Being Sick Sucks

Right what it says on the cover.
So I caught a cold. I think the last time I was this visibly sick was since... that time I got food poisoning in April. That was a horrible day, but that's for later. I think the last actual cold was in October, or that ambiguously unwell day in May (not sure if that was stress or a real cold). The last 6 days have been varying degrees of "wow I want to punch a hole in my head because I feel so terrible".

And finally, I feel mostly human again. Yay.

What I want to say is, if it's a sore throat/phlegm-y/lung-hacking cough-a-thon of a cold, gargle salt water. I read it somewhere on the internet a while back and decided to try it on a desperate attempt to do anything that would make me feel better, and it worked. It really works to help get that gross stuff out of your system.
That and peppermint tea saved me these last few days when the cold moved from fever to throat. (But since I was super craving for peppermint tea, I went out to the supermarket to get some while I was still unwell and managed to get myself sicker. So that was a no-no.)

This has been a quality post. Only not really.

Tactile and Music

I know it's the same old excuses, but yes, life is at another turning point and things are busy. Just recently (read: last Friday), I finished my year at the Children's Entertainment program, and have started freelancing (read: 'holy cow I'm an adult now how does this work?!').

...oh, and what a crazy year it was. Sure, it had its ups and downs. A LOT of ups and downs. But when I look back and think about it, I seriously had a whole lotta fun with the best bunch of people I had the amazing privilege of becoming friends with. It was easily the best year of my life.

So, enough of me being sad and sappy. Today is another music kind of day.

I came across this music video on tumblr back in March, and fell in love with everything about it so much I was practically speechless for a good while.
Yeah, I treated myself to his CD ("In Focus?") very soon afterwards.
Shugo Tokumaru is, simply put, amazing! I don't think I fell in love this fast with a musician since... well, maybe that one time in 2010 when I had an inexplicable The Doors obsession, but that's a long story.
Anyway.
The music video is insanely awesome. Just watch. It's so cool.
But it's his music that I want to talk about today - not just this song, but all of his music.
What I fell in love with was his selection and combination of disparate sounds, and how they come together so well to create melody. And his voice, the way he lets his words flow out of his mouth... There's something inexplicably soft and fleeting yet undeniably present, like fine wool teased out and draped over your eyes. Also, sometimes, even I find it hard to decipher what the lyrics are - and I'm Japanese. But I guess it's ok, because I enjoy listening to how his voice rolls along the rest of the music in a cascading flow of sound. When I stop at times to let the lyric part sink in, it's all the more mesmerizing.

When I listen to his music, it makes me think of a river made of glass beads, wooden puzzle pieces, toys, cotton, metal cans, and a sweeping spiral staircase. All the components are distinct with individual textures, yet melding in all the right places. And it's tumbling down a waterfall in a curtain of light and dark and sound.
I also love some of his more mellow, darker songs that feels like velvet running through a forest or a mountain, with a trail of senkou hanabi (a tiny, hand-held, flickering firework) tiptoeing in its wake.
It's very tactile. Maybe that's why I love it so much.

And I have a very weird, long-winded, and unhelpful way of explaining things.
I've always struggled with "conciseness and clarity" when it comes to writing.

Commitment Issues and The End

I have big, and I mean BIG commitment issues when it comes to finishing a TV show. Namely, I barely finish a season of a TV show, especially North American/English TV. I just can't explain why... um, I have a short attention span?
It's not like I don't have the time - if I really wanted to, I could easily cut back on sleep and watch a show, marathon a series in one go. But for some reason it just hasn't happened very frequently.

And then I thought back to my anime watching. In the past 2 months, I have successfully watched the entirety of Fate/Zero, Baccano!, and Mouryou no Hako (the last two were re-watches, though). Maybe it's the 30-minute timeframe that grabs my attention better?

Then I thought about the difference in story and structure - especially the ending of a show/season. North American/English shows (S1) are usually made with the assumption and hope that a S2 or more will be made, so season finales are often cliffhangers or some mystery. And the desire to continue and 'become successful' means almost every season finale is like that.
On the other hand, Japanese TV (including anime) are mostly made with a definite ending in mind. The audience goes in to a show expecting a clear ending that wraps everything up, a story that is self-contained. 'Success' of a TV show is not necessarily defined by a sequel/subsequent seasons.

There are pros and cons to both types of structures/ending - but I guess that knowledge of working towards a definite end appeals to me more than the possibility of longevity, only because that's the kind of media I've been exposed to most.

Summer's the Time for...

Horror.
Japan has a tradition for telling ghost stories in the summer to keep you cool - the scary stories that sends chills down your spine are supposedly effective to beat off the summer heat. (I don't get chills I get scared that's what)

I've mentioned a while back about the 'oh holy John Belushi on a pogo stick' levels of absolute NO I have towards the horror and gore genre.
I don't like scary things in general - I'm a real wuss, I know.

