I drew a little comic for the Renji_Rukia Valentine's Day Challenge, if anyone would like to tell me what you think! ^^; I have very little experience with sequential art, so this was tricky in places. Hopefully it reads okay, though.

I've had a few commissions, which has been great, and I'm waiting on info for some more. Right now I'm working on one for kemono_art, of his bl_scenes character and NPCs. :)

The past two Tuesdays we've had obedience training classes with the dogs at the Boulder Humane Society. They've been very informative and useful, and this past Tuesday we got Guy to lie down!! :D A lot of people actually say that it's impossible to teach a greyhound to sit, let alone lie down. Psh, they're just lazy, and not persistent enough, hehe. And my Guy is just the smartest wittle greyhound ever! *makes kissy faces at him* Azu has also been showing off how quickly she learns; I'm amazed at how clever she is, no just with learning tricks, but with problem-solving, too.

She got her stitches out on Saturday, and I don't even think the scar will be visible once her hair grows back; it healed up really well. After that we brought them to the dog park, which was so much fun. They hadn't been since before Azu got hurt, so they both completely tired themselves out. Then we went over to Colorado Canines and gave them baths. Poor Azu just looks so miserable the whole time, and Guy always collapses into a pathetic sit after a while. Must be the trauma making his legs weak, lol. Such dorks.

Kung fu has been good. I've only been going once a week due to weather and stuff, but hopefully I will be able to start going twice a week again. This once a week crap just isn't cutting it, I guess, since every class I feel like I'm going to pass out at least once. Which reminds me, I need to go take another iron pill. I think I'm going to start taking two a day again, instead of just one. Once Nick gets health insurance I want to get my iron levels tested again. Last time I had it done I was still in college, but it was super low and the doctor was all, "Whoa, you need to start taking iron pills, anemia-girl".

I've been helping a lot of people with Japanese lately, which makes me very happy. :) Even if I don't get to use it on a daily basis, at least I can use what I know to help people with homework and stuff. And it's good practice for me.~&hearts

Speaking of which, yankeeroses69, I'm still waiting on Nick to double-check my doujinshi translation! ^_^;; He's been really busy with work, though, so I can just send you what I have, if you want. Sorry it's taken so long, and</> I haven't gotten to the article you wanted me to translate, either! D8 Gah, I'm a horrible person!!!

I think it was in the 60s F yesterday, and today it's below freezing and snowing at a decent rate. Colorado weather makes me laugh. XD Mind you, I'm not complaining at all!! Coming from New England (and Sapporo), where the winters are endless and cold and grey, Colrado winters are a cake-walk! *GASP* You mean we actually get to see the sun?? No wai! XD

Okay, enough rambling. I'm gonna make some coffee and work on that commission!

Hah, wow, this is only my third post for November. Bad, bad Chelsea.

Um, anyway. I've been working about 40 hours a week. Did some cat and dog-sitting. One dog, named Van Gogh, was evil and horrible. I had been told that he was an angel and no trouble at all, and within less than 24 hours he had pissed on our rug three times, and barked non-stop for at least 4 hours. So I told Alex, the owner of Colorado Canines, and she took him for the rest of the dog-sitting period. I do not, however, owe her an ounce of gratitude for that, since she was the one who convinced me to watch the little shit.

Dorie, who is my manager's (Wendie) dog, was an absolute angel. Nick and I didn't want to give her back after 5 days. T__T

The cat-sitting was fine, since we just had to stop by the person's house every day or so to feed the cats and scoop the litter box.

Work has been sort of up and down, due to Alex's increased presence in the store. She was okay today, though, so hopefully this trend will continue.

Tomorrow morning Nick and I are going to pick out puppers at the Boulder Humane Society!!! katsudon is coming, too. :) I hope we meet some sweet dogs who we click with. I would like to take home two. &hearts

The apartment is still kinda messy, since we don't have enough shelving/dresser-type furniture, but it's livable. Still haven't gotten around to taking photos, though. Maybe this weekend, when we're taking pictures of the pooches.

