Thank you Jance and Regina for helping me move stuff tonight. I can't believe how much we got done! This would have been a nightmare without you. - Also, Here's a sketch from last night's figure drawing session. It's the only one I was happy with, although there were many lovely poses. I really feel the rust from that break we took from having the drawing sessions (just as I was getting back into the groove). Gotta try not to let it slip away...
Tonight was interesting... I got the impression that she was highly uncomfortable for some physical pain reason..It made it a bit uncomfortable to draw her as I felt responsible for not allowing her to rest...but i can only respect her for carrying out her commitment and working with us tonight. Hell knows I would say fuck it and stay home.
Anyway, I didn't really get drawings I was happy with, but here are the ones I don't mind showing.
model - laura
Maybe I'll try to have something to show for every week that we do figure drawing... Tonight i wasn't in a drawing mood, so most of the time I was thinking something else... but here's one drawing that came of the evening. She was a redhead, and the red ballpoint pen felt appropriate.. model - lynne
and I thought this one was plain cute, felt like posting it too..
Whee look, i still draw :P it's true! Here are some ones I was roughly happy with from last night's drawing session. We've been drawing every wednesday for weeks now, but I only lately I feel like I'm starting to get back into the groove of it. I can tell that going to the drawing sessions is making a difference.
update! : i rescanned the sketches at home, better quality, whoo model- tanya
I'd like to share little bits of Japanese language I learn along the way. I feel it helps to solidify my grasp of it, and helps me to remember as well.
Makiko and I had a good discussion tonight. We bounce back and fourth with questions of how you say this in English, or how you say that in Japanese. We both gain a lot from teaching eachother.
She saw Harry potter last night, and I asked her how it was. Her response was something along the lines of "The movie based on the book didn't win" It took a moment for me to figure out what she was trying to say. It was the direct translation of ：
"本をベースにした映画は本にかてない。” "hon wo beesu ni shita eiga wa hon ni katenai." which is basically： "the movie based on the book can not win against the book"
so, I taught her "The movie didn't/couldn't compare to the book" or "the movie wasn't as good as the book" etc etc. There are so so many ways to say the same thing in English. I'm often surprised at how simply concepts can be conveyed in a Japanese sentence. It's usually very direct. English is so complicated, I'm so grateful that I'm not studying English as a second language. むりそう！ seems impossible. (? i never know if i say things correctly when i make things up..)
anyway, the lesson I learned here is a natural way to say "doesn't compare/ isn't as good as" I suppose you could say "~~no hou ga ii" ... or ~~ yori etc... but anyway, to break down what I learned:
かつ - to win katsu
(まける - to lose) makeru
〜〜は 〜〜に かてない。 えいがは 本に かてない。 eiga wa hon ni katenai. the movie wasn't as good as the book (literally- the movie lost to the book)
(i think here we have the lovely "は” for use in a negative sentence. i mention this simple point because i'm still trying to get used to it)
I love this example of the different ways english and Japanese approach the same concept. I feel i hear "katsu" and "makeru" often. I know I've heard "makenai!" (i won't lose!) before. Thinking in terms of "winning" and "losing" seems to be common/important to the culture.
This reminds me, I'd like to teach Makiko "~~didn't live up to~~" "the movie didn't live up to the book" "the movie didn't live up to the hype"
Last night was a magical adventure into my fantasies. Specifically the all you can eat chocolate buffet fantasy :)
I went with a group of my girl friends to the Duxton for their "Choc Shock" event. We had been joking before hand about how monstrous we seemed, a gang of chocolate hungry girls on a mission.. but when we arrived, the Maitre D guy said he had put us down as a table of 2, even though i made a phonecall and spoke with the manager specifically because i needed to seat a large group of 8!! He gave us some trouble, and i felt like tearing his head off. how dare he stand in the way of stuffing our faces with chocolate?!?!? It was mostly annoying because I just expected him to be more courteous and apologetic, and stop making it such a hassle, because in the end it wasn't at all. I firmly believe in "the customer is always right" mind set, as long as the customer isnt being a douchebag about it... but hey, they don't work for tips here.
ANYWAY, about the chocolate...
