The theme (brought to us by a strange construction sign is) "don't worry, be happy!"

Pro-Peace Protests

My friday was highlighted by pro-peace protests. First, let me say that I support both sides of the argument. Arguing, I hate to say it that way, is very American. So both Pro-War and Pro-Peace have their places. However, I don't think people should be killed and this war is killing people which sucks in my opinion. So anyway, this Friday was a "walk out" on campus. People gathered in red square at noon instead of going to their classes. (Heres just an example picture of red square, not on the same day, to give you an idea of location.) I ran into Suzuki Sensei in all the people, and we talked a little bit and listened to the speakers. The first announcement was that someone had called the police and threatoned to kill two protesters (one male, one female) if they left campus. That was kinda freaky. So the speaker told us not to be scared, and that police would walk around the edges of all the people watching for anything that could give them clues about someone who would be planning to shoot others. When the speakers were over, they called on all of us (and there was a lot of us!) to march downtown. I had to go to the bank downtown anyway (^^;) so I decided to go along, because peace is an important message. Right before I turned around to follow the marchers I ran into Eina. She didn't want to march, but she walked a little bit and then went to lunch. As I marched with all the people I mingled in and listened to the conversations, and different chants. (Some of the better chants: "Drop bush, not bombs." and "1,2,3, oh ya, bush is bad, 4,5,6, he's ugly oh ya oh ya" and "what do we want---peace, when do we want it---now") Sometimes I would just let the river of people flow past me... (I like that picture in the last link a lot, you can see the people move past me, the sign words and the faces and almost the thoughts of the different people.) A lot of the people in the croud were people you might be able to label as "hippies" or "extreamists" but I was happy to see a lot of the people appeared to be your "normal" student. Everyone of course is equal, so who the croud was dosen't matter... but on campus a lot of people have been callnig "pro-peace" people "Stupid Hippies" ... (this is a bigger picture from inside the people, I like how you can see "LOV" on the right and an American flag on the left.) So, basically everyone marched towards downtown with people watching us from the side roads and appartment buildings. Some people glared with mean expressions on their faces, but most people smiled or waved. In the front of the mass of people about 10 drummers were hammering on their drums, making it seem ironically like soldiers marching to war. When we all got downtown, they sounded an air raid siren and we all layed down in the middle of the road and were silent for the dead in Iraq (well, mostly quiet except the 5 pro-war people on the corner sometimes shouting "liberate iraq!").. I laid their in the sunny almost summer air, the road pressed against my back. It was a really surreal experience. Laying in the middle of a once busy road with hundreds (thousands?) of other people. One of the really cool things about going downtown, was that they welcomed speakers to come up and talk. Some of the speakers honestly sucked, dry, repeated, uninspired words. But some of the speakers were really insperational. One of the speakers that stood out for me was my friend Tyrone who had a really deep things to say about how we must make sure that that making Iraq democratic didn't mean controlling iraq, and etc. He got some of the loudest chears. Also, the organizers allowed a pro-war sargent to speak his opinions and everyone was respectful of that... I thought that was really cool. America is all about diversity of opinions.

Emily's 21st

Emily had her birthday party also this weekend. My camera was full so I couldn't take any pictures, but it was really fun. Shinji (from my CS class last quarter) gave me a ride in his car, and we got there kinda early. But eventually a lot of people showed up (many from CSA) and after awhile (around 1 in the morning) a lot of us decided to go out to a resturant. After that we watched a movie (The Others.. creepy, I screamed) on campus. It was fun, happy birthdays to Emily.

other things...

tonight (saturday?), me, Bryant and Polly watched the French movie Amelie...silly movie!! ^^; (those two pictures of them are from the time that they and priscilla and King Yao (dont have a clear picture of just him, but he's far right in the next picture) played uno and other card games with me last week!) I'm looking forward to my radio show tomorrow (sundays, 3 to 5pm, 89.3FM!) I think I'll play silly songs. peace..~ TEMAN SAYA, SAMPAI JUMPA! (this entry says it was posted at 7 something, but thats just when I first started on it... its really 11 now.)

