You ever watched a movie or tv series, and then watched a scene in the movie/series which you simply cannot forget, becasue it was just too good? Those scenes that just stick to your memory forever as something special, and that alone raises your experience with the movie/series? I have.

There's several things that defines such a scene, and they may vary between people (of course). To me, such a scene should contain no dialogue and sound; the only thing playing is a insert song that fits with the scene. The setting should be a bit peaceful, but more dramatic undertones can be present. Here's two such scenes from anime series I've watched:

Tsubasa Chronicle ep 38 scene (song: Kaze no Machi he). This scene really made my day when I first watched it. The calmness that the song produces, the peaceful setting, and the hints of thoughtfulness from some fo the characters just makes a combination I love.

Cowboy Bebop ep 5 scene (Song: Green Bird). This scene actually made me watch the series. The song is happy, yet melancholy, and the way the main character falls down in slow motion, staring at the glass falling around him while remembering bits of his past makes the events of the scene a contrast to the song, while also fitting to it.

What makes a memorable scene for you?

Song: Yume no Tsubasa (duet version) - Yui Makino & Miyu Irinio (Japanese)

Song: Blue - Seatbelts (English)

When I said smaller, more isnignificant things, I was referring to things that don't really concern you (my bad for being uinprecise in my wording). I mean, everybody appreciates a cold drink, a good time with family, a good book or something. But people often fail to see and aprpeciate things that don't matter to them. And it's important to note that I don't mean everyone when I talk. It's just, you know, a big part of the population.

Anyway, today, I wanna talk about lifestyle diseases. In our modern world (the industrialised parts of it), more and more people sit still a lot of the time, and we eat a lot of food. The result is that we gain weight, turn fat, and the results of that are a lot of health problems we have to face. Cardiovascular diseases are the most usual casue of death in today's society - 30 % of the population die becasue of said problems. Because of unhealthy food becoming more usual - junk food in particular - we end up growing fat reserves in our body, and when the body tries to break down the fat, it produces more cholesterol, which is the substance used to break down fat. However, it produces "bad" cholesterol as well, which sticks to the inside of your blood veins, and this makes it harder for the blood to stream through your body, and this may result in embolus and evt. cardiac arrest.

Other substances, like sodium (found in salt), may disturb blood flows, resulting in various heart problems (like irregularity in heart beating, and evt. cardiac arrest). Our high intakes of sugar in our food also can also result in errors in the pancreas (the organ that produces insulin), which leads to various forms of diabetes.

In other words, a change in diet can go a long way in preventing such problems. Additionally, excersising is important. I mentioned that fat breaks down with the help of cholesterol, but there's a much better way of breaking it down: Excersising. When you excersise, you use extra amounts of energy, which the body can get from burning fat reserves in your body. In other words, excersising remvoes the fat with no bad side effects like cholesterol.

But either changing your diet or excersising aren't enough by themselves; only a combination can effectively prevent lifestyle diseases, which are becoming a pandemic in the modern world.

Thanks for not takign me as conceited in my last blog. You see, people have doen it before, for lesser things than this (I once said in my Norwegian blog that I'm expecting to get good grades, and some anonymous guy suddenly posted a comment about me being arrogant and conceited and so on).

Anyway, I'm planning a series of small texts on the subject "The bad things about modern humans". I'd like you all to try and read this, please :)

Today's humans are usually busy with work, relaxing with their coffee while watching the news and other modern privileges. They're usually busy all the time, and focuses on what they have to do. To be happy, you'll have to live a successful life; get an education, get a good job, get a family, pay your bills, and so on. This, however, leads to them not noticing all the wonders that's around them all the time (the only thing that could bring real happiness from the above list is family).

Show people a bush, ask them what they see, and they'll probably say something like: "a bush", "a plant", "twigs and branches" or maybe any of the former statements continued with "which reminds me, I have to go hoem and trim the hedge in the garden". Something like that most people will answer if you ask a similiar question about a flower, the sky, clouds or something else.

