Pink-Spider.net

Nails and peach desserts

// July 19th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Blog

So after work on Saturday, Eri and I went to get our nails done, and then we went out for dinner.

We were a bit late leaving work because we’re having this event on Tuesday, and we were preparing for it. It’s going to be really fun, so I’m totally looking forward to it.

But anyways, the nail place isn’t too far by taxi and we got there, and everything was good. There were a lot of styles and designs to choose from! But I definitely did not want all those like, chunky jewels and stuff on the top of my nails because I know it would drive me nuts and I’d want to pick it off. Not to mention that a lot of them look pretty tacky.

So, I ended up getting sort of a French manicure, with more sparkle, haha. It’s really cool too; it’s like gel nailpolish, so while it’s my own nails, the nail polish will last for about a month. I wanted to make sure I got something I liked because that’s kind of a long time. I felt bad, because what Eri chose didn’t take as long, so she ended up having to wait for me. It took about two hours in total, and the girl was really nice. In the end, this is what I got:

I don’t know if you can tell, but below the pink line it’s light pink sparkles. I’m happy with it, although I wish my nails were a bit longer for it. Two of my nails broke, so she filed the others down so they matched. Makes sense, and I’m glad she did it that way, but, yeah.

Anyways, after nails we went to a Korean restaurant. Food was great, and we were both starving… so you know how it goes, when you’re super hungry food tastes even better. We had bibinba, spare ribs in this amazing sauce, and of course, dessert. I was torn between the mango ice cream and the peach sherbert, but I went with the peach because I feel lik it’s been forever since I had anything peachy.

That was how they served it. Which I think is just pretty AWESOME. Haha. It just looks so cool, but my fingers went numb trying to eat it (because I had to hold the peach to keep it from slipping and it peach itself was frozen). Very tasty though.

Teehee.

// July 3rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Blog

I have a few classes of really little ones. It’s kind of like a Mommy and Me class, because they come with their mothers (and occasionally, a dad will come as well or instead) . They’re all two and three years old.

It’s funny, because at first I was so nervous to teach that class — I’ve never had much experience with really young kids. Most of my piano students and summer school students were from seven to twelve. But, I actually really love teaching those classes. The parents are all super nice, and the kids are ridiculously adorable.

Every week we do greetings like hello, my name is and their age. We go over counting, colours and the days of the week, then learn a new set of vocabulary and do a craft that’s related to the words.

One of the girls I teach went with her family to the states for a three week holiday. Her mum told us that one of the days of their vacation, they were on the train, and someone asked her (the child), how old she was.

She replied, I’m two.

Her mum was so impressed and proud! Haha. I guess it shows that our classes are paying off!

It made me really happy to hear that she was able to use the English that she’s learned like that. I know it probably doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I think it’s pretty exciting.

Vacation~

// June 19th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Blog

Another week of a vacation starts on Sunday! Well, I guess it really starts on Tuesday, because I always have Sunday and Monday off.

Anyways, as much as I love school and teaching, it’ll be nice to have a week off. Especially because braintwin is coming, and we can evolve into the highly anticipated Adriko. Ah yes, we will take the cities by storm. They will not know what hit them.

So what are our plans? Well, for starters three of my adult students offered to take us to Ise. So we’ll be going there. They’re so sweet, and a lot of fun so I’m looking forward to that. We’ll also be heading off to Kyoto with Eri and her sister. Then, it’s on to Tokyo where we’ll be hanging out with Mr. Kim himself and hitting up a few lives. I should also add that Kim is amazing and I owe him one. Big time.  Then back home for the final day and a half for some shopping and probably some much needed relaxation.

I want to buy socks.