Life keeps rolling

This isn't really a super exciting diary entry. In fact, its kind of boring maybe. But I don't care. The point of having a diary is to keep track of whats happening, right? ^^; And I don't really want this to be a list of who I've hung out with... but sometimes its fun to mention some of the people that have hung out with me!
(L to R)Young-min, Yeun Kyong and Sua were having a pizza party with me the other day. (The animation is kind of low quality, but its really funny I think!) It was fun, and we watched a Korean movie and some of us (including me) were drinking (mike's hard lemon aid, khalula & milk, and tequila & orange juice) so I got kinda silly... but who cares! After Sua and Yeun Kyong went home (Young-min is still staying with me, he hasn't left America yet..) Shunsuke surprized me by stopping by while I was sitting on my messy floor. We talked for awhile, thinking about having a Jackass party or something, and then he went home. For some reason I don't remember when but I hung out with Polly, Priscilla, Braint, and King Yao. I haven't uploaded their pictures, but that was a good Cantonese learning experience. We ate dinner and played Uno.. in Cantonese, (HONGSEI~!) which helped me try to memorize more color names. My thoughts are coming in fragments. I guess we also were drinking then too.

I've been thinking about how I hope to graduate soon. And then I'll go off to Japan and maybe live in a small 1DK or something. Time for a quick Japanese culture lesson. Appartments are small. (kinda like the one I'm leaving in now) And I've noticed the ones sold to non-Japanese in English are sold for way more per month ($2000+) compared to almost the same ones sold in Japanese for Japanese ($700+) .. am I wrong about that? Also.. what is this 1DK, 2LDK thing? the first number is the amount of rooms, and then the letters are the names of the other kinds of rooms. L is living, DK is dinning/kitchen. It works like that. Alot of appartments expect you to entertain guests in your "bedroom" because you'll have a pull out futon bed. Roll it away when your not using it and welcome people to your room, roll it out when its bed time. Thats almost my setup now, but for some Americans this might be culture shock? I'm not sure. Right now I'm waiting for Shunske, he said he was coming to meet me and talk.. but I guess he's not coming. Hmmm. SAMPAI JUMPA! ^^

Married Man: Nicky!

Click picture for a huge version!

Oh my god! Another "first" event in my little life. The first time one of my good friends has got married. Nicky is now a married man! Whooo! Congradulations guys! (In the above picture Nicky (far right) with his new wife and his wife's daughter.) It was a very beautiful wedding... They had it in their house, in the living room which had been decorated with candles and whte paper streamers. They exchanged vows infront of the preist, kissed, and then took a million photos! (Although I think I'm the FIRST person to post a picture online?!?! Even before Nicky?? Wow! cool.) And then we all enjoyed the potluck food.. there was so much!! I ate more than two plates of lazania (spelling?) and noodles, and ham and etc etc. Yummy! It was a cool wedding. ^^ More pictures later...~

This weekend my computer died!!! It is is so sad, I really am frustrated!! Then how did I use my digital camera to take the above picture?? Polly was really nice and let me use her computer to download the picture...yay! (I hang out with her after the wedding, and watched a silly hong kong movie... it was crazy! someone got poked wth a stick in the butt cheek and blood came out, I was shocked! and it was a comedy! hehehe) oh! And also this weekend Carrie was up from California, visiting and helping her sister move into Bellingham. She stopped by my place and we went out to lunch. Didn't see her a lot, but it was fun to say hello! Anyway, I'm going to go for now. More thoughts later of course. Peace to the world. ... DAAG!

I've been having a lot of fun with that cheap digital camera of mine. yah!



I hung out with Nicky, helping him work on his project... I took this picture of me and him walking to the post office. I think its a good picture...



