Dear neglected Livejournal friend's list:

I have not updated in over a month. I have not even looked at my friend's list ina couple of weeks. I'm sorry. I do still care about your lives, honest I do! Time is just passing very quickly at the moment, with little time for much except homework. I really dislike the final year of university. I keep promising myself that I will have a nice long LJ session where I write a lovely big entry and catch up on all my friends' journals too. And then by the time I've finished all my homework (well... some of it anyway XD) I'm too tired to do anything but go to sleep. Even when I do go online it's because I have homework that requires internet. However. I think I am starting to get slightly better at time management, so starting today I have decided to start checking my flist at least every few days again and make time to leave comments, because I miss livejournal and I miss you people!

So, for anyone who cares (for instance, spiegelverkehrt who has told me off recently for not updating =p) here is a rough outline of my life at the moment:
*Japanese homework
*Worrying about not doing enough Japanese homework
*German translations
*Worrying my German grammar is not good enough
*Reading for my Japanese dissertation
*Worrying that there is no way on Earth I will be able to write 13000 words for that dissertation. And promising myself that there is no way in Hell I am going to apply for post grad studies because undergrad is half killing me as it is.

And... one or two things that are actually interesting XD
*Aikido. Started doing this just for exercise, and have continued, despite being low on spare time because, although I am not very good yet, the feeling of throwing a huge hairy guy on the floor on the rare occasions i can manage it is immensely satisfying.
*I managed to meet a nice girl =D I met her at a party at the beginning of October, and it had been so long since I was last interested in someone who didn't tuen out to be completely straight that I'm still wondering how I managed this XD She's in her final year of studying as well, which means we don't get as much time to spend together as I'd like, but does at least mean that we each understand how busy the other is. There isn't so very much to tell and I know it hasn't been long, but I think we moved beyond "just dating" last week when she came round to my house to cheer me up with chocolate biscuits and a fluffy film when I had a cold. I think it's an important step when someone still wants to see you even when you are snotty and miserable XD
Hopefully there will be more to tell about her in the future ^_^

In the meantime, I now pledge not to neglect my blog, or my flist. I haven't forgotten you all, honest, I just have a very poor perception of the passage of time x

Hi everybody... I suck at journal keeping. You've probably noticed XD

I must apologise for the lack of updates over the past month, and also for making promises about updates in the last entry that I did not keep. But (fingers crossed!) I am settled back in Cardiff now, so hopefully I will get back to updating once a week ish. spiegelverkehrt , you and your poking-stick do not need to scrape together the money to fly over to Wales and poke me any more! =p

I don't really know why I got so lazy about LJ since I left Japan, but I think it might have been because my last few weeks there were so busy, and the flight home so exhausting, that I just kind of died for about a week or so after I returned to my dad's house. I could barely be bothered to celebrate my own birthday XD And then when I pulled myself together and started doing stuff, the stuff I had to do was so depressing - trying not to fight with my mother for instance >_< - that I  still couldn't be bothered to update. And then I hadn't updated in so long, the idea of updating and writing about everything that had happened since last time was frightening me XD

So I decided just to start from now. My new house in Cardiff is lovely, there's loads of furniture in my room and lots of shelves for books. There's a nice squashy sofa in the lounge, and a huge TV, and there's a garden with strawberry plants. The weather has suddenly become beautiful after being grey and depressing for weeks which meant the emeraldlarunya and I could go and eat ice cream in the park with my friend Ed, and we've also has some nice relaxing times watching TV and playing Spore with our housemate Sophie. Our other housemate John has been a little elusive so far, flitting in and out and saying he's feeling "left out in a house full of girls" after begging us to live here. We'll see how he settles in later, I guess >_> Also, my brother starts his first year at Cardiff Universty next week and moved into a flat twenty minutes walk from me on Friday. It's nice to have him nearby.

And that is all I can be bothered to write XD I am very glad to be back in Cardiff after fifteen months away, it's such a lovely city, although I'm not sure how much I'm looking forward to classes starting again. I'm trying not to think about how hard I'll have to work really, as this is my final year.

*

Oh yes, and for anyone who cares here is a little bit of Eyeshield 21 fanfiction (although some people on my f-list have read it already). It is set post-Christmas Bowl, so beware of possible minor spoilers, and is Hiruma/Kurita. It therefore contains boys kissing and should probably be rated R for Hiruma's foul language.

