myOtaku.com: sailor firestar

myO Still <3's You

Vitals

Birthday
• 1979-05-10
Gender
• Female
Location
• Shizuoka, Japan
Member Since
• 2004-03-06
Occupation
• English Teacher
Real Name
• Katy

Personal

Achievements
• stayed alive for 28+ years
Anime Fan Since
• 1997
Favorite Anime
• Sailor Moon, Naruto, Spirited Away, all things CLAMP, all things Gundam
Goals
• to not freeze during my first Japanese winter!
Hobbies
• Rollerblading, Writing, Drawing, Reading, Karate
Talents
• Pretty much the same as those *points upwards*

myOtaku.com: sailor firestar

My Avatar

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Hi! Welcome one and all to Katy's Otaku: Fall/Winter Version! Please feel free to sign my guestbook and add me as a friend. I've taken down the majority of the boxes that were on the site before in order to clean it up a bit. I'm sorry if anyone who made me something or whose club I've joined is offended by that. Many of you have known me through living and teaching in Texas, Florida, and other times as well, and I'm so glad you're all still with me. I'm currently living in Shizuoka, Japan which is about an hour from Tokyo! I'll be posting as often as I can about my adventures here and hopefully visiting some of you as well.

Current Obsessions: Naruto, Bleach, NANA, D.Grayman

Current anime: Naruto, Bleach, Powerpuff Girls Z,, Gundam 00, D.Grayman, Hayate no Gotoku

Current manga: Angel Sanctuary, Gunsmith Cats, Fullmetal Alchemist, Gundam: Ecole du Ciel, HunterxHunter, Kimi wa Pet, Naruto, Trigun Maximun, Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden, Bleach, Prince of Tennis, Dr. Slump, Nodame Cantabile, Tsubasa Reservior Chronicle, Nana, Evangelion: Angelic Days, xxxHolic

Ask Blue Hawk to join.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Even if the moon seems to be missing, the truth is - she is always here...just changing shape. Never forget that. - NANA

Today I had my first successful phone conversation in Japanese! Well.....sort of....a few parts in the end were in English, but still! I understood what they were talking about! Here's what happened: I went to the post office this morning before going to the office to mail my family's Christmas presents back to the U.S. I sent the package by EMS which is a kind of registered, but not too expensive mail. Of course that means it's the kind of thing you have to fill out paperwork for, which I can do, and anyway the ladies at the post office are used to me by now so they always help me. Anyway, I sent the package, got my receipts and went off to work. Then while I was sitting around talking on Skype tonight my cell rang.....

That's a picture of the downtown shopping area, but I took it with my phone so it's not that great....anyway, it was one of the post office ladies who called me because she had given me one of the copies of the form that they're supposed to keep by accident. Now, this might not seem that bad, but in Japan, it's a BIG DEAL. They NEED all of that paperwork for......something or other.......so she told me she'd come to my apartment and pick it up! Apparently it would have been pretty big trouble if they didn't have it so it's a good thing I didn't throw it out like I usually do with that kind of stuff. It was pretty exciting to know that I could really understand what she was saying on the phone though, even if I didn't catch every word, I still got the meaning and that's what's important.

So, this weekend I helped my friend Lauren dye her hair and we went shopping. In the end she didn't like the way it looked, but I think she's getting used to it now. We went downtown to the shopping street and took lots of pictures of the Christmas decorations. They have a different theme every year and this year's is called "Infinity Bright", or....something like that......the tree was donated by one of the cellphone companies though so it's all covered with phones and ads! Also, for some reason, it's surrounded by hearts. I don't really get it, but they have these animal sculptures all over the place too. Maybe it's supposed to simulate ice sculptures? So there's the cute polar bears...

...elephants and flamingos around the fountain....

...and......a dragon.....because that's totally Christmasy, right? Anyway, it looks nice and there's more than just the heart lights in the trees too. One block is yellow and white stars, one has dolphins (yes, in the trees...) one is all orange, and another is all green! It's exciting to look at anyway! Ja ne!

PS My brother will be here in 6 days!

Comments (6) | Permalink

Friday, November 30, 2007

If you fight you can make your dreams come true, right? - Komatsu Nana, NANA

Ah.....hisashiburi minna! That's "long time no see" or......something, I guess that would be true even if I didn't post though, huh? Eh-heh....well anyway, it's getting pretty cold here so I've been doing a lot to keep warm. I got a little electric heater hung the sliding doors between my bedroom and kitchen so I can trap the heat inside one or the other. It's working pretty well. I also got a kotatsu, which is a little table with a heater in it. If you've ever watched or read Love Hina or Nodame Cantabile you've probably seen one, but if not it looks like this:

You can see the little heater in the background and the black beanbag chair is where I'm sitting ow! I ran the internet cable into my bedroom so I can sit where it's comfortable. I'm not really sure how it works, but the table top doesn't get hot so it's safe to put the laptop on and books and other stuff. I think it's something to do with the way the heater is installed in the frame. It's sort of hanging and then there's also a cover to keep it from touching the futon blanket that you put between it and the top. A lot of my Japanese friends say they fall asleep in these things, but I'd be afraid of getting burned when I move around! My room is pretty small, but by moving the furniture I was able to get a bit more space out of it. Here's the view from the doorway that goes back to the kitchen.

