Video Games Live

Today, Chibi and I will be attending the concert Video Games Live at the Chicago Theatre where an orchestra will be playing popular and obscure video game soundtrack music! It's our first time ever going to one of these things, so we are excited for the new experience. Also, Michelle's violin teacher/UIC Japanese classmate/ex-student of Shingo-sensei's band has been asked to perform a song for the concert. So, that should be good too. ^_^

〜ミシェル
Music: Ordinary - Ryo Nishikido of NewS

日本に行こうよ！

If financial and universal planning works out as it should, GTSTA will be going to Japan together over the summer! We will try our best and hope our endeavors will be fruitful!

-Michelle

Surprising Japanese Food and Conversation - GTS Trio Makes New Friends & Assoc.

On Friday evening, the whole gang decided to go for some 回転寿司 at a restaurant Chibi heard about in Geneva. Luckily, we got lost and the Japanese restaurant we wound up going to wasn't a 回転寿司 place at all.


But this was more than okay! One of the employees behind the sushi bar, where we were seated, started speaking to us and after GTSTA displayed polite Japanese pre-eating etiquette, he began to ask us how we knew about いただきます and such things. ^_^


He and another employee, both from Japan, started to talk with us while we ate delicious sushi, tofu, and udon things. And we were treated to free desserts of cream puffs, whipped cream, cold pear slices, and chocolate syrup!! Also, as a prize for displaying our origami skills, we were given the most delicious sushi-shaped lollipops to take home with us!


GTSTA left full and joyous. Hooray for happy accidents, ne. <3

-ミシェル

GTS Trio & Assoc. Go Apple Picking!

On Saturday Oct. 4th, members of the GTS Trio and Assoc. went on an apple picking adventure hosted by my (M-Flo's) mother's company. We spent hours picking among 3 types of apples and in that time, took almost 400 pictures! If you are friends with any of the GTS Trio and Assoc. members on Facebook, you can peruse the 7 albums documenting our time there <3

We had a full day of exciting fun, most of us running on less than 3 hours of sleep from the night before.

After apple picking, our group went for a quick run to Mitsuwa for tea, matcha parfait, stickers and idol magazines.

There is a new store in Mitsuwa, where the figurine/model shop used to be. It sells various kinds of kitchen-ware, ceramic tea sets, and for the more clumsily-inclined - plastic eatingware too!

It should be mentioned that 2 or 3 of the members of GTS Trio and Assoc. are making plans to move in together to the city and the reasonable prices and appealing aesthetics of the merchandise found might lead to several purchases in the near future. That way, many visitors will be able to come and drink tea with us!

~Michelle

Dinner with GTS

Two members of GTS Trio had the deep and still fun experience of eating 回転寿司 at Sushi Station with GTS and Ema-chan. We stacked up a ton of plates over various conversation topics. Some light-hearted, some not-so-much. But all was いい。Chibi and Ema-chan even wore the same top. Perhaps GTS will give us a copy of the pictures?

~ミシェル

Different Verb Suffixes

Today I really made an effort to study verbs...since I've been falling behind in them for quite a while now. All of this lead me to become very interested in Verb Suffixes

I found this chart:

Meaning/Function	Suffix	Example	Translation
Suffixes that Follow Plain/Informal Forms
should	-beki desu	taberu- beki desu	1 should eat.
probability	-desho	taberu-desho	I'll probably eat.
possibility	-kamo shiremasen	taberu- kamo shiremasen	1 might eat.
person	-hito	taberu-hito	the person who eats
because	-kara	taberu-kara	because 1 eat
noun-maker	-koto	taberu-koto	the act of eating
things	-mono	taberu-mono	things to eat
time	-toki	taberu-toki	when 1 eat
intention	-tsumori desu	taberu-tsumori desu	1 plan to eat.
Suffixes that Follow Stem Forms
while	-nagara	tabe-nagara	while eating
purpose	-ni	tabe-ni	in order to eat
difficulty	-nikui	tabe-nikui	It's hard to eat.
overdoing	-sugiru	tabe-sugiru	1 overeat.
desire	-tai	tabe-tai	1 want to eat.
Suffixes that Follow Te-forms
doing a favor	-ageru	tabete-ageru	1 eat for you.
present perfect	-aru	tabete-aru	1 have eaten.
present progressive	-iru	tabete-iru	1 am eating.
requesting	-kudasai	tabete-kudasai	Please eat.
attempt	-miru	tabete-miru	I'll try to eat.
completion	-shimau	tabete-shimau	I finish eating.

I want to ask sensei to look over the list also to make sure that it's correct...(no sense in studying wrong things right?)

The one thing I found really fascinating about the verb suffix's, is that you can make WHOLE SENTENCES with just a verb and its suffix! That makes things so much more convenient....if I only knew how to use the -miru form for attempting...in any case I just thought it would be good to share with you guys :D 

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Another thing I'm still in the process of trying to fully "figure out" is the word "mitai" as in "inu mitai" 

but that sentence can be taken as "like dogs" or couldn't it be taken "I want to see dogs?" Thats one thing that I"m not too sure on right now...probably best to go bug sensei..

*walks off* 

I think only this picture can summarize today...

Japanese Test = Evil

But, Caitlin and I did learn why you use の at the end of 

Ex.) "どこ行くの"

I also learned not to over think things that have to do with わすれもの

*cough*

I'm still not entirely sure as to how to write in this blog...I don't know if it will be just us reading it or if other people will want to read it too...so I'm still kind of shy as to how to write here >.> 

Other than the test of evil (which I hope wasn't as bad as I made it out to be) I would like to make an open suggestion...make an effort (as much as I know most people don't want to) but 

DON'T FALL BEHIND IN KANJI!!!

ONCE YOU DO. IT'S ALL DOWNHILL FROM THERE! 

just wanting to make that clear...

Other than that I want to quote Naterly

"September is wacky coincidence month" 

It sure is. 

It sure is.