Graduation Party!

Oh my god! I had so much fun at my graduation party... first I would like to say, so many people said so many nice things, I'd like to thank everyone who expressed such wonderful words...! And so many goodbye hugs, and everything, it was almost surreal. Thanks for the love (hate?) people! ^^ Oh and those of you who couldn't come, its ok, thanks for wanting (?) to be there anyway! But yeah, it was really really cool.

So ... it was Yeun Kyong's birthday (and sorta Shunsuke's birthday) so I wrote their names on a silly cake and I offered it to them, but no one ate it~!?! But I hope they felt appreciated too... Several of my Korean friends came with Yeun and shortly after they came... Usk and some AUAP students came.. and then lots of people came. The Korean people didn't stay too long because they wanted to go to another party for Yeun and the AUAP students saw Nickie (who works at the AUAP office) and claimed that they didn't want her to see them drinking, because they would get in trouble... so some of them left (Korean friends plus AUAP students, about 12 people?) and then I thought.. woah, I should take a panarama shot of the room! So I used Polly's camera and took panarama of the room (that link requires FLASH plug-in, if you don't want to see it in FLASH or if you just want to scroll slowly through a bigger version yourself, with out the help of the computer, click here) I made that long image from about 5 other images, so it dosen't fit all together. My brother also came up to visit me this weekend, and he was at the party but he was outside when I took this picture so he didn't get in it... It was cool seeing him though, and yes Nicky, he asked people for cigeretts. It was Polly's camera, so I guess thats how we thought to do it, but me and the other CSA people at the party decided to take a picture together and look... my hair is jumping off my head on the left! Also, Evan, Melissa and Eina came late but they came with big smiles! Hmm... I think thats all my photos? Once again, thank you to everyone for all the nice gifts and wonderful words... you're all too nice!

In other news, more personal and useless for everyone else... For some reason Bored Girl (also known as Hye Yeon, one of the two students [Yeun was the other one] who went to the school with me in Korea) and our mutual friend Sue have basically started ignoring me. I'm guessing Bored Girl hates me, and good for her, I actually feel like its balanced when people hate you... but it is frustrating because I don't know why she is hating me. Hmmm. Oh well, its life... theres not always answers.

And in other other news... I'm going to my radio show now!! and I'm bringing some new music, and its gunna be an awesome show!! wooo!! (sundays, 3-5pm, 89.3fm!!) anyway, ya'll take care, peace! TEMAN SAYA, SAMPAI JUMPA!!!

hello world
I've recently realized that I'm really doing it. I'm really graduating. Wow. So here are my plans so far... After I graduate, maybe a week or two after.. about July 8th or so, I'll take an airplane to Korea...~~!

In Korea I'll meet some of the awesome people I met when I was at SWU's BIP exchange student thing. I will also try to meet my cool friend Uni. Also, I will try to hang out with Vicky and her friend (who is coming to Korea to visit her friend Yoonhi) and anyone else! I'll try to do that in about a week. Phew! Will I have enough time? So after that, roughly around July 15th, I will go to Japan. In Japan I will try to get a job as an English teacher. I will go to Japan on a tourist visa, and I will try to find a school who will sponsor me (let me get a working visa). One of my friends in Japan (was one of my illegal students about 3 years ago) told me about a job in Kanagawa.

That map should help those who don't know locate it on the map. (Although is it kinda wrong? I think maybe? but basically its right...) If I don't get that job (working at a preschool in Kanagawa) I'll have about 3 months more time, on my tourist visa, to find another job. I'll be going over with almost no money, so I think I'll be eating Onigiri (100YEN, about $1) very often.

