Entry 052: First Up and Down
Another entry within a week? I admit I'm proud of myself!
But, I guess cause a bunch of stuff's happened within the span of a few days...
Monday was good-bad-day sandwich. In the morning was MagPri's first New Year event/shinnenkai, which I mistakenly thought was taking place in Kintetsu Passe. So, I hopped on a taxi to jet over to Osu's D+, a building that was only about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. D'oh! I made it in time for the event anyway! It was a bit... surreal. I didn't know what to expect of it aside from your chosen member autographing their debut single boxset cover. There was a lot of talk with Kengo as an in-need-of-help-from-Taishin MC and a small game between the boys where they weren't allowed to say any loan-words. Poor Hikaru was the loser where he had to blow kisses at everyone in the audience during a song. The audience did a blind voting for the song they'd sing and the one I voted for, Spin the Sky, was chosen. I really do like that song so I hope it gets released on CD. We also watched the boys write their new year goals/mokuhyou. Then, in numbered groups, we got to play a traditional Japanese card game called karuta. Each group got one member and I got Kaoru! I felt kind of bad postponing the start of the game to get a bit of explanation on the game rules but it meant Kaoru helped take care of me for a bit. BUT, that guy is still competitive as hell! The game definitely put my hiragana reading to the test! In the end, I was shocked I tied to win so I did rock-paper-scissors with the other girl I was tied with. I ended up winning, but luckily Kaoru was kind and said he'd write the other girl another of his mokuhyou. So yeah, I ended up winning Kaoru's!
That kid. His goal of the year is "muscle". I was pretty shocked to have won something by my own skill! (I guess?) This is why I never win their lotteries. I'm super happy though, but I don't know how to properly display or store it. Kaoru wrote it too close to the edge to frame it nicely. XD
Anyway, after that, was the boxset cover signing! I selected Hikaru even though I say Shuhei is my favorite member. I just enjoy talking to Hikaru and I had a good time talking to him. We were discussing which way to write my name was best. I was happy that he asked if my nickname, Tina, would be better, but he liked my full name too. I told him that katakana would be okay but he wanted to test himself with my full name. We went through each letter together and his handwriting was quite cute. Then, he explained his own autograph to me. He was proud to say "Bright, big castle!" Oshiro Hikaru. Ahhh so cute.
What I liked about the boxset in general is how all the members sign one side anyway, but the other is a lot more personal with the date, my name, and the time spent with them.
Once the signing was finished, they had a mini-live! At that point I was already impressed with how much was included in this event. Just as we thought it was time to go because it was already over 2 hours since the start, the staff announced that we would be doing hatsumode/first shrine visit of the year with the boys too! It's usually a shrine that Japanese people go to but we went to Osu Kannon temple instead. Again, we went by group and Josie and I were in Shuhei's group. He has weak English and had no confidence in speaking to us much but I was totally okay with that. He's my favorite member but I like him in a way where I'm content just sitting back and watching. He's very much just a normal guy, but weird when he wants to be. I learned of his fear of pigeons, whom inhabit temples in great numbers. He was cute~ After that, he gave us a proper send-off, which ended our shinnenkai with MagPri!
We later met up with Aileen, an area co-worker of mine, in Sakae where we did some light shopping with her before going back to Osu to the BoyMen shop and cafe. Josie left us before Aileen went on to go around Osu for a bit more shopping. She showed me a bit of her routine when she's in Nagoya, haha. One of the things I rarely do is go to game arcades. Her particular thing is doing UFO/claw machine and those of the sort. As a kind of Christmas present, Aileen let me search out for what prizes I wanted.
As a result, I got my first-ever Hakuouki goods! It was the only machine I saw with Hakuouki! (There were Haikyuu!! prizes too but those machines were expensive or difficult to play.) She won me Chikage Kazama and Saito Hajime! I tried a few machines myself and I failed miserbly. These are worse than gacha because at least gacha guarantee you get something! XD
After the arcade, we checked out other shops with one of them being WOMB, which is a shop that BoyMen members often shop at. While going around, I was happy to see that one of the staff members remembered us! I was even wearing what I bought from her! I saw a coat I wanted but it couldn't fit me, sadly. Oh well... it was expensive anyway! Aileen dropped by my place before I went to accompany her to the station when I suddenly got a call from my sister.
Due to circumstances that escalated in a matter for 2 days, my family decided that we had to put our cat down.
