Hello all you lovely people, it's been so long since I blogged that I feel like I need to do this post in a bunch of small pieces as none of these really warrant an entire post.
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I made a video with my New Years/19th birthday resolutions
Here it is.
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It snowed a bunch here last week!
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misc Photo Booth photos from the past few weeks
obsessed with short hair
new hair bow
damn straight they are.
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tonight I had dinner with Corie, who's a lady from NS who knows basically everyone I know but we'd never met before, she's currently living in Tokyo as well. Went to this great place with amazing ramen (and I am crazy fussy!) and walked around the Shinjuku skyscraper district for a bit. Absolutely lovely evening.
not the best photos I've ever taken.
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I look some self portraits, have two.
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I'm going to being featured on my friend Caelan's blog, Sasssquach.com, next month and my newest series will be shown for the first time! It's entitled 'ianto', which is the only hint you get.
Another goal for the rest of my time in Tokyo is to take better photos of the city itself. I want to try to take more photos at night, since it's such a cool place.
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I hope you all have a good day and a pleasant tomorrow!
It's funny, I was walking around Shibuya tonight (not a single decent photo came from the evening, though I really wasn't prepared.) and I was thinking about how even though I've been here for a short time how much more japanese my style is.
There's so many 'cute' things here, it's infectious. I mean, grown men in business suits can have fluffy phone charms and rock and roll people still have hello kitty merch. It's not looked down upon at all, it doesn't make you a princess, it's just a way of being.
A few weeks ago I bought a pink dress that I'd have laughed at before I moved here and this evening I got a necklace that is insanely girly, so so much more than I'd have ever been comfortable wearing in the West.
In fact, here it is. And I'm obsessed!
Not much of a point in this post, just something I noticed tonight.
I don't scoff at pink and bows and adorable things here, the way I absolutely did at home.
I'll be sort of interested to see if I continue dressing like this once I'm home, or if it'll suddenly seem far too doll like and I'll never wear any of it again.
Speaking of my new pink dress, I was actually wearing it today when I made my Q&A video with questions from my Tumblr followers. Please enjoy some HD Signe.
I'm planning on making a video everyday for a week as a bit of a personal challenge, so look forward to heaps more of me!
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Started watching Torchwood yesterday, which is a spin off of Doctor Who starring one of the best DW characters, Captain Jack Harkness, and his alien fighting team based in Cardiff.
Because where the hell else would you be based?
Anyway, it's good.
Cool story, right?
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I hope you all have a good day and a pleasant tomorrow!
slept funny so my back was a bit tight this morning but it felt almost fine at work and then on my way back to the train station from the farmer's market I tripped and fell (I never used to fall down, since I moved here I've tripped like daily.) and managed to make both my knees and my back feel like they were on fire?
My knees seemed to have calmed down a bit but my neck is killing me and I have a headache again.
Poor baby.
Sorry for the lack of photos, I didn't have my camera for any part of today.
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Buuuuuut here's the video from yesterday and a few of the self portraits I talked about, that I also took yesterday.
The song's Rave On preformed by Buddy Holly.
(I suggest you go watch this on YouTube because it's playing oddly on my blog.
you can do this by clicking the 'YouTube' icon that is in the bottom left of the video.)
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I'm actually working on a new project which is going to be a series of diptychs of self portraits taken in my room and landscapes of my experiences in japan.
I've started to put a few together in a book and I'm really really pleased with the results so far.
I may share a few once I have more that I'm psyched about.
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I hope you all have a good day and a pleasant tomorrow!
I spent most of today just hoping I'd die. (not really)
So sick. throat's still killing me, about 98% sure I have strep throat at this point.
stopped on the way back from work and got some vegan ice cream & some soup.
drank like 5 cups of my garlic/ginger/honey tea (seriously just put chopped garlic and ginger (not minced, you want it to be big pieces) in a mug, add hot water. And honey, if you want.) and watched the new Doctor Who. And ate some ice cream.
Took a bath, read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for a bit. Nothing like your favourite book when you're feeling down.
Called my insurance company to make sure I'm covered/find out what to do etc. It was scary. I've never really had to properly deal with stuff like that before. It made me feel grown up, but it also made me burst into tears the moment I was off the phone. So.
Took some more painkillers, they don't seem to help my throat much but if I could just get my neck pain/headache to go away or at least mellow down that'd be fantastic.
Took a nap for a while, I'm so bloody tired from being sick and still working.
Now I'm going to see if I can force down some soup and drink some more tea. Pretty much just waiting up until I can Skype with Da. I miss my family so much when I'm sick. Magnus will soon be waking up to his second full day at camp, I miss talking to him already. Though I hope it has a really outstanding time, I'm sure he will.
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My day actually got better from there. The painkillers did help my throat a bit, or maybe it was all the tea but I was able to eat the better part of a bowl of soup (indian dal soup, a bit bland for my normal tastes but it was good for the moment) and drink more tea. I hadn't actually eaten anything that could be called a meal since Thursday night, so I really needed it.
my throat! good lord!
poor me, what's a lady to do!