If for some reason you don't know, Onigiri is a common convience store food in Japan (kinda like hotdogs or whatever at 7/11s here)... and I really like it! Why do I like it? Its cheap, comes in a million flavors, and it tastes good! Its basically seaweed (nori) wrapped around a triangle of rice with a surprize (if you cant read kanji~!) inside! Flavors include tuna (my favfav!), umaboshi (thats pickled plum), fish egg, meat, etc etc. Anyway, I love onigiri, and I'll be ok even if it will be such a simple meal. So onigiri and orange juice at 7/11 (yes its in Japan, its a Japanese company!) will cost me about 220YEN (US$2) so even though I must warn you to be careful trying to survive on such a small amount of food, it will be ok! I'll survive! yay! happy happy happy! wooo! uhmmm..

in other news, my weekend was awesome too. Friday hung out with priscy and polly and watched the orginal matrix (it was priscy's idea~~!) and slept on the floor over there.. Later I felt bad though, because I forgot about that I was suppose to hang out with Saks that day (he didn't get mad though, he's a nice guy!) and then on saturday I went out to lunch with Even and his friend Aaron (note to self: not the pirate guy and not the radio guy, someone else). Then I went to KappaKarnival and made some people at the CSA bubble tea booth make me a very unique flavor. I ordered Strawberry Mocha (it wasnt one of their flavors). It was really good! After that me and priscy & polly went to the Hawai'i Lu'a cultural festival thing. It was so awesome! They had real hula dancing, and this slap dance thing where these angry topless men slapped their nipples. (Nicky would have liked that one, and he shouldn't get mad that I said that! yah! slap dancing is fun! yay! hehehe)... it was all really cool though, and the food was amazingly good! After that I hung out with Yuka and talked about the mind. She's smart! And on sunday I was shocked to meet one of the people from the korean exchange student program, they were visiting bellingham. Her name is Sue, and Bored Girl had brought her over to see my messy room I guess. Oh and went to see Matrix 2with diego and trenchy and brendon etc.. ... , oh oh oh, and my radio show was so fun!! tons of new music, and we pretended robots were stalking us. Wow. Reading my entry, I now say I'm offically on crack. Thank you very much. You've now finished reading my pointless, weird, diary entry. Wooo. DAAG!

Oh by the way... I'm graduating!





Yay! Everyone is welcome, please come, atleast stop by.
More details about the party as they come to me. Woo. DAAG!

And now, ladies and gentelmen... the update!

Biggest on my list of personal news tidbits is... I got a hair cut saturday! (Look above for clever before/after self taken pictures) .. Thanks goes to Yuka, who did a really good job.. although she thinks she should have cut more, and so maybe I didn't cut enough for getting a job in Japan, so maybe I'll be getting even more cut off in the future?? It was fun hanging out with Yuka, we went to Sehome hill, ate some mexican food, and watched Catch Me if You Can...was all fun, yuka is funny!~~~~

oh! on Friday when Yuka was hanging out with me she drew this awesome Anpan-man (a bread superhero from japan, he's the one on the right kicking bad guy ass!).. isn't it cool? hehehe ... She also drew a bunny and a a picture of me?? and I helped her drawa freaky guy (she drew the cute cat herself) heres a close up if you just cant get enough. OK! I know I know, too many little drawing doodles...~~!!! Anyway, thats all I feel like posting now. I have to go to my radio show... if your with in hearing distance, turn on your damn radio, today (sunday) from 3pm to 5pm, 89.3FM.. yah! PS: I know I update this blog slowly, but atleast I dont forget about it... like some people!! ... ^^; SAMPAI JUMPA!

Its past midnight.... I just got back from hangout with polly and uploading my pictures from my digicam. Its still working, yay! Earlyer, I was at Trenchcoat and Syrinx's bbq house-warming party. (I still don't know if they want me to use their internet names or real names in entries?) Anyway, it was really fun. (I always use that adjective: fun, fun, fun~!!) I rode the number 7 bus to their new house.. their new house is really nice. Its so fancy that in comparison it makes my small appartment look like a neglected ghetto box, and their location look like a beverally hills mansion. really. Anyway, I got off the bus and the air was soft. It had just started raining. The rain had pressed hard against the loose blossoms and brushed them down onto the gutter. I could reach down and scoop the light pink petals into my hands. For some reason it felt kinda surreal to me, almost like organic confetti after the earth had showcased it's spring parade. ... I took a picture of Trenchcoat infront of his BBQ machine, but I accidently cut off his head because I took the picture quickly... so, I have 100% allowed him to stay an unknown person! He'll be truly anonymous~~! The food was so good!! Trenchy cooked garden burgers, handburgers, and sausages,... well I guess you can see that in the picture. ^^; But anyway, it was so good.. .my mouth is watering now, thinking about it. About 14 of his (Trenchcoat) and her (Syrinx) friends came... mostly all Americans, and 2 Japanese who had been in America for a long time. There was a lot of silly conversations. Then Trenchy and Ted gave me a ride home. (He asked me, so I wrote Ted's full name, Theadore in Japanese... don't know how to write it in English or Japanese maybe!!?!) After I was dropped off at home, I was walking to polly's house to upload my pictures. The sun was fading from the sky, and the last stretches of light was brushing the leaves above me. It also felt beautiful to me. Today was a vivid day I guess...~

