♫♪~Melody~♪♫

If the above picture hasn't tipped you off already I'm a sort of otaku- "sort of" meaning that I love anime and manga but I'm not a hikkikomori. :D The term my friend and I use to describe ourselves is "Japan!phile." ^^

( Read more... )
 To get to know me better why don't you read a few of my posts and maybe comment too?

....well it was two nights ago but the amount of hw yesterday....

The concert was wonderful!! Everyone was giving their all and having lots of fun. Many even came hours before they were scheduled to perform! The only problem(s) we had was that since each group had at least 4 pieces to perform, the concert lasted an hour longer than scheduled. (My complaint is that the audience seemed smaller this year...must advertise more!!)

I personally was a part of 3 groups; Symphonic Band, Full Orchestra, and S.O.S. If for some reason I've neglected to mention it, S.O.S stands for Student Organized Symphony. You can probably guess from this list, which one I was a conductor for.
Our set pieces for S.O.S were all popular contemporary tunes. The one I was responsible for was the Mission:Impossible theme. It has an unusual time signature of 5/4 which made me quite nervous but enough weeks of practice and my arm is kind of automated to move on its own in the motions.

I'm not really sure how to explain the actual experience. I went up there, stuttered some sort of introduction for the piece, picked up that baton and from there on out all it was to me was: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! I was completely oblivious to everything, including some cheers for me (was notified of them later. ^^;) Even afterwards, a friend waiting offstage told me he could see me muttering something. (No doubt it was: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!) This is a very good reason why conductor's backs face the audience. ^^; Despite all this, I really did have a lot of fun once I got comfortable during the second half of the song. If you're not familiar with the tune, it's a very upbeat piece that makes you want to tap your foot (I was waving my arms vigorously instead.)  I definitely want to conduct the next concert too!(all the praise helps Aria's confidence :P). 




P.S. Of course, great things always come with consequences and as a result of extra rehearsals + the concert night, I'm really behind in a lot of classes. Off to homework land for me...orz

The first five people to comment in this post get to request that I draw a doodle of any pairing/character of their choosing. In return, they have to post this in their journal, regardless of their ability level.

Ahahahaha, that bit about "ability level" seems to be directed right at me. Anyways, I'd be happy to draw you something and I promise I'll put in a lot more effort than that "doodle" I have adorning my welcome post. ^^;

Now on to my original post!
- So weeks ago I saw the preview for the Winter Anime Series and brushed them aside with the belief that there wasn't anything worth watching....BOY WAS I WRONG! Baka to Test To Shoukanjuu (Idiots, Tests, and Summoned Beings) is a real gem among all the (what I once thought) uninteresting animes of this season. It's a show based off of a light novel (though I hear they're pretty different) about a special academy where test scores equal power and students duke it out in Exam Summoning Battles for rights to better facilities. Class A learns in luxury while Class F can't even afford a piece of chalk for their board! The story follows Class F on their quest to secure Classroom A! The show itself is absolutely hilarious with well timed jokes and gags. For all the episodes out right now, I can't stop laughing!! I recommend this to everyone because it's one of those series that everyone can enjoy!

- Lately, I had a sudden craving to play Professor Layton. All of a sudden, right out of the blue, I wanted to play Professor Layton! I've only played 3 minutes of it before (last summer) and none of my friends owned a copy. So I did what the sensible cheapskate does. I scoured the internet for a ROM. Now, for some games I've found roms for them fairly quickly. But Layton was a real challenge. (how ironic) In the end I went through about 20 files (not kidding) before I finally found a working one of Diabolical Box.  And of course I'm tremendously pleased. I've been playing it as much as I can during my spare time (which I don't have enough of.) The struggle to get the game has taught me to never give up. It's also taught me that when I want to play Professor Layton and The Curious Village, I should use my birthday money to buy it and hope my brother lends me his DSi. :3
(I do own a GBA SP. I just download NDS games.)

( Photos under cut in an attempt to spare your f-list )
In just a few hours my school's winter concert will begin! So excited~~!

The semester ended yesterday. I'm quite happy with the classes I've gotten only slightly disappointed by my teachers. Well I'll get used to them. ^^
Yesterday it rained really hard. Actually it's been raining all week but yesterday we got two rounds of fierce rain coupled with hail. As a result we couldn't move the percussion into the gym where we planned to have a band + orchestra combined rehearsal. I was really disappointed since I've been looking forward to combined rehearsals for nearly 3 weeks now.  We still had S.O.S (Student Organized Symphony) practice though and that cheered me up. I feel like I've really improved my conducting from when I first started months ago. At the end of practice, the rain stopped so we took advantage of it to move all the percussion and music stands into the gym for Tuesday's combined rehearsal. (No school on Monday since teachers will be doing grades. :D)

The day before (while seeking refuge from the rain), I stumbled upon the first meeting of a poetry club my friend had vaguely mentioned the week before. It turned out to be interesting so I think I'll continue (even though poetry does not come naturally at all to me, I hope to improve.) The theme was "Randomness" for the first week and this is what I came up with. Forgive me because it's hardly polished (unpunctuated, etc.) I just tried jotting down lines. I wonder if it can be called poetry?