I was walking to the store today and I saw that Bellingham now has Sakura blooming! Its really pretty and it was a wonderful day today. The clouds were soft, the air was nice, I loved it.

And now for a deeper topic...
Warning, if you think things are gross easy, skip this section:
I was thinking about today (why?) that until I was about 15 (younger or maybe older?) my body always took turns going to the bathroom. First the shit, then the pee. (or sometimes, less often, visa versa) The first thought that came to my mind was... why did it take turns? And the next thought was that now, it dosen't. Most of the time my body pees and shits at roughly the same time. It saves time this way I guess, was there any other reason for this body pattern change? Its really interesting to me. What about other people? what do they do? I don't have any idea... and while I'm talking about things I took for granted about my body but didnt really think about much.... pillows! I used to think everyone liked cold pillows. I always wanted to have a cold pillow under my head, so much so that when my pillow gets hot from my head I sometimes turn this over. I totally thought this was normal until I said something to one friend who said "huh?? your crazy! warm pillows is what everyone wants!" is this true? Am I different? or is it just personal preference? I have no idea...

Nicky is getting married on Saturday this week. I'm so happy for them, but its still amazing to me. My friend Nicky will be a married man soon.

SAYA MUAL??? SAYA TIDAK MAU MENINGGAL! LUCU INI... DAAG!

Bad news for photo haters!

For those of you not liking all the darn photos spread all over my internet diary, I have bad news! I now have got myself a super cheap little toy:

I got myself a digital camera for about $15 dollers, and don't get me wrong.. the quality is horrible the size of the images is so small and it has no flash. (Like my shirt above? I do too, I got it at the used store today! yay!) But anyway it will work good to capture a few blogging diary moments?!?

Young-min took this picture of himself. Right now he's staying in my small room because his dorm wont let him stay because he graduated. Soon he's going to go to Europe, which is really cool. With my futon bed, and a second futon bed on the floor for him, I have almost no floor space in my tiny room! But its ok...~! ^^
Look forward to lots more photo moments. Vote: is this cool or what?! SAMPAI JUMPA!

Yay!

Pictures from when Hye Jin came!

It was so cool when Hye Jin came. (Click the picture above for a bigger version, so you can see Hye Yeon's (on the right) simple undecorated living room!! I think she should add decorations!! Click here to see a picture of me and Hye Jin hanging out in my silly room....Anyway, I didn't get to see a lot of her when she was here... but it was really fun hanging out with her while she was up visiting! ^^

Yesterday, Young Min invited me to a party at his house.. .. it was fun, a lot of drunk silly people. By the time I came home I was spinning inside my head! hehehe ^^;; Me and him were going to go on a roadtrip this weekend, but we had a few mixups and we are changing our plans! Maybe next next weekend?? Hmm.. anyway, thats all I have to say for now! uh-huh. Word to the people. SAMPAI JUMPA!

War Kills People

Its a sad world when people fight with eachother. Why are we going to war? In my opinion, and its only my opinion.... This war is sad, why is this war happening??? I could talk forever about how America is being a bully, and about how we are being abusive of our status, and about Bush being insane... but its all been said already, and in the end the only thing left to say is how sad it is.... daag.

Ladies and Gentelmen, and now for an annnouncement...!

»ýÀÏ ÃàÇÏÇØ~! HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEUNG ONE!

S.O. is having a birthday on the 19th, this is a little early but... HAPPY BIRTHDAY CUTE S.O. YOUR SILLY! (the text on the animation is Japanese for "happy birthday".. actually, "congrads!")