Not the most flattering picture of him, but this is how I've always seen him in an endearing matter. Bruce, was a stray cat my family adopted back in February 2014 so we didn't have him long. I've only met him the time I visited home for the holidays in Christmas 2014. But I always enjoyed watching him during my Skype calls. It was sad that he left so suddenly but we didn't want him suffering any longer. Who knows, had he continued his life as a stray maybe he wouldn't have lasted as long as he had, is what I'd like to think. I just hope he was content and comfortable during the time he was in our home. See ya, dude.
I spent the rest of that night feeling restless and worried for my family. Not only was i upset for them to lose a part of our animal family, but I was also worried of the financial burden we also gained. It's sad to think that it's less costly to have to let our pets go than to keep them for a little longer or at least find out what was wrong. But, it's a part of the responsibility of taking in animals like this.
As a result, I accidentally overslept by an hour the next day. I had arranged to meet with Reira, a BoyMen friend I met on Twitter, at 7am for the first of Makoto's Machibaru studio filming. I ended up rushing and taking a taxim still making me 40 mins late to meet with her. I still got an entry pass, but I felt horrible for making her wait so long when it was me who arranged the time. I treated her to breakfast because I felt so terrible. I went to a Komeda Coffee for the first time and it's cheaper than I expected! I definitely wanna go back to one. It was nice being able to chat and for me to practice my Japanese. I totally didn't know that she was a Tenipuri/Tenimyu fan! As for machibaru, we were still able to be beside each other even though our entry numbers we far apart. The filming was a little boring though, haha. But the VTRs they showed were of Yuhi, Tsucchi, and Honda going around Osu. Still pretty cute.
I decided against the second filming to walk to Sakae with Reira, who had to go to a BM pre-sale in Sakae. I went off on my own afterwards for some alone time. I still had Bruce on my mind as well as the mental preparation of going back to work! I let myself have one last day of freedom. That also means a lot of money spent!
The coat I couldn't buy at WOMB was still in the back of my head so I went around a few shops to find a similar coat. Even though I bought a new coat recently that I could use for more formal occassions, I wanted a new one for casual occassions as well.
In Forever21, I found this guy! The price tag said 2,199yen! I liked it but it wasn't the 'green' I was looking for. All the other jackets that were of the color I wanted but the same style were a lot more expensive. So, I settled for the pictured coat. At the register, it ended up being 1,662yen with tax! I had put off buying this style before because I would have judged myself for getting one that was similar to the one that Sato Yugo got... even though I was originally gonna get one before he did! After he got one, I changed my mind, but in the end it's a style that I used to wear back at home too.
Since I was in the area, I decided to go to Sweets Paradise in PARCO where they were having a collaboration with Da-iCE.
It was pretty expensive... so I ate my heart out. I knew I probably looked more pathetic than I usually do eating at a sweets buffet by myself. -sigh- But, it's the alone time I kind of wanted. Overall, I hope I ate whatever was worth the price I paid! The collab drink was quite good too. I also got the placemat and we could choose whose coaster we wanted! I don't have a favorite member but I do like Sota's voice so I chose him. Maybe I'll go back just for the drink and coaster. But, probably not. XD
Anyway, once I got home around 8pm, I completely crashed. I didn't wake until 10am.
Today, January 6th 2016, was the first day I return to work since December and it was when the shit really got to me this year!
I won't go into too much detail since this is very much work-related...
But, I arrived to my classroom very early to prepare for what would have been the first day of the week's event of parent observations. It's simply where the students' parents are invited to watch my lesson while the native Japanese teacher discusses the progress and future incentives of the individual student. When I first got to my classroom, I came across the issue where none of the faxes from the fax machine were going through. Later, my classroom phone was getting a lot of calls from various managers and supervisors looking for my Japanese teacher. I then messaged the teacher on LINE asking if she was okay and whatnot because, initially, I was genuinely concerned that something may have happened to her. Then, I get a call from someone in head office, who is also a teacher I work with, telling me that the observations are cancelled and the Japanese teacher had quit during the holiday vacation! Lessons would continue as usual but the parents had to be called to let them know that the observations were cancelled. For some reason, other parents were calling my classroom so I had to direct them to the Japanese-speaking phone service. UGH, then half an hour before class starts, I discover it's THAT time of the month. I was SO DONE at that point. I was so far done that I started laughing to myself while I downed a can of RedBull to get me through the day.
