Update + Event Info

I don't have much time to write today so I'm going to write this in English first.

Anyway, today's updates serves two purposes.

The first is to update everyone on what I've been up to the past few weeks, i.e. a
photo dump.

The second is to make note of an event that I will taking part in this weekend.

Alright, on with the photos.

First, after I graduated, I had a small exhibition with my graduating class. I was able to get my first Illustration job through that, which was nice.



Then, I went to Miami with my girlfriend around the weekend of my birthday. It was a pretty short vacation, because I started my new part time job the following Tuesday. Regardless, it was fun. I was most happy to see that my girlfriend had a good time and that my mom liked her.

While down there we went to Key West and took a sunset cruise and ate excellent sea food and key lime pie.









After that, I had a small little get together for my birthday. My girlfriend got to see my house and see some of my friends.





Did I mention that while I was down there, through a mistake on the part of the rental car company, I got to drive a mustang around for the price of a sedan. Yup.



When that was over, I took my girlfriend to the airport because she had to leave earlier than I did. Finally, for my last day, I celebrated the engagement of two of my Miami friends and got to finally do my own "Last Supper" birthday picture.



The second version is the "bizarro" version. Everyone is supposed to act like me, except me.



Sice then, I've been in New York working part time and trying to get my Illustration career started. So far not much has happened, but I did get one Illustration published...sorta. There was a mixup and the wrong version of my piece was published, but i was told by the client that for their online magazine, they will fix the error. I'll update the blog when that happens, but until then I'm putting what would've have been in print here and on my website.



I'm running out of time, so I'll edit later. But here are some things I've worked on/sketched lately.













Finally, I would like to make mention of an event that I will be performing at this coming Saturday. I'll be doing live painting for the Multihop event at Galapagos Art Space. The headliner for this event is Scratch of the Roots, and in addition to this there are many other things going on, body art, nail art, a fashion show, etc.

Here are the details...



Galapagos Art Space
70 North 6th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
United States

Also, anyone on my guest list gets in for $8, so please RSVP with you name if you will be coming.

Anyway, I could use your support! If you do come, it really does mean a lot to me.

To end, I have some extra pics on my flickr if you would like to see.
http://www.flickr.com/samurabi
enjoy.

さあ、今日の日記は前二つの日記とは違う。
最近やった事について詳しくはあまり書いてなかった。
だから今日の日記は二つの事について書こうと思う。

一つ目は最近やった事をみんなに知らせたい。
二つ目は僕の最新イベントについて詳細を載せたい

じゃ、はじめましょう。

卒業した後で同級生と一緒にエキシビションをやった。意外にいろいろな人が集まってくれて驚いてしまった。そのときになんとはじめての仕事の依頼を受けた。うれしかった。

それから誕生日の週末の時に彼女と一緒にマイアミに旅行した。次の火曜日に新しいのパートタイムが始まる予定だから旅行はちょっと短かかった。でも楽しかった。彼女はとても楽しんでくれたし母が彼女を好きだと言ってくれたのでうれしかった。

マイアミにいる時にキーウェストという島に行った。サンセットクルーズに乗ったり美味しいシーフードとキーライムパイを食べた。

パイはすごくおいしかった。おすすめ。

翌日、小さな誕生日パーティをした。彼女が僕のうちにきて友達に会ったからよかった。

ところでマイアミいた時にレンタカー会社の手違いでセダンを借りる値段でマスタングを借りれた。楽勝！

今はパートタイムやってそれ以外の時間は自分のアート活動をしている。今のところそんなに大きい仕事はないけど一つ雑誌のイラストレーションの仕事をやった。

やったけど依頼人の手違いで僕のイラストは間違って出版されてしまった。

とてもがっかりした。

じゃ、二つ目はイベントだ。

今週末はじめてのライブパインティングをする！

詳細は

Galapagos Art Space
70 North 6th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
United States

Saturday Jun 30, 2007
at 10:00 PM

僕に言って予約してくれれば入場料は８ドルだけだ。

よければみんな見に来て下さい。

他の写真を僕のフリッカに載せた。　
ぜひ見て下さい。

http://www.flickr.com/photos/samurabi/

Recipe for Disaster

They somehow managaed to put everything I hate into one video on Youtube.

Furries, Escalades, and modern day rap.




As a side note, I was really afraid of having to explain this video if someone walked into my office and saw me watching this.

