February 2006 Archives

I was heading up to Ackerman to make a short Initial D run...and then got distracted by the Ultimate Distractor of Everything:

Girl Scout Cookies.

So I stopped, bought three boxes of Samoas, and then proceeded to go back to lab so I could just sit down and munch. Screw Initial D, I HAVE COOKIES!

I have to tell you guys, Girl Scout Cookies are tiny little killing machines. They'll plug up your arteries faster than you can say 'buttplug' but DAMN are they good. I'm also beginning to think that they may also function as mind-control devices. I bet you a million you could use those things to wean a chain smoker off nicotine. (And unfortunately...onto cookies.)

At least I'm enjoying my slow and inevitable death. :3 Though the skippage of Initial D shows truly how compelling those work as mind control. Mmmm...I just had two Samoas, which is about a quarter of my saturated fat for the day.

Another cookie is calling to me. Must resist! ;____;

My roommate Andy, is crazy. Either that, or he is the most oblivious person in the entire world. There are a fuck-ton of Ford Mustangs around, and Andy said to me two days ago, "Dude, there are no Mustangs around here." That was extremely well-timed, because after he said that I pointed across the street where a white Mustang was parked.

The next day, in the eight-minute walk to the bus stop, I proceeded to point out no less than five different Mustangs. That's a little more than a Mustang every two minutes. This morning, I took a different route to school and counted four, and I wasn't even trying hard.

DUDE ANDY, YOU'RE OBLIVIOUS AND WRONG. Just deal with it. :3

There are a fuckload of Mustangs around here, as well as MiniCoopers, VW Beetles, and 325i's, which just goes to show what a disgusting community it is that I live in. :/

My highlight of the morning walk was seeing a beautiful blue LanEvo on Charles E. Young Drive. The dude who was driving it was Asian too, much to my unsurprise. LanEvos are pretty. :3 I want one. X3

And alas, this week is going to be hell because I have another neuroanatomy test on Monday, which means that this week will be full of me trying to catch up on work that I've been punting for the past two weeks. :/ Talk about hosed, ugh. *bangs head against wall* I've realized that at the moment, I only have time for one videogame a day. It's either gotta be Kingdom Hearts II or Initial D. :/ *sigh* I've played Kingdom Hearts II for the past two days, so I think I know where I'll be spending some time when I get out of lab today at 7pm. =_____= On that note, It hink I need to set up the secondary antibody to my immuno run and then maybe head to Ackerman for an Initial D break and some snacking.

Dragostea Din Tei just came up on my iPod shuffle. *LAFFO* That reminds me that one of the songs they played on the dance floor at RAGE was Dragostea Din Tei. FULL OF WIN.

*~*~*~*~*

If one of the postdocs in my lab had longer hair, she'd be the spitting image of Boomer from the new Battlestar Galactica. :3 I want to dress her up and take her to a con.

Today during my Japanese presentation, my other Japanese teacher (not the cool one. Hayashi-sensei's the cool one. I'm talking about Iwasaki-sensei here) asked me in front of the whole class if I felt like the rest of the Japanese girls in not wanting to have a boyfriend. There was a long pause, so I just said, "Yeah, don't need guys right now." Will I ever?

If I ever get a boycat whose fur is cream with dark-colored paws, I'm going to call him Takumi. And when that cat runs around in the house, he is going to drift the corners.

My cat died ten years ago, but I still miss him.

I'm sad that I threw out my Riku costume because my mom made the shirt for me. I'm afraid that when she's gone I won't have anything to remember her by. Likewise for my father. All I'm going to be left with is physics books and Chinese Tang Dynasty poetry I can hardly recall anymore.

I can't believe at 11pm on a Sunday night I remembered that I had a Japanese essay due for the next day. Thankfully, I am done now. =____= Ugggghhhhh. Why am I such an idiot? Well, at least I remembered my presentation. *sighs* 7 minutes, and I haven't had much time to practice because all the practice time I thought I had went into my essay. Goddammit.

*sighs* Now it's 2am on Monday, I have class at 9am, I haven't practiced or showered, and I'm not getting any sleep.

Yay. :/

Wow.

Wow, dude.

Battlestar Galactica just fucked with my brain. Again. For like...the umpteenth time. XD

WIN. WIN WINWINWINWINWINWIN.

