You know what I need, is something to record my thoughts at all times. I'll be brushing my teeth, or taking a shower, and I swear the most brilliant ideas or the most thought provoking questions will come to mind and once I walk into another room it'll leave me. It's really frustrating. And it's all good material for this blog too... which is why you all are left with recaps of my days and online crap I want to buy. Well anyway.

My short summer vacation has been filled with tourism and sightseeing all over Kentucky. My dad's best friend from high school and his family have come from Taiwan for a few days, so we're showing them the glory of the Midwest! ...Nature. They came from spending a few weeks in San Francisco and Canada, I really don't know if we're impressing them much. But my Mandarin has improved greatly, so that's a plus! I'm almost confident enough to spend my next summer in China and Taiwan (with a stop in Japan, of cooourse). Anyway, I'll spare you all the details and post some pictures from my Naturefest.

        

        

        

        

The rest of my photos are up on my Flickr album.

So... I bought a DS Lite! I've been spending most of the car trips playing New Super Mario Bros. and my nights playing Tetris with people in Japan! I am sooooo happy :) You know, I thought I was just an average Tetris player, but I've been doing pretty well against all these people. Hm... And NSMB is just such a fun game - the goombas and koopas dance to the music! It's going to be tough doing this self-sufficient residency stuff if I'm going to support this gaming lifestyle... I have a lot of new games I'd like to purchase in the next few months... siiiiigh. But I'm sooooo happy!

And I'll leave you with a picture of some strange marshmallows I picked up at a Chinese grocery store:

Listening: The Mars Volta - Amputechture
Playing: New Super Mario Bros. (DS)
Watching: MF Snakes On A MF Plane

Posted by Joanna at 5:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Update your links: http://www.joannabanana.net is the new place to be. Hopefully a new layout will soon come with it!

While you wait, check out Perpetual Kid, a site that has a bunch of quirky gifts for people of all ages! It's mostly tacky things, but there are a few items that are neat. Some of my favorites:

          

          

Also, did anyone know that they show Pee Wee's Playhouse on Adult Swim now? What a crazy show, exactly how I remembered it. I love the ending credits song :) Alright, time to work on this layout biznazz.

Listening: Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
Playing: will soon purchase Nintendo DS ^_^
Watching: TV (oh, how I've missed you...)

Posted by Joanna at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Mmm, summer. Lo, Kent at night:

Recently watched movies:
Clerks II: Hilarious, kind of raunchy, great sequel. Also applies perfectly to my life right now, seeing as I feel like life is passing me by and I don't know what my future holds. I even work at a fast food restaurant! I also suffer greatly from the habit of comparing myself to others and using that as the standard. Hopefully now I have learned my lesson that I can settle for less and still be happy. Or something.

Talladega Nights: I walked out of this one not really impressed, but the same happened for Anchorman. Will Ferrel's humor is sort of plateauing out for me, it's generally the same kind of jokes mixed with rambling. However, the next day I found myself saying, "Monsieur Bobby" a billion times, so I probably need to give this one another shot.

V for Vendetta: Mister... Aaaaanderson. Very entertaining movie, it reminded me a lot of the book 1984 with the propoganda, controlling of information to the public, shady government. The only thing that really bugged me was Natalie Portman's fake accent. Why couldn't they just use a real British actress? I know it's to use big names to sell the movie and crap, but... if you want a British character, use a British actor. If you want an Asian character, use an Asian actor! Really frustrates me.

A State of Mind: A BBC documentary about two North Korean schoolgirls training to perform in the Mass Games. For one, I love documentaries. I'm entertained and I'm learning something. Two, the idea of the Mass Games just blows my mind, how the training and performance perfectly summarizes the Communist doctrine. You also get a small glimpse of the North Korean lifestyle and government, yet again very similar to Big Brother :shudder: I highly recommend that everyone watch that.

I am saving up all the tips I make at Chipotle to buy a new Nintendo DS Lite. I'm about 95% of the way there. Yay!

I'm going home this Saturday and coming back to Kent the 26th. I'll be visiting Ashley and David in Columbus on the way home, Anna and Amy in Louisville, Ben in Lexington at his new apartment (baby's all growed up!), Jackie in Cincinnati hopefully, and somewhere sticking in a trip to Chicago with my dad's best friend from high school. I really hope that I can pick up my Chinese again while I'm home; lately I feel that all my Mandarin-speaking skills are slowly slipping away. I definitely know that I can barely read anything in Chinese. I also need to get Taipei Cafe's website done and my video game website started. Because I hate projects looming over my head.

And then summer will be over, and school will start. But that also means cooler weather and fall fashion, yay! Okay, off to roll some burritoes. Bye!

Listening: Thom Yorke - The Eraser
Playing: Final Fantasy VII
Reading: Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Posted by Joanna at 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)