the blog i never update

Before you read: Where applicable, I will be putting content warnings in reviews, but whiting-out ones that I consider to be spoilers. If you are concerned about possible content warnings more than spoilers, highlight the white text at your own risk! If you are not overly concerned about content warnings but worried about spoilers, do not highlight the white text. Easy!

PLEASE ALSO NOTE that I am just one person who has her own biases, so I may have missed some content warnings on account of simply not even thinking about them, or not having seen the movie in so long I forgot about it. If that happens at any point, please feel free to drop me a line. Additionally, being both white and cis, I'm aware I am not an authority on racism or trans issues. If I've overlooked anything or overstepped my bounds in any of these reviews, please do tell me.

Nothing expressed here is fact except the parts I have labeled "movie synopsis." Everything else is opinion. I have a lot of yelly, Capital F Feelings about things, but at the end of the day I'm just one person. Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I'm no media critic. If you have a wildly differing view of a movie from mine, that's fine! In fact, please sound off if you have differing opinions in the comments, and maybe we can have a discussion about it! I occasionally enjoy being proven wrong about things. (No, that's a lie. I hate being proven wrong about things, but it's probably good for me. Or something.)

PLEASE NOTE THE TITLE OF THIS POST. It would probably be better titled as "Stuff What I Personally Like." This is not an unbiased review post of all Australian media ever. Basically: if you trust my taste and opinion on things, you will probably like the things on this list! If we have wildly differing tastes, you will probably not. Simple. I AM NOT AN AUTHORITY ON AUSTRALIAN FILM, NOR DO I WORK FOR THE FILM INDUSTRY. I AM JUST AN AUSTRALIAN. WHO LIKES STUFF. That's all!

If you have not noticed by now, I am a wordy motherfucker who likes the sound of my own voice and has trouble being both concise and coherent at the best of times. So sorry, not sorry. Strap yourselves in and buckle up motherfuckers, because this is going to be a long-ass post. Hope you like word-vomit.

As a final aside, if you do decide to watch any of these films and subsequently enjoy them, I hope that you'll leave a comment or hit me up on plurk (exclamationmarks) or gchat (athousandsmiles) or tumblr (emirin or cassaru) or twitter (ecphonemes) somewhere to tell me your thoughts!! I LOVE seeing/reading people's reactions to things. ALWAYS. Even when they're not always good!

Right! Now that that's all cleared up, without further ado:( ONTO THE MOVIES. )

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS

GOOGLE SKETCHUP IS LIKE CRACK

REALLY REALLY GOOD 3D CRACK

Well, I know what I'm doing for the next three days.

This is a master post for installation instructions and other FAQ regarding using the Trophospherical Blue skin for Dreamwidth!

What's that?
Simply put, it's a code that will convert Dreamwidth's Tropospherical Purple site scheme into a blue and white scheme reminiscent of Livejournal.

Okay ... why bother?
Some people don't like the Dreamwidth default Tropo layouts, but like the journaling service just fine! If you're happy with Dreamwidth's current site schemes then this is probably not the page for you. This skin was originally designed with LJ's original default colours in mind (white background, light blue comment boxes, wider page width, etc). There currently are not any skins in the works based on Celerity or with a vertical sidebar, so please don't ask. Sorry :(.

How do I know if I'll like it?
Here, have some handy preview pictures!


Click for a bigger preview! If you still need more, there is also this and this!

( Awesome. That sounds like something I'm interested in! How do I do it? )


ETA 7/01/11: Fixed a line after a code change that was causing the entry buttons box to be borked. If you installed this skin before this ETA date, click "Find Updates" in Stylish and it should be fixed! If that doesn't work for some reason, please tell me.

ETA 14/01/11: Edited in a proper greasemonkey-like extension link for Google Chrome into the FAQ, thanks to howdivine!

I have had the worst day.

I've been really, really sick this last week, to the point that I missed almost an entire week of classes. I'm getting better now, but today I got told in my Japanese Writing class that if I missed one more class or was late even just once, I'd automatically fail the class. Wonderful! (On the other hand, I'm passing the Japanese Speaking class with flying colours, but GUESS WHAT? I need to pass BOTH to pass my LAST language credit back home, which is only ONE CLASS, NOT TWO. fml.)

But that wasn't the really bad bit.

The really bad bit was that on the way home, I crashed my bicycle into a vespa.