And for the record, humans suck. :3 I'm with Team Cylon here.

I wish I was in the Matrix, cause then I could just get plugged in and data patched to my brain so I could drift. Or just...know car shit in general.

Or maybe just Wikipedia will do.

Went clubbing last night. :3 First off, Tenny and I hit up Asahi ramen on Sawtelle. For those of you who are unfamiliar with small Japanese family-run places, they often have a bookshelf so if you're alone you can pick something up to read while you eat. Tenny stares over my shoulder halfway through the meal and goes, "Is that Initial D?" I look behind me to confirm...and yup. :3 They had the Initial D manga. XD So of course I had to pick up a volume and read it. The manga is so pretty. I used to hate the art style, but I think I've really come to appreciate it. ~<3 Shigeno-sensei makes Takumi look so adorable. ~<3

There is so much joy Initial D in my life. :3

On other news, they really fucked up the machine at the Westwood Arcade. The 2P side had problems already, but they tried to fix it and just ended up making it worse. It used to be that it was at least usable. The brakes would lock, but if you jammed the throttle hard it would fix itself. Now it just doesn't work anymore. The brakes are perpetually locked on the fourth gear, which means you get NO SPEED. I went through two runs on Tsuchisaka with it, and well...

you know that when you end up with something that's 20 seconds longer than your best time, there's something very wrong with the machine. *laughs* I could tell as soon as I got up to fourth gear and my FD wasn't handling right. >____> Thanks, arcade. :/ *hating*

Last news of the night is that I hit up RAGE, a gay club in West Hollywood. They were playing a mix of hip-hop and house which is good, cause I could go outside and cool down during the hip-hop and make it back onto the dance floor for the house. X3 The ratio of men to women there was something around 100:1. Which meant that if I saw a girl who wasn't in my group, she was likely to be already taken either by her boyfriend or another girl. :/ Boo. There were these three totally hot Asian lesbians dancing with each other, and later I told one of them she was hot, but she didn't really do much which means I got rejected. XD And her girlfriend was giving me nasty looks the rest of the night. The funny thing is her girlfriend was really hot too. :3 She looked like the girl version of Hisashi from Glay.

One of the girls who I was dancing with at some point in time said I didn't look gay, I just looked like a fag hag. Must be the long hair and the refusal to look like a bull dyke. =_=;; I like being in between, all right? :P

I have never seen so many asian gay guys in my life as I did at that club. Wow. O___O Or so many shirtless guys bumping and grinding against each other, making out...yeah. :3 The highlight of the night was somebody totally drunk telling me I was drunk and some gay guy pissing in the trash can in the girls bathroom because he couldn't "stand those fucking fags anymore." XD *laughs* I don't understand why he didn't just go to a stall and pee. O___o He was also oneof the gayest guys I have ever laid eyes on. But the one that takes the cake was the one with the white leather studded strips wrapped around his chest and makeup like Jeffree Star.

It was a good night. If nobody was dancing with me, at least I could look around and see all these other gay guys getting action. WIN. X3 *laughs* Tenny went with us to the club too, and it was hilarious because he might have been the token single straight guy there. :3 That boy's brave for venturing into a gay club as a single straight guy. Kudos, Tenny. :3 You win the day.

...and right now...I am off to lab. On a Saturday. ;_____;

Happiness is going to the student center for lunch and making a pit stop at the arcade there to play Initial D. Sure, I only had time for one game, but that was enough. ~<3

And to anybody who has watched the last episode of fourth stage...

What was that gay little necklace Takumi was wearing? XD It had this huge pendant and all. :3 Oh Takumi...I bet Keisuke gave it to you, didn't he?

I need to write some more Keisuke/Takumi now. XD

Keisuke: I got you a present! :3
Takumi: What is it? :D
Keisuke: A necklace! X3
Takumi: ... ¬_¬
Keisuke: *splut*
Takumi: ... ¬_¬

So I walked by the arcade on campus today, usually I don't pay much attention to it because the DDR Exterme pads are broken, I am out of shape, and it's $1 per play. Well, I just happen to turn my head while walking past...

O_____O!!!!

