Nothing but some, things

I'm trying to find a part-time job at the moment,
and want to save some money so tend to stay at home...
Umm, it's not good, I should be more active!
Maybe I should try planting at least one seed/day.

By the way, I started to use a Firefox
plug-in called "feedly". I really like it!
It re-format the feeds from your google reader
to "magazine site" look...so

This

becomes this

Actually the change it makes is not that complicated,
it's just about things like font, margin, size, it's so simple!
But these small changes make articles much more readable.
I think feedly itself has some problems of usability,
but still it's much better than Google Reader!
It makes you realise the importance of layout.

Feedly

After staying in Japan for a while, I came back to London.
It was wonderful to see lots of my friends, thank you!
To whom I couldn't see this time despite you contacted me,
I'm so sorry! I will definitely go to see you next time.

During the stay, I went to see Kabuki, ate lots of
yummy foods, went for shopping etc...
it was such a wonderful time!
As it was too wonderful, I felt so sad when I left Japan...
I can't see them for a while again.
But this is the way I decided to go,
so have to stay positive...

Since I went back to Japan just after the MA finished,
I feel like it's a new start.
To be honest I'm feeling much more anxious than one year ago
as I don't have jobs and moneys,
and I feel like I'm totally alone in this big city.
It's totally a start from scratch.
But only I can do, is just working hard, isn't it?

I went to see the Kabuki stage called
"Shin" performed by Kantaro/Shichinosuke Nakamura!

This time a taiko performer, Tetsuei Hayashi, and
a shamisen performer, Chikudo Takahashi were on
the stage as well. Hayashi is the person who
participated to start "Kodo", which I went to see
their performance on the other day, so their
drumming today was also amazing and energetic.
Takahashi was so good at playing speedy tunes.

And of course, Nakamura brothers was fantastic!

In their first performance, "Ninin-Wankyu",
I was so surprised that Shichinosuke,
who played "Matsuyama-dayu" looked so beautiful.
"Matsuyama-dayu" is a phantom in the story,
but Shichinosuke well expressed that dreamy mood,
and how he moves lookes so feminine, and
his proportion is so thin...
I remember when I saw his performance last time,
he was not that good at all! It was the first time
I kept looking at Shichinosuke while Kantaro was
on stage too.

The last performance was "collaboration",
and it was so cool! Energetic taiko, dynamic shamisen,
and Nakamura brothers wearing simple hakama and dancing...
The title "Shin" (="core") expresses how it looks
very well. The whole impression was "modern Japanese".
And this time, Kantaro was so good at performing
masculine dance...he is getting really closer to
his father recently. I love Nakamura family so much.

Now I have favours to Shochiku!

1. Please release a DVD of this stage! I will buy it!
2. Please come to London!

I went to see onedotzero this year too.
I didn't see any installation, so it's
only about j-star09.

They showed these movies.

1. Satoshi Tomioka : "Usavich"
2. Kitune Akimoto : "Meat or Die"
3. Hidenobu Tanabe : "Phantom Planet" (Beat Crusaders)
4. Takeshi Nakamura : "Mind Wall"
5. Shintaro Kago : "Terror on the golf course"
6. Mirai Mizue : "Devour Dinner"
7. Makoto Yabuki : "As One"
8. Mood Magic : "Hinotori"
9. Takafumi Tsuchiya : "With Rain"
10. Takahiro Kimura : "Born to Bone"
11. Takafumi Tsuchiya : "Apoptosis"
12. Wow : "Another perspective"
13. Groovisions: "Ensuring the future of food"
14.Kawamura, Kirkland, Nakamura + Kawamura : "Hibi no Neiro"
15. Taijin Takeuchi : "A Wolf Loves Pork"
16. Horoaki Higashi : "Ahiru"
17. Muto Masashi : I will be here
18. kouki Tange : "Bikini Sports Ponchin"
19. Daito Manage: "Electric Stimulus to Face Test 6"

Again, I really liked the movies by Makoto Yabuki
and Takafumi Tsuchiya, whose movies were shown last year too.
I like their very detailed graphic and texture...
Also Taijin Takeuchi who is doing stop motion animation,
his work was actually made inside a small room,
but looked like we are traveling outside of the room,
and was good idea! Also, "Hinotori" by Moon Magic was
amazing...(It might not enough to convey it on youtube)

I went to see coldplay!

It was amazing. It's still playing repeatedly in my head.
Actually I was so excited already just because
the place was Wembley. When I got to the station,
I wished it was a football match...
but no, that thought was wrong, coldplay was wonderful.

I have seen coldplay twice in Japan...
but this time was the best! Of course they are
in their own country, their home city,
and maybe because it was the last day of the tour,
they looked really full of life.

The live consists of both tracks from "Viva la Vida"
and older tracks by turns, they played
"In my place" and "Yellow" even at the beginning,
it was so exciting to sing these songs with lots of people.
"Fix you" almost made me cry!
Also their graphics and lighting were amazing,
I enjoyed all from the beginning to the end.
Their stage always looks cool, but it was
awesome this time.

