|
Sunday, November 17, 2002
More seiyuu factoids, discovered by me and neko-chan ... because we agreed Yamiko from Haunted Junction (Hanako-san's rival in episode 6) reminded us of Yukari from Azumanga, we looked them up. Turns out they are played by the same actress, Hiramatsu Akiko. Who also does Fuuko from Recca no Honoo. I can hear the resemblance. XD Interestingly enough, she also plays Bloodberry from the Saber Marionette series and Miyuki from Taiho Shichauzo, as well as Tsubaki in Kenshin -- who, IIRC, is the "neechan" from the group of kids Anji took care of in his days as a monk. All ... sweet and innocent. O.o (ADP connections -- Hiramatsu will also play someone in an upcoming episode of Akazukin Chacha. Also, Asakawa Yuu plays both Sakaki from Azumanga and Jura from Vandread. :D)
... I knew I recognized that name!! O_O Ishii Kouji, the guy who plays Kimura-sensei in Azumanga, also did Mitsukake in Fushigi Yuugi ... But he's so -- he's so~~~~ T_T Fueeeeehhhh. >_<
Buu~ut ... I find an antidote in Inoue Kazuhiko: Oriya in Yami no Matsuei, Yuki from Gravitation, Hatori from Fruits Basket. Yum. *niyari* (Also played Shigure from the Kenshin movie -- who admittedly wasn't the greatest character, but it's Kenshin so that makes it good. XD)
Two: there will nearly always be some fundamental difference we can't foresee, because it will come from the very way we think. It's harder than it seems to simply adopt the mindset of the person or people you're interacting with. Therefore the Golden Rule itself -- do unto others as you would have them do -- becomes an imposition of personal values, because you're referring back to your own frame of knowledge in order to deal 'fairly' with this other being. An essay I read a couple of weeks ago points out a contemporary example of this: often for 'white' people (i.e., those of European descent) in America, race is something easily assumed or discarded -- skin color or other readily visible traits don't automatically give away racial background; and even when that background is known, there is less often a negative connotation. It is therefore easier for them to field 'outsider' questions that might offend people of color; when they evaluate potential actions and remarks by asking “Would I mind others doing this?” it’s already a moot point. Certainly this doesn’t happen with all white people or all colored people, but it’s a nice illustrative case.
So then how do you treat others in a fair manner? How much of your way of thinking must you relinquish? It obviously varies from case to case, depending on how wide the gulf between is; and of course misjudging won’t have catastrophic consequences every time. But ... you wonder.
And that above part was written earlier this afternoon -- was interrupted before I got a chance to post -- so you’ll excuse me if I make a tire-screeching change in topic now. XD As in, part 2 of the Axis of Fangirlism. *evil laughter* And now we shall both train our expectant glares at you, until you deliver on the Osaka layout. (You who are off watching Chamber of Secrets ... I didn’t go because I already have a date to watch it over Thanksgiving break. But still ...! T_T) Get it done, so we can thus commence fangirling! (Okay, wait, already do that. Well then -- commence evil fangirling! ... But no, that’s done, too. Then -- hm. Well ... dang.)
I also want to know more about “Double Dear,” because that is a fun song -- it's the one with Weiß and the Saiyuuki seiyuu singing together ... but I don’t know what crossover album or whatever it’s from ...! T_T Koyasu and Seki (Toshihiko) sounding cool! Seki (Tomokazu) and Hoshi Soichirou sounding cute (and surprisingly like each other)! And I don’t know how Ishida Akira sounded, but I do hope they at least let him sing this time. ^_^;;
Today’s episode of Guu (episode 6, with the bath house) proves that Guu SCREWS WITH YOUR MIND. But ... I love her anyway. XD;; And Osaka! And Chiyo-chan! They were too cute in today’s AzuDai ... it hurts my brain. O_O (Even Yoh was cute in Shaman King ... Iyaa~~~ I want to take them ALL and put them in my pocket! XO)
I’m really sleepy. I bet it shows. XD;; Better go to bed now before I injure myself ...
But! At least tomorrow's Friday. That's the best part of having a Monday off; there are fewer weekdays until the next weekend. XD I always love Thursdays, anyway, because I only have two hours of class (and, as neechan would add, Friends is on XD;;). And then I have nothing to do except for wait for Friday. Though I do have to read Gargantua and Pentagruel tonight ...
