The PCFC Page is Up!

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clear files

I just ate the most succulent, exquisite white peaches ever. Two peaches the size of my fist for 399 yen.  I don’t care what anyone says about the price of fruit in Japan, it was worth it.  Thank you, Kagawa Prefecture.

Anyway, I finally made the page I said I’d post back in like…what, December? ^_^;  It’s the page showing the PCFC: Pretty Clear File Collection.

Why post such a thing you ask?  Because I like glossy things with pretty pictures wanted to do an in-depth study of material culture by examining stationary products. You can access the PCFC page from the tab up there ↑, or from this link that I’ll put right here: for the love of office supplies, CLICK ME!

^_^;;;;

Just Sittin’ in Me Chair Ramblin’

Hmm hm hm hm hmm hm h–

Oh!  Hello there, O Reader.  I didn’t hear you come in.  Have a seat.  Mi blog es tu blog.  Care for some mugicha (barley tea)? No?  Too bad, I’ll give you some anyway.  And a croissant, too, just because this silly little intro needs some French to class it up.

Don’t you love how I made sure to observe the “put a comma before ‘too'” rule while beginning the sentence with ‘and’?  It’s because I’m a rebel.  It is very ENJOY for me to mess with grammar.

As you can see, I’m a little loopy.  It’s time yet again for:

Sit In The Shokuinshitsu All Day Warming My Chair! \^o^/

Two days ago we had 終業式 (shuugyoushiki), the closing ceremony for the term.  We’re on “summer vacation,” which means the kids only have class from 9-12 instead of from Godforsaken Hour in the AM – Godforsaken Hour in the PM.  Then they have clubs, so they’re still at school quite a bit.  I think they’ll get some real time off in August, but I don’t really know, and I don’t remember how it was last year when I came because of the super fun times of being “quarantined” in the shokuinshitsu for two weeks after arriving due to fears over swine flu.

My bad, “H1N1.”

Anyway, while the students have class, none of those are Oral Communication, so there’s no real reason for me to be at school.  However, with only 20 paid vacation days per contract year, there’s no way I could take days off every time the schedule is like this.  So, yeah, I’m just sittin’ in me chair. I studied plenty of Japanese yesterday, and I’ll study more in a bit.  In the meantime, I figured I’d write a post getting this blog up to speed with all the random stuff that’s going on right now.

Success! English Test! (Yet I wrote it like Engrish…^o^;)  For the past two weeks or so, I’d been helping a couple of third year students study for the 英検 (“Eiken,” an English test).  One was an English Course girl going for １級 (ikkyuu, the highest level), and the other an Art Course girl going for ２級.  The English Course girl told me yesterday that she passed! ^_^  The Art Course kids are away on a trip so I don’t know how the other girl did.

Arrival of New JETs We’ll soon be getting lots of fresh blood.  While in general the JET Program’s been shrinking, due to the bankruptcy of yet another private ALT company, lots of schools are going back to JET.  In my juutaku alone, we’ll get 5 new ALTs moving in. (I believe this is 5 on top of the 3 who are coming to replace other ALTs, but I’m not sure.)  My current co-ALT is returning to the States, so it’ll be my turn to help a newbie settle in.

Speaking of him… I really enjoyed working with my co-ALT and hope that his successor will be just as good.  I just wanna give a virtual shout out to him.  Good luck, “Sesu.” ^o^/

Speaking of JET and Goodbyes A few months ago the JET Program came up for review to be either cut back or eliminated.  I can’t find any definitive answers on the net, but it seems the Program has been spared for the coming year at least.

Now, it’s a bit of a conflict of interest for me.  Of course I would like to keep my job.  On the other hand, if it were a crummy job where I felt I was being wasted, I wouldn’t care what happened.  Sure, I’m sitting in the shokuinshitsu all day doing nothing for maybe 30 days out the entire year.  But overall I feel like I do help these students learn English, and more importantly, motivate them to get off their arses.  (Truly, the laziness of some of my kids is just…beyond words.  ^_^;;) There’s also the exchange aspect.  Sorry Japan, but when people in Tokyo of all places still turn around and stare when they hear someone speaking English…it’s not a good sign.

In school, some of the best moments I’ve had are when the students just randomly come talk to me.  It doesn’t happen much, and it is mostly the Art Course students who do so.  In those moments though, I think there’s exchange that will leave a lasting impression going on.  Even when we do more cultural, less grammar-based lessons such as showing “Thriller” for Halloween, since there’s always the “this will be on the test” aspect in class, it’s more like “this is stuff that goes on in the classroom” rather than “this is real life.” Personally, I’ve always hated the school/real life dichotomy; to me everything that goes on in school is related to real life, but since many people apparently think of it that way it affects their ability to apply what they learn in school to whatever it is they consider the “real world.”

