Tuesday, December 20, 2011

.... (didn't even know i unposted this)

The last time i wrote here was about a month ago, and just like then, i'm still on a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions. And i could only laugh just like how i would when i ride the real rollercoaster.

I've been quite disappointed for quite a few things especially when it's regarding my own self. I'm questioning myself where had all the motivation gone and how to retrieve it, worried when i sense no crisis when i think i already should. I have no plan or whatsoever, and the things i'm doing at the present doesn't seem to be in good shapes, it makes my mental goes haywire. At times i took a breather, or should i say a lot of times? Well, they work as effective as placebo.

Okay, that's all for some soliloquy.

Now, i shall write by what's happening lately. I realized my english has gone worse when there's zero demand to use it here. In fact, japanese language has monopolized my language use including inside my head. I know i should do something when i start to have to translate things from japanese first in my head. As a countermeasure, i frequent the english lounge we have here a lot now. And i also took part in the lecturer's research which requires me to take ielts test, in the same time it enables me to know my current language ability. Well, the result significantly shows that i have a lot to improve. But surprisingly i did quite great in listening though i know that was certainly my weak point as i'm not exactly an auditory type of person. On another event but closely related, i was really at a loss for words when someone told me i exude good energy it made her feel good to be around, that was my first time to be told that, i don't know i should be flattered or what, i was simply astonished.

Moving on to another topic, i think i just managed to make miso soup! I'll try to make it again next time all by myself. I hope it'll turn out delicious like the one i made (supervised by my friend) the other day.



While writing this, i'm on a train heading to hachiouji as i'm having nothing to do after i forgot my reading materials at home. The heater located below the seat really makes my legs warm, in fact hot. i actually was (or still am) grouchy since the early morning, i keep listening to 2 songs in my ipod on repeat. As always, Solanin by Asian Kungfu Generation makes me calm. i also found DUGOUT by Radwimps to have a consoling effect too and made me curious with the lyrics as well. Usually Noda always amazes me with his words. I wish i have that kind of skill too, but maybe it's just because the way we think is different in the first place. Now that's something i can't really do anything about. Human minds are so wonderful just by the diverse ways it works by individuals, it makes the world so complex and colourful.

Okay i've been rambling randomly here. Now i just reached my destination, so Byebye

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Sleepless in the futon

It's nearly 8pm and i've curling myself for about 2 hours under the blanket. Really want to sleep after staying up all night last night. But i'm still not asleep.

It has been a while since i last wrote nothing particularly worthy here. So let me just recount what happened today.

In the morning, starting from 2nd period, i got class. The first one was applied fluid dynamic. I remembered the lecturer mentioned about sonic speed airplanes, then i got asleep for the rest of the class until my friend woke me up as i was nearly producing snoring sounds. I'm glad i got a kind friend at times like these. Then, after lunch break the 3rd period was material engineering. We were learning about material strenghtening. There was something molecular stuff mentioned, even into nanoscale. But as always i can only stand half the class before i run out of concentration and can no longer pay any attention. Yet, the class still goes on even when i secretly hope the lecturer would just pause and stop talking for a while. It kind of makes me sick. What's greater, next week we got a test. -.-

The final class i got was human interface where my 2 close buddies just decided not to come. In previous 2 classes on the subject we were required to do presentation which is evaluated by all students aside from the teacher himself. and today, the result was announced. Who would've thought my group was the most highly evaluated. No, it's not exactly a good thing, we were required to present it again! but yeah, the person who was responsible for presentation was absent today, so it was up to me and another one member who were in charge of the slides. The sudden notice was quite a shock. That was my first time doing a presentation in front of others here, impromptu. Ditto.

Thankfully, when my stock of chocolates is running down at the moment, we were given chocolate as reward!


Monday, November 14, 2011

We made gyoza! +verbal descriptions


it's somewhat a chinese food but it seems like it's normally made in japanese home. so when my friend came over again last time, this is what we made.

apparently they usually use pork for the 'inti'/fillings but we replaced it with minced chicken. and actually we made 3 types of them. chicken kimchi, chicken miso and chicken umeboshi+cheese.

it was really yummy!

okay, don't ask me for the recipe. i only had to stuff the fillings into the skins and i managed to make that hideous curls (the 3rd picture is my first piece). eventually i was getting good at it though. and actually the gyoza is not fried like in the 5th pix, i had to borrow aluminum foil from others because i don't have the lid for my pan. they are somewhat steamed to produce the delicious gyoza.

oh gyoza! 餃子 <-- i just knew this is the kanji for it.

now i'm looking forward to what we will be cooking next time (or more accurately what Tsubasa-chan will cook). previously she made hamburgers too~~ (look below). but at least i already am resolute to learn how to make miso soup(let's see how serious i'll actually be). i love the miso soup that she makes each time, especially with the dearie mushrooms :D

Thursday, November 10, 2011

wish i have this now

i don't think i'll ever find a 5kg nutella like this anywhere else (this was discovered in a store in strip district, pittsburgh)

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

practising english

recently i've frequented ERC lounge a lot. it's a place where people can freely come during the designated hours everyday and communicate in english, no nihongo(japanese language) allowed. i've made quite a few friends there with whom i enjoyed chatting. actually i'm not really that good in making a conversation, usually i just lost of idea what to talk of. honestly i think myself as a boring person to talk with, even while chatting to myself, i can be bored. oh, i'm starting to make a self-condemning post if i were to go on. better quit that, back to the topic, yeah i went there today as well.

