Bonsai Blog

So last night I went to Ashley’s house to watch some movies and hang out.  Callan was there too.  Originally we were set to see Journey Across the Universe or whatever it’s called, but it wasn’t playing around here.  And there wasn’t anything else interesting either.  So…Cal and Ash decided to rent some movies.  We were going to go to Callan’s house but her dad had business stuff, so we finally decided on Ashley’s house.  I came a bit late, but it was pretty fun.

This morning I couldn’t go to church though.  We still didn’t have water, so it was near impossible, and dad needed to work on the well some more.  It went out awhile ago, and he’s been trying to fix it ever since.  BUT tonight it looks like we got it working tonight!!  Yay!!  I feel like a Geico commercial.  Guess what?  I just saved $2000 on well repair!

So yep.  And Friday I was home sick from school.

    Just downloaded Flock, and now I’m using it to browse the internet.  Why?  I guess a couple of reasons.  I had already tried it two years ago, but I wasn’t that impressed.  It just didn’t have the integration I was looking for and Firefox was more stable.  Now however, the Flock team has put in some features that really make the browser nice to use.  Not least of which is the Media Toolbar, which is one of the reasons I use this now.  Plus I can update my blog right from my browser, it has a great web clipboard, and YouTube integration.  Flock is cool.  http://flock.com

    I had a great Saturday with Katherine and Mark too.  I bought two pair of jeans at Zumiez, and then went to dinner at Applebees with them.

    Then yesterday I went to the ‘Johnson Family Picnic’.  It was pretty fun, and I really enjoyed having lasagna for the first time since … a long time.  I also got to see family that I hadn’t seen since before I left for Japan, so that was really nice too!

    Good weekend, but I ended up being too tired out to go to school today.  I’m really looking forward to going tomorrow though.  Show off my new jeans ‘n stuff.  Plus I’m getting SAL off the ground this week.

Later~

Tags: mono, sick, jeans, zumiez, mark, flock, tech

So tomorrow I’ll be going to Rochester with Mark to go shopping. That’ll only be for like 3 hours, then back home and drop him off. Then Katherine is going to come pick me up, and pick Mark up again, and we’ll hang out at her house…then we go to a concert at St. Pius church. The church concert was appended because Katherine had to go, but we’re also meeting Nina, the German exchange student. We went out for snacks after school at the Bakery today actually, which was cool. We discussed America and Germany.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to hanging out with friends. And in class today, the AP Comp sub didn’t come in until the last 15 minutes of class. She was on the 9th/10th grade schedule, so lunch overlapped 5th hour and she didn’t realize it, so it was cool. We all just were hanging out and hoping no teacher would notice we were teacher-less.

Yep. I’m pretty tired, so I’m getting off. I really should make a page about the people, both in America and previously in Japan that I talk with and hang out with. Hmmm.

EDIT: And I just broke 200 subscribers on YouTube.  Yaaaay.  Time for a small celebration.  Here’s to 1,000~

For those of you who use them, what can I do to improve my forums?  I want some user feedback.  I need a way to re-energize them, and keep them going.  They’re targeted mostly at young adults and high schoolers with an interest in Japan, or studying abroad.  I think I should advertise them more, yes, but other than that…?  This would be a good post to leave a COMMENT on, but ONLY if you really know what you’re talking about.  I do moderate all comments before putting them on the site.

Also, please comment if you’re willing to help me in my idea to create a Japan-centric wiki.  I’m very interested in having someone else help me with that, so please apply if interested!  Comment, or email, it’s all good~

So I’m staying home from church, because I’m really worn out.  I was up late last night and I just don’t feel good.  And I definitely don’t want to miss school tomorrow, so I’m taking today off to make sure I’m ready for tomorrow.

I realized something though, about what new MP3 player I want.  I want the Creative Zen.  Originally I was all like ‘omg the new nano is awesome’, but then I saw the Creative Zen…with an FM tuner and calender/contact sync…and that was more awesome.  It’s like a credit card and plays videos and everything.  So now I’ve got to get $200 to do that.  Oh, and it plays the iTunes tracks with no protection.  The tracks that sell for $1.29 or something.  BUT I have a job building my dad’s website, so I can make money!!  Yay!  I did already buy my Sidekick partly from that.  So now I have something to save for.

