premiere

Another usual school day, nothing more than that. Oh, I did fall asleep deeply today in my French class; something that I haven't done for quite a while now. For 10 minutes straight, I lost conciousness, and made a trip to the dream world. Well, I did obtain enough knowledge from today's class, and the timing I fell asleep was when the class was in the midst of answer check. No problem, at all.

I can't believe that there only are 2 weeks left until the Culture Festival. What's more, the videos must be finished AND handed in by the 28th. So, in order to speed up the editing process, I remained after my French class to help the "Tetsunagi-han" with their editing, since the group I'm in charge of gave up the idea of making another video ourselves from various reasons. Today turned out to be my first time editing, using the new PCs installed in the AVC room. Holy crap, they're sweet! It's so nice and quick that it's starting to make me regret myself of editing on the old ediiting PCs placed in the library.

This may sound weird for some, but I do have Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 editing software on my PC at home. Unfortunately, my PC's computing power is too slow to actually make me want to edit on my PC. I would just love to get a new PC...maybe a laptop this time. My current PC is already 4 years old. Actually, it's going to turn 4 on the 30th. Maybe, when I'm admitted to the faculty of my choice, my wish could be granted. Who knows? lol

it's aliiiive!!!

It's aliiiiive!!!

After 6 months of research, and typing, I've finally completed my senior thesis, file-wise.

Unfortunately, my 6 year-old printer seems to be unable to withstand the 34 page printing job, which has got to be done before the 29th, in order to actually COMPLETE my thesis. So...I decided to buy a new printer! My new planned completion date shall be the 24th. That ought to get rid of theses for another...3 years, perhaps.

feelin' good

Recently, I'm in a really good mood. I mean, really. I feel like I would be able to float away, after jumping off a skyscraper building or something instead of falling. Well that would be impossible, because of the principles of physics and all the other garbages that exist in our world, but I really do feel like that. lol

Anyway, I went to TSUTAYA in Totsuka, "thanks to" the boredom I had this morning. I had to renew my membership anyway, so after a 20 min. train ride, there I was, in Totsuka. I had a whole list of movies I wanted to borrow, but unfortunately, most of them were either "new", "semi-new", or "out of stock", which meant that all of the movies I wanted were excluded from the bonus they were providing for renewing their membership. However, since I didn't want to go home empty handed, I borrowed this German movie called "Good bye, Lenin!", even though it was labeled "shinsaku" and it costed me 460 yen to rent it just for a night.

The movie was nice, although it maybe a bit...I don't know, maniac? for some people. It takes place in East Berlin, right before the breakdown of the Wall of Berlin. I'm not going to explain the plot here...just enter "Good Bye, Lenin!" in one of the search engines, and you'll find out. lol Upon my renewal, TSUTAYA gave me this book titled "Cinema Handbook 2004", which had a whole list of recommended movies written. It's quite handy, considering the fact that it was free. On my way home on the train, I checked all the movies I've seen in the past. From this procedure, I've found out that I favor dramas, action movies, and science fictions, while on the other hand, I don't like horror movies, animations, and Japanese movies. I haven't watched "Ping-Pong" or "Battle Royale" yet, even though both of these movies were, and still are popular among the Japanese.

Let me note down the movies I want to borrow in the near future here. The name written inside the brackets shows how these movies are called here in Japan. Quite different, isn't it? lol
Along Came Polly (Polly, My Love)
The Good Girl (Good Girl)
Intolerable Cruelty (Divorce Show)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (My Big Fat Wedding)
Love Actually (Love Actually)
The Pirates of the Caribbean (Pirates of Caribbean) lol
2001:A Space Odyssey

i feel like talking in english...

I have absolutely no clue why, but for some reason, I feel like talking...excuse me, writing in English. Maybe it's the rebound I'm getting from writing so much in Japanese in my senior thesis. lol This will be my third entry today...it's my first time making 3 posts in a day, and I'm pretty certain that it will be my last too.

I ordered a lot of DVDs today on amazon.com in the States. (Yes, not amazon.co.jp) As you can see, I've ordered the Season 8 DVDs of my favorite sitcom, "FRIENDS" and the Season 1 DVDs of "Roswell", since it's DVDs were selling 75% off, for $14.99. I've also ordered the Star Wars Trilogy DVDs too, which was recently re-released on DVD. The total expenditure was $96.18 with shipping and handling, currently inside my parents' credit card account.Well, it's WAAAAAAAY cheaper this way then buying the localized version here in Japan, even with international shipping fee included. If I ordered these 3 products on amazon.co.jp, it would've costed me 39879 yen. (I actually tested it out before ordering) It is about 4 times more costlier here in Japan than $96.18, equivalent to 10387 yen at the current exchange rate.

