いや－、本当にひさしぶり！　　じつは、 この前とてもいそがしかったんです。

ウム，大学生の生活 はたいへんと思う。　　毎日早い起きたり、文保をおしえられたり。

That’s about all I can churn out when it comes to japanese. It’s late and I’m still on shaky grounds, betcha a couple of bucks there’s some heavy-duty errors in there; still, I’m pretty satisfied with the fact that I’m still studying this increasingly fascinating subject; And I actually went around talking about how EASY Japanese grammar is.

Well, it’s structured…  but easy? No, I don’t think so. Still, I ought to be able to manage more than I do, I really need to keep up the pace or I’ll drop behind, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.

That’s about all for now though, just wanted to write something… If anything to get into the habit of having habits other than watching anime when I come home… at least I’m trying not to actively look at the text anymore, which I guess is an improvement… :/

So, until next time:

あばよ

Well, I just finished, believe it or not, Death Note.

About time, perhaps? Well, I’m usually pretty slow in the uptake, and unless I see something with my own eyes,
I usually don’t follow other people’s advice when it comes to series, anime or live-action. The way I imagined it
was, “Naruto… except more people die.”

Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Naruto. I watched up to the beginning of the era of Fillers,
by pure chance picked it up again just as Shippuuden(疾風伝　:D) began. Even worse, I’ve read the manga
quite far, but I’m currently in a small hiatus because of school work and tons of other series far more, at the
moment, interesting. I’m not saying I’m a die-hard Naruto fan, I’m actually starting to lose interest in the
manga(reasons best left to another blog entry, there’s quite a few), and the anime doesn’t raise that “I’ve
already seen this part in the manga, but I’m curious of the director’s take on it” feeling you might get when,
for example, the Genshiken OAV was released, but again, that’s for another time…

Now, where was I? Oh, yes, Death Note… warning for HUUUUGE spoilers… kind of.

Well, this particular rendition of the infamous meme “Death Note Swimming Lessons” was stolen from this blog , although the creator of the original meme would most likely be one of the countless Anonymous at the ever-so-productive 4chan… Oh, while on that subject, if anyone knows the proper pronounciation of 名無しさん I’d really appreciate if you could tell me (I’ll check with my teacher tomorrow though). I think it might be メイムしさん(Meimushi-san), but any help would be greatly appreciated… oh, and it’s translated as anonymous. I was going to be really smarty-pantsy and compare the two and mock 4chan, but it kinda went down the drain… -_-

Back to Death Note (I seem to drift off a bit too much). I haven’t read the manga yet, but I’m planning to (got the first three books ordered), but I have to say that the ending, even if it was quite painful to see the usually so composed and calm Light lose it, gave me enough closure. I’ve heard some things about the manga ending being more detailed, but I kind of liked the fact that they just choose to focus on Kira, his death (and the victory of L’s ideal in the end) as well as Misa-Misa’s (hopefully) impeding suicide. I felt some relief actually; although I really enjoyed a “evil” protagonist, in so that he employs morally questionable methods, I became more and more convinced that the world he was raving/dreaming on about would never come. I think the scene at the SPK Building, where Kira’s “supporters” act more like a crazed mob than Good Citizens, really convinced me that Kira would never succeed in his mission. I won’t go too much into the morality issues and such, mostly because I feel it’s a subject so covered that there’s nothing new I could contribute, but I would like to note my immense pleasure in realizing that the character designs (as well as the illustrations in the manga) are done by none other than Obata Takeshi-sensei!

For those of you unfamiliar with him, he’s the man who illustrated Hikaru no Go. If you haven’t seen/read HnG, I’d really like to recommend it. The anime does get a bit tedious and drawn-out, with quite possibly several hours of intense eye-staring and inner monologues. The manga is more fast-paced, the illustrations are absolutely wonderful and the omake are hilarious! X3 Don’t let the Shonen Jump covers scare you away though, even though they’re… uhh… PROBABLY illustrated by Obata-sensei, I get a little put-off when I look at them, I much more prefer his black and white style.

