Nerdy Girl

On Friday I had my final exam and I hope I passed. I'm feeling quite confident about the grammar and linguistics parts, but I may have to retake the reading comprehension/literary history part. Mostly due to not having studied much about literary history (because our teacher said she might ask a question or two, not that half the exam was going to consist of literary history, and also because I had missed one text we had recieved). I will probably get the result from the exam in a couple of weeks, and right now I'm waiting for the verdict on my Bachelor thesis. This upcoming week we have the opposition, which means we'll have to recieve the result as to whether the thesis is good enough to be on opposition. I'm guessing I'll know by tomorrow.

And also, it's soooooo nice not having to study all day every day anymore :D

The exam was at 8 am in the morning and since I live as far off in Malmö as almost possible it takes me about an hour to get to school in Lund. I got up at half past five (TT_TT). I arrived at the exam venue about 25 minutes before the exam started. I had decided that I'd rather get there early and have a quick look through the parts I wasn't 100% sure on. I expected the exam to take 3-4 hours (out of 5) for me to finish, since that's what the last two exams from last semester had taken. I was done in 2 hours. We had decided to go out for lunch after the exam and I was the first one out. So I went to sit on a bench outside. It was just below 20 degrees and the sun was out so the weather was perfect. After 1 hour most of the rest of my class arrived and then after yet another hour the last ones arrived. Then we walked into town together and split up to buy our own lunch take away to later reassemble at the lawn outside the public library :) It was a great time all in all. Although I managed to burn my shoulders and my nose. In the evening my nose was very similar to a clown nose or a stop light, whichever you prefer.

Yesterday the burn had gone down a lot so as soon as I woke up I got dressed, put on sun screen and went outside. I woke up around noon after 12 hours of sleep and it was 25 degrees outside. I walked down to the beach (10 minutes), removed my shoes and walked out into the ocean. There was no cold shock in the beginning, it was just so cool and perfectly tempered. I never got further out than knee-high but it was really great. To let my feet and legs dry I also had my first bare footed walk of the year :)
By the road I put on my shoes again and then I walked into town to by snacks for Eurovision night. Also bought the first popsicle of the year :D Summer is here. And I'll probably hate it in a month or so.

My favourites for Eurovision were Denmark, Russia, Finland, and UK. All for different reasons. Denmark had a cute girl with a cute song with a very catchy flute, and I'm so glad they won ^^ I loved Russia's song just because of the lyrics. I love lyrics and they were just great. Finland's song was an awesome pop song à la Katy Perry with an awesome message. Though, I expected it wouldn't win because of said message :/ And then there's UK just cause I love Bonnie Tyler's voice :) I am a Eurovision freak. I couldn't care less about the Swedish outtake competition, but Eurovision is something I watch every single year. And I agree with Europe; Sweden's song this year wasn't good.

Today I've only been playing Skyrim. Skyrim, Skyrim, Skyrim. Can't get enough of that game. Especially now with all the expansion packs added. Here are some awesome pictures I've taken:
And today I've also put up the Hogwarts crest Toni gave me for our anniversary. So I'll just leave a picture of it here and I'll also share a YouTube clip which has had me smiling for a very long time:

Ugh, I can't wait 'til it's finally June!
At least my Bachelor thesis is handed in now. The deadline was today at noon and I handed it in yesterday afternoon. I feel a mixture of confidence and hopelessness. I think it's good enough and I do believe I'll pass, but there's just so much doubt. I want my result NOW!

Then there's the fact that I have my final exams in four days. Study, study, study :/ Grammar, reading comprehension, literary history, and linguistics. Joy. At the same time as I hate the study rush I'm in while being totally unmotivated, I can't help but feeling a little low and kind of blue. This is the last time I'll be taking a Japanese exam, or any exam for that matter. I'll miss Japanese - I always do. And despite hating to study right now, I'll miss it in a few months. I know I will, cause that's how I work.

What bothers me the most about having to study isn't that I have to read and remember lots, but it's the fact that my whole life has to be put on hold. I can't spend hours watching Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Mad Men or some new series. I can't spend hours playing Skyrim or some other game. I can't spend hours writing on my stories, I even have to make sure I don't start thinking about storylines or I'll just stop studying. I can't spend hours reading Harry Potter fan fictions. I can't even spend hours reading my piles of unread books. And I miss all of it :( Sure I do watch an episode of a series or catch up on my YouTube subscriptions while I eat, and I do try to get at least one hour of gaming before going to sleep, but I can't spend the entire day doing something and it's hard.