I just hope nothing for the rest of this year will try to out-bad today. XD
But, I guess cause a bunch of stuff's happened within the span of a few days...
Monday was good-bad-day sandwich. In the morning was MagPri's first New Year event/shinnenkai, which I mistakenly thought was taking place in Kintetsu Passe. So, I hopped on a taxi to jet over to Osu's D+, a building that was only about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. D'oh! I made it in time for the event anyway! It was a bit... surreal. I didn't know what to expect of it aside from your chosen member autographing their debut single boxset cover. There was a lot of talk with Kengo as an in-need-of-help-from-Taishin MC and a small game between the boys where they weren't allowed to say any loan-words. Poor Hikaru was the loser where he had to blow kisses at everyone in the audience during a song. The audience did a blind voting for the song they'd sing and the one I voted for, Spin the Sky, was chosen. I really do like that song so I hope it gets released on CD. We also watched the boys write their new year goals/mokuhyou. Then, in numbered groups, we got to play a traditional Japanese card game called karuta. Each group got one member and I got Kaoru! I felt kind of bad postponing the start of the game to get a bit of explanation on the game rules but it meant Kaoru helped take care of me for a bit. BUT, that guy is still competitive as hell! The game definitely put my hiragana reading to the test! In the end, I was shocked I tied to win so I did rock-paper-scissors with the other girl I was tied with. I ended up winning, but luckily Kaoru was kind and said he'd write the other girl another of his mokuhyou. So yeah, I ended up winning Kaoru's!
That kid. His goal of the year is "muscle". I was pretty shocked to have won something by my own skill! (I guess?) This is why I never win their lotteries. I'm super happy though, but I don't know how to properly display or store it. Kaoru wrote it too close to the edge to frame it nicely. XD
Anyway, after that, was the boxset cover signing! I selected Hikaru even though I say Shuhei is my favorite member. I just enjoy talking to Hikaru and I had a good time talking to him. We were discussing which way to write my name was best. I was happy that he asked if my nickname, Tina, would be better, but he liked my full name too. I told him that katakana would be okay but he wanted to test himself with my full name. We went through each letter together and his handwriting was quite cute. Then, he explained his own autograph to me. He was proud to say "Bright, big castle!" Oshiro Hikaru. Ahhh so cute.
What I liked about the boxset in general is how all the members sign one side anyway, but the other is a lot more personal with the date, my name, and the time spent with them.
Once the signing was finished, they had a mini-live! At that point I was already impressed with how much was included in this event. Just as we thought it was time to go because it was already over 2 hours since the start, the staff announced that we would be doing hatsumode/first shrine visit of the year with the boys too! It's usually a shrine that Japanese people go to but we went to Osu Kannon temple instead. Again, we went by group and Josie and I were in Shuhei's group. He has weak English and had no confidence in speaking to us much but I was totally okay with that. He's my favorite member but I like him in a way where I'm content just sitting back and watching. He's very much just a normal guy, but weird when he wants to be. I learned of his fear of pigeons, whom inhabit temples in great numbers. He was cute~ After that, he gave us a proper send-off, which ended our shinnenkai with MagPri!
We later met up with Aileen, an area co-worker of mine, in Sakae where we did some light shopping with her before going back to Osu to the BoyMen shop and cafe. Josie left us before Aileen went on to go around Osu for a bit more shopping. She showed me a bit of her routine when she's in Nagoya, haha. One of the things I rarely do is go to game arcades. Her particular thing is doing UFO/claw machine and those of the sort. As a kind of Christmas present, Aileen let me search out for what prizes I wanted.
As a result, I got my first-ever Hakuouki goods! It was the only machine I saw with Hakuouki! (There were Haikyuu!! prizes too but those machines were expensive or difficult to play.) She won me Chikage Kazama and Saito Hajime! I tried a few machines myself and I failed miserbly. These are worse than gacha because at least gacha guarantee you get something! XD
After the arcade, we checked out other shops with one of them being WOMB, which is a shop that BoyMen members often shop at. While going around, I was happy to see that one of the staff members remembered us! I was even wearing what I bought from her! I saw a coat I wanted but it couldn't fit me, sadly. Oh well... it was expensive anyway! Aileen dropped by my place before I went to accompany her to the station when I suddenly got a call from my sister.
Due to circumstances that escalated in a matter for 2 days, my family decided that we had to put our cat down.