-found on BoingBoing

Black Images in Korea

ええ、なんとなく今日は疲れ切った。
こんな日々が日本語というのは頭の中には浮かばないから今日の日記はちょっと。。。

しかし書かなかったら上達しないと思うからとにかく書いてる。

今日、面白いブログの記事を読んだ。
http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2006/02/blast_from_my_p.html

ちょっと過去のことだけど前の数年間以内には韓国でいくつもの人類差別みたいの事件があった。
多分その事件はアメリカの差別主義者に比べてそんなにイムパクトがなくてそれに韓国人に何か意味が伝えられなかったかもしれない。

まだ、それを見たら、妙の気持ちが湧き上がった。

黒人の僕にとってちょっと気になる。それで記事とコメントによると韓国人でもその行動の意味がよく理解された。

じゃ、韓国と言えばあまり知識がないけどなんとなくその記事のタイトル「黒人のカルチャー、黒人ではない」の感じがよく分てる。
僕の経験では「黒人が駄目」と言った韓国人があったけどアメリカ人の強烈な例に従わなかった。
むしろ、記事で他の書かれたのことでアメリカの一般的の白人のイメージがあこがれのものだ。
一方で黒人はマスコミの影響から悪いイメージが存在して黒人は劣等の物だ。

読んで続いたと意外に韓国のような塾でほとんどは黒人雇わなくて驚いた。
実は中国に関してそのことも聞いたけど韓国にめぐってそれは初耳だ。
なんとなくその記事の前にもその感じがしてたからあまり韓国に旅行することがあまり興味ない。

でも今は韓国が嫌いとか決して行きたくないとかのことには限らないけど行ったら僕に対して快適な状況が想像できない。
実は韓国に行きたい。うまい韓国料理食べたくていい景色を見たいだけど今、行けば不安心という事だ。

まあ、とにかく、ぜひ読んでください。

I'm pretty worn out today for seemingly no reason. In any case, when I feel like this it's pretty hard to organize my thoughts enough to write something, not to mention in Japanese. My brain simply doesn't function.

But I'm writing anyway, and I'm not going to improve if I don't write.

Anyway, i read an interesting article.


From what I've read there's been some "incidents" concerning Korean's perceptions/interpretation of Black people. This article specifically is a response to the "Bubble Girls" incident where a Korean pop group performed in black face. As the article says, even though they said it was harmless and had no intention of offending anyone, considering how close it is to actual black face it's hard to think that they couldn't know about the meaning and history behind it.

This article is shocking in my opinion, but it might not carry as much of an impact as reading about true American racism.

Regardless, something is stirred up inside me when I read this. I feel worried as a person of color.

It also seems that from the comments, they knew about the meaning of their actions and did it anyway.

Speaking on Korea, I've felt that the title of the article, "Black Culture, Not Black People" is something that I've felt about the country. In my experience I have met Koreans who have said "Black people are bad" but it doesn't really follow the fierce racism that I've seen from many of my fellow Americans.

Or rather, I've seen many Koreans that seem to revere Americans, specifically the typical "white guy" image that many foreigners see in the media. On the other hand, the media also creates a very negative image of Black people throughout the world and because of that Koreans have bought into the hype so to speak, and probably see us as inferior.

Anyway, upon reading I was also surprised to see that most Korean juku's don't hire Black people. I had actually heard about this in China, where many places looking for teachers will not hire black people and specifically say so in their ads. Somehow that wasn't particularly surprising.
But this is the first time I heard of this, and it's pretty surprising for me.

Though, I've felt this way about Korea before and because of that haven't had a pressing urge or interest to go to Korea anytime soon. Of course, because of the media's portrayal of black people around the world, their a lot of countries that make me feel this way. But on hearing this it kind of reinforces my feeling a bit.

But don't get me wrong. I actually do want to go to Korea, and I do like Korea. Just thinking about eating all kinds of Korean food makes my mouth water. But I feel that if I went...it would be a bit unsettling.

Well, please read the article.

And I just wanted to say that I was trying to kind of write about this without stepping on any "landmines" so to speak. So if you feel offended or think something is off, I apologize. I would like to think I'm a fair person and am always open to discussion.

