Memory Loss

Too much red wine = memory lapses. I don't remember passing out on the couch or being dragged/carried to bed at all. It always creeps me out when stuff like this happens.

ALSO! Josh drew a diary strip yesterday featuring . . . me! My Caffeinated Toothpaste debut turned out to be a stinky (but awesome!) one. Check out the comic here! It certainly helped laugh off my hangover this morning. :D

「昨日の服」

Famous

Some more fooling around with ink wash.

「有名人」

Da. Nyet. Da.

Josh of Caffeinated Toothpaste helped me make my first Bonsai strip in ink and I had an awesome time doing it! Huzzah! Merci Josh!

「ダー、ニェット、ダー」

Merde Cont'd

Another reason why AF sucks and my mom rocks. This happened a few years back...

Asians always want cash.

Merde

I hate Air France. I hate Air France. I hate Air France. Did I mention I hate Air France? I hate Air France.

So Wunderbar

Cavewoman

All Japanese cell phones, no matter how shitty they are, come with their own email addresses, and a lot of Japanese people use their cell phone email as their main email address. (SMS is virtually useless in Japan.) It was super-convenient but I mostly ended up hating it because my work would email me 24/7 and expect me to write back instantaneously because I couldn't use the old "I was away from my computer all day" excuse. And no one (no one!) leaves their cell phone at home. I hated being superconnected all the time and I'm so happy to be in a country where it's pretty normal to have a shitty pay-as-you-go Nokia that can text and call for 9 cents a minute.

Commitment 2

cont'd from yesterday.

Commitment

To be continued.

Romantic

Romantic schromantic.

In other news, my mom bought me these awesome critters yesterday. She sure knows me well . . .

Medium

Hey Harold

These are the first badgers I've ever drawn. I had to Google them because I wasn't really sure what they looked like. Really quite cute, actually.

But of course, we all know that badgers are badasses.

Freaking amazing.

Handy Hijab

Whoop, just made it in time to still call it a post for Wednesday.

Egglham

I love all things post-related . . . stamps, postcards, addresses, whatever. I once had a friend who lived on Tinkerbell Street or Avenue somewhere in the states.

FYI, Egglham is near the Austrian border, somewhere between Regensburg and Salzburg.

Pea-Tapir

I'll draw a proper Bonsai later, but just some doodles I doodled late last night. Inspired by the little felt tapir that I saw at the market for 20 euros. 20 euros!

My face turned out really orange. Oops. I was on the phone with G and said "Crap! I painted my face all orange!" and he thought I was talking about my face face. 

This reminds me of the awesome commercial I saw in Canada about house hippos. Maybe I can find it...

And I did! Cutest public service announcement ever.

 

Dining with an Asian Mother

I'm working on a silly little booklet called An Idiot's Guide to Dining with an Asian Mother. This was originally to be the assignment for another art college I was applying to, but since I accepted elsewhere, I'm working on slowly finishing it up for myself. Here's a sneak peek at the cover and a page from the booklet. It looks pretty bare now, but I'm thinking of being brave and using some colour (for once!).

Of course, G and Mama are my models.

Boo yah!

This is a little late, but G passed his law Staatsexam (with flying colours!) on Thursday. His parents and brother came to Berlin, and we had a weekend-long family celebration of food and booze and more food.

Congrats, G!

Fuzzy

Slightly disappointing.

Virgin

Laughgasm

I just came back from meeting Josh, the author of Caffeinated Toothpaste,  and artist Johan at the wonderful Cheese Mountain Tragedy studio. They were both incredibly welcoming and accommodating despite my totally out-of-the-blue email. I had stumbled upon Josh's diary-style webcomic Caffeinated Toothpaste by chance a few months ago and I've been a fan ever since. I had a really awesome time talking to Josh about his favourite artists, his new book, and his experiences as an artist working up to this point. He even gave me his first book, which I read on the U-bahn on the way home...

Thanks again Josh and Johan, and see you again soon!

Eh

I spent about three years in Toronto for university, during which time I picked up the infamous Canadian "eh." I tend to forget how recognizable that habit is when I'm in Europe---most people think I'm just American because of my generic (well, whatever generic is) North American accent. But it was a dead give-away to the American girl that I was talking to the other day that I'd spent at least some time in Canada. It's really hard to hide it when you use "eh" like, 15 times in a matter of 3 minutes, eh.

The funny thing is, because I use "eh" so much, it's rubbed off on G as well. And G's British-pan-European English combined with the Canadian-eh-rubbed-off-from-Japanese-girlfriend makes for a pretty exotic combo.

Anyway, G and I are planning a trip to Toronto and NY in the summer, and I can't wait to go back to the land of Eh.

Complete and Utter Confusion

More thoughts on international relationships.

Thanks to K for her story!
Earlier international-couple-anecdotes are here: Case 1 and Case 2.

Schwanzvergleich

Refer to Pigs in Maputo: Reasons for Blogging and Not Blogging.

One Year

3.11. First anniversary of the disaster.

I wanted to draw something more relevant . . . but in the end, I didn't. It just ended up being another silly update as usual...but I hope it at least brings a smile to someone's face.

Here's hoping for a brighter future.

Harro

Dedicated to B and Z, my non-Asian Asian friends.

Portable Washlet

The Urge

I always write on my hand. That way I don't forget to draw the comic later . . .

99.9% Japanese

Bonus Bonsai!

Scheiße

Not-So-Special

In other (special!) news, I got into the art school that I've been wanting to get into for the past year! Huzzah! Well, not officially in because I still need an internship and whatnot, but the biggest hurdle is out of the way.

Woot! Par-tay!

Linguistic Revelation

Accidents

So many of the best things in life have been accidents, including learning French. It was really convenient because we just happened to move to France a few years later. R also ended up spending quite a while in South America, so it all worked out well.

Public Transport Malfunction

Continuation of The Hand Trick. The same weird format again. I'm bad at predicting how much space my comics will take, and too lazy to redraw everything or edit it later. So yes.