i met a few people i've known from before and today i came along with one of my classmate, shouhei who's trying his best in english. he made quite a progress from few visits he has done so far. he no longer relies on the electronic dictionary as advised by ms. adriana who told him to utilise his brains more. he's still at an early stage in making a normal conversation so i tried my best to help him, but indeed i'm not a teacher material so it sometimes just get on my nerves when he's soo slow. luckily, there're a few students there who are actually going to be english teachers and they know how to handle such situation. phew~

so, the topic of the ielts came up when i saw Ken holding a book on it today. Ken is a good-looking guy who i'm not very shy to say "you got a really smooth skin, i envy you!" to him. i'm taking ielts this year (and for some reason next year too) as well given the chance to take it for free. since english is not really in use in my daily life as of lately, it kinda scared me off and i was reminded, one of the ways i use english is by blogging, which i've been quite away for a while. thanks Ken for triggering me to do this post. actually it's not like i'm not feeling to write an entry at all, in fact i have drafts here but it all remain as drafts but i couldn't finish it till the end. okay, the US trip entry only has one line so far. sometimes i've updated my livejournal first, that was quite inevitable as to how my fandom gets quite fierce lately.

and it made me down when Siri in iPhone4s just won't understand me. i'm glad i'm not using that or all i'll be throwing it away in tantrum.

the owner of the said iPhone is also my friend who just came to japan nearly a month ago from Thai whose name is Mai. with that kind of name and her look with fair skin, she's always been mistaken as a pure japanese. she just learned nihongo upon arriving here and she reminds me of myself a few years ago but in a way she's lucky to be in a whole japanese environment unlike me then. the other day we attended a some kind of party, and it was so amusing to watch Mai conversing with some nihonjin(japanese people), Mai was speaking in nihongo while the nihonjin is talking in english in return. to remind, both of them is a beginner in respective languages they were using. it was funny, i only look from the side and i can't help but to giggle all the way, it's too cute (girls really love to use this word somehow).

well, aside from that, there were a lot of events recently i'm just too lazy to update like one of the highlights of the year, the gakusai-school festival. it really worth an entry for it. or my trip to disneyland with my girlfriends-i'm so glad i managed to get close with them, it is so much fun. or more descriptions on the kouyou (watching autumn leaves) which i only put photos in my previous post. it was so stunning beyond words-is this a way to justify my action of only putting few visual proofs of it?. oh yeah, the US trip. in short, below is what my current state is (or hopefully is)


okay, i better blog more or i know my english language skill is rusting away in time. and also studying properly as i got a feeling i'm slacking off too much this semester.

p/s: as a way of thinking positively, recently the person i thought was being cold to me actually didn't know how to talk to me, and today i was glad to discover that was kinda true, i want to believe it's true at least. but, it made me reflect that so far maybe i've done the same thing to others, i often have no clue how to approach people, so in return perhaps they would see me as a cold person too. okay, maybe i'm just full of myself now



Sunday, October 30, 2011

It's fall!!

A lovely autumn and it's getting to chill to the bones~

yosh!






Saturday, October 22, 2011

days without solitude

are definitely the days i'll have more smiles on my face.

recently my friends have been coming to spend time together more. even in this cramped room, we can still have fun, make food, and sometimes sleep together. well, those are the times i love being in this room. my room which is so clattered, messy, untidy but cozy. we can talk about a whole lot of stuff, though at time when they talk too fast in japanese i can't even catch, but it's still fun.

one of the funny thing is when my friend spent the night, i woke up in the morning, and saw her in the futon and nonchalantly i asked,

"sedap tidur malam tadi? best kan futon tu?"

and i was wondering why she got such a perplexed face upon being asked that ^^"


and now we already have this sorta club of mechanical engineering girls, apparently only my batch has many girls (we have 5!) while other batches only have 1 at best among nearly 100 of boys. when i met the girl who is a junior a year under me, she cannot relax much but it turns out we are actually of the same age! next time, i hope he can wear off all that awkwardness.

so, when i'm spending my time alone in this room, something does feel not right for some reason. as much as i dread the coming monday which means school, i really look forward to it where we can have fun together again.



these things adorning my wall is my only companion on days like now

now, let's get all these works done!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

diary - calendar - phone

sorry for not updating what i really should (reminder: about the vacation). but this morning after a sleepless night and being comforted by watching the silliness of golden bomber group, i discovered something was off with my iphone.

some of the events i entered into the calendar are shifted from their original time. they are later than they should be! i didn't know why and i was puzzled. when i scrutinized it, they are late by about 12 hours. so i figured maybe things went wrong when i entered the events when i was in the States. but then even the recent ones are the same. oh why oh why. remind you, i was actually already lying on my bed preparing to sleep but this problem is bothering me too much. okay after searching there and here, i figured out the timezone setting was off when entered all the events before, and now with the latest iOS 5 (yeah, i already updated to new iOS) the timezone setting is turned on. apparently all my entries were set to the default some US timezone.

the only way to fix it is to readjust each of the event's timezone to tokyo to make them appear correctly.

