Trying to do the YouTube thing

Happy Holidays, lovely readers!

So I'm trying to stay positive and productive, and I've made some things!!

Early in November, I made an impressions video for Brizzy, and it actually turns out that she used some of my video for her video to celebrate hitting one million subscribers!  I'm still a bit in shock, to be honest, but I'm so happy to be included!  I feel like I'm a part of this YouTube community!

Then I filmed another food thing, a second episode for Dashing Dara, but I think I improved it a bit especially by finally making a thumbnail for it and trying out new angles.

Oh!  And I uploaded my first BookTube video!  Yay!  It's super long, and I don't think anyone will ever want to watch the whole thing through, but my goal was to just get started, and so I did!  I plan to make my future videos shorter and more concise.  Gotta work on that.

And now, my most recent video.  I made another TLT (The Little Things) video.  These are actually the easiest videos for me to make since so far I haven't decided to put much more than minimal effort into editing.  I just kinda have fun making these tiny little clips where I show off a tiny piece of my life in Japan.  I like it as is for now.  I hope to make more of them since there are so many things I want to share!

So yay!  So far, I've got two videos per month for two months in a row.  I hope I can keep this up and eventually increase it to three times a month and then, gasp, maybe once a week.

I know I'm still pretty newb at this, but I hope that as I keep recording and editing videos, my content will become better and better....and I'll become more and more comfortable in front of a camera.  Every day I think more and more about how much fun it would be to be an entertainer, a performer, an actor, and more specifically, a voice actor.  I need to learn to be confident and to be myself in front of a camera.  So yeah, here goes my journey to becoming a better me. :)

Christmas Time is Here ~

I realize that I have been posting a lot of content that isn't necessarily related to my daily life in Japan, and sometimes I want to share a short little story, but I just forget to write it down here or think maybe it's not even worth mentioning.  Enough!  I do what I want!  So here's a little bit of what happened today.

Today I had class with the second years.  They made Christmas cards that I'm going to send to friends in the US, and some are whatever quality like you can tell they're just trying to get it done, and then there were some really awesome ones, and, of course, a lot of variety in between.

This week I'm also receiving the gingerbread cookies and Christmas trees I assigned two weeks ago, and the results are always interesting, just like last year.

November 2015 Playlist

It's almost winterrrrrr.  Here are my November jams.

Ghibli of Life Best
This is a CD I picked up on sale last year from my local Tsutaya, which is like your Barnes and Noble/Game Stop/Best Buy/used bookstore/used media store.  They sell CDs, video games, MANGA (comic books), regular books, CARDS (let's du-du-du-du-dudududu DUEL!), etc. new and used.  Anyways, so this CD is really awesome remixed soundtrack music from various Ghibli and Miyazaki films (and also some rap?  near the very end of the CD there are a few tracks with English rap on them interestingly).  It's nice chill music to work to or daydream to or use as BGM.

Life Update: BookTube and NaNoWriMo and stuff

Long time no see, blogger.

I've been quite busy watching older seasons of The Walking Dead and keeping up with Steven Universe and Gravity Falls.  Omg!  Have you seen the latest episode of Gravity Falls?!?!  How is this a Disney kids show?!  A DISNEY?!?!? KIDS?!?!?!? show!  Anyways, I should probably dedicate a post to reviewing that series.

I've also started biking to and from work 2-3 times a week and also swimming for about 30 minutes 2-3 times a week.  I must get fit!

And now, I'm trying to get back into the groove of YouTube.  I've filmed quite a bit, and now I just need to familiarize myself with iMove and get to editing so I can upload videos!  I definitely have three videos currently ready for the editing process.  Aaaand, I plan to break into BookTube!

Yeah, so let's get to the meat of this post.

I wrote recently about just wanting to be myself and do what I like (which is my new mantra I chant to myself by the way: I do what I want!), and there are two things I want to do:

1. I want to make BookTube videos.

2. I want to participate in NaNoWriMo.

Ancient Aliensssss

Ancient Aliens

This show is a mess. Just kidding.  Well, kind of.

Ancient Aliens is a show that showcases different locations, interviews, evidence, and people who all try to explain or help prove that aliens are behind many of mankind's successes and strange happenings in ancient and modern history from the Incas and Mayans and Egyptians (and even older) to Roswell and recent home videos of UFOs.  It's pretty well-known for the memes generated from it focusing on that one guy with the crazy hair (yeah, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, pictured below).

To be frank

So there's been a lot I've been thinking about, which is why I haven't posted things more effortful than Twitter stuff and a picture every once in a while on Instagram.  It's a lame excuse, but these thoughts have been preoccupying my mind so much that it's when I have 5 hours before I need to get up to go to work that I feel motivated to do things.  Quite counterproductive when you're a human who needs to sleep.  Then the cycle of lethargy and sleep-deprivation begin and worsen with drunken weekends and/or bingeing on TV and karaoke til the dark hour.  Anyways....