While I don’t believe the Program should be eliminated, I do think it could be streamlined.  There are, so I hear, JETs who do nothing for a significant portion of the school year, not because they’re slackers, but because they aren’t given work.  Why were they hired in the first place then?  That’s a huge waste of money.  As far as the allegation that JET hasn’t helped Japanese actually learn real English, again, it’s harder to have an impact when we spend relatively little of the total English instruction time with the kids. Outside of Oral Communication class, English is taught by drawing and quartering the language: underlining subjects, circling objects, double underlining verbs, starring adjectives, etc; in short, a bewildering array of symbols is summoned upon the page to beat the paragraphs into submission.  This isn’t even teaching English with the focus on grammar, it’s teaching English with the focus on pretending to understand structure by looking at the parts and ignoring the whole.  They translate from English to Japanese all the time, rarely the other way around.  Is there any Japanese teacher who would teach Japanese like that?

Inaka, Here I Come! Next week I’ll be going with my English Course first years to Summer Camp, which takes place, of course, in the middle of Nowhere.  (It’s more like “in the upper part of Nowhere,” but let’s ignore that for now.) Then, the third week of August, I’ll be going to the boonies because I really want to ride Kyuushuu’s sight-seeing choo-choo.  I mean, SL Hitoyoshi-gou.  That’s right, I saw an ad for it on a train and was like “OMG it’s a steam engine I wanna ride it!” ^o^; (Such a geek…)

Now It’s Official I am now a card-carrying member of GACKT’s official fanclub DEARS.

Nye heh heh heh ha!

Speaking of him… I got the best clear file ever when I picked up GACKT’s The Eleventh Day ~Single Collection~ yesterday.

The best clear file in the PCFC to date! ♡

I actually had all the songs on that collection already, but Fangirl Collectionism won out over Reason and when I saw the little sticker saying there would be a clear file to sweeten the deal, I snapped the CD up without a second thought.  Interestingly, the Tower Records I usually go to always had GACKT filed under Visual Rock, but now they’ve moved his CDs to the J-pop section.  Hmm…is it that any artist signed to Avex automatically gets labeled as pop?

I just forgot what I was about to write… Mm, okay, how about this:

Practical Vocabulary: 雨漏り (Amamori) When rainy season started at the end of June, there was a really heavy rain that somehow made my ceiling leak despite the fact that there are two apartments above me and they didn’t have leaks at all.  When the building manager came, it wasn’t raining anymore, so he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.  Then he went and repaired something, somewhere.  Then there was another really heavy rain and the leak came back.  The building manager came again and said it must be coming from the wall, somehow.  (The leak starts about one foot from the wall, runs across the ceiling to the center of the room, and trickles down by the light fixture.)  He told me they’d try to repair the wall, but since by that time rainy season was about to end he told me to please have patience.  And this is how I learned 雨漏り, “roof leak.”

Oh!  I remembered! It was this: Amateur Mistakes Lately I’ve been making amateur mistakes when filling out forms.  I had stopped reversing the radicals in one of the kanji in the name of the city I live in, but then I started doing it again.  When I went to buy a desk recently, I wrote 「福県」 (“fukuken”) instead of 「福岡県」(“Fukuoka-ken”).  I caught the mistake and stuck the 岡 in with a V mark.  ^_^; Yesterday, when I went to reserve GACKT’s upcoming single “EVER” (since I’ll be in the boonies when it gets released and I want to make sure I get a first-pressing DVD version) I wrote my phone number in the wrong spot, completely ignoring the bold “TEL ____ (______) ________” on the form.  (In my defense, I wrote it where I thought the clerk had pointed to.)  Of course, everyone screws up these little things every now and then even in their native language.  But I think it’s because I’ve become a bit complacent.  I know that I know enough Japanese to navigate on my own, so I pay less attention to what I’m doing.  Then again, I once had a mind fart and couldn’t remember my name for a good 5 seconds (this was back in the States, too) so maybe I’m just one huge space cadet.  ^o^;;;;;; (See?  This is why I’m afraid to drive.  I’m a responsible space cadet.)