Just 2½ more weeks and I'll be done. I'll get my life back then.

A couple of months ago I mentioned that we were doing a video project for one of our classes. The deadline was in April. Well, now they're all up on YouTube and so here are the two my group made:

This first one is a slightly weird presentation of our university building:

Wow, it's been ages again! But I've been keeping busy. After my last post I've mostly continued to be nerdy.  And then ofc Toni arrived on the 24th and didn't go back home until today. Let's divide what I've been doing :)

Doctor Who. This is what I've been geeking the most about. I've finished season 4 now and I'm going to go through the specials that aired before season 5. I really liked David Tennant so I'll be really sad to see him go and get Matt Smith instead :/ But I'm told he's doing a great job as the Doctor so fingers crossed ;) While Toni was here I got him into watching the series too and we came as far as about halfway through the second season. When we visited the Sci-Fi bookstore on the 26th I also bought myself a little talking Dalek figurine :D And both me and Toni have been pressing the talking button several times a day since xD

Are you sure you're able to make that commitment?

• How much fossile fuels were emitted to bring you your food?
• How many oil based items were used in the manufacturing of your clothes, shoes, gadgets, everyday technology, furniture, hygiene products, etc.?
• How much fossile fuels were emitted brining you all these items?
• The asphalt you walk on in your city is made from oil, by walking on it you're using it.
• Your bicycle doesn't emit anything, but how many oil based items were used to manufacture it? And it's easier to ride a bike on a road with asphalt rather than gravel - once again oil.
• You have a hybrid or electric car? Still probably has a lot of oil based products in the manufacturing process.
• The bus drives on bio fuels? Probably same manufacturing process as the car.
• The train doesn't emit anything. But where does the electricity that it runs on come from? Fossile fuels? And then there's once again the manufacturing of the trains and the railroads, the electric cords and whatnot.
• Every vehicle can be applied on those.
• Where does your electricity come from? Fossile or renewable? What goes into manufacturing your light bulbs? Oil based products?
• What goes into building the machines to harvest the energy from renewable energy sources? Dare I say that there might be oil based products in them?

I've been so busy with my dissertation lately that I haven't even had time to do all the fun stuff I usually do. I haven't even played The Sims since my last post. What I have done has mostly been to watch a lot of TV-series, cause that is what I do when I relax from reading and writing.

Friends. I'm at the 10th season again now and I don't want to watch anymore, cause if I do it'll end again.

Grey's Anatomy. I caught up only yesterday. I had half of the 8th season and half of the 9th to watch and I did it in three days xD Now I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for next episode.

Game of Thrones. Halfway through the second season I tired  of it. But when I heard that the third season was soon to start I just had to catch up. And so I did, I watched the last three episodes of season 2 and then I saw the first episode of season 3 and now I'm all caught up in it again. I need the next episode!!!

Call the Midwife. When I finished with Grey's Anatomy I felt kind of restless. What to do. But apparantly this series had aired both a Christmas special and a second season since last time I watched it xD So I've been starting to catch up on this series too.

Sometimes when I want to relax and reboot my brain I take a walk while listening to music, or I just dance around crazily in my flat along with my favourite Japanese pop songs. Just recently I got my hands on all the Pucchi Best albums from Hello! Project and I've been reliving some of my old favourites.

What I really want to though, is to get started reading and writing again. But for fun and not cause I have to. But the dissertation and the homework just makes me want to stay away from books in general after I'm done with those I have to deal with :/

Before you judge me - I've always said that The Sims 2 is what you make of it, if you have the imagination and know the cheats the game can become very funny.

These last few days my interest for The Sims 2 has re-awakened and I've started playing again. I'm working on that same old family again. Remember?

I'm gonna be geeking from this point on. Just a warning.

So, originally I created one girl and one guy. My story (I always start with a story) was that Sayumi met Bradley as a teenager. Bradley was an adult. Sayumi's parents did not approve of her relationship with Bradley and when they found out she was pregnant, they shunned her. She ran away with Bradley. They got married and built a great big house from scratch. Shortly thereafter Sayumi gave birth to twin girls. This was easy to fix. I made two adults and then cheated some with the aspiration points so that Bradley would have access to the Life Elixir. Using the boolprop-cheat I changed Bradley's age to one day before getting old and then got him to drinking the Life Elixir until he was only halfway through his adult stage. This made for him being much older than Sayumi. Using the boolprop-cheat again I made Sayumi pregnant with Bradley and then sped up her pregnancy, making for her to have been pregnant in her teens :)

And now the story starts. 