While unable to make a smooth transition with a black and white reference here (believe me, I tried for a while), I’ve been having quite some interesting experiences in class lately. For example, the phrase お前を絶対殺す, or おまえ　を　ぜったい　ころす, is something you often hear in anime. Now, anyone would know that you don’t say that to people… unless you know them really well (and, hopefully, make it obvious you are joking). I, however, found myself in a situation where, at the end of a conversation-class, a friend (and for the class, study-partner) had performed quite badly. Jokingly I muttered the above mentioned phrase and my friend, obviously, looked dumbstruck. Unlike me, he’s not a complete あにめマニアク and didn’t understand what to me was one of the most essential phrases in existence.

So I said it a bit louder… and then I said it again… and again.

It was only later, in the shower, where I suddenly realized our conversation-teacher, a japanese woman, had been preparing for the next class about two steps behind me while I had been loudly proclaiming “I will with certainty kill you” several times. Sometimes you make the most silly mistakes… ^^

While on the subject of japanese phrases, one that I’ve been muttering for myself almost constantly this past week has been 計画通り(believe me, I know the kanji by heart. けいかくどおり); which roughly means “Just as planned.” In case you can’t connect the dots, it’s from Episode 24 of Death Note. I couldn’t help but giggle and squeal like a… a… a… catholic private high school-girl! And the way he say it, it’s just… (*´Д`)ﾊｧﾊｧ

*coughs* Anyway.

Argh, so many things to talk about. By now you can probably tell I’m not used to this way of writing yet, I’m all over the place. As compensation, have some fan-service!

This is another series I’m currently watching that may… or may not… be that popular in the Western Industrial World just yet. Hayate no Gotoku, はやてのごとく。 And the one in the image is… ban-baba-baaaan, Hayate! Yes, that’s right, it’s a trap!

　∧||∧
（　 ⌒ ヽ　みな。。。ごめんなさいよ。。。
　∪　　ﾉ
　　∪∪

I’d like to begin by saying that if you haven’t seen this series, you should try a few episodes. It’s quite funny, but it’s not hilariously so; it’s more cute and innocent mixed with cruelty and exploitation of innocent and kind (read:gullible) people. It’s got a talking tiger as well.

If not for the series itself, you ought to at least pick it up to look up Sanzenin(三千院) Nagi(凪), one of the quarter-finalists in this year’s(2007) SaiMoe Tournament. For me this contest is between Sanzenin-san or Izumi-san(from Lucky☆Star). I’m slightly doubtful about voting on Izumi-san mostly because she’s… well… she’s TOO nerdy. Plus, I’ve always been a sucker for Tsundere…　ああ、天道あかねさん、もう大好き！(　丌Д丌)

Oh… OH! I completely forgot about this!

A friend of mine introduced me to something that really made me go 何だそれか！？　Nico Nico Video“

It’s basically YouTube. In Japanese. Where you can put comments INTO the movie. If you didn’t know that w is the Japanese LOL, you will after visiting this place. Unfortunantly you need to register (and the form is in Japanese… Apparantly I’m now a 37 years old woman from Saitama… Well, that’s what I think I picked anyway. My friend’s a 67 years old おばあさん from Hokkaido… ああ、北海度。。。とてもきれいですね。。。

So anyway, he also showed me something quite funny there. I’d put up a link, but, as I mentioned, you need to be registered to see it. It’s only really funny/weird if you’ve seen through Lucky☆Star. See, there’s this character there (who happens to be in my avatar as well) named Kusakabe Misao (日下部みさお), who’s your typical tanned, slightly stupid and/or lazy but good-hearted high-school student. What makes her stand out? Two things:

1) She’s got a fang. I love fangs. I’ve actually been searching like a maniac for any kind of word that suits this 萌る of mine.
2) She speaks really, really cute. There’s actually no way to describe her way of talking, you have to hear it to understand. I suggest youtubing for her name or something, most likely you’ll find my most beloved clip. The 三秒ル－ル…

Finally, I’ve done some editting of my profile as well as my links. Mostly just some webcomics and a few online aids for studying japanese, but I’ll be sure to add some more when I get the time… and find them, of course.