There was a beautiful and perfect little buffet set up. it really did remind me of the movie "chocolat", which i wish we all watched before coming out to the buffet. We were even served a hot cocoa drink with chille in it, like the movie! We were all very excited, and everyone came ready with their cameras, so instead of capturing candid moments of wonderment, we all got pictures of eachother taking pictures of eachother taking pictures of the chocolate. Yes. exactly like that. Anyhow, the chocolate treats were delicious. I didn't even manage to try them all. and what a shame, i couldn't even finish my plate at the end of my first round. We did order fries though, it helped to balance out all the sugar overload.
One of the desserts (a mini black forest cake, i believe) had this tiny merangue mushroom atop it. It was so adorable i had to take pictures of it. Also it was the last thing I ate that pushed me over into having a sugar headache.
Moragot shared this really cool video with me, by Sil Van Der Woerd. I like his vision, gritty and pretty. The video goes well with this haunting song. I love it when music videos take advantage of the medium and make pieces of art. Click the image to check out the video at his website.
Saw Moon last night. We had all been quite excited to see this one, and it was definitely a good film. I enjoyed it, but I dont want to comment anymore than that. Just go see it for yourself, if you're into the idea of a space drama. And try to avoid the trailer, it's better going in not knowing what to expect, in my opinion.
I had a fun and very full weekend. Spending so much time out is sort of new for me, usually I am out only once or twice a week. But now that I am alone at home, I decided I must keep occupied, for my sanity, and I booked up my schedule, with something going on each night. The New Zealand Film Festival is helping a great deal, with a movie I'm excited about showing every other night this week.
Before all that though, on Saturday I went out with friends to see Slava's Snowshow. It is a clown performance from Russia, that I had heard was wonderful. It was indeed, especially the audience interaction parts. At some points, I wasn't sure what exactly everyone was clapping about.....but.. yeah I'm glad I went. Afterwards we all got Kaffe Eis, stracciatella in a cone, yum! Then we came back to my place to watch Old Boy, in preparation for Sunday's screening of Park Chan Wook's "Thirst". Damn what a good movie that is. I'm so so so glad that the idea of a Western Remake, with Will Smith, and (fucking) tacos instead of dumplings. How horrible would that have been?!!?!?!?!?
Sunday I had 2 screenings. We saw Ponyo early in the afternoon. I had already seen it a couple times from download....... But seeing it in the theater made a big difference, with the full quality and more correct translations. This time I was incredibly touched, and teared up with joy and awe of cuteness throughout the whole thing. It was cool too to hear the whole audience laugh at sweet moments that I hadn't thought to laugh at while watching by myself at home. We all left the theater beaming, hearts warmed and full of happiness!
And, on top of that, the SUN was shining brightly! Which is rare for Wellington's winter. We went on a mission to buy sunglasses. I ended up buying an expensive sweater................ But, i did get 2 pairs of fun sunglasses for 5 bucks each :) I'll look at it which ever way i need to justify it to myself... We came back to my place again, Lindsay and I did our nalies like girlies, and Derrick and Jance played Wii, although we all desperately needed a nap. Dinner at Lone Star with "semi" mexican quesadillas. And on to Thirst. What do I say about Thirst? It was............ strange, cool, gorey, crazy... I walked out of the theater not even knowing how I felt about it. To my right, Jalil loved it and thought it was awesome. To my left, Flo and Christine hated it and nearly walked out before it was over. I must be somewhere in the middle. I think I want to like it, and see merit in its potential greatness. There were really badass moments and interesting characters...... But this might be one of those that I need to watch a 2nd time to allow it to sink in and process correctly. You'll have to see it for yourself.
Animal Colective- Daily Routine (Phase One Remix) This song is helping me escape this morning. Thanks to Alex at www.leftasrain.com for sharing this one. Hope to keep hearing more like this.
The rate was .81 when I signed my contract a year ago, meaning for every NZ dollar I earned, it was worth .81 US cents. The rate has since plummetted to .42 at its worst I believe...... But it's climbing again. Let's hope it keeps on going!
It's thursday, i'm going on vacation tomorrow, but until then i'm stressseeddd. Gotta finish a couple things at work before then etc etc... Anyway, this song came up and made me a little happier, so I wanted to share.
The strokes- Under Control. I fucking love this song right now.
Hullo out there. Last night Joe and I went to see Ratatat right here in Wellington at Bodega bar. I was very very excited to go see a band that I am actually familiar with come through here! I hadn't been to Bodega before, it was a pretty cool venue inside. BUT everybody was like 20 and under. I just turned 25, and Joe will be 27 soon, and well... I felt old. It was sort of okay, I accepted that fact. It was just interesting to witness it, and feel it for nearly the first time. At work most everybody is in my age range or older. I'm rarely surrounded by "kids"...except of course if I happen to be out on Courtenay at night.