However, there's this obstacle most people in Japan have against making orders abroad: the region code system. Fortunately, I've found a way to by-pass the region code lock using my PC, which allows me to watch cheap, American DVDs here in Japan. Hehe. Even though the price is cheaper on amazon.com, 10387 yen is not a small amount of money. Right now, my obstacle is to find out a way to make my payment to my parents for this order...hmm...well, by the time these products come into my hands, I should have the money ready. Hopefully. lol

senior thesis wrap up day 1

"I Rui" Alpha students were able to get a day off from school today along with tomorrow, since we weren't given any mid-term exams this semester(or trimester). However, I would like to say that just because we, or at least I got these days off, it doesn't mean I was and will play around like normal holidays; I was working on my senior thesis, continuously for 4 hours now. I assume the weather is also suggesting what the "I Rui" students are supposed to do on this surprise break too, instead of taking it as a chance to go to Disneyland or elsewhere.

I was able to consentrate pretty well for those 4 hours, and was able to wrap up my thesis up to the point where I can't make progress anymore. A visit to the library, which I'm planning to do tomorrow, will give me the key to move on. My planned completion date is tomorrow, all printed out nice and clean, although my concern is the 6 year old printer we have, which I'm hoping to live up to my demand of printing the 34 page long thesis. lol

Ah yes. Yesterday, I played this vocabulary game in Mr. Griffin's class. It was a game, where you bet your "pounds" (British, lol) on whether or not you think the usage of that vocab in the sentence is correct or not. My group did awful in the beginning, but surprisingly, we won consecutively on the last 5 problems, which made us the winner for our class. The prize was a box of "Pocky". My group won the last "Pocky game" also, which was like 4 months ago, but Ｉ never ate any "pockies" ever since. Well, I thought they were really nice. lol So, during the break I took today, I went and bought a box myself, which is really weird, because I never buy snacks myself, using my own money. lol

outcome of the marina episode

Remember how I talked about on how Zushi Marina was used as one of the locations for the new "gekku" drama, "Last Christmas"? The episode featuring, or that took place in Zushi Marina aired yesterday, and my hometown made it's apperances throughout the episode. I would've loved to see the actual filiming scene...oh well, my hometown showing up in a drama was a good enough of a gift for me. Thank you, producers! You guys showed it really romantically in the program. No, I'm not saying that the actual thing is dirty or anything, for your information. lol

the step test...continued

I edited the video footage were using for the Culture Festival ALONE for the first time after school today. Yeah, the process was really monotonous, and...kinda lonely too, considering the fact that there were a lot of people present, whenever we did editings in the past. I was able to clear my norm for today, by fixing and adjusting the video clip that did not show the way we intended it to on TV screens. I moved the captions, adjusted the volume, unified the font, added the ending, and finalized it into a file, all alone today. Oh well, at least some of my classmates came over to check me out after their foreign language classes...which really delighted me, sort of.

The society that is in charge of "eiken" tests posted the answer flash on to their website at 1 pm today. I printed it out right after it appeared, and self-checked my answers I kept on the problem booklet after I came home. Writing composition part of level 1 "eiken" test I took yesterday was worth 28 points, out of 113 points total. Since there's no way I can grade my own essay right now, I checked how much of the other problems I was able to get correctly.

Result was 67 points out of 85 points that problems other than the essay problem accounted for. This is about 79% of the 85 points, which is of course, above the 70% line necessary for the pass. I did better than I thought, considering the fact that I didn't study at all prior to the test, besides buying the textbook as a camoflage. lol All I need is 12 or more points out of 28 points the essay takes.

Good luck, me! lol

the step test for testing english proficiency

I took "The Level 1 STEP Test for Testing English Proficiency" at Zushi Kaisei High School today. Yeah, the vocabularies were mumbo jumbos...but as I've heard from someone in advance, the number of vocab problems were reduced from 30 to 25 this year, lowering the ratio the vocab problems take out of the whole test.

Last time I took this test, which was in 2000, I failed it just by 7 points. I'm not sure if 7 points qualifies as "just", but I didn't have any environment to exercise my English skills then, other than NOVA English School that I went weekly to have conversations with the teachers there. From that fact, I think I did well then. This time, according to my self-check I did after I took the test, I got 14 out of the 25 vocabulary problems in the test. Listening, I assume I answered it perfectly, reading comprehension, yet to be determined, and writing composition, I have no idea.

If I pass the preliminary part, the secondary part would be a piece of cake...I hope. The results are due on November 8th. I passed...I hope. lol

After I finished my test, I went to this supermarket in Kamakura to go get myself some thirst quenchers...which are the following; 2 cans of Coca-Cola Classic, 2 cans of Cherry Coke, a can of Root Beer, a can of Dr. Pepper, 2 cans of Diet Dr. Pepper, and a can of Diet Ginger Ale, all imported from USA. They are tastier in my opinion, and they're cheaper too! I bought 9 cans in total, and it only costed me 847 yen. I'm going to enjoy them one at a time starting today. Yay! lol