This morning, the phone rang when I was still sleeping... I answered it and I was so shocked!

Mio was calling me from Japan! I hadn't talked to her in.... almost a year?? I was so shocked! It was such a random phone call, it was fun talking to her... even if at first I was just laying there half asleep with my brain dead! Later I was getting ready for the BBQ and I also talked to cool Da Yeon from Wilson.. well, she graduated and now she's staying with her Uncle in Chicago. Also, yesteray I talked to my American friend Diana who might go work in Japan soon. It was good talking to all these people I hadn't seen in a long time... even if it makes my damn diary VERY boring (Who really cares about a bunch of random names they don't know? but damn it! its my diary!! yiii~! haha) Tomorrow (sunday, 3 to 5pm, 89.3fm!) is my radio show. I'm excited. I'm hoping to have a lot of fun, even though I don't have a bunch of new music this week. anyway! blah, blah, blah!! SAYA DARI BUMI~!! DAAG~!

Taste of Japan

Tonight after my full day of classes I went to "Taste of Japan" on campus. Once a year the AUAP department offers free Japanese food to anyone. Free. Free! Yay! It was really good stuff, and this year it seemed like there was so many more people there. I got in like first for the soup and stuff, but the line for the Onigiri was so long that I never got any... ...I like Onigiri~!! oh yeah before I forget .. I also tricked the nice people who were writing foreign people's names in Kanji. I walked up and said "Hello can you write my last name in Kanji? My last name is Seklongklic." ha ha ha! I'm so evil. (thats SO HARD to write in japanese.) 2 of the artists said they couldn't, but one person tried. look at their effort here.... My life is spinning. Hey! I gave my request for graduation today. That was the FINAL step, now I just have to wait and see if I'll be able to graduate. Hmmm. I hope so!! ..hmm... Oh! Pirate party pictures! yuka and me durring the 'jig' contest (its such a silly picture!) and also yuka trying to kill me with a sword while ted and another watch (wow! that was a long title!) Anyway, it was a fun party... I wish I had more photos of the other people and stuff... I'm so sleepy right now. my neighbor keeps caughing all night, and so it takes me forever to get to sleep! So I haven't had any good sleep recently... sorry for complaining... oh yeah! if you can read japanese, go to my japanese diary because I'm going to put a cool posting about when I was hitch hiking in Japan... anyway. my brain is gunna exploade? yiiiii~~ peace. TEMAN SAYA, SAMPAI JUMPA!

Pirate Party

That was funny, this last saturday I went to a Pirate Party that Aaron was having. (thats the Arron that likes macs, not the one who runs things at KUGS, and not the one who wears ties... wow, this is like notes to myself?!?!) Anyway, the Pirate Party was really silly. Shunsuke didn't want to go with us (said something about studying?!) so me and Yuka took a shuttle bus down to the party.. the shuttle driver got all kinda weird, he started driving us around trying to find the party.. he totally left his normal route (we were the only ones on his bus) and just started driving up and down Forest street. It was silly, but nice of him. We get to the party and theres all these Americans sitting around in Pirate clothes, with carboard & plastic swords, beads and stuff. And added to that most are speaking in Pirate accents. It was so silly that I really liked it. I like silly things, it makes me happy. Anyway, people started getting drunk and yelling "Arrrr!" and stuff... and some people were fighting with the swords in the yard out front. Later, Trenchcoat (I'm using his internet name~) and Ted came to the party and Trenchy sword fought with a few people. I taught a few words to Trenchcoat in Japanese (hajimemashite & samui desu nee) and then he disapeared. Anyway, the party was really funny (some guy got drunk and was kissing hands, and Meg was yelling at people.) but yeah thats the end of my "mainly written for my own memories, confusing for outsiders" diary entry.