 

( “Are you crying? Those better be tears of joy, fucking fatty!” )

 

 I have been meaning to write a monster update for two days now, and borth times I've been about to do it, the internet has crashed. =D So for now I will just write a list of the things I've done since my last post so I don't forget what order they happened in:

Nagoya - World Cosplay Summit. I got a ticket and it was mind bendingly awesome =D

Shirako, Chiba - ESS summer camp. Most notably, I broke my nose. The Story of this Nose (sorry, Gogol) and how I am trying to find a doctor who will give me folow-up treatment is becoming a saga in itself.

Sendai and Akiu (because we couldn't go to Tono) - 5 very naked days in onsens and such in the north of Japan.

back in Tokyo - Julia's farewell party.
                         - I died of exhaustion.
                         - I revived and Mone came to live on my sofa for the next few days.

And tomorrow I fly to Nagasaki. Maybe I will have time to update when I arrive back from that on the 21st, but I'm not sure XD 22nd is packing, and 23rd is leaving. I do not know how I feel about this right now.

Anyway I'm very much looking forward to visiting Nagasaki. I'm going to learn how to fish.

The sheet slipped off my feet in the night and now my ankles are all lumpy with mosquito bites. Also I left my onsect bite cream next to the air vent of my laptop and it melted. I'm an idiot XD

I about to embark on a series of mad dashes round Japan before I leave in exactly twenty three days time. So here, for your enjoyment and eddification, is an update of the last week. It includes a lot of drinking and singing XD

Last Friday: The ESS farewell party, in an Irish pub, followed by an extensive karaoke session until the small hours of the morning. A couple of the ESS boys cried because their exchange student friends are going home which was a little awkward, but very, very sweet. My ESS class made me a photo board which they all signed and a DVD of clips from ESS meetings and trips. I will be packing that in my hand luggage so British Airways don't lose it.

Saturday: Another fireworks festival, this time the Sumida river one which is the most famous and has been going on for 300 years or so. 20000 fireworks this time, or soemthing crazy. We arrived three hours early to get a good place to sit and still only ended up with me, emeraldlarunya, spiegelverkehrt, Laura, Hanna, Hanna's friend from Denmark, Melissa, Sanja and Pedja crammed into about one and half square metres which also included a thorn bush XD We had a good view though at least, and the fireworks were just indescribable. (Also emeraldlarunya and I when doujinshi shopping before we went to the Sumida. Did I mention that Hiruma/Kurita is my new OTP? Well I bought Eyeshield 21 doujinshi and it turned out to be Hiruma/Kurita. My life is now complete. XD)

Sunday and Tuesday were two leaving parties: Laura's neighbour Laetitia, and my neighbour Olivier. People are leaving every day, and it's kind of sad because in some ways I still feel like I only just got here ;_; Olivier says he'll come and see me in Cardiff though, and he travles so much that I actually believe him. XD

Wednesday we had a meeting for a trip I am going on to Nagasaki just before I leave. Part of it is a "peace seminar" where we (foreign students, Japanese students, and local people) visit the bomb museum and talk discuss war. We all thought this meeting would just be an informal getting to know each other session but the professor leading the seminar showed us a video about the war in Chechnya, which made Sanja cry because she is Serbo-Croatian and it reminded her of being refugeed and bombed. I'm not sure this guy has ever had someone who has been directly involved in a war on this programme before. We went to join some other students for karaoke after that, but it took us all a while to get into a party mood...

And today I begin my first trip =D I am taking the night bus to Nagoya (alas, alone as most people are busy doing other things), to spend tomorrow sight seeing and Sunday trying to get a ticket for the world cosplay summit. WIsh me luck, f-list, because they only hand out tickets on the day between ten and three, there's no way of ordering them and it's first come first served. So if I don't get in then I will just do some more sight seeing and then come home again (also by nightbus).

After that comes the ESS camp (three days at the beach in Chiba), a trip to Sendai and Tono in the North with spiegelverkehrt and Melissa, then the Nagasaki trip and then two days later - I fly back to Britain. So if I'm not online much over the next three weeks, well... I actually have an excuse now XD

Continuing the post I half finished on Monday but gave up on due to tiredness. As I said I begin with:

So... it's been eighteen days since my last post. spiegelverkehrt told me on Saturday that she kept wanting to poke me and make me update. I promised to update the next day and... still didn't. So I'm updating now, or she'll probably kill me. XD

Tomorrow I have a writing and speaking exam, and the grades don't count but I was still planning to do OK in it to not look like a total dick. But I can't be arsed and have instead used the slight cold I have as an excuse for an orgy of procrastination and not left the house or got dressed today. About the most energetic thing I did was run a bath. And I have read sixty chapter of Eyeshield 21. I have not fallen this much in love with a manga since I first read One Piece; sasori_katana this is all your fault!!!

