The sun never sets on the British Empire.
03.04.18
E01:06
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Music o' the Entry: "Sayonara Sayonara", Kick the Can Crew
I honestly can offer no explanation for my recent thing with listening to Japanese hip-hop; all I can cite is the influence of Matt and Kenji and that I generally can enjoy isolated songs from any given genre, even if I despise the grand majority of the genre. I've now changed the song in question to "The Calendar Hung Itself" by Bright Eyes, which is amusingly a result of the infamous LiveJournal community
youarenotcool, also known as a group of frighteningly pretentious folk who evidently have declared themselves into some sort of bizarre cabalistic nook of "cool", a silly concept if there ever existed such. Anyway, one of the bands that these kids seem to crap themselves over is called Bright Eyes and it kept coming up over and over, so I decided to give it a whirl and it's...interesting, and I think I like it. Somehow I feel dirty to be associated, even by the most tenuous of bonds, with these folks...anyway, the song of the moment is "The Calendar Hung Itself", fascinating, that.
As penance for eating pizza for dinner this evening, as I've now embarked on a magical quest called STOP EATING FOOD THAT'S BAD FOR YOU GENIUS, I attempted to make my first batch of miso soup ever (I bought a healthy-sized bag of aka miso a few weeks ago) and the results were...interesting. I don't think I did it appropriately, miso soup is not, to my knowledge, known for having lots of stuff in it, but it acted as my dinner so it all worked it. My only complaint was that I used too much miso, and aside from that I chucked in some slices of kamaboko (pink-rinded logs of fish paste), slices of atsu-age (deep-fried tofu), regular uncooked chopped tofu cubes (I favor the extra-firm variety myself), strips of nori (which wasn't a good idea. I suggest adding in the nori to the finished product as opposed to boiling it, given it reverts to its more natural state [Read: SEAWEED THAT LOOKS LIKE SEAWOOD] and takes on the behavior of...hair), and green onions, plus the necessity of dashi (bonito soup stock, uber-common Japanese food ingredient). Overall I was pleased, given it was my first try, although I think next time I'm going to chuck in more kamaboko and atsu-age (is that the same thing as kitsune? I think so...)...hooray for healthy meals! I was actually surprised that I liked the kamaboko as much as I did, I have somewhat of an aversion to the taste of fish but it was totally cool. Oh, and as inappropriate as the taste may sound, I enjoyed a small glass of diluted ume-shu (I occasionally just drink it straight. Did that with some Kahlua the other day because the only other option was to drink it with milk and I'm lactose intolerant...) with it. I NEED to get this awesome Japanese cookbook from the city library, I found on it on their card catalogue the other day but took too long getting to library (as in the next day) and it was gone by the time I arrived. YARG. Perhaps I should post a food guide pyramid in my house, I'm trying to put encouraging things regarding food and exercise about, given I'm prone to unhealthy practices in regards to both. I will wear a swimsuit this summer and NOT FEEL SELF-CONSCIOUS! w00+!
Have still not read the article I dutifully copied (I am going to be spending a small fortune on copies this quarter x_x...hooray for the inability to check out periodicals!) for History of the Near East on homosexuality among Egyptian pharaohs and am feeling more like a darmoszrot (sp? Hooray for obscure Czech nouns. THANKS MOM!) daily...
I think I need to go speak to my professor about my chronic illness that may achive a resolution this summer, he's the only professor I have that I don't know and who is not aware of the situation; I just don't want to appear like I'm skipping all the time for my fun, it's because I can't move or I'll vomit and I can't stand up because I'll pass out (no, no hangover) and it happens ALL THE TIME. Can't wait to see the doctor on the 6th, hopefully surgery won't be a necessity so soon, given the only time I have TIME to have surgery without missing school aka sentencing me to not graduate next year is at the beginning of September, a bit of time away, no? Hopefully Ye Olde Defective Gallbladder (if that's in fact what it is, it seems to be behaving in accordance with how such things do) won't explode or anything prior...oy.