as troublesome the previous may seem, actually something more serious actually happen. i didn't realize it earlier but all the events prior to sept14 were wiped up clean! ehhhh! i was so perplexed. how? why? if it's because i didn't backup the calendar anywhere during the iOS upgrade, then why did everything after sept14 (though the timezone was a wreck) remains?? anyone, enlighten me. i was already sooo sad as pretty much everything is recorded there, i somehow used the calendar as my diary to note whatever events i had since i came here. even simple occurrence like my friend coming over to my room to something exciting as live events. okay, i tried to keep calm. maybe it was my fault for not backing everything up. perhaps it can no longer be helped once this had happened. well, at least, i'll still reenter those big events that i don't want to forget. it was already enough for me to already forget most of what i've experienced in 20 years in my life. honestly i cannot vividly remember my schooldays anymore. it's like they never happened at all. it kinda sucks when you cannot remember be it pleasant or not. it'll be so sad to forget my first few months in japan where i really want to be.

so i entered the first live i've gone here, then the next one. but then when i recheck, the one i just entered was not there. eh, did i forget to tap 'done' just now? i entered it again and the next one. then, the same happens. ehh, i can't possible make the same mistake again? when i looked hard with my head already so confused, just seconds i entered the event, it disappears!! what?? ok, i give up. something is just wrong. no way it would just disappear like that, from texts to complete blank.

now i'm thinking of going to the apple store to inquire about this mysterious occuring. but it's in ginza. and i haven't started on my lab report yet. and i haven't gotten any wink of sleep since yesterday afternoon (where someone woke me up by calling at the door, inviting for some event somewhere at a church at omiya).

but this is really bothering me.

btw, in between of the above events, i actually discovered how to integrate (is this the right word, my confidence in my language skills is falling low nowadays) holidays in iphone calendar-in my case, the japan holiday. this way, you will be informed of the holidays and know what holiday it is for like last monday is 体育の日-Health and Sports Day, without the need of any extra calendar apps. the steps is quite simple from what i found in an article in the internet but the link given there is no longer usable. so here, i'll just rewrite the steps with correct link for anyone's reference.

1. from your iphone, go to this link: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/calendars/japaneseholidaycalendar.html

2. at 'download' button available there, tap and hold. choose "開く" (or maybe "open" in english)

3. a dialogue box saying "カレンダー”日本の祝祭日”を照会しますか?" will appear (or something equivalent in english), just choose "照会" (again, i don't know the english equivalent)

4. after a while, another dialogue box "カレンダー”日本の祝祭日”が追加されました" appears, just tap "完了" (or "done"), and when you check your calendar, all public holidays is marked with their names you plausibly never knew. like next month on nov 3rd, it's 'national culture day'. ah, how i wish i can do the same for my university's holiday and events, then i won't need to check the paper campus diary every time.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

sentimental

sorry for not updating for sooo long.

and i've thought of updating about my US trip, at least after i'm back to japan.

but no, i have to keep myself busy by saying "what should i do??"

and this weekend i got a kinda homestay programme.

which actually requires me to prepare now as i got to get off in a few hours to go there.

oh iman, you're such a lazy bum.

and school starts this monday.

yet, i'm enveloped by this indescribable feeling which is just trivial and unnecessary.

but yesterday's night i just felt to listen to this one song.



yeah, been listening to this one song on repeat until i fell asleep (really late).

and once i woke up, did what every human do when they wake up, and this song plays on loop again. should i say it's haunting? it's rare for me to be able to listen to a song repetitively as i'm a type of person who gets bored easily. but i don't know, something just seeps in so deep.

ok, that's a short note for this morning. i better get going, pack whatever i need. hopefully everything goes right. no more of this unwanted gloominess.


minna, ganbarou!! sayonara to that old selves

maybe i'll update the stuff i've been wanting to soon, when i get busy perhaps



Saturday, August 27, 2011

the tohoku +a bit of hokkaido train trip (a tecchan travellogue)

i've long thought of travelling across nihon using trains, they even got this ticket called seishun 18 kippu that enables you to do so with less money, a good choice for those who has so much time to kill as it only allows you to use the local trains, no express or shinkansen. (more details here)

the problem was i have no one to travel with. well, it'll be very boring to spend time so much time on trains alone.

and suddenly, on a sunday night, i brought this plan upon my friend who surprisingly eager to do the same thing too! so right after the iftar, we bought the ticket, and then the next day, we took off! yeah, i love you, Arini Nuran to make my wish come true!

Saturday, August 6, 2011

what a gloomy post in the first week of ramadan

for some unknown reasons, it seems like i've been away from this blog a quite a while.

nande darou?

is it because i feel like there's nothing worthy to write? well, quite a lot happens, good and bad.

what have i done all this while?

exam's over - good news
meeting friends - good news
travelling for quite a bit - good news
watching magnificent fireworks - good news
flumpool's new single - good news

iftar alone - bad news
not getting part-time work - bad news
not so much money to spend as i like - bad news
my language skill in all languages getting worse - bad news

+some other stuff - bad news


okay, maybe they balance each other. i shouldn't feel so miserable i guess. it's indescribable. but i only know this feeling lies somewhere in the negative zone. shuuh, shuuh, please go away.

btw, i'm stuck with a lot of dramas this season. they're my companions during most evenings.


uurgh, honestly i hate it when actually there's a lot that i want to vent out but manage not to do so. i don't even know whether it's because i unconsciously refuse to or simply am not able to. it's like so many things are running in the mind and everything's in a mess and entangled, and i don't even know where to start to make things in order. let's say a whole lot of shoelaces getting mixed, all in dark colours, when you feel like untangling it, not even a single aglet(the end part of shoelace) can be seen. you're tired but you know you gotta do it. it just makes you frustrated.

in the end, it feels like something is sticking to your chest and won't budge. what a weight.


wishing everyone a happy day, a happy life, a blessed ramadan!