My CHID professor said something else yesterday that bothered me. XD;; (Dang, I'm going to miss this class next quarter ... though I'm planning to take a philosophy course called Contemporary Moral Problems, which hopefully will be fun, too.) The lecture was on the Spanish explorers of the New World, and we got to Columbus. (Of course this means I have to plug this book again. XD) Now let's see if I can explain all this ... Apparently the word he used most often in his journals to describe the lands and people he discovered was 'marvelous.' But besides inspiring wonder, 'marvels' also prompt fear, in that the word is used (or, at least, was by Columbus) to indicate something completely out of the realm of prior experience. There's no way to understand it on its own terms; it has to be contained, perhaps controlled, by one's own frame of knowledge ... even if that means bending and altering a little to make everything fit. Ideally, one would be able to adopt the foreign mindset, at least to use in understanding the foreign culture itself; but in actuality, how likely is that? Thrown in among an alien culture with no point of reference, faced with ambivalence or hostility, how many of us could let go of the only object of familiarity -- our own thought system? How could we even hold onto any noble goals of equitable dealings instead of simply our own safety or survival? Not to mention that employing our own idea of what is 'equitable' could be an imposition of values incompatible with this foreign people, another form of cultural arrogance. (Ay, there's the rub!) Of course, entering into the endeavor with a pre-stated intention of discovery and interaction rather than possession and exploitation would certainly help; so would a great deal of patience and tolerance of physical or mental hardship. Columbus and other explorers could hardly be blamed for botching communication with a culture that had a very different idea of what communication was, though of course they carry their own share of blame. Interaction with new cultures does not automatically result in catastrophe on its own. But.
To make his point -- not that humans always seek to control the alien and 'marvelous,' but just the difficulty of being thrown into a world completely devoid of the familiar -- the professor showed us a clip from the movie "Cabeza de Vaca." It was at the point where Cabeza de Vaca is first isolated from the other survivors of his expedition; everything around him is bizarre, and often hostile. His Spanish is subtitled, but the natives' speech is not, so you sort of get a sense of what he's experiencing when they taunt or order him around. He finally loses it and starts yelling, even though they won't understand him -- about how he is a man from Spain, about the titles he holds, about how he has a God, and about how he "is more human than you." It's easy to see why he says that; he's surrounded by people who live and speak completely differently from him, and whose continuous belligerence he doesn't understand. If it were to go on long enough, it's easy to see how one would begin to think that, as the only one acting in a 'rational' manner, they were the logical and civilized one, the humane one, the human one. Not that it's right -- it's not, not in the slightest -- but it's easy.
*pause* *glances up at layout* ¬_¬ It feels really ... odd, to be talking about this with Guu up there. ^_^;;; But speaking of -- I want to see your layout! Which picture did you use? (And I'll bug neechan to make hers, so we can establish our Axis of Fangirlism. XD)
Writing club meeting tonight -- yay! But first I have reading to do -- boo. >_<
(Ne, Lili-chan, I got your call on Thursday -- sorry I missed you. I was going to email you, but ... I lost your address. ^_^;; Is it still the same one as before, on Mailcity?)
So, definite change of tone from last layout. And it's very ... orange. And creepy. (Scroll down really fast and watch the border change. XD;;) Took a lot longer to edit the stupid title image than I'd planned (it started out as this liiiiitle picture and got all fuzzy when I enlarged it, and most of my effort was lost anyway when I converted to gif format ... stupid gifs XP), but the coding was rather simple actually. Ieiiiii. XD Also updated some information -- like taking off Ruby-chan's link because she's no longer blogging. ;_; And I've added some new links over the past couple of weeks. *waves to new people*
So ... do I get to see some AzuDai layouts now??
... I hope not. And I don't really think it will -- what's more likely is that, four years from now, I will emerge triumphant with a bunch of degrees that have absolutely no practical application in the real world. ^_~
And now~~~ Now I'm comfortably ensconced in my room, indulging in some alone time before the roomie comes home. (I'm such a homebody~~ XD;;) Dun think I'll get any work done; that's for tomorrow. Perhaps also a trip to the computer lab to commandeer Photoshop 7.0 (*_*) and finish up my new layout.
Unyaa~~ Two and a half weeks till Thanksgiving break! I'll be seeing all my friends from home, and bringing back a Texas kitty with me -- yoshi yoshi. :D
And I want to learn Lindy Hop. It *is* different from East Coast Swing, as I'd thought; but different in a really fun-looking way ...
