Making headway on my novel

I’ve broken the 10,000 word threshold with my novel. I’ve never written this much of a single story before and it’s awesome. I more or less know where I’m going with it and I’m largely pleased with my writing so far. No, it’s not publishable quality, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. Besides, maybe after a finishing and revising a few drafts it could be. Check out my user page on NaNoWriMo’s website

Iya Valley and trans-Shikoku travel

Okay so it’s purely amazing how much time difference the most direct mountain roads and the toll expressway have between eachother. It took us like 6 hours from The northern part of Kochi prefecture to get to the middle of Tokushima. Then it took only 1.5 hours to get back by toll road. Granted the toll was like 20$ without the ETC card thingy, but still it’s totally worth it for how much easier of a drive it is.

Anyway, Iya Valley was gorgeous. The leaves were every color leaves can be. Walking on the vine bridges was pretty scary even with the cables laced through them. Lots of places to twist your ankle if you’re not careful, and they move whenever someone else takes a step.

I had my first Onsen experience, and it was awesome! Pretty cheap place that only cost 1000 yen (10 bucks) and it was pretty nice. Felt great afterwards, I’d do that every weekend.

November hits

Sweet. I am rockin and rollin’. Actually that’s a cover up, but my true emotions are a well guarded secret that only the characters in my NaNoWriMo story know about. I’m pumping them full of feeling, sapped from my real life wants, desires, hates, fears, and fantasies. It’s awesome, Novel writing month kicked off and I’ve already passed the daily quota of 1666 words I’m over 2300 and plan on doing near 3000 by the end of the night.

Right now I’m cooking up some chicken, cabbage, bean sprouts, and left over stir fry. Gotta get some nutrients before our trip to Iya Valley tomorrow. Matt and I are going outside the prefecture for the first time since we’ve been in Kochi. Totally stoked to see one of Japan’s “Hidden Valleys”. After that we’re meeting up with my friend from Tokushima.

Saturday Tyler and I made our way down to Irino beach. I tried out my new surfboard. It’s fuckin’ difficult, but that’s okay. I loved being in the waves and trying my best to ride them in to shore. I couldn’t stand up on this board, but I think I’ll be able to after a few weeks of practice in spring. It was glorious to be out on the beach again and it reminded me once more how much I love this prefecture of Japan.

The awesomest thing ever, last night a semi-coworker from the town office had a halloween party for several kids from the village. They actually organized a neighborhood trick-or-treat. I was blown away. The kids costumes were so legit too, and the neighbors loaded them down with candy. It was just like Halloween in the states would be on a good year. I’m so happy about the people around here and how open to new things and new ideas they are. P.S. Halloween is not a Japanese holiday, they mostly just decorate stores and such and have a costume party or two. Trick-or-treating is still a foreign concept entirely.

Tour of my apartment

I posted an HD video tour of my apartment on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCAaXd0wKfw Give it a look see. The thing I’m about to say at the end of it is, “I might put some flowers out here”

I Made my dinner very japanesey

I Made my dinner very japanesey, originally uploaded by Mark Mrwizard.

a new flavor of evil

Ever wonder why I titled my blog this?  Well it’s not that long of an explanation actually but it has multiple facets. After I graduated high school I wanted to change my AIM screen name away from LHS Mark J, because I wasn’t reppin’ Liberty High School anymore. I was particularly fascinated by the concept of absolute good and evil and convinced that there was no such thing. As such I made my new screen name with evil in it, and went with EvilestMark. Furthermore this had a nice parallel with my brother’s screen name which comprised the same grammatical format, “AdjectiveName”. When studying abroad in Tokyo I found with my friends that my first name could be represented by two very interesting chinese characters, 真悪. The first is pronounced “Mah”, and the second “aku”. When transliterating from English to Japanese, “r” sounds towards the end of syllables like in my name “Mark” turn into long vowels. 真 means something like truth, reality, or similar. It’s also used in 写真 “shah-sheen” which are the characters for photograph, as in “capturing reality” as well as in 真っ白 “Mahs-sheeroh” which means absolute white. 悪 by itself means bad, evil, terrible, etc. When you put the two together most people I’ve talked to, and myself interpret it basically as “Ultimate evil”, “perfect evil”, “truly evil” or something that is essentially, and coincidentally equivalent to “Evilest”. I’m rather fond of this fact, especially since I didn’t know about it at all when initially selecting my screen name for AIM. Though there are many other ways of transliterating my first name into Chinese characters (Kanji), I choose this one because it either shocks the Japanese people I meet or makes them burst out in laughter. Either response I appreciate greatly.

The name of this blog in particular “a new flavor of evil” originated from my previous fascination in philosophical good and evil. I adapted my feelings about the absence of inherent goodness or evilness and decided that my perspectives could rightly be subjectively evil, perceived to be so by myself or others. At anyrate, who likes the same old same old? Not me. I like the new flavors of most anything So I figured my blogged views and commentary could represent a “new flavor of evil”.

For November is National Novel Writing Month I’m planning on using good and evil as strong themes in my book, beyond just the typical amount of protagonist repping the good and antagonist repping the bad, or some anti-hero. I want to really explore what that means. And I know it’s been done before, but it will be fun for me to try to write.

I can blog by phone

I can blog by phone, originally uploaded by Mark Mrwizard.

create a monster activity i did with one middle school class

Gundam versus Godzilla

Godzilla and Gundam models fighting

Gozilla and Gundam models fighting

In an effort to create interesting decor for my apartment I had decided to purchase a godzilla toy and eventually a gundam model to fight each other in my bathroom. I already had the godzilla for a while and I finished putting together the Gundam today. Their poses will change, sometimes Godzilla will be winning, sometimes the Gundam will seem about to prevail. But it will be an endless battle. Perhaps sometime in the future I’ll buy some other toys and add them to the fray.

Rearranged

I re-arranged my apartment quite a bit. It’s so much better now. Still needs a bit of decorating but it just generally makes more sense now than it did before. When I’m done re-arranging I’ll post pictures. Instead of making my main room a forest, I think I’m just going to make 1 wall have a tree on it and make that tree really nice looking.

I went to the Shikoku Karst today. It was pretty fantastic. They call it Tengu Kougen not entirely sure why since that means something about a demon’s high place, but it’s pretty awesome. Flickr will soon see those pics, and I took some video that will probably show up in my Chobitto film.

Purchases and gifts

Muahahahahahaha… I have a surfboard, a video camera, and an mp3 player. I also got some furikakke custom mixed for me by Miu’s aunt.  The surfboard totally fits in my tiny little car, which is awesome because it means unless I’m bringing people as well I don’t need to mess with a roof rack or straps. Before I go surfing though I need to get a wetsuit or at least a wet shirt, and a leash. Miu bought an ipod so she gave me her old sony mp3 player that someone gave her. Free stuff, woot! I need to patch the surfboard with some epoxy putty too, there’s a soft spot that can apparently turn into rotted wood etc. Teehee, filming begins this weekend. Surfing begins … ASAP possibly next weekend.