Saturday was cool. I hung out with Nakayama and we met Minako (who I hadn't seen in months) with Akane and we all went to the American-style Mexican resturant downtown. After that I went to Ryu's birthday party... that was interesting... started out with a lot of people playing chess (really!) and I met the young guy from Nicky's early version of the Hamster Report TV show (karate segment) it was interesting to see someone who I had seen on a TV show, well, a TV show that hadn't made it but... he was a cool guy, none the less, maybe Nicky can sneak that segment into his new show? Eventually a lot of people started drinking and getting crazy (Although I'm proud of myself, I didnt drink anything! ^^ ) ...it was a lot of Americans who thought they knew stuff about Japan and Japanese but who didn't really know as much as they thought (I'm sure me included!)...Actually, at the party I did a very geeky thing! ^^;; I was walking around and I saw a book about Ethopia, and I started reading it. The book was all about Ethopia, and it brought out some interesting facts. Although Ethopia wasn't ever really "colonized" by a European power, it did its own colonizing of other African areas (like when it annexed Eritrean territory in 1962) ... It made me wonder if society has a "be the oppresser or be oppressed" attitude.. it was a weird thought that I'm still thinking about. The party was interesting though. Sunday I did my radio show and it was crazy, tons of calls. Apparently there is this freaky punk music band from japan who came to bellingham for the last month and they have been causing chaos and tons of people like them, so people where calling about that. Made the show wild... would be cool to get that band in for an interview or something! And after all that, Priscilla took me to dinner at the commons tonight. It was nice of her, good food and I met a lot of people I know! yay! ALSO! A word to the wise... Vicky has a really cool blog. Wanna know what its like to live in Japan? Read her blog. Anyway, I need to go study now. peace! SAMPAI JUMPA! ^^; ...

Hye Jin came to visit!
This last weekend was really cool because Hye Jin Shin came up to visit Bellingham... we took a few pictures, but she hasn't sent them to me yet so I'll have to upload those later. Brendon and Maralise gave me and Hye Yeon (one of the Korean students going to school here) a ride to the seattle airport to meet hye jin. Brendon asked me what she looked like while we were waiting, and I was in the middle of describing her when she walked up! She's changed, longer hair and lost a little weight it seemed like. But its been almost 7 months, so people change. We rode back, and in the car I interviewed Hye Jin with Brendon's MD recorder (he said I could use it). It was late when we got back to Bellingham, so I let them go to sleep with plans to hang out Saturday night.
Saturday day I hung out with Nicky. It was fun seeing him, he seems to be doing well. (Right now he is making a 10 second movie, called "duel"... click here and rank the movie "duel" a high vote! 10 or something... if you don't see the movie "duel" keep clicking the view link because its sometimes random.) I came home at night, but Hye Yeon and Hye Jin weren't able to come home until real late so we didn't hang out.
On sunday, I went to my radio show and played the Hye Jin MD interview. It was so fun, it was like having her in the studio... even a few people called to ask who was in the studio.... !! In the early evening, Nakayama invited me to pizza & movie with her room mate, and that was really fun... after that I came home and waited for Hye Yeon or Hye Jin to call. And this time Hye Jin really did come over to hang out! (Hye Yeon didn't, said she was busy studying).... it was fun hanging out with Hye Jin, we started to watch a korean movie, although I distracted her with some of my pictures and stuff. But anyway that was that weekend. Pictures soon!

I don't like really being so politcal, but this "war" stuff is really sad. Why do people want to kill each other?

Also, on Tuesday or something I saw a really racist cartoon and that pissed me off. Why is the world so mean sometimes? ohh.. and in good news:

I'm graduating in spring!?

if all goes as it seems to be going I'll be graduating university finally, after 5 long years, with an offical "nothing" degree. Yes, its offically a degree for people who have no specific field of study... its a nothing degree... but oh well. I'll be done finally! yay! Well, I'm going to home to study or something. DAAG!

YAY! Hye Jin Shin is coming to Bellingham!

One of my friends from BIP Korea is coming to Bellingham tomorrow, to visit Hye Yeon (one of the other BIP people who is here) and me! yay! Its going to be fun seeing Hye Jin again... I'll post pictures here when I get them.

... I did some creative "hacking" off Hanmail and now I have all sorts of digital ways to express myself. Yay!