And since I’m veering off course, here some random thoughts and things from the past week.
1. Seeing the ‘too drunk to fuck’ t-shirt or tights never fails to amuse me.
2. Three of my students are apparently Kamen Riders and would prefer to be called by their Kamen Rider names.
3. You can use white board markers on top of white nail polish. It will rub off. However, excessive colouring on the nail will make the marker stick forcing you to strip, and repaint.
4. A crisis may occur when you colour the moon in sky blue.
5. Sending mail in Japan can turn out to be quite the procedure. Especially for a small card, with a small thing inside of it.
6. Udon is good. Even cold.
7. I get songs stuck in my head really easily. I didn’t realize how easy until this week. I can’t decide whether I find this enjoyable or irritating.
8. Fruit flies must all die.
9. The fact that I change the colour of my nail polish every week does not go unnoticed by my students. They are now giving me suggestions on what to do next.

Birthday ☆

// June 16th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Blog

So, my birthday was on Saturday.

I turned twenty-four. It’s kind of fun, because in the younger classes we do ‘how old are you’, and I always start. So, when I said twenty-four, they were surprised. Also, one of my students has the same birthday as me. She turned three.

After work we all went to the Hard Rock Cafe.

Long story short, I had to wear a cake hat, go up on stage, and dance to the YMCA along with other people who were also celebrating birthdays or anniversaries. I think there is a photo of me in the cake hat somewhere.

But, I also got a nice big brownie sundae.

Everyone signed a card for me that Eri made, that was ridiculously cute. I’ll have to take a photo of it. Hanna made me a gift too; a box decorated with my name and stars, plus a Rabbid (from Rayman’s Raving Rabbids) inside. This makes no sense to most people. Mary got me some cute little cookies – three different types that taste really good, especially with some tea.

Aside from that, my family and a lot of my friends sent me birthday wishes via e-mail or snail mail, which was awesome! So thank you to everyone who did. The Jstone crew (including Yogi) sent some amazing photos. I’m so glad we have more ‘Native American’ themed merchandise.

Because it sells like hotcakes (read: we’ve sold three Indian statues in three years).

So yes. That was my birthday.

Hideko comes on Sunday, so I’m really excittttted. We have a busy week planned, but I think we’ll have a lot of fun. I’m also looking foward to hanging out with Kimkim a bit as well. And eating some gyouza.

And. AND. After much trial and many tribulations, I finally have the internet. That’s right. I am internet equipped. It feels weird being able to access it at all times now, so I’m working on getting back into my routine. Yes. I have an internet routine.

Cuppycakes

// March 22nd, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Blog

So, last weekend (yes, this is delayed) I hung out at Kat’s house on Sunday.
We ended up watching some Kyle XY (which, we watched the last episode today, and um, WHAT THE SHIT? WORST ENDING EVER), some How I Met Your Mother, and we made St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes.

We made a total of twenty-five, 12 white and 13 chocolate. The only reason we had 13 chocolate, was because we had some left over batter and didn’t want it to go to waste. So even though there wasn’t space in the cupcake pan, we decided to try it out. It ended up being very wide, and quite stout. We named it ‘Big Mamma’.

For St. Patty’s day, we decorated them with green icing, which in itself was… interesting to create and left Kat with hands stained blue because the bottle leaked. We had a lighter green for the white ones, and a darker green for the chocolate. We topped them all off with marshmallows from Lucky Charms cereal.

I think they turned out really cute! They tasted good too; Big Mamma was exceptionally satisfying and we garnished that one with one of each type of marshmallow, haha. We especially liked how Kat’s kettle matched the whole theme, haha.

Family Feud.

// February 11th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog

I love how on Family Feud when they’re reading off all the unanswered answers, the whole audience reads them, haha.

It’s awesome.

Like a cult.

OH

// February 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog

I FORGOT TO MENTION.

I was just thinking about this because I have piano tomorrow night.

Last Wednesday, my students got their exam grades back. That’s the one thing I love about January exams. The grades always seem to come in much faster (granted, there are far less students taking exams…).

They all passed (and I was pretty sure they all would; I’m not going to send someone to do an exam they’re not ready for. That’s cruel). Briana was genuinely surprised that she did, which I will never understand. Yes, she could probably practice more than she does, and push herself a bit harder, but that girl has a natural talent for music. She’s good. She’s good without much practice. Yet, when it comes to exams and performing, she freaks out and feels like she can’t do it. As long as I’ve had her as my student, I’ve never seen her fail anything (piano related… or otherwise for that matter) so I don’t know where this fear of failing comes from. But anyways, she passed and was so happy. Now she’s in grade five, which I find so exciting because I love the songs in that grade, haha.

