watashi wa, the life and times of a non conformist drupal web developer, Zend Framework programmer, linux sys admin, Japanese language student and gaming geek girl
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2 dates, 1 change of hair colour, 1 known change of perspective, weight unknown, some smoking, some drinking. I am thinking about turning my blog into more of a diary, I will be testing different formats of recording information so that over a period of time I can see how I have changed and what I was like. It may well have to become a private blog 
Shocking news
Of all the news I had recently the most shocking that one of my best friends who is like a Brother to me is engaged to his girlfriend. I wish them all the best and congratulations but I find it surprising because their relationship does not seem that secure. I say this because she believes that something was going on between him and I and from all accounts, will not let him see me anymore.
Should a couple go on when valued friendships can not be respected by one another?
2 dates
Of my 2 dates one was 25 years old and very local, another was 30 years old and lives in a town that I would quite like to try living in. Both dates have ended in at most friendship, the 25 year old guy while nice and fun to be around, feels much younger than I so far as his experiences of life, his developed political and philosophical views, so much so that I felt like I had 5 years on him when in truth I have nothing close to that.
The 30 year old was more of a punt, while we have much in common and many experiences and views to collectively talk into the long hours of the morning I had a feeling it would not be right. I was actually willing to give him 3 dates because I am aware that the type of guy I usually have chemistry with does not usually share many interests, experiences, intelligence and so forth. I am more than aware that I will have to look beyond instant chemistry (though it would have to develop) to find someone that can keep me interested for the long run.
Funnily enough he asked for friendship after the first date having also picked up the lack of chemistry. I would like him to be a valued friend in the long run.
Japanese
I have finished my first Japanese course and gained a OCR certificate in Japanese Speaking level 1. The next course starts soon. It is great learning Japanese and finally being able to understand bits of Anime and even work out some sentences on my own.
Moving
I have made an offer on a house near where I live, it is much larger and has most of the things I wanted to get from a house. I will finally be able to have a couple of cats!
Weight
I have given up for the past few weeks on monitoring my weight.
Changed Perspective
Winter is wonderful! I love being in a cozy jumper out in the cold, with cool air touching my bare shoulders. I love sitting in a cafe all snug while it is dark and cold outside. I love dating in the winter.
Summary
All in all I am pretty happy right now, I have some things to sort out like what to do about work (at the moment I feel daunted by finding my own work as part of my business to sustain myself) but otherwise I have good friends and that is perhaps one of the most important things.
My heart goes out to anyone not so fortunate right now, may you have better times in the future.
I have recently taken out some office space, thought I would show some pictures of where it is
Recently I have been attending Japanese lessons at an adult learning class. I was practising with a Japanese friend at a drupal pub meetup and other people asked why I wanted to learn it.
The answer is simple, I enjoy Japanese Anime, am interested in the culture and I want to visit and maybe work in Japan one day soon.
Even if I never go I will find it useful being able to understand anime with out subtitles (this will make it much more accesable as some anime is only subbed by fans and then distributed on torrent networks).
The Japanese lessons themselves have been great, I think the teachers are fantastic to learn from. They make it fun and enjoyable and seem to teach it in a way that works (Given I remember some of it it must work).
I have enjoyed hearing what I have learnt used in Anime and also used in ways I did not expect. For instance we learns that “watashi wa” means I am talking about myself, but in a conversation where people where talking about a person that person said “watashi wa?” as if to say “me?”.
I certainly never expected to enjoy learning language but now I would miss not learning it.
A couple of days ago I got invited to go on a charity bike ride to paris for the upcoming Drupalcon event I am attending. I had already considered this with somebody else and sadly we decided against it so when I got the offer from Chris over at Menus and Blocks I was “well up for it”.
I am not a particularly athletic person, in fact since I started working from home I have gained 25kilos and my bmi has gone from 22 to 26. This means I am medically over-weight.
In order to be able to survive the trip I have started a pretty intensive training program.
Day – Target – Accomplished
——————————————
Saturday – 10 miles – Did 13 miles
Sunday – 30 miles – 20 miles
Monday – 5 miles
Tuesday – 30 miles
Wednesday – Off
Thursday – 5 miles
Friday – 10 miles
Saturday – 20 miles
Sunday – 40 miles
Monday – Off
Tuesday – 30 Miles – HIGH CARB DIET
Wednesday – Off – HIGH CARB DIET
Thursday – Off – HIGH CARB DIET
Friday – GO!!!
Note that I would normally cycle about 6 miles and have on occasion pushed this to about 10.
So that’s it, 2 weeks intensive training and hopefully a good trip to Paris.
If you would like to sponsor us on the trip you can do so here.
I learnt where the king prawns came from today, the packet says indonesian and here is a video on the subject
I had a pretty neat weekend starting friday where I cooked for Beef Teriyaki for my mum and ex followed by ginger and lemon cheese cake. I also discovered red miso paste and made some soup with that and some pork (but not made from dashi stock).
Saturday I drove into North London to see two of my my good friends. I brought cheesecake with me for them, we chatted, ate this then went to central london for a meal in the Japan center just after meeting up with one of my friends friends who had just moved to London.
We had various bits of sushi, I had eel in mine which I had not tried before. Personally I do not see the fuss people make, it just tasted like a meaty white fish. I also had Miso Udon soup with a boiled egg. It was yum and the bill was reasonable.
After this we went to the ICA (or something) to see Tokyo Gore Police, it was well full of gore, totally rediculous but very enjoyable!
We finished off the night chatting about privacy issues before sleeping.
On Sunday my friends and I chatted, installed Scumm VM and played beneath a steel sky (an old but really good sc fi point and click adventure).
I left to meet another friend at my flat, we chatted and then went to a business meeting ( on a sunday, yes ). The meeting went well then I cooked some more japanese food and miso soup for us. We then proceeded to flick through indianna jones movies followed by watching lots of anime:
We didnt watch all of it, some of that I flicked through. I enjoyed it when the translations came up with hirigana too so I could see what bits I knew. Ku く came up alot.
After this I showed my friend smart.fm, learnt a few more symbols Shi し Sa さ, practised some others えe おo あa いi うu かka くku. My friend was very impressed by me and the app.
Finally at 5am we went to sleep 
)
I’ve spent this morning writing a Drupal module, i’ll post some more on it if my client lets me release it open source.
I found a beginners course for japanese which I have applied to attend. I am really looking forwards to getting Japanese lessons.
My friend Takeshi has agreed to help me practise using some kind of online voice chat (VOIP) and has told me about IME (Input Method Editor), the system where I type Arigatou on a keyboard and get ありがとう
It’s really cool!
Last night I have Teriyaki てりやき beef for dinner which was delicious, tonight I am making Pork tonkatsu とんかつ
Hopefully someone Japanese can tell me if I got those words right!
Today my friend Takeshi from Japan introduced me to Japanese symbols, you know, those letters that look more like hyroglyphics from egypt or some alien society )
I found out that they are not based on letters, but rather phonetics and that there are more than one type.
Takeshi told me to learn Hirigana first and then Katakana. Apparantly Katakana is used for foreign words.
To start learning about these I got shown a website I had not seen before, http://www.smart.fm – It has lists with recordings for each of the symbols and also a teaching system. I spent 45 minutes learning and being tested on the symbols.
I have not learnt very much yet, I will need much more practise to even remember one symbol and then I need to learn what the words they will represent mean!
So thank you Takeshi for helping me along.
