akujunkan | 久しぶりにMemeage!

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久しぶりにMemeage!

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ontogenesis, reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Please post them in your journal and explain what they mean to you.

My words were: Self-awareness, reviews, piercings, relationships, and [a word of my choice]. Hmm.

Self-awareness is perhaps one of the main keys to life, provided that it is accompanied by a modicum of attachment. I've known some people who've got the self-awareness thing down: "Wow, that made me really angry." And once they've recognized that they're angry, they move on.

Me? I've got the initial bit down, but I still take it too far more often than not: "Wow, that made me really angry...that really sucks...I can't believe this...OMGAIDAD_KFJDASUPERNOVA!!!"

Reviews are something I originally started writing because after my last stint in Asia, I was so overjoyed to have ready access to English language books on myriad subjects that I pretty much ate, read, and slept. (Seriously, I think I read 28 books during my first week back.) I'd been keeping a list of all the books I'd read cover-to-cover for years, but figured I might as well start jotting down my opinions too. And the longer I kept at it, the more opinions I had. So three years later, here I am writing thousand-word book reviews of my own volition. Thanks, all of you guys for reading them!

Piercings are something I would have even more of, except you can only put so much metal in your face before you really start freaking out the elderly Japanese ladies. I've got seven rings in my ears and one in my nose; I'd like two in my left eyebrow as well, but see above. I'm always a bit bemused by the reception they get, even among liberals (For instance, in The Body Project, Joan Jacob Brumberg, who is quite objective about all other forms of body adornment, states repeatedly and without any qualifiers that people get multiple piercings to signal that they are sexual deviants. Um?) I had all eight of mine done because the mood struck me; I certainly wasn't trying to fit any kind of look or make some deep statement about my personality.

Relationships are something I am much, much more pragmatic about than most people, to the endless chagrin of my Jpop, Jdrama loving acquaintances here. I don't think true love is forever (at least not in its intial form), I don't believe that there's a One True Love out there for everyone, that love will solve all your problems, that it's the main point of living, or that your partner can fill all your emotional needs; and most of what many women find hopelessly romantic (judging by Jdrama or Hollywood romances) just strikes me as a lot of unnecessary heartache due to people not talking with one another at best, and emotional or physical abuse at worst.

That said, I like well-done love stories as much as the next person, have really, really close relationships with many of my friends, and like hanging out with and talking to other people in spite of the fact that I am freakishly introverted. Make of this what you will.

And finally, the word of my choice is genki. God, how I wish English would get with the program and adopt genki already. It is an intensely useful concept, and one for which English, with all its synonyms and nigh-synonyms borrowed, stolen, or outright coerced from myriad other languages doesn't have a single term that approaches genki's meaning. For once, I would just like to be able to tell my friends and family back home that I am genki, and get on to the rest of the conversation.

That will be all.

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"WORDS!!"
And this made my afternoon:

Me? I've got the initial bit down, but I still take it too far more often than not: "Wow, that made me really angry...that really sucks...I can't believe this...OMGAIDAD_KFJDASUPERNOVA!!!"

I think we have that part well...

Ahaha, glad to amuse. ^^

Also, your words are: Evo, Ulquiorra, illustrating, Touji, 4chan. Sorry for the fandom-heavy focus. ;-)

words

I'd yell, but have had the life sucked out of me because I found out I was right. To ease the pain, I turned to this, which has helped me in a small way.

So, I need you to clarify genki for me, lest I think you're my local sushi restaurant

Oh god. As if humanity didn't already have enough reasons to get its movies for free on the intrawebs.

And that's the thing about genki: it kinda defies clarification, which is why I wish English would adopt it already. It's something like being "fine" or "okay" but with more enthusiasm and energy than either of those words would suggest.

Very interesting. And I wouldn't identify piercings with sexuality unless the piercings are in *ahem* certain places.

Ugh, I hate the Princess Bride (ever seen it?) because one of my longtime friends really bought into that message that "if she's not interested, just keep trying!" Let's just say that it didn't work out for him, or for me.

Genki! Yes indeed.

Which mine are most definitely *not.* (And let us leave the convo there!)

Aww, Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies of all time. That said, I was always much, much more interested in Inigo Montoya's storyline than that of Wesley and Buttercup, so make of that what you will. Also, I hope this was not the friend you were mentioning earlier last month? :-/

I am no a mission to bring genki to as much of the American public as I can.

Well, I do like the movie, actually, just not some of the typical Western thought behind it. I ♥ Montoya too.

No, this was another guy, whom I've known for a very long time.

For me, what I like about the Princess Bride is all the fun it pokes at all those standard romance/fairy tale tropes, instead of taking itself Damn Seriously.

I think Inigo is what gave me my H/C kink.

Um...I have ten piercings, all on my ears, because I DO NOT want anything sexual happening to them. Take that, assumptions!!!

Tattoos, Maharet, VanCleevage, Grateful Dead, snakes!

Wow. I haven't thougth about that nickname in a decade!

I know! Now where is your post about it, hmm??

Gimme til tomorrow. I make a half serious promise to get it done. But right now I'm studying anarchy for Intl Studies.

OH CHRIST. No one explained anarchy to me...EVER. And my first project in grad school was on anarchy. I was so lost.

Incidentally, if you can get your hands on United States Foreign Policy: Politics Beyond the Water's Edge, the authors explain pretty much everything about IS that had me boggled for *years* in the first two pages. You have no idea how hard I'm sobbing as I type this.