So I've been thinking about what it means to be a teacher and to want to be active online socially.  As I'm in Japan right now, a lot of what I post online is in English and on social media that my coworkers barely know about.  Some barely know how to use Microsoft PowerPoint, and some are just learning about Google Chrome if even that.  My students are in middle school and are very unlikely to find my accounts.  Aaaand, I have a very tiny tiny following if any at all.  I feel like most people might like a thing I post, subscribe, and then forget to ever check up on me again.  My fault though.  I don't update consistently.  And that's fine.  I'm still figuring things out.  So, what I post online isn't that significant to my professional career, and I'm generally pretty PG or PG-13 (at least, I think so).  I need to actually check my history on all accounts and see if there is anything incriminating (nervous laugh), but I think on the whole if anything is even remotely embarrassing, I think it will be an older post and just proof of my growth since then (I hope, anyway).

I bring this all up because I want to share more of my life online.

June 2015 Playlist

I just ranted a bunch about how awesome I think Pentatonix is and stuff, but I do listen to other music, lol. So here's this past month's playlist of my current favorites.

If you like cartoon and video game music that's pretty upbeat, the following three is what I've been listening to and recommend.

Stronger than you
This song might just be okay out of context, but when I heard it in one of the final season episodes of Steven Universe, I was so captivated by the beat and Estelle's voice and how the song fit so perfectly in the scene that I couldn't stop jamming to it.

Que Sera Sera

A Crimson Rose and a Gin Tonic

Katamari music is just classic game soundtrack music to me. It's so relaxing and fun to listen to while showering or doing chores at home. It brightens up my day.

it's the cat collection~

ねこあつめ Neko Atsume

This is a cute casual app game that is available in both the Play Store and the Apple Store.  It's all about collecting kitties!

Pentatonix

Pentatonix is an a capella group made of five members, and they've basically gone from music TV show winners to Grammy winning world touring billboard topping musical success. They cover popular music and also produce original music, and it's all a capella (well, mostly because sometimes the one guy plays his cello or they invite other artists like violinist Lindsey Stirling to collaborate in their beautiful music-making). So anyways, like I was saying, they make bumping amazing songs just using their voices. They sound like a complete band or something, but it really is just their voices harmonizing together and making very solid and well-put together sounding music. There are definitely about to be some YouTube links below.

Steven Universe is my universe

Steven Universe 

This show airs on Cartoon Network, and it's basically a coming of age story about this boy, Steven, who is being raised by alien guardians who work together to protect the earth from not-so-good aliens. The show's creator, Rebecca Sugar, used to be a story board artist, I think, for Adventure Time, and you can see the influences, but overall, this show is quite different and also has much more depth.

So yeah, I really like this show for so many reasons.

Tips for Joining the Japanese Workplace (School Edition)

Hey, so it's that time of year when many fresh graduates in the West are looking for jobs, and some are looking abroad...specifically, towards Japan.  For example, recently applicants for the JET program have been notified of their acceptance (or not) into the program, and many others are applying to work at eikaiwas, or conversation schools (they're kinda like the Sylvan learning centers or Kumon of Japan for English conversation).  I'm not some kind of cultural expert or claim to be any kind of pro at interactions in the workplace, but I thought I might share some tips that I've learned as I've been working and living in Japan for the past 9 or so months.  So here we go!

Aisatsu  (Greetings)

Aisatsu is the Japanese word for greetings and goodbyes, and aisatsu is very important.  The way you greet and leave a person or situation makes the biggest impressions and can set the tone for all the interactions to come.  Thus, it's really important to greet everyone with a hearty おはようございます (Ohayou gozaimasu) in the morning when you first arrive at work and nice clear お先に失礼します (O saki ni shitsurei shimasu) when you leave the workplace at the end of the day.

In fact, there have been reports of Japanese school employees feeling as if the foreign coworker is standoffish or cold because they don't greet anyone in the mornings or say anything when they leave at the end of the day.  (I know...I don't have a citation for this one, but I learned about it through my work orientation and trainings and from talking to Japanese coworkers.)  To the Japanese employees, it's rude and the opposite of friendly.  Sometimes it may feel like you have to initiate more often than not or that it's really scary to almost yell out Good Morning, but, I promise, your greetings will be returned and greatly appreciated, which will help your coworkers feel more at ease and more willing and excited to welcome you to the workplace.

