The truth

There's no such things like "the Teeth-alignment Championship." I knew it.

My dad told me the truth.


It was


"the Healthy Teeth Contest"


in the 1st grade of junior high.


Haha, so that was it, sorry for making up such a championship that doesn't exist.
Yeah that's right, it was "the Healthy Teeth Contest" . . . yes . . .
Um . . .

Mmmm??!!
Th, t h e H e a l t h y T e e t h C o n t e s t ??!
If I were Yoshinaga-san of "Boku no mita chitsujo."(a photos and diary site), here I'd cross off the words DA I KO U HU N*!

The sense of naming that contest, is not much different from of naming "the Teeth-alignment Championship," is it? (Is it just me?)

Aw, while typing "the Healthy Teeth Contest" again and again I found myself at a loss and don't know well . . . what is right and what is wrong . . . nope that's not it!
Again, it's kinda,

I don't quite get it! (lol)

(My dad's teeth are very even)


********************
(NOTES by Nuuk)
"Boku no mita chitsujo." ... means "The order I saw."
"I'd cross off ... " ... at least DAIKOUHUN stands for "really excited." the word is found in Yoshinaga-san's post dated Mar.17, but it's just quite random thing and hard to explain the feeling.

Pointless Quiz part one yaaay! Do you know how many times the word "tooth(teeth)" appears in this message?

You know, very few kids have orthodontics in Japan. Sometimes I hear someone saying "Big double teeth are the cuteness."

American's aesthetic feeling for teeth is quite strong! Teeth alignment and teeth whiteness I mean. When looking at just their teeth, not a few people look like robots. I mean it. Some have this look like "Don't laugh with your mouth open, it's too bright!". (I'm serious!) These days we see the TV ads for "self-whitening-at-home" kits quite a lot of times, and from time to time I hear some tragic stories of those who melted the surface of their teeth too much from overuse of it. (Sounds so pained . . . especially what if they open their mouth in winter . . . Ugh! I just imagined it and got goose bumps)

When I was in elementary school in NY one quarter of my class were having orthodontics. Those guys went for it right after they lost their baby teeth and got all new ones. And also, it's not the complete orthodontics but, do you know those denture-looking things separated upper and lower, which need to be taken out when eating? They're called retainers. Some guys left their retainers at the cafeteria after lunch hours once in a while, and we all fussed and yelled "Yuck!" or "Who the heck left it!" . . . (Uh, I was at the all-girls school filled with preppy girls, in a sort(lol))

They mean that it's common to change the shape of body parts cosmetically, and the younger they have it the easier, right. America is so advanced in that kind of things isn't it! The old-time corsets were probably used for skeletal correction. There's also a custom to pierce ears at very young age and most of the girls had their ears pierced until they were in the 5th grade in elementary! I had my ears pierced around 7 years old at the hospital!

I wonder what it is like in other Asian countries? I heard that plastic surgery is getting popular in South Korea, so orthodontics - namely facelifts for teeth - may be popular there as well!

I think there's no problem as long as we take a good care of our teeth and the bite is good, but still, I have tight teeth myself! The other day when I had my wisdom teeth pulled out, my dentist told me "You now had your wisdom teeth pulled out, so why don't you think about the dental makeover? Your lower jaw is so small that your gums are packed tight." (Say do you remember the old TV ad of gum dental rinse? The one that a white man in a white coat warns us "(it begins) before you know it!!!". I'd been worrying if my gums were thin because of gum disease like that ad, but was then relieved to find out that I didn't have it! (lol) That TV ad sowed too much seeds of fear in our heart, didn't it!)

Because of my profession there were many things to care about to have orthodontics, like how much it would be visible to others (everyone would worry about it, but I think I wouldn't mind to have it myself for about a year if I weren't doing this job!) and how much it would affect pronunciation and vocalization (this seriously matters to me), so first I took a walk to the orthodontic office introduced to me for advice as it was in my neighborhood and I thought it wouldn't be bad just to have an interview there - expecting I might be able to have it, since I heard some famous actress had it there too and the technology was improved there days!

I was told "Let's see, there's nothing I can do about your small jaw, so first of all I'll have to pull 2 teeth from the upper set and 2 from the lower."

Eeeeeeeeek!!
I've just had 4 teeth pulled the other day and 4 more teeth again? That's too much isn't it!! I feel like "Give me a big jaw!", Mr. Old man! (Yes, he was a gentle old man . . .)

I feel so depressed, having some other problems also.
*shrugs* I was really on it you know . . . sigh . . . this holds the number-one position of my sad things this year. I wrote that I took a walk there, but actually I got up early in the morning for the appointment at half past eight and headed there walking briskly in the raging icy storm . . . (It's pretty hard to get up early when you've been working through midnight hours)

I was talking with my dad about things like that the other day, and got to know his surprising past secret . . .
He said when he was in junior or senior high, he was awarded as the Number One Teeth-alignment Championship in Tokyo(what's that?!), nope, such a championship doesn't exist, what was the name of it, anyway, the Number One of the teeth-alignment.

What the heck is that.
It sounds great but come to think of it . . . I don't quite get it.

I just saw "Robots"

(this message is originally written in English. please check her official site)

A flash response!