But I do have exceptions... sort of?
I love Natsuhiko Kyougoku's famous Hyakki Yakou series, which is a mystery novel series that's so thick you can hit someone on the head and probably knock them unconscious. It's not necessarily horror per se, but I think it somewhat comes close. It's definitely scary, deals with really freaky things. There's girls' bodies stuffed in boxes, a lady who's been pregnant for twenty months, a husband who keeps coming back alive no matter how many times the wife kills him, a mass murder in a temple... it's hard to explain, it's very Japanese in its sensibilities and aesthetics and sense of unease. And I love it.
As much as I can't do horror or gore, I love reading the spooky, eerie stories with crazy murder scenarios. I tend to deal better with horror/scary stuff in prose. I can't do horror films and such...
Hell, I even hesitated to watch Paranorman (which was awesome by the way).

I guess the point today is as much as I can't deal with one thing, there's always exceptions and specific boundaries.

Anna Finally Finishes Fate/Zero

(or: Anna Tries To Go See Pacific Rim But Fails Due To Bad Weather)

I actually finished S1 (the first 13 episodes) of Fate/Zero in mid-June.
Yeah. Mid. June. And after that, I didn't have the chunk of time to binge on the last 12 episodes.
The plan for Friday (yesterday) was to go see Pacific Rim with a friend. So we bought tickets, went to a diner to kill time before the movie, and then a thunderstorm came. Well, it wasn't so bad, but I was a bit worried of the off chance that it did get bad (Toronto got hit with a really bad storm just last week and that was still fresh in everyone's minds), so we got our tickets refunded and went home. So I had no plans for the night.
Why not finish Fate/Zero?

...I'm not going to spoil it, but holy crackers, it was good. The series was recommended very strongly by my writing teacher, and I am very glad that she introduced it to me. Because it's so darn good.
Why it was so darn good: The writing was definitely awesome, and each episode was really intense. There was no scene or action wasted, everything was thought-out and had a purpose. Plus, the characters were all fascinating. It was hard not to get invested in everyone, even the 'bad' characters, because they were all developed so well, with such distinct voices. Everyone had their story, their purpose, their throughline, and it all worked together so well.

Conclusion: I feel like I've burned myself out, it was so intense. But now I want to re-watch the entire thing and cry over it again.

From one to the other

As a part of the Children's Entertainment program I'm in, there's a course on children's books. I'm writing (well, writing samples of) a middle-grade fiction book, and it's really hard. Since I'm basing the story in Japan (that's no surprise), there are obviously many things like specific words and jargon and turn-of-phrases that I want to use to express something in particular. 

Today's theme is something about translation and expression.

I'm no writer, so I knew this was going to be hard, but not this hard. Whenever I write a sentence, I have to make sure I'm explaining things clearly when I could easily explain that in a single word (with all the specific nuances) if it were in Japanese. For instance, how a wall looks. "Plaster" or "stucco" just doesn't feel right for me, even when it's a direct (and correct) translation of shikkui.

This sort of "knowing what it is in one language but not the other" really makes it hard to succinctly express whatever I want to say or convey. Recently I've been lucky to have several one-off translating/interpreting gigs, but with every job it really hits me that languages and their subtleties are so different, and some things just don't translate well. I'm aware that I don't have the kind of mastery of a true native-speaker with either language (English/Japanese), so even when I see translations that don't correlate with the original text, I'm incapable of making a decent fix.

Well, this turned out kinda downer-y.

But I guess what I want to say is (a) translation is hard and (b) utmost respect to the professional translators out there because language is such a subtle and sensitive subject.

NATSU-BATE

Natsu - Summer
Bate - (rhymes with latte) a short-from of the colloquial verb 'bateru', to be tired and worn out

'Natsu-bate' - my current situation.

I've been worn down by the heat. I know it sounds like an excuse...
Since I grew up in Japan, people often point out that Japan is more humid and hot than Toronto "so summer here (in Toronto) shouldn't be that bad".
Wrong. Maybe it's because I was born in the winter-time, maybe it's not. But the thing is that I've had a tough time during summers in Japan, and Canadian summers are no different.

Natsu-bate is the phrase that sums up the general bleargh feeling and lethargy and mild unwellness that stems from the heat during the summer.

But there are things I'm liking about summer in Toronto, this year.
I went to the Gay Pride Parade (it was a great day, though I could barely see the actual parade from behind the huge crowd), I'm loving the sweetened iced teas, I love the long days, and my eyes have been opened to how awesome a sangria tastes in the outdoor patio (with a giant plate of nachos, please and thank you).

So yeah. Conflicting emotions about summer. But I hope my body will get out of the sick natsu-bate-ness anyway. I have a busy week coming up...