Tales of Kyoto

One day my Kyoto-sensei asked me what my hobbies were, so I jokingly replied that my hobby is to goro goro (ゴロゴロすること), which means to lie around and be lazy.  He made this face and noise of surprise and was like, nah, c'mon, be serious.  We laughed, and the secretary joined in our laughing, and he was also surprised that I said such a thing.  I then struggled to list actual hobbies since goro goro-ing is legit my hobby.  I like to be lazy and do nothing and relax at home.  This is why I have been having trouble updating all these social media things because I come home and sit under my kotatsu and watch Netflix and Youtube and nap.  It's so cold, too, so once I get under that blanket, I don't want to move or do anything that requires leaving the warmth, ha ha.  I laugh, but I cry a little inside.

Anyways, my Kyoto-sensei then went around telling everyone that my hobby is to goro goro, which produced much laughter.  Thanksssssssssssssssssssss.

Staying Positive

Hiiiii my dear readers,

So one of the things about how happy you are in life is how you perceive situations. If you focus on the negative, then the situation will suck, and you'll feel like everything sucks, and then everything actually will suck.  If you focus on the positive, a.k.a. look on the bright side, then even if there are negatives, you won't feel as suck or even you'll feel better even if it did suck.  At least, I feel like perception functions this way for me.

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that I'm normally a cheerful person, but I will gossip and bash things and actions so quickly.  If I start even looking at one negative thing, then the rest of the conversation goes to shit, and it becomes a "misery loves company" gab fest.

This is what I mean.

I was planning a lesson with a teacher, and the thing is, our students have finished the textbook, and the last grammar point in the textbook was past tense, both regular and irregular.  We've been doing activities to practice the past tense for like three weeks now.  So I asked my teacher if maybe we could change it up a bit and review some other topic or just not make past tense the focus of the entire class time.  She agreed that past tense was getting old (ha ha).  Then I asked her what we should do, and she seemed to be at a loss and kept passing the idea ball back to me.

I suggested that maybe one activity we could do is listen to a piece of a popular American song and have students fill in the blanks for words they should know in the song.

Ah, that's too difficult for them. (In Japanese)

My teacher training kicked in.  Then I suggested how to scaffold the activity- how we could modify the activity to still address the same listening objective but put the task to the ability level of the students, "Okay, how about instead of blanks, I'll give them two or three words to choose from and they have to circle the word they hear?"

Hmmm, but that sounds not fun.

2014 Walking Playlist

Happy New Year, my lovelies!!

I hope everyone had a good holiday season.  I know I did.  I stayed home at my apartment for most of it staying up late and sleeping in late.  Ah, so good!  And then I started playing my first Zelda game: The Wind Waker.  Oh my god, I love this game!!  I played it for hours and hours starting like January 1st or 2nd.  I would go to bed at like 4 am because I was so into it and then get up the next day, shower and eat, and then keep playing until 4 am again.  My boyfriend spent a lot of the break with me, and he just joined me in gaming.  He played on his laptop, and I played the Wii U, and we both sat under the kotatsu all day and night.  Ahhh, so nice.



Anyways, so I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but sometimes I walk home from school.  It's about a 50 minute walk for me, and I'm sure if I told anyone I work with, they would think I'm crazy, lol.  They all thought I was crazy for wanting to bike to and from work because it would take like 30 minutes, and everyone kept telling me to just take the bus.  However, I am really lazy and sometimes a cheapo.  I don't exercise at all on a regular basis, so I figured if I walked home from school and just took the bus in the mornings (because I'm so brain-dead in the mornings after just waking up), I would force myself to exercise more regularly and then also save half of what would be my monthly transportation costs.  Also, biking wasn't working for me.  I would get to work all sweaty and have to change and get up like much earlier just to account for that clothes-changing time and re-do my hair and stuff....so it was not worth the effort in my opinion.

So yeah!  I actually like walking because it's more relaxed and relaxing, ha ha.  I can walk as leisurely or fast-paced as I want, I get to see my town, and I get to listen to music and just think while I walk.  This is finally where I get to the point of this post.  I think I started walking in October or November, and since then I have been listening to a lot of the same music on these walks, and I wanted to share!  Below is a sampling of what I typically listen to.  If you've watched my more recent YouTube videos, then you might see a familiar name, hee hee.

(I've provided links in case you're interested in listening to it yourself.)

Kill the DJ - FEMM

Astroboy feat. Honey-B & W-Trouble - FEMM

Wannabe - FEMM

Burn My Dread - Meguro Masashi (Persona 3 Soundtrack)

P3_Heaven's Remix - Meguro Masashi (Persona 3 Soundtrack)

四季の歌 (Shiki no Uta) - MINMI

COME BACK HOME - 2NE1

너 아님 안돼 (GOTTA BE YOU) - 2NE1