Buying First Home
by V.E. on February 17th, 2010
filed under ppp
Buying first home? Check out Coldwell Banker’s 2010 home buyer tax credits page. I watched the video there and learned some interesting things. First, I learned about the first-time home buyers tax credit that was due to expire last November, but was extended by Congress and signed into law by President Obama until the end of April this year. The extension raised the income caps for individual and family buyers, buyers must not have owned a home in the previous three years, and contracts must be finalized by end of April and the sale closed by end of June this year. It also extended credit for “move up” home buyers who have lived in their previous home for at least five years. The new home they buy must be $800,000 or less. (Did you know that real estate has brought the United States out of every major downturn and recession since the 1950s?)
Watch the video and tell me what you think.
Now, I think that everyone who reads my journal is relatively intelligent, but I know nothing about buying houses. I can guess what an “income cap” or “‘move up’ buyer” is, but I don’t really know for sure, and the Coldwell Banker president didn’t define any terms; he used some words he assumed everyone knows and… well, I don’t. He did say, though, that every time a house is bought in this country, it creates a job for the next twelve months. I’m not sure how a body figures that out, but it sounds good, right? One house = one job for one year.
Found
by V.E. on February 17th, 2010
filed under lost/found, school, words
I found this card in my mom’s office at APU while I was cleaning on Monday. I know it’s not to her since it’s in another language, and I’m curious to find out what it says. I think it’s a ‘thank you’ note or other note of gratitude, though I’m just guessing, really. Can anyone read it and/or at least tell me what language it is? (I’d still like translation help with this, too, if you have time.) Thanks!
Click either picture for larger.
Front:
Inside:
Text (not the handwriting) in English: (on left) “The Lord is my light and my salvation… Psalms 27:1″; (on right) “My peace and joy / surround you this season / and may love light your way / at Christmas and always.”
The Tetris Quilt
by V.E. on February 14th, 2010
I was/am so impressed with a close friend of mine making a Tetris quilt that I’m posting a picture here for all to enjoy. You rock, Esther! (Click for larger.) I want one! Que music.
AWESOME!
Nabari no Ou
by V.E. on February 13th, 2010
filed under anime/manga, recap/review
I just finished Nabari no Ou and I have to say… It was really good. The ending got me all teary-eyed and everything, though I am known to be a softie for hurt/comfort-type drama.
Set in the modern age, Nabari no Ou (wiki) follows Miharu, a boy who just wants to live a normal life but is attacked by ninjas and consequently sucked into the world of Nabari. He learns about the secret art Shinrabanshou (“all things in nature”), which resides within him, from his friend Kouichi and teacher Kumohira-sensei and discovers that Shinrabanshou contains all the world’s knowledge and is sorely coveted in Nabari. Despite his wishes, he cannot return to his normal life and must take on the title of Nabari no Ou (“King of Nabari”) to survive.
Miharu and Yoite
I really liked the balance between Miharu’s apparent dysthymia and everyone else’s freak outs about him becoming King of Nabari. He’s totally not interested and yet, he falls into a friendship with a young man, Yoite, who asks Miharu to use Shinrabanshou for his (Yoite’s) sake. Miharu agrees to do so under duress and then finds out he actually wants to fulfill Yoite’s wish anyway, once he’s able to control Shinrabanshou (something that takes the entire series).
The music is pretty good, too. A decent composer can make or break a series or movie, but it’s best when the music sounds like it should. That is, the music doesn’t stand out as superb or terrible over the action and dialogue. I recommend Veltpunch’s opening theme, “Crawl” and the two ending themes are pretty good as well.
Shinrabanshou: when you watch the series, this will make more sense.
I haven’t read the manga (not unusual in my case), but I know that if you have, the series diverges after (at?) episode 16, which is also when the second ending theme is introduced. Also, I’ve heard it compared a lot to Naruto (wiki) because it has a lot of ninjas, but since I haven’t seen or read any of that either, I can’t comment on its similarities or differences.
L to R: Gau, Raikou, Yukimi, Yoite, Miharu, Kumohira-sensei, Raimei, Kouichi
Memoriea
by V.E. on February 10th, 2010
filed under beauty, fyi, personal, school
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Your presence is requested at Memoriea, an exhibition of manga madness! [My sister is] presenting the first complete issue of [her] first graphic novel entitled Memoriea in Duke Gallery!
Memoriea is an original story with original characters that has been hand drawn in graphic novel form. A girl travels with her brother to his coronation, but when he mysteriously disappears from body and memory she is crowned in his place as if nothing had changed at all. But then again, that all happened over six thousand years ago.
There will be free food at the opening—the show opening is on FEBRUARY 16TH FROM 6-9 PM PST.
For the Facebook page, click here. For directions, click here.
“If you believe I can.”
by V.E. on February 9th, 2010
via Esther on the TWLOHA blog:
My mom was always the strong one. The one who always knew what to do and what to say. A child needs someone to look up to, and naturally most kids look up to their mother or father. Whether they have a good or bad influence on them, it’s just something children do. I consider myself a grownup now, but in the midst of all the searching and wondering and mystery that life offers, I’m still a child. A child seeking approval, and acknowledgment, and love.
I started writing songs when I was 14. Most of it was crap but it’s just those steps you have to take to get where you want to be. I don’t know what drove me to actually keep writing during the first two years because nobody heard them except for two of my siblings (and they are both younger so of course they thought that everything I did was cool). When I was 16 I thought that I wrote a half-decent song and I decided to play it in front of my mom. I remember it very well. I asked her if she wanted to hear something, I wrote, and I sat down in the hallway while she was doing her hair in front of the mirror while she got ready for work. I started playing on my guitar and singing. I will never forget the way she looked at me, the way she listened. In that moment I knew that she saw something in me. I didn’t know what it was but I felt that it was something significant. She believed in me.
As we wander through this life, in whatever we do, we are always looking for approval. In school or at our jobs we need to know that what we do is good. That it matters. That we matter. The greatest fear as human beings is to be unloved.
I don’t think that my mom didn’t believe in me before she heard my song. I bet she did. I know she always loved me and always will. Maybe the reason why this moment was so significant to me was because she let me know that she believed in me. She encouraged me to sing my song in front of other people. When I said that I don’t think it was good enough, when I didn’t believe in myself, she did.
Sometimes we keep searching. We long for someone who believes in us other than our parents. We’ve all heard that “sometimes you can’t make it on your own,” and most of the time we’re just not brave enough to ask for help. We are ashamed because we’re in need of something other than what we have on our own.
I’m a little older now and I realized that my mother is also just a person in need. I wanted to be a giver more than a taker. But there’s a time for both. There are times we’re the ones who are asked to give and other times we take. We may be surprised in how easy it is to give to others, even when we feel like we’re the ones in need.
What if all someone needed from us was to share pieces of ourselves? To share our pain, our fears, our dreams, our stories. If we believe that other people matter and we tell them that they do, then we have to also believe that there are moments we will have to accept it when we feel like we can’t.
We may just find ourselves respond by saying, “If you believe I can, then I think I can.”
Day Three hundred sixteen
by V.E. on February 8th, 2010
filed under powerof5
01 Lady Guinevere from King Arthur (wiki).
02 Took the English assessment test at GCC today…
03 … and passed with flying colors. (Were you expecting any different?)
04 Registered for two classes, so I’m half-time at least.
05 One of the classes I actually wanted to take in the first place. YAY.
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