungodly things, but I suppose it is how
I function. The sad part is that I could still write for many, many
more hours but simply cannot-today is a rather homeworkful day and I
arrived home terribly to begin with, so I suppose I should run off.
Before that though, I'd like to wish a very happy birthday to one
Aorah/Saikou, who has now
reached the ripe old age of 18-all apologies for not getting to it
yesterday. With that I'm off, not feeling too great to begin with.
chronos
Ekairos
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