(Mon exercice en écrivant en français.)
(My practice in writing in French.)

Corrigez mon écrivant si vous le faites, s’il vous plaît. Merci !

Bien. Pour rester en bonne santé, j’essaye bien manger. Je cuisine beaucoup de chez moi et je cuisine beaucoup de légumes et des riz. Je bois du jus et pas de soda. Malheureusement je fume. Je sais ce que mal pour la santé, mais c’est très difficile de m’arrête. Quelquefois je fais l’exercice mais, pas d’assez souvent. J’ai de la chance que j’ai de bon gène, je suis mince est jolie !

There’s no denying it, Japanese culture is fascinating. From capsule hotels, to the Geisha, to Kaiten-zushi, the Japanese culture is a rich mélange of modern, cyber punk life against a backdrop of traditional and highly ritualized customs and rigid social hierarchy.

One thing in particular that always brings Japan to the forefront of modern pop-culture is Japanese street fashion. This small island nation certainly has a loud cultural voice, and paving the way for young women around the world to express themselves with copious amount of clothes, makeup and accessories, no voice is louder than the Japanese Schoolgirl!

Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno: Tokyo Teen Fashion Subculture Handbook , by Patrick Macias and Izumi Evers, chronicles the ever-evolving Japanese teen and their avant-garde and often outrageous fashions. Centering around the trendy districts of Shibuya and Harajuku, JSI begins it’s journey in a Shibuya nightclub in 2006, backtracking to the early 70’s and winds its way up to the present day. From the tough-as-nails Sukeban with their cached razor blades and pompadoured boyfriends, to the flamboyant Ganguro and their bleached blonde coifs and high-contrast, over-the-top makeup and bronzed skin, JSI is a glimpse into the creative and freakish world of the Gyaru or “Gal”.

One of the things I love most about JSI are the fabulous full-color illustrations and photos. The artist, Kazumi Nonaka really brings these Gals to life in a way that’s at once realistic and patently manga-esque. JSI reads like a handbook, or guide detailing the three main categories of Gals: Bad Gals, Sexy Gals and Arty Gals. Each chapter profiles the history of each movement along with its, styles, habits and customs. It even tells you the “Must Have” items of each subculture and includes makeup tips.

My biggest gripe about this book is it’s cheapy binding. I’d suggest just purchasing a new copy. At $16.95, you’ll want to ensure that you’re getting one with a well intact binding.

Whether you’re looking for ways to spruce up your ho-hum dress, love learning about Japanese pop-culture, an inspiring fashion designer yourself, or just love to read fun and colorful books, check out Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno. Its a fantabulous little book that’s at the very least good for some giggles.

I know that Chuck E. Cheese is the place “Where a Kid can be a Kid!” but every time I see a commercial for this place, I think “kid’s casino”.

When I was little, Chuck E. Cheese wore a red derby, a vest and a bow tie. Now he wears a bike helmet, knee and shoulder pads, and rides around on a skateboard to appeal to the modern market. When you went to Chuck E. Cheese back in the day, you played Whack-A-Mole, arcade games, jumped around in a pit of plastic balls, and ate pizza while watching giant, animatronic animals in clothes, sing songs and play jug band music. Fun times. -__-

Now kids gamble away tokens, for tickets, for cheap crap. How does this all work? Well basically, the parents buy the tokens. The kids insert the tokens into exciting “games of chance.” If they beat the odds and “hit”, they’ll be rewarded with tickets. They then carry their giant, plastic cup full of tickets over to a little ticket redeming shop. There they can choose junk to take home based on the amount of tickets they are redeming. For example, 25 tokens may get you a whaky-wall-walker; 150 might get you a dazzling, metal band digital watch. Snazy.

The point is, is that kids love it, the same way adults love gambling in casinos. It’s set up pretty much the same way: Chuck E. Cheese is a noisy, busy environment filled with neon lights flashing, bells and whistles chiming, plenty of food and drink, and games of chance to loose money on… Oh, and of course the obligatory stained, wall-to-wall carpet. It’s exciting, dangerous and provactive. What more could a child or adult want in a money loosing pit?