Monday, July 18, 2011

the end of exam note

it's nearly a month since my last post. that's the longest hiatus i have so far!

so, our exams have ended. well, for other places, they might still be in the middle of it, or it's possibly drawing very near already. the reason my uni finishes the semester early this year is all for the sake of saving electricity. longer semester means longer use of the classes, the airconds and everything following it. so, the whole semester is shortened. usually, our exam is in august. so lucky me this year, we got longer summer holiday!

don't ever ask how the exam went. i don't want to remember about it.

but then, i have barely any plan for the first half of my holiday. i do try to get some part time job, at least, i could find extra money to cover the cost for the later half of my holiday :D but i don't know whether it'll go well or not. okay, gotta ask the seniors about this. i know near to nothing as to how to get jobs here.

i've been here for 3 months already. did a lot of things, schools and stuff. but then i realized, i didn't take as much pictures. like yesterday, i went out with some friends to watch harry potter movie, and we even went all the way to ueno from saitama just for lunch, yet there's no single photo of it. the same goes for quite a number of events before that. i don't know why. and i didn't even get to take photos with my experiment group though i badly wanted to do so, just that i  didn't have much courage to ask for it.

it'll be a waste if i just forget all these precious memories (i doubt lab experiments could count as one though, honestly i have very little of what i like about it) yosh, for the rest of the holiday, i'll make sure there's at least a photo for each event that happens.

these are from my last experiment for the semester, i admit i like this one a bit. it's interesting (the arm moves according to the hand's movement9


or to see how childish these boys look in front of this amazing technology (lia~~~ :"> )



well, the above was typed yesterday. talk about me who tends to leave my work halfway done.

like my report about the experiment above which is due tomorrow. i'm hating this self who always ends up doing last minute works. urgh. i don't know any way to get myself more motivated to do works early. the 1st semester was a mess so i sincerely hope the next one will be better. yeah, hope is a very nice word.

this almost sounds like a random rants already.

so everyone, have a nice day! btw, today is 'umi no hi'/'day of the sea??' in japan, it's a public holiday. it's a hot day in summer, take care of yourselves!!



Saturday, June 25, 2011

i didn't see this coming!

when i purchased my iPhone, it was only the week before the iPhone white was launched. and i originally didn't even have that strong desire to possess an iPhone in the first place, especially the design that does not particularly attract me at all. but i did after all, it's a smart phone, and the line provider is softbank (this is the major reason coz practically everyone close to me is using that, so to use another will be my loss)

and today, i just saw this:


it's a flip and it's smart phone!!

btw, smap in this is sooo funny.



Friday, June 24, 2011

Baskin robbins a.k.a sa-tiwan

From the first time i went to indulge the srumptiliciousness of baskin robbin's ice-cream here, it took me less than a month to savor it for the third time already. But there's something quite different between the one in malaysia and in japan. It's how it is known.

The first time i went was on 31st of last month. It was chilly at the time, but who cares, there's discount! I invited my friend to go along with me (i don't wanna eat alone at the shop). So i gave a mail:



Me : there's discount at baskin robbins today right? I want to eat icecream, let's go together!
My friend : alright! Where's the place?
Me: i think it's very near to Saizeriya



My friend : u mean Sa-tiwan?
*it took me about a few minutes to figure out what he said, i was like "what korean word he's talking about now?"*
me : yea!



Apparently no one knows the name baskin robbins here. Even the website is www.31ice.co.jp they call it thirty-one (of coz with the katakana english). I wonder why they don't translate it fully like 'sanjuuichi'? Lol but yeah, it's really a delight especially in a hot weather like now. I'm still trying to get used with the recent heat. It's just like malaysia now. Wearing 2 layers nearly not applicable. Back to the topic, actually i also tried another place for ice-cream just the other day. They have many specialty menu with the icecream and they prepare it on the spot, like handling dough on the ice-cold stone slabs. btw, the shop's name is 'cold stone' (and aisya jLo mistook it as 'cold storage' at first :P) what makes it quite special is how merry the atmosphere they personally create! They practically sing a lot songs (mostly that sounds like nursery rhymes) every now and then while serving the customers. But maybe because they are simply attracted to our foreigner self, when it was our turn, they interviewed us instead. Maa ii ka, at least the icecream was truly delicious!!

 


Monday, June 20, 2011

2 consecutive weekends at home

(okay, i lied as it's not entirely true, for lunch on the recent saturday, i went somewhere which i spent about 5 hours, but yeah, it's only for lunch, with dessert of a very delicious ice-cream).

yet, what i did was just idling time away leaving the works all done at the very last minute. give me no matter how many hours in a day, and i can still fill it with nothing beneficial at all.

what's wrong with my head? can't i feel the sense of crisis by now?

about 2/3 weeks left before the final exam.


p/s: i want a new purse(mine is lost for quite a while). a leather purse specifically. a beautiful one but won't cost me much. is that too much to ask?


something like these perhaps?  (just why these are sooo damn expensive??)




Sunday, June 12, 2011

Thus the 8th weekend




This view is magnificent. For some reason i managed to drag my feet to odaiba last friday, but still no chance to ride this. Anyone would like to ride this together? Odaiba is beautiful and i believe it's even more so if viewed from above, like from inside the gondola.

Everyone, do your best completing all the works! It's school again tomorrow. I'm trying hard doing mine in the remaining of the day while listening to Oceanlane. I love their music, if only there's any of their concerts i can go to....