(!!!)

THANKFULLY I am okay-- the vespa was going SUPER SLOW and slowed down even more before we crashed so I got off pretty lightly. Thankfully almost a lifetime's worth of tripping over my feet and falling on tennis courts has taught me pretty much instinctively how to fall properly so as to minimize damage (ie, not break your wrists and graze your palms), but unfortunately I was still tangled up on a bike so I couldn't exactly roll away to cushion impact either. Instead I landed weirdly on my right knee and elbow and they hurt, but not to the point that I can't move them, so hopefully I will be fine. The most worrying is the knee, but we'll see how that goes. The inside of my top lip is also bleeding in three places and swollen, and I also hit my head and the side of my face, but I don't even have a bump on my head, so aside from a mild headache right now, I think that will be okay too. My cheekbone has a HUGE bump on it though, luckily it's on the side of my face I can hide with my ~emo side bangs~ lmfao. I wouldn't be able to do that if I hadn't cut my hair recently.

Oh yeah, I cut my hair recently! I forgot to mention that. Here, have a picture.



Webcam shot from the halloween dress up day on campus on Friday. That's the only shot I have and it's a webcam shot, but it'll have to do until I upload proper photos. You can't see it well here, but I basically cut the front half short (from the back of my ears to the front) to my chin, and left the back half long (which is the bit that's tied up in plaits). My long hair has been bugging me a lot lately, but I didn't want to cut it all off either, so I made an anime-ish compromise. (I was aided in this decision by the fact that I can't see the back of my head and am not double jointed, so cutting the back myself would've been rather difficult.) It looks a little silly but I don't really care, since it still looks fine on me. Actually I've gotten several compliments on it, lol. I still tie the long-half back in my usual single braid most days (so from the front you can't even tell that I don't have just normal short hair) but I can finally wear the front half loose again without having to worry that it'll get tangled, or that it'll get in my food when I eat. It's great.

OH RIGHT. ANYWAY. Back to the bike incident.

So yes, that was the list of injuries. Not seriously hurt (we think, yada yada yada).

Really, the worst of it was shock. I've ... never been in shock before? I don't think. Not that I can remember anyway. But that was really terrible. There I was on, on the ground, sobbing huge fat tears like a big baby and getting soaking wet (it was raining, hence why I crashed in the first place-- I was riding my bike while holding an umbrella YES SHUT UP I KNOW IT'S ILLEGAL I'M NOT GOING TO DO IT ANYMORE and I was turning around a sharp corner and couldn't maneuver away from the oncoming vespa in time because I still had one hand on the umbrella) and there I was just hyperventilating away. People were speaking to me and I could understand perfectly what they were saying and I knew what I wanted to say back to them but I couldn't speak. I couldn't get any words out. It was horrible. Two other foreigners from my dorm though were walking home at the time and saw the crash and came over to help.

I didn't want to go to the hospital though, because hospitals and ambulances are expensive and an initial check of my body seemed to reveal that I could move all right, so nothing was broken or serious. Also I knew I was completely in the wrong for the crash, so I didn't want it to get back to the university and be scolded, I just wanted to go home and be warm and dry and have a bit of a cry. I couldn't communicate that though because no words were coming out, so we had a few (in retrospect) hilarious exchanges, like so:

(Italics = in Japanese)
(Also this is paraphrased and cutting out a lot of repeated exclamations of "What do I do?!" and other repeated questions and long pauses for hyperventilating and the like. Real conversation was much longer than it appears, but this was the gist of it.)