In other news, the internet is working out really well.  I used it to download some YouTube videos and convert them so I can play them on my current MP3 player, which was nice.  I also discovered the band The Academy Is… so now I want their new CD.  I’ll have to work extra hard.  Then I put up a quick mashup teaser vid on YouTube saying that I’d be back soon!  Well, as soon as my webcam comes back from Japan.  Shipping by boat was cheap…but slow.

So yeah, have a good Sunday everyone~

So, today I was really tired.  Last night I had the most horrible time trying to get to sleep.  So coupled with mono, I was hugely worn out in the morning and stuff.  So, long story short, I ended up coming into school two hours late.  Right into my AP Gov class, which was having a quiz.  Luckily I think I aced the quiz.

I also talked more with Mark today, the Hungarian.  He was talking a lot more today, which was great.  He also asked me some questions and stuff, so it was good to see his confidence with English is improving.  I’m also really glad to help out a foreign exchange student.  He’s a cool kid.

The rest of my day was pretty dull.  I was tired, not feeling good.  Then I got home and dragged around the house.  Callan and Ashley had asked me to go to the game with them tonight, but I didn’t feel like it.  But at the last minute I changed my mind and went.  I just needed to get out of the house and take my mind off stuff.  I updated my blog look before I left though, could you tell?  And yes, this blog will be forever green.   It’s like a trademark of me now.

At the game I met up with Cal and Ash right away luckily.  I don’t have their cell numbers at the moment.  But it went ok.  We were all bored, so we decided to leave the game about 20 minutes later.  First we went to Econo because I was hungry, and they bought ice cream.  I couldn’t find anything decent…  So we went to McD and I got the slowest service ever.  But I finally got my food and then…we went back to the game.  Thyra had called me at McD to see where I was and I told her I was with Cal and Ash and we wanted to meet up at the game and stuff.  So yeah.  Lots of friends talking there, blah blah blah, and then I ended up going to another restaurant with Cal and Ash and Evan came along and that’s where my mom picked up.

Lots of names and inconsequential social going ons in today’s blog.  Sorry.

Yeah, finally got DSL!!  I’m am so overjoyed about it, this is amazing, really cool.  Now I can do all the things I could do in Japan, without having to be in Japan.  Well at least all the stuff I could do from my laptop.  Which includes using Windows Live Writer, which is great.  WP has a decent admin look, but WLW is just so much better. I can also upgrade a buuuuuunch of stuff, and download new programs, and make my life a lot easier.  So yay!

Today’s school went well.  I talked to Nina, who is the German girl using Rotary.  She’s really cool, and we’re partners for Spanish.  I also talked more with Mark, from Hungary, but he still doesn’t say much and I still don’t know how much English he really understands.  He seemed a bit less nervous then Tuesday.

Overall my classes are pretty interesting. I guess I’ll list them out and opinions because I’m just that cool:

1) Chemistry - Science is usually one of my strong suits, hopefully this will go pretty well.  Seems easy.  I don’t really mind easy.

2) Mass Media - A boringly obvious class.  I am a BLOGGER.  I know how to use mass media effectively.  This is the age of the internet.

3) AP Government - This class is sooooo cool, I love studying politics.  I get in big long discussions, and everyone else tells me to stop talking.  I just get very passionate about the subject, and I think that it’s worth talking about.

4) Analysis - Retaking this.  I’m out of math, so I didn’t want to just press ahead.  I got like B’s in it last time.  Not horrible, I know, but I still wanted to take it as a refresher.

5) AP Comp - Um, not that interesting.  I’m much more interested in Creative Comp, but this class is SO helpful for college.

6) Humanities - Pretty much essential, and our school offers a great course.

7) Spanish III - It’s really difficult, since I never really spoke Spanish last year.  I’ll hopefully make it through though.