Okay, I’ma stop ramblin’. Now that that’s out of my system, I’ll go study.  ^o^

FF × We Are the World

A little over two weeks ago, I got another request to go to the School for the Blind.  They actually changed the school’s name recently to something that takes like twice as many kanji to write but…”School for the Blind” is easier. ^_^;  Anyway, I received a fax from one of the teachers with an unusually detailed lesson request.

One of the classes I’d be teaching was with just two first year students.  I’d taught these particular boys before.  Both are weak-sighted rather than blind.  One really doesn’t like English and makes no effort to speak it.  I’ll refer to him as “FF-kun.”  The other boy is an average student.  I’ll refer to him as “World-kun.”

The last time I taught them, the teacher came to me before class to talk about FF-kun.

Teacher: FF-kun has never spoken English and he’s very shy.  But he really loves FF.  Do you know FF?
Me: *Internally geeking out* Yes, I love Final Fantasy!
Teacher: If you talk about FF, maybe he will talk to you.
Me: Okay! I’ve got two FF straps on my phone; I’ll take it to class and show them to him.

Since that class, I was told that FF-kun enjoys English class–though he still makes no effort to speak English. ^_^;

By the way, I’m not writing “FF” out of laziness, most people here say 「エフエフ」(“efu efu,” meaning, “FF”) rather than 「ファイナル・ファンタシー」(“fainaru fantashii”, that is, “Final Fantasy”).  I admit to me it feels a bit funny to call it “FF” when speaking in English, but, eh, I’ll go with the flow.

So, that was the state of things.  The detailed request I got for the upcoming class with FF-kun and World-kun went something like this:

Teacher (by fax): I asked the students what they wanted to study in Eli-sensei’s class.  One said he wants to study Final Fantasy.  Maybe a matching game, for example, the answer to “Cecil Harvey” would be “A dark knight and captain of Baron’s Red Wings.” The other is interested in “We Are the World.”  Could you make a lesson with these?

I never thought I’d see the words “A dark knight and captain of Baron’s Red Wings” in an official fax from a school. ^o^

So, I spent a good amount of time trying to come up with an activity that would combine both things rather than doing two separate activities.  I even wrote a post over on my Square-Enix Members page asking fellow FF fans what they thought Final Fantasy and “We Are the World” had in common in hopes that their answers would give me an idea.  Before I could answer the teacher though, she sent another fax that was a more finalized lesson plan that allocated time for two activities. So, I figured I’d leave it at that and simply say to the class, “Both FF and ‘We Are the World’ are about helping others and saving the world.” ^o^

I made a handout for the FF matching game, as well as a handout with the lyrics to the new version of “We Are the World” (that is, “We Are the World 25 for Haiti”) with blanks in the latter half of the song so the students would do kikitori (listening comprehension) with it.  Here’s a screencap of the FF sheet:

And people used to say video games rot your brain!

I purposely made some of the descriptions simple physical traits so that World-kun, who wasn’t familiar with FF, could get some of the answers anyway, while throwing in specific details on others so FF-kun could display his knowledge and feel accomplished.  I printed it out on regular A4 (8.5 x 11) paper, and the teacher blew it up to A3 (twice as big) to make it easier for the students to see.  (As far as I know, my school doesn’t keep paper that big in stock, so I always try to give the teachers at the School for the Blind any materials I make at least a few periods in advance, if not the day before, so they can enlarge them or type them in Braille as need be.)

Yesterday was the actual class.  I found out that FF-kun had a disliking not just for English, but school in general.  That morning, the teacher told me, he skipped all his classes and came just in time for English class.  I was both flattered and worried.  ^_^;;;

We actually did the We Are the World activity first out of fear that FF-kun would completely zone out once the FF part was done if we did that one first.  So, at first FF-kun was making a show of not participating, but he started listening a little when the following happened after I got done introducing the original version of We Are the World.  I asked why the new version was made; they didn’t know, so I told them:

Me: The new version was made to help the people in Haiti after an earthquake hit it in January of this year.  Do you know what ‘earthquake’ means?
Students: …
Me: ‘Earthquake’ is this. *shakes World-kun’s desk*
World-kun: What was that supposed to be?
Me: ^_^; An earthquake…
FF-kun: I think I’ve heard that somewhere…
Me: *Surprised he’s participating* Yes yes yes, it’s in FF!  It’s magic! It’s called ‘Quake’!
FF-kun: Oh, it’s that.
Me: So, what does ‘earthquake’ mean?
FF-kun: 「地震」。(‘Jishin.’)
Me: Yes, that’s right! ‘Earthquake’ is ‘jishin’!

