chocolate_chip

Which is a whole lot easier said than done. It doesn't help that work is being ridiculous, as in, "What do you mean, you can't grade 250 final exams in one afternoon?" and "What do you mean, it takes more than an hour to read and correct 40 essays?" >_> When I get home, my brain pretty much shuts off. I have so much stuff to catch up on that it's hard to find a place to even get started.

Anyway, to keep myself from feeling overwhelmed, I'll just post about good things for now. And the good things are very good! Since I didn't have time to book a trip to Malaysia for winter break, I promised myself that I would go to Sapporo for Yuki Matsuri instead. I was really worried about getting plane tickets, since I can only fly on the same days as everyone else, but I managed to get the ones I wanted. Not at the cheapest price level, but still pretty cheap. I have to fly in and out of Nagoya, but it saves about ¥40,000.

And the super special awesome bonus? Guess who just happens to be playing at Zepp Sapporo that weekend? So now I have tickets to Sapporo and tickets to see Asian Kung-Fu Generation while I'm there. Now I just need to figure out what else I'll do for those 2 1/2 days (besides visiting the conveniently located Pokémon Center, lol). Almost as exciting, the weekend after that I'll be seeing Straightener in Osaka. I still can't believe I won two pre-request lotteries in a row!

HOLY SHIT, YOU GUYS.

I was about to get in the shower, when I remembered I hadn't done my daily Picross yet, and I HATE having that blank spot on my calendar all month. So I was doing that, and for some completely unknown reason, I decided to check Weezer's website to see if they'd posted any tour dates, because for the last forever, their site has been all "we're not on tour now, lol!" But this time, it was "O HAY WE'RE IN OSAKA NEXT WEEKEND. AND BTW, YOUR FAVORITE BAND IS OPENING FOR US."


That's right. I HAVE A TICKET FOR ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION/WEEZER.


....I'm still in shock. This is way too good to be true.

I think today would classify as a good day: no classes; the local bakery re-opened in its new location, bigger and better than ever (they have chocolate chip bagels, what) and just a block away from school; there was a family of no fewer than three wild monkeys prowling the neighborhood (Me: Look! A monkey! Student: 何や？ Me: *points* Student: Oh!! Cat!); and I SAW BUMP OF CHICKEN LIVE OMG. Of course, I had to pay 4x the face value of the ticket, but better that than regret not going forever. Supernova live is ♥~~~~~~~~~

The bad news is, I have to get up at my regular time tomorrow, and I still have to shower before bed. >.>

( I can has blatherings about Asian Kung-fu Generation? )

I’m hoping that this string of good things, particularly situations which seem bad but turn out well, applies to the JLPT, too. I did really badly on the first two sections, but much better than I expected on the last section, which is worth half the test. So there is a very slight possibility that I may have passed, but I won’t find out until March or so. :x

This post has been brought to you by the letters A, K, and G, and the fact that I have no classes today. \o/

I should be posting about my trip to Koyasan and finding enlightenment (it was behind the couch the whole time!) and stuff, but instead I'll just spazz about my ticket to see The Police in concert. :3

(I also want to whine about other concerts that I do not have tickets for, but I'll save that for another time.)

If you're in the mood for fresh mountain air, do not go to Yellowstone. XP Stinky. But I saw Old Faithful erupt, and the paintpots, and a big herd of elk, and a bunch of other cool stuff. To get there, I took this road that went right over the top of an 11,000 foot mountain, and at the very summit was a herd of mountain goats. The babies were so cute! I camped at Yellowstone, which was much more pleasant than Badlands (where the temp didn't drop below 90 until about 3 in the morning), and even though my food wasn't strictly properly secured, I didn't get attacked by bears. The next day I drove south through the Tetons to Salt Lake City. The Tetons are really impressive. It's definitely an area I'd like to go back to again.

Utah has a lot of seagulls, which makes sense if you think about it, but it was still weird to see them there. I went to Arches National Park, which was amazing, but soooooooooo hot. D: The average high during the month of July is 100, and I went during a heat wave. ~.~ But then a thunderstorm moved in and there was a huge rainbow~

I managed to make it to my aunt and uncle's near Aspen that night, in spite of a major flaw in her directions. My uncle has his own motorcycle repair business now, so we took a couple of the bikes he'd just finished out for a test drive. He's also the caretaker of the motorcycle mentioned in this article. Then we went into town for lunch, I finally bought HP7, and I had a pretty uneventful trip to my dad's house.