So yeah, all my classes have pretty good people in them.  It’s probably going to be a fun year.  I’ll add more if I feel like it later~

I woke up this morning and I was just really worn out. So I took the day off of school. I wanted to get the first day done, and I muscled my way through it, but I was kind of sore this morning. Mono is one of those things that just really wears you out. My throat’s stopped hurting though, so hopefully I’ll be up in tip top shape around next Monday. So after my mom woke me up at 6:30 I just feel back to sleep, until she told me she was leaving for work at 9, and then I finally woke up at noon. Mostly because the dog was barking and whining and I thought he might pee on the floor. Nothing like the thought of having to clean up dog pee to get one going. So yeah, not the most fun way to start out.

Random thought of the day: I tried the ‘creamy chicken’ flavor of ramen for lunch today. It is creamy. And it is chicken. But I didn’t like the creaminess because I prefer not to drink the broth because of how much sodium it has from the flavor packets. Yeah.

Which reminds me that last night I finally made the box of CURRY that I found at Cub!! It was extremely bad rice that we had. I dunno what happened to it, but it didn’t cook very well. Then the curry ended up just tasting waaaaaay too salty. Apparently it has to have a shelf life of, well, forever, because there aren’t enough 17 year old Japan exchange refugees that lived off curry for a year. There were two brands though, so I’m definitely going back and seeing if the other brand can’t be a bit better. But that was a hotter kind, so I dunno.

Few changes with the blog. I updated (again) to the latest beta version. And (again) it’s more of a plus for me than you. I did add my Jaiku link in the sidebar though! I update my Jaiku periodically through my phone, so if you want to know where I am…yeah. Web 2.0 is stalking. Jaiku is very similar to Twitter, but Jaiku sounds like Haiku, which is Japanese…and well, I guess I was just being otaku. Twitter is too popular and flashy anways, I like the design of Jaiku better. Now just to find out whether txting to international numbers costs more…since the number isn’t US to update it. I can use the mobile version though.

So lots of random thoughts today I guess. I’m hoping to update my Wordpress blog with my own custom theme soon, I’ve got one all done out in my head. I should get my butt in gear and make it sometime. vBlog to come SOON, whenever my package from Japan arrives. I foolishly put my webcam in it. Nice, huh?

And on Sunday I might go with Katherine to pick up some Azn foods in the cities. Yay! Actually I’m going to ask her to go to Mall of America too, because I want to finish my school shopping. When I went before I was really sick. So that would be a pretty fun Sunday, but it may not work out. Hopefully it will.

Because of a scheduling error, I have a free hour right now.  I feel kind of sick from mono, and very tired, but I’m managing.  It’s been pretty fun honestly.  It’s sad though, it feels like Japan never happened because I’m back in US school.

 Seriously, it absolutely blows my mind that I’ve already gone abroad for 11 months and completed a year of school in a different country. It’s weird to be back!!  I’m not sure I like that feeling, because I know I can never replicate the experience that I had, and it’s really like a book shutting.  Kind of depressing thoughts.  Plus I’m not as in contact with my friends that I met abroad as much as I want to.  I do have some phone numbers and a lot of emails though, so I’ll be doing some contacting.  Now that I have my sidekick, it’s been a lot easier.  It is a really cool phone.

 Ok, bell, going to lunch.  Yay?  I am kind of hungry.  Later~

Yesterday I had to go out to do some last minute stuff, which really wore me out.  Went to get a new cellphone, Sidekick 3, so now I officially am connected again.  I miss my old au phone of course though, never forget.  I got a haircut too, I think it looks decent.  Then I did some shopping and got two new shirts at American Eagle and two shirts at Abercrombie.  Couldn’t find any decent skinny fit jeans, store suggestions?  I like the scene look.

Anyways, today I’ve been just doing nothing.  Really tired out and stuff.  I won’t be able to go to the State Fair tomorrow either, which sucks.  My throat still hurts and everything too.  And last night I had a dream about seeing some of my Japanese friends and it put me in a bad mood.  *sigh*