During the song activity proper FF-kun once again participated to the surprise of myself and the JTE.

Once that was done, we moved on to the matching game. I will say that World-kun seemed to find the abrupt shift in activities a bit anticlimactic.  ^_^;  That’s precisely what I had wanted to avoid by more closely linking the activities, but oh well.  It went pretty well though.  FF-kun really liked it, and World-kun was able to get some of the answers as planned.

Since the last item on the sheet was “young woman who uses an alias,” FF-kun said, “You find out her real name in Chapter 11.”  I asked if he remembered what Lightning’s real name was, and he busted out his FFXIII Scenario Ultimania. (The Ultimanias are books that aren’t just strategy guides, but give in-depth info on the game it covers such as its development process, interviews with the creators, etc.)  At the end of class, FF-kun said, “I never thought I’d use this book for a class.”  ^o^

I actually haven’t beat FFXIII yet, I don’t have much time to play but I happen to be on Chapter 11 right now. I haven’t gotten to the point where Lightning’s real name is revealed, but I’d seen it already elsewhere. I said so to FF-kun, and he once again went looking in the Ultimania.  He told me the upcoming boss was really hard. I told him, “thanks for the warning.” ^o^

I think it’s funny…in general I’ve seen it recommended on various blogs that JET hopefuls not mention their love of anime, manga, or gaming in their JET interview for fear they might be taken for otaku. (“Otaku” in the original, negative sense of the word, not how most of the American fandom uses it.)  But I wouldn’t have been able to reach FF-kun if I wasn’t familiar with Final Fantasy.  I haven’t played every single FF game out there, not even half of them, but I know enough about them and can be considered at least a casual gamer.  Now, of course I didn’t put “Defeated Ruby WEAPON with Cid Highwind at Level 60” on the Achievements section of the JET application; of the “questionable” hobbies I only listed manga on the Interests section, but I wonder if the JET interviewers really have such a negative view of gamers and anime/manga enthusiasts.

In a similar vein, knowing the SoftBank Hawks’ theme song (「いざゆけ若鷹軍団」”Izayuke Wakataka Gundan,” which I wrote about in this older post) has also come in very handy.  A few of the students at the School for the Blind are learning to live with not only visual impairments but also other physical, emotional, and learning impediments.  One such student is a huge fan of the Hawks and loves that song.  The CD player in his homeroom is occupied solely by the CD with that song on it.  He’s very shy and runs away from people.  The teachers always tried to get him to talk to me, telling him, “Say ‘hi'” or “Say ‘I love the Hawks.'” One time they said, “Sing your favorite song,” and they started singing “Izayuke Wakataka Gundan,” so I started singing along.  Since then, the boy doesn’t run away from me, and yesterday even beckoned to me to go to his homeroom during the afternoon break after lunch.  He put the CD on so I thought he wanted to sing, but what he wanted was for me and one of his classmates to converse in English while the song played.  ^o^

The point of this tangent is that it’s really silly for people to make assumptions about someone based on hobbies that are looked down upon, when those hobbies can yield knowledge that is useful in situations outside of the hobby, even for work.  Imagine that.  Granted, it would give me a bad impression if someone told me, “I play for 12 hours straight everyday,” or something only slightly less extreme, but why penalize all gamers or anime/manga fans for the “sins” of a few otaku?

Well, to end on a happy note, in conclusion, the FF × We Are the World class went really well.  ^o^

Two Nights with YELLOW FRIED CHICKENz

Tags

GACKT, YELLOW FRIED CHICKENz, YFC

It’s to be expected that a post about a rock show would have obscenities and explicit content, but in the interest of keeping this blog relatively clean, I’ve edited the post I wrote for my personal blog to post it here as well.  After all, it’s thanks to being on JET that I can finally see GACKT live.  So, here we go!

Thursday and Friday I went to see GACKT and his band, YELLOW FRIED CHICKENz, at Zepp Fukuoka.  Both shows were great, but Friday’s was noticeably better.  There’s too many sights, sounds, and feelings to try to do a chronological telling, so I’ll write in vignettes.

Thursday Night (July 1st)

As expected, there weren’t as many people on Thursday.  Judging by the signs with the ticket numbers, there were only some 1600 people in the standing room plus how many ever there were up on the second floor seats.  My friend and I had tickets numbered in the 1330s, but when we went in many people weren’t trying to get up as far forward as they could, so we ended up pretty close to the stage; I estimate some 25 feet (8 meters) away.  We were close enough to be able to see GACKT’s face clearly and could see the sweat flying from his hair when he would head bang.

