I didn't get the job with BCC. They passed it over to some girl who claims to "really need the money." I don't know her story, but oh well, such is life...

You know, I've been into this anime called Full Moon wo Sagashite. I really like it, it's about a young girl named Mitsuki who was diagnosed with throat cancer and she was visited by a couple of the Shinigami (angels of death) and was informed that she'd have until next Spring to live. She said her dream was to become a big-time singer. Meroko and Takuto (the Shinigami) grant her the wish, and she turns into a 16 year old J-Pop singer by the name of Full Moon. It's really great and heartwarming. I think my favorite character besides the obvious 3 (Mitsuki, Meroko and Takuto) is Ooshige Masami. She's really nutty! She reminds me of Miyazawa Yukino from Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou (His and Her Circumstances.)

I've been giving my friends advice on learning Japanese, advice that I've passed over from fluent speakers of the language. For the sake of simplicity and out of the goodness of my heart, I'll repeat it here. ^_^ BTW, if you can't read the Japanese text, right click the browser window and go down to Encoding and select either "Japanese (Auto-Select)" or "Unicode (UTF-8)".

Learn the basic grammar first. I have a really good book, but I seem to have misplaced it so I can't give you the ISBN number. It's a tiny red book with "Japanese Grammar" written on it, I think published by Barron. I highly recommend it.

Learn Hiragana (ÐçÈjafter learning the grammar. I cannot stress this enough. You will definitely want to learn it first, since that's the real foundation of the writing system.

After you've learned and are comfortable with Hiragana, learn Katakana (fJf^fJfi) as soon as possible! Katakana is very important, it is used for "loan" words as well as foreign words.

After you've mastered both Hiragana and Katakana, you have only one choice... Kanji (SZs). Kanji is very extensive and will take years to even learn the 1,945 characters required to graduate from High School in Japan. To make your life easier with Kanji, I recommend this book: Kanji and Kana: Revised Edition by the Tuttle Language Library. The ISBN number is 0-8048-2077-5. I highly recommend it. The book also has some information on Hiragana and Katakana.

Well, I guess that's that. Until next time! ^_^

I feel much better now. The flu I had last weekend took me down for the count... I was really wiped out. -_-;;

I'm taking a new job with my community college, working as a gofer for the art department. The pay's not the best, but at least it's something, heh. I'd earn about $100 a week, which should be plenty to live on, seeing as I've been living off the past few weeks with a $30/week allowance from my parents. You see, I'm gonna trick myself into believing I still have a budget of only $30 a week. I should be able to resuciate my Japan Trip fund pretty soon. Yeppers. I'm aiming for a summer 2004 window.

So yeah, this morning was kinda weird. I overslept, woke up at 11:15 and got dressed. I turned on my computer and got an IM from my buddy Ian, with an URL to a news article, with a comment: "I guess we won't be seeing that launch in March." I thought maybe that March 1st mission was scrubbed. I clicked the link, and it turns out it was about the Columbia accident. I screamed "Oh my God..."--well, not screamed, but it was loud enough for my dad to hear in the next room. He ran in and asked what was wrong, and took one look at the computer monitor and ran into the family room to turn on the TV. We just sat there watching the news for a good half an hour. It's been an odd day, and I want to say that our hearts go out to the families of the seven heroes that perished in the Columbia tragedy.

I feel like total shit. It's this damn cold.

Like the subjct implies, I've reached a critical decision in my life.

Due to tensions among my parents and myself, I have decided to move out as soon as I get a decent job. I still do love my mom and dad but 20 years is a pretty damn long time to live with them... I believe it is time for me to move on, start a life of my own without my parents watching over me like a hawk over everything I do.

I spoke with my friend Rich and he has a vacant room in his apartment and has invited me to move in. He's a very good friend, and has offered to let me stay for less than 50% of the rent. It would be a $250-300 minimum a month for everything, which isn't bad at all! I'm looking forward to it, but first I need to find a job... and fast.

This situation is starting to wear my patience thin.

