What's going on?

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!