Japanese word of the day - 10

Every Monday, that feeling creeps up to me, Monday blues. But this Monday is not like any other one because it's just one week away from Chinese New Year and I'm 5 days away from visiting my grandma. This year my family will be traveling to SG again to celebrate with my uncle and his family since there's complications for the elder to travel far. It's not too bad because being with family is important so traveling isn't a problem at all. I'm so so excited that I put crosses on my calendar counting down the days. I decided to learn the word excited as it's the feeling I wake up with this morning instead of feeling blue. Kōfun shita - 興奮した, the first two characters are kanji which is also traditional chinese at the same time which have the same meaning.

Japanese word of the day - 9

I had a great time today playing Wii at my friend's house. Firstly we went to eat Korean BBQ for lunch to celebrate his birthday and went to his house to play games later. There was this game where we were suppose to race in a canoe. My other friends decided it would be fun to try the expert and sadly everyone regretted as by the end of the day, our arms were feeling sore. So today I learnt the word "sore", Itami - 痛み. The first character is the chinese character pain.

Japanese word of the day - 8

I absolutely love this day of the week because it's where the weekend begins. Usually I spend my Fridays either reading or watching my favorite TV series. Since I like this day so much, I decided to learn it properly, Kin'yōbi - 金曜日

Japanese word of the day - 7

I've been really really busy because CNY is nearing and when I looked at my calendar I've realized that I've backtracked my Japanese language learning for a few days. Can't keep up with my busy schedule, but never mind I will just need to post a few one shot I guess. Normally by end of day I like to reflect what happened and learn a word, that way I sort of have a connection to the words and the experience associated with it. Hence it will be easier to remember it. So my word today is busy, in Japanese it's Isogashī - 忙しい.  The first character is actually the character busy in chinese which is read as "mang".

Japanese word of the day - 6

From the book I read these past few days, many ranking in the society are presented since the timeline were at the 1800's.  So I decide to learn the word Lady.　redi, レディー , the katakana word can be used for ranking and also describing a female's behavior.

Japanese word of the day - 5

I have really been obsessed with reading Julia Quinn's romance book lately till I have finished it in 3 days time. I just love how the characters are in the book, the lady is witty and the male is always acting like a jerk. But after he is a husband, he is just so caring and kind to his wife, so dreamy. Since I was busy reading, I didn't catch up with my Japanese word of the day, so I have to delay it a bit. I picked to learn romance today because I can't stop reading it. 

1.  romansu, ロアンス 　
2.  ren'ai , 恋愛

The first one is katakana and the second one is kanji which is written and read the same in chinese.

Japanese word of the day - 4

There is this game that I would play everyday without fail on my android phone and that is Tiny Tower. It is an obsession that I cannot get rid of. Before I sleep I will restock, anytime that I'm reminded I'll not hesitate to click on my phone.  Kyōhaku kan'nen , 強迫観念 is the kanji used for obsession. 

Japanese word of the day - 3

I was window shopping with my mother looking for a red leather handbag as my current handbag is quite damaged. I have been using it for 2 years already and I'm quite sad that I cannot heal the leather at all. I saw a red leather bag from Marc by Marc Jacobs and instantly fell in love with it, but to my disappointment it was not worth the money. The reason why I was disappointed is because in this country most products that come from overseas have their prices hiked up. It's just absurd that things like this are happening here, wished I was somewhere else now.

With that feeling I went to look up the world disappointment, shitsubo ,失望. The kanji is the exact same characters written in chinese.

Starbucks 2012 schedule diary

It's that time of the year where you swap an old planner for a new one with the hope of filling it in with new plans and events. Every year I opt for the Starbucks one which needed 15 drinks to obtain. I am quite satisfied with the planner this year as it does not look like a notebook like last year whereby I had to draw lines and write dates myself to make it look more like a planner. It came in a nice box wrap in paper and the cover is a PVC design with the Starbucks logo there. Although the lines in the days are kinda hard to write it but you could just take two lines and write bigger. One thing that I don't like about this planner is that it is difficult to open it fully, you would have to write in one page with your hand handling the other side of the planner. Overall nice design, good space for writing down plans.

Box that contains the planner (front)

back of the box

front cover of the planner

Inside of the planner

Close up of the page

Japanese word of the day - 2

Yesterday my uncle and his family came from Singapore to do some CNY shopping. I have just visited them at 15th December with my sister and it was fun as I've not seen my cousins for some time. Even though it was almost a month ago it was good seeing them. Last time when they were living in KL, my family will go to their house every Saturday for dinner and it was a good family day. Today the word that I wanted to learn and remember well is "Family", which is kazoku 家族/家人.  