ALSO! My current FAVORATE SITE is awesome!! OK its sweedish (whats up with me and sweedish stuff recently??) but its so cool ~!! Farm animals doing weird things and stuff! You can even learn some sweedish from this program... I'll include some sweedish I learned so far, to help you....starta is guess what.. start! click this to start your journey into crazyland! bonuspoang is bonus points (try to get these!) and aterstall means "clear" which means start over in a few of the games... avsulta is close (use this to close some of the games)! ,.,.. for somewhere to start, click on the "sheep" and play the pooping letters game thing, its fun to write with shit! uhmmm. yay! (You'll need Flash, shockwave, and a fast connection to use this site!)

And in other news... I performed a Japanese rap at an open mic yesterday. I was cutting into it, busting out rhymes in Japanese, doing real good and smooth... and then I heard someone do a little laugh.. maybe they though my rap sucked, maybe they thought it was so good, (or right now I'm thinking maybe they didn't get it so found it funny?) but in any case they made a little noise that distracted me and BOOM suddenly I lost the next verse, my mind couldn't find it.. I was so frustrated..!! so I made a funny face, said a few random lines in Japanese about not being able to know what to say next, and then cut to my final chorus. It was a fairly good save, but I regret not being able to do the third verse.. its one of my favorates because the rhyme setup is sweet! anyway... thats my word to the people. SAMPAI JUMPA!!

I'm a silly silly person.

Anyway, life is rolling around. I'm going to go talk to the Dean tomorrow about graduating, I want to graduate!!

And now, ladies and man-like beasts, drum roll please! Vicky is the latest one to join the blog-army, and she's got a freaky cool blog now too! Yay! I added a link to it up to the left, under outside links... or you could just click here... her background is my favorate color, rainbow! ... well, it cycles through the colors...~! (I didn't ask, so if she wants me not to link to her blog, I'll take the link away!!)

My friend Mio is silly. She sent me a post card that I got yesterday... all it said on the back, in big letters, was "Whats up?" ...thats all. I actually thought it was kinda funny..~! Do you all (who am I kidding? No one reads this!) see the comment box below my entries that Nicky made me make? Use it! ^^ DAAG!

weekend update...

Of course this weekend wasn't as wild and crazy as the weekend when Hyo Eun came up. (Yeun Kyong sent me even more silly pictures from then! Funny one huh? Sorry its small..~) But I still had fun!



On friday I hung out with Polly and drank Kahlula & milk. We watched cartoons at her place, and basically chilled out. After coming home I had a cool conversation with Nicky on the phone, I haven't seen him in months!?! And then I stayed up until the late hours of the night having a drinking competion with myself and a 40oz beer... somewhere in the middle of this competion Hyun Jung called me from Wyoming (spelling?) and I was kinda drunk, so I hope she could understand me!

On saturday I went to a cool Salmon eating party at my American friends' (Roz & Nathen) house. There was so much salmon! Teriyaki salmon, lemon and stuff salmon, salsa and black bean salmon! and there was a lot of baked potatos... basically it was some really good food!! ƒ��[�I‚¨‚¢‚µ‚©‚Á‚½‚æ�IAnyway, I really liked it. After that I hung out with Nakayama and her room mate, etc, watching The Matrix... well, I didn't pay 100% attention but thats what they were watching... and then I went home and stayed up late again, went to bed at 3, or 4:30 and then.. Vicky called me at about 5 in the morning, from McDonalds? I was so surprized (and because of a time difference it wasn't so late... early? ... for her..) and it was really cool talking to her. She seemed so excited to be hanging out with her friends, it was cool. This sunday my radio show was fun, I played some new music.. got a few requests, didn't make any big mistakes.. was cool ^^

If your wondering the bouncing bunnies that are currently on the upper left (this will change soon) that say congradulations in english and then 'congradulations BOUNCE' in Japanese are for Nicky, FC, and their baby that will be coming soon! woo! ... Anyway, I'm going now. TEMAN SAYA, SAMPAI JUMPA!