Now, I’m not trying to say that starting kids off early with gambling is a bad thing. It’s simply something worth observing.

I recently discovered a neat little “edutainment” game for studying French or Spanish on the Nintendo DS. “My French Coach” and “My Spanish Coach” by Ubisoft. I got the French version, so I’ll talk about that one here, however, I’m sure the Spanish version is pretty similar. There’s also a version for working on your English called “My Word Coach”.

Pros:

- $20.00 bucks! new and about $10.00 used. If you already own a Nintendo DS, this is a great price tag. It seems its not readily available in brick-and-mortar stores, but can be easily ordered online. I just got a copy from amazon.com within a few days.

- Fun and Addictive. Its an “edutainment” game, so there’s plenty of interactive little games to keep you engaged and interested. In fact, it can be quite addictive. I find myself often having the “Okay, just one more lesson” experience.

- Chock full of vocab. There are 10,000 words and 700 phrases. O_O Quite an impressive list of vocabulary to keep you busy.

- Fully recorded. Each vocab word and phrase is fully and clearly voiced by a pleasant native speaker so you never have to worry how something is supposed to be pronounced.

- Awesome voice recognition feature!! This little feature is almost worth the price alone. Because the DS has a built in mic, you can play the French word, record yourself saying it and play the pre-recorded voice and your own recording at the same time to see how “off” or “on” you are. A truly invaluable feature. Especially for French which is notoriously difficult to pronounce for many.

- User friendly and easy to navigate. Very easy little program to use. I haven’t needed to refer to the manual once.

- Graded lessons. It has 1,000 lessons. The game keeps track of your progress with the words you’ve “mastered”
along with charts and graphs.

- Great reference. Every English and French vocab word and phrase used is listed along with a handy search feature. There’s even a “sketch pad” for jotting down notes with the stylus.

- Touch screen interface. The DS has two full color screens, one output screen on top and a touch pad/output
screen on the bottom. The game uses its DS capacity quite well.

- Portability. The DS is highly portable, light-weight and easy to carry and store. Perfect for studying on-the-
go!

Cons:

- What? No articles with the nouns? For some reason, the makers of the game decided to omit the appropriate masculine, feminine and plural articles that are supposed to accompany the French nouns (of course they’re included in the phrases in the game, just not the single vocab words). The Spanish version is probably the same way. This annoys me. As a native English speaker, I’m often baffled by why the table is feminine, for example, but its just something that I’ve learned to accept. We all know how important it is to learn the article with the noun, why are they not stressing the importance of this with this game? Eh, whatever. >_>

- You’ve got to have a DS. If you don’t already own a Nintendo DS, you’ll have to pony-up about $130.00 for one. This game may not be worth it to you. However, if you do decide to get a DS, I can say that’s its a great little game machine for adults and kids alike. With games like “Brainage”,”Sudoku”, “Phoenix Wright” and “Professor Layton”, there’s plenty of awesome grown-up, edutainment type games to choose from.

- Random glitchiness. There’s the occasional little glitch. Nothing too serious. Certainly not enough to make me flush the game down the toilet in frustration.

- Not as much grammar explanation as I’d like. Its very vocab heavy with some grammar sprinkled through-out. I actually like learning about French grammar, so I would like more, but its not a deal breaker.

Bottom Line:

If you study French or Spanish and have a DS, just get this game. Its fun, inexpensive, well made and has a ton of vocabulary and some useful grammar. I’m quite impressed with Ubisoft’s thoughtfulness when creating this game. Its not perfect, but well worth the price and I don’t think you’ll be sorry. And if you do decide to get a Nintendo DS, you’ll love it. Its a great little machine with lots of wonderful games. And hey, if you hate My French/Spanish Coach, you can just re-sell it on amazon or ebay. Or re-gift it.