This week is officially Gangster Week in our house, because we have all nominated our favourite gangster films as the video rentage materials. The more cunning among you (and, y'know, the less cunning too,) may have already worked out what the first item on the list was. Reservoir Dogs, which I had actually never seen before. @_@ That was Liz's suggestion, and still to come we have The Untouchables, suggested by Daniel, and Goodfellas. I do have a secret love of gangster movies, it has to be said. ^______^
In other news, I taught a class of 100 kids today. Uh huh. I was absolutely terrified when I walked into the hall and saw all of them. But it's weird, usually I would completely clam up at the prospect of talking to an assembled mass, be they kids or adults, but the more teaching I do, the easier it seems to be getting. I love elementary school kids so much though. I think we must work on the same wavelength or something, because they just make me laugh so much, and the bunch of kids I taught today seemed to have a really good time. I got mass-glomped by about twenty of them at the end of the lesson, which was amusing, and one little girl absolutely made my day by telling me that she'd had fun in my class. ^___^
I want to be an elementary school teacher so hard.
here is the weirdest animal I have ever seen. It was on a TV show tonight and I felt compelled to Google it to find out what it was in English.
It makes a really weird noise, too. @_@
In other television related news (because other than work, that's essentially all I've been doing this evening,) this programme keeps using music from Wander and the Colossus. @_@
Particularly @_@ because it's a programme about fish. It does, however, remind me that I don't think I ever had a proper rant about that game. It's funny, hearing the music from the game makes me feel just the way I did when I finished it. Really quite upset. Sort of nostalgic about the bits of the game I enjoyed a huge amount, but generally upset.
##Spoilers ahoy, you have been warned. Spoilers for the whole of Wander, especially the ending.##
So the "way" it made me feel that I was just talking about. Looking back at it is quite strange because I spent about two days feeling really, really unsettled by the whole thing. I'd spent the week running around in a beautiful landscape killing huge great big monsters that I thought were in the way of my lovely noble cause, only to find out that the thing advising me to do the killing was the real great big evil thing and I'd made a terrible mistake. Which is all part of the storyline, and may have come as less of a surprise if I'd been playing it in English, I don't know, because I've never played it in English and frankly I was too upset to read the script in translation. @_@ But really, just finding out that I'd done something so completely immoral (and yes, even remembering it's just in a video game) as to kill all of these great big _innocent_ creatures for the benefit of an evil demon made me feel really horrible. @_@
At the end of the game you do get a "protaganist dies, so does demon" scene, and the girl you were trying to save does come back to life (along with protagonist, reincarnated as a small child,) but the whole subverted storyline just left me cold to it. Despite the fact that I ended up intensly disliking the game, it has to be one of the most emotionally affecting games I've ever played. I hate the way it made me feel, mind you.
And now I just wish they'd re-release the game with a less disturbing storyline, because then it would be right up there with Ico as one of my favourite games ever.
I should really, really be doing lesson plans for this week right now but I really cannot be arsed.@_@ I've done the hoovering, watered the plants and even mopped the floor and there really isn't much else I can do now other than plan. >_<
Hey I know what I'll do, I'll blog!
>_<
The rest of the world can buzz off today, as I sit here enjoying my post-horror-children bar of Rummy, because for once I am feeling satisfied.
I spent a great deal of this morning wondering where on earth I was going to get the money to buy food/get to work for the rest of the week and scouring my bedroom for loose change. Then when I went to my horror class, by a happy, happy stroke of Providence, I unexpectedly got paid. ^___^ I like days like that. I don't often get that "ooh, I didn't need to worry so much, then!" feeling, so when it does come, I've decided I'll savour it. ^______^
Also, I got round to copying my cds onto my miniscule new hard drive. I love re-discovering music I love but haven't heard in ages. ^____^
So, in conclusion, getting paid good, Rummy good, Zooropa the best cd no one else who reads this is ever likely to listen to. ^_________^
...who adheres blindly to superstition. This story makes me happy. Makes me proud to be English. Yeah we can't decide what to do with the 600 million-odd poultry birds in the country, but we'll darn well hide the ravens inside.
...I have a laptop again. HURRAY!
It may be old and crappy, but it's a laptop and that's enough for me. Although at the moment it's a bit difficult to get it out of Japanese...
I've found someone who's going to sell me a secondhand laptop for about £130. It's pretty old and crappy, but he's giving me XP with it, so I'm not exactly getting a bad deal. And hopefully when I've got some money I can buy some replacement bits for it.
So, this week has been busy. @_@ I started my new job out in the sticks, which, frankly, is full of hate just for the commute and the amount of stress it's caused me over lesson plans. I need to think of a good way to make lesson plans quickly and easily, but it's just thinking of engaging and fun games to play that take up all my time. Then when I've thought of them, I think they're crap and have to write the whole thing again. And do the students care? Noooooooo. It's all boring when you're an eleven year old who really doesn't want to learn!!
