Life's short and boring...

I haven't written about how bad my New Year celebration was.

For starters, the morning of New Year Eve, we woke up to discover that our refrigerator was broken. We don't when the coldness generator (don't know what it's called) stopped working. But we woke up to spoiled food and a melted goop dripping freezer. WE HAVE NO FOOD! I've been eating instant noodles and canned food for the last few days and occasionally we'd eat out. There were a few food items that were salvaged. The pre-cooked foods were okay. It sucks not having a refrigerator. So the foods we saved are out in the backyard (it's cold enough). Not only is our food outside, but it's in a Kikkoman Soy Sauce barrel. We have lots of barrels and crates because of our business. Anyways, the barrel provides protection from wild animals.

For the rest of New Year's Eve I spent the day serving crazy customers and totaling their checks at work. There's only two holidays in which we are extremely busy: Thai New Year (in April) and Roman New Year (that's what we call it). What felt like endless waves of people pouring into the restaurant faster than customers can pour their champagne kept me busy! The last table didn't leave until 11pm (we close at 10 pm people!). The chefs were tired and angry. Me and my sister were exhausted and just wanted to go home. We drove off in a separate car.

This was really weird... So, normally we'd be celebrating at home or at someone's party in front of the TV watching the countdown. Not the case this year. It felt weird that we did the countdown in the car... with the radio... Once it struck midnight, it first for both of us, but we saw live fireworks being lit near the expressway as we were driving. Because we would usually see them on TV, it was kinda cool to see a lot of fireworks live. It was no surprise that Pink's "Raise Your Glass" played on the radio as it was played after last year's countdown too. The next song that played... is forever etched into my mind... it was LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It." Yeah, kicking of the New Year with "that" song. We were singing obnoxiously even though I don't like the song.

I guess I'm looking forward to what the new year has in store for me.
More than anything I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO THE NEW FRIDGE WE'RE GOING TO GET!

So... here we go...

Now... we were hungry from all that wandering, so we decided to leave the apartment again to eat at a restaurant. We got to a fancy Taiwanese restaurant and ate a lovely dinner. After eating, we went back outside to look for a bus that would take us to our apartment. The problem is... we didn't remember which side of the road we got off at. Lost again?! But we just knew that we needed to get on bus route 204. We took a guess and hopped on a 204 bus. If you didn't notice, we have absolutely no understanding of the Taiwan bus system, which is why we get lost all the time.

After breezing through multiple stops we didn't recognize, we both sighed and assumed the bus would loop back after the final stop. The bus continued to drive on and the seats were emptying. The bus kept going further and further into a dark and unfamiliar part of town. On a poorly lit street, in the middle of nowhere, the bus driver stops the bus suddenly, turns in his chair to look at us (the ONLY people left on the bus) and says something in Chinese. In all my confusion because I have no idea what is going on, I turn to Miki and say "I think he's talking to us, what is he saying?!" At this point, we're terrified.

This is our awkward conversation-

Bus man: *repeats what sounds like a warning in Chinese*
Miki: *shakes head in confusion*
Me: "whaaa?!" *head tilt*
Bus man: *repeats again*
Me: "I think he's telling us this is the end of the line... get off now"
Miki: *asks in Chinese* "can you speak English?"
Bus man: *shakes head rapidly* "11...."
Me and Miki: "huh?!"
Bus man: "11..." *points outside door*
Me: "I think he really wants us off the bus"
Me and Miki: *both get up and walk towards door*
Miki: "oh yeah, all buses stop running at 11:15 pm, no later" (it's 11:30pm)
Bus man: (notices our sad confused faces) *rubs temples roughly* "where?"
*shuts bus door*

The bus man points back at the chairs, signaling for us to sit back down. He then drives into the busyard and a fellow employee hops onto the bus to empty the fare collector. The other man chuckles and asks what I'm guessing "why are there still people on this bus?" We assumed he wanted us off at that point, but... he drove out of the busyard and stopped the bus again. I am then screaming in my mind (OH NO!!!! HIS SHIFT IS OVER HE WAS SUPPOSED TO GO HOME AFTER GOT TO THE BUSYARD!!!!)

