No matter how low the prices are.








Even if some shops' practises are so dishonest they deserve it...



(This has been your daily dose of Engrish.)

People with "more tolerant than thou" attitudes.

It's amazing how some people claim: "I'm so tolerant, I can't tolerate those evil bigoted people who aren't as tolerant as me!"

(They may or may not be similar to the clique of solid nonconformists who all get tattoos like each other and go "nonconformism is the new thing".)

Note: This is just a general gripe.

This week's winners are Jamesares and Sailor Moo. Congratulations!







Haruna: WOW! Usagi and Makoto weren't kidding when they said they would do anything for an A.



Maker: I ORDERED A GRILLED CHICKEN SANDWICH, NOT A F***ING GRILLED TURKEY SANDWICH! DON'T MAKE ME GO STAR GENTLE UTERUS ON YOU!!!!!!!
Fighter: Maker.... This is why we can't take you anywhere!

I just felt like doing The Music Meme again. :)






Instructions: Name 15 of your LJ Friends.
Then put your music playlist on shuffle.
Each random song is dedicated to one of your Friends. (Ex; First song for first friend on list)
Ready? GO!!!

Friends were picked because I like them, because I haven't commented on their journals and I feel guilty, or for no reason whatsoever. :D

1. 29pixie: Love Is On The Way by Celine Dion
2. babydoc3: Kaze ni Naritai by Megumi Ogata
3. boffo: Yue Meng Lung, Niao Meng Lung
4. chumousie: Let's Talk About Love by Celine Dion
5. deadpool97: Here Goes! Shining Star (a Seramyu song)
6. floetcist: Ailein Duinn (theme from Rob Roy)
7. frustratedpilot: The Rose by Amanda McBroom
8. jnessap: That's The Way It Is by Celine Dion
9. level_head I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble Halls by Enya
10. lovely_sapphire: Be The Man by Celine Dion
11. natsukigirl: When I Need You by Celine Dion (why do I always get her?)
12. nenena: Towa No Hana by Yoko Ishida (Lucky you!)
13. sassypants678: Theme from Red Cliff by alan (from the John Woo movie)
14. senshi_of_hope: Hai Kuo Tian Kong by BEYOND
15. takaginaosama: My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion (Darn it, why her again?)

Sorry, I was just having fun. Really. I hope nobody's hurt by this or anything!







I believe the one about political disagreements...kinda.

Also, I took another random quiz and got this...



I THINK it's accurate. Although, given the quiz I just made above, my kindheartedness can be called into question...:D

Ate too much today for my own good.

I know that everybody has relapses, the important thing is to not go back to stuffing oneself constantly, etcetera...but it's still kinda depressing to see all that weight lost by that 12 km walk come back on.

I am tempted to think that it would be so much easier if I had my own car, like some of my friends, and could go on long forest walks in the Waitakere Ranges whenever I felt like it...

No, I refuse to beat myself up, or to blame "circumstances". The solution is to get up, and dance! A lot!

Yes, I support Chiyo-chan for President of the United States!







(Note: I made this out of a picture of an Obama button. I mean absolutely no offense to Obama, it's just a bit of fun. Also, if you look at it in Japanese, Obama isn't that different from Mihama*. :D)

*Mihama means "beautiful bay" in Japanese. Obama can be read as "big bay".

I've been looking around a bit for teaching programmes in China. I hope I can get one! Apparently, anyone who speaks English at a regular level can do it.
I hope I can get into one! This way, I get a job, get to travel, and get to see my old country again...

Right up to BREAD and what people put in it.

This proposal belongs in the circuses.
I'm not opposed to the bakers' association's proposed plan - to voluntarily add folic acid to a range of breads, along with an advertising/awareness campaign. But...must it become freakin' law that all breads have the stuff in it? This has gone beyond simple health and safety laws.

(I feel like saying a few expletives about the National government, but there's enough political nastiness on the Net as it is.)

There is a paragraph on "basic attribution error", which refers to the phenomenon of people being more likely to attribute the bad behaviour of others to their innate personality, but their own bad behaviour to circumstance. For instance, one might say that a friend had a car crash "because he's a careless driver", while if the person him/herself had a car crash it might be to "poor visibility at night".

This also goes the opposite way, in which good behaviour/outcomes are attributed to personality for oneself, and to circumstance in others. For instance, Jane aced the biology test because it was easy, but I aced the other test because I'm good at the subject!

Of course this is all true, and we should be aware when we are making such attributions and know to ask ourselves whether our negative judgements of others are really accurate. But I'm pretty darned sure that one can go too far in fighting this tendency, to the point where it just gets flipped on its head - I certainly do that sometimes. For instance, I'm constantly thinking to myself that I passed various assignments or tests because they was easy, or because the markers' standards were too low, not because I worked hard.