Sayumi and Bradley had seven children in total: Erina, Reina, Ai, Samuel, Momoko, Risako, and Jonathan, and then they became teenagers I got to have a lot of fun. I made Erina and Jonathan gay, Reina snuck out every night with her friends and almost always came back home in a police car, Ai feels misunderstood and runs away from home, and Samuel stops going to school in protest. Momoko gets pregnant (but miscarries) and Risako only love men twice her own age. They all grew up and moved out and started their own families (which meant I got to have fun and build houses). Most of them were having regular lives, however Risako married an old guy and started a family with him, and Ai and Samuel, who lived together, lived lives of passion and indulgence. Ai had Pleasure ambition and Samuel had Romance ambition. They both lived like tomorrow didn't matter and each had multiple lovers - Samuel being the worst since his lifetime want was to have 20 simultaneous lovers xD However Ai accidentally (not kidding, I didn't press Try for Baby) got pregnant, and started to slow things down. She later turned herself into a vampire. Samuel decided to get married in his old days.

Ai's story is actually kind of funny.

She got pregnant and her daughter kept nagging her about her father (not kidding she thought and talked about family all the time), and when Ginevra was grown up and had her own family Ai gave in and called her father. They met for the first time since Ginevra was concieved and they literally couldn't keep their hands off of each other. Once again they woohoo'd (didn't press Try for Baby) and Ai got pregnant again. Seriously wtf?! So I decided to marry them anyway and I made Brandon old just so it wouldn't be weird that he was younger than his daughter...

The houses I've built:



Most of the strange families are in the third generation. Erina's and Willow's son Fenrir built a robot, which he fell in love with. Then he got abducted by aliens and gave birth to an alien baby at the same time he and the robot got married and adopted a child. Reina's and Erik's daughter Bellatrix' husband Clarence spent too much time in the garden and turned into a PlantSim. Risako's and Joe's son Charlie met a good witch and made himself a warlock. Jonathan's and Todd's daughter Evelyn made friends with the Leader of the Pack, got nibbled, and turned into a werewolf. Her husband was fascinated and on his request she made him into a werewolf too.

So I have a vampire, a robot, an alien, a plantsim, a good warlock, and two werewolves. All I need now is a zombie and an evil witch and I'll have it all. I've already chosen Roxie to be the evil witch when she grows up. The she'll have green skin (like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz), and she'll use her magic powers to resurrect her uncle Samuel and make him a zombie :)

This is the current family tree:
It's getting a little crowded in the fourth generation, but that's alright. They're no longer considered related by the game, so I'm gonna start connecting the branches again. Marissa will marry Maddox, Andromeda will marry Aidan, Roxie will marry Jimmy, and Joshua and Anthony will get to bring in "new blood" :P

And the fact that Imelda even exists is another accident. Jenna brought a guy home from work, she liked him and went on a date with him, which ended in her getting pregnant. They have sucky contraception methods obviously :P

The reason I sometimes have sleep problems is that my brain can't stop spinning. Sometimes it's all about stuff I have to remember to do the next day, but usually it keeps making up stories. The source for all my writings is sleep-deprivation. I'm more inspired in night time than in day time. It's not even unusual for me to take inspiration for stories from dreams I've had.

Spring flowers on the 6th

Wow, it's been so long since my last post, but for good reason. On the 7th I went back to Toni's since I had 10 days off from school. The 7th was a really nice spring day and I had the best experience on the train! In Lund (one station after Malmö) a large group of Japanese people get on the train. Turns out they are a bunch of students travelling with their teacher. Anyway, they all have very large suitcases and they have no idea where to put them. I notice so I explain to their teacher, in Japanese, where big suitcases go on our high-speed trains. They all thank me for my help. Then the teacher and I talk for a bit. They are all students at the university and he asks where I learn Japanese. I tell him that I'm a second year at the university. He says that I talk Japanese very naturally (that comment made my day) and that I should study abroad, which brought me to speaking about my time in Tokyo. After our conversation he went back to his seat and I watched PewDiePie-videos on YouTube on my phone all the rest of the way :)

Friday - Tuesday Toni was working and I spent those days working as well! I got started on my dissertation and I have about 3000 words right now. About a third of what I need by May but I have time yet. Those days I made dinner for myself and always made sure to make enough for two so he'd have lunch box for the next day :) Friday - stroganoff with rice, Saturday - chicken stew with rice, Sunday - meatballs with potatoes and sauce, Monday & Tuesday ready-made lunches.