Around 6:45 someone (it wasn’t GACKT) came on the mic from backstage to lead the crowd in “kiai practice.” Kiai are cheers or fighting yells.  There was lots of OSU! and ANIKI! and slurred, rolled-R manly Japanese.  Don’t know if I understood it correctly, but after the first “ANIKI!” it sounded like the guy said, “What the hell was that?!  It’s not “anikki” it’s “aniki”!  Can’t you even pronounce right bakayaro?!”

The concert proper started on time.  GACKT walked in carrying his sword and started “ZAN.”  I couldn’t hear his voice very well and he seemed tired.  He was staggering, but I couldn’t tell if he was stagger-dancing or just plain fatigued-staggering.  (After seeing him Friday, I think it was from fatigue.)  It wasn’t until the fourth or firth song, “LU:NA” that I could clearly hear his voice.

His little strip-teasing during “Dybbuk” and finally the ripping off of his shirt during the bridge of “LU:NA” were wonderful. ^_^

I think it was after this that GACKT led the crowd in random shouting, first calling on the men, then the women, then finally just yelling “YFC! YFC! YFC!” over guitar feedback.

Then there was…GACKT shimmying during “EVER.”  Oh. My. Savior.  It was so cute, so adorable, yet utterly ridiculous.  I was simultaneously thinking of the Chiquita Banana lady and Belscard, the antagonist GACKT voices in the MMORPG Dragon Nest for which “EVER” is the theme.

There were several times during “Flower” and “Uncontrol” that GACKT put the mic down, I assume so that the audience would sing, but unfortunately, it was only during the first verse of “Flower” that the crowd actually did, or at least, that’s all I heard.  I felt bad for GACKT.

In general, I would say that the crowd wasn’t very frenetic.  It was strange to see the older people (40s, maybe even 50s) just standing, watching without swaying or otherwise giving any sign that they were listening to music and enjoying it.  Especially given that the “Rules for Private School Students,” which are the “rules” for participating in the live that among other things dictate that “students” (the audience) show their enthusiasm by yelling “osu” and “aniki”, etc, say that “the front is dangerous, if you can’t handle it, fall back!” and “only you can protect your body!” (translating loosely).  I was expecting to see a mosh pit, but alas, there was no moshing.  The fist/hand pumping was as violent as it got.  The girl in front of me nearly hit me and my friend in the face a couple of times, and I stepped on someone’s toes when I jumped up and down without thinking.

Thankfully, the weather was relatively cool, so it wasn’t hot in the hall. I could feel the air conditioning above my head, and even surrounded by all those people, it wasn’t unbearable.  I was dressed lightly, but I don’t know how the girl in the maid outfit could stand it.  Most people were dressed normally though, a plain shirt and capris, skirt, or shorts.

After the second to last song, when GACKT and the band went offstage, people started clapping and chanting “YFC.”  It seemed rather staid to me.  I thought, “Is this supposed to be the audience calling the band out for an encore?” As I had observed during my school’s bunkasai, I have the impression that Japanese think encores are mandatory, so they don’t shout with all their might to make the band come out.  Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s the idea I have.  I wanted them to yell louder!  In my mind I was screaming, “Come on Fukuoka!  Don’t embarrass yourself! It’s bad enough only the Friday show sold out, so at least SCREAM!!!” ^o^;

My friend  told me that the Japanese people around us had a look on their faces like “OMG are these people really screaming?”  I did notice that the people in our section, with the exception of the boy to our right, really weren’t saying anything (even if their fist pumping was violent).  The people closer to the front were better though.

During the last song, “Uncontrol -Kyouki Ranbu edition-” the crowd once again left GACKT hanging when he wanted them to sing.  Maybe a few people way up front sang for him, but I couldn’t hear them.

At the end there was another screaming session of “YFC!” and what sounded like it was supposed to be a big cat’s “raow.”  During the call outs for men and women, GACKT said 「やっぱり九州の男は強い！」(“As expected, Kyuushuu men are strong!”).  I didn’t understand what he said about Kyuushuu women, but my friend and I woo’ed fiercely even though we’re not Kyuushuu women.  LOL  Then he asked the men if they would join him for another men’s-only live at the Budoukan, and asked the women if they would join him at Tokyo Dome.

Once the band went off and the lights came back up, GACKT came on the mic from backstage and did a cutesified yet rough「忘れ物のないように」(“Careful not to forget any of your things” and said a bunch of other stuff I didn’t understand, and finally, said “Buy all the goods you fools!  If there’s anything left, we’ll have to commit seppuku!”