People who answer that all have the same problem: They fail to appreciate the smaller and mroe insignificant things. If I look at a flower, I don't see a simple flower, I see a whole life; I see the story of a living being. If I look at a flower bed, I see a whole word, crawling with life, crawling with opportunities and wonders.

If you're one of the people who can see what I see, you're lucky. If not, try to see things in a new light. It's not healthy being all about doing things all the time, which many people today have a problem with. Even I, who never work and only do what I want, get stressed, because I always need something to do - even if it's supposed to be relaxing. What I've begun to do is to just take a full stop - even if I'm in the middle of something -, go outside, and appreciate the wonders of creation. It helps the stress level to go down. But stress is something I'll talk more abotu later on.

Song: (listen to this song if you've read the blog) Louis Armstrong - Wonderful World

Okay, so I managed one more blog before I left :P

One of today's subjects is about icons. Or avatars, if you want to call them that. The latter is very fitting, at least from my experiences. You see, when I get to know people on forums and other itnernet sites, I usually don't see pictures of them, and the only thing I use to identify them as them is the icons they use. So if I see a guy who has a stuffed lion as his icon, I begin to think that he looks like a stuffed lion. If someone uses an anime character, or a character from any show, I think that they look like that character. And if I see a picture of how they really look, then I think "no, that can't be them. Not at all." It's weird, really.

The second of today's subjects is about me being spoiled. No, I don't mean spoiled as in "I-get-everything-I-want"-spoiled, but that life has spoiled me. Not to sound conceited (because I don't intend to), but I'm very intelligent, I learn quickly and can easily understand things based on logic. That has made me able to surf through school very easily; I rarely do homework, hardly study for tests at all, yet I get only top grades (mostly As and some Bs). Moreover, I've been born with an athletic body; I'm slim, naturally fit and have a high metabolism, so despite living a sedentary lifestyle and even if I eat much, I keep my shape. I'm also born with many talents; music, wiriting, drawing, quick learning, easy understanding, language-adept; there's so many things I can be really good at if I just want to. Up till now I've just been living life like I want; every day is fun, not work for me (partially becasue I enjoy school). My four-year education starting this year will give me a headstart economically compared to most other students when I'm going to study at a university. All in all, I've been blessed with an awesome life, and I'm thankful for that every day.

(Again, I didn't mean to sound too conceited).

Yeah, the title pretty much says it. I'll be at our family's other country cottage (not the one mentioned earlier this summer). It's not a lot to do there; I'll just be reading cartoons, play cards and maybe go for a mountain hike or two. And fish a bit. Anyway, it's not gonna be very fun. Me and my bro is leaving tomorrow (rest of the family left on Friday); we'll go by bus and ferry, and our dad will pick us up at the ferry port.

Don't have no more to say right now.

Song: Ho$hizora no Waltz - Minami Kuribayashi

Just the other night, I went to bed as usual, around midnight or so. I didn't fall asleep, and at 1 am, I was still awake, though closer to being asleep. But when I heard the buzzing sound of insect wings somewhere in the room, I realized that this was not my night. I decided to open both the window and the door to my room, hoping that the insect would listen to reason and fly out by itself. Of course, it did not, and after twenty minutes, I hit on the light, and started looking for it. I found it at once, and I walked over to the desk to get a piece of paper to squash the insect with. However, when I get back, it's not there. I was too tired to look for it, so I decided to ignore it, and went back to bed. After yet another twenty minutes, I hadn't been able to ignore it, so I hit on the light yet again. This time, I wasn't going to turn it off until I killed the annoying little thing. After a long hunt, I finally found it, and squashed it without a moment's hesitation. I don't think I've ever been - nor will be - so happy about killing something, even if it was just a simple insect.

Anyway...