Wednesday we went downtown so Toni could get his passport done so we could get going to London this year. And had sushi for dinner. Then we spent most of the evening watching The Walking Dead. I'm really getting into that series. Thursday was spent pretty much the same way. Except that Toni helped me dye my hair. He also got really into playing Prototype and it's way too exciting to watch xD I also made more stroganoff for dinner. (Who still says I can't cook?!)

Friday was the party day. We went out to buy food and then Toni cleaned the flat while I did some studying. When he was done I made some delicious taco gratin :) Somehow we ended up with a lot of Swedish Disney music. Going out we missed the bus, which turned out to be great cause otherwise we'd never get to see Timo fall on his ass on the ice xD Anyway, when we finally get to the bar we bump into some more friends and make some new ones on the way. The evening turned out to become a sing-along for Swedish Disney songs, Astrid Lindgren songs, Swedish folk songs and some really well-known Swedish pop songs. Some of them are here:

Toni just saw The 69 Eyes live in Stockholm and I'm starting to feel withdrawal symptoms. It's been too long since I've been to a concert. Way too long. I miss them so bad. I'm a concert junkie. In an attempt to cure this let's take a trip back in time.

I've been to concerts pretty much every year since I was about 10 years old. The annual local summer festival brought interesting bands even for a little girl. At Sommar Rock I saw some bands that I really liked and some bands that just happened to be on the stage at the same time I was hanging out there. Those I remember that I've gone there to see are Antique, Mendez, Bubbles, Style, The Ark (three times), Crashdiet, E-Type, Europe, Hammerfall, Joddla med Siv, Magnus Uggla, Markoolio, The Poodles, Perikles, Takida, Thin Lizzy, and Erik Grönwall. I also distinctily remember the time when Tomas Ledin played there and I got invited to the party afterwards but declined (I didn't feel like going to a party of a middle aged women's idol). Until last year I used to work there with my dad. Official website. Blog post. Blog post.

Then there's also the annual festival in Malmö, which isn't has cosy as the one of my hometown, since it's all over the city. And most of the years I haven't really gone there to see the bands. But I remember seeing Jay Smith and The Sounds there. And The Ark (fourth time). I usually just go there for the market, the food and the festival events, and forget all about the music :P Official website. Blog post. Blog post.

My first real concert was Lordi. Autumn 2006. I was 15 years old and they had just won ESC. I went with Kajsa. Mum wouldn't let us stand in the crowd so we had to get seats. Spent the entire concert sitting on the edge of my seat, waving my arms and singing/screaming my throat and lungs out. This is when I fell in love with concerts for real. Sabaton was the support and I hated their sound.

Second concert was Nightwish. Winter 2007. Went with then-boyfriend Henrik. It was Nightwish with Anette promoting Dark Passion Play. I really liked Anette at this concert. She was very friendly and interacted a lot with the audience. Indica was support and since then I never really could get them out of my head. It was just too bad that all their music was in Finnish until a couple of years ago when they released their first English album.

Third was Stephen Lynch. Spring 2008. Went with Kajsa. He was hilarious. At first it was sold-out, but by chance Kajsa managed to get a hold of two tickets next to each other really close to the stage. Happy!!!
 2009 was a big year for me. Edguy, Lordi and Metaltown. Back then Edguy was the best concert I'd ever been to, which was surprising for me cause I've never been that big a fan of them. But I remember I almost cried when they played King of Fools during the encore. All of those I went to with then-boyfriend Sebastian. For Lordi I also brought Zoy.
In 2010 all I saw was Disturbed in December. I went with Love and he's been their fanboy ever since. But despite it being a joint concert with Papa Roach and Disturbed being the last act (hence it took forever for them to get out on stage) the concert was epic. Blog post.

