I need more training!

Hmm....my copy of Xenosaga came in the mail today, and I gave it a test play tonight. All I can say is.....I can't understand a potato! ;_; It makes TOD 2 seem like it's for preschoolers. I'm going to need to study for 3 or 4 months before I can even attempt to play it. I guess that's okay...I mean, I had figured that I should get it before it goes out of print, and shelf it until I'm good and ready. It's ridiculous that I have to force myself to learn all this kanji, but by the end of Japanese 202 I only knew 300. Aren't there something like 2,000 kanji in Japanese? I've been teaching myself 18 a week. I barely have enough energy to review grammar at all. It's such a pain. I took one year of Japanese in high school and two in college, and I got straight A-pluses, and it's still not enough! Anything that's helped and stuck with me is what I've taught and re-taught myself over the past 4 months. This is pathetic. Why didn't I start this sooner?

I know that Japanese video games are a weird motivational tool, but whatever works, right? I almost wish I could've done an extra year at Trinity so I could've taken Japanese 301 and 302. Sometimes life ain't fair.

::hungry::

Ha ha hah.....

If I ever go to Japan, people are going to make fun of me because I can only speak in keigo. I need to find a good intermediate grammar textbook, but I don't know where to look. I have one that's okay, but the way it's organized is ridiculous! If you want to look up giving-receiving, you have to look under each individual verb. -_-

I wish I could share Kristen's brain. I seem to be an inferior model in so many ways.

::really hungry::

Aya isn't here yet. I didn't expect her to come today, but I had been hoping that she would. Maybe tomorrow? Probably. ^_^ It still doesn't seem real. It will be when she shows up!

We solved the neosium riddle! I heard that Volks had changed the name of that Zoukei-mura eye color to neodymium. Well....neodymium is some kind of rare metal with a pinkish-purple color. They were selling neodymium light bulbs in a seed catalog. I guess that having that as an eye color is kind of like "strontium blue." So...why was it neosium before? It must have been a typo!

::yawns::

I don't mean to get so worked up about the Japanese thing, but I feel like I've wasted my education. I wish I could have majored in Japanese in college, but the college I went to freshman and sophomore year, besides being for morons, didn't offer and foreign languages beyond intermediate Spanish and French (I already took 4 years of Spanish in high school, so bleh!) I transferred to a better school junior year and took Japanese, but I could only take it through 202 before I had to graduate. Maybe I should have flunked my other subjects on purpose so I could stay back a year? I had already taken a year of Japanese in high school, but the course wasn't very effective. I spit on that college that wouldn't let me in because of my SAT scores! I applied there as a transfer student and turned out to be perfectly capable of doing the work. I had a stinking 3.89 GPA at school number one, that's how easy the courses were! I wanna do college over....waaaaah.....;_;....

See how crabby I can get when I'm hungry? I wish there were leftovers with dinner.

Mwah hah hah!

I am glad she came today. Otherwise, somebody would have had to die! Isn't she lovely? She's even prettier than I imagined. I think I made the right choice!

I have to wonder, though. Are there usually huge differences the way Volks makes up each individual doll? Because all the Ayas I've seen have had monstrously long eyelashes, and Maya here has pretty short ones. I'm glad! I didn't want to have to cut them or anything, hoo hoo hoo....

More about Maya ^____^.

I'd like to gush on some more. But I have to wonder how Frank managed to end up with an extra Aya--did someone cancel her? Now he has a new preorder list up, and Mimi is on it, but I'm not going to order her. Obviously, I'm can't...but the funny thing is, I'm not disappointed in the least. Now that we have an anime-style SD and one with more realistic features, I don't feel like we're lacking in anything. I think that if Volks ever does a standard release of Ken and Mika, I might want Ken, but other than that....nothing.

I tried some wigs on Maya. She looks awful in Fuuka's default wig, but the blonde flip wig looked nice. I think that a doll with such a round face would need soft, layered hair. I bet one of those long curl wigs would be nice! I've seen one or two Ayas with waffle wigs, and they don't suit her at all. I was worried that she wouldn't be able to wear any wigs with bangs, but as long as the bangs are feathered they look fine.

I can't tell if her eyes are 18 or 20mm, but Kristen says they're probably 20mm. Even if they aren't, I'm sure 20mm will fit fine. She's such a cutie!