But who cares? Tonight I get to go dancing! *does a happy ... er, dance ^^;* Honest to goodness swing! And it's been so long since I've gotten to actually go swing dancing, and that probably means I've forgotten everything but that's okay! It should all come back ... mostly. I wanna learn new stuff too. :D (Am going to miss Friends tonight. Ah well.)
Tomorrow's Friday, and then a three-day weekend ... what a lovely thought. ^_^
It reminded me of this story I heard way back in grade school. I don't remember the title or anything (because I never seem to be able to remember where I hear these random facts or stories >_>). The story is about a boy who's always impatient for the things he's waiting for to happen, so some magical fairy lady gives him a spool of silver thread. Each time he pulls on the thread, time skips ahead; he goes anywhere from a little tug to a giant yank. The moral is that, while he's been jumping ahead to the 'good stuff' like graduating, or getting out of the military so he can marry his sweetheart, he's been missing out on living life. Anyway, it sometimes feels like that's what's happening to me. Like I know I've lived everything that's happened, but I feel as if my awareness of it all is superficial -- as if I'd jumped ahead in time and I 'know' what happened without having truly experienced it.
Um. I don't really know the point of that; it just gave me that feeling of wistfulness and excitement, that things are happening so quickly and will be gone soon ... Kyaa~~ I must live life to the fullest~~~ (I sound like some sort of twisted shoujo manga. ^_^;;)
Also, I found out today that my Japanese TA is from Osaka. I think that's great. XD
Farewell to ev'ry winning grace
I think it's better if I not say any more. XP
In today's lecture, the professor went off on a sort of tangent about morality (but originating in the relevant topic of racism) and brought up something I'd not considered ... It's quite easy for me to say that one can be religious -- in other words, hold what one believes to be The Truth -- and still tolerate other world views. (This is especially the case for my opinions, which border on agnosticism, or what some might call not *having* an opinion. n.n) But my professor pointed out the view the British settlers in America operated on, which was that, though they were newcomers, they had a right -- a divine right -- to take the land from the natives because they (the British) "used it according to the intentions of the creator." Basically, since the Europeans had the technology to get the maximum agricultural use of the land, they ought to be the ones controlling it. Which, barring considerations of the methods used to acquire that land (ie, murder), makes a kind of sense. At least, if *I* believed that I could support hundreds or thousands of people instead of just dozens, I'd want to influence the minority into following my way. I wouldn't like having to disrupt their way of life -- but hey, I want to take care of the other hundreds of people as well. I couldn't ignore them. And, in a sense, that's what religious people feel. We can say that they should let other people practice according to their own views, but if they honestly believe that their own religion is correct and that not following it will make you go to hell (which to me is not an indication of a very good world view, but again that's just my own view) ... can they ignore these other people? If they believe it's for the good of everyone, shouldn't they attempt to influence those who aren't getting 'maximum use' out of their lives? And if that inconveniences some, well ... maximum good for the maximum amount of people, and all that.
Not that I agree with that, but it's where the logic takes me. I have to think about it some more. As I will have to for another suggestion the professor made -- that there can be no true use of the term 'evil,' because if people are a product of their circumstances (social, economic, historical, etc.), you can always put yourself in their place and see why they took the actions they did. They'd still be wrong actions, and you can still call the person unlawful or immoral according to your personal beliefs, but not in any universal 'this is an evil soul' way. Now, he said he's not a fatalist, and he thinks you can still make your own choices ... that part sort of confused me. Perhaps he means you can make your own choices about your actions, and in that sense you have free will; but your circumstances weigh so heavily on your definition of good or evil that it almost could be called involuntary. So I think he isn't a fatalist in the sense that your *choices* about your actions are pre-determined; but your conceptions of good and evil, which guide those choices, might as well be. (I'm not sure. I would've talked to him after the lecture, but that's when all the smart people go up and discuss with him, and it's sort of intimidating. o.o;;)
Oh! I found a course I really want to take: Islamic Mystical Literature. According to the course description, that means Sufist poetry and writing. XO!!! Unfortunately it's offered "variably" and I don't really *need* to take it ... (I could use it for one of my English major requirements, but that's already being fulfilled by a Japanese literature sequence I plan to take -- which will also count towards my Japanese and CHID minors. W00t for overlapping requirements. XD) But it's only three credits! I can just tack it onto a quarter. *happy dance*