2011 was a big year. Stephen Lynch, Alice Cooper, Edguy and Within Temptation. To date I've never been as excited about a concert as I was for Cooper. I love him. Gimme more! I was so sad when I wasn't able to see him again in Gothenburg last year. But when it comes to concert feeling Edguy from 2011 still takes the price. Blog post. Blog post. Blog post. Blog post.
2012 wasn't that special in comparison to 2011. At least not concert-wise. Magnus Betnér (twice), Nightwish and Metaltown. Metaltown was easily that year's favourite. Blog post. Blog post. Blog post.
Mostly concerts are about feeling. Being able to scream-sing the songs you love back at the bands you love. Jumping up and down, waving your arms around in the air and headbanging, makes for an aching body but a greater feeling than any exercising could ever give me. The feeling when a song gives you goosebumps or bring you to the verge of tears. The feeling when all the lights go out and the arena is lit up by lighters and mobiles being waved back and forth in the air to a slow, beautiful song. The feeling of buying that perfect T-shirt as proof and memory of having been there. The feeling of buying a large soda and a random hamburger at the closest McDonald's open at night and eat the hamburger while walking back home. The feeling of going to sleep with the songs still ringing in your ears. The feeling of not wanting to wake up the next day cause it'll be soooo terribly long 'til the next time you'll get to feel that way.

26th and 27th were ordinary school days. On Wednesday the 27th we were to present our subjects for our upcoming dissertations. Mine was a huge success! I'd been worried that they'd (teacher and examinator) think it was too broad, too much, and that I should narrow it down, but instead they loved it! Originally my subject was supposed to be about kogal slang (kogals are Japanese girls in the upper teenage years), but when I was searching for sources to base my dissertation on, I came across a very interesting article about the schoolgirls in the Meiji period (late 1800's). It described how after the Meiji restoration Japanese girls were entitled to better education and the schoolgirls in their late teens developed a kind of slang that was considered vulgar, and not a way for a proper young lady to talk. That slang became what we call Japanese female speech today. After the 1930's that way of talking became how a proper young lady was supposed to talk. That way I became very interested in finding out if the same assimilation of kogal slang could be noticed today. The kogals have been around, roughly, since 1990, and I've already noticed that some female exchange students use words that were originally kogal slang. I want to compare these two types of teenage girls with 100 years between them, find out if they have something in common, if today's youth are aware that some of the words they use in everyday speech originally were kogal slang, and also if the older adult generation are aware of the possible assimilation (since students talk more properly and politely to teachers). So that's basically what I'll be doing the next few months.

On the evening of the 27th I got on the train north to visit Toni, and after a kind of relaxing day on the 28th, we had a gaming night with some friends. We played Zombie Dice, Spank the Monkey, and I have never. On the 2nd we had planned on going out, but instead of having the same old type of pre-drinks we made it another small gaming night and played Zombie Dice, Munchkin Zombies, and I have never, before hitting the bar. Both nights were awesome and I had a lot of fun.

On the 3rd we had a stay-in day+night and finished watching the second season of Sherlock. The last episode being just as heartbreaking as last time although I knew how it would end. With Sherlock we had tacos and crisps with dip :) When Sherlock was over we started watching season 6 of BBT. Just as hilarious as ever.

Yesterday (4th) I got on the train home. The train was perfectly on time and the journey went smooth until only 30 minutes remained and they told us over the speakers that there had been an accident between Malmö and Lund and the train would only go to Lund. The time distance by train between Malmö and Lund is 10 minutes. With only 10 minutes to go the entire journey turned to crap. Because of the accident all the tracks were taken at Lund centralstation so the train stood still in the middle of nowhere for about 15 minutes. Luckily, the substitute buses had already arrived so I didn't have to wait. But I still arrived home about an hour later than I would've if some idiot hadn't jumped in front of the train (I assume that's what happened. That's usually what happens when they call it "an accident"). And I still had to do my homework when I got home, which didn't go too well since I was more tired than anticipated when I made that plan.

Despite being terribly tired I still couldn't fall asleep before midnight (as if I ever can), and the alarm went off at 6 am. The day went smooth and I enjoyed talking to the exchange student who visited our last class today. After school I went home before going out again to meet three friends from college. One of them, Tiffany, lives in London and she happened to be in Malmö so ofc we had to meet up :) While having dinner at Mando (great food! O_o) we talked about everything, including memories of our old teachers from college. Can't believe it'll be four years since we graduated... Already!!! Feels like it just happened - and like it was ages ago. At the same time! xD

I published this on an old no longer existing blog before. But I really like this little novella that I wrote when I was 16 (can't believe it's already that long ago!) So I'll upload it again for people to read and, hopefully, enjoy.

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She paused, suddenly very aware that there was a scent of something in the air, telling her that something was going to happen and she knew she couldn’t do anything to break the way of destiny.

It was a cloudy, windy day in the early days of November. It felt like she could touch the wind when it blew between her fingers. Touch it, grab it and bring it home with her, something so highly impossible that seemed so possible. But the wind was lovely, even though its strength forced her to move forward. She couldn’t help it, she just smiled and couldn’t stop. In that minute she was undoubtedly happy. Happy enough to feel like she could do anything – and live through it.