Speaking of pictures, though, check out my bruises from kung fu:

( I love showing these off. )

I bought a bottle of herbal medicine from the Kung Fu school. You have to rub it into the bruises really hard, to try and spread them out. Very painful. Hand-written on the bottle's label is: 洪眉　跌打酒 外用

I like that I can understand some Chinese (non-simplified, anyway). The first two characters are Hung Mei, the name for the branch of Kung Fu taught at my school. Then comes 跌, which is not a word by itself in Japanese. But in Chinese it apparently means "to drop; to fall; to tumble". Then is 打, which means "to hit; be hit". After that is 酒, which is sake, or alcohol. The last two characters would be pronounced がいよう in Japanese. They mean "external use". So it's an alcohol-based liquid for injuries sustained from being hit or from falling: bruises.

Languages are cool. :)

Uuuhhhh... Not much else to say. I've been trying to keep up with RP as much as time permits. I miss it a lot, since I can only post once or twice a day. ;__; I have the next four days off of work, though, for "puppy leave", so I will hopefully have some time to RP. I will, of course, be spening a lot of time socializing and training, but the dogs have to learn to lie down and rest quietly, too, so those times should be good opportunities for me to RP. :)

I will post photos of the beasts as soon as possible. &hearts

The thing today went okay. The guy who interviewed us was very hot cool, so we talked with him in Japanese for maybe 45 minutes or so. Basically, TOP is like a temp agency, so he wasn't actually offering us any jobs at that moment. Instead, he was sort of getting an idea of what we were interested in. Nick and I talked yesterday and today, so I just came out and told Katsu (the Japanese guy) that I wasn't interested in anything that was going to keep me in an office all day. Unless it was something like doing translation (localization) for manga, video games, etc. There are a couple video game companies that he knows about, but they're not currently looking for employees. I appreciated his honesty when he told me that, since I'm not living in San Francisco, even if a company there were to look at my résumé, they would probably choose someone local instead.

Katsu seemed really impressed with Nick's skills - web design, fluent in a bunch of coding languages, been making web sites since middle school, stuff like that. He briefly mentioned a web design company up near Seattle, but I think all of this is sort of a "we don't have anything at the moment, but you might hear from us later" thing.

In any case, we decided that, unless one of us gets offered an AMAZING job, we're going to stick with what we have at the moment.

To get to the interview thing, we rented a car, so on the way back we stopped at Costco to get some food and things for the house. We signed up for a membership the other day, and I'm still baffled by how cheap everything is. Today we bought cheese, beans, kielbasa, garbage bags, coffee, organic milk, and all sorts of other LARGE products. I think most Japanese people would crap themselves if they saw the size of the stuff at Costco. And then when they saw the prices, they'd go cry emo tears or something.

In other news, still haven't been able to pick up our car yet (I forgot to mention that we bought a Kia Rio5 on Saturday :B ) since the bank is dragging its ass. I'll be stopping in there tomorrow after work to be like, "WTF bitches? Do I gotta slap somebody?" Seriously, we opened the account last Friday; you'd think we would at least have an account number by now. *grumbles*

But yay! Work tomorrow!! :D I get to see Dory and Doby, and maybe some other puppy friends! GAH, I want dogs now!!! I am not getting my daily recommended dose of slobber, dammit! D:<

At least Loki and Tengu are cute, but they just don't seem into the whole "let's wrastle!" thing. Silly cats and their false notions of dignity.

Work has been awesome lately, though I'm not working full time yet. I continue to learn all sorts of cool things. :)

( More pet food stuff! )

In other new, Rachael and I went to kung fu tonight, after not going since Friday. It was okay, but I was learning a side kick and having a lot of trouble keeping my form correct, so I was getting really frustrated. =_= I will try to take Shifu's words to heart, though: The five parts of learning are mindfulness, concentration, insight, faith (not religious), and diligence. I have the most trouble with the faith one, since I'm not very good at making myself believe I'll succeed at anything. Which is probably why I tend to give up on things quickly if they're not going well.

