Trend Wars

Amusing for perhaps a few minutes (or until you run out of things to compare), Google yourself a war! Surprising and unsurprising results?

P.S. If you process common things too much, Google restricts your access. :(

I Blog Me When...

... either things are going really well, or when things are going really slow. It happens to be neither, but that's because I haven't posted in a few days and I've been a bit busy working.

Anyway, right now things are getting better. I have more or less made slight hints to my more trusted colleagues at school that the board sucks, and I could be leaving if nothing else happens.

Lo and behold, another indeterminate leave occurs. I have a tendency to get upset when I have these indeterminate leaves, mostly because the person who leaves has a really sad reason to need one. This time, it's even sadder (to me) the reason, which happens to be that the teacher's father is gravely ill.

Things go a full circle. Yours truly came back here because of father being struck down by a stroke.

I managed to talk to the teacher in question before he left today, to arrange the rest of the week which happens to be "administer exam, correct them, administer another one, etc." He looked pretty depressed, despite his poker face. It makes me very sad to know his father is ill, and that I am replacing him at one of the most crucial times of the year.

In other news, the kids all keep asking me two things:

1. I got a hair cut??? Really???


2. Why am I not replacing that other teacher who went on paternity leave??? Maybe because I DON'T HAVE A CLUE.

Anyway, this month at that school is going to be insane. There is the yearly camping trip that is coming up in two weeks, a grad kayak trip in the same week, a ped day and a holiday soon, and a load of regular teachers absent or on leaves.

It will look more busy this month than I thought.

Jorghnassen requested Chicoutimi, but I thought it would be more interesting with the whole Saguenay region. 

Tour of My Neighbourhood

Following my habit of reading the SA forum, not joining because it costs $10US (although that might change into $10CA at this rate) and then posting about the topic here, I give you a Tour of My Neighbourhood (versus "Tour of My Town" because I really, really don't know that much, come to think of it).




WARNING: large file size (~2 MB)
Goddamn let me fix this problem... >:( Picasa won't let me send large photo sizes :(

EDIT: OK, I've made the above image into an image map, so you'll have to click the different quadrants to get one part at a time.

Those of you who aren't too familiar with Quebec, there's very little public transit going out to the really boonie-like places. For instance, the movie theatre does have a bus line going there... once every two hours or something equally as ridiculous. Also, the entire city is white so there's not much reason to put "REDNECKS LIVE HERE" everywhere.

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Yet another article about Islands. Hilarious (and at the same time, NOT hilarious) if you know what is going on there, and you know who the article is talking about...

Rant :(

I come across as a manic-depressive kook but I often feel terrible at times of inactivity like this. It's pretty easy to put aside the feelings of depression when there's a steady job, and one is surrounded with friends and good people, projects to work on...

But depressing feelings are like raisins in a glass of soda (try it if you haven't seen it before); they bob up and down unless you take them out of your drink and deal with them before they plump up. Ahh, silly analogies.

My day starts with a noon breakfast of champions (a bowl of cereal), followed by a few hours of "what the hell," and then a supper of random food. Then I'm back to "what the hell." My mum comes back from work and gets exasperated at me for a few hours. On Tuesday I tutor. On Wednesday I watch LOST, if it's new. Sometimes I get to bed at 2.

Jorghnassen has always been good to me. He tells me great things and supports my projects, comforts me about the serious dicking (pardon my language) I get from this place, and usually peppers his conversations with "Come back here :(" ... which everyone says.

Of course I have thought of it a lot - every time something stupid happens (March), to name a few), every time I see my friends, whenever I see youth retention reports (especially about anglos), when I visit my dad, and then when I make food enough for ten when I'm the only one who's going to eat the damn thing.

It pains me a lot to think that I am not needed here. The last two years I've been sitting on my ass here making myself pretty depressed, but I tried to convince myself that the reasons I chose to stay here (for now) were valid. Well, they're not so valid, just probably ridiculous from everyone else's perspective.

I am not convinced any more that I was meant to do what I thought I could. What's the use of two degrees from a university when I don't remember any of my training or make any use of this knowledge? Why did I have to go through so much pain and suffering over five years, only to come out feeling like I learned next to nothing? Why did I stay on this train when I didn't want to go to Alberta, but to New Brunswick? (No, I don't want to go to Alberta nor New Brunswick - it's another stupid analogy.)