The tensity in the air seemed to grow stronger the closer she got to the beach.

It was still dark. The wind had tempted her to go outside in her nightdress and coat, but she wasn’t cold, at least not noticeably cold. The wind was cold, but just the air itself was chilly, and the tensity thrilled her. Somewhere in her subconscious mind a voice told her that she was bordering on pneumonia, but she didn’t care, as long as she could have this time together with nature, she didn’t care what disease she pulled upon herself.

It was perfectly quiet, despite the wind’s howling. The birds hadn’t awakened yet and the dawn was very soon to start. The birds were late but this fact didn’t bother her. Perhaps they just didn’t want to fly and sing in the chilly wind? It was a perfect reason and in this she trusted.

When she reached the beach the wind seemed to calm down. The tensity was unbearable and suddenly it just bursted. A second later the sun started to rise from the horizon and the dolphins that had been hanging around the last few days began talking and jumping in the water.

She smiled softly as the sun’s first light struck her bare feet. The sun didn’t warm them, it was just the wrong season for that to happen, but it felt nice and she was happy.

The sight of the sun colouring the water red and orange was astounding and the most spectacular she’d ever seen and she wouldn’t trade this moment for anything in the whole wide world. This was her moment and she was going to keep it in her heart forever. Keep it and care for it in the deepest parts of her heart. She was never to let it go. This moment was hers.


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So a couple of days ago I was nominated for the Liebster Award by Viktoria! Thank you :D It's been years since I got anything even slightly similar ^^

The Liebster Award is for bloggers with less than 200 followers, and the nominated pass it on to other bloggers and help people discover new blogs to follow :)

The 'rules':
When you've been nominated you're to write a blog post including: 1) 11 facts about yourself. 2) Answers to the 11 questions given to you by the one who nominated you. 3) Provide 11 new questions to the ones you nominate. 4) Choose 11 bloggers with less than 200 followers to nominate. 5) Contact each blogger, via any network you like, to tell him/her about being nominated. 6) Thank the person who nominated you.

So let's begin with the 11 facts about myself:
1. I love bunnies. Cats can go "somewhere". Bunnies ftw!
2. I'm not picky when it comes to food, but I hate fish (salmon and tuna being the only exceptions).
3. I'm not a social person. I prefer to listen instead of speaking. I'm shy and quiet in new environments.
4. I don't categorise people after their colour, their sex or their orientation.
5. I still buy CDs.
6. I used to be afraid of dogs, then my parents got the cutest 1-year-old short hair border collie girl for my sister.
7. I am, however, terrified of clowns, certain dolls, and pigeons.
8. I can completely destroy my own self-confidence and self-worth in 2 seconds if something doesn't go my way.
9. If I find myself with some extra money I always treat myself to some clothes.
10. I can't go to sleep before midnight.
11. Between the ages of 7 and 17 (+ a relapse at 19) I hated skirts and dresses and only wore them for special occasions or on scarce whims I'd get in the morning when deciding what to wear.

And then the 11 questions asked by Viktoria:
1. If you could move anywhere in the whole world, where would it be?
Tokyo. I was never bored. Ever.
2. What is your absolute favourite food?
Udon. Soup or fried doesn't matter.
3. Top three favourite movies are?
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Tangled, Tonari no Totoro.
4. What was the best trip you ever made?
Tokyo. Once again.
5. All-time favourite book?
Harry Potter. Do I have to be more specific? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
6. What is your dream job?
I want to work from my home. Something along lines of a freelance translator or something. I'd love to decide my own hours and get the work done during the hours of the day I feel like working. I'd also love to be a part-time fantasy writer.
7. How many countries have you visited?
Wow. Erm... Iceland, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, France, Spain, England, Scotland, South Korea and Japan. So 10 (11 if you count USA when I was 1 years old).
8. What would you choose: to never eat ice cream again or to never eat candy again?
Candy I think. Candy is great for a few pieces and then it easily becomes too much. Ice cream is the best.
9. What's your favourite perfume?
Erm... I don't know. I don't use perfume. I had one when I was 16 that I liked. I think it was Paco Rabanne Black XS.
10. Do you have any tattoos? If yes, how many? If no, would you like to get any?
I don't have any, but I have two small ones planned. The kanji for "dream" on one of my wrists, and Hogwarts' motto (Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus) on one of my shoulder blades.
11. What is your favourite TV-series?
I don't have any that I'm absolutely crazy about atm. The only one I've been totally fangirly about has been Heroes. But I love Firefly too.