The bus man then walks to the center of the bus where the route map is and points to it asking where we need to go. We point to one of the train stations on the route map, the bus man then kneels down and goes silent as he looks over the map not understanding what we want. Miki then remembered that she had a sentence prewritten in Chinese in her notebook that says, "please take me to the nearest train(MRT) station." She showed it to the bus man and he nodded. He then went back into the driver's seat and sat there for 3 minutes with his face buried in his hand. After he thought to himself, he started the bus and drove off to restart the route.

After passing three stops, people started signaling to get on the bus (here, you actually need to wave your hand if you want to get on, if not, the bus will pass you). It's midnight and the bus is half full. (no buses are running at all at this time). Me and Miki are talking to eat other, "wait a minute, he's willing to drive the full route and drop off all these people, even though his shift is over, for the sake of getting us back safely?!" At this point, we feel very horrible about ourselves. Because of us, he's doing something he shouldn't be doing. He is going to waste 3 hours of unpaid time because of us. He is the nicest man we've ever met since arriving in Taiwan... I wanted to cry right there on the bus (but I couldn't, instead, my chest hurt during the ride), I'm crying now though, that bus man was too kind to us. The bus does stop in front of our apartment, but we wanted him to drop us off at a train station because we didn't want him to drive any further(we assumed he would turn back), but with all those other people, he had no choice but to drive the entire route. When got close to a train station he called us to the front of the bus to make sure we'd get on the train. He gave us a weak smile and we both thanked him. We got off the bus and went into the station, then boarded the train back to the apartment.

We got off the train and continued walking down Xinyi Rd (the street in front of our apartment). The station was a few blocks from our apartment, so the walk wasn't bad. The 204 bus is a route that drives down Xinyi Rd. It's 12:30 am, his bus is the only one on the street. As we walked to our place, we had just reach the front of our apartment. I turn to look at the street... and it felt as if my heart had shattered into a million pieces as I saw that same bus man driving that 204 bus right in front of us. I really wanted to cry, what bad timing that we'd meet one last time. Bus man... we never got your name, but we will never forget you.

I wanted to keep his face in my memory, so I did a quick doodle of what he looked like. It's a general idea, but it's close, I still need to revise it.
The end was no joke, we did see bus man in front of our apartment, we didn't think he'd actually drive up that far.

I was in a hurry to get to my psychology class yesterday... and I tripped over my two terabyte external hard drive!!!
I BROKE IT!!!!!!!!!!
I can't believe I broke my hard drive!!!!!!!!

I had EVERYTHING on it! My video collection! Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to find CRASH! live @ WestWind! It was the best live ever! My entire music archive was on there too. My Jdrama collection was on there! I had 10 full anime series on there too. All my film works and edited footage was on there! All of these things are hard to replaced.

I need to get it repaired!
I'm going to ask Santa to fix my hard drive this year...

I'm gonna cry.... all my stuff is gone!

I finally finished the drawings.
I'm wishing they don't get lost.

In Batavia this entire weekend, they're celebrating Oktober Fest.
A wonderful German festival of beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, wurst, schnitzel, and yodeling. They had carnival rides too. I bought a huge stein of beer, some smoked wurst, bratwurst, and funnel cake.

There was also a separate tent with food and beer.
Here' the stein I got, it's filled with wurst now.

It was huge!!!

I had more pictures but they're on Miki's camera, which I can't find.

I posted up the second illustrated interview on "Attack All Attackers."
This time it was Nishijima's interview. He was just saying random things. Next up is Chiaki's.
Oh yeah... about my comm's name, you know... it took nearly forever to come up with a name. Of course it needed to contain those three letters we love so much. I started coming up with just the most outrageous names. Would you believe that I nearly named it Atrocious Attacking Apples or Admirable Alligator Alliance?

