Entry 050: Another finish
Man, it's been months since my last real entry. BUT, at least I'm making an effort to write this last one for 2015? Better than nothing!
I wanna write a brief update and overiew of the year... however, I'll start with a bit of what I did around Christmas!
First, here's a collection of goodies I got for Christmas!
I got little cup of chocolate from one of the Japanese teachers I work with (I guess she doesn't know I don't like chocolate, haha.)
In the mail, yumi_usagi always finds and sends me amazing decorative Christmas cards!! This year was an awesome ornament!
Then, I got a super neat Texas Christmas card from tilmon that even had a recipe on the back! Maybe if I learn to cook I'll give it a go!
From a twitter friend, Nurf, I got a cool postcard from Singapore! I've really been looking to expand a postcard exchange with my friends this year (not that it's going all that great).
A majority of my presents came from tegopyon of which some I got on Christmas and some today! I'm quite easy to buy for and we hang out WAY too much, haha. But from her, I got the Jack Santa and Leroy tsumtsum, Haikyuu's Kageyama keychain and Aichi-themed clearfile, and pairs of socks that I nearly bought myself. Most of them she ninja'd!
It's not physical, but genichirou_nei greeted me on Twitter with a lovely Christmas image of my favorite Rudolph boys.
From my family back home I got a nice $200 increase in my bank account. XD
My holiday break started on Tuesday the 22nd when, on that evening, Josie and I went for what we regard as a last hurrah on payday before we're too busy and broke for the rest of the month. It's pretty much a night of us going to an izakaya then doing karaoke until the next morning! Wednesday evening was when we hopped on an overnight bus to Tokyo for Tenimyu. 3rd Season's Seigaku vs Yamabuki opened on Christmas Eve and had a show on Christmas Day as well. I'll to work out an entry for that next time! BUT, I do wanna mention that I found myself very lucky to be one of 100 attendees of the Christmas Day show to do handshakes with a select group of the cast! They weren't my top favorite actors/characters but I'm grateful for the chance anyway. Though, to be honest, I personally would have preferred the autographed postcards of one of my favorite boys. I also get terrible jitters when it comes to handshake meets! Before the Eve show, Josie and I bummed around Ikebukuro by shopping before checking into our hotel. On Christmas Day before the show, we were in Harajuku, Omotesando, and Shinjuku. It was in Shinjuku where I was finally able to meet a long time LJ/fandom friend mystical_powers Alex! It was brief but nice! Also, before the Eve show, apparently Arashi was having their Tokyo Dome concert as well so luckily I was able to slip into the goods line to buy their fluffy blanket while the crowd was entering the venue! Overall, in the two days we were in Tokyo, much fangirling was done and much money spent!
The moment we arrived back in Nagoya on the 26th, we went to the 5th Anniversary ZEPP concert of BOYS AND MEN - Makoto. We were lucky and bumped into our friends from Taiwan who came to Nagoya for BOYS AND MEN too. On the 27th, BOYS AND MEN Kenkyusei had their concert during the day, which allowed us time to go to the final release event of MAG!C☆PRINCE. The 29th was supposed to be spent relaxing at home but I ventured to the BOYS AND MEN Cafe&Shop where I bumped into my Taiwan friends again and hung out a bit then before they had to leave Japan. On the evening of the 29th, not an event, but I quite enjoyed the live YouTube broadcast of BOYS AND MEN's BoymenMagic 90-minute special. There was a real-time chatroom that allowed the non-regional fans to watch so that meant a lot of fangirling with Boymen's foreign fans! As for the 30th, I had a last minute decision to go to Toyohashi for BOYS AND MEN - Kenkyusei's live radio broadcast because afterwards they were doing a cheki session.
Now that my end-of-the-year events are finished, with the exception of BOYS AND MEN's New Year countdown concert, I'm looking forward to 2016!
2015 was pretty good. Nothing really major! Here are just a few key events since March!
- April: Choushi, Chiba; MAG!C☆PRINCE; Seigaku vs Fudomine;
- May: Samurai Rock; KAT-TUN; Death Note musical; Da-iCE
- June: Team Live Seigaku; NEWS; Yutaka KoiRecipe
- July: Zepp NatsuFes; Kenkyusei VS Tokyo; Summer School
- August: Team Live Fudomine; Philippines; Beach NatsuFes
- September: Seigaku vs St. Rudolph; BM 5th Anniversary
- October: Sailor Moon musical; Kumo no Ito stage; English Camp
- November: Sports Live; move to Nagoya; Seigaku vs Fudomine DVD
- December: TRUMP stage; Haikyuu!! stage LV
Aside from my usual NEWS, BOYS AND MEN, and Tenimyu... new/rekindled interests that have lasted to the end of this year are...
- Haikyuu!! - I mainly gained interest when they announced the stage adaptation with a cast that included Kimura Tatsunari. I had a mild interest in the anime and manga just from what I was exposed to on Tumblr and my students. But I got pulled in so deep when I watched the anime! It had been a LONG while since I've genuinely got into any current anime series but everything about Haikyuu!! made me love it. It also helps to have a friend hold my hand in both comfort and encouragement especially when it comes to the merchandise!