WE HAVE INITIAL D V.3 MACHINES NOW.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

So of course, I sat down and played. it's 75 cents a game, same to continue. EXPENSIVE. =_____= But you know, it's nice knowing it's there, so if I'm tired or lazy or don't have much time on my hands, I can just stop by the student center for a couple minutes of therapy. :3

Met this guy there named Billy, seen him around a bit at the Westwood Arcade, but I formally introduced myself this time. :3 I learned a lot from watching him run Akina in his 86. He asked me if I was sophomore, which I think is a nice way of asking me if I'm a freshman.

*laughs*

It's nice to know I still look young. I told him I was a first year graduate student, and he didn't believe me. X3

I talked about Final Fantasy with my japanese sensei this morning. She so used to be a fangirl. :3

I am so happy I could do a jig right now. ~<3

FOURTH STAGE JUST ENDED!

What am I going to do with my life now? ;______; I need to start picking up the Initial D manga or something...to feed the addiction.

Either that or just go to the arcade every single day. (The problem with this you see, is that leeching anime off torrent is FREE. The arcade machine, unfortunately, is not. :/ *poo poo*)

And Team Kengay is always hogging the machines on weekend nights. When I say hogging, I mean hogging. >_< I THROW ROCKS AT YOU!

Auuugh, with each passing day I also get more and more behind on work! ;____; Dammmit! This weekend is going to be super busy for me. Mrrr.

別れた彼氏との関係を直れないかもしれないからさぁ。いつも気が重くて嫌いだぞ。別にいいや。俺、構わねぇしな。今、一人で十分だぜ。今週末、彼と話したくない。忙しいの言い訳さぁ。

I'm just a dyke. I think I realized this over half a year ago, but then I went and did stupid things like date guys.

I'm just not physically attracted to men. They're great to hang out with, great to play video games and watch anime with, great to drink with and live with, but when it comes down to intimacy and sex....ew. I just can't do it.

Back to being single for me.

And this time, maybe I'll learn my lesson.

ARRRGGGHHHH.

There are so many things unnecessarily complicating my life at the moment. I think if I had a car, many of said complications would be fixed, because everytime I felt shitty I could go for a drive. Granted, a drive in fuckin' LA may not be the most therpeutic, but I think if I were able to go somewhere in the middle of the night and just punch it...it would be better for me than a whole hour of Initial D.

Anyways, I'm really busy right now, there are a thousand things on my mind, and despite the fact that I'm getting some awesome results from my research, I'm really frustrated. Maybe this is the IMPENDING DOOM sign that I always get when I'm barely (if at all) passing my classes. I'm agitated right now, by things going on in both my personal and my professional life.

For now, I'm going to retreat into the Skuld Lair and not come out. :(

I have done almost nothing at all productive this weekend. o_o;; The only thing I've managed is to get my RIKEN application for this summer done, and that's about it. Wrote a 500 word essay (mostly copy-pasted from my grad school application last year), redid my resume, talked to professors about letters of recommendation...

let's hope I get in folks, cause that'll mean that I'm in Japan for the 3rd straight summer in a row. How much would that rule? It would rule BUTTLOADS, people. :3 Of course, I'll end up horrendously poor from it all, especially since I plan to hit Summer Comiket (again! ~<3), but dude. Japan. All I need to make my life complete now is transporter so I can magically materialize in the middle of Tokyo or Osaka without having to pay airfare. I have no idea why I'm so psyched/hyper right now, I just am.

I think the only other productive thing I've done this weekend (besides play a lot of Initial D. Grrr! Tenny still beats me off the hotstart with his RX-8! *grumblegrumble*) is make more icons for LiveJournal. Now that everybody has 6 icons, that's twice the icon making and searching time for me! The internet will be the death of me, the death of me, I say!

SQUEEEEEEE!

the doujinshi I asked Ari and Clare to get for me got here! ;____; For once the USPS didn't fuck me over! MORE ANCESTOR SLASH! *is the happiest little thing in the world* I now have tons of Xiahou Dun x Cao Cao from zero, including a Ling Tong x Gan Ning from them that made my little fangirl heart flutter with love. :D *sigh*

They even got me a Rude/Reno at Comic City Osaka. ;_____;

I LOVE YOU GUYS!

...and the part where I freak out...

why does the torrent of episode 24 of Initial D Fourth Stage say "FINAL" on it. *gasps* WHAT?! NO MORE INITIAL D?! Noooooo! ;____________; That's like not being able to breathe!

