This conversation:
Also:
- packing for a week long trip in Maine
- found out that the woman who writes my birth control prescriptions may root for incredibly-anti-choice Sarah Palin, which boggles my mind on many different levels
- rooting for Yuriko Koike for the next Japanese Prime Minister
The weather is getting colder, faster.
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In an attempt to get back into the swing of working on my own blog (most of the time I spend editing and toiling over R’s blog, which has a new design up by yours truly), I’m going to write about what I’m into at the moment every Friday.
Design: I am seriously digging the design for logo of the new Prinny game R wrote about today. (see above) As I was editing his post, I could not get over how frickin’ adorable it is! So wish I had that kind of creative freedom at work.
Music: I am about a year late into this, which is ironic considering I was in Japan when the album came out, but I have been listening to Rip Slyme’s Fun Fair album at work non-stop on my iPod for three days straight now! Seriously it is the best thing to happen to my ears since…I can’t even remember! The video for Speed King has been taken down from You Tube for some reason (seriously: from a design perspective that video was pure eye candy. Also: DJ is friggin’ hot) so here is the video that should receive an award for most blatantly being in cahoots with Sony VAIO laptops. It’s basically just a giant commercial. (Also: What is Maicching?)
Movies: Taking a break from my usual excessive Food Network watching, R and I watched Men in Black the other night. It remains one of my favorite movies, along with Jaws and Jurassic Park. Seriously! Let me tell you why:
- pre-I, Robot-Will Smith
- Tommy Lee Jones
- witty dialog
- still-believeable-kinda CG effects
- comic book cred
- pre-Law & Order: CI Vincent D’Onofrio
- (my favorite) D’Onofrio’s character’s wife’s (yeah that was a mouthful) crazy bastardization of how to say “sugar water” (more like “shuhur wahdur.”) I quote this phrase more than you might realize (usually when watching Law & Order: CI)
TV: Wednesday night I watched the premiere of America’s Next Top Model (rooting for the transgendered Isis, baffled by the behavior of Korean-Japanese-American Sheena for simultaneously saying things like “race doesn’t matter!” but then saying things like “you ain’t ready for this yellow fever!”), followed by Jurassic Fight Club because I need to get my weekly dose of Dinosaur George, and then I fell asleep (yes a show about dinosaurs fighting can be THAT boring), missed an episode of Project Runway, and thus had to avoid on the following day reading on how awesome the episode was on my regular blog reads. X(
Japan: I miss you.
Misc. Love:
- The Cho Show
- Staying awake past 10pm
- V8 Acai Berry concoction thingie–although I’m pretty sure a purple carrot doesn’t exist (or does it?)
- Wii Fit
Misc. Hate:
- Heroes
- Missing Project Runway
- Waking up at 2am and, after doing a series of scared jigs, seeing a freaking beetle fall out of my shirt
Well my friends, that concludes my first week of stuff that’s happenin’. What have you got going on?
Related Posts:These are the top ten popular posts for April 2008!
There’s a lot of noise regarding Hideki Matsui’s marriage, which is very atypical of most sports marriages in Japan. Normally a sports celebrity marries someone in the entertainment or news industry to increase PR–in other words, make them look good. The woman, an attractive TV personality, normally quits her job after she gets married to the sport celeb, and is often older than him because naturally someone who leads such a stressful life needs a mother-figure in his life.
Came across this piece in the Japan Times. It is an interview with Hiroko Mito, who is celebrating the 10th anniversary of her bar in Shibuya. It’s an interesting summation of what life is like for a working woman in Japan raising children with a less-than-ideal husband. One point she makes is something that hits really close to home and is pretty commonplace thinking in Japan:
One thing that is hard for many people is making conversation. It’s even harder when doing it in a foreign language–you want to be able to tell jokes or get your opinions across in a completely different culture by using different words and in some cases, completely different ways of expressing yourself.
There’s an interesting opinion article in the New York times regarding the world’s food crisis. Different than the financial crisis and harder to find a solution to, author Paul Krugman offers several reasons as to why this food shortage is happening.