Now that the days are getting darker by each passing day, I've finally been able to enjoy watching the stars, which due to Norway's high latitude is impossible in summer. Anyway, I just sat outside one night, relaxing and watching the clear, starry sky. Believe me, it's something you just don't want to miss. One evening, stop everything you're doing, get outside and watch the stars in the sky. It's incredibly relaxing.

I also promised I'd tell you a bit about the new school I'm starting at this autumn, so... here goes!

First, a bit about our school system. I'm starting secondary education, which in Norway is 11th-13th (or 14th) grade. When we're at this stage, we can make two choices - One is to take a general education program, which is lots of theory, and prepares you more for university studies rather than starting work. It's lots of standard subjects, in addition to a few which we can choose by ourselves (which usually are specialized within one line of career - various Social Studies subjects are one, Scientific Subjects, Music, and so on. There's lots to choose from).

The other choice is a vocational education program, in which the students often spend a few weeks as an apprentice at a workplace; usually it's within handicrafts (mason, carpenter, etc.). The number of theoretical subjects are reduced compared to a general education program. People who choose this program usually has to take a 4th year with intense theoretical studies if they want to study at a university.

The education program at the school I'm taking is unique in the way that it offers a combined vocational and general education program; taking a little from both:

One: We have many of the subjects found in a general education program - more than a vocational one, but less than the normal quantum. We also have Scientific Subjects, which you can't get from a vocational education program at all.

Two - We get to work at a company, but unlike the vocational education, it's not a select few weeks a year - it's two days, every week, the whole year through. Unlike the vocational education, we also get a salary for our work, and the work we can get isn't restricted to handicrafts (the line I'm taking is Electronics)

Three - In addition to getting a salary, everything about the school is free. Normally you'd have to pay a lot for school books, but we get them completely free. The same goes for renting of a laptop (all secondary schools in Norway rents out laptops to the pupils). Any equipment needed at the workplace is also free.

Basically, we get the benefits of both types - not much theory, but enough to let us continue at an university without an extra year of intense studies, and we also get a certificate of apprenticeship, so we're qualified for work as well.

What's good is that the total salary I'll accumulate is more than enough to pay for my university studies, which will make things a bit easier for me economically (especially since I'm planning to study in another city).

I'm not sure how much you managed to understand, but shortly summarized, it's an awesome and unique education program

Song: The Starry Sky - HAL

Our network is really messed up at the moment. It works perfectly an hour and two, and then it's suddenly extremely slow, or not working at all. My dad has contacted the company who supplies our broadband, and he says that it won't be fixed again until we get a new modem, which can take up to four weeks :cry: Since I spend a lot of time on the net, it's extremely annoying. Luckily, I have lots of anime on my computer that I can watch when the net is down - I have Genesis of Aquarion, Planetes and Jigoku Shojo ready to be watched, and Cowboy Bebop is downloading at a slow pace. The real problem, however, is that I'm starting school in around two weeks, and depending on the homework we get, I might be needing the net a lot. Oh, well. I'll probably survive, one way or another.

In other news, I finished Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid yesterday. It's definitely one of the best anime series I've watched - it's got lots of humor, action, emotional moments and last, but definitely not least, fantastic animation quality. If you want to know more about my feelings, read my review of the series.

That's all I have to say at the moment. In my next blog I'll tell you a bit about the school I'm starting at.

Song: Luvly, Merry-go-round - Pipo Angels (crazy, yet awesome song)

Okay, so we've had some network troubles here recently, so I haven't been on here as much as I'd like :( The connection's getting better now, though, so I thought I should blog.

Anyway, lately I've been going to the movies a lot, because there's just so many great movies to watch this summer, and more will come!

Anyway, here's the movies I've watched so far, and my (summarized) thoughts on them (with a score):

Kung Fu Panda (9/10)

Trailer 1

Trailer 2

Okay, there's a lot of horrible animation movies out there, and some good ones. Kung Fu Panda is one of them. It has an overused plot; underdog in some sport (here: Kung fu) has to master it for some reason (here: to defeat some evil and powerful guy), and he manages, in his own, twisted kind of way.