New episodes of Initial D out this weekend. :x God, how I've waited! *tears of gratitude* Somebody put them up on Torrent now! *cries bucketloads*

Anyways, I swear I'm going to fail out of neuroanatomy because of Kingdom Hearts 2. *laughs* The worlds are surprisingly short, which is bad for me because then I feel the obessive compulsive need to go through them in one sitting. o_O;; Good thing they make you visit each world twice, otherwise I'd just sit down and finish the game in one sitting. X3 *grin* After listening to the voices a bit...

I have to play this game in English. =_=;; I have to do it once in Japanese to listen to all the kickass Final Fantasy voices, and one more time in English for all the kickass Disney voices, as well as all the famous people doing FF characters. I never thought I'd like a dub better after playing the Japanese version, but Kingdom Hearts may just be that special. I'm disappointed that Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and Keira Knightley have not been announced as the voice actors to the PotC characters. .___. *cries*

Long weekend this week, I'm really looking forward to it. Going to play as much KH2 as I possibly can. Maybe it'll pull me out of my funk, I've been so uninspired to do any homework for Neuroanatomy at all. Good thing Japanese is keeping me sane. ¬_¬ As sane as it is possible for me to be kept. At the moment, I'm just grateful I may be barely passing, and I'm glad that I have wonderful Initial D buddies and a nice machine to keep me company and therapy me when I need it. :3 Good news is, the next Neuroanatomy test is punted for a week, so that means that the date of my Japanese presentation and the Neuroanatomy test no longer coincide. *BIG HUZZAH*

Go away funk, go away! :3

You know, I thought I recognized a few voices while playing through the first part of Kingdom Hearts II. Notably...

Koyasu Takehito as Seifer
(I thought it was him! I was sitting there playing and going, "Dude, that sounds like Koyasu! ...no, it can't be! He'd never have such a small role in a game like KH2. Just goes to show I should trust my instincts.)

Nakai Kazuya as Rai(jin)
(Again...one of those moments when I'm like..."He kind of sounds like Zoro and Xiahou Dun." And then I go, "Nah...couldn't be..." and end up being proved wrong. XD)

Miki Shinichirou as Aladdin
(You know, I was watching the flashbacks and going, "Wait a minnit, Aladdin sounds like Miki!" and I never bothered to look it up. I'm glad to see my seiyuu skillz are still as hot as they ever were.)

Haven't run into them yet, but I look forward to hearing Inoue Kazuhiko (he has the dreamiest voice ever) as Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid, and Hirata Hiroaki (Sanji from One Piece! :D) as Captain Jack Sparrow. He's a far cry from the man known as Johnny Depp, but dude. SANJI!!! ~<3 *love*

I'm so sad that Setzer's role in KH2 was being a total douche. How lame. :/ And yeah, I could really tell that Okiayu Ryuutarou. :D Oh well. At least Setzer showed up. In KH3, I'm pulling for Edgar Roni Figaro. WITH THE CHAINSAW.

Kingdom Hearts II has a pretty impressive cast, I must admit. :3 It was easy for me to tell that Axel's seiyuu is the same as Reno's, but when I looked him up I was surprised to see that he's also the same guy who does Shouji Shingo (*luff*) from Initial D. I have to go back and watch some Shingo scenes now, to see if I can tell. :D EG6...da zo to! *grin* XD (Rude/Reno! ~<3 *full of fangirl hearts*

...and now, it is way past my bedtime. XD

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! *lots of hugs*

Special thanks to Ali-chan, who sent me a card~! :D Kyaaaa! *love*

Is it sad that instead of doing anything with my boyfriend tonight, I'm going to sit around, play KH2 and Initial D and work on the presentation I have to do on Thursday?

Grad school for the win. o_O

The awesome thing about being in California, is that almost everybody in my class exhibits some sort of otaku tendency. They may not be the rabid kind of otaku I'm used to hanging around with, but we all watch some anime, read some manga, watch some doramas, and listen to Japanese music. And the sensei know it. XD

So...today's story starts off with the midterm exam tomorrow. Our classes are short, so we have to prepare for tests beforehand by writing our essays and sentences. The teachers let us bring them to their office hours to be corrected. A couple of my sentences are about Initial D, and Hayashi-sensei totally catches onto it. XD She goes:

「藤原はドリフトするときコーナーで…まるで…のようにverb」を使ったほうがいいですよ。
(in short, she's talking about Takumi drifting and cornering and how I should use the grammatical expression properly)

...and she made the exact same motions with her hands that I use when I talk about drifting. :D I just kind sat there with this huge grin on my face going, "OMG, Hayashi-sensei knows about Initial D." O_O I should've asked how she knew Initial D and if she read it. :3 Hayashi-sensei is totally awesome! *cheers* SHE WINS THE DAY!