Addendum to the last post: it's not that I don't think people have a right to get mad or be bothered by things. And you don't have to attempt to resolve every issue, every single time. I just don't like it when people sit on something that's very obviously bothering them, for an unnecessarily long time, but refuse to do anything about it when they have ample opportunity. Make sense? @_@ (I can never make things clear the first time around ... O.o)
So, Friday -- class is sort of a blur. ^_^;; Skit in Japanese, went well. More sharing in CHID discussion, really could have done without. Glad people are comfortable with sharing -- but. o.o Showing was good, even though neko-chan skipped (but 'sokay, you had a viable excuse :D). I'm really liking Shaman King, and I want to see Anna actually talk next episode. Yoh, still hilarious. Amidamaru, still freaking awesome (Amidabooru!! XD). Manta, still want to put him in my pocket. T_T And neko-chan borrowed some ManKin douj anthologies -- and I found out that Sannasubi does ManKin douj!! XO Specifically, Yoh x Amidamaru ... something about those angsty, duty-bound uke, I guess. XD;;
Random thought about Vandread ... I'm sort of neutral on the series thus far, because I can see that it's building up to a plot -- which is more than some series can say for themselves -- but it's not really pulling me along very well. Anyway, I really thought they could have done a lot with the gender issues -- I mean, what *does* happen to a universe that has been split into male and female, us and them populations? Without gender as a form of identification/division, how is the society stratified? Who holds power, and how do they get it? Heck, for a random issue, why do the women dress in revealing outfits? (Anyone who says "because it's a shounen series" gets a halisen-beating. XD) Certainly the women don't believe men are kidney-eating monsters, but they still have an antagonistic mentality, so they would hardly want to impress them. Assuming there's a high rate of lesbianism among the population -- which would probably be true, because I doubt they would instantly de-sexualize themselves -- I still don't think they'd dress like that to impress each other. Generally (not always, I know about the problems with operating on a biology=identity mindset) men are more visually-centered ... not to say that women aren't interested in revealing dress at all, but I'd think it'd be less of a priority than practicality, at least in terms of their battle uniforms. (Next week the lecture topic in CHID will be race relations, so I'll stop talking about sex, really. ^_^;;)
Saturday was nice and thoroughly non-productive. It was a wonderful surprise when you called, and I wish I could've talked to you for several more hours ... but that'll be next weekend. :D Tell me how your competition went! I realize, though, that we forgot to go shopping for neko-chan's winter clothes ... I hope you'll be okay until next weekend. ^_^;;
Today? Today I angsted about being able to graduate in four years, and agonized over my English paper. Realized I *can* graduate in four years, and finished my paper. I hope it's good ... it's definitely better than my last one, and I just want it to be at the level this class deserves. We'll see. My mind's still warped from the idea of Devil May Cry and "Dante" and "Virgil" ... @_@
Gomen! I know I haven't talked to you in a while -- but it doesn't really feel like that, because I'm usually looking over neechan's shoulder while she's on IRC, so it feels like I *have* been, sort of. ^_^; But yes, we should talk soon! And make plans for Thanksgiving weekend! ^o^
Final thought -- this might sound angry, but I'm actually not. I just think ... well, if you have shit to unload, you should *do* it. I've been observing people in general, and I don't like the idea of people holding grudges and letting things fester. I know you sometimes just have to swallow things and move on -- I'm talking about major issues in which you're really angry with someone. If you have the opportunity to say something or do something about it, then take it -- or get over it. Don't cling to it. Why do people sit on grudges? Because they're afraid. Afraid that sharing their grievances will lead to either someone pointing out that they, themselves, may be partially in the wrong; or someone pointing out the misunderstanding, and that no one is in the wrong, which would then force the person to face what it is they're really mad about or afraid of. Decide which consequence is the one you're afraid of, and fix it.
And why am I not saying anything to the people I'm observing? Well, it doesn't directly affect me. When I see something that bothers me, I ask myself, first, if it affects me personally; and second, if it's my business to say something about it. Sounds like a copout, I know; and it probably is, a little. But when I've seen this kind of behavior around me, I've just let it go and not bother me. Which has sometimes been hard. >_< But it wasn't worth it for me to try to fix things; I've kind of tried to be the person who does that, and it didn't work out.
Er, final-final thought. ^_^; New layout will probably be here next weekend, when I can sit myself down in the computer lab for a couple of hours. I'd like to do something AzuDai, Guu, or ManKin ... *plots*
|
GUU!
MUCHO
AMIGO
SHOO-BE-DOO-BAH!
|