But I'm not convinced I wasn't getting anything out of it. I enjoyed moments when things went well, with my own abilities. I was always happy to help, maybe too happy to help. I would go out of my own way to make my charges happy and keep them on the better path. I think I would have even quit if my charges told me it was better that way.

(Oh, but I didn't quit. My charges were actually getting along better until the bosses got rid of me.)

I'm probably the only person stupid enough to think this way, but I gave up a job once for a friend whom I believed was better suited for the tasks, and because he wanted experience in it. And I would do it all over again given that choice. But I'm tired of popular opinion trying to make me feel entitled to things or feel guilty for not being more selfish, because I really, really want to do great things for deserving people. (But I don't want to be a total tool either... I'm not like that.)

I just feel that I can't do it.

Of course I won't leave this post on a sad depressing note, so I'm linking this freaking cute corgi. (I think it's a corgi...)

Bach again?

Stupid pun.

Anyway, the Bach piece below is only the first part of the first movement of the concerto. Personally, I haven't listened to my own recording much because I know how grating some of the sounds can get, but I hope you take a listen.

I finally listened to it this afternoon and I must take back what I meant by the rupturing of eardrums. It's probably the best thing I've worked on so far (but unfortunately not the best recording). I enjoyed listening to it because I enjoyed working on it, and above all I enjoyed the piece.

It is less known to my friends and readers my musical history, whose entire truth I don't like to divulge because of my shame, but most of the time when I was in training and on hiatus from the violin, I did not enjoy it to a certain degree. This is probably natural to a lot of average students who don't like to practice and play things that are so distant from what they understand and like. Thus, I was less inclined to play anything anyone assigned me to play.

So since I have been on my own for so many years, I have only learned a few new pieces that are involving as this. Actually, Bach is one of the few composers I will play because the music is not too deranged (ahem, difficult) like the romantics. I didn't think I could progress further than where I ended up.

Thus, I was pleasantly surprised when I put together the concerto (2 posts below) and finally listened to the accompanying parts this afternoon. I was so happy I got through that part in one afternoon that I actually stopped doing everything else (which was essentially nothing) and played on top of the accompaniment. It felt great (although it didn't sound too good...)!

In fact, I don't know if you can tell, but I was ecstatic recording all the parts.

Now, the difficult thing is to get a great recording especially when there is only one musician doing all the parts and conducting herself. It became a nightmare of timing and cues, which is why it took 6 hours to record 2 minutes of music. And it still isn't right. So I'll fix the timing the best I can and upload it again. On the other hand, the recording quality will have to wait because I have no idea how to mix or master.

Sambomaster!

I don't remember where I last talked about Sambomaster or if I ever mentioned it at some point (which would be quite odd if I didn't). I probably did mention Naruto many times. The opening for Naruto that features Sambomaster's song is called Seishun Kyosokyouku, which got me hooked right away. If you watch the video, try imagining the face of the singer.

Now, here's the music video with the song in its entirety.

I still love this song. Rock on, japanese care bear!

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Lots of anime use songs from j-rock and j-pop bands for openings and endings. It's actually quite common for them to change the songs every season, and often in the middle of seasons. (Perhaps to boost the ratings, since it involves making new animations for the songs as well.) This applies to Inu Yasha, Naruto, Bleach, and other popular action series.

On the other hand, (short-running) romance anime use voice actors from the shows to sing their theme songs, if they're talented enough. So the anime in question will often scramble for leading voice actors that are proven to sing well and have great talent. For example, Love Hina and Chobits.

Anyway, the point is that there's a lot of money and time spent on making these openings and endings original, catchy and entertaining. So why would an american company license an anime and completely throw out the original opening to vomit up an abomination of a "song" like this opening for dubbed Naruto? (Don't tell me it's because they don't want to change the songs for an english audience, because they've pretty much left Inu Yasha as is due to the possibility of insane old geezer otaku backlash.)

Ok, I admit there have been weird things in the original as well. But really, generic rock riffs do not make a satisfactory substitution to this. (Or FURRIES and UNDERAGE GIRLS IN SWIMSUITS.)