They also played tracks like "God Put A Smile Upon
Your Face" and "Talk" in "electrical" version.
(It sounded a bit like the Gorillaz...)
In the middle part, they moved from the main stage
to a smaller stage in the middle of audience,
and played in acoustic style, it was full of amazing music.

Led by Chris Martin, we tried "mobile wave" as well.
(each person holds mobile phone and do wave!
So beautiful!)During that, coldplay played "Billie Jean"!
It was so unexpected but actually they were quite good.

I was so fascinated by Chris Martin.
He changed that strange hair style, so looked cool.
His voice was so beautiful too...

It was my dream to see them in the UK.
And they showed me a wonderful night.
I love you, Coldplay!

The course finished last week.
One year was so quick!

For the last project, we made an
iPhone application called "Alight".

Alight is an application to allow users
to associate their small ideas in daily life
with particular location, so that they will
have more chanced to develop them further.

I was in charge of interface design.
I know iPhone is not small as mobile phone,
but still designing menu for small screen
was good learning for me.

We used 50inch plasma TV for the degree show,
so I had to edit some footages (which I hadn't
done for a few years!). My poor macbook (not pro)
was crying all the time rendering HD.

Finishing the course, I really feel that I met
such wonderful classmates! It was so fun
to do project with people who are enthusiastic about
interactive media, and we enjoyed the time together
even outside the studio!
Some of them have already gone back to their own
countries, but I believe I can see them in the future again.

By the way,

>To friends in London,
I have to move our from the current flat soon,
and looking for a new place! Please let me know
if you have any ideas.

>To friends in Japan,
I'm going back to Japan in October!
Let's go for a drink if you have time.
Let me know when you are free,
but as I am a poor student, (i.e. no money
to drink a lot)
let's drink together if you guys know each other lol

OK, I know I'm writing about long time ago...
But I never give up! This is for my own record!

So this is Switzerland Day3.
We went to a city called Montreux which has
really beautiful scenery, next to the lake.
The lake was soooo large that it looked
almost like the sea.

After having a lunch, we moved Lusanne.
This city looked more similar to England,
it looked like shopping area.
Although we walked to the Cathedral,
it was over 30 degrees and so hot!!!
No more walk.

After that, we went to Gruyères.
It is the birth place of cheese fondue,
we went there to have dinner,
but scenery was also amazing!

Unfortunately the castle was already closed,
streets are very european stone pavement,
the windows on the buildings looked cute
with flowers. Cheese fondue was very good of course!

To be continued.

I went to see the musical "Priscilla".

I didn't know anything about the story,
but it was amazing!
The costume was so gorgeous,
all the scenes was so energetic and powerful!
I wish I could understand their jokes more...
but still, their dancing was wonderful
and I enjoyed it so much.

Actually my friend's friend is playing
in this musical. Her name is Kanako Nakano.
The scene she speaks was not too long,
but her character was so unique
and performance was great!
It cheered me up as well, looking at
a Japanese woman trying so hard in west end.

You should check it out too!

Priscilla website is here.

I've been ill for one week.

On Sunday night, I started to feel so cold
and my body started to ache, having a sore throat.
Usually it gets better if I sleep early
wearing "pocket body warmer", drinking Japanese medicine,
but this time I couldn't get recovered until wednesday.
I repeated feeling cold and having a fever,
so called to NHS at the end.

As they have stopped checking swine flu,
so it was not clear if I had swine flu or not,
but anyway they gave me Tamiflu.
My friends went to get it. On Thursday,
fever has gone. Although I was still feeling stomachache,
it was better than having high fever.
But on Friday, it was horrible again.

When I got Tamiflu, I was told that I should have it
with foods otherwise I would throw up.
I did, but after taking it, I had awful neusea.
Even after throwing up everything, it didn't stop.

On Saturday, I felt much better and today
I'm fine now! Well, I was going to Bristol
to see Banksy with my classmates, but
overslept and missed the bus...

So disappointed...but maybe it means
"I should stay at home today".
To be fresh again, I did laundry,
and being relaxed.

I feel so bad to have had a flu
during the final project, I'm so sorry!
And I appreciate my flatmates who helped me
a lot during the ill. Thanks!

This is the last entry of the trip to Spain.

The last one day trip was to Granada!
Althuugh we wanted to see Alhambra,
there was a restriction of the number entry already!
Unfortunately we couldn't get inside.

So...I had no choice but took a picture from outside.

Ok...this picture looks a bit too dark...

But the area we walked around looked amazing,
it was so fun to talk around.

It seems there is a history of arabic culture as well,
looking around the shops was also fun.

It was the first Spain trip for me,
but it was amazing as I could go to some different cities.
I really liked the foods, especially sea foods
I usually can't enjoy in London!

It was such a wonderful trip!
OK, I finally finished writing about one trip...