I didn't mean to write anything here today, but among your emails I found this question that I thought I wanted to make a quick reply to, so here we go!

Here is M-chan, who let me know that she's gonna visit America(Seattle) for the first time. She's been exchanging emails with a senior high student in Seattle. She communicates with the student mainly in English. And now she's got stuck because she has no idea what to write at the beginning and end of her mail (a decent type of mail, in this case) when trying to make a reply!

The most common one could be "Hi Anna, how are you?". (Place the student's name instead of Anna, of course!) It's some casual way of greets, like "Genki?" in Japanese. I think that works fine, as you are both senior high students. It might be good too, to add "Thank you for your e-mail." or things like that.

For the closing - how about "See you soon.", if you're planning to see her in the near future?
"I'm looking forward to meeting you."(Aeruno tanoshimi ni shitemasu) would be good, if you'd like it a little more polite.
"Take care." (Ja genki dene, odaiji ni) is commonly used among those who aren't gonna see each other soon.
And of course, don't forget to add this at the very end after one or two line feed:
From, M___ (pretty normal! neutral one)
Sincerely, M___ (seems a little polite, a little smart!)
Love, M___ (an American way? with great affection)

So, that's it. Hope this may be of some help.

Go and give her your reply soon! You don't have to worry about some grammatical mistakes or diversity of common sense(like say letter writing rules), since those are part of what makes interaction between different cultures nice. She'll understand what you mean She won't, like, mock you.

Ha Hi Hu He Ho ~ !

Many misfortunes occurring around me!

My close friend, who often appears in this diary as a "friend" or "close childhood friend" . . .

. . . got scammed on Yahoo!Auctions!!!

Oh my God! Hagahhggghgh! Hughagahhh!

Such close person got scammed. I won't take it . . .

Actually, I have a past of finding goods that don't exist as me-related stuff or fictitious tickets (namely, things that can't be delivered) put up, asking Yahoo! to suspend those things because they are frauds or being too late to call a halt to them, several times for a while. I mean, you'd wanna stop it if you knew someone was about to be cheated, wouldn't you.

And then came this my friend's case! She's very shocked. Hope the criminal gets caught. It seems she still has lots of things to ask, like "What about the money taken?"

I wonder if many scams are still going on on those net-auction things like Yahoo!Auctions. What a hard world.

A- Anpan-ma~n Please catch those Yahoo!Auction scammers . . .
Uh, wonder if he handles germs and breads onlyWeak, you are too weak Anpan-man . . . Come to think of it, I've never seen him knocking down someone other than Baikin-man . . .
But this time around, let's say those scammers are almost like germs on the net!

Uh-oh, gotta stop now or someone would tell me "Hikki, you're like doped up" again(Did I rant enough to deserve it?)

Bye-bye-kiin!

It's hard to report about a live show

-but here we go! I believe I did a good show. The reaction of the people coming was pretty good too, and I'd say it was the performance that I myself was least dissatisfied ever. A lot of it was because we took on a different stage direction and tunes.

Put simply . . . just imagine me, doing a cover of my fave songs in the past concert!!(lol)(yes me, being Freddie or Ozaki . . .) It was pretty close to that. It felt good. Again I realized I didn't know "Utada Hikaru's" way to do things. It remains to be seen . . . (like the gap between my music and character, how to re-create songs for live shows, whatnot)


. . . There is definitely a difference between me who wrote the previous message and me writing this message right now.



I've got Vol.1 ~ 5 of manga "DEATH NOTE" and read through it.



What? You say "So what?" That means so much to me! I've been desperately resisting writing in the style of that manga for some time, but I can't help feeling that my writing is being eroded by "DEATH NOTE" . . . Guys reading it, you know what I mean don't you? (Am I like, I've already quitted resisting?)

This often happens right after I read manga or novels. I sometimes have troubles coming out of the characters' POV because I activate 100% of my imagination and build the world in my head. And this "DEATH NOTE." Probably it affects me much especially when I think of what to write, as it has more words for thoughts in characters' heads than for normal word balloons. Actually it doesn't affect me at all when I'm talking.

Since I've had difficulty falling asleep from my childhood, I got into my fave character of the manga or novel I loved at the time after lying down on my bed, then I fell asleep before I knew it while I was imagining the new story or plot in my head from the view of the character, with keeping the rules of original . . . I did this every night! I have no idea as I usually don't talk about things like this, but did you guys ever do the same thing?? In the past I couldn't sleep without doing this!

Aww my show report ended up a manga talk . . . Did you know that I still buy Weekly Shonen Jump whenever I'm in Tokyo . . . (I mean cuz I've been reading it since junior high) I'm wondering, would there be a few women of 22 years old who still read Jump . . . ? I buy mags like Young Jump and Big Comic Spirits too. I also get some cheesecake mags from habit. ( you know what I mean?) It's like, I know much more about those gravure-idols than boys around me . . . God I'm opening more of myself to you guys today, ain't I??? It could be because I talked about manga?? What a power, manga has!

I think I better stop now. All right.

But then again . . .
I wonder what it is that a woman is reading "DEATH NOTE" for 3 hours at a cool beauty shop in Tokyo . . .

And if you look closer, you'll find that she is Utada Hikaru . . .

Am I Okay? I hope so . . .