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!

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

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)

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

Location:Saitama University, Saitama-shi, Saitama-ken

It's fall!!

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

yosh!

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!

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.

Location:Saitama University, Saitama-shi, Saitama-ken

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

Location:Saitama University, Saitama-shi, Saitama-ken