My radio show was fun too, played good music and Even and Melissa came in and played around for a little bit. After Melissa came in Shunske came in to say hello, so I had a lot of guests to keep me from being bored. Afterwards I watched Simpsons, etc, at Even's house (he also gave me dinner~ yay!) .. Right now I'm using a public computer in a dorm,.. and theres like 12 Japanese students talking really loud in Japanese to my right.. they are talking about silly things, bouncing a ball, painting their faces, and totally distracting me. Wahhhh! Anyway. SAMPAI JUMPA~ ^^ ...

I'm not 100% sick right now! But this weekend, I felt so sick! On saturday I sounded like a frickin' frog!! Although on Friday I had fun. Me, Shunske and Yuka went up to Richmond, Canada. (Near Vancouver) The Canadians are crazy about hockey I suppose, atleast some Candians that is, and the Vancouver hockey team (Chanucks? KA Ducks?) had just won, so everyone was honking their car horns and people were shouting and stuff.. it was like a riot!! silly silly... and I guess because of the SARS scare no one was in the nice sushi resturant on a friday night, so we got to sit down as soon as we walked in the door. The resturant was cool because everyone spoke Japanese, it was almost like being in Japan.... which i'll be SOON??? (Currently I've upgraded my "graduate possibility" number up to 100%!!! this isn't really true? But I'm thinking positive.. and it now looks like 98.9% so why not say 100!?!?!) Anyway, I have homework to do so thats all I'm saying for now. Oh yeah.. want to be freaked out? go here and follow the rules and it will read your mind!?! SAMPAI JUMPA! ...

I'm still alive!

I've been having fun life, and I really should update my diary. Its been almost 2 weeks? I've been busy... after I type this entry I need to go ask my teacher for the final signature needed to ... graduate! I'm scared... I hope she gives it to me.

A while ago Shunsuke had a potluck. Yeun took some pictures (and they are from her point of view so you cant see all the guys sitting on the other side of the room!) ... first, a kinda normal picture... we are all listening/watching someone's weird skill.. (we were having a weird skill/story contest!) .. Then for some reason we all began to try to move our arms in weird ways!! (Yeun even got this picture of me looking over, while my hands really got weird! Anyway, it was fun... (most of the korean, americans [only me and christina are in the picture as americans] and all the thai people cant be seen in these pictures, apparently Yeun only wanted to take pictures of one side of the party?! ) Anyway, it was really fun.... After the party, me, Shunske, my american friend Melissa and Shunske's japanese friend Yuka all watched that movie "Jackass" ... it was so gross!! but somehow I was entertained, and it made me wonder about entertainment. .. . its such a weird thing to be amused by people falling off their skateboards, and snorting wasabi into their noses ... although the part where they all dressed up like pandas and attack eachother in the streets of Tokyo, that was actually quite funny I thought.

Also, we (csa) had a surpize party for Bryant's birthday a few days ago. I took some silly pictures, but for some reason they didnt save? I think he was really surprized, so it was fun.

Yesterday, I accidently tricked Priscilla into thinking I was Polly (online) and I felt so bad that she was talking about me when she thought I was polly...~ so eventually I told her who I was. I should really stop doing things like that!! Silly me. .... in other news, life is good.... except for the massive headache I borrowed from Evan and his flu might not be so far away either. Scary... oh before I go.. heres some more protest pictures from outside sources (I didnt take these, I took the ones in the entry below)... beginning to gather in red square, marching away form campus, die in, we all layed down for 5 mins., and finally after the protest some people sat down and listened to speakers. .... anyway, ... TEMAN SAYA, SAMPAI JUMPA!

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!