So I’ve been on break this entire week, and the result?
I end up with a sore throat (courtesy my friend who was just recovering from an illness), which somehow evolved into a cold.
As much as I’d be tempted to use my friend as a scapegoat for this, it’s more or less a result of my own stupidity and of bad timing (so yeah, I may have caught a cold from her, but me getting this sick has nothing to do with her).

I ran a dance event a week ago which involved a fair amount of work, running around taking care of last-minute errands, frustration (a lot less than what I anticipated though), and stress.
Don’t get me wrong, there wasn’t anything wrong with the event, and it all went alright, but hey, running a relatively large-scale event requires effort, right?

Once the dance was over, then came my grad pic session – yeah, did I mention I’m finally getting the hell outta university?
I know it’s just a few shots here and there, but I dunno, I was feeling rather nervous till I was done, and then once it was done, I think I relaxed a bit too much – or more like, I think I’ve let my guard down.

So here I am, stuck with an uber sore throat and can’t stop sneezing. Yep, it seems I’ve come down with a cold.
Only thing I’m relieved about is that I fortunately don’t have a fever, ain’t feeling *that* tired, I don’t think I have an upset stomach, my head’s OK enough that I can sit in front of my computer and not collapse (ie. I don’t have a headache).
It sucks how my throat’s gone really bad, since I anticipated getting some vocal recordings done over the break, but obviously that didn’t happen, and won’t happen anytime soon either >_<

However, on a brighter note, I got this over the break:

Yes, the Vocaloid nendoroids, which arrived back home months ago, but I didn’t get around to doing anything with it when I was back home. So I figured I’d get them sent over here so that I can show them off to my friends over here.
I’ll eventually share some other pics once I get around to them.

to do:
- go to an Animate at least twice, if not more, during your stay
- watch anime on TV (and perhaps take a video recording of it); it’s as legit as things can get, and need I mention its quality is nothing comparable to online streaming websites? *cough*
- go drink some potion. Yes, I mean the drinkable type. Yes, I mean the ones that taste like grapes and grapefruit.

not to do:
- wake up at 3:30am to get to the comiket venue, and then suffer waiting outside and freezing your @$$ off.
- fail to think ahead and fail to reserve a ticket for the return trip from Tokyo to Osaka – tis a biaaaaaaatch standing in the Shinkansen for 2.5 hours
- spend too much money on merchandise to the extent where you start wondering where the money for your return ticket has gone and/or whether you have enough money for it
- buy too much “books” to the extent where you start freaking out whether your shoulder’s going to last

Erm, yes… this is what I pretty much did over the past 3 days in Tokyo.
I should be glad I made it back alright from Tokyo, considering that:
a) today’s one of the peak days for people from Tokyo to be returning to their hometown, which means that there are thousands of people who will be fighting over spaces (no, not even “seats”) in the non-reserved cars of the Shinkansen – fortunately, I was able to get on the train at a fairly OK time, but ended up standing for a good 2~2.5 hours
b) of all days that this could have happened, there was an accident by one of the stations, which caused a delay in the Shinkansen schedules/timetables – fortunately, my train passed that station *before* the accident happened
c) I was rather exhausted after yesterday (day 2 of comiket), and sure enough, I’ve acquired quite a bit of merchandise that I had to carry back here – fortunately, my body isn’t really suffering from it anymore

More on the whole comiket stuff to come later, but I probably should sleep for the time being…

As some of you might already know, I live right beside a construction site.
By that I mean, outside my window, I see construction workers doing all sorts of stuff and, of course, making noise on a daily basis. And during the times I don’t hear construction, I hear the lawn mower passing nearby, bright and early at 6-7am.
And did I mention that they don’t bother cutting down on the noise during exam time? Maybe it’s about time I start nagging the housing staff about this.
I’m not *that* sensitive to noise, but on random occasions when I really need to concentrate, it just drives me nuts.
There was one time I really couldn’t stand the lawn mower, so I ended up grabbing a couple of ear plugs from the front desk – that still wasn’t enough to completely block the noise, which is rather disturbing and annoying.

Maybe because of that, my eyes caught this website: LET’S BUILDUP
It was one of those ads on my Japanese SNS, which had the caption “Construction is music!” – yeah right, you mean disruption? =p
But then, the caption wasn’t too far off. Basically, they let you combine construction (and other sorts of) noise into a short tune.
Once you get to the website (and after letting them play their little intro clip and let everything load), click on “LET’S BUILDUP”, and then “BUILDUP MUSIC!” Then just skip the tutorial by clicking the left box (it should say 見ない).
Click and drag the boxes on the left (categorized into 3 groups: “INDUSTRIAL”, “PHRASES”, and “DRUMS”) into the columns on the right (where it says “MUSIC GENERATOR”). You can change the speed by clicking the box underneath “BPM SELECT”.
Once you’re done with your creation, click on “BUILDUP!” Just enter some arbitrary name (for the heck of it), and it’ll then generate a link to your tune so that you can share with other people.
Here’s something I just made right now, in case anyone’s interested: http://www.buildupper.com/#/sound/4mrx8l5s

…well, it’s not like this is going to stop me from getting annoyed by the “real” construction, but it was kinda fun, kinda.