And thus, my road trip ended. I didn't have as much time at my dad's as I originally wanted, but we played tennis, went out to dinner with my brother John, bought a Squishee from an authentic Kwik-E-Mart, and went to the midnight showing of The Simpsons Movie. I washed Sei, but because of a power outage, I didn't have time to polish and wax him. :x I miss him.... ;_____;

Flying back to NH was a hassle, with the airline security and bad weather around DC, but I got about halfway through HP7, instead of doing stuff I actully should have been doing. And last night was the free They Might Be Giants concert at Mohegan Sun! I just barely got in, which meant I actually got to be in the reserved section instead of the regular section. There were free giant foam hands, and they played some old stuff I'd never heard live before, like The Famous Polka. And I wasted way too much money on the slots afterwards. -_-

And now I have a freaking ton of stuff to do before I leave for Japan, so I really should stay off the internets as much as possible.


22 days
4970 miles

Wooooo, got my Cinematics ticket for Sunday! And album comes out Wednesday! *bounces*

Now if only I could get my printer to work.... *kicks it*

*spazz spazz*

OK Go concert = EFFING AMAZING. So much.

The show started with a local band called Scamper. Their songs were all chord-based rock; nothing too original, but very very good. The next band was The Cinematics. Think Simple Minds meets Franz Ferdinand. They were incredible. Just wow. And the lead singer is hot times nine billion. He had this great '80s haircut, and looked like he just stepped out of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And the Scottish accent? Yeah. Rwar.

And then OK Go! >o< And I was way close up front! So not only was I out of the path of the speakers so my ears didn't get murdered, but I had an awesome view of everyone, especially Tim, Damian, Damian's legs, and Damian's crotch. X3 They had a big projection screen behind them which played different things during different songs, and it worked really well. Especially during "Invincible", when they showed not the video itself, but all the stuff blowing up in the video. During "Here It Goes Again", it was a trippy treadmill design. XD They were all dressed in the style of "Oh No" too; Damian had this really cool tie pin, and Andy was so cute in his suit, and Tim was pimpin' like always. About the third song in, Damian goes, "Okay, who in this audience is a good musician?" and I'm like, "Me! 8D" and he gives me this kind of suspicious look and then hands me a miniature tambourine with the OK Go logo on it!!!!!!!! They threw some more out into the audience, but mine is specialer because it was personal. ^o^ Plus the song they played then was "Don't Ask Me", which is one of my favorites. It kind of broke during "It's A Disaster", but somehow settled itself out. ^^;

About halfway through the show, they went into the middle of the audience and did really nice intimate versions of "A Million Ways" and "What To Do." Then they went back onstage for the rest of the concert, and they finished (way too soon!) with the "Million Ways" dance. The screen in the background showed the same shot of Damian's backyard from the video, which made it all that much cooler, but OMFG, seeing Tim and Damian dance like that only 5 feet in front of me. I thought I was going to faint from the sexiness. And the fangirls all screamed when Damian and Andy were dancing together. XDD

Then the sucky part! The band didn't come out afterwards. D: Which was odd, because they nearly always do. Me and a group of girls I kind of assimilated into waited until security kicked us out, and then we hung out at the merch table. I got the OK Go DVD, and the Cinematics single. Then we were hanging out some more, and who do I see at the coat check, but Scott, the hottie lead singer from The Cinematics! So I asked him to sign my single, which he did, and then he gave it to the drummer to sign, and as we were chatting, the bassist showed up, so he signed it too. I mentioned that I really wanted to have my tambourine signed by OK Go, so Scott (have I mentioned how incredbly hot he is?) took it backstage for me!!!! ^______^= Of course, it was during that time that The Cinematics' guitarist showed up, and Scott had my silver marker, so he had to sign my single in regular black ink. ^^U So even though I didn't get to see OK Go personally, I did get my tambourine autographed, plus the really really really really hot rock star guy was nice to me! *flails*

Then I got horribly lost on the way home, because it was dark and rainy and only my third time driving in Boston. ^^; Like that matters when I have total awesomeness to sustain me.

You should see the bruise on my thumb from that tambourine.... XD;;

Oh yeah, and go listen to The Cinematics at their website.

( for my own reference - song list )