VESPA LADY: [Freaking out] Oh my god are you okay are you okay?
ME: [BAWLING BAWWWW everything hurts bawwwww]
VESPA LADY: Should I call an ambulance?!
ME: [VEHEMENT HEAD SHAKING]
VESPA LADY: [Turns to the other two foreigners] .............Does she understand Japanese?
LEWIS: She understands!
ERIC: She can understand better than we do, haha.
VESPA LADY: [Back to me] Do you want to go to the hospital?
ME: [More head shaking and hyperventalating]
VESPA LADY: [Back to Lewis] Does she really understand?! Can you translate for me? Ask her why she doesn't want to go to the hospital!
LEWIS: Uh...
ME: [Struggling to get words out] I... understand...
LEWIS: [Helping me up and gripping me hard while I test my leg and do a check of my body and bawl some more because everything still hurts]
VESPA LADY: Why don't you want to go to the hospital?!
ME: [Hyperventalating too hard to speak]
VESPA LADY: Hey calm down! I'm gonna call an ambulance okay?! [To Lewis] Does she really understand?
LEWIS: [Trying not to eyeroll] She's in shock.
ME: I'm okay! It's the shock. I'm ... okay.
VESPA LADY: Are you really okay?! Why can't I call the hospital??
ME: Costs... money...
VESPA LADY: I'll pay! Okay?
ME: [Headshaking "no" again] I want to... go home...
VESPA LADY: .............................................................
LEWIS: She just wants to go home.
VESPA LADY: Can you really go home like that?! I don't think I can see you getting back on that bike like that!
LEWIS: [Quickly] We'll walk the bike.
VESPA LADY: Okay ... well if you're sure ...

She was so confused. Poor lady.

The really funny part was, though, because almost this whole conversation had been in Japanese and the first language I heard after I fell down was Japanese, after the lady left and Lewis and Eric were walking me home and talking in English, even though I could understand them, for a few minutes there I couldn't think of what to say in English at all. All I could think of was responses in Japanese. It was like my brain got stuck in Japanese mode. Sob.

I really have to thank Lewis though. He was a big help. I don't know what I would've done if he wasn't there. He helped me stand back up again and held on to me very firmly during that whole conversation when I felt shaky and like I was going fall back down again at any second, and then helped walk my bike back home in the rain. Then I got home and Brittany let me cry on her pathetically for a few minutes and hugged me tight and then helped me change out of my sopping wet clothes.

So that was my day.

So much has happened this year that I haven't written about, I wouldn't even know where to start if I were to try and catch up with it all. So instead, have a true story that happened to me last night.

This is a story about a kitten.

Last night around 7 PM, I said to my fellow dormmates, "I don't feel like cooking! Hey, who wants to go to Kappa-zushi?" Kappa-zushi, for the record, is a local sushi train near where I live. It's extremely cheap (around $1 US a plate) and delicious and healthy. So as I'm sure you can imagine, this particular conversation comes up about ... oh, twice a week or so. It's pretty much par for the course. And so we set out, myself and three others, on the twenty minute walk to Kappa-zushi.

However, when we were just five minutes away from the dorm, A THING occurred.

We heard a tiny but insistent, very shrill meow, meow, meow. A stray kitten, about the size that would fit easily in the palm of your hand came running out onto the road to us. Fortunately there were no cars around, so we picked the tiny thing up and headed back in the direction it came from to try to find its' mother, kitten mewling raucously all the way. After a good search, it became evident that the mother had either died or abandoned it; there was no evidence of other cats or other kittens, and no mewling in response to our kitten's. Once we got it under a street light, we realised it definitely wasn't someone's pet. If you know anything about cats at all, there were a few tell-tale signs, namely:

1) It was far too young to be someone's cat; if you've ever owned a kitten before, you know what size they're supposed to be when you get them. This one was definitely not old enough. It was still too young to take solid foods.
2) It was far too scruffy and underfed to be someone's cat, not to mention, we later realised, flea infested. (It's okay, we checked and triple checked ourselves for fleas later and all spent a good long time in the shower afterwards; none were found.)
3) It had lost an eye somehow

Fleas or no fleas, there was no way we could just leave this poor animal on the street to starve or be run over. (It certainly didn't seem to have any reservations about the road.) Of course, since we all live in the dorms, there was no way any of us could keep it ourselves. The dorms have a strict and iron policy about animals: none allowed whatsoever, under any circumstances. You can't even sneak one in; to get into the dorm you have to go through the main foyer which is never empty-- not to mention, the dorm is Japanese style so the walls are impossibly thin-- even if you got the kitten past the main foyer, it'd only be a matter of minutes before someone heard it.

We walked back to the dorm anyway to see if our (Japanese) dorm RAs knew of a vet or shelter nearby we could take it to. They didn't know of a shelter, but they gave us directions to a small vet clinic about a 20 minute walk away. So kitten in tow, we set off.