So after that I was grinning like an idiot and played some Initial D at the arcade. I...really need to improve with my R32. I'm getting better and better at handling my FD, but I'm still having problems cornering hard (like on Akina and Irohazaka) with the R32. =___= *shakes fist*

Anyways...man. I tried Bunta again today. There was this one moment...I don't think I'll ever have it ever again...or at least not for a while. First hairpin...I downshift...I brake...I turn...and I cleared that at 127kmph and managed to take a better line than Bunta. WTF. And I go, "Holy shit, what the hell did I do! :O" and then proceed to fuck up all the way down the mountain.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Man, that is so me. *bangs head against steering wheel*

But you know...for that one beautiful moment everything went right, the planets aligned, the angels sang, and I was totally rockin'.

I gotta find that again.

But for now...I'm going to have to split my time between Kingdom Hearts 2 (oh my god thanks Phi!! ;____; *wibble face*) and Initial D. ...and oh yeah, work. :p

EDIT: Oh yeah, and new layout

Every year during midterms and finals my apathy hits an all time high. Ugh. It's worse this year because it'll happen to me six times (twice a term, for three quarters...I FUCKING HATE THE QUARTER SYSTEM) as opposed to the usual four at MIT, which I've learned to handle.

Anyways, it's midterms week right now, and I've been trying (and failing) to study this weekend. This will most likely result in me bombing my test tomorrow morning (at 9am no less, if you know me, you know that I am not awake at 9am for class, much less a test in something like neuroanatomy), but thankfully right now I've reached the point where I just don't give a fuck. I'm pretty confident I'm going to scrape that B- so...I can get my hour of sleep I desperately desire.

It's at times like this that all I want to do is sleep or play videogames. Like Initial D or Kingdom Hearts 2 (which I have yet to start.) I have a midterm in Japanese on Tuesday (probably not gonna study much for it) and a presentation in Thursday. Haven't even looked at the paper for that yet. Yay for punting, yay for complete and total apathy. Jesus, I'm in a lab, just let me sit around and do research for the love of god and all that is holy. (My anus is bleeding.)

I need a good picker-upper before my last bit of study. I guess I'll watch some of Advent Children or something. Haven't touched that since I've been watching Initial D. I am such an IniD-tard.

Birthday party was so totally awesome. We've never had that many people in the apartment before. It was wild, I was drunk as hell, and all my friends in the area came and celebrated with me. :3 I was so happy. :D We had games of Smashies, Soul Calibur 3, and Munchkin going on. Phi brought Kingdom Hearts 2 (which she is letting me borrow because she's the nicest person in the world *tears of gratitude*, which is the shiniest game I have ever seen bar none.

It was a wild night. Thanks to everybody online who wished me a happy birthday, Jay and Gerard for the birthday cards, Andy and Evan for the cake...and everybody who made it! :D I love you all.

Highlights:

- the gaming group! First it was Smash Brothers and then Jay and Andy did some SC3.
- I wanted a picture with Phi, but she did a good job of hiding.
- the mostly!neuroscience group
- the gamers group (like oil and water, they didn't mix well)
- me blowing out the cake
- Dark Albert surfaced once Albert got drunk enough, and he asked me to slap him. So I did. I think he's going to fap to this now.

The rest are here.

And one little weirdness of the day...Tabrelial is apprently friends with Elly. I know Tabrelial from Boston, and Elly because she's part of my/Jay's group of friends. It's a crazy small world when I find out all my friends know each other and are connected. :3

I think I'm way nerdier than I think I am. XD But then I think about it...and I realize all I am is a BIG NERD. :3 And my nerd pride swells up like a chorus of angels.

Party at my place on Friday, boys and girls! :D Bring your Magic cards, your video games, your cheapass games, your Settles of Catan...Skuld is going to show you where the party's at.