Well, I've been busy the last couple of months, that and I forgot all about this journal. So much has happened that I'll skip over most of the details, if that's alright with you guys. ^_^

I went down to South Florida the weekend before Thanksgiving to attend ACC Expo. Suffice it to say that I met some really cool people down there (You know who you are! ;) and I had fun, although the con itself was boring. It was nothing but a glorified dealer's room with two anime showings that had no subs. Bleh.

I finally got the school semester over with, took my exams and all. I'm proud to say that I passed all my classes! ^_^ Well, 3 semesters down, 5 to go! (I think...)

As for my Japanese studies, I finally learned all of Hiragana and I'm starting to learn Katakana (although that's been on hold due to Christmas and New Year's). I bought an excellent book called Kanji & Kana - A Handbook of the Japanese Writing System - ISBN # 0-8048-2077-5. I highly recommend it. It's a dictionary of the entire Hiragana, Katakana, and the 1,945 Jouyou Kanji characters and the 284 Jinnei-yo Kanji (used in given names). If you want to learn Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji for only $19.95, get this book. I'm serious. ^_^

I threw a party at my house for New Year's, and it rocked. I had Javier and Scott come in from Miami and my friend Will with his two friends Keith and Mike. We had lots of DDR, watched anime, and had a lot of fun. We also watched Dumb & Dumber on TBS Superstation. We got pissed when they cut out our favorite parts though. >:(

I took Javier and Scott to the video game store where I used to work, and I gotta say, I'm so pissed right now. They kept threatening me with layoffs, telling me that they can't afford to keep me, and that I'd get laid off by the end of the month (December 2002). I go there today and see them with TWO new people! What the hell is this? It just makes me so mad. I'm thorough with that place. I'll take my business elsewhere. If they won't respect me and tell me the truth, I don't want anything to do with them. Assholes.

I don't want to end this journal on a negative note, so I'll think of something to add before I click Submit...

Five minutes later . . .

Nope, can't think of a thing. ^_^;;;

I finally sold that Famicom Game Axe Color that had been lying around for months. ^_^ (It's a portable Nintendo, runs on 6 AA batteries.) Got $88 for it + $9.99 shipping on eBay. So proud of myself. ^^

Well, I broke my digital camera recently (Accidentally dropped it at the JACO party while in costume, damn gloved hands!) and was about to hock it on eBay but tonight I managed to fix it, so yay for me! I was planning on getting a new camera, a much nicer one for $349.99. My current camera is an Olympus Camedia D-380, 2 megapixels. I was planning on getting a Camedia C-4000 (A professional level camera, 4 megapixels). It's worth $700 but can be gotten for $349.99 if you look carefully and don't mind the fact that it was refurbished. But it's a good thing that I fixed my camera. That means I can use it for ACC Expo next weekend in Ft. Lauderdale! Sugoi!

I must have BAKA written on my forehead in a permanent marker (a la Photon.) Last Sunday I was bored and hung out with Rich. And you know what that means, folks? Yup, Susan. So we go to TGI Friday's and have a good meal. I showed Susan how to write her name in Hiragana. Rich needed a favor which I was happy to oblige; he needed to go to the grocery store and pick up groceries since his car was broken. So we all go there and get the groceries. Susan pretty much behaved herself this time, except for when she ran off to read some Harry Potter mini-books. So I felt that everything was okay between us now. Wrong. She begged for a ride again on Thursday (well, not begged, she actually didn't beat around the bush this time) and I told her I would give her a ride on the condition that she help reimburse me for gas. She agreed and so I did. I just hope that she knows that doesn't mean I'll keep giving her rides anytime she wants.

Speaking of my ride, we have 4 problems with it that we know of. 1: The engine misfires a lot, and my dad can't figure out why. 2: The wires for the windshield wipers went bad, and the wipers won't work sometimes. 3: The AC has a serious leak and it looks like we might have to replace the entire unit. 4: The radiator leaks! Big trouble there! My dad and I had a nice talk today and he thinks we will get another car for me soon since all the repairs would be pretty expensive, and we'd rather put the money into a newer (and better) car. I'm thinking of something simple like a 4-door Civic or Altima. Anything to replace my POS Chevy S-10. We'll see.