*headdesk* It only annoys me because I was one of those awful children who enjoyed learning things. -_-
I had a Day of Achievement today. I went to the bank and opened a bank account ALL BY MYSELF. Except Daniel came too. But the point is, I didn't have anyone there to do the Japanese for me! It involved a lot of my patented "point and click" communication, and the nice lady writing my address out for me. I *can* write the kanji for my address, it just takes about half an hour and I need to pull out my piece of paper that has the kanji on properly to check most of them. But I can do it. @_@ And they gave me a little bank book and took my money away, so I think I actually did manage to open an account. Hopefully in the next few days my bank card will come and I'll know I did it right.
Oh yeah, that pleases me. I've now got my own little seal for signing things. This was something I didn't really know about until I came here: you don't sign things in the same way that people do in most places, you use a little circular seal with your name on and red ink. And you just splob it on where they want you to and you're done. It's so much quicker than signing things. ^___^
What also pleases me is that my Omoshiroi Petto show is on at the moment. It makes my Friday nights. I don't know what it's actually called, but to me it will always be Omoshiroi Petto because it seems to consist solely of people and their interesting pets. My cat likes to cover himself in sellotape! OMOSHIROI PETTO! My dog can play baseball! OMOSHIROI PETTO! I have seahorses!!! SUGOI OMOSHIROI PETTO!
...and there are a lot of dogs. Dogs good.
But now we've finished watching all the dvds of season 4 second time around. *cries* Lizzu's reaction to the last scene did actually make it all worth it. Yes, Jack is just the man. So hard.
And in other news, my laptop is dead. As a dodo. No amount of poking or prodding looks like it's going to make it come back to life. I'm borrowing Liz's to write this, and frankly I don't know what I'm going to do for proper internet. >_< I had spent the last few days feeling miserable that I never catch anyone on Messenger, and this really is the sticks-in-your-throat bitter irony test. Ha! Want to sulk about never seeing anyone online, Katy? FINE! NO MORE INTERNET FOR YOU FULL STOP!
-_-
It makes it even worse that Daniel is going back to America next month, and now I'm terrified that I'm not even going to be able to talk to him after that. -_- Stupid computer I don't have the money to replace. -_-
So any bright ideas would be appreciated. -_-
Why did you feel the need to play video games until five thirty this morning, upstairs neighbour? WHY?
*headfutondesk*
That's a nice bit of news anyway. I am still an Egyptologist every so often.
I probably shouldn't write a blog entry today, but not being one to follow good advice or common sense, I think I will. Mainly because I'm fed up. I've been ill for a good chunk of this week and frankly it's spent the last 24 hours just getting worse. I do not enjoy waking up in the morning coughing up blood, as I suspect no one else would. Fortunately I'm quite sure I don't have the plague, I've just got a very, very dry throat. I can tell by the HORRIBLE GREAT PAIN. >_<
Yes I'm annoyed. -_- I hate being away from home when I'm upset and ill, it just makes things more difficult. If I'm upset, ill and at home I can sit under my duvet and watch News 24 until I feel better again. Away from home, I can sit under my duvet, look at the wall and feel lonely, regardless of who else might be there. It's one of my many talents as a spazztacular great idiot, along with complaining.
More than anything, feeling ill and lonely to boot really sucks. Not that either of them have done anything to make me even slightly suspect it, but I'm sure the rest of the house are fed up of me moping and coughing and hacking about all day. I am. I don't know why, again I would put it down to my skills as a grade A idiot, but I always feel like people are fed up with me. -_-
I know I shouldn't write retarded, self-indulgant blog entries like this because it does make me sound like a 14-year-old Livejournal user, but I just get the feeling that if I don't say anything right now I'll blow it up out of all proportion later and it'll be considerably worse. Maybe I should just !$£%ing well remember to take my medication more often. >_<
Well, that was a busy day. @_@ Dashing from one side of the district to another to teach childrens in the pouring rain. Not children in the pouring rain. We were in classrooms. But I had to walk/cycle in the pouring rain.
...but it's ok because I came home to shiny shiny presents and now I have my own little pet Hazuki-chan.
Be afraid.
Maybe I'll stitch things into you next time.
Sorry, that one just made me seethe somewhat.
Anyway, I'm a bit pissed off at the moment. I have been most of the day, for reasons best known to anyone but myself. I probably shouldn't be so pissed off, I found a lovely figure of Rider from Fate/Stay in the geek shop which has now joined my huge collection of money-wasting pretties. I know it's retarded but I like pretty models. More than manga or artbooks or shitajiki, shiney little gashapons do it for me. Especially when they're Rider, whom I adore for serendipitously being very similar to a character from my pet imaginary world.
More about which will come soon, hopefully. When I defeat my overriding shame about exposing the public to my writing.