I've been bringing home treats for Tengu and Loki. So far, Loki has been receiving them quite well, and now follows me around the house in the hopes that I will give him more bonito flakes or Pinnacle kibbles. Tengu, however, couldn't care less, the picky little bastard. He does serenade me, though, so I forgive him.

Tomorrow Nick and I are going up to Fort Collins, for an interview, sort of. A while ago we both applied to a job agency called TOP, that deals mostly with jobs requiring skills in Japanese. Yesterday Nick got a call from them, and I got one today. There are two problems with this, however. One, the jobs are in San Francisco and Santa Clara, respectively. Two, the one I was offered is a sales associate position, so I would be stuck in a suit, behind a desk all day. Something I very much DO NOT WANT, especially after teaching on JET for three years. I'm sick of suits. I like wearing jeans and flip-flops to work, and burping in front of my manager, and playing with dogs in my free time.

BUT, the TOP jobs do pay very well. The one I was offered is 10am-4pm, Mon-Fri, $15-16/hour. So, yeah, a lot more than I'll be making, even after I'm full time at Colorado Canines. But... *whines*

Well, I'm not going to worry about it now. We'll see how things go tomorrow.

Finally, I snagged this link from thornwolf: Work, it baby!

Let's see, what have I been doing lately?

( Loooooooong )

This is pathetic, and very scary.

I was playing with Kuma on the couch today. He started getting really spastic and hyper, mostly because he was too slow to get a hold of my hands and maim them. Nick was sitting on the floor right near the couch, and I told him to look at how cute Kuma was being. As if in slow motion, Nick leaned back, about to rest his head on the couch right next to Kuma. I started to say, "Watch out", because I knew that murderous look in Kuma's eye, but it was too late.

Kuma bit Nick's eyebrow.

And I died laughing. *Cackles gleefully* It was probably one of those things where you had to be there to appreciate it, but holy crap, was that hysterical.

Anyway, they are both curled up in bed now, the perfect picture of cuteness. I don't want to give Kuma back to Steve. ^_^;; I mean, he already said that we could keep him a little longer, but... I wanna take Kuma with us back to the States. That would be really stressful for him, though, and we're going to be Without Home for a while after we get back; I don't think that would be the best thing for Kuma. I also don't know if we'll be able to find a good home for him here, though, since Steve is leaving at the same time as us...

I cut the crap out of myself shaving today, and one of the cuts would NOT stop bleeding. I guess my razor must be getting old or something.

Been reading more of Death Note. I guess I'm about a third of the way through the second volume, and it's still very cool. Definitely expanding my vocabulary, since I've been able to remember a lot of the words they use a lot, like 犠牲者 (ぎせいしゃ = victim), 捜査官 (そうさかん = department of investigation), and 刑務所 (けいむしょ = prison, jail).

Speaking of Japanese, I need to write an entry or something for lets_japanese.

Also, I joined spoon_donkey, a small writing/art community that has weekly prompts. I drew a comic for the last prompt.

Also, some new stuff in my DA scraps. :)

( Memage )

Okay, I created that Japanese LJ community I've been talking about. :) There seem to be a few people who are interested, so I thought I might as well. Again, I'd like to do this in as much Japanese as possible, but let's just have fun with it. :D

lets_japanese

I still have to edit stuff, mess with the layout, etc., but I wanted to get it up anyway. That sounded dirty...

And a meme:
When we role play, we tend to pick up a variety of characters. They could be ones that we like, ones that we want to experiment with, or ones that we just end up making from scratch. Eventually, we come to associate with (some of) them in one way or another. Out of all the characters (past or present) I role play, pick out the one I am most like and tell me why you think so.