Massively overslept this morning.
Oops, missed Japanese, but I guess now I have a chance to catch up on manga reading. All caught up with One Piece now. XD

全世界を敵に回して生きてられると思うなよォ！！！！

望むところだァー！！！！

SHIT, DOG. One Piece is the best thing I've ever read.

今日は日本語で書く。練習しなきゃからな。

最近、僕ちょっと気が重い。宿題したくないだけでなく、授業も行きたくない。中間だけど、何もしたくなくて、一日中寝たい。イニシャルＤで腕が短いから、コナーでうまく曲がらないという壁を乗り越えないかもしれないから怖い。とっても怖いよ。失敗しるのは怖いけど、しかたがない。今皆僕よりうまい。一生懸命練習したいけど、金も時間もない。どうしよう分からない。

頑張らなくちゃ。頑張らなきゃ。いつもいつも頑張っているからもういい。頑張ったら、絶対いい結果がある。でも、この結果はどんな結果かはっきり何か分からない。今、別に構わなくなってしまった。

誕生日は今週の金曜日。二十三歳になる。いつの間にこんなに年上になったか分からない。

(´・ω・)つ(・(・

Had a great weekend. ^_^ Spent all of Sunday at Jay's house, hanging out with his friends and watching the Superbowl. Jay's friends are so totally full of awesomeness. XD Most of us seemed to be rooting for the Seahawks (some for the Steelers), but alas the Steelers won. :3 They had a small betting thing going, and I managed to luck out and profit $5.

All $5 got fed to the Initial D machine today. XD For my happy canary yellow FD and my pitch black R32. Funny how I have a propensity for understeer more on the FD than the R32. ¬_¬ The irony is killing me.

Anyways, Alby drew a cute picture of me and Jay playing Smash Brothers Melee. :D We look so cute. I am full of squee. :3

Wah, it's a little late, but here's my birthday party info! :D Please RSVP with a comment or an e-mail, so I know who's coming and who's not.

My Livejournal has all the information, but for those of you who don't have access to LJ:

Location: Skuld's place
Time: Friday Feb. 10, 8pm

Be there. Get boozed up (or not). Play games. Party. That's what it's all about.

Fridays are whee! Ran out of lab early and played a lot of Initial D. I think I've dropped over $10 on Initial D today. O____O Daaaaaaaamn.

I gotta watch out where all this money is going. XD *laff* Met up with Tenny, played some games, ate dinner together (=___= he treated me, so now I owe him), played more Initial D (I felt like getting an R32...so I did. Wow, grippy car. I think I'm in love. *dreamy sigh* Now I can understeer because of dead tires just like all the rest of the Skyline drivers out there! Huzzah!), played a pick-up game of Wangan Midnight when Tenny had to leave (I had NO IDEA what I was doing ;____;) and just generally had fun. :3

Great night! I love Fridays, hanging out with new friends is fun.

:D I met Phi today! :D :D :D *full of squee* I totally blanked on it (heh, how typical of me), so I had to run out in the middle of class to go meet her. XD Yay for excuses not to go to class!

She picked me up from home (gah! I have no car! *so much crying*) and we went to karaoke for a couple of hours (despite what Phi protests, she's amazingly good at singing and reading Japanese rap XD) before hitting it at Yashima for dinner.

*full of happies* Phi is cute and adorable and full of funness!

Yaaaaaaay for Phi! :D

...I was one of those savage marauders who, not knowing how to express their love, mistakenly kill the persons they love. I would kiss the lips of those who had fallen to the ground and were still moving spasmodically.

o_O Why it has taken me so long to finally get around to reading Mishima Yukio's "Confessions of a Mask" I will never know. Holy shit is this book made of pure awesome.

And strangely, it makes me want to write some Seishirou/Subaru. About time, I think. o_O Can't remember when my last one was.

EDIT: On other news, it seems that Fenway House is exploding. Oh crap. Guys...guys...what's going on? o_O *hides* Please don't splode.

Those Japanese are such cheerful people. :3 Look at all the vocabulary I learned from 蜘蛛の糸 yesterday:

真っ暗： pitch black
心細さ： unease
沈む： to sink
責苦： agony
咽ぶ： to suffocate
藻掻く ：　to struggle
逆落とし：　to fall upside down
死にかかった： dying (with the connotation that death has not yet happened)

Japan is so goth it shits bats. They need to hand out government subsidized Prozac to all their novelists. Cheer up emo kids. ^_^