Luckily for us, the clinic was open until 8pm. (It's almost unheard of for places in Japan except food places to be open late.) We got there at 7:30. The vet looked a little displeased to see a group of four foreigners and a flea-ridden kitten walk in half an hour before he was scheduled to close, but he talked to us anyway. Unfortunately, however, he said they couldn't keep kittens that weren't old enough to eat solid foods, so we'd have to find someone else who could take care of it. He didn't know where a shelter was.

Unfortunately, none of us knew any Japanese people in the area well enough to ring them up and say "Hey, I know it's sudden, but could you take care of a stray kitten?" Pets in Japan are a little bit of an issue, too: a lot of people live in apartment complexes thanks to population density problems, and most apartment complexes in Japan, like our dorm, have a zero-tolerance policy towards pets.

Eventually we bought a small carton of cat milk from the vet, went back home, picked up a large cardboard box from someone's room, got someone else to donate an old sweater they didn't want and another person's plastic saucer, and then trapsed BACK again to the more-trafficked town area near the vet clinic. We didn't know if the kitten would drink the cat milk if it wasn't from a teat, but it was worth a try. So we poured some in the saucer and then set it, the cat and the old sweater inside the big cardboard box and left him there, together with a sign I wrote in Japanese saying:

Hello,
My mother is gone. I'm a baby who can still only drink this special milk.
I'm a stray who was found by foreigners who didn't know what to do with me.
So please take me home with you.
Or maybe call a friend if you know one that can take care of cats.
Or take me to a shelter if you know where one exists.
Thank you ♥

As we walked away, the kitten-- who had become silent as we'd been carrying him around the town in a sweater for the past forty minutes-- started mewling after as and trying to get out of the box to follow us. (We'd made sure it was big enough that it couldn't accidentally escape.) My heart just about broke into a million pieces hearing it cry out like that and having to just walk away, not knowing whether it would live or die, not being able to do anything for it.

Needless to say, we never got to Kappa-zushi.


--


Today after class, I took a detour on my bike. Instead of going straight home, I biked back to the spot we'd left the kitten last night. The box was gone in its entirety. I have no way of knowing for sure what happened, but I hope it's in a better place now.

What's going on with me right now:

1) I've moved in to a new place in the city, since it's now summer holidays and the dorms are closed.
2) I have a never-ending cough of doom!

I really like the new place. The location is great-- it's right in the middle of Osaka, close to everything. There's a subway station entrance literally 20 metres away from my door. There's a huge 2-floor supermarket (groceries first floor, living goods second floor) about 100 metres across the street. There's a convenience store 30 metres in another direction, with a small 100yen shop attached to it. (I've yet to find a large 100yen shop nearby, but tomorrow's another day.) There's lots of little boutique cafes around the area too. I'm surrounded by large buildings on all sides, so while I don't get a view, the building is in shade pretty much all day long so it's reasonably cool inside, which is great because I don't really have to worry about cranking up the electricity bill using the air conditioning in summer.

Took a walk around the area today, got to know the city a little better. I've been to most of the major cities of Japan, and I have to say... I really love Osaka the best. Don't get me wrong, I'm not viewing it with rose-coloured glasses. There are still aspects of Japan that I could definitely do without. But I've still totally fallen for Osaka. I'll do a post on why later.

Back to the apartment.

It's pretty much a shoebox, but that's okay for now. Tomorrow I'm going to buy some shelving for cheap (500yen) and put them around the place so I actually have storage space to put stuff. (Food. Books. Etc.) Still need a coffee table or something I can eat at. Eating on the floor isn't all that fun. Kitchen needs a surface to prepare on-- it's pretty much just a gas stove and a sink.

Have a futon here too, which is great, I super love it. I've gotten pretty used to sleeping on a futon these past few months, though to be honest it never really bothered me to begin with. My bed back home is fairly hard, so it's no harder than that.

I ran into my real estate agent today wandering around town, she invited me to a party on the 26th of next month. Suppose I can look forward to that! As soon as this stupid cough/cold-thing has left me I'm looking forward to meeting new people in the area and making friends and searching for work. Otherwise it's gonna be a pretty lonely 3 months all by myself! (I uh. I don't know if I have the money anymore to visit people outside of Osaka like I said I would...)

Also met my landlord today and gave him a requisite "please-look-after-me" gift in typical Japanese fashion. He seems nice! Best of all, my area has NO TRASH SEPARATION RULES! HOORAY! (For those not in the know: trash separation rules in Japan differ from area to area-- like local council areas-- and MOST areas have insane separation rules, such as "burnable garbage," "non-burnable garbage," "PET bottles," "glass," and so on and so forth.)