Thus commanded by GACKT, my friend and I went to get some goods.  I got a face towel, a Gakucchi, and the YFC Box. Very few people were buying goods, and even before the concert, there were sometimes only one or two people at the goods tables.  I felt a bit bad for GACKT some more.  ^_^;

My hauls!

The assembled box with photocards inside.

When we sat down to put our hauls into our bags, a Japanese fan approached us in English to try to sell some tickets for Friday’s show, but unfortunately all the people we called were either unavailable or couldn’t spare the money for not even the discounted tickets.  Oh well, we tried.

We saw YFC!

Friday Night (July 2nd)

Friday I had arranged to meet some friends at the hall.  I was waiting for them outside when it started to rain, so I texted them to let them know I would go on ahead.  This time, my tickets were for the second floor, as standing room sold out either before tickets went on sale to the general public, or in the 10 minutes before I got to the Loppi to buy my tickets the day they went on sale.

Once again, no one was at the goods tables.  But I hoped that with more people, the crowd would show more enthusiasm.  They did!  Whenever something was thrown out into the crowd, there was a visible fight for it.  People were louder with their kiai, and always sang when GACKT gave the chance (but he only gave two chances this time).  There was a cute moment when GACKT did a very calm, not terribly forceful fist-bump with someone in the front row who had their fist up.  ^o^; (I also found GACKT’s half-done head of cornrows amusing in a similar manner.)

This time GACKT was ON from the very beginning.  I could hear him clearly and he didn’t look tired at all, there was no staggering of any kind.  I didn’t know whether to be relieved (i.e. “Yay!  GACKT got some sleep and possibly ate something!”) or even more worried (i.e. “No! GACKT drank 10 espressos and took a fistful of diazepam!”).

Since we were in the seated area this time, I had much more freedom to move.  I head banged and jumped around relatively freely, though I did apologize to the girl behind me the one time my hand smacked hers.  The older lady next to me would yell out “GAKUTOO!” and something else I didn’t understand every now and then, but my friend and I were still the loudest in the section.  Or more accurately, I was the loudest in the section.  ^o^  I had been worried that I wouldn’t be able to yell since I’d woken up with a sore throat from the previous show, but, やっぱり、being that much further back motivated me to reach new decibel levels.  Both friends I went to the concerts with later said (in what I think might have been as much complaint as it was compliment) that I had “some lungs on [me]” and “really showed how excited” I was.” ^O^

Now, Thursday night I’d had the urge to yell “KFC!” instead of “YFC!” but didn’t, but this time my friend said to me, “I really wanna yell ‘KFC’.”  We tried to do it together, but it proved too funny and only got two out before it turned into “k–LOLOL kK F ahahaahahaa!”  I also let lose and yelled 「福岡もっと叫びましょう！！！」(“Fukuoka let’s scream more!!!”) because it was really starting to bug me that the audience wasn’t trying very hard to get the band to come back out after the second to last song.  I also did a yell that’s sort of like a Hispanic equivalent of a kiai; you hold a rolling-R at high pitch and let it turn into a laugh.

Everything else was pretty much the same.  At the end GACKT said something about how he was also a man of Kyuushuu (Okinawa is sometimes considered a part of Kyuushuu) and that Kyuushuu was the best.  The message from backstage was similar, though I didn’t hear the threat of seppuku if the goods didn’t sell out.

This time we actually had to wait in line to buy goods after the show, but no more than 10 minutes.  I had meant to buy another face towel, since my bracelet caught on the one I had and pulled some threads out, but I forgot.  I did pick up 5 bags of YELLOW FRIED CHIPz.

My friends and I then went to Hard Rock Café (it’s right next to Zepp) to have dinner, but were so busy talking about the show that we didn’t even open the menu till the waitress came over to ask what we would like to drink.  Whoops.

After that we hopped on the subway, then went our separate ways.

It was a great two nights!

This afternoon, I woke up with everything sore.  My neck from head banging, abs from clenching to scream louder, arms from pumping, legs from jumping, and throat from screaming.  But I could be in more pain, so by GACKT’s apparent logic, I wasn’t serious enough!

This was my lunch today:

YELLOW FRIED CHIPz: Part of a balanced diet.

^o^

Now it’s time to start saving up for Premium or SS seat tickets for when the Nemuri Kyoushirou play comes to Fukuoka in December. ^o^