Friday, June 10, 2011

Borborygmus

i just found an interesting word.

it's a word that describes what always happens to me recently. it simply means the growling of the stomach.

i just woke up and it makes that sound again.

by the time i'm writing this, it's about a quarter to 5 in the morning and it's already so bright.

this is the sight i get from my balcony at 4:50 a.m. passing that gate at the other side is my university. walking about 100 meters from there is pretty much the engineering department. i love my current house.


and actually yesterday i slept from nearly 8 p.m. until it was nearly 4 in the morning. i missed yesterday episode of BOSS!

okay, i should be grateful i woke up in time for Subuh prayer, but regrettable for the Isya' that i missed (never thought i could actually miss that one, astaghfirullah)

what happened to my body clock? it seems not to be in japan. this is not the first time. it's becoming frequent lately. even on the previous day too (but there was no drama i watch on the tv on that day, so i don't particularly care)

i just hope today it won't behave that way again, i have something to look forward tonite. yeah, nico!

jaa, mata!


Tuesday, June 7, 2011

when my tongue got frozen

one of the thing that i feel a bit anxious here is when someone ask me something about my religion, like the 'why' questions. obviously, muslims are a minority here, and most japanese barely have any interaction with muslims, so they are full of curiosity upon meeting one. because i'm the one writing here, yes i'm talking about the very conspicuous me. and given my very restricted japanese ability, explaining is always so difficult, and i'm most afraid i'll cause misunderstanding due to my own shortcomings, or being offensive instead.

one of the friends i made here has some muslim friends before (and malaysian in fact, very similar as me). so he was quite informed about muslim, he knows that we do pray and have stuff we eat and do not eat. i was a bit comfortable with that, at least he's not puzzled when i say i want to go pray when we are in the middle of something. but just the other day, he asked me this:

"why do you not eat pig? is it because it's holy?"

at the time, i was eating ice-cream, and when he says that, the image of pig came across my head, and this is my first time hearing such idea that pig is a sacred animal. let's just say the ice-cream somehow tasted awry all of a sudden. okay, actually it makes sense if he considers about hinduism, and applies the same rule as well. and here is where i could not properly explain it. i wanted to say, because it's not halal, but of course he'll understand nothing of this. instantaneously i answered with my limited japanese "NO, it's not a holy animal at all! rather, we look down at the animal, it's dirty" okay, i don't know whether that's the correct way of putting it. honestly, i wanted to say how very dirty we view the animal, but when i blurted those kind of words out, it just seems insensible to the other party.

it struck me deep and i really felt how my nihongo fails me. it really made me feel down. not being able to say the correct stuff and to get the point across.

so, after a few researches on the net, it was interesting to find how some japanese found their explanation to the above matter. for instance:

1.pigs spread disease in the past, so it was prohibited to eat
2.in the dessert, pigs eat everything, including the dung which are valuable for fuel. so it was prohibited to have pigs. (this probably refers to origin of islam, where prophet Muhammad s.w.t comes from)

but of course. those are nowhere near the true reason at all. but those are what the people here would come to if they thought of searching the answer to that question online.

i wish they have manuals from long ago to enable us to answer question so we are more prepared. so with some efforts following that, currently the best answer i could get for the above question is from here. or, the closest they can understand is relating it with dog-they don't eat that too, and in our view dog and pig belongs to the same group after all.

another famous question from them, "do you wear that scarf even while sleeping?" ^^"


the 7th weekend : yokohama (part one)

in the previous weekend, i spent time cooped up in my room, so i regained my momentum back, and there i go, more places added to my weekend diary.

to start it off, the journey there was epic. i mean, i would never ever forget that super clumsy me. the plan was to meet up with Ceca at shibuya station and together we would go to Lia's house. as we didn't particularly have any other plan to do on that Saturday, i thought i could complete my report first prior to going out in the afternoon. in fact the rendezvous was supposed to be at around 4:30, so stepping out of my house even after asar (half past 3) is still okay.

but no, i did not manage to complete the report, so i had no choice but to bring it along with me to yokohama. i dared not to finish the weekend with reports still undone, the dateline being monday. and i'm going to house of the geniuses after all, they can help me. so, i was busy packing my bag, the clothes, the netbook, the notes, the relevant books. thankfully my backpack fit all that. so, quite later than planned, it was nearly 4 p.m that i started off the journey. the closest train station(Minamiyono) only takes 10-15 minutes by bicycle from what i heard, so i guess i could just save 170yen if i were to go there by bus. paddling  the bicycle, i tried reaching there with the help of the map in the phone. okay, it was no 10-15 minutes, i got lost. and the route was partially hills, so it took more time than i thought. even to find where to park my bicycle took time too. i was ready to apologize to ceca coz i was about to be late. to reach shibuya, i also had to change trains. and then, here where the unexpected came-it was only a station away from shibuya. i realized i forgot a very very important thing at home!! 

i alighted at Shinjuku (can you believe it, it was already this far!) and took another train back to Minamiyono again. in 3 hours, i travelled so far just to reach the same point again. i'm relieved they don't charge you if you get in and out from the same station. quickly got on the bicycle again, and rushed to my house in haste. okay, this time it was truly in that 10-15 minutes range. entered the house again, took the stuff i forgot, drank water straight from the 2-litre bottle, and dashed out again. (let's count how many times i typed again) but i think my head actually got dizzy, i haven't eaten the whole day. so it was nearly impossible to reach the station by bicycle again. in the end, i  parked the bicycle in the campus and took the bus. yeah, the 170yen that i wanted to save got spent after all-with an extra 3 hours of time wasted.

