Junior High School Memory: Manga

Manga (Japanese comics) started booming in Indo when I was in Junior High School. A big publisher had just started translating manga back then and I was one of the fans. The first manga I had ever owned was Candy Candy. I had actually watched some episodes of the manga in the form of anime*** (VHS tapes) when I was much younger, but at that time there was no continuation yet, so I bought the manga also because I wanted to know the end of the story. If I remember correctly, at that time a new manga was published mostly every month, so we had to be patient, especially because at that time there weren't too many other manga books to read in between the wait. 

Of course as time went by and the popularity of manga increased drastically, the publisher hired more translators so that they could publish more manga books in a month. So I started collecting some manga that I liked and the collection grew bigger and bigger. As I had a limited amount of pocket money, I couldn't buy all the manga I wanted, so usually we'd switch reading them with other people who bought different ones. And there were also some friends who just wanted to borrow them.


Unfortunately, bringing manga to school was forbidden in Junior High School, so sometimes there would be unexpected raids. One time I had some manga books and comics that some friends had returned when I heard a friend saying that there would be a raid that day. I panicked while trying to find a place to hide them. Finally someone suggested hiding them underneath the teacher's desk. You see, the teacher's desk was put on a kind of "pedestal" (hollow platform in a shape of an upside down box), so I hurriedly shoved all the books there.

Fortunately, there was actually no raid, so it was a false alarm. But at least all my precious books were safe (albeit a little dusty). Ahem! :-D 

P.S. I sold almost all of the manga and comics that I had collected years back because there was simply no more space for them. I sold them to a place that rents comics and manga books.

 ***Before translated manga came to Indo, I had already been influenced by Japanese anime ever since I was young through VHS tapes that we used to watch with my cousins. These were some of the anime tapes that we watched when we were younger (there are more but I'm gonna share five):

1. Candy Candy (it's dubbed in Finnish):


2. Mazinger Z


3. Megaloman


4. Minky Momo


5. Goggle Five

When I posted links about old anime movies in FB, a cousin of mine said that we used to play together pretending to be them. I remember that, but I don't remember who I "chose to become". He said that I used to be Goggle Yellow, my bro used to be Goggle Red. My male cousin used to be Goggle Red, whereas his sister used to be Goggle Pink. We were laughing hysterically while remembering those days ROFL ROFL ROFL!!! OK, enough reminiscing hi hi...

3BT: Random Days

1. Hubby asked me if I still wanted any chocolate pancake before he ate them 'coz there were only 2 or 3 left (just in case I wanted some, too). I'm grateful for his thoughtfulness.

2. Hubby wanted some homemade pizza, so I made it today (took me 2 hours in total 'coz I had to make the dough myself) and called hubby when it was done and I was SO happy to see his delighted face when he hurried home to eat the still-hot pizza.

3. Living in a small village means that hubby could go back home for lunch without having to spend too much time on the road.



4. Snow on electric cables (a few centimetres thick) - it looked like some kind of decoration for the cables.

5. A close friend of mine said that I'm rich in detecting my feelings and mapping them out.

6. A close friend asked me how I'd like to be supported during my battle with IF and for me that's one of the best things that someone can say to me when I pour out my heart about our IF battle.

7. Laughter and card games with MIL, hubby, BIL and his girlfriend. LOVE the friendly atmosphere filled with jokes. Never felt any tension whenever I'm with my Finnish family.



8. I've just finished writing a submission for a writing contest (R2 still needs to correct my grammar and spelling). It's the experience that counts - plus it means I've succeeded in forcing myself to write in Finnish about a certain topic for public again (well, at least for the judges).

9. The process of moving to our own house has been going well.

10. Free online scanlations of Japanese comics (with English text) to read. YYYEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!

11. Anticipating for our potluck lunch at a friend's house next Monday - three expats in Sodankylä will meet and babble HUA HA HA HA HA HA HA...

12. Made strawberry pie without a proper recipe, but it turned out that hubby LOVVEEEEDDD it so much ha ha ha...


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Collecting Bronze Medals

I'm not a competitive person compared to many others. However, I like to compare my tracks by looking back on the past. This is especially true when it comes to learning Finnish.

The other day my Brit friend MC went to the PO and this guy started talking to her in Finnish and she said that it felt SO good to be able to understand each other and to be able to express herself in Finnish.

I've also felt the same way whenever I feel that I understand more and more Finnish than before. For example, a few days ago I went to the flea market and one of the ladies who were there started talking to me in Finnish. We only exchanged a few words, but this time I felt that I understood almost everything she was saying to me as opposed to having to guess the rest that I didn't understand and it felt like a HUGE victory.

Feels like I've been collecting small bronze medals or something, you know? Today at the course a trainee in our classroom, a native Finnish speaker, told me that she had noticed that my pronunciation was more similar to native Finnish speakers compared to my classmates. That felt like winning another bronze medal HE HE HE HE HE HE...

I know I'm lucky in learning Finnish as Finnish pronunciation is more similar to Indonesian pronunciation compared to English, so I have less problem in that area compared to others. :-D

I can't wait to feel that I've won silver and gold medals in terms of learning Finnish HA HA HA HA HA HA...One thing that's weird is that others seem to think that I study Finnish SO much every single day, though it's NOT true. I CAN be a lazy pig, too!!! *grin* There are days when I don't study Finnish at all and I just read Japanese comics online to relax hi hi hi hi hi...