Speaking of oy, sun-down this evening marked the beginning of this year's Passover. Not being Jewish, I had no dinner (I also have no seder plate, tragically. They always have things on the back of matzo boxes about winning them, but I never do. I suppose this has something to do with my goofy obsession with Jewish culture and my habit of sending people cards for any given occasion in accordance with the next major Jewish holiday coming up. For now, my gefilte fish are safe, but I think I missed out on the true gefilte fish experience by not having a Jewish grandmother; all my grandmothers are either Catholic or Church of Christ, so I'm fresh out of luck there.
After a long five month run or so, Disc 3 of the Chrono Cross OST has officially been replaced as the CD I use to soothe my sleep and prevent me from jumping at every wee sound like the paranoid nutjob I am by Disc 2 of the Legend of Mana OST. Actually, Disc 1 could work as well, but I love the theme song of the game ("Song of Mana"; hooray Swedish!), and overall it's very good for such; Yoko Shimomura rocks my face off.
I think I've developed a terribly nasty habit. See, I don't sleep well at night these days, not since I've moved in my apartment, really, which I blame entirely on my freakish paranoia and that I dislike sleeping in places alone. Not necessarily with someone else in the bed, but someone else in the house. Anyway, since I wake up approximately 5+ times per night, I don't exactly wake up refreshed. So I come home from class, eat lunch, and around 3-5 PM, take a nap, wake up around 7, hopefully find dinner, exercise from anytime from 8-9:30 PM, then come home, nice and tired. There's something missing from the equation here: HOMEWORK. Yes, I'm somehow talented enough to have STILL not read that thing on gay pharaohs (I'm continuing writing from when I began last night; thanks to losing too many entries due to the whims of this horrific machine, I now write all my entries in NotePad first.)...this WILL be taken care on Saturday, when I plan to library heartily, digging through all those ancient journals because the catalogue doesn't go back that far...yar.
Speaking of journals and this topic, I shall now speak of something that annoys me: archaeology, particularly archaeology from the region of the Near East. If one embarks on a study of this particular topic, they soon find that many of the prime sources and publications are old, like published in the 1910's or prior to that. Many of these old things are published by British folk, seeing as they colonized the area because they could. But that's just the thing, I dislike having a textbook from the British Museum because WHY do they have this stuff? They asked nicely and the locals happily forked it over? I HATE COLONIZATION. Sorry, I just have a hard time swallowing self-important folk waltzing in and literally TAKING a people's heritage, and then there's the entire notion of cultural superiority to deal with...oy, it makes me so very irritated and I just want to go stab someone whenever they quote that old phrase, "The sun never sets on the British Empire"...not that Britain's the only one guilty of this, what's fun to do is look at a linguistic map of Africa in the context of how it's presently divided. Nearly any country one selects will serve for the purpose of demonstration. To proponents of colonization and neo-colonization: I do not approve, I will NOT approve, and I will do whatever is in my power to stop such dishonorable actions.
Ahem. And one more thing about archaeologists, WHY do they insist on labelling every single freaking female figure (particularly those of the nude variety) as a "fertility statue", or "fertility goddess"? Why can't people just have statuary? I don't perceive the need to determine the significance of EVERY SINGLE THING YOU DIG UP. I mean, what if something has NO significance? Not likely (in this day and age, at least), but regardless...it just seems a silly and grossly-overused label for such things.
So the other day in the lovely Japan Today class, following the stupidly easy test (in addition to this my instructor announced that 9 extra points would be added to everyone's paper, presumably in an effort to keep the Japanese department and her job, of whom she is the single instructor/faculty/staff/etc, afloat. ARRGH.), we got to watch a video on Japan's ailing "life-time employment" vision and I am pleased to announce that the one thing that country does NOT do is get any more normal. Ever. I mean, I knew about the company loyalty songs (though I'm aware of the occurrence of those in the US), which is mildly weird, but now comes the company cemetery. Not specifically belonging to a company (I think, don't quote me on this), but a cemetery that is dedicated to the concept of the loyal worker, that some companies give their employees the option to have their remains rest there. Call me a culturally insensitive lout, but that's...definitely an unusual practice. I suppose company loyalty and career in general in the US just plain doesn't function that way; the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that could compare in such dedication would be religion, which is creepy enough in its own right. Oy.
Ah well, time for sleep, no matter how unrestful...good night, all.
chronos
Ekairos
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