Assorted Ramblings, Failbook Goodness
Nice. I figured out that tweaking a recipe, adding/leaving out ingredients and/or altering the given proportions will NOT result in something poisonous and/or inedible.
(This is in reference to the amount of carrots, tamanegi and potatoes I doubled for tonight's Curry because my attempt at 'divide the amounts for ten people by ten to get the amounts for one person' left me with barely noticeable pieces floating in a sea of curry sauce.)
I feel like the smartest person on earth.
Which is a joke, obviously, but I do feel pretty accomplished. Who knows, I might just go back to Germany being able to cook!
And by 'able to cook', I mean more than 'throwing random vegetables into boiling water and add miso and dashi' or 'put random vegetables into a pan and heat them'.
Also, I am stuck with my last report, oh my. I need about 1200 more characters, but I somehow can't find much more to talk about. On the brighter side, I'm done with two of them. And I WILL have this last beast finished by the weekend! And then, guys, I will study for That Exam (Japanese Language Proficiency Test N1). I've got loads of study material and am itching to finally make use of all those fine books. Also, having decided on the topic for my end report (this twelve-page monster study report kind of thing to be handed in someday in August/September), I can start collecting stuff already (and perhaps even start with the outline and write some parts, yay!).
Also, is it just me or is Easter really, really late this year? End of April... meh. I don't think it's celebrated here, but I'm hoping for my grandparents to send me some Easter egg chocolates =)
In other news: my brother's graduation exams start in less than a month! March 15th (German, five and a half hours), 16th (Maths, four hours), 19th (English, four and a half hours) and 21st (Biology, I think; four and a half hours). *excited* I can't believe mine are already three years down the river... Still feels like yesterday. And oh, am I glad I won't ever have to do something like that again. THE HORROR. How did I EVER survive that?
Anyway. I found a novel called When You Push the Switch (which is actually the subtitle; it's スイッチを押すとき in Japanese) by Yamada Yusuke. It's about Japan in the 2030s when children and teenagers regularly commit suicide. In order to stop that process and learn WHY they kill themselves, a project was started. For this project, randomly selected five-year-olds undergo heart surgery and are taken from their families when they reach ten years. They are then taken to an institution where they are kept in solitary cells together with other ten-year-olds, not allowed any outside contact or anything else than a notebook and pencils to write down their thoughts and feelings. Oh, and they also get a red switch. When they push that switch, they die.
Most children push that switch when they are still ten, eleven years old, often after news of the death or accident of a family member or childhood friend, or after being told they themselves have a grave illness. Some children go insane.
There is one institution, though, where things are different: Four teenager, soon to reach the age of 17, have resisted pushing the switch for seven years. Why? And how will the arrival of a new guard disrupt their routine?
I've read 160 pages as of yet, and it's a really fascinating and very, very heartbreakingly sad story. I hope it will get translated into different languages so that more people can read it.
ETA:*snorts*
(This is in reference to the amount of carrots, tamanegi and potatoes I doubled for tonight's Curry because my attempt at 'divide the amounts for ten people by ten to get the amounts for one person' left me with barely noticeable pieces floating in a sea of curry sauce.)
I feel like the smartest person on earth.
Which is a joke, obviously, but I do feel pretty accomplished. Who knows, I might just go back to Germany being able to cook!
And by 'able to cook', I mean more than 'throwing random vegetables into boiling water and add miso and dashi' or 'put random vegetables into a pan and heat them'.
Also, I am stuck with my last report, oh my. I need about 1200 more characters, but I somehow can't find much more to talk about. On the brighter side, I'm done with two of them. And I WILL have this last beast finished by the weekend! And then, guys, I will study for That Exam (Japanese Language Proficiency Test N1). I've got loads of study material and am itching to finally make use of all those fine books. Also, having decided on the topic for my end report (this twelve-page monster study report kind of thing to be handed in someday in August/September), I can start collecting stuff already (and perhaps even start with the outline and write some parts, yay!).
Also, is it just me or is Easter really, really late this year? End of April... meh. I don't think it's celebrated here, but I'm hoping for my grandparents to send me some Easter egg chocolates =)
In other news: my brother's graduation exams start in less than a month! March 15th (German, five and a half hours), 16th (Maths, four hours), 19th (English, four and a half hours) and 21st (Biology, I think; four and a half hours). *excited* I can't believe mine are already three years down the river... Still feels like yesterday. And oh, am I glad I won't ever have to do something like that again. THE HORROR. How did I EVER survive that?
Anyway. I found a novel called When You Push the Switch (which is actually the subtitle; it's スイッチを押すとき in Japanese) by Yamada Yusuke. It's about Japan in the 2030s when children and teenagers regularly commit suicide. In order to stop that process and learn WHY they kill themselves, a project was started. For this project, randomly selected five-year-olds undergo heart surgery and are taken from their families when they reach ten years. They are then taken to an institution where they are kept in solitary cells together with other ten-year-olds, not allowed any outside contact or anything else than a notebook and pencils to write down their thoughts and feelings. Oh, and they also get a red switch. When they push that switch, they die.
Most children push that switch when they are still ten, eleven years old, often after news of the death or accident of a family member or childhood friend, or after being told they themselves have a grave illness. Some children go insane.
There is one institution, though, where things are different: Four teenager, soon to reach the age of 17, have resisted pushing the switch for seven years. Why? And how will the arrival of a new guard disrupt their routine?
I've read 160 pages as of yet, and it's a really fascinating and very, very heartbreakingly sad story. I hope it will get translated into different languages so that more people can read it.
ETA:*snorts*