Reality vs. Real

You know what I just realised? I figured before I watch the MV of a Japanese song I might like it, but after the MV I most probably wouldn't. Somehow it doesn't really look very appealing to have more than 3 guys stand on a stage (anything would do, like the ledge of a railing) and sing in unision (or even sing at all). It's kind of detering...

Yeah, so maybe they have flawless skin or perfectly sculptured features, but I guess having so many guys just singing makes them seem a little redundant. It's becoming more like a choir instead of a band/group. It's messy AND boring. They're all just standing around swaying to the music or staring up at the sky with some sort of morose expression that tells you that they've just lost the love of their lives (in the MV, of course).

How typical.


Hey, I actually find it fun to think about why I dislike boy bands that don't seem to know how to play a single instrument. It's quite entertaining and helps me improve my critical analysis skills. Maybe I should be a band critic when I grow up, not that I'd be any good at it but it's fun.


Lead singers generally are the popular ones in a band, but when you have 5 or more of them and no one sitting behind a drum set making cool gestures with the drumsticks or jamming on the guitar while in a cool stance it makes the whole MV look dull.

I've seen a few Japanese MVs and a number of them just show the band members aimlessly wandering the busy streets, reading a score sheet and strumming a guitar casually (not according to the song), trying (and sometimes failing hilariously) to get a sock or some other garment on, studying so hard for a test they end up exhausted etc. It's boring the way they focus on meaningless actions or do not tell a story.

たいくつ。(Can't convert this to kanji on blogger.)

Can you believe people actually spit good money to buy those MVs? You can find them anywhere!

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about that.

Wait.

Actually I am, but that's not the main reason I started this post.

Hang on a moment while I get my message ready.

Here goes.

I GOT MY H1N1 JAB TODAY (because I'm going to Europe in 2 weeks).

Ouch.

My mother delayed the jabs twice already. Once was because the doctor said that the H1N1 jabs for children might be given the green light soon. Twice was because my father didn't get home early enough.

It's a bit annoying, really.

You know when my family entered the doctor's room to get the jab I was afraid. Really afraid. I have a phobia (a serious phobia) for anything that might cause physical pain, so I feared the jab greatly. I saw the doctor open a mini refrigerator and take out 5 boxes which I assumed to be the vaccines (1 dose per box).

My parents wanted me to go first and I was: "NO WAY."

So my father did. He sat in the chair and placed his arm on the table. The doctor took out a dose from the box and stuck it into my father's left arm. When it was done, the doctor pressed a compact piece of cotton wool to my father's arm and he got up and walked to beside me to lean against a bed. He said it didn't hurt. I was skeptical about it.

My mother then asked me to go next, which elicited a "NO THANKS" expression from me.

So my mother did. She sat on the chair and let the doctor give her the vaccine. When the needle pierced her skin (at least, when I thought it did) my mother made this slightly sour face and my father asked, "Pain meh?" to which my mother nodded.

Then being the brave person I was, I sat on the chair of doom next.

While dreading the pain, I looked away. I felt the needle alright. I felt its coldness enter my skin and the digging its way down. I felt the sudden influx of matter (vaccine) into my arm which felt a little like rapid swelling and feared that my skin would explode (of course it didn't, but you know, in these kinds of situations you tend to think of the worst case scenarios). All the time I wasn't relaxing my muscles at all. So much for the doctor telling me to relax...

I was given the small wad of cotton wool and my brother was next. He didn't look the least perturbed by the fact that he was going to have a foreign object stuck into his arm! I am in awe of him. His poker face was PERFECT. Anyway, so he got up and my sister was the last one.

She had this 'I am extremely afraid and horrified and want to shrink back into the walls' expression on her face, but she got the jab anyway. Then when everything was done the doctor gave us the 'H1N1 Vaccinated' cards so that we can show people we have been vaccinated if we are suspected to be carriers of the virus.

I threw the wad away in the end, and all that was on it was a small pin prick of yellow substance (pus, I think). I was freaked out.

We were all a little lightheaded when we left the room (not sure if it was a side effect or just some psychological thing) so we rested for a while then headed to breakfast (my brother, sister and I) while my parents went to the ATM machine to withdraw the fee.

Breakfast was great. I had 1 chicken bao and 1 cup of iced milo, my sister had some nasi lemak looking thing and a cup of iced milo too while my brother went for economic noodles and coffee. My parents both had black carrot cake but my father had an additional black coffee.

Then we looked around some places for pants (I seem to be lacking some) and went home.

Tada.

You have my day in the palm of your hands.

I mean.

Neurons in your heads.

Grain of the Cross

I BOUGHT 17 MORE PRINCE OF TENNIS MANGA!

So yeah, it cost a lot, but it's my Christmas AND birthday presents added together.

I'm still missing 9 books, but I'm happy enough right now.

Anyway, my days are pretty boring. I mean, what can you do at home during the holidays except sleep, use the computer, eat, use the computer again, read, use the computer, bathe, sleep etc.?

So yeah.

Recently I picked up watching drama online, the latest series being 'Gokusen'. You might know that if you've read my previous post.