My nominees are:
1. Morrica - You're no different to me
2. Yvonne - Kultisten
3. Caro - Carorinrin
4. Erika - Swingin' it in vintage
5. Gisela - Modern odes on:
6. Tiffany - Stuff by Tiffany
7. Jennifer - Glitterglans
8. Douglas - The Dawg's thoughts and experiences
9. Sara - Enyira
10. Rewa - Extraordinary
11. Erika - Fröken Jenn

And here are my 11 questions for you guys:
1. What's your favourite song?
2. Something that makes you very nostalgic?
3. Do you have a role model? If yes, who? If no, have you had one?
4. What do you want to do/accomplish before you die?
5. Where is your favourite place in the world?
6. What's your favourite book?
7. Something you'd prefer if people in general didn't do?
8. What do you usually like to do on your free time?
9. What do you consider being your greatest accomplisment to date?
10. Something that you couldn't leave home without?
11. What super power would you like to have?

On Wednesday Toni showed up and on Thursday it was Valentine's. For this day I had talked him into going with me to see Les Misérables (second time for me), and let's just say that he wasn't disappointed and he's been humming "Prologue / Look Down" ever since :P For dinner I had some ideas. My first thought was the Japanese restaurant we went to last time he was here that serves a whole bunch of Japanese courses from sushi and sashimi to tempura, gyoza, kara'age, yakisoba and udon. But since the place is kind of expensive, we ended up having dinner at Casa Mia (which we later realised was kind of cliché - Italian restaurant with Italian music on Valentine's...). Anyway, before dinner and cinema I went and bought myself a new mobile (Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini) and we also made our now mandatory trip to the Sci-Fi bookstore :) Where, most notably, I ended up with the first volume of Sandman. Neil Gaiman goodness! :D

Friday was a very relaxing day. I got some studying done and otherwise we mosyl spent the day watching the first season of Mad Men. I recently bought the box and decided to see if Toni'd like it - he did ^^ Saturday there was a party in Lund planned by my classmates and some of the Japanese exchange students. The idea was that the Swedes would bring Swedish foods and the Japanese would bring Japanese foods and then we could eat eachothers traditional dishes :) I brought Toni along with me and we ended up having quite a nice evening. I only ever took one picture that night - a blurry one of the first set of food on the table:
Something I did realise at the party was that I'm much quicker in forming complete sentences in Japanese than I am in French, which should be strange since I've studied more French than Japanese. But anyway Japanese has always made more sense to me :P Thinking back now I'm kind of impressed with myself by how quickly I must've answered the Japanese students in Japanese, and without really thinking about it either. So either I made a complete fool of myself and saying everything wrong and just imagining I did everything correctly, or I might actually be better at Japanese than I thought.

About the music it started off with Asian Kung-Fu Generation, and then I didn't recognise much until some of the girls started this song:
I'm not a fan of AKB48. But this song is way too catchy to pass up on. Nah, I'm not an AKB-girl. I'm on the MoMusu side. I actually had a short conversation in Japanese about MoMusu and how I've liked them since 2005-ish and how it's nostalgic.

When the alarm went off at 6am this morning I didn't want to get up. Bed so comfy. So cold outside. And it had been snowing all night apparantly. But I did get myself out of bed in the end and although my brain hasn't been completely functional for the entire day, I did have one of the most memorable school days yet. Our first lesson on Tuesdays is pretty much reading comprehension. Immediately in the beginning of the lesson one of the administrative people of the Japanese department came in and reminded us of the Japanese professor that was going to visit today; Usuba-sensei. Our teacher also told us that he'd be in the cafeteria during our 3-hours long lunch break and that we should all try and talk to him.

So during our lunch break while we (the girls) were sitting together at a table and talking, our teacher comes along with the professor and the administrative person. The teacher leaves us with them and we start to talk in Japanese. He's a professor researching how manga and anime are used outside of Japan, so he asked us some questions about our manga and anime preferences and basically we just talked about random things until some other second years from our class and some first years showed up. They moved to talk to the others and we continued where we left off.