what a long journey just to arrive here



so that was the journey. 

from shibuya to my final destination-Hiyoshi took another half an hour. so, when i arrived at Hiyoshi station, ceca was already with Lia and Iza. Hiyoshi is the station next to Keio University. i know those 2 girls hate this when i say this, but i when i reached the station, i really do feel the atmosphere where it's like smart-looking people are all around. there were a lot of students, perhaps on the way back from their club activities. i don't know how to describe this, of course, here the infrastructure is clearly different, even the people exude different aura. it's like a different world LOL. so, it was night when i arrived, though i can't view much of the surrounding, it was beautiful. 

my breakfast+lunch+dinner at otoya. ikan bakar. how nice if they also have sambal belacan or sambal kicap.

and of course, desert included


the next day.... (continued to next post :P)

p/s: and i just remembered i still have the bicycle in the campus as of now

Thursday, June 2, 2011

and we were taught the wrong one all along

know how the school textbook sometimes don't exactly teach the right thing? and it stays like that until no one knows when.

so today was Seminar (i don't know how to explain this, but let's just say it's a subject where we're exposed to the research labs, something like that). for the past half semester, it was only like a class session with the sensei from respective research labs giving lectures explaining stuff regarding the topics related to their labs. as any lecture may be, those were as effective as sleeping pills. sorry sensei m(_ _)m

so, from this week onward, we're split up into 4 different major labs. there were Fluid Dynamic, Machining, Control Engineering and Thermodynamic. fortunately i got the one of my choice-fluid dynamic. coz it just seems interesting. as my sensei says, choose something you like, and this one involves aeroplane.

and here, like i mentioned, we learn about planes. yeay, i love this! so, we went at the meeting place and the sensei later arrived. seems like we were to watch a DVD for about half an hour.

it's a video about migrating birds. rather than 'about' the birds, it only 'shows' the bird. half an hour watching birds flying and flying through the globe, with barely any narration. how i think the video is actually a video for relaxation or somewhat. well, it does have a soothing effect like a healing video for stressed people.

okay, the point here was only to spot the difference between flying mechanism of living things (bird) compared  to human inventions (okay, now i wonder why 30 minutes are needed for that sole reason). so, we were asked to explain how exactly things fly. the stuff about lift and all. this reminds me a lot to Ishimatsu-sensei. i was like, "why the heck don't i remember much of the contents of what he taught me before?".

so, the 7 of us tried to remember what we've learned so far, and the explanation that there are pressure difference due to the different velocity of air above and below the aerofoil. i sensed something when the sensei was not really satisfied but i had no clue at the time. he even asked us why exactly the air that split at the front of the aerofoil must meet at the tail. of course, we were puzzled too. well, the above explanation was generally what we were taught during school and i've remembered it like that ever since.

if only i remembered Ishimatsu-sensei's class...

so yeah, that kind of explanation(the so-called "principle of equal transit times") is already obsolete. and i only discovered that after i returned home and surfed the net. when i read it here, it all makes sense. and i'm pretty sure i've heard/read this same explanation before, but it just didn't stick in my mind. like how 'Newton Law' or 'Air Viscosity' play a role in lift. we are people, and we forget stuff.



and i got to do this as a report, and present the findings next week. i wish my nihongo won't fail me.

so, how i wish they teach the right things from the beginning. sometimes, the memory of the first contact with something is the one that lasts long. like how i still remember there are 4 different area of taste on our tongue, and they still haven't introduced umami in textbook yet, have they? and i still cannot remember the correct chemical reactivity series, there was a bit of confusion when the one i remembered from high school is different for when i entered university, is there really any difference?


btw, i'm happy today i got to remember the names of the members of our group, hopefully i'll still remember when i'm gonna meet them next week^^ *nagasu*tomoi*minami*matsunaga*matsuda* just typing down to not let me forget, at least i'll try not to mix up all these

Sunday, May 29, 2011

note before the end of may

the end of may means half of my semester are already done with

while i'm still clueless about most of the classes.

the end of may also means, june's approaching.

my read-book-list still haven't increased since the early april.

what has become of my a-book-a-month target?

nevertheless, i read a few volumes of manga (like i expected, Waltz is truly a great purchase):D


now i hope i could finish the novels stuck at the rack beside my bed.

i wonder just when i can finally be a great time manager to be able to spare time for those.

as i am currently a queen of wasting time.



dame da!

p/s: and yet again, i'm eating instant noodle for dinner. no wonder my head seems not to be functioning at its best.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

what i learned

after more than a month staying here, i had to shop a lot.

and being a typical student, cheap stuff are what i sought for.

but now i know, the cheapest one always doesn't fit your need.

like how i ended up with 2 pairs of sneakers as the first one (the cheap one) hurts my feet.

and i just made another purchase of this kind again,


aaa, this really wears me out.


ok, now i better save up coz things are expensive, or more like only expensive things are truly functional.

ditto

Friday, May 27, 2011

day 40 -sushi-

it really took me a long time to update things here.

and already 40 days has passed since i first set my foot on this land.

but then, only yesterday i got to eat sushi for first time in nihon.

it was really fun. of course, time spent with friends are always enjoyable. and funny and everything else.

better than doing things alone, right?