And now an update. This will be very long and in list form, so I'm sure it will be tedious for people to read, and may even be written over several days as it's the middle of the night and I began writing too late. >_< I am writing it mainly to cling to the idea that I'm using this journal to keep track of all the good memories I've made in Tokyo, despite being so lazy at updating.


...THe rest of this update, starting with our trip to Kyoto, will be written tomorrow (hopefully ¬¬) as I am knackered and was interrupted by a phone call from Shingo about a trivial matter relating to the English Speaking Society. Honestly, Japanese people! Who calls at 11.30pm?

Frankie fails at updating: again.

I am so glad I  joined mallowmateys. It's the first time I've ever done anything like this, and RPing Kaku is so much fun. =D My only regret is that I didn't try it sooner.

And now on to real life.

1. Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2. List (and upload, if you feel like it) seven songs that start with that letter.
3. Post them to your journal with these instructions

1: Street Poetry, Hanoi Rocks.

2: Schlaflied, Die Ärtze.

3: Sailing Day, Bump of Chicken.

4: Sally MacLenanne, The Pogues.

5: Sitting On Top of the World, Cream.

6: So Once Was I, The Dogs D'Amour.

7: Seven Drunken Nights, The Dubliners.

(Not uploaded because I'm a lazy bum).

I have spent the most wonderful day at home with myself being lazy ^_^ I slept for twelve hours, called my family, read a book, lay in the bath until my toes turned into raisins and only got dressed in order to go and get a posh pizza from the restaurant in the nearest but one town for my dinner. Bliss.

(Sorry friend list, for double post!)

Following thermopylae_h's post of a List of Activities She Enjoys Which She Cannot List as Hobbies I said I would do one as well. And here it is, in no particular order:

1. Clicking the first link that catches my eye in a wikipedia page, then doing it again, and again... and seeing how far from the original theme I get.
2. Rearranging my bookshelves.
3. Sitting in the bath with a nice book and a cup of tea.
4. Drinking tea in general.
5.Reading the weekend newspaper over a leisurely breakfast.
6. As a subsection of 5: looking at the pictures of flowers in the seed catalogues that fall out of the weekend newspaper and planning the garden I will have one day.
7. As a further subsection of 5: looking at the adverts in the very back of the weekend newspaper's magazine and pondering the uses I might have for the items for sale.
8. Counting the number of cheeses mentioned in the Monty Python cheese shop sketch which I have already eaten and comparing it to the number at the the last time of watching. It is my mission to taste them all.
9. Casually observing the daily lives of birds in my dad's back garden. (This really pays off sometimes. Once I saw a collared dove getting in on with a crow).
10. Translating sentences in standard English into Lowland Scots dialect in my head.
11. Singing Irish rebel songs at the top of my voice as I do the housework.

See... what I thought would be really cool, is if some of you lovely people on my friend list did this one as well. And then encouraged the people on your own friend lists to do it. And if they encouraged their friends to do it too... would we have created an internet meme? I think that would be pretty awesome! Because I'm sad.

Seriously though... it rock if even a couple of people did one too, not least because I would love to see what little things make all of your lives more fun, but which you can't use on a job application form to make you look more exciting.

(I put this out as a general plee, because I'm not sure how to "tag" people for memes. It's probably blindingly obvious and I am just a fool.. maybe someone could tell me? ^^;)

I've been too lazy to bother writing in my journal since last Thursday, it's pathetic seeing as I mostly keep this thing for my own benefit XD

It's 2.20am and I have class at 9.20 and I have a cold and a can't sleep *whinewhinewhinwhinewhine* x_x I made a resolution to update my journal more often though, so I figured I might as well do it now.

 

 Just a quick entry today, because it's more than time that I wrote something but I need to leave soon to go shopping for a mobile phone.