( Long-ish poem under cut )

P.S. About the title...all the kids here go wild at thunderstorms and hail. Rightly so I guess because it's really impossible for it to snow in this area. Yet the weather forecasters tease me year after year and I continue to dream...

It's a long weekend and I have the 18th off from school here in the U.S. so I figure it's a good a time as any to post what's been going on.

        I DID end up downloading the Kimi ni Todoke DS game and started playing it on the iDeaS emulator. The graphics are so beautiful and detailed! I took tons of random screenshots....however, I'm not sure how to access them. ^^; As for gameplay itself, it is VERY text heavy -- well it's not like I wasn't expecting that but I really fail at reading some parts. Luckily I've read the manga -- if this was a totally different plotline then I'd be screwed-- so I know what's going on. Basically you go through events from Sawako's point of view and begin to nurture friendships. These are showed as pots where you drop different seeds in for different effects. Example would be "Happiness" seed in "Sawako" flowerpot. <= I really have no idea what effect that does. At the beginning of each day, you can choose actions for Sawako which she writes down in her notebook. If you pick the right action, you get more "points" which fills up a watering can which helps your "friendship flowers" grow!  ......At least, this is what I make of the whole game.
       Anyways I'm going through the game with lots of help from visual aids and just when I thought I was doing just fine, the game starts to introduce more complicated actions via a tiny faceless human giving directions. If you don't do EXACTLY as the tiny person says, you can't progress. This is a fine idea really since you're guaranteed not to screw up during this portion. A fine idea for all well versed in the Japanese language.  ....;_; I have no idea what this little person is asking me to do! I try various seed combinations but nothing will please the little person!! Looks like I'm stuck there for now...

Going back over my "to-do list" for break, it seems like I've completed nearly everything! I finished Higurashi Kai which was simply amazing. It was easily one of my favorite anime series of 2009. I have yet to start Higurashi Rei however....Kai gave me a nice sense of closing.
Next on the list was "Watch a lot of Detective Conan." I did this quite religiously (or I'd have to face the wrath of close friend and obsessed fan) I feel quite accomplished to have reached the 200s! XD
My greatest accomplishment over break was finishing my Ioryogi plushie! Pictures are on hold since I'm trying to find a perfect place for the photoshoot.
As for arranging anime music....check! I ended up arranging the 27th Detective Conan opening "Magic" for aforementioned obsessed fan's birthday.

Currently the school semester is drawing to a close and so I'm quite busy with all the various tests that keep popping up. I'm very excited for next semester though since I signed up for Astronomy! I hardly know anything about the subject and think it'll be quite interesting to study what's out there.

Next week is our school's winter concert!! Since we only have 2 concerts per year I can hardly contain my excitement! Everyone has been working very hard! I'm just a biiit nervous though because this concert will also be my debut as conductor. XD Well it's only one song, I doubt I can handle any more but it's in 5/4 time, making it one of the more difficult songs. I'm afraid I'll slip up in my hand motions as I tend to during rehearsals. ^^; Luckily it hasn't led to any grave errors yet, but there's a first for everything...

Well, I've written quite a lot! I'll try to update more frequently and spare my f-list such long posts in the future.

cause I feel like I must do something "new year-ish" and memes are fun.

( LONG meme under cut :3 )

First off, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!!

My Christmas was quite CLAMP-filled actually! I'm so happy! No, I never ordered the art book (waiting till my birthday) but I got some good gifts nonetheless! starts showing off

( Under the cut to skip my arrogance >w< )

Hahahaha, I think I'll be singing this for days now! In fact I really want to play Final Fantasy too....probably after Christmas.

Hooray for the holidays! I have a lot of plans none of which involve any school work whatsoever!
My list of things to do~

- Finish watching Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kai, then Rei.
- Watch a lot of Detective Conan
- Finish sewing my Ioryogi plush (yes, the same one back from October -_-;)
- Arrange musical scores for anime related songs (mostly Magic by Rina Aiuchi and Naraku no Hana by Eiko Shimamiya

In the middle of all that we're going on a trip to Los Angeles! Yay! And the other time will be spent lazing around.