Well, I wish I was getting that involved in the politiks, but starting on the 15th I move on to world religions. This class is basically five classes crammed into one. In October we start studying the global environment. Then we move to media and globalization. And we finish the semester studying the relationship (or lack of one) between France and Algeria. So just when I start to understand something, we move on.

Wow, that is a crazily ambitious class schedule.

But check out the book anyway if you can and have the time. It is really cool + we can be IR geeks together!

Totally. This class makes me more interested in broadening my poiltik class experience. Well, that and my environment class...I'm going to look for the book for my own benefit. And I'm thinking about taking a cool class my prof offers...it's about conspiracies.;-D

Ooh, awesome. Wish we had those kinds of courses on offer here. Let me know what the reading list for that class is; I'd probably like the material too!

The conspiracy class? I'll check the book store...

Isn't a lack of explanation of anarchy an explanation of anarchy in and of itself? :)

Ahaha, ironically not when it comes to IR.

Words!

If it wasn't for your reviews, I'd actually get work done. Also it has led me to actually have something to write about on the Internets.

And it's not just women who get stuck with the true love myth. I just read Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, which Jon Cusack turned into one of my favorite movies (I want to say I still like the movie better, but I think it fits up there with Thank You for Smoking as stories that coexist in different mediums and both do with what they have equally well.) My point here is that guys are given certain impressions on what love and women are like and it isn't that way either. It's kind of a grown up antilove story.

That said, I'm still a sucker for Wesley and Buttercup: the power of love getting Wesley to his feet to intimidate Humperdink. I'm a sap and I know it.

PPV nite, writing, Edgewood, Spanish, beer connoiseurship. (Okay, so two of them are phrases and not strictly words. Bite me.)

My point here is that guys are given certain impressions on what love and women are like and it isn't that way either.
I'm seriously interested in what these are.

The thing about the Princess Bride to me was that it was as much about the tropes of romance stories and fairytales as it was a romance story or fairytale, which is why I love it. It essentially told a good story because it was so aware of all that storytelling baggage.

One of the main points that Hornby and Cusack focus on is that when guys are young, they think it's all sexy underwear, but just like guys, girls have underwear tailored specifically for whether or not anyone is going to see it. Or that love songs talk about loving someone forever, when choosing to love someone all day is a lot of work.

I agree completely. I don't know if the book has the literary equivilant of Peter Falk reading the story to Fred Savage, but the movie wouldn't have been able to overcome that "baggage" without that.

And Andre the Giant is in it. C'mon!

Okay, as someone who thinks her own underwear is pretty nifty but who realises that most guys would probably not consider it thus, what is the deal with all the frilly bows and lacy bits? I just think it looks doofy, much more so than guy underwear that is meant for partner appreciation, shall we say.

The book is its own animal. One of the reasons I like the movie better is because it's a gentler critique. Book!Wesley is a prick, Book!Buttercup a bimbo, Book!Inigo a dumbass, etc. etc. The movie made them likeable. Although it didn't have the Zoo of Death, so there you go...

In actuality, the frilly bows and stuff aren't that interesting to guys. Most guys I know dig stuff that is mostly nonexistent. And my idea of sexy underwear is my Pac-Man boxers, so I'm not much of an expert there (though when I was thinner Tym bought me a pair of tight boxer briefs, so maybe that's what guys are supposed to wear to be sexy?)

I guess I like the movie so much that I don't want to read the book. I'm happy with my position on the story. and I don't want it to shift one direction or the other.

I just learned about comma splices. I do that a lot on these message things, don't I? do you think it has anything to do with the fact that one hits a comma with the middle finger? *raised middle finger to the Internet and the universe as a whole*

Nonexistent. That makes sense. Cause the thing with the bows? They seem to make a lot of girls feel "feminine" or "cute" but really they just make me feel like I have a lot of weird lumps under my t-shirt.

Boxers are the sexiest to me, although if they're ratty and 500 years old, not so much. But the tight boxer briefs and stuff? Strikes me as either "gay man" or "unhygenic."

Ahaha, I am a huge fan of using the semicolon to keep comma-splice phrasing while still being a grammar nazi. Or maybe it's just because you hit the comma with the pointer finger on Japanese keyboards, so I don't get the fun of flipping anyone off...

Believe me, if a guy is even unreasonably sure his pants are coming down, he's wearing a newer pair of boxers. I hate boxer briefs 1. Because they look gay and 2. no instant access to my junk.

In my poetry class we were talking about semicolons today and the quote from Kurt Vonnegut came to mind: "Avoid using semicolons. they are transvestite hermaphrodites...all they do is show you've been to college."

Boxer briefs just seem like they'd make your bits sweaty and smelly, same as all the girly underwear that undoubtably looks sexy and beguiling but when you get down to it is a lot of non-breathable rayon and polyester shoved up into your crotch.

Awww...Kurt Vonnegut, I love you, but I gotta say a) you're wrong on that count, and b) what's wrong with transvestite hermaphrodites in the first place?

I personally feel if one is prepping for sexual olympics, a lack of underwear is better. but I'm someone who would rather go without sex than play stupid games. But then again, I'm also opposed to advertising that fact, because then one is just skanky. There's a wierd balance.

how would you even have a transvestite hermaphrodite? It'd be really hard to dress up in the opposite gender's clothes if you have both. Maybe a utilitarian jumpsuit? Or a skirt and tie? (nope, that image is kinda sexy.) I still hate semicolons.

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久しぶりにMemeage!

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