Technological Black Thumb

I’ve been thinking about rewards for my journey from Shetland Pony to Mustang Sally. Treating myself to things that would be counter productive to my progress are not permitted. As much as I would love to have a gorgeous dinner at Cheesecake Factory, I think items to keep my motivation would be more suitable. (more…)

As I sip my Dunkin’ Donuts Hazelnut coffee from a rather kitsch Mile 0: Key West mug, I feel inspired. No, inspired isn’t the right word for it. Invigorated would be a better word for it. After a recent visit to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, I feel like the mission control room leader– pacing about and overseeing the various technicians at their stations. I’m preparing for lift-off in Five…

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After a year or so of fawning over the PSPs in just about every electronics store I happened upon, I caved and bought one. The latest generation (PSP-3000 in Pearl White). Though I really pined over the pastel colored ones, I figured if I am going to shell out the money for them, I might as well get my money’s worth.

Since Christmas Day (12/25/08) better known as the day Karen resumed hermit-hood, I have had been glued to the darn thing playing until my thumbs lose feeling. When I was a child, the boys in my neighborhood coined it as “Nintendo Numbness” because that was the only game system in my household at the time. I swear, somewhere in this body of mine there is a 14 year old Japanese fan boy chained up, but trying to claw his way out. The shiny new PSPs were on display beside the latest game releases by ‘SquEnix’, including Final Fantasy Dissidia (the ultimate FF Manics dream complete with all the heroes and main villians as playable characters). FFD won’t be available in the US until mid-2009, so I caved and bought the Japanese version as– It. Was. Right. There.

I really shouldn’t be allowed to step foot into an electronic store unattended, or able to contact any of “enablers”.

I’ve been really impressed by the lighter weight of the 3000 series PSP. Having a bag full of junk to schlep around all the time often prevented me from purchasing the Sony hand-held gaming device. I have a clear, (removable) plastic casing to keep all those pesky chips and fingerprints off my new Precioussss….

As for FFD, I haven’t figured out how to do any of the really fancy moves, nor have I figured out how to do the play against your friend option. With the DS, one’s friend didn’t need to have the game, but I am thinking that for the PSP, both players may need to have a copy.

Other games purchased: Itadaki Street! Dragon Quest vs. Final Fantasy, The Goddess of Jokes, I’ll Never Forgive You, and Suzumiya Haruhi’s Promise. I have been told that the UMD Disks play in all systems, much like the Nintendo DS games, however, I don’t know if this is true. I’ll need to chase up some of my friends back home and see if any of them are “in possession” of the goods and if we can arrange a trail deal.

The first one’s always free, right?

Good grief, it’s been nearly a year since I posted here @b.net. So many things have
happened, that I don’t even know where to possibly start.

*NEWS FLASH*

After 5.5 Years, I am parting ways with Japan for a while. My transition from public servant to corporate employee did not go as smooth as I had hoped, and living in Tokyo was far more expensive than I had anticipated. I’m emotionally exhausted, so I decided I need to pull the plug on my Tokyo adventure for the time being and return to the Sunshine State which I call home.

Internet/Blog: After failed attempts at maintaining a personal homepage (lack of programming knowledge made this rather frustrating), I decided to open a blog at site called “Team Sugar“– its a large community for women with tons of themes and discussion forums (don’t worry, men can join, too). If you join (or already have an account), chase me up under “karenpanna”

Sunshiney Side Up! is the name of my new blog. Its objective is to map the return to Florida as well as my re-adjustment into American society. At the moment, my main priorities are getting home in a safe and efficient manner, but not wasting too much time bumming around the house. I am looking for projects to keep my busy as well as ways to clear my debt and eventually jump start a new career.

Creative Projects: All are on-hold until I get home in January. I’ve been kicking around ideas for my current projects, and if I can get anything decent together, possibly enter some writing contests.