Blog Revival

あ、久し振り。ごぶさたして書かなかってごめんね。
実は久し振りっていうかその台詞がちょっと飽きた。一年間以上頼りないように更新しなかった。
でも、実際、学校のせいですごい忙しかった。

しかし！今は自由だ！
まあ、本当は自由というわけじゃないけど前より状況がよくなった。

長い間に書かなかって色んなことが起こったのにちょっと粗筋を提示しよう。

Pratt Instituteから卒業しました。すっきりした。
ーはじめての依頼をゲットしました。雑誌のイラストして今月に出版するはずでわくわくです。
ー彼女と一緒にマイアミに旅行しました。２ー３日だけで過ごしたけど非常に楽しんだ。
ーパートの仕事はじまった。詳細は卒業ばっかり大学の事務補助だ。今は楽でいい仕事だと思う。

他は今からミクの友と日本語を話す友に誤り謝りたい。
日本語の能力を上達するのはまだ気になってなにかもっといい方法をしないといけない。
一つは日本の活動などに巻込んだらいいと思う。
だから前にミクに登録したけど前の言う通りで学校のせいで忙しくなってきてミク使かった時間がけっこうなかった。
しかしひまがあればよく使えばいいだろう。

僕にとってみくの基本分はブログと思って前は時に書いてよかった。
でも数月前、Bloggerという英語向けブログをミクに統合した。
悪いことに日本語でも書いてミクに統合して一方で日本の友達等を区別してしまったと思う。
bloggerでコメントするのはめんどうくさいかも
とにかく、コメントは大事だと思う。
っていうか、bloggerにコメントが少ないどころか日本のともからのはない。

だからミクに含まれたブログに戻ろうとする。
もちろん今のブログをつづけて、実際に内容はほとんど同じだけど日本の友のためにブログを区別する。

最後のことでミクの友と日本語を話す友に誤り謝りたい。
よく連絡しなくてごめんなさい。
前は大変で何か失礼なことがあったら許してください　

まあ、以上。
できれば毎周一回更新する。


Long time, right? I'm sorry that I haven't written in so long.
To tell you the truth, I'm pretty tired of saying that. It seems that phrase has been used quite often within my entries. But I was extremely busy with school.
It was ridiculous, I seriously has no life outside of school and was lucky to have somehow balanced my school life with everything else going on in my life.

But now I'm free.
Well, not exactly free, but I would say that things have gotten better. A little less stressful.

Of course, having not written for a while, a lot of things have happened. Unfortunately I don't really have time to write about them, or rather, I would like to space out my writings a bit. This would be too long an entry to write about everything that's happened to me lately.

I will present an outline of what has happened as of late though.

- I graduated from Pratt Institue. I am relieved.
- I completed a job for my first client. It's a magazine Illustration and should be published some time this month.
- I went to Miami with my girlfriend. We only spent about 2-3 days there, but it was enjoyable.
- I started a part time job. It's an adminstrative assistant job at the school I just graduated from. It's nice.

Other than that, I've decided to change my blog.
I'm still worried about my Japanese skills, and feel that I have to find a better method to improve.
One way to accomplish this is to get involved in Japanese activities and the like.
For this reason, I had registered with Mixi before but because of school I negliected to use much at all. Pretty much I had no time to use it, especially since my Japanese isn't that great, and it takes double if not more time to do things in comparison to english.

Well, I have time now, so I should use Mixi, right?

One of the main elements of mixi, I feel, is the blog. I would update it once in a while but a few months back I intergrated my blogger with the mixi blog so that it would link directly here. It was done in an effort to condense things and to give people on mixi access to my pictures since mixi only allows three small pictures to be posted but unfortunately it didn't prove effective. Even if I wrote in Japanese, in intergrating blogger with mixi, I seem to have separated my Japanese speaking friends unintentionally.
Possibly because commenting on blogger was a pain, or took too much time compared to mixi.

That said, I think that comments are important, particularly in keeping communication/relationships with my Japanese speaking friends on mixi.
I already had very few comments on my blog, but I had absolutely no comments from my Japanese friends since this intergration.

So I feel that I should be opening this blog up.
It could well be that no one will comment still, but my feeling says that I should do this regardless, less I alienate someone who may want to comment.

So, I'm going back to the blog included with mixi.
Of course, the contents will be pretty much the same, but for the sake of my Japanese friends I'll be separating the blogs.

To end, I would like to apologize to all my Japanese speaking friends.
I'm sorry that I was negligent in my correspondence/keeping in contact.
I was extremely busy before, please forgive my rudeness.

That is all.
If all goes well, I'll update once a week.