yeah, i've infected with kawabe's style of blogging with line by line basis. (note: kawabe is the drummer for one of my fav bands, WEAVER and he blogs almost everyday here)

well, coz it seems easier and neater to look. compared to this one sensei's writing on the board. he really writes things anywhere he feels like it, nowhere everything on it is in any particular order.

i think i've been spoiled too much by a lot of sensei who write everything so neat, easy to copy straight to my notes. now i'm troubled. i even got a test for that particular subject this monday.

i think i've started to 'mengumpat' or more familiar in english, grapevines gossipping. lol

so, why don't i just continue?*evil grins*

back to today's event, like i said, it's fun and indeed FUNNY. how something i predicted actually came true. how people's behaviour can be that easily foreseen is amusing. i read a lot of shoujo manga so it's funny how to see stuff often illustrated in manga to be before my own eyes. like how someone has a crush on another, and obviously shown yet barely gets any response.

somehow, i feel sorry.

okay, now i feel bad. but the fact i find it amusing to watch is not a lie.

nevertheless, it was really enjoyable, eating sushi and all. thanks to all these people. but then, look at the difference of the number of plates on both tables. respectively there were 4 boys and 3 girls yet the number of plates is greater on the girls' side. gyaku janai??



また遊びに行きたいな~

p/s: i got a sorta test tomorrow, yet i can still update blog?

Monday, May 23, 2011

to be honest

living alone is simply lonely.

lol. talking about the obvious.

but yeah, when i go to classes, i do meet my friends but then, when i returned home, there's no one but me alone.

only when it's the weekend, it feels lively, which requires a bit of effort to go somewhere with people i know, and spend time, no matter how trivial it is. or for some stupid reason, like i can't do my homework alone in my room, so i took the trains to go to the neighboring city.


i cleaned up the room after a while, yet i still can't find the lost wallet. and it still has 10 singapore dollar in it. well, thanks to my habit of spending every last yen i have in the wallet each time i shop. yeah, i went shopping again last week. an unplanned one as i only intended to only go to Ueno Zoo.

i managed to see giant panda for about 30 seconds.

the giant panda was behaving like a sloth.



just like how i'm feeling most of the time.

so, what i'm going to do this weekend?

Sunday, May 8, 2011

GW '11

ohisashiburi~~~

yappari, typing from the big keyboard here at the computer still gives a better feeling. and i can type faster.

so, as the title goes, this is so as to not forget the first golden week i had here. just for some who doesn't know, you might like clicking here to get a clue of what i'm talking about. this is a prized holiday since there will be no holidays excluding the weekends until we finish our exam, that is in July.

for this year, the golden week is a bit inconvenient. it's a friday off bundled with the weekend, and three days more off in the middle of the next week. so, the monday of school sandwiched in the middle of these two  was really demotivating.

so, part one-Friday till Sunday (29th apr~1st may)
on friday, i went to shinjuku with Arini. only two of us wandering into the complete unknown roads of shinjuku by ourselves. the original plan was to spend the day shopping so that was what we did. but unlike me who brought back about 10 pieces of clothing, arini barely shopped for anything except for a few. ate kebab for brunch at a shop with such a friendly owner, and finally some food that i can call hot.


for saturday and sunday, it was a gathering for the sisters at a campsite in Seseragi somewhere in Saitama. yeah, we were really close with nature. the water is like icewater. and then i'm plunged back into the town life of saitama (though the prices of stuff are high here, but it's still not a city) for the Monday.


and goes to part 2!! Tuesday till Thursday (3rd~5th May)
and Tuesday came, holiday mood again!  in fact, we went into a lott of places in that single one day. On that day, it's me and Arini again and also Aisyah Jlo~~ Takuya offered to show us the around, that's so kind of him. he also brought along his Korean girlfriend who is shy but friendly. so, first we made our way to Harajuku. 

it was so packed with people we could hardly slip through the massive crowd. after being there for about an hour, we retreated and headed for lunch at shin-okubo, somewhere a station away. ate at a thai restaurant after united with another bunch making a table of 10 people at the cramped place. well, not bad but i guessed i've just picked the wrong menu, it's not that amiable to my tongue. and afterwards, a bit of detour for someone was looking for a specific store, it was cloudy but we still went for ikebukuro. thanks to the guide of the day, without much ado, we reached our destination-Nekobukuro! it's located at the most upper floor of some building, the rest of the building is Tokyu Hands store. we entered the premise and there they were, a bunch of cats lying everywhere. i mean, they just lie and do nothing. so inactive perhaps tired from being an exhibit all day every single day. well, i won't be surprised even if these cats are intentionally sedated or something, coz they are just plain lazy to move at all. like this sleeping cat, we were tired too so we called the day off and 3 of us returned to Jlo's house in Chiba~



 Wednesday, the real reason of our sleepover at Jlo's house. we were invited to join a sort of manager at Jlo's residence to go fishing~ well, i never thought i'll see a japanese rice field by now. where i live at, it's all concrete. here at somewhere in chiba, it's quite a village. beside the field, the waterway houses some fishes, honestly we were surprised to find we're actually fishing here. we originally thought we're going to some river or somewhere. but more surprisingly, we weren't the only one fishing there, though not as much as people flocking in harajuku, but cars and vans are lined along road. the result: 2 tiny fishes both caught by the expert Arini.