- Hakuouki musical - This was super recent... like just a few weeks ago! One of the actors in the Haikyuu!! stage caught my interest and saw that he was in Hakumyu. I normally get super turned off by era/period/historical themes. However, the fact that I knew most of the casts, it was a musical, and I had vague knowledge of the characters' history made it easy! Also, I was really fortunate to come across someone on Twitter who was very friendly and open to sharing their love for Hakumyu with me. I have a great impression of the fandom so far. The musicals themselves are quite great as well!
- MAG!C☆PRINCE - Though I knew of their auditions since like.. what, November 2014, it helped me a lot to fully get into them once I saw them in person in April of this year.I had dipped in my excitement for D-Boys and D2 this year so MagPri was a nice, fresh faced Watanabe Entertainment group for me. The fact they're like D☆Date's little brother helps a lot too. I grew to really like these boys and watched them improve these past months. They had the advantage of a big agency to back them up that BoyMen doesn't have but/so they deliver a good show and great experience when interacting with them.
A biggie... I MOVED TO NAGOYA. It was a litle sudden but I'm glad I did it! I really liked being in Toyota in the 2.5 years I was there but Nagoya is where I enjoy being.
Work has been good. From October to now, I have felt a lack of motivation, which I hope I can blame on my moving and the change in weather. However, In mid-December I had my yearly performance review with my supervisor and I voiced my low morale in work. My supervisor was really supportive, as he always is, and just reminded while I continue to enjoy working in the area that i work in. A few classes in my schools have changed that have made my schedule rather tough but I wonder how it will all change in the new school semester. Some of my workers have left this year but luckily all have been in good terms if not with some fun as well. There's one ex-coworker that a bunch of us are thankful to be gone. But, as a result, we got new people as well! As far as I go, we get along well.
My family has been doing pretty well, thankfully. My younger brothers are doing their university thing. My sister, though having had graduated her undergrad in May, is working while taking classes part-time to pursue another field. My dad and mom are still working their same old jobs, haha. Our dog, Junno, is getting noticeably older and weaker, which makes me sad with the thought to see him go. Bruce, the demon stray cat that didn't feel like leaving our house, is still around. Our two sugar gliders, Hiro and Tomo, I haven't heard much of lately since it's hard to Skype with them but they seem all right. Our turtles that I have since lost track of are getting bigger and bigger. I do miss my family, especially hanging out with my siblings and doing our dumb things. But, we're chill enough to deal with random LINEs and Skype moments. I often message my dad about random things. My mom isn't so tech-savvy and she's often at work, but I was happy to spend some time with her when we made our trips to the Philippines overlap with each other.
I miss my friends back home too, especially Jade, Julie, and Theo. We always did our geeky things together. It's still a little weird not being able to do our midnight movie premieres, random drive-outs and dinner dates, surprise visits, and just simple hanging out. There were a lot of big changes last year for them that I wish I was in New York for. Next year, I'll hopefully be able to see Jade again since she's touring around Asia in spring!
There are a lot of things I'm looking forward to do in 2016. Lots of things are already planned actually! A big one is BOYS AND MEN's tour trip in Thailand! It's expensive but I think it will be worth it! A bunch of stages are already planned for too!
In 2015, a goal that Josie and I set up together was to visit at least two diffferent food restaurants in each month. We managed to do so in every month with the exception of November with only one restaurant. But, I'd say that we managed to fulfill that goal!
Our next goal in 2016 is to watch at least 2 movies in the theater each month! Since moving to Japan and having had lived in Toyota, I wasn't able to watch as many movies in the theater as I usually did when I was in the states. It helps doing these kinds of things with someone.
A conditon I'm going to set for myself in 2016 is to very my leisure activities and the events/shows I go to. I'm already not quite doing a good job with that since I'm booked for three shows in 2016 for Tenimyu but... yeah, I was try and see different things! This past year has been nothing but MagPri, Tenimyu, and BoyMen. Aside from those, I've only seen one other music group (Da-iCE) and 5 stages excluding Tenimyu shows (Addams Family, Death Note, Kumo no Ito, Sailor Moon, Trump, Haikyuu).
I do have a few things lined up for 2016 at least!
For Tenimyu, I'm going to shows on January 1st, Valentine's Day, and the final day in Nagoya.
What I have planned but not necessarily got tickets for yet are Hakuouki musical, Kuroko no Basket stage, Daiya no Ace live II, Hana Yori Dango musical, Dance with Devils musical, and Makai Ouji musical. I'm not even certain if there are dates I can make, haha. But, those are my hopefuls already. I wanna anything new for me really.
Anyway, I'm glad to get this entry out of the way since I'll be relatively busy this New Year's Eve and New Year's day!
I hope everyone had a pretty good year themselves and hope entering the new year will be a pleasant one!
Bye bye 2015!