Things are starting to look up with new Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s plans to increase career opportunities for women.
There is a super-informative article at About.com on using bilingual dictionaries. The article is aimed towards those learning French, but the same concepts apply to any language.
What? You enjoy sketching AND you have a moleskine? Who would’ve thought the two could ever cross paths? (I kid.) Most artists, with the right amount of office supply enthusiasm, know that a moleskine = awesome art. Why?
“Chinese like gaudy things,” says the female guide escorting one early-morning group. “For that reason alone, cherry blossoms are popular. And Japan is the only place where they bloom in such profusion. Around this season, it’s a popular tour package.”
If you had the option of going to jail for two years or learning a second language, what would you do? Such was the proposition that three Spanish-speaking men faced when arrested for accosting two men on a street. The judge ordered that instead of sitting in jail for 24 months, the men could learn English, get their GEDs, and find a full-time job.
I am so glad I was able to find a video of this ridiculous competition, in which four women competed to see who could eat the most okonomiyaki. I saw this on TV and was completely mesmerized.
These are the top ten popular posts of March 2008!
Decades of an Americanised diet, Okinawa health officials say, is partly responsible for making islanders fatter, more prone to heart disease and likely to die sooner than either their elders or compatriots in many parts of the mainland.
I’m not going to lie to you: the best way to learn a language is to have it taught to you by a native speaker. You will have someone to correct your mistakes, and learning the language in a classroom setting will force you to get used to studying it regularly if you find you don’t have the discipline to do it yourself.
Everybody in Japan knows what a chikan is. The word is in our textbooks, joked about by our teachers, and trains have signs posted everywhere for people to beware of them. So what is a chikan?
So you want to learn a second language. Maybe you’ve come across multi-lingual people and felt like you’re missing out, or maybe you’ve read some of the articles on this site and decided to try learning another language for yourself. However you came to the decision to learn another language, here are some tips on getting started.
I am not such a huge fan of Disney as I was when I was kid–for one thing, the movies have progressively gotten worse and the storylines seem very desperate. Japan, however, has continued to fully embrace Disney, possibly even moreso than average Americans. One character that immediately jumps to mind is Stich from Lilo & Stitch, the little destructive blue alien with a love for Elvis.
Came across an entry on drinking water by comedienne Margeret Cho in her blog. She combines two points that I think are encouraging beauty and health tips: don’t wear a lot of make up, and drink tons of water so your skin will look good without it.
Does getting your hair cut mean that you’re anticipating a slowing economy? Businessweek has a short write up in regards to Nikkei’s findings that the length of women’s hair depends on how they see Japan’s financial stability.
Following this list of ten universities that offer free online courses, I sorted through the sites and found which ones offer free language courses:
This month’s Kansai Scene has three interesting articles on moving abroad. Not just limited to Japan, the articles cover reasons why one might choose to live abroad, and the resulting impact:
This is a ridiculously funny how-to video on sushi, poking fun at the Japanese culture’s love for knowing how to do everything properly. Learn how to enter a sushi-ya, the different types of tuna available, and how you can supplement your salt intake if your soy sauce was lacking.
These are the top ten popular posts of February 2008!
It’s true that there are really creative ways to recycle waste, and making a fashion statement that increases environmental awareness is one of them. But I think making a gown out of drink pouches is overkill.
Sometimes I will meet a person who can tell right away that I am Asian–this simultaneously makes me happy (I really wasn’t adopted!), and scares me: what describes someone with Asian features?
I got this red cape-ish thing the other night at Honeys (you can actually see it in the February issue of Zipper.) When I first tried it I wasn’t sure what to think, but after being persuaded to buy it by R, I have to say this has been one of my favorite things that I have bought here!
In this post, I am writing on how being forced to buy new moisturizer opened up a new way of looking at things for me and eventually incorporated olive oil into my daily skin care.
This post is about the health and beauty aspect of using olive oil, and why I recommend it for those who have problem skin that is dry/oily/prone to break outs.