I'm thinking of treating myself to something for Christmas and I've been eyeing the first Tsubasa artbook...hmm not certain if I really will get it but there's a high chance I'll give in during a moment of weakness and get it anyways. XD

Hi all~ I'm still alive, thankfully. :) I realized I hadn't posted something in forever because I didn't have much to post. But then I thought, if I write all the bits of my life together, they should suffice as one post.

( it's all under the cut! :3 )

Whoo! It's FINALLY out!

Of course I've listened to "Magic Number" several times (more than what is healthy for me XD) so why am I so over the top happy?
Some darling in the community "mameshiba" posted a download link for the ENTIRE single!!! ♥   is only used to downloading specific tracks

Anyways it has lots of beautiful SCANS~~~~~~~
And hearing all the live versions of everything was great!
Especially "Poketto wo Kara ni Shite". The audience singing in that one is sooo cute!
Loving the intro to Private Sky also. Can't wait for translations! ♥

melts in bliss and listens to Maaya all day long

Avoiding homework... -_-;;;;;

( random ramblings under the cut )

Ahahaha late post. If you celebrate it, hope you had a wonderful Halloween. If you don't....um enjoy my pictures? :3

So my school had a Halloween Day (first time in 8 years apparently) and everyone was really fired up and wore costumes to school. I have to say though, the seniors were the most spirited. heheheh v( ' _ ' )

I went as....Kobato-chan!
Not my first cosplay....well if the failures before that count as cosplay...but this was the first cosplay in which I actually sacrificed hours of sleep to sew (Ioryogi-san is the project in question.) It's actually the first time I have ever attempted to sew something (and without a pattern at that!) so I'm quite pleased with how he turned out. My mother hopes that this is my last project due to how many hours were spent on it rather than studies. ^_^;

My cosplay didn't go very well at school though...people called me an old lady. TAT Thankfully my friend (cosplaying as Cirno) was there to comfort me.  Despite everything, I enjoyed cosplaying as Kobato very much and would love to do it at a con or something!

Anyways, I felt that I couldn't deal with more unfamiliarity while trick-or-treating that night so I switched into a yukata borrowed from aforementioned Cirno-chan.


Me in the blue yukata, flanked by my younger brother and two friends who are a fairy and a pirate. First time wearing the yukata too...I hope I did alright. -_-;

Back view. My beautiful obi tie came undone. T_T

The night turned out to be very productive as I got over 150 pieces of candy. Yummy!
Knowing me, it'll all probably last till next Halloween. XD

Gah, too much going on for me to post much stuff but I HAD to write this...sorry for spam.

So I was researching for my poetry project...blah blah...and I came across the term "author surrogate" in Wikipedia and I thought awesome! because that's exactly what Aria is! But then there was a sub section entitled "Mary Sue" and I read that part and it made me sweatdrop because Aria was about to become that at one point.

But from now on I resolve not to let her turn into such a hideous thing and protect her pureness!

/random

Thanks to the recent videos lovelessinma posted of her drawing Kobato, I was able to draw Aria using bits of her style! I'm really happy with how it came out!

Uwah! After waiting for subs so long I finally get to watch it!

( Ramblings ahead.. )
Anyways I have to find some Kimi ni Todoke icons now!

IT'S STARTED! kyaaa!!!!

I was up so long last night hoping someone would post a raw until I finally decided to go to sleep cause of school. :(
But coming home I see tons of links are up. YAAAAAAAY!

Anyhow, I have to get through all my homework first. -_- but I watched the opening...KAWAII!!!! I was so right about....the running part. XD And I was sure she'd be running through town....so I got the town part right...kinda...where she's in different outfits and stuff.

Anyhow I'm motivated to finish my work fast so I can watch it already! Ganbatte Aria!

EDIT: Looks like subs JUST came out. So I guess I'll have to stay up again to watch. ^^ It's okay, it's okay. It's alright. I just want to watch it soon and I don't feel like downloading raws and adding softsubs and other complicated things I don't know how to do.

I'm also waiting for subs of Kimi ni Todoke....I hope there is enough interest in fansub groups to do this one too. The opening for it is nice...pretty and mellow. :)

( Read more... )

I LOVE IT! Forget the last chapter, this was WIN!!!

( spoilers )

Goodbye Tsubasa! See you in xxxHolic! ^^

Ahaha, I've been up to a lot lately with my latest inspiration being the end of Tsubasa! ;_; Anyhow I don't normally do fan art to commemorate events and such but this idea came to me with such clarity that I HAD to do it! I present you, with all it's crappy shading...!

or more like the "end"

( Cut for spoilers.... )

On a side note, here's what I predict the opening of Kobato. to be: Kobato twirling through the gates of her apartment complex and running around past all her friends. XD Sorry, that's the feeling I get from the op song (which is awesome). Haha, now I can't wait to see it so I can know if I'm psychic or just an idiot. :P