Then we had our last class and that class is always great fun. Especially cause the teacher is always so energetic and happy ^^ Since Valentine's Day is coming up she had a large box of chocolate that she passed around the classroom while we were working on our video projects for this semester :3 We were let go early from the last class so that we would have time to get to the official meeting with the Japanese professor. Basically we filled out his questionnaires and a bag of Japanese hard candies was passed around. After everyone had completed the questionnaire he showed us some forms of iai-kenjutsu, which was really cool! He even passed around the katana for us to hold and feel (the blade wasn't sharpened). After that we asked some questions and the bag of candies was passed around one more time.

All these questions gave me the itch to start reading manga again. Lots and lots of manga, and maybe start watching anime again... I kind of miss that. I don't miss having 12 tabs in my browser (excluding the ones I always have) of different mangas I'm reading. But maybe I should just go to mangareader and press 'random'...

Today's random singing moments:
"Japaner i pyjamas..." ♪
"Matcha matcha man..." ♪

So basically lots of conversation in Japanese, Japanese sweets, martial arts and a katana :3

Since Yohio advanced to the finals of the Swedish outtakes to Eurovision Song Contest there's been some rageing about it. How he dresses like a girl, how it's a freak show etc etc. Mostly I've encountered some hating against Asian music and the Asian scene overall and I must say that I don't get it. If Yohio had sung in Japanese in his song, people would've raged even more. But there's not a word about the guy who sung half is song in French, cause that's perfectly alright. Why? There wasn't alot of rageing against the girl from Norway two years ago who sung the chorus of her song in Swahili. That it's a European language is no excuse there. So why's Asia so bad? Is it cause the stage performances are different? That the stage show is different? That the fashion is different? Or has Asian music simply gotten a bad reputation here because of all the high-pitched anime intros? So I'll show you a few examples of how Asian music isn't that different from our music. That may get you to learn something or maybe even realise how wrong you've been to have prejudices against all forms of Asian music.

Bubblegum pop: Toy-Box vs. W


Pop: Katy Perry vs. Girls' Generation


Dance pop: Rihanna vs. Morning Musume


Crazy music videos: Lady Gaga vs. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu


Rock music: Coldplay vs. Bump of Chicken


Guys in make-up and strange clothes: Twisted Sister vs. Yohio


Extensive make-up on guys: KISS vs. Karasu


Heavy metal music: Soilwork vs. Dir en Grey


Rockballads: Avenged Sevenfold vs. Kamiki Aya


Pop rock: Avril Lavigne vs. SCANDAL


Boybands: One Direction vs. Arashi


All-girl groups: Spice Girls vs. Morning Musume

I chose this song from Morning Musume cause it's from around the same time as the song by Spice Girls, and this song sold over 1 million copies. Otherwise I would've gone with AKB48.

So how is Western music different from Asian music? Except that it seems more publicly accepted that a guy dresses like a girl in Japan - it's even considered something nice! In the Western music stage make-up on guys and flamboyant clothes seems to be a way of rebellion, while in Japan it's part of some musical styles that not only focus on the music but on the whole package too. Now, I wasn't around in the 80's, but there seems to have been more of the same kind of movement going on in Western music back then, both on the pop scene (Madonna) and on the rock/metal scene (every goddamn rock band of the 80's). Where did that go? And why don't we have that today? Why is it such a fright when a pop/rock artist makes a flamboyant performance? Why are only rock and metal bands (Alice Cooper, Lordi, Slipknot, etc) and some special few pop artists (Lady Gaga) "allowed" to have flamboyant performances in the West? Why is cross-dressing wrong unless you're gay? I've heard a multitude of straight guys complaining about how there are no fun clothes at the mens' department, and that sometimes they'd want to be girls just for the clothes. I think it's interesting how Japan can be so advanced and yet so outdated when it comes to sex and sexuality.

So no, I don't see much of a difference really. So what is it with Asian bands that make people so reluctant to like it the way they like any Western band? One of the best moments for me last year was when I was on the bus to school and the driver had the radio on and Gangnam Style came on. Hearing Korean streaming out of the speakers and actually hearing an Asian song on Swedish radio made me very happy, and I thought that maybe, maybe we were actually evolving towards accepting Asian music.

Defending Asian music Gangnam Style:

Way too late, I know, but I had to come up with an alternate way to do this, since the way I did 2011 didn't really work with 2012. Because in 2012 I kept track of way more releases than in 2011. So I've come up with a way to do it easily and without so much text:

Group/artist name. Genre. Amount of releases. My overall grade of releases. Favourite song.

Bored. Going through pictures on my computer. Thought I'd share some. [Click for larger]


Picture bomb ftw!