One big part of learning a new language is the vocabulary. Even if your grammar is not so advanced, knowing enough vocabulary will help you get your point across more-so than if your grammar was quite advanced but your vocabulary was poor. Of course, it is also really time-consuming and involves a lot of brain power, so I compiled a list of tips that I use when I am studying new sets of words.
A stole is a basically a large bandanna or scarf made of thinner material. R bought this stole today, which he wears folded in a triangle tied around his neck and under his jacket.
Since my boyfriend R has come to study abroad with me in Japan, he has also noticed a difference in how Japan handles environmental responsibility. Since I’ve been here for five months already, it’s interesting to get a fresh perspective on everything again.
Read classic English literature and you will notice that there are often characters that are multilingual, speaking one if not all the romance languages. Why is this not the case anymore? As English speakers, why do we feel comfortable just knowing as much?
One new star, a foreigner who calls himself Jero and wears hip hop clothes, is gaining attention as the first African-American Enka singer. Watch this clip and tell me you don’t get goosebumps:
If you hadn’t noticed by now, I am overhauling the layout of Paperfoxes because I was tired of the old one. I’m still tweaking it here and there, and eventually plan to organize my older articles better for those who want to read them. If you notice any problems with the site, please e-mail me and let me know!
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Photo taken by me in Kobe
My special little blog turns 1 year old today! Hooray for staying on board. I’d like to think that my content has improved over time, but in actuality I think it only started to improve very recently.
This year I would like to keep going, and maybe switch up the content a bit. Less shout-outs, and more informative posts that engage readers. I am also going to try to be more personable (is that a word? Well, it is now) and give more insight on my life style, habits, and reflections. This may be a turn off for some, but I’m hoping others might find it interesting–especially since I am due to graduate this spring, I would like to use Paperfoxes Run Run as a way of documenting my post-graduation activities.
OK, but seriously, who’s bringing the cake?
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Stan Lee, picture from Wikipedia.org
Happy February, all! (I know this is early for those outside in America, but I am blogging from the future, so…!) This year I am going to sum up the top 10 popular posts for each month.
Here are the top 10 posts for January:
1. Happy New Year! 2008
2. Social: Gender Role Reversals in Japan
3. Food: Curry, Aloe and Sesame Seeds
4. Design: Wii Fit
5. Fashion: Cool Shi(r)t(s)
6. Music: Tomodachi no Uta by Nakamura Ataru
7. Social: Questioning Authority
8. Environment: CO^2 Offset New Year’s Greeting
9. Conquering Our Cetaceans With 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
10. Art: Stan Lee Tribute
Not surprising for this blog that there is a mix of popularity among different categories! I love that my new-found love for strange food has made it into the top 3.
Related Posts:You may or may not notice that on the sidebar, there is a feed from my new Twitter page. Follow me on my micro-adventures, which is sure to be filled with fun in small amounts! (Or something!!)
Related Posts:Well, for those of you who are still following this blog, you might have noticed something: I’m actually blogging! Being on winter break, I decided to use some of my free time to keep this blog alive. I feel good in that my posts have been fairly heavy in content, whereas before it was mostly shout-outs to more deserving sites.
Other items:
- As always, suggestions are welcome to help improve the quality of this site.
- Guest writers are also welcome–e-mail me to get started!
- I have been humbly studying French on my own for the past few days. So you may see more French-related items appear, which I don’t think will be a bad thing. I like studying things that will expand my perspective on the world.
- I’ve been trying to get out of my shell more and write posts on topics that I really take to heart. Please remain open minded about such posts, and if you need to argue, please do so intelligently and without sass! This is a sass-free blog.
- I am closing the Paperfoxes forum due to lack of activity. Maybe someday when there is more activity on this site, I will re-open it!
Also, I have a few questions for readers: I have been thinking about putting more posts that revolve around fashion/style, including daily outfits and the like. Would this take away from the quality of the site, or make it more interesting? Would it be irrelevant? Should I just create a new blog instead? Let me know what you think in the comments!
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