 Thursday, picnic at Shimizu Kouen. originally there was no plan of this but it just happens that some senpai are going there on that day, so we stayed at Chiba for another night and joined the crowd.


so, before we go separate ways, together we entered a flower garden. the fee is quite the same as entering nekobukuro. though we were off the season a bit, the flowers that are present are simply magnificent. i guess this one deserves a post of it's own to show it's whole spectacle. 




and the next day came, it was school again before another weekend. so on to part 3? 


hehehe, until the next post ;)

Friday, April 29, 2011

The apps

It'll be a lie if I say this is a complete first time of me using such a high tech device, previously I've used PDA and such but this iPhone really can make me so engrossed. Back at home, even if I dream of using one, it can hardly be realized, what with the exorbitant price. But here, almost all of us(the newly arrived JAD students) are using it for the convenience it posesses.

Other than the basic function of making calls, sending mails n browsing the net, here's what makes my life much easier:

1. The route finder for trains. Like the other day when I promised to meet someone at Omiya and going by myself, this helps.

2. The app for prayer times n Qiblat direction

3. Facebook, twitter n skype n livejournal- the most used social apps

4. Bump, to exchange data with othe devices by just 'bumping'

5. Notes as an effort to remember my incomplete homeworks

6. Mirror- just interested by haven't had a dire need for it just yet

7. QR code reader to easily access webs n receiving contact data from others

8. Thermometer - haven't calibrated this yet

9. Earthquake apps, for viewing records of earthquakes around the globe (I doubt this is useful) and the other one warns of incoming earthquake within nihon - this one sure is useful

10. Blogger+, with which I'm using to post this. It comes with a price though

11. N the most important - Active money. Another paid app but worth it. It's used for personal bookkeeping so I can keep track of my expenditure. After abt 2 weeks i know i've spent about ¥250000 already.

The entry that supposed to be a week ago

Cheese naan at doner's kebab

Day 8 in nihon and I went to akihabara the 2nd time unplanned.

Amount spent: ~¥8000

I love shopping.

Though the trip to Tokyo was unintentional, good thing I can finally use the phone. Senpai guided the way to apple store at Ginza, and my problematic phone got exchanged with a new one. As easy as that.

And now I'm loving the many apps.

Gotta focus on studies!










I'm still looking for an application that enables me to use blogger more conveniently. Seems like there is still none that are free. Even livejournal already has it's own application so it puzzles me why blogger does not. Definitely a hassle to open safari browser like this. Should I just pay for the existing app?

Tomorrow's holiday!!! But I got a report due this Monday(~_~;)

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

too tired to type

the title shall explain by itself.

my new collection

Saturday, April 16, 2011

the last nite

now it has come to this kind of time. finally, the awaited day is only a few hours away. in less than 24 hours, i'll be off the land.

so, how actually did i spend my last few days before flying off? going out at most days!

well, i read books. manga can still be considered books, right? so i read the whole series of '20th century boys'! actually i reread it, but in hard copy this time. when i read it before, it was all pixel-ed and i had to stare on the screen for so long, of course, it's comprised of 23 volumes after all, topped up with 2 extra volumes which concludes the whole story. it's really interesting!


the nice thing is i find myself reading manga in japanese so naturally now. that makes me so happy. i did set my goal of getting myself able to read manga and watch drama as soon as finishing my JAD program. prior to reading this one, i finished reading pluto too, both from the same mangaka-Naoki Urasawa! his works are simply fabulous and amazing. the story will hook you on and the suspense never fail to keep you jumpy. well, both of this is sorta heavy for some readers. it's a seinen manga after all. all this thanks to JFKL Library, i need not to pay a cent! except the transportation cost.

and more about books, i bought another one today, the temptation is far too high, i just gotta have it in my possession. rather than buying, i was using the voucher i got, all thanks to my bro who made a big purchase the other day which entitled him for a rm50 voucher after spending rm500 in kinokuniya-see how this store could scrap money out of you. this one is called 'You Shall Know Our Velocity' by dave eggers, mostly i was attracted by title, but then when i tried reading it a bit, i find myself hooked already. the one i just bought the other day is still unfinished though, the one i've been coveting for so long-'Stories'all new tales edited by neil gaiman and al sarrantonio. but from my recent tendency of getting immersed in reading while commuting, throughout the 7-hour flight tomorrow i could finish most of them i think.

now let's hope i could finish these two soon coz i'm alredy eyeing on japanese novel next

the last book i just finished was good too, in fact great. now that's another haruki marukami's in my list. but this particular book titled 'Underground' is kind of special because it revolves around a real incident. he probes into the tokyo gas attack that occurred at tokyo subway in 1995 and publishes the interviews he did with some of the people involved in it-the victims and the part of organization that's apparently behind the attack. it gives the view inside the incident firsthand from the people at the scene from their perspectives and the effect long after it, mentally and physically. once something had already sunk in the mountain on the past, one can still be affected by it no matter how much it weighs in the present.

i'm so impatient of getting 'waltz' manga once i reach nihon. i've been refraining myself for more than a year already when i always saw them at the rack in kinokuniya

wow, that's long when talking about books alone!

so, i also watch an anime. it's actually from a year or two before but i hadn't had the chance to watch it. it's 'Eden of the East', partially because the character design is the same like honey and clover, added with a strong story, this makes the anime among the top of my list. i pretty much had babbled abt the same stuff here, so to avoid the post from getting so long-winded, i better end it now.

lastly, a little member of our big family who i can only see again in 2 years time. it's my cousin's newly-born baby deep in sleep after getting so worked up in the night. see you again, zikri!



wishing everyone a safe flight!