Well... as long as my logo makes sense.

Today, I got to talk to Miki.
She's enjoying her time in Taiwan. I got to use a video call on Skype for the first time. I could see Miki's face and hear her voice. She was at Chi-an's place. I know because Chi-an kept walking behind Miki and kept yelling "hi" at me. School is good to I hear. They get to do a lot of field stuff. Miki's instructors lets them go out in the morning to go check out the markets. The world of culinary arts is fascinating! Pikus really missed Miki too. I put him in front of the webcam. After seeing and hearing Miki, he calmed down a bit.  Pikus has been restless because he gets worried when he knows the household is incomplete. If everyone isn't home together, he'll just pace around and not go to sleep. Now that he's seen Miki, he's chillaxed and everything, I just hope he goes to sleep.

I miss Miki!
We're supposed to talk again tomorrow.
But after tomorrow, Miki's class will be going on a field trip to a different region of Taiwan, which means she'll be out of Taipei.

It was on Monday, but I didn't write about it because I've been busy packing.

I invited a good amount of people but most of them canceled. Isabelle and Sylwia canceled last minute. Because Sylwia canceled, now we didn't have a car. Gameworks is all the way out in Schuamburg. While I was chatting with Izzy on the phone, Marvin arrived early. Marvin and I played co-op on "Fat Princess" for about an hour, aww... we kept getting killed until we finally discovered the secret passageway to breach the enemy castle. There was so much blood and carnage!

*ahem*
Well, we were both disappointed that we didn't really have an easy way of getting to Gameworks. I then suggested that we take the local Pace bus, because it stopped at Woodfield Mall, which was near Gameworks, but it was a bit of a walk. We walked all the way to Jefferson Park Station (name of my neighborhood district) and took the train to the Rosemont stop where ACen is. After that, we got on the Pace bus. We were both surprised that this bus passes Mitsuwa. Well now we know.

After nearly a half an hour bus ride, we arrived at Woodfield. We decided to just cut through the mall to save on time. After that we had to dodge cars while crossing an interstate to another region called "Streets of Woodfield." It was ridiculously located far across the street from Woodfield Mall. We finally got to Gameworks. We filled uop our gamecards and went straight upstairs to the arcade games. I played "Time Crisis 4" first because it's my favorite shooter. Marvin kept dying really fast, he was using his credits an awful lot to continue playing. I felt bad because he used most of his credits on Time Crisis. I'm way too good at it, I only swiped once for a continue. After dying on the 4th level, we took a short break. While Marvin went off on his own, I attempted to play "Too Spicy," another arcade shooter, but this one's about stealing an inheritance from the yakuza. It's really hard because the time limit they give you to defeat an enemy is insanely short. I mean really short, it gives you 30 seconds to defeat the enemy. If time runs out, it's an automatic fail, resulting in a gameover. Marvin snuck up on me while I was playing. He said, "this game is really hard, it's a total bitch." After failing a 30 second challenge, we moved onto another game.

The next game was some military based assault game. You got to use machine guns a shoot everything. I remember it went by really quick. Then Marvin really wanted to play the new "Rambo" game. This one also had a machine gun and the bullet cap was maxed, but you still needed to reload. It was fun, but I think the amount of health for the game was insufficient. After dying on Rambo, we went to the DDR machine. Wow, I haven't played in a long time. We played two rounds of DDR. The first time, the machine was being difficult, we couldn't figure out how to change the difficulty level, instead we kept accidentally selecting songs we didn't want to play. We wasted our first round playing songs we didn't want on the easiest level. Each round allows you to play three songs, we wasted three songs trying to figure out the machine. Both of us hadn't played DDR in a long time, so we actually forgot how to use the machine. Our second round, we figured everything out. Marvin always plays on Heavy or Challenge, as for me, I'm way out of practice, I can only do Standard(mid-level). It was so weird because my stamina did not allow me to last very long while playing on Standard. I tried but I was way too tired. Marvin had a hard time too. We continued playing, but on one level lower than what we normally play on.