Ha-ha? Get it? I know, it's corny... :P But that's what's going through my head right now. ^_~

Anyways, it's been a while since my last entry... A lot going on, both good and bad. Let's start with last Friday, shall we?

I went to Nicki's 21st birthday party. ^_^ I had a lot of fun, though I was the only one at the party not wearing black. Felt kinda embarassed but still had fun. We watched a bad 'B' movie. I don't know what it was called, but it was so bad it was funny!

Last Saturday I drove all the way to Orlando (for the 3rd weekend in a row) to visit my friends Jon, Joe and his girlfriend Shelley at their apartment. We played Grand Theft Auto 2 over the network for hours. ^_^ I then drove to the UCF campus for a halloween party and ended up driving around campus for 45 minutes (It was friggin' huge!) looking for the communications building. I found it behind the art gallery... With a little help from the campus police. O_o The party kicked total ass, though! I met Hotaru, one of the Florida Cosplayers that I had been talking to the day before. She wore a really cute Saga costume, and it just so happened that Garry and his wife was doing Cinnamon and Basil again, and their kids went as Sugar and Salt (cloud fairy version), and Carmel wore her Pepper outfit, so I wore my Salt (sun fairy version) outfit. ^_^ We had an awesome group photo. SUGAR ROX! ^_^

So this week I had my third Calculus test. And I gotta tell ya, it didn't go well at all. I studied a lot for the past two weeks, and I understood everything on the test. I was looking forward to it in high spirits. When I sat down, though, I completely forgot everything and froze up. Now, it's happened before, and I know it's not test anxiety, and I was told last year that I might have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). I'm finally following up on that this year.

Yesterday I drove up to Orlando again (for the 4th weekend in a row!) to visit my brother. We went out to this huge chinese buffet then drove to the AMD Reality Check contest. We didn't win anything but I got this really neat bag, I'm using it now for my laptop. Today we drove to Ormond Beach to visit my grandparents, since it was my grandma's 73rd birthday (I think it IS 73rd, anyways.) Other than that, it's been quiet today.

Oh yeah, and I'm working on a new costume now. I'm gonna be doing Orphen. ^_^

(In case you didn't know, the above quote is Nelson from the Simpsons, where he points and laughs in almost every episode.)

The reason is that Susan got her just desserts... Well, kinda. She had the nerve to IM me earlier today begging me to take her to the anime club meeting. Of course, I'm not fooled... She just wanted to see her boyfriend so I tell her no. I show up at the meeting and I see her there (she had gotten a ride there from somebody else) so I came up to her and gave her a stern talking-to about how I will never help her out again because of her behavior. Well, when she asked for a ride, it didn't occur to her that she'd need a ride back so since her boyfriend's car was broken for the moment, she was stuck over there. Serves her right for not planning ahead and taking advantage of people like me. Oh well.

Tomorrow night I'm going to my friend Nicki's 21st birthday party. ^_^ It's a costume party too, so I'm gonna wear my Salt costume. THEN on Saturday night I'm driving to Orlando (a 45 minute trip) to attend the Japanese Animation Club of Orlando (JACO) annual Halloween party, again wearing the Salt costume. One thing I hate about being poor is that I'm wearing off-brown cargo shorts for it, and it does look out of place, but... Oh well.

Oh yeah, I saw a new anime yesterday called Overman King Gainer. Pretty good for a mecha anime, even though I'm not into mecha. I'm more of a shoujo/shonen/comedy person. At least it's not an Evangelion ripoff like Gasaraki was... @_@

Azumanga Daioh is coming to an end... WAAAH! I'm about to download the 26th and final episode from newsgroups in a few minutes, and it's sad knowing that there'll be no more Chiyo-chan, no more Osaka-chan, no more Sakaki-chan, etc. Whhhhyyyyyyyyy?!

