hiragana and katakana worksheets, plus apt. hunting

I ought to think up more clever titles for my posts.

I found a website with pretty worksheets for practicing your hiragana and katakana.

As I plan to commence apartment hunting this weekend, I did a little research online and found this blog quite interesting. It mentions some housing organizations that I hadn't heard of.

tatami mats to square feet

I've always had trouble trying to translate apartment sizes from tatami units to feet, so I found this page quite handy.

convenience store bagging

At Japanese convenience stores, it's standard that cold and hot items be placed in separate plastic bags for the customer's convenience and satisfaction. So you often end up with two little plastic bags; one holding your bottled drink and one for your teriyaki burger or french fries. I usually use plastic bags as trash bags, so the little versions aren't very useful for me. Also, I don't really care if my drink gets hot or my bento lunch cools down a bit from being in the same bag, so I usually ask that they put the stuff together. I always have to get the request in pretty quickly otherwise they've already put my stuff into bags, so it's a challenge of timing it to right after they've given me my change. The same with the cases when I don't need a bag (I've been carrying around my blue Moomin eco-bag). If I'm not quick enough, everything's in a bag before I know it, and then I feel bad asking them to unbag it.

life passing us by: children are the smartest

The Washington Post has a delightful write-up of an experiment they did with acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell.

Pearls Before Breakfast
Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out.

My conclusion is that children are indeed wise. What do you think?

Miranda July's website is cool

And funny. Check out noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com, a site for her new book. Her actual site is mirandajuly.com.

go Venus and Serena!

Other than Safin, they're the only players I care about in the French Open, since Blake lost. I'm hoping Serena crushes her bracket :D

update on the risotto

Well, the rice cooker risotto was less than a success. I added too much water and it was quite mushy. And lacking a convenient source of chicken broth, I put in half water and half broth which of course resulted in a very mild flavored risotto. When adding the parmesan cheese, I noticed that the expiration date was October... of last year. Whoops! Gotta buy more. I really haven't been cooking much, haha.

The microwaved capellini turned out much better. I'm going to experiment with various sauces. I love capellini. Yummy and so quick to cook.

Now I'm tired from cooking. I'll give it another try next month.