Aside the unoriginal plot (the unoriginality you most likely won't pay attention to anyway), this movie's absolutely lovely. Lots of humor, lots of known voice actors, lots of action, and lots of... eating. The animation is lovely, with vivid colors, beautiful sceneries and overall amazing detail and quality. This is definitely one you don't want to miss.

The Dark Knight (7/10)

Trailer 1

Trailer 2

If something's over-hyped, it's this movie. I've heard tons of great stuff about it, but I was really let down. I mean, it's cool, got lots of action, drama and feelings, but it was all ruined by one thing: Rushing. It completely ruined a potential masterpiece, and made it into something just above average.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie; the villain's awesome, and the plot's good, drama and romance is okay. But when it's 2.5 hours long and still rushed, you know something's not right.

Mamma Mia! (10/10)

Trailer 1

Trailer 2

Okay, I'll be honest: This is one of the best movies ever! Why? Well, I think the story is awesome, it's good good humor, sadness and emotions, and a fantastic plot. The actors did really great; they portray emotions very well, and it's easy to see the chemistry between them.

It's a musical, and it certainly doesn't let any opportunity to put in a song slip by it. You may or may not know, the music's all made by ABBA, one of the greatest and mot famous pop groups in history.

The songs in themselves are awesome, and the actors sing them with great conviction; it's just not words and music in the song; it's feelings too, and that's what made them a little extra.

Not to mention, there's three things no one should miss, which is 1: Pierce Brosnan as a hippie. 2: Pierce Brosnan in a glam rock outfit. 3: Pierce Brosnan singing. Seriously, I always thought of him as a rough action-movie guy (like James Bond), so to me it was really fun(ny) watching him in this movie.

Summarized: Great acting, the best pop music in history, a musical, excellent plot; this one is a definite Top 10 movie of all time for me.

Hmm. so I just finished watching Firefly today; the movie, that is. And I gotta say, it's one of the best shows I've seen. Cool Sci.fi. series, insert a bit of Western elements now and then, and you have a dangerous combo. The characters were really cool too; watching them develop their relationships was really fun. Also, the fact that there was no sound in space was really cool - it's great with realism!

The series itself is named after the type of ship the main characters use - it's a Firefly-klass ship, named so because of it's glowing "tail" (which is actually the main engine).

(the series' main cast. From left to right: shepherd Book, mechanic Kaylee, gunman Jayne Cobb, captain Malcom Reynolds, first mate Zoe, pilot Wash, companion Inara, psychotic girl River Tam, doctor Simon Tam)

Anyway, I watched the movie (named Serenity) that concludes the series, and it was one epic end to a series. Especially the big space battle was lovely. At the end, you somehow think that it'll be a French ending - everybody dies. But it surprises and doesn't make it that - much to my relief.

I also liked the whole halfway horror movie feel over it - it made it really cool. Not to mention some really kick-ass sword slaying from our favorite psychotic teen, River, which made me sit still in complete awe.

(cool pic featuring some of the people in the movie. From left to right: Zoe, Malcom, River (she looks kickass with the weapons), nameless government assassin, Jayne. In the background the main cast's ship, named Serenity).

I highly recommend the series to anyone reading this blog; it's really awesome. Too bad though, it's a bit short.

And now I'm noticing a thunderstorm coming in over us. It'll be a fun night (thanks to living in the attic I have a roof window - I can look directly up on the sky).

Good night, folks!

Okay, so I took my first serious study session in Japanese today, and it went well. I managed to learn 15 hiragana symbols in just under an hour. If I keep it up the pace, I'll be able to write Japanese in no time :lol:

Anyway, my brother's girlfriend has her birthday soon, and today she's having a party. All the neighbors are invited, which of course includes us. So I'm looking forward to a lot of fun.

Very small blog this time :|

Song: Akai Hana - The Indigo

Later, folks!