I know most of you don't know me well, or in person, but I thought I would post this anyway. :)

Characters I've played online:
Kai Schwarz (bl_scenes)
Sasha (bl_scenes)
Kuchiki Rukia (damned)
Characters I've played offline (though probably only azure_phoenix will know these):
Kael
Ianara
Shannon
Miaka
Sonya

Since everyone else has been doing it, I thought I would write a more complete synopsis of myself. I didn’t really say anything about myself in the previous, "Hello Landels Damned People" post, so here goes. Really, I never mind talking about myself. XD

( Cut for probably not being interesting. )

I took a couple days off school again, but I was actually sick this time. Well, not sick, but dealing with the worst backache I've ever had. Around 9am on Wednesday it started to hurt, around my tailbone, and within a couple hours I couldn't even bend over. I still can't, really. Nick has rubbed my back a couple times, which helps, but it gets stiff again after a few hours. Anyway, I've been keeping myself pumped full of ibuprofen, which will hopefully help. I'm at work now, which means I've been wearing my corset today (Yes, I wear a corset. Bet you didn't know that ^_~ ), and that seems to be helping a lot. It's keeping my back from bending, and taking some of the strain off the muscles. Still, I can tell my lower back is unhappy.

Let's see, not too much has been going on. I finished both my requests for het_challenge, which means I have six more out of the fifteen total I signed up for. Go me! I'll be posting links to all the porn-filled goodness when I'm allowed to submit these requests to their various challenges, so keep an eye out in April. :)

I've been having WAY TOO MUCH FUN RPing with katsudon!! We're both giant dorks, and since our characters (Renji and Rukia, from Bleach) in damned aren't hanging out together right now, we've been RPing via AIM and email. Setting up some pre-storyline stuff. I think it's pretty cool so far, and Katsu is such an awesome writer! *makes starry idol-worshipping eyes* XD

Been kind of stressed lately, for various reasons. Mostly worrying about moving, I think, and being in the States for 5 months, without really having a fixed place to stay. I'm really looking forward to seeing people, but still, it will be hectic and stressful to be bouncing from place to place. I'm going to try to make it to some anime and/or fantasy art conventions, and try to sell some art to pay for plane fare. I'll also likely be taking commissions, assuming I'll have the space to work.

We're going out for our traditional kaitenzushi dinner at Clipper tonight, then karaoke at Mash. PJ and I have a date: we’re going to sing a duet of "I've Had the Time of My Life", from "Dirty Dancing". XD I'm really looking forward to karaoke, since I haven't been in 3 or 4 weeks.

I'll likely be online tomorrow morning (Friday night for people in the States) for RP and chatting purposes, but I don't really have any specific plans for the rest of the weekend. We were hoping that it would arm up a bit and melt all the new snowfall we've gotten, but it doesn't seem like that’s going to happen. :(

I want to ride my bike, dammit! Stupid winter! >:O

All right, I've kept myself successfully occupied for the past couple hours at school. It's almost 4pm, so I'll post this, and get ready to head home.

Oh! One last thing!!!

***People who are studying/are interested in studying JAPANESE***
I was thinking of starting up a little LJ community, where people could post things in Japanese. Like, diary-type stuff, questions, song lyrics, general discussion. But as much as possible in Japanese. I'm going to need some way to keep practicing after I leave in August, so I thought it might be kind of fun. :)

If you are interested, please respond to this post and tell me what you think!

I finished my second novel in Japanese yesterday. :) It was a translational of Lewis Carroll's first story about Alice, before he published "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". It was called "Alice's Adventures Underground", and lacked some of the scenes present in the completed story. So, sadly, no Cheshire Cat, who was always my favorite character, and no Tea Party or meeting with the Duchess. It was really interesting, though, and I think the person who translated it did a good job of preserving the "I feel like I'm on crack when I'm reading this" quality of the story.