Skyped with Da, he's awesome. Gave me good advice, made me laugh, sent me a photo of my cat to cheer me up, I mean seriously. Best father ever.
Watched the new SNL, because everyone love a good laugh. (I'm just going to get it out in the open and say I want to be best friends with and/or marry Kate McKinnon. Funniest most adorable person ever.)
Skyped with my uncle for a bit, but unfortunately I had to go to bed so it just our talk short.
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Monday
went to the hospital, no one spoke English. They gave me some number to call, called it. They sent me to some clinic (that was waaaay closer to where I live than the hospital) and the doctor there told me I don't have strep, I have tonsillitis! Which is neutral? I mean it's almost the same medication, so. Luckily they don't have to remove them, which apparently they don't always do?
I'm on 4 pills per meal (so, 3 times a day) for the next 4 days. Phew.
Going to take a nap, have some lunch and my first round of meds, and then go to work.
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Went to work, it was ok. The actual working bit was fine. Kids were nice, didn't get too confused about stuff, my throat wasn't even killing me.
But falling is the thing killing me right now. I can't really hold my head properly because of how swollen my throat still is, so I'm tensing my neck as I fall which is what's been giving me all the neck pain. And just being thrown at the floor something like nearly 100 times in two hours (even if it's by 5 year olds) is pretty much the worst thing I can think of doing while feeling sick. Everything hurts again. boo.
My boss brought my my claims forms he printed, so I need to get that in the post tomorrow. Or maybe Wednesday since tomorrow's super busy for me.
Got home just in time to grab my laundry inside before it started pouring. Then I went to Olympic to get some food, made a video about it!
boom. enjoy.
Something to look forward tomorrow is that since I can't go to Hombu until Wednesday night (well, I can do whatever I want. But since there's still a chance I'm contagious until 48 hours after my medication started I would never go to somewhere like that where I'm breathing all over people and their stuff.) is that I will probably go out to Eat More Greens! All my talk and I've still actually only been there once. So I think I'll do that and then come home and talk to da.
So yesterday (that's Thursday) I went to Osawa Sensei's class, he was great! Really enjoyed myself.
Went to work for the afternoon, painless. Which is how I like it.
Came home and then went to the Vegan Meetup! The food was seriously outstanding, so so delicious.
Only complaint would be that a lot of the people already knew each other and stuff and no one was especially welcoming. I ended up spending the whole evening talking to a really nice Finnish girl, Maria. So obviously other people's lack of inclusiveness didn't ruin my night, it's just something I felt like mentioning.
But seriously, the food made up for it.
It was an all you can eat buffet and they had amazing tofu salads, normal salads, vegan pizza, these sort of burrito things, heaps of vegetables cooked different ways.... and then there was a bunch of hot stuff (looked like rice and curries etc) but I didn't have any.
This morning I slept in all the way to 8! woo!
Ate breakfast and skyped with my family. We're already planning all the awesome stuff they're going to do when they're here, ugh, the more I grow to love Tokyo the more I'm looking forward to sharing it with the three most important people.
Yes, sorry I got a bit gushy there.
Decided to go to the Shinagawa Aquarium, and also decided to actually make this video.
I told my friend Liam that I'd make a 'day in the life of' video using his song, and it's good practice for me to make videos, so I did it! But it means I have only a few photos, since mostly I was filming.
Here are the photos, clearly, and the video will be at the end.
dots & loops and homegrown skateboards, the two places I miss from NS.
waiting for the bus to the aquarium.
I was waiting for the bus to the aquarium with this adorable little her and her mother.
she gave me some of her candy and then when we got on the bus gave me this hairclip as a present.
Add caption
here's this video! props to Liam Britten for the music.
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I went to Doshu's evening class tonight!
It was awesome, such a good energy, I practiced with this awesome older man who just kept talking to me in Japanese even though he knew I understood like .0001% of what he was saying to me.
But in a good way, not a 'I feel bad' way.
It's much cooler in the main dojo room at night, which makes class so much better.
then I came home and made myself a massive meal, once I realised I hadn't eaten since about 8.30 this morning. Oops, I forgot to eat again!
Now I'm just messing around on the internet, once this is up I'll be going to bed since I have to be up at about 6.30 tomorrow to be at work at 8.30, yay!
On the way home, I stopped by my favourote Korean grocery store for some apple juice and snapped a few photos, just with my mobile, off some of the stuff you can get almost anywhere here.
Obviously if I'd grown up eating it it would seem totally normal, but I still have a hard time with whole fish. Just, I dunno.
personal philosophy:
if you've already gotten to the 'batter and fry' stage, you ought to have already passed the 'cut off tail' stage.
Tomorrow night I'm going out to dinner with Keiko (she's the lady I do the English hour with) and her husband and daughter. The daughter's quite severely handicapped (mentally I know, I'm not really sure about physically) so hopefully she likes me.
But I'm really flattered that they wanted to have me out, because Keiko is so lovely to me and she is very excited to have me meet her family. I'm sure they're darlings too, of course.