After playing DDR, we were both super exhausted. We were really sweaty and could hardly stand and walk. We limped over to the couches on the balcony. We both sat down, but I immediately got up and went downstairs. I walked to the claw machines. There was one filled with evil looking cat plushies. Ooohhhh, could not resist. I'm really good at it. I played three times. First: got nothing, second: got a pink cat, third: got a black cat. They were so cute!!!


I ran back upstairs to show Marvin. He was a bit surprised that I actually won something. We went back downstairs to try a few more times but got nothing. I had Marvin hold my cats. He shoved them into his pockets with their heads poking out. Marvin said, "I must look like a fag with these kitties sticking out of my pockets." I said, "Nooo, I think it's adorable, Marvin." He then said, "Yeah yeah, I'll just tell everyone that you won them for me and I'm very happy and love them." I said, "uh... isn't it supposed to be the other way around?" Marvin retorted, "bah! what a stereotype."

I went to play some ticket games and got enough tickets to get a Sonic shot glass. After that, we left Gameworks to get something to eat at Chipotle. I told Marvin to grab some extra napkins as a joke for a friend. So we ended up jacking an entire bag full of napkins.

We rushed off back to Woodfield because we were afraid to miss the last bus back to Chicago. We actually got a little lost on the way back. We started to panic when we thought we couldn't catch the bus. Fortunately, we made it right on time. We went back to my house and that was my going away party!

But I wished that my other friends could've gone too.

WAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm leaving for Japan tomorrow. I need to get some sleep.

Yes, time is ticking indeed!
The entry title is the most famous quote from "Epik High's" song "One." I also use it as a message notification on my cellphone. Time is ticking because ACen IS A WEEK AWAY!!! I always get hyped up for my favorite Anime con! One week away, it didn't seem too long ago that I made a post that was marked at 40 days. Now, there's 7 days left!

Main topic today, besides studying vigorously for my math final, I'm hating the statistics chapter right now! Sorry, main topic... for the longest time I have finally returned to "FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER." It's been almost two years since I last saw them... my self-made family. FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER is considered at least to one of the members as this exclusive dinning society... I've been unable to attend for almost two years because I've been busy at work. There's no one else to run the restaurant, because of that, I haven't been able to go to FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER. We actually have a Facebook page!!! It's where all the FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER MEMBERS stay connected.(I still hate Facebook, so I don't have an account)

Miki's over at the stove making some delicious pasta with Italian sausage, so yummy! Unfortunately... I ate all of my pasta before I could get a picture, oops... But yeah, Miki and I usually cook for everyone.

To me, it's more of a nice gathering of people who have moved to Chicago to fulfill their dreams and left their real families behind. Since none of them have a family to really eat with, we all meet up once a week, every Friday. Our self-made family is made up of different people with different backgrounds and occupations. They've all known each other for years. Some were classmate, others were roommates at one point, some were friends of friends which then became our friend, and some were high school friends.


Left to right: Jeffrey, Kapan, Bill, Christoper, Carl.
Members not pictured: Buffy, Yasuko-san, Robert, Gretchen, Nathan, Miki, Hachi, Monty.

With my self-made family, since I'm the youngest, I'm the child. They all give me advice about life, sometimes it's about things I shouldn't do or sometimes its about very random facts I don't need know about. They share their wisdom with me, but I usually ignore the weird advice, for example.... Bill once said, "Never attempt to jump over a bonfire when you're surrounded by gay guys, you get badly burned in many ways." Everyone in my self-made family is nicer than my real family. I can actually tell them secrets and what's on my mind. My self-made family even supports my dreams, they agreed that I could become an artist or cinematography, as long as it makes me happy. They even comfort me when I feel troubled. My real family just shouts nasty things and makes it worse, along the lines of "cry it off you big baby, no one cares about you, heck, I don't care about you, you're not even worth my time, useless child." For most of my life I've always been insulted by my mother. I have issues with my mother, which is why I'm closer to my self-made family and trust them more. My self-made family never yells, insults, or beats me senseless. Those are the main differences between my families. My self-made family... they aren't just friends, they're family to me!