It all started on Tuesday (the day after I bought the 17 tankouban) when I decided to do my homework on 'Prince of Tennis' and find out more about the series. I came across this bit in Wikipedia that informed me that there was something called 'The Prince After School', so I went to check it out on Google.

I found Rycolaa, a scanlation site where I downloaded 'The Prince After School' and also browsed for some interesting things to download, and I came across 'Godhand Teru'. I could only find the later chapters on Rycolaa so I went to search Google for the rest.

The results I got were disappointing, to say the least, but then I came across a link to a drama called 'Godhand Teru'. Being the naturally inquisitive (...alright, nosy) person I am, I clicked on the link.

It led to the website www.animecrazy.net where it hosted the drama. I watched the first quarter of the first episode, then the second quarter, the third quarter, the last quarter, the next episode...and you can guess how it ended.

HOWEVER (bet you didn't see that coming).

There was an error in episode 2 so I searched Google to find an alternative website that hosted episode 2, and guess what I found? www.dramacrazy.net! From there I looked into the length of Japanese drama and found 'Boss', a fantastic detective drama that focused on an odd group of police men and women struggling for recognition (in a sense). I can't believe I forgot to recommend this! ARGH.

Also from this website I found Gokusen, and here I am, quite mad about the series. You can say I quite like Sawada Shin's personality. It kinda screams: "I MAY LOOK LIKE A TOTAL ASS BUT I CARE FOR MY FRIENDS, CAN FIGHT, AND ACTUALLY DO WELL IN EXAMS" or something. I've always had a thing for this kind of contradicting personalities...

That aside, I found out the Sawada Shin's actor was Matsumoto Jun, a member of the boy band Arashi that Fish (HuiXian) and Nikki (I think) (and perhaps many more) were nuts about. I went to check out the band on YouTube to see if Matsumoto was as cool as Sawada was and perhaps as cool a singer as he looks, but guess what I found?

Arashi is...pretty bad, I should say. Perhaps I just found the wrong videos to watch, but their voices were flat. Ma, I was expecting so much better from Sawada's actor. Matsumoto didn't even look cool! Okay, so maybe it's wrong of me to expect an actor to be EXACTLY identical to his character, but it just looked so odd...

I mean, if you first watched Gokusen THEN watched the music videos (or whatnot), it's a bit...weird, I guess. The band gets boring after a few watches, though the music video of 'Love So Sweet' is just hilarious! Well, I think it's hilarious anyway... I was just browsing the more popular songs so I get a rough idea of what Arashi is all about, but I'll see to it that I'll never become their fan. They're fairly static.

I'm guessing the band is targeting the teenage female audience? Because frankly, I think they're the kind who are picked because they have a pretty face and, uh, talent to dance hip hop. The dance steps are so similar from music video to music video, and dancing as a group of boys is just plain...gay.

...I'm using the word gay a lot lately. Must break the habit...(I'm being reprimanded on my tagbox for using 'gay' and such derogatory terms on Mr. Toh...yikes...)

I think I've spent enough time evaluating the band, but just one piece of advice to people in bands: Please, PLEASE try to make some variation in voice qualities. All of Arashi's songs have pretty straight voices, no thick or thin, loud or soft, harsh or tender. It sounds like all the band members are either yelling or singing with the mike at 10 meters away...so strained...

Drama Recommendation (II)

Title: Gokusen (Shortened form of 'Gangster Teacher' in Japanese)
Genre: Comedy, School
Length: 12 Episodes + 1 Special Episode

Yamaguchi Kumiko (Nakama Yukie) is the 4th generation heir of the Oeda family, a prominant Yakuza (gangster) group. Her dream is to be a teacher and she lands the job at the age of 23. Her view of a teacher-student relationship is idealistic, until she meets the class she is in charge of: 3-D of Shirokin Gakuen.

Sawada Shin (Matsumoto Jun) is the lazy leader of the delinquent class 3-D of Shirokin Gakuen. His grades are well above average and the reason he is enrolled in the 'hopeless and troublesome class of 3-D' is the fact that he punched a teacher from his previous school.

Class 3-D is a class of 'rotten apples' filled with students who have dyed hair and sloppy uniforms, but Yamaguchi Kumiko believes she can make a change in them. The students of class 3-D, most prominantly Sawada Shin, Uchiyama Haruhiko (Oguri Shun), Kumai Teruo (Waki Tomohiro), Noda Takeshi (Narimiya Hiroki) and Minami Yoichi (Ishigaki Yuma), gain respect for the quirky teacher because of her devotion to them and even gave her a nickname: Yankumi.

Drama Recommendation (I)

Title: Godhand Teru
Genre: Medicinal
Length: 6 Episodes

An adaptation of 'Godhand Teru'.

Mahigashi Teru lost his father in a plane crash 18 years ago. His father was Mahigashi Kousuke, a world renowned doctor. As his father tried desperately to resuscitate Teru he died when a flying shard hit him in the back.

Teru's life was saved, but a red imprint of his father's palm was left on his chest.

18 years later Mahigashi Teru begins his internship with Yasuda Memorial Hospital, affectionately dubbed 'Valhalla', a mythological residence of gods, signifying that the hospital employs doctors of high quality.