Not the most flattering picture of him, but this is how I've always seen him in an endearing matter. Bruce, was a stray cat my family adopted back in February 2014 so we didn't have him long. I've only met him the time I visited home for the holidays in Christmas 2014. But I always enjoyed watching him during my Skype calls. It was sad that he left so suddenly but we didn't want him suffering any longer. Who knows, had he continued his life as a stray maybe he wouldn't have lasted as long as he had, is what I'd like to think. I just hope he was content and comfortable during the time he was in our home. See ya, dude.
I spent the rest of that night feeling restless and worried for my family. Not only was i upset for them to lose a part of our animal family, but I was also worried of the financial burden we also gained. It's sad to think that it's less costly to have to let our pets go than to keep them for a little longer or at least find out what was wrong. But, it's a part of the responsibility of taking in animals like this.
As a result, I accidentally overslept by an hour the next day. I had arranged to meet with Reira, a BoyMen friend I met on Twitter, at 7am for the first of Makoto's Machibaru studio filming. I ended up rushing and taking a taxim still making me 40 mins late to meet with her. I still got an entry pass, but I felt horrible for making her wait so long when it was me who arranged the time. I treated her to breakfast because I felt so terrible. I went to a Komeda Coffee for the first time and it's cheaper than I expected! I definitely wanna go back to one. It was nice being able to chat and for me to practice my Japanese. I totally didn't know that she was a Tenipuri/Tenimyu fan! As for machibaru, we were still able to be beside each other even though our entry numbers we far apart. The filming was a little boring though, haha. But the VTRs they showed were of Yuhi, Tsucchi, and Honda going around Osu. Still pretty cute.
I decided against the second filming to walk to Sakae with Reira, who had to go to a BM pre-sale in Sakae. I went off on my own afterwards for some alone time. I still had Bruce on my mind as well as the mental preparation of going back to work! I let myself have one last day of freedom. That also means a lot of money spent!
The coat I couldn't buy at WOMB was still in the back of my head so I went around a few shops to find a similar coat. Even though I bought a new coat recently that I could use for more formal occassions, I wanted a new one for casual occassions as well.
In Forever21, I found this guy! The price tag said 2,199yen! I liked it but it wasn't the 'green' I was looking for. All the other jackets that were of the color I wanted but the same style were a lot more expensive. So, I settled for the pictured coat. At the register, it ended up being 1,662yen with tax! I had put off buying this style before because I would have judged myself for getting one that was similar to the one that Sato Yugo got... even though I was originally gonna get one before he did! After he got one, I changed my mind, but in the end it's a style that I used to wear back at home too.
Since I was in the area, I decided to go to Sweets Paradise in PARCO where they were having a collaboration with Da-iCE.
It was pretty expensive... so I ate my heart out. I knew I probably looked more pathetic than I usually do eating at a sweets buffet by myself. -sigh- But, it's the alone time I kind of wanted. Overall, I hope I ate whatever was worth the price I paid! The collab drink was quite good too. I also got the placemat and we could choose whose coaster we wanted! I don't have a favorite member but I do like Sota's voice so I chose him. Maybe I'll go back just for the drink and coaster. But, probably not. XD
Anyway, once I got home around 8pm, I completely crashed. I didn't wake until 10am.
Today, January 6th 2016, was the first day I return to work since December and it was when the shit really got to me this year!
I won't go into too much detail since this is very much work-related...
But, I arrived to my classroom very early to prepare for what would have been the first day of the week's event of parent observations. It's simply where the students' parents are invited to watch my lesson while the native Japanese teacher discusses the progress and future incentives of the individual student. When I first got to my classroom, I came across the issue where none of the faxes from the fax machine were going through. Later, my classroom phone was getting a lot of calls from various managers and supervisors looking for my Japanese teacher. I then messaged the teacher on LINE asking if she was okay and whatnot because, initially, I was genuinely concerned that something may have happened to her. Then, I get a call from someone in head office, who is also a teacher I work with, telling me that the observations are cancelled and the Japanese teacher had quit during the holiday vacation! Lessons would continue as usual but the parents had to be called to let them know that the observations were cancelled. For some reason, other parents were calling my classroom so I had to direct them to the Japanese-speaking phone service. UGH, then half an hour before class starts, I discover it's THAT time of the month. I was SO DONE at that point. I was so far done that I started laughing to myself while I downed a can of RedBull to get me through the day.
I just hope nothing for the rest of this year will try to out-bad today. XD