I've head to get a lot more warm clothes too since there's no heat in the schools. I've also found direct proof of the saying "necessity is the mother of invention" thanks to that. We have these cool things that are similar to the type of hot patch you might put on sore muscles, but they're made for the cold weather. I'm not really sure what they're called though b/c another ALT told me they were "hokarones", but the katakana on the package reads ka-i-ro so......I don't know.....but they're really great. They come in a bunch of different sizes and supposedly they get up to 40 degrees C. I don't know what's in them, but there's probably some kind of chemical reaction that causes it. Anyway, they're sticky on one side so you just peel off the paper and stick them inbetween your layers of clothes. Actually, I have a bad habit of sticking them to my skin even though people tell me I shouldn't, but it seems to be fine so far. They even have them shaped to fit inside your shoes!

OK, I'll stop going on about the cold now I guess...that last picture is the view of my room from the door that goes onto the balcony. Sorry, no exciting pictures today really but I do have two more fanarts up. There's Sasuke, and Itachi but they're probably not my best work. I didn't get to focus on either one b/c I was drawing them with other people around and I don't handle that well. Anyway, they were both for students so they're gone now. The one of Kakashi and Naruto still hasn't been edited so it's not up yet but here's a picture I got from the girl I gave it to.

Pretty good I'd say considering she did it all in one night! So tomorrow it will be December......only 3 more weeks of school for me, how about everyone in other countries? I'd guess it's close to the same. I've still got a lot of Christmas shopping to do! I hope everyone else's is coming along well! Ja ne!

Comments (2) | Permalink

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Nothing fun will happen if you sit around waiting. - Suzumiya Haruhi, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Minna-san kon nichi wa! Haha, that's what the kids say on the lunch time news every day. I've been on it twice now, once to introduce myself and once to talk about Halloween. This week there wasn't much work to do since there were exams for the last 2 days. I spent a lot of time getting ready for a demonstration class I have to do next Monday, and as always, studying Japanese. It's not so easy to get good at a new language right away. Sometimes I think I know what people are saying, but then when I answer them......it's totally wrong! Other times though, I hear two people having a conversation and I can pretty much get the gist of it soo....I guess I'm making progress. I took some pictures around school this week since I had nothing to do. We can see Mt. Fuji from the 4th floor there too!

I also got a few shots of the newspapers the 1st graders made about me when I started at the school. Of course, by first graders I mean first year Jr.High, so 7th graders really but that's just what they call them here. For a while all the posters were in the hall but I didn't get around to taking the pictures till most of them were down. This was the cutest one that was left though.

Keep in mind that these kids have only been officially studying English for about 6-8 months now. There's a few mistakes, but still, pretty impressive right? All the teachers put questions on the English exams about me too. It was cute reading the kids answers; "She likes anime" "She likes Naruto" "She is from America", actually one of them said "She lives in America"........we had to mark that one wrong. I got to check some of the tests so that took up a little of my free time this week since I wasn't teaching.

Now that Halloween is over the Japanese stores are all getting out their Christmas decorations. The downtown area is all covered in white lights already and the Starbucks that we always go to before Japanese class on Tuesday nights has gingerbread coffee, and white chocolate mint coffee, and......something else....and lots of fancy cakes and stuff. Also, in front of one of the train stations (the small one)....

......a Christmas tree! It's a really big one too
! Actually, I think it might be fake, but that's ok, it looks nice anyway. It's getting pretty cold here though. Since there's no heat in the school other than in the staff room we pretty much wear our sweatshirts and jackets all the time. I'm wearing a hat inside my apartment right now too b/c the heater here isn't so strong, and it's ridiculously expensive to use.

I posted 2 new fanarts today so please check them out! There should be one more soon, but I'm waiting for someone to photoshop it back to looking nice since I had to take the picture with my phone really quickly before I gave it away to a kid. I'm such a sucker....they ask me "Sensei! Sasuke o kaite kudasai!" and look all cute......and I just can't say no......so now I have to draw Sasuke, and then Itachi, and then Ryoma......and then.......I'm sure another order will come in.........anyway, here's Mokona, and Onihime!

Comments (4) | Permalink

» Archives

Featured Quiz Result:
I didn't pick the video game answer even once!

What Death Note Character Are You?
Hosted by theOtaku.com: Anime. Done right.

this is how a quiz should be made, you can't tell who you're going to get from the questions

What Naruto Character Are You?
Hosted by theOtaku.com: Anime. Done right.

What Digimon Character Are You?
Hosted by theOtaku.com: Anime. Done right.

Anime | How to Draw Anime | Anime Wallpapers

Top of Page