What else did I do? Oh. I found a place that sells delicious savory crepes. Had a hot melted cheese + chicken teriyaki + lettuce crepe for brunch. (Wasn't early enough to be breakfast.) It was mouthwateringly good. I also won two little ... cat plushie thingies ... in those crane games/UFO catchers. I'm getting better at them! Not great yet, though, haha.

So that's been my day. Sorry for not updating recently... I really need to do a catch-up post on the last few months. Maybe now that I suddenly have an abundance of free time, I'll get around to doing it. Peace out!

because so many people are asking!

what is going on in cassie's life right now 101:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

FINALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





... yep.

that's about it.

peace out.

Okay guys. First of all, I want to make a disclaimer that this post is not aimed at any one person-- this is a public service announcement as a result of MANY incidents from several people.

It's time to lay some ground rules. Namely, about my phone email! Let me lay this down very simply so there is no misunderstanding.

1. My phone email (emiri.in.japan) is just that. A PHONE. It might be able to send and receive emails, but like any other phone, when it gets a message, IT RINGS! LOUDLY!

2. I cannot turn my phone on silent during the night because I use it as my alarm clock in the morning. THEREFORE. IF YOU SEND A MESSAGE TO MY PHONE EMAIL WHILE I AM SLEEPING? I WILL WAKE UP. AND I WILL BE JUSTIFIABLY ANNOYED. You wouldn't text someone with a regular phone at 4 AM or 6 AM. So DON'T DO IT WITH MINE EITHER. (I'd also like to note that I ALSO HAVE A ROOMMATE. WHO ALSO WAKES UP WHEN THIS HAPPENS. SO DON'T DO IT. IT'S RUDE.) Treat that email as you would a (free) phone number.

3. My regular email (athousandsmiles) STILL EXISTS. FOR A REASON. I STILL CHECK IT FIRST THING IN THE MORNING EVERY SINGLE DAY. If there's a real emergency (and I do mean a real one), then sure I won't mind being woken up in the middle of the night. But so far there never has been! It's just been people! Not thinking before they hit send! So please, please please PLEASE think first! Again: treat that email as you would a phone number. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough.


Don't get me wrong. I LOVE getting phone emails during the daytime. I heavily encourage people to email me at my phone email during the daytime. It makes my day! But I'm not appreciative of being woken up by my phone. Nobody is. And it has happened way too many times now!

Just so that this is unmistakably clear, here are the EXACT times within which you absolutely cannot phone email me unless there is a JUSTIFIABLE emergency (that I can actually do something about in the middle of the night, otherwise why are you bothering?):

Japan Standard Time: 12AM-9AM
Australian Eastern Time: 1AM-10AM
US Pacific Standard Time: 8AM-6PM
US Eastern Standard Time: 11AM-9PM
Greenwich Mean Time: 4PM-1AM


OKAY? Okay. Disabling comments on this entry as there is really nothing to discuss. It's out of my system now, I'm now no longer angry. The end.

Happy post coming soon!

OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED TO UPDATING

sorry too busy with life

just popping in to say GOING TO KOREA TODAY FOR THREE DAYS yay Spring Break!!

you can still always normal-email me, and if there's an emergency, I'm staying at Central Tourist Hotel Seoul and the number there is 02-6365-6500 !!

i have so much to update about holy craaapppp aaaaaahhhh falling behind falling behind!!

BYE GUYS SEE YOU ON THE 27th!!

ETA: ... wait what do you mean it's COLDER in Korea?!

THE LONG AWAITED PHOTO POST... PART 1.

It has been a long time since the last 365 photo! So, picking back up where we left off...

( First week in Japan! )

WHOOOOOOO THAT TOOK FOREVER.

One week down, three more to go! ... Not sure when they're going to get done, but hey. Stay tuned! I know these photos are terrible, but I still haven't loaded photoshop on my computer, I'm just using IrfanView to batch resize and save to churn them out as fast as possible and get this blog up to speed. So I'm not colour adjusting or sharpening or doing anything to any of them. Sorry!

And now it's 11:15 PM, this entry took me an three hours to write, and now I'm going to bed!

ETA: NOBODY SAW THAT ok all the pictures and the HTML borks are fixed now.