I wasn’t going to update this until around Thanksgiving, but since Chapter 5 is about MOON CHILD and October is the season for vampires, I figured it would be most appropriate to do this now. While it is a relatively short chapter at just 18 pages, I don’t have time to do it all at …
When I first introduced my project to make an unusual bookshelf, I mentioned that it ultimately was to go in a particular corner of my room. While I’ve already unveiled the finished product in the post about my program’s exhibit this past June, I wanted to show what it looks like in situ. I also …
Over twenty years ago, Sailor Moon began airing on TV in the US. I was curious about the show for two reasons. 1. Although I liked American cartoons like The Simpsons and Animaniacs, I was fascinated that there could be a show for children where the characters were drawn so beautifully they actually had elbows …
I have several notebooks labelled 歌詞ノート, (kashi nooto) “Lyric Notebook,” in which I hand-write the lyrics to Japanese songs I like. Perhaps this isn’t a popular opinion these days, but I’m a huge proponent of writing in order to learn how to read. It doesn’t matter whether you write with a pencil on paper or …
I had bought issue #44 of Rock and Read back when it came out in 2012, solely for the GACKT article. In 2013 I learned of YOHIO through his collaboration with GACKT on the song “Sakura, falling.” It wasn’t until this year, when I sat down to translate the aforementioned GACKT interview, that I realized …
This interview comes from the November 2012 issue of Rock and Read (#44). The interviewer is Ayano NISHIMURA. Usually, I don’t mind if someone posts a copy to their own site of a fan translation I’ve done (as long as they link back to me), but given how much work I put into this one …
The Beginning This little furball came to live with my family near the end of the year 2000. I don’t remember now if he first started coming to our apartment in November, or if that’s when he stayed there for good. Either way, at first, we thought he was really old because he was dirty … Continue reading
It’s time to slowly reveal the products of this spring’s adventures in printmaking. Woo! I’d shown my warm-up linocut letterforms before, but I hadn’t finished the J at that point. When I did, I hand-printed these letters again to practice registration (aligning the paper to the plate properly) because I figured that would be a … Continue reading
A week ago I accidentally published my draft of The Air Moon Chapter 5 Part 2 in a fit of sleepiness. I immediately changed its status back to “draft” thinking that I could “unpublish” it, so to speak, but it only half worked; the post did become unavailable to the general public, but when I … Continue reading
Sorry if anyone following the blog got the draft version of this in their email; I was sleepy and accidentally hit “Publish” instead of “Save Draft.” ^o^; That version hadn’t been edited for clarity, and was missing the last two pages of this chapter. I wanted to hurry up and finish but things kept popping … Continue reading
The first four months of 2017 were all over the place. I was pretty tired being both graduate student and part-time faculty. It still seems a bit funny to me that this is what I’ve ended up doing. Teaching Japanese while studying Art Education. I was trying to get away from gray areas and here … Continue reading
I spent my winter break preparing to teach Japanese 1020 at my university. As an Education major it amuses me that I can’t teach at most grade schools yet, as that requires state certification, but I’m being allowed to teach Japanese at the college level. Well, it is Elementary Japanese, but still. Of course, having … Continue reading
Japanese text of the lyrics available at Rock Lyric. There is one minor difference between what’s sung and what’s written there, namely that where the lyrics say 「心の中」(kokoro no uchi) what’s actually sung is 「心の中心」(kokoro no chuushin). The meaning doesn’t change much; kokoro no uchi would be figuratively “one’s mind” whereas kokoro no chuushin would be … Continue reading