Well, I didn’t get much japanese into this post, aside from some random comments, but I’ll make it up by posting some useful verbs and conjugating them!
ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!

If you haven’t studied japanese, or know a bit of it, this probably won’t help you very much… I’m not sure it’d help you otherwise either, but here we go!

Oh, and I really won’t bother trying to translate the て-form correctly. Sorry.

死ぬ　- To die
死にます – Dying
死にません – Not dying
死にました – Died
死にませんでした – Didn’t die
死にましょう – Let’s die
死んで – て-form, for example 死んでください – Please die

萌る　- To Bloom, Grow
萌えます – Blooming
萌えません – Not blooming
萌えました – Bloomed
萌えませんでした – Didn’t bloom
萌えましょう – Let’s bloom
萌えて – て-form

…Bah, this isn’t helping anyone.

では。。。今に日本語をべんきょうします。

//ケイ

Hi everyone!

This is the first time I’m writing in a blog, so I apologize for any misspellings, irrelevant topics and other misgivings that might arise.

My name’s Christian Cordeus (but please, call me Kei, or ケイ, it’s easier to remember) . I’m a first year student of Stockholms University in Sweden and my current major is Japanese in which I am attending the first semester. It’s my hope that I will be able to attain a Bachelor’s Degree in both it and English. I’m 21 years old, but since I’m living by myself (and therefore have to apply for a Student’s Loan to get by) I’d like to think I’m pretty self-reliant and focused on my goal. I sometimes become envious of those who can manage without a loan, but then again I’d rather not be in school longer than I have to.

As I mentioned I’m living by myself in a cozy little apartment on Södermalm, which I through
some divine intervention managed to get my hands on, and now bears the unmistake-
able interior decoration of a geek. I have a lot of book-cases and stuff spread around, and I don’t even sleep on a bed (my sofa’s been filling that function for about a year or so), but I still like it very much. Some day I might get around to take a few photos, please bear with me on that. I’ve been living in this place for roughly 2½ years, and to be able to afford it I’m also working a part-time job at a departmentstore. Still, I prefer living this close to school, especially since neither of my parents live where I could commute to school.

I started up this blog for mainly two reasons. First, I wanted to try having one for a while. I’m not expecting a lot of people to read it, but I’ve always wanted a diary, but I never liked the privacy of it. Second, I need to practice on my practical japanese. Which is mainly why parts of this blog will be in japanese. In the beginning I think I will be limiting myself to only a couple of lines of japanese. Write what I know (which means that I’ll refrain from using kanji I’m not familiar with, nor will I rely too much on auto-translative functions like babelfish) and try to incorporate as much of what’s being said in english into japanese.

As for the subject of the blog; it’ll mostly be around things I find interesting. Anime, manga, video games and the like are a given, but don’t be surprised if I end up heaving out some political opinions or random hobby-related splurges of witticism.

Anyway, I won’t keep you here longer than necessary, thanks for dropping by.

みなさん、おげんきですか？

これははじめのブログおききますよ。　ちょっとはすがしです。。。

僕はコ－デウスクリスチャンです。でも、ケイとよんでくださいね。

僕はストクホルムだいごくいんせいです、一年生です。　僕のせんもんはにほんご。すこしわかりますよ。

僕は二十一歳です。うちで一人あります、でもたのしですよ。もひそがし。　ひとりぐらしわすけ。。。たぶん。

僕のソファでねますよ、しんだいが￥ありません。たくさん本がありますよ。本が大好き。

まんがとアニメがすごいい。RPGとテレビゲ－ムも大好きです。

それから、僕のたんごはちょっとちいさいです。今日はおわれだ。とのしですよ。またあいますよ！

バイﾋﾞ－

ケイ