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I don't know if it's my aura or something, but I've heard this all too often ever since I was in High School. I wonder why...I remember once in High School there was this boy who didn't believe me whenever I said that I hadn't really studied EVERYTHING (every page that was required to be learnt), so I got angry at him for not believing in me. I was SO annoyed that he thought I was lying. Oh well...

Anyway, yesterday came a Hungarian girl to our classroom. She's been in Sodankylä for a month and she's a voluntary worker. She's helping out in the City Hall and she'll also be involved in Midnight Sun Festival in summer and she's teaching German at one of the schools here. She can't come to our class every day due to her work, but she's interested in learning Finnish. Today she asked me if I could teach her Finnish. I told her that I'd be able to TRY to do that and I could only teach her the basics.

We'll see how it goes, then. I think it'll be good for me to try and teach her all the things I've learnt since it'll be like a repetition lesson for me, don't you think so? ;-D

P.S. I should probably add "writing a Finnish blog" in my To-Do list. I think I'll try to do it when my training and course are done. We'll see! ;-D

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Somewhere In Time Part 1

The author of this blog will be absent until the beginning of next week as she is busy preparing for her Finnish test this Saturday. She thanks everybody who has been very supportive. She TRULY appreciates her blogger friends.

She'd love to tell a little secret, too, though! She says that she's been reading Japanese comics online every now and then to help release the tension due to the upcoming test HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...*wink*

She's going to her in-laws on Sunday instead of Saturday, so she won't have much time to blog until Monday. She hopes that everybody will be in good shape until she comes back to the blogosphere. She misses everybody SO much!!!

She'd love to share this story with all of you as she doesn't want her blog to be boring...

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Somewhere In Time Part 1

The stories of people's lives intrigue me, impress me, induce me to feel a mixture of emotion churning inside me. Recently I have heard glimpses of other people's lives and that made me feel that I had been living quite a protected life. It also made me wonder about the crossroads in our lives. Had we chosen a different route, everything would have been SO different. Had our parents chosen a different route, would we have been born on earth?

This woman whom I had recently met decided to open up to me about her life. She said, "When I first met my current husband, I didn't love him. My first husband left me for another woman when our second daughter was only about a year and a half. I worked too hard and that drove us apart. Then years later I met an expat who was interested in me. We became a couple, yet one day I found out that he had a wife. I broke up with him right away.

From then on, my trust in men gradually became lower and lower. Building a relationship based on love becomes such a stupid thing to do for me. It even crossed my mind to sell myself for money. After all, I needed the money to support my two daughters. I never really did it, though it did cross my mind a few times.

But then my current husband found me and he asked me on a date. He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, whereas I sometimes go to the bars to drink a little and have fun. He didn't mind that, though. We went on several dates and finally we got married after I got to know him for a few years.

Things were rough in the beginning, though. His family didn't accept me right away. I cried a lot and asked my husband why they didn't accept me. It took them a while to open up their hearts to accept me. I think one reason was that my husband had never had any girlfriend before he met me. He just lived to work and he even worked on weekends. I told him that when we got married, I didn't want him to work too hard as I wanted to have some quality time with him, as well."

I nodded and nodded while listening to her story. Her family life history was a tragic one, as well. She lost her mother when she was young, then her Dad found another woman who was only interested in his money. After some time, the other woman left him to be with a richer man. Then in the end her Dad died due to some illness. One brother died to some illness and she lost a sister due to a car accident. Another sister died from drowning as she was swimming after she got heavily drunk.

Her story made me feel amazed. I feel that life has forged some people into warriors and warrior princesses. Whether or not you choose to be negative and bitter and pessimistic, it's all up to you. It's supposed to be easier to be thankful when everything is fine and smooth, but the fact is that we are prone to grumble and grumble and grumble. It's so easy to lose perspective on the most important things in life and scrutinize all the little things in life with a magnifying glass.

Humans are fascinating. Have we really learnt so much more important things compared to those cavemen? Are we so much more sophisticated than them when we're still struggling to understand what happiness means? When our technology creates more problems as well as giving more solutions?

Questions, questions, questions...I shall continue next time with another story. Until then, adieu, my friends, and take care!

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3BT: Random Days #3

1. Getting more student money which I transferred to my "untouchable account". Now that savings' sum is back to its original sum. HALLELUJAH!!!!!!! ;-D

2. Sweet, sweet nighttime rendezvous with hubby. *wink wink*

3. Green grapes ---> I decided to splurge a little bit on fruit since I had received the student money again HE HE HE HE HE...

4. Pita kebab and salad. MMMMMMMMHHHHHHHHHHHHH...

5. Stealing another kiss from hubby during lunch break at the course today HUE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE...

6. Seeing hubby working again in our classroom (our teacher needed help setting up something on her computer) and feeling SO proud of him. I couldn't help feeling, "That's MY man!" *grin*

7. Having a patient hubby. He never tires waking me up with a smile and plenty of kisses HEEEEEEEEE HEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...THANK YOU SO MUCH, Bonbon!!!

8. Being able to read Japanese comics online for free with English texts HO HO HO HO...I LOVE the internet!!! ;-D

9. Feeling that I've made some progress in learning Finnish. Even though speaking Finnish and listening to native speakers are still tough, but I find that I recognize more words and I remember many more new words than before (especially compared to last year HE HE HE...).

10. It's FRIDAY today and I'm going to my in-laws tomorrow. I'm REALLY looking forward to it HO HO HO HO HO HO HO...In-laws, here I coommmmeeeee!!!

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