I look forward to being “back home” in Florida, especially since January in Miami is considerably warmer than that of Tokyo. I hope I can see my friends quickly upon returning home. I need hugs…. lots of hugs.

Here in the Future, I am on Day 4 of  Year 2008. I’ve decided that I need to start narrowing down my extensive list of hobbies and things I want to do, and try dedicating my attention on polishing up my skills in certain areas. I read an article in one of my Malaysian magazine about the Art of Blogging, and it suggested concentrating on one particular thing. Once readship increaces, and one has a following, then the author should attempt branching out. I found it interesting, especially since it was a fashion magazine that touched upon the subject. American fashion magazines aren’t so accommodating (from what I remember).

A fun theme I’ve decided to start with my Japanese Blog is “The Queen of (insert topic here)”. Now, I am not a princess or queen by any means, but I figure if I am to improve my critiquing, writing, and langauge abilities, I should take an interesting approach to keep myself motivated.

Japanese Blog Queen :: Though I have a Japanese blog on my Mixi.jp account, readership and exposure is only available to those with membership. So, I decided to dust off my poor, neglected Ameba Blog, and attempt something I’ve been completely slack about: continuously blogging about my experience here in Japan. Despite having a relatively uneventful winter holiday, I had plenty of time to think about things weighing down on my mind.  

On thing that motivates me to write on Ameba is the blog ranking system. The insecure high school girl locked up deep within my heart craves to know if people are actually accessing and reading my blog, or if I am just wasting my time on it. It also triggers my competitive edge, making me want to post frequently so as to increase my popularity ranking. I know that is insanely shallow, but it’s fun (in complete honesty). Yesterday, I hit my all time general ranking high with being in the top 30% (yeah, keep in mind I was 61,680th of out of 2,136,636 people, but whatever, I’m proud of it). 

Shopping Queen :: My two recent purchases were headphones for my iPod and a wireless for TV/Video Game surround sound. The walls in my apartment are rather thin, so I worry about disturbing my neighbors when I watch movies or play games late at night. I feel like a DJ with wearing big headphones for the first time in years.

Plan B Queen :: This is where I fear people will want to beat me with a Clue-by-Four. I’ve been thinking of alternative paths in case grad school falls through, or I can’t find work after I graduate (provided I do so). With watching so much Japanese TV, I’ve noticed a very distinct pattern: plenty of Western male TV talents (variety/talk show programming, quiz programming, etc), but virtually no Western female TV talents. It’s been suggested by several friends of mine that I should consider going into Japanese show biz.

Unlike the US, where blue eyed, ligth brown haired girls-next-door is commonplace, I have potential to go far in Japan, especially since I speak Japanese (well, sort of).  Though I am not the pop idol/sexy pin up type of girl, I could do very well as a comedian/talk show panelist (provided I drop about 15-20 pounds). I know that it would be a very arduous, risky task, especially in my late 20s, but I think the dejected ex-Telecomm major within me is still itching to emerge. However, the tricky part is that in Japan, most companies (if not all of them) only admit new employees in April when the new fiscal year starts (as university/high school students graduate in March).

So what does this mean for me? Possibly a very narrow window to slip through, if I seriously want to get into the business. Also, a point of concern would be the language barrier, as I know that there will probably be things I will miss provided I don’t improve my Japanese to a native fluency. All, I know is I want to live in Japan forever, but I don’t think I could survive living in Tottori, especially if I am single. I have a greater possibility of meeting people in the larger cities, and there are larger availibility of jobs. I’ve been considering this since NOVA, one of Japan’s largest English Conversation schools, went bankrupt in October 2007, stranding hundreds of foreign teachers in Japan with no money to pay rent, let alone pay for plane tickets back to their home countries. Any available English conversation school jobs have been snapped up like sharks in freshly chummed water.

Heck, I’ve even kicked around the idea of working in a Maid Cafe, if not anything else, just to experience something different before settling into a career. I know that sounds extremely reckless of me, but curiosity is nibbling at me.