Since I've been feeling deprived in the Bleach and D. Gray-Man area lately (manga take waaaay too long to come out, never mind that a shit-ton of work goes into them and manga-ka usually produce upwards of 15 pages a week), so I started reading Trinity Blood. It's a bit harder, vocabulary-wise, than the other two, but there are still furigana, so looking up kanji I don't know is easy enough. I read it last night before bed and today while I was riding the exercise bike, so I'm almost finished with the first tankoubon. I'll have to pick up the next couple issues tomorrow after school.

Nick got up at 5am yesterday and waited in line outside Yodobashi Camera for 3 1/2 hours (in very cold weather) to get a Wii. PJ went with him, so I didn't feel bad about bowing out. I mean, I wanted a Wii, but I didn't want one that badly. Anyway, he and PJ ended up being 10th in line, even though they got there before 6am, and Nick said there were over 150 people there by 8:30am. They were only selling 150 Wiis yesterday, so I'm sure there were a lot of disappointed people. Nick got home around 10:30 or so and started playing around with it, then played Zelda: Twilight Princess for a few hours. I actually didn't get a chance to play yesterday (GASP), but I played for maybe 3 hours today, and oh my god that game is so much fun. The way the controls work is kinda weird at first, but you get used to it after just a few minutes, and it soon becomes really intuitive. It's the kind of thing you really have to try to understand, but trust me. Super fun, especially fighting with the sword, and aiming the sling-shot etc.

The graphics are, essentially, nice Gamecube graphics. If you were to compare them to the graphics in XBOX 360 games, well, the Wii would be crushed. But it seems to me that the Wii and the XBOX 360 (and the PS3 for that matter) are such completely different gaming platforms that you would be doing them all an injustice to compare them. XBOX 360 has gorgeous graphics, and an excellent online system with XBOX Live and the arcade games. Then you have the Wii, which is much less impressively graphically, but has this unique and easy-to-learn interface and endlessly fun party/multi-player games. They're just so different. I can't speak for the PS3, since I won't buy one until the price comes WAAAAY down, but I imagine it's similar to the XBOX 360. Probably more ideal for RPG gamers.

Anyway, them's my 2 cents on the Wii. I think it was a good purchase. Expect to hear lots of goobing about Twilight Princess in the near future. XD

It seems that I managed to do almost nothing productive this weekend, which is a real shame. I have so many requests to work on, need to update my website, submit some stuff to DeviantArt... I'm sure I'm forgetting some things.

I don't want to go to work tomorrow, in a bad way. Blech, why can't weekends be longer??? ToT

Yeah, so it's been snowing all day, in EVERY DIRECTION BUT DOWN. Seriously, the sides of buildings, windows and all, are coated with ice and snow. I was nearly blown over at least three times, and almost walked into traffic once because I couldn't see where I was going. Blizzards are cool and all when you're at home cuddled up under blankets, but when you have to go schlepping about in them, not so much.

Usually the snow we get here is quite pleasant. There are two types. One is the big soft fluffy flakes that come drifting down and make squishy piles of snow that grow so high they start to curl around roofs and over walls and fences. The other is what they call あられ雪 (arareyuki = hail snow), which is little soft balls of snow that make fn little pitter-patter noises when they land on things, but don't hurt.

Then there was today, when the snow was a thousand little icy razors cutting into my flesh, AIEEEEEE!!!

So, winter, please to be stopping with the death weather. Thank you, come again.

Other than living in the Ice Planet Hoth, today was fine. I only had two classes, which was joyous. The best part, though, was that I had all that time to work on some scenes for BL. I wrote up a transitional post for Sasha, which I will ask the lovely miyabiarashi to check over for me, and a scene for Kai, which I have to edit, but plan to post tonight.

Lots to do, and lots of F-list and DeviantArt to catch up on! Plus I have to call my mom, and get some stuff ready for a big electronic money transfer at the post office tomorrow.