On the first day of work, Teru arrives late due to an unexpected delay, and not only was he slow in his assistance during surgeries his skills appear insufficient to provide medical treatment. Everyone begins to call him 'Clumsy Teru'.

His instructor, Kitami, has great doubts about Teru's employment in Valhalla but the director of the hospital, Yasuda Jyunji, believes that within Teru dwells an ability that awakens in the most dire of situations - the Godhand, passed from Kousuke to his son.

Water on the Moon

Look, if you think I'm lying, go to Google and click on its logo (which should be 'Google' with a moon for one of the 'o's) and check out the first result.

Or you can just click here or here.

THERE IS WATER ON THE MOON!

I mean, I haven't really thought about this all since it was general consensus the moon was bone dry but there is water on the moon, and gallons of it!

Wow.

It's like life has been given to the fantastically grey satellite that orbits the Earth. Fascinating.

This was discovered yesterday and it shook the whole world! Well, the part of it that heard the news about the existence of water on the moon anyway.

It's almost as if mankind has reached the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What an unbelievable breakthrough for science (astronomy)!

Great. It's Friday the 13th. AGAIN!

Yup, just a short post to emphasise on the day and date today.

I won't be writing about my day, but you should know that it didn't register that today was Friday the 13th until Rani's Jazz Performance thing when Miss Rani mentioned it. I was like O.o: "Since when?!"

Anyway, just another short thing about the Rani Jazz Performance: I would bet so much that a great number of students were staring at the double bass player. Can't blame them, cuz I was too! I mean, look at his obviously anime hair! Okay, madness about anime comes into play...but did you see the way he plucked the strings so often? Ouch. That's gotta hurt.


The drummer was pretty good, though I would like them to have a much larger drum set (I mean, they only had one drum, 1 cymbal, and 1 set of...clanging things that look like cymbals pressed together) which in turn would produce a much more interesting beat than just a few taps at different areas of the drum.

Ooh, I like the guitar, but the guitarist just looked plain disheveled and shabby. Vomit coloured t-shirt with jeans. That just screams: "I LIVE ON THE STREETS!" I'm sure he doesn't, but he looks the part. If you put him beside his bandmates he'd just look like a rose among thorns...wait, wrong simile...I mean thorn amongst roses. I wonder what kind of guitar he used. It sounded much more muted than the normal. His name is Andrew, and there's a Joe somewhere but I can't remember who or the last guy's name...

Miss Rani was FANTASTIC! So she didn't appear that good at first, but it turned out great in the end, though I find the Jazz remix version of our school song a bit weird. Did you hear how out of beat 'Life lies before us/Here's luck to the start' sounded? Other than that, it was great, but I suppose we could have put in more enthusiasm, since, afterall, she is our senior...sort of.

Look at the difference in screaming and yelling between the Jazz Performance and the surprise performance (especially when Mr. Joseph Toh is around)! Okay, I'd admit that most of the screaming was due to students fangirling about Mr. Toh and you shouldn't be doing that to Miss Rani since that would be really, really wrong, but still! Mr. Toh sings quite well, but the other singer (well, 1 of 3) was pretty good too, though I heard he's pretty shy. He even wore a cap to rehearsals (so I heard from Mel Tham).

While Mr. Toh wriggles (that's what it looks like from the back of the hall) shamelessly on stage, the other teacher just stands there quietly singing his part. Perhaps, if the other teacher was just as 'handsome' or 'charismatic' as Mr. Toh, he might have been much more popular, since his voice is just wonderful.

You know, one can't help but compare Mr. Toh with Adam Lambert (1st runner-up [I think] of The American Idol 2009), but I gave up making the list since there were so many similarities. It'd be much easier collating their differences...

If I were to make a list of how they're similar:
1. Screams high notes
2. Acts unbelievably gay
3. Has at least on fan club (official or non-official)
4. Is not Chinese (at least, not a full one)
etc.

See? You can continue the list if you want to, but I believe most of their similarities revolve around the fact that they are NOT normal.

...I think I digressed. I wasn't supposed to talk about my day. Oh well, here's a summary since I've already started.

TODAY IS THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL! *screams in background with joyful music playing*

I stole 5 marshmallows, 2 cookies and 3 garlic breads from 211. *licks lips*

OUR CLASS WON THE BEST CONCEPT SEC 2 CLASS (technically another class also got the same prize but let's forget about this fact, okay?)! *holds up prize (eye mask) proudly*
Best Concept = Decorations and miscellaneous stuff fit snugly with the decided theme (210: Willy Wonka's Winter Wonderland)

I got tricked into waiting for Miss Tay to come and dismiss us after she has seen our classroom and deemed its state of clealiness 'passable'. She never came. I dismissed myself at 13:00. *yells angrily at the sky hoping Miss Tay would receive my fury via satellite*

MY SORE THROAT IS ALMOST GONE! *screams until sore throat relapses abruptly*

I have developed a runny nose instead. It's likely it's my body's way of getting rid of the bacteria via mucus flood but it's still uncomfortable. *sniff*

...

Aw shucks. I'm ranting again. About my day. Aren't I such a delightful hypocrite? Sue me.

Bye then.