You could say I had a traumatizing childhood and it has screwed up my view on real families... To me... real families are the artificial families, not self-made families. But that's just my opinion based off my own horrible childhood experiences.

Anyways, check out what's left of this viciously attacked red velvet cake.

It was so good, Miki's baking skills are the best!!!

I've skipped out on this week's shift of work, I have to study and finish my remaining homework for math. That final is next Tuesday! I need to study for that final, my grade is between a "B" and "C." I need to go to sleep now, but tomorrow I will try to get as much done as possible.

Until next time, bye again.

If anyone recalls from yesterday's post...
I just got "Super Smash Bros. Brawl." Well... I just beat mission mode in one sitting...(15 hours of gameplay). Wow, I'm a nerd! I played it on normal level, yet it still seemed hard. I'm rusty at this game, I played "Super Smash Bros. Melee"(older game) a lot back then, until Lester borrowed it and never gave it back. I'm still mad at him for that! I was once able to easily play on extreme difficulty level, now I can't anymore.

But seriously, WHAT AM I DOING?!
I'm supposed to finish up my math homework and prepare for finals and start working on my art presentation, but what am I doing???
Here I am, playing video games for countless hours like the idiot I am!!! I don't like being a professional procrastinator. I need to get started on that soon...

I had an idea!!!
Instead of me cosplaying for the Anime Com, how about I sew a costume for my Pullip instead? They are doing Pullip photo sessions, why not? I want to sew a cute little lolita outfit for my Pullip, wouldn't that be adorable? My, my, aren't I getting off topic...

Oh! Since I've already brought up the Anime Con(ACen), I saw an interesting picture of my friend that he posted up on his Blogspot. Wondering what this has to do with ACen? Well... you see... my friend(Miki's friend too) Yanho(whom we just call Yan) works for the Anime Convention Committee. Yan helps run/organize panels and discussions. Because he works at ACen, he gets free admission badges... Yan's roommate from last years con.... PRICELESS!!! He got to room with the convention's mascot, "Sailor Bubba!" Sailor Bubba is one of the guys in charge of the entire convention. I'll show you what I'm talking about.

People always seemed disturbed when they spot Sailor Bubba!
Yup, that's Yan's boss... a fat bearded man in a Sailor Moon costume.
I've met Sailor Bubba and he's a really nice man, he's very kind. Intimidating, but kind.

But no, that's not the interesting picture I'm talking about, but Yan did put up that picture last year. I'm referring to a recent family picture of Yan's. He put it up on his Blogspot, I just thought it looked funny.

Go ahead, guess which one Yan is.
Hint: Guy with the ridiculous pose.
Oh, I just gave the answer away. Yeah... Yan loves his epic poses... you have yet to see his jumping still shots, the guy is amazing... Jumping shots never seem to work on most cameras, but Yan always pulls it off, amazing hang-time. The last time I saw Yan was way back in February for the Utada concert. He gets to hang out with Miki every other day, he can't come over because of his cat allergy(we have a cat).

GAHHHH!!!! I should stop writing and focus on schoolwork!!!
Until next time, bye again!

Okay, I finally finished my videos... right now(it's 2:45 am)
Uhh... now what???
I'm kidding, I still need to upload them, which I will do later today.

Wow... I've never written a post way AFTER midnight before, this is new.