Okay, more personal news... I'm sick. I'm sick with a cold. It's a very light one though, I should be over it in a couple days. I had to skip Calculus class yesterday because I couldn't concentrate at all, and I was supposed to have a test tomorrow. Fortunately I talked to Mrs. Folmar, my teacher, and she allowed me to take the test at 11:00am on Monday. She rocks! One thing I don't like about her is that when she talks, she talks continuously, and I can't get a word in edgewise until she's finished. But that's a minor thing... ^_^

You know, I just noticed... my anime DVD collection is getting really stagnant, what with me not having a job. I think there's another Love Hina DVD out, but I sure as hell can't afford it. Are one of you willing to get it for me for Christmas? ^_^;;;

Well, that was a great weekend. ^_^ We finally saw Spirited Away, but more on that later. First I want to say a few words... I can't believe how incredibly stupid I am for feeling that if I wanted to be friends with Rich, I have to be friends with Susan. I came to the realization that Rich is a REALLY good friend, and wouldn't let Susan come between the two of us and I'm grateful to have a friend like him. On that note, Susan finally recognized the problem. She and Rich had a long talk Thursday about the situation, and he feels that I had just cause to be upset at her. Rich also tells me that Susan tends to be clingy and is easily spoiled. He tells me that if she keeps at it, all I have to do is tell her to stop, and she may get mad, but then calms down. It's just her nature, and I understand that now...

*ahem* Anyways! Now about the weekend... it was fun. Dan, Nicki and I left Melbourne around 7pm and arrived at Orlando at 8:30pm. Nicki wanted to get to Hot Topic at the Altamonte Springs Mall before they closed at 9, but we were too late so we stopped at the World's Largest McDonalds on International Drive. And damn, was it huge. Two stories of glorius fast food, an ice cream bar and a pizza parlor, not to mention an arcade area with a Pump It Up machine. It was a sight to behold, but the prices made me wince. Something around $5.25 for a Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese, Supersize fries, Supersize coke scared me, but I bought it anyways. We go to the Universal Studios Citywalk and end up being 10 minutes late for the movie, and guess what happens? The box office tells us they sold out. At this moment, Nicki was really apologetic, even though it was not her fault at all. We reassured her that everything was fine, and that we'd catch the 1:50 showing the next day. So after that we go to my brother's apartment in Orlando. My brother had a lot of work to do so he was up all night in front of his computer while Dan and Nicki slept in his room and I slept on the pullaway sofa in the same room where he was working. It didn't bother me at all since I couldn't hear him, and I had a pillow over my eyes. It was a rather uncomfortable sleep and I woke up with a crick in my neck. Well, after a couple hours we decide to drive to Altamonte Springs to visit the store she wanted ot go to, Hot Topic. We must've spent about 45 minutes in there, because by the time we came out, it was already 1 hour before the movie. We went to the food court and got some food to go. I think Dan had a burrito, Nicki had a sub, and I had chinese food. We ate on the way to Universal Studios, and Dan was behind the wheel of Nicki's Mercury Grand Marquis. Big mistake. We almost get into 2 separate accidents on the same road, not even a minute apart, because Dan didn't check the next lane before switching. Dan, you're my friend, but you scared me shitless! Knocked off about 5-7 years off my life span. But I digress. We get there around 1:25 only to find out that the moive started at 1:05, not 1:50. Well, we buy the tickets anyways and go in. Apparently we didn't miss all that much, so that was good. The movie was excellent and I had a great time. I highly recommend the movie for anime fanatics and non-fanatics alike. Excellent storyline, good animation, even though it was a Studio Ghibli movie (which are infamous for round faces and silly sentimental stuff.) I didn't see much of the sentimental stuff that were in typical Ghibli movies. So all in all, it's a great movie. ^_^

I have a feeling that drama's gonna go down today (Wednesday the 16th) between me and Susan... We'll see.

UPDATE
Well, I was right... Susan asked me to drive her to Downtown Melbourne and I finally dropped the boom on her. She won't be asking me for any more rides for a long time. ^_^ *is proud of himself*