As some of you are already aware, emeraldlarunya and I arrived in Japan last week =D Most of our time has been spent doing paperwork. Yes more paperwork. Even more than Germany. But most of it is finished now, and once we've got our mobile phones the final important thing to do will be sorting out internet connections for our houses. Hopefully I'm going to share a connection with the guy in the flat next to mine. My flat is awesome, by the way. Completely selfcontained with it's own bathroom (including Japanese bath) a little kitchenette, a washing machine, and a minute balcony. Most awesomely of all the previous occupants have left loads of things behind, like kitchen utensils and a TV and hoover, and a bizarre folding table and tonnes of stationary. I hardly needed to buy anything =D

We have already had one earthquake =o It was a little larger than the one in England was for me, so it was very small. My neighbour was really excited, he's from Sweden and has never, ever experienced one before. I hope we don't have any much bigger though, the walls of our house are thin and everything shook so much, I was actually a little frightened, wimp that I am XD

I know I keep promising to keep my journal more conscienciously and put up photos and things, but this time I mean it. (No really. Honest). Because Japanese cherry blossom really is as beautiful as people say it is, but you never quite beleive it if you've only seen professional photos. Umm... yeah, that'll do for now XD Classes start on Thursday, so since all my paperwork is done I will hopefully have more time to hang around the university and use computers. And hopefully some more exciting things will start happening so that I can write some really interesting entries. I already have a ticket so a Sumo tournament, and one of my classes includes a compulsory trip to see a Kabuki play! (Yo yoiii!!) =D

Well, time to go and buy a phone. Never fear! I will not be completely absent from internetland! (Like anyone even noticed anyway XD) By the way, Leone (or anyone else), if there are any fics or anything that you think I might really like that are posted until I get regualr intenet access, could you save the links for me? Thanks! <3

So... I leave for Tokyo tomorrow. Today, in fact. (Has just looked at clock). I am leaving my dad's house at 7am but I am too wound up to get a good night's sleep and... I haven't even finished packing yet XD I'm still waiting for the dryer to finish with my jeans before I can pack them. SO I am posting an LJ entry. As you do.

I am suddenly very nervous, actually. I was fine for weeks, until it suddenly dawned on me that I am actually leaving this week. And also, that I can't get anyone to bring me things this time round.  I think I'm getting better at packing though. I actually have more than two pairs of shoes this time XD I have also managed to cram in some tea, biscuits, playing cards with Gloucester Cathedral on them and a few other oddments that could be given as presents and even have some non-biological washing powder, as that was obscenely difficult to find in Germany and I want to be sure I can wash my clothes without developing a rash. This has been at the expense of not bringing as many books as I would have liked, however ;_; I pretty much only have my set texts, and nothing to read. So I will have to rely on the large quantity of DVDs I have crammed into my rucksack to entertain me. Especially if:

I am without internet in my room for the whole time I'm there D=
 
Sad isn't it, that's that's my biggest worry? XD emeraldlarunya managed in Nantes without any internet in her room, but the thought of not having it fills me more than a little with dread. And speaking of emeraldlarunya, at least I shall have her to talk to while I'm in Tokyo =D We are flying out together, along with Laura (who has been as much use as a fart in a spacesuit up to now, but I won't go into that here). Although the housing company have seen fit to put emeraldlarunya in a different block of flats, and put me in the flat next to Laura. I get to be the one who has to deal with her when she has nothing to do and is being childish and needy. What fun. I hope there's a pretty, single lesbian on the other side to me to make up for it. It seems only fair.

 But never fear! I shall not be totally absent from LJ, even if these dire circumstances come to pass. I shall be twenty minutes walk from the university and, presumably, from computers. I shall post regular updates about life in Tokyo! And maybe even pictures, which I ... never got around to doing for Berlin ._. I might even manage to post some fic, but you all  know me right? So you know how likely or otherwise it is XD

I am going to go and cram the last few things into the suitcase, then grab a few hours sleep. My next entry will probably be from a computer in the Travel Inn in Tokyo where emeraldlarunya and I are staying until our apartments are ready =o (Laura has a handy aunt to stay with instead).

Before anyone says anything, yes I am aware of the boycott. I am boycotting it. I think it is silly. I refer you to thermopylae_h's mos recent post, and the entry she linked in it. Pretty much explains my thoughts on the matter.

So I am posting the utterly cracked drawing I finished last night for sasori_katana. It is a picture of Jyabura, Marco and the children that maldoror_gw created for Jyabura. sasori_katana named them all. In this picture (from left to right) you see: Adolpha, Jyabura, Lupita, Marco, Weylyn and Ulrica.

Never before has one picture ever contained so much crack.

Well there we are, friend's list! It's not very good quality because it's done in pencil and has been rubbed out and altered many, many times. (Marco is hard to draw, as are small children). Should I post this terrible piece of crack anywhere else? And what do people think I should draw next. I'm in a drawing mood! =D