I've learned that to flip a bad idea or course on its head, and just end up committing it in the other direction, is very common indeed. I see it all the time with both "high-minded" political ideas, for instance, and common everyday dealings. Heck, I've done it myself on countless occasions. That's probably another thing we should keep in mind.

Today I walked 12 kilometres straight! My previous record was...oh, about nine. My feet are sore, but I feel like I can still go on if it weren't for that.

Someday I'll be a real tramper! :)

Also, I now officially know I've got 70 something/100 in two of my education courses. Not exactly good marks, but at least I passed...

Mary and Laura's Ma?

Wait a minute...

Pfffttt....

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! (Rolls on floor)

Like I ever work that hard...Then again, maybe I have some reservoir of strength and industriousness inside that even I don't know about. Hopefully.

I've been wondering how in the world do people who are driving pay attention to:

*Not letting their car swerve off course
*The 34 other cars all around at the intersection
*The basic shape of the road and its physical condition
*The road signs all around the place
*Any other things, like children who could possibly suddenly run in front of you

All at once.

Frankly, I'm lucky that I haven't had any accidents. Dad's comments of "blockhead" aside...actually, I wonder if he's right in this respect. I do have a rather one-tracked mind a lot of the time.

Yes, I had to work before that, but a bunch of us got together at Michelle's place, ate delicious Indian food courtesy of Michelle's mum, and played a game of Cranium while eating delicious rock candy, courtesy of me. Okay, I bought it from a candy store. But it still counts. :D

Cranium is a great game, and really brings out the smarts in you...or not, in my case. I learnt just how bad my knowledge of popular music is. I also learnt that I have no idea how to milk a cow. :D

Seeing a bunch of my friends again was just great! Although one was rather tired after driving for three hours all the way from Rotorua earlier in the day, and will be flying to the South Island for a job interview soon afterwards. I was tempted to tell her what I often feel like telling my LJ friends, that if she had too many trips she could give me one. :D

I hope I can see them again before my holidays are over and I have to go back to the world of too much reading and too many assignments. :D

Kittens, and baby birds - especially cute baby ducks, swans, geese and other waterfowl. This is probably because I've visited a beautiful lake park, abundant in ducks and geese, in springtime too often. For some reason, I also think some baby fish are very cute.

I actually have this weird fascination with cute grown-up animals - like cats, pigeons and some breeds of dog.

A bunch of "experts" are calling for being fat, or obese, to be socially ridiculed. As a "public health" scheme. (As if fat kids in school didn't already get enough of it!)

And there's another bunch of people who claim there is no real health disadvantage to being fat, and fat people are just another group of society's "victims", with weird glances at a 400 pound person with a load of chocolate in their trolley being somewhat on the level of giving dirty looks to an interracial couple.

I personally can't count the number of times I was told that I "wasn't fat", and to be "happy with the way I am", although my BMI measurements and weight compared to the average person both indicated, well, something. On the other hand, I also can't count the number of times I was told I needed to lose weight. Personally I was caught between a "change yourself to suit society's mores", and a "change society's mores to suit yourself" thing for years.

How about "nobody needs to change, or to refuse to change, for anybody else, and they can change or not as they want?" That seems a win-win situation to me.

(Not that serious overeating, or fad dieting, aren't very bad for you. Overdevotion to an ideal of "thinness" is also very bad for you - but then, so is overdevotion to anything. And I do mean anything. For instance, education is rightly valued, not enough some would say, but look at all the students who commit suicide in China and Japan because they didn't get into college...yes, they're seeing it as a status symbol. But can't anything be turned into one?)

...Ever read a book, saw a movie, or anything like that where a character has the same name as you, or someone you knew? Or read a book, saw a movie, or anything like that, then met someone with the same name as a character from said book/movie/whatever? What did you think of that?

As for me, I once read in Anne of Green Gables:

"Nancy is a terrible flighty thing. I've often had to scold her well for her heedlessness."

I actually thought it was kind of scary...:D

I Want To Spend My Lifetime Loving You, by Marc Anthony and Tina Arena, from The Mask of Zorro.

Yeah, it was written by James Horner, I admit it! :)

This week's pictures were from The Sailor Moon Funny Faces Gallery by Elly. Thanks for not lambasting me when you found out. :D

And this is where Pluto was sent after she got demoted from planet status.

Winner: Just Innocent.



ChibiUsa: Is this what they do to people who have hideous tastes in clothing?
Usagi: Looks like Mamo-chan's next...

Winner: princess_snow.

Congratulations to both the winners! :)