I thought the videos were going to take forever, there was so much work put into it. I only made four... I was working on "BLOOD ON FIRE", but I gave up on it after Arata left, I can't finish it without Arata, because my translating skills suck! Mmm, I can't wait to visit Arata in Japan. I had to work with whatever I had... I remember Arata helping me with "ZERO," that was the first song I synced, because it was my first snyc, I naturally knew the song by heart. Well... if you loop the same song for about 500 times, you tend to remember it. My first sync, it really launched my interest for subbing and it reminds me of Arata. As for my subbing abilities, I was shocked to find out during my first year of cinematography class, I was the only person who knew how to sub and time... Yeah, a lot of classmates asked for advice about the world of subbing... I was just a beginner like the rest of them, like I actually knew anything, "I'm a noob too you guys!"

Well... Now I'm much better than the freshman who took beginner's cinematography that I used to be. I'm now between intermediate and advanced. If it makes a difference, I can audio edit too, my obsession for music has gotten me  so far. I got curious with sound mixing programs and now I can do interesting things on them.

I love video editing and my music collection...
I still have yet to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life.
My family disagrees on me getting into cinematography, after that denial... I have no idea what my options are anymore, I'm sadly good at too many things...

But anyways, my AAA videos, in my opinion, turned out great!
Crafted with time and patience... I just hope people like it.
I still need to organize everything and figure out how on earth I'm going to post it on the comm. I'm going to need to prepare everything on Microsoft Word before hand. And... I need to figure out how to use cuts on this site... I'll figure it out eventually... eventually...

I have class in 10 hours, I should get some sleep...
Until next time, bye again.

I visited my cousin's restaurant to celebrate our aunt's Birthday.
My cousin Ann's restuarant serves Japanese food.
It's really upscale, it's a five star restaurant.
Hahaha... my restaurant only has four stars,
I'm slowly trailing behind my cousin's shadow...
Grr... my cousin is SO perfect in every way, I want to be great like my cousin Ann someday.
My cousin's restaurant consists of multiple rooms. This is one of them:

It's so pretty inside...
Ann and her team had a huge budget to start off with...
So, their place is big and nicely decorated, I'm so jealous!

Ann's restaurant is called "Thalia." It's in Chicago, somewhat near my house.
This place was ONE of the places that I was going to get transfered to.
As much as I would like to work here...
This restaurant has more than one owner... There's one in particular that I am not fond of... Vincent... that man gives me nightmares... he's mean and makes me cry. Now I just sound childish.

But if I have to put up with Vincent to hang out with my friend who works there, it's worth it. My friend is the sushi chef here. His name is "A," as in the first letter of the English alphabet A. I don't know why we never use our real names, we all refer to each other by our nicknames. My friend A is an excellent sushi chef. No one out decorates my friend A. A can usually be found at the sushi bar, since that's where his station is.

I always have fun talking to A whenever I visit the restaurant.
But... he wasn't there today, it was his day off.
So the two sushi chefs in the picture are A's assistants.
Did I forget to mention that A is the "Head Sushi Chef" for this restaurant?

Ann's restaurant has private dining rooms too.

This is the lantern room.
It's nicely isolated from the rest of the restaurant.

I ordered spider rolls, since they're my favorite.
But... I was disappointed that A wasn't there...

This kind of looks like a mess.
This is nothing compared to A's work... A's presentation always makes me drool. This.... looks effortless... Wah!!! I miss A's sushi!!! Why weren't you here A?!

I miss A's work... the deliciousness...

After we finished eating all of the yummy food, my cousin Ann brought out dessert!

Chocolate Mousse Cake with Coconut Ice Cream, yummy!
Notice how the candles have practically melted into the ice cream... It was because... Ann had gotten into a long phone conversation and forgot that she lit the candles... So the candles were half gone when she brought it out for us.

After all the fun was over...
I had to return to my own pathetic restaurant in Batavia. It wasn't busy at all... just quiet and boring. I guess I would prefer a casual in and out customer day as to a chaotic busy one. Gives me more time to relax.

I will repeat.
I want my restaurant to be popular and great like Ann's place...

Until next time, bye again.