Mitchell did pretty well on his as well. And with the changes they’ve made to the technical requirements, there was a huge jump from grade one to grade two. Not to mention from the old grade two, to the new grade two. I think they put a comment about how he has a lot of potential. Which he really does, he’s a talented kid. It’s funny, because he didn’t really want to start piano. He mostly did it because his mum wanted him to. But he’s really, really good. I think he started just over a year ago, and is already in grade three (and we did primary, two grade one books and two grade two books). I think he likes it now though… now that he realizes that it comes pretty easy to him. He can see patterns really well, so that makes playing a hell of a lot easier.

Annnd Sophia. She is so cute. She did grade two as well, but with the old technical requirements (you can still use the old books… well you could for January, I’m not sure if you can after this). She did the best out of my students, and I’m really glad she did so well on her first exam. I think she was okay in the exam, but I know she was nervous before. They said how good her sight reading was, and it’s true. She does have really good sight reading. So we started grade three. Before we decided for sure she was doing the grade two exam, I had her do a lot of various scales, so I hope that kind of helps with the transition from the old requirements to the new ones.

The jump is just insane. They’re doing it because they’ve now realized that when players are getting to a higher level, their technical is pretty much crap. So they added all this new stuff to the lower grades, in hopes of improving people’s technical.

But now the jump from grade one to two, is even too big. Grade one, you don’t have anything like a formula pattern. Not even C major contrary, but in grade two, suddenly you have C major formula pattern, and G major contrary. You also have staccato scales, and for some completely random and unknown reason, they put the natural minors in grade two, and grade two only. What the hell. If you’re going to put them in, at least be consistant. e_e

THEN they have this ridiculous thing for the dominant seventh cords in grade six (maybe it’s grade five…). I always think of dominant seventh cords in major keys, and diminished sevenths in minor keys. But now, they’re doing the dominant sevenths in minor keys (WTF). Val and I were looking at it, and were so confused, because neither of us had heard of that before.

… turns out, it’s just the enharmonic equivalent of the major key (meaning, it’s the same keys but just a different name for it), so that they learn to realize… that… I don’t know. Keys have more than one name? It’s ridiculous.

I should say that I do think it’s a great idea that they’re adding more technical requirements, because I know personally, how much easier it is when you know your stuff. Especially classical music. But it’s just not… even. So it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

I’m done ranting about that now.

Annnd I have to do some work before I sleep otherwise I’ll feel guilty in the morning.

世界制覇

// February 1st, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Blog

It’s so true.

// January 27th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Blog

You know you’ve worked far too long at a campground when you see the phrase ‘fifth wheel’ in a context completely unrelated to camping, and the only thing you can think of is a fifth wheel trailer.

Or this.

Meme day two

// December 16th, 2008 // No Comments » // Blog

I told Ailea I’d do that meme, so here’s day two.

Something that made me happy today… well, my students! And Fiona wanting me to come early on Thursday to the staff party so she wouldn’t have to wait alone, haha. I know that sounds lame, but it’s nice when someone doesn’t mind spending time with you. We also tried playing a duet of Angels We Have Heard on High again, haha.

IT WAS AWESOME.

We also tried We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

So that made me happy and it was a lot of fun.

Today, one of my students was learning the song ‘Money Can’t Buy Everything’. He’s in a beginner level, and all the songs have lyrics to them. He makes a point to always read the lyrics before he tries the song.

So he reads through them. I think they’re something like
Money can’t by everything
Money can’t make you a king
Money cannot bring success
Money can’t buy happiness
But there’s one thing that I am sure
Money doesn’t make you poor
Money doesn’t make you sad
Money can’t be all that bad

So he reads through them and goes, “They forgot that money can’t buy you friendship or love either”.

Aww.
I thought that was so cute. He’s around nine.