I'm looking forward to seeing them soon as my family will be traveling to Singapore for Chinese New Year again this year.

Japanese word of the Day - 1

Today I picked to learn this word because I got hungry really fast. I had a heavy breakfast around 10 and by 2pm I was hungry again. So the word today is "Hungry" but in Japanese there's no single word for it, so I'm hungry is used today and it's Watashi wa uete iru, 私は飢えている.After reading it up in the dictionary, ueru 飢える is used to describe starve so it's the verb.  Japanese grammar is certainly hard but I have a handy grammar dictionary with me to help out :)

My new blog title

Hallo dear readers, for many months I have been thinking through what name to change Rush hours of life because I feel it was cheesy and not catchy enough. This new name "Anything but Everything" signifies that I love to write about anything that I've experience of that I would love to share BUT not everything. I'm not the type that blogs every single aspect of my life because that's boring. This blog will consist reviews, travel logs, things that I saw worth mentioning and anything at all.

I hope to bring about more new things into this blog and in future I will not be the only author of this blog. Other than that, I will go back to sharing a Japanese word a day that I learnt. Instead of putting it in the sidebar I will make it a post instead in order to have a copy for me to look back at. The purpose of this is to encourage myself to learn Japanese everyday and also to make it a habit to become a frequent blogger/writer. In order to achieve my dream of becoming a writer someday, I need to practice writing frequently.

Lastly, feel free to comment anytime for ideas or comment on my writing. I want to know how I can always improve. Thank you for the support though I have very little but I will work on boosting the readers of this blog. Take care and I wish everyone the best of health.

Love,

Lizzie

2012 resolutions

Well another year has passed by so quick it felt like nothing changed for me. In terms of career, life and everything else I think I was kinda stagnant without budging a bit. Although it's that way but it wasn't a terrible year, I got to travel to Singapore three times and it was all great. Visited the Universal Studio Singapore and had loads of fun there, wished I could have spent longer time though. 

It was a year of stability and staying in my comfort zone all the time which made life boring, but in a good way. When I looked back at the resolutions that I made on 1st of January 2011, I didn't achieve any of it, which was sad. I told myself I was going to do it but then I end up with no time because I spend most of my time watching Youtube videos and TV Series. So this year I'm gonna stick to the old resolutions and add some new ones. So here it is:

• Read 1 book in a fortnight and review it. Gonna change it to once a month I realised that if I wanted to read a book a month then I won't achieve reading 50 books this year, therefore I have to change it back to reading a book either a week or just slightly pass it.
• Travel to Singapore and visit Universal studios (hopefully I will dare to sit on the roller coasters)  I did sat on the Mummy ride
•  Finished my Nintendo DS games that was released since 2009 (totally abandoned it already)
• Continue learning Japanese myself ( pick up from where I left off last year) have to relearn everything again
• Share my learning experience on blog as often as I can
• Gain weight ( a big challenge for me)
• Stay fit (eat well, drink less cold drinks/ soft drinks, eat more vegetable) I did manage to drink less cold drinks
• Take more photos and learn photography and photo editing
• Learn eye make up techniques
• Learn new programming language

That's quite a lot to achieve but hopefully it's more doable. In terms of reading it really depends because I sometimes I have the privilege to read more and some nights I'm too tired to read. But I read chic lit faster than fantasy books because fantasy tends to be thicker than chic lits. This year there are a few books I'm looking forward to, Meg Cabot is going to publish a new series for Heather Wells, Sophie Kinsella has a new single story coming soon and Trudi Canavan (my favorite fantasy writer) is ending her Traitor Spy trilogy. Movies that I'm looking forward this year so far is The Avengers and Dark Knight Rises (totally love Christopher Nolan's works).

I hope this year I will grow more as a person, become positive (really negative person), challenge myself more (read 50 books) and live a healthier life (picky eater). This year I want to come out of my comfort zone and do something that I feel passionate, I've had some plans going on and I hope to make those plans come in fruition, so please look forward to some new things. I wish everyone will have a promising year coming this 2012, don't forget good luck, positive mind and healthy body. Thank you for reading and I will try to post more often in my blog. Happy New Year!!