Perhaps I'm at my quarter life crisis. And perhaps that's why I chopped all of my hair off. I haven't taken any pictures and I know people don't read they just look at images, but too bad. You can just imagine me with really short hair for now. I like the cut though, I don't have to worry too much about what my hair's doing.
Here's some media to accompany this post, it's Ratatat's "SHEMPI", incredibly weird video, but this is a taste of my evening last night.
Lots, and Nothing :P Haven't done anything crazy really... Joe and I went to the south island back in February, with Brandon visiting us. It was a lovely time, but it was probably well enough documented on their facebook albums... That and I'm lazy.
Currently I'm very into two things- sculpting that wolf girl project I talked about a year ago, and I'm back into studying Japanese. I'm attempting to save my language study for any time that I am -not- able to sculpt... But.. I haven't been the best at sitting down and sculpting, hence why I am not finished after pretty much one year of being on the project. I don't really feel that the images are worth sharing just yet, and I have a lot of changes in mind... Soon, though... Soon I should at least have the skull done, as I'm borrowing a replica skull as reference and I said I'd return it soon..
I got myself a Nintendo DS Lite. I hadn't rushed to get a handheld system for years since I realized I never really use them except for maybe an hours worth on the rare plane flight.. But while studying Japanese, I came across this super nifty gadget
It's a device that scans text and translates it for you! Better than the average denshi-jisho, because if you come across a Kanji you don't know, you can simply scan it and find out. Otherwise it's a much longer process trying to look up an unfamiliar kanji since you don't know the phonetics of it to base a search on... ANYWAY I didn't end up getting one of those because it was like $500... but I found out that with a Nintendo DS, you can get a dictionary program that allows you to write in the kanji and have it looked up in the dictionary! Not as instant...but pretty good, and cheap! (That, and I can now waste time solving puzzles with Professor Layton too...)
So now I have a NintendoDS lite, ice blue, with pink crystal hearts dangling from it. It matches Sammy, my poor bicycle, quite nicely. I will have to update this post with pictures, because my DS is super cute :)
Quick nihongo lesson:
"Saikin, nani ni hamatteru?" What are you into recently?
"ikerukadouka wakaranai" I don't know if I can go or not. "~~kadouka" whether or not
I learned these phrases from "Learnjapanesepod". It's a podcast run by Alex, a fun British guy and his native Japanese friends. It's very enjoyable to listen to because of their sense of humor, and I come away with useful little phrases. They also do "Fun Friday" in which they talk about Japanese culture for the session instead of language lessons. Highly recommend it!
http://japanese.libsyn.com/ (the archive of podcasts and shownotes) http://learnjapanesepod.com/ (the new website)
Anyway, I'm doing just fine, but I miss my dear friends back home <3 looking forward to my brother's visit this month!
Isn't the internet amazing?! Anyway, we mashed up 6 tubes of oreos until it was powdered, mixed it with 2 bars of cream cheese, rolled them into balls and put them in the fridge to solidify. We got big bars of Whittaker's classic dark chocolate (i was highly contemplating getting white chocolate just for the color contrast...but i think the dark chocolate was a better call on the taste, they looked damn good anyhow.) chopped up the chocolate into even sized bits, the thinner the better i think, but apparently it's important that they be even, and melted it according to the importantly precise temperature requirements. Whatever, read the recipes etc if you wanna know how to do it right, don't listen to me :P
It was pretty easy, but quite messy. We got oreo powder and chocolate all over the kitchen... and I just cleaned up some chocolate off of a light switch even... Point is, THEY'RE AWESOME! We made them for Cari's birthday party, where we knew practically no-one.. and you know, they pretty much all had kids and Joe and I were sort of odd ones out.. Geez, why'd we forget our kid at home this time, i don't know. Well the oreo truffles became a total ice breaker because throughout the party people came up to me to say how much they loved the truffles and asked how to make them :) I took most of the credit, although Joe did half the work.
I didn't stop to take pics, but we have a second batch needing to get dipped in chocolate, we'll do them up for when Brandon comes to visit. I think it's a surprise but I also think he doesn't read my blog anyway :D Perhaps I'll take pics then. For now, this is pretty much what they look like, except ours are messier-
