Have you read 6 out of 100?

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A looong time ago (August last year -_-) I was quite fascinated with a list in a blog post by Verena, that was about 100 books – supposedly published by the BBC. You can find that list anywhere … sombody copied it from a site, that copied the list from another site, that copied the list from another site, that copied the list from another site, that…I think you get it. And all claimed that the BBC had claimed the average adult hasn’t read more than 6 out of this 100 books.

I was taken aback by the fact, that some of the books actually consist of several books like the Harry Potter series or *holy shit, Batman* the complete works of Shakespeare. Additionally out of those series selected books were named again, e.g. Hamlet by Shakespeare or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by Lewis. So I did a little bit of research and found out that this list was published by The Guardian. I wasn’t able to find proof about the „6 out of 10“ claim and wonder who made that up…and why? *lol*

In the end I really found a BBC Top 100 list back from 2003 – and as I want to be special and niggling (and there are more books on that list I’ve actually read *cough*) I’ll go with that one. As it isn’t a „books you should’ve read“- but a „what people (at least in the UK)  love to read“-list I wonder what this blog post will reveal about me…but let’s go:

bold – read and finished
italic – read but unfinished
+ – love that book/series
– – didn’t like that book/series

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien (+)
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (-)
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (+)
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling (+)
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne (+)
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling (+)
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling (+)
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling (+)
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer (-)
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding (+)
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy (-)
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist (+)
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel (+)
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett (+)
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie

So that makes 16 finished and 7 unfinished out of 100…not very good, I think. Maybe I shoud have stuck to that other list xD

picture: photocase.com

Alles Liebe,



Day 100 in Japan: New term & Disney mobile

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Yesterday was my 100th day in Japan and start of the Yamasa winter term. Compared to the first day of the last semester everything was totally different. I was the new one, not able to say a simple sentence…vocabulary quiz? – What’s that?
I felt lost and lonely, at least a bit.

Yesterday I came to school and checked the lists for my name: Again F class (but one level up) and again Asada-sensei as home room teacher – nice. Together with Seki-san, Bera-san and Goiki-san – perfect. New classmates…one of them Olaf (I know from our trip to a Japanese garden in November and he lives close-by in one of the „villas“) – what a pleasent suprise. All in all I started with a good mood and very realxed into the new term.
Sure, some of the old classmates aren’t in the same class, again…but you see them in school or meet them at the supermarkt and smile at each other or shout a „ohaiyou gozaimasu“ from afar…I feel at home!

So waht to do, if you feel at home…and Sarah finally turned 20 and is now an adult over here? Go shopping, of course – and a very special shopping trip it was. Look what I’ve got here :3

Hm, what could it be? A very nice bag, indeed. But what about all that Mickey Mouse decoration???

Have a peek inside: A Minnie Mouse file folder (filled with disney stickers), a piece of paper and a mysterious black box.

What a nice box xD

And so the secret isn’t a secret anymore. It’s my new Disney mobile cell phone *evil laughter*

Let’s be honest. – some of you would kill for only the bag or the box!

As you can see it’s a golden DM004SH, which means it’s a Sharp.

And here it is :3

there a different options for the external display, but I prefer a simple clock. When I receive for example a message by Anna it starts to blink in red and green and shows Anna’s name on the display.

Here’s the camera with 3.2 MP (enough for me, as I’ve got my normal beloved digital camera)

And of course a little Mickey head on the battery cover.

Let’s come to the main menu. To be honest I don’t know so far what is possible, I’ve only tried some of the features. I can only tell you that Mickey comes walking onto the screen and does a lot of different things all the time xD

Everything’s in Disney design.

My favourite feature so far is the TV. You just press a button (accidentally like I did yesterday) and you have 10 channels to choose from. The first thing I ever watched on my cell was „Alf“ in Japanese *hahaha*

Here you can see one of those ridiculous and kitschy samurai daily soaps *lol* I love to say this: Yes, Japan is everything you imagine it to be!

Another cool feature is the don’t peek-functionality. I can choose from different patterns, colors and animations. Everybody who trys to take a look at the display from a weird angle only sees…rainbow colored diamonds…

…or purple mickey heads :3

Yeah, I love my new cell phone (keitai denwa or short keitai) and being here in Japan. Who wants to come, too?

Alles Liebe,



weekly retrospect 01

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Actually over a week of the new year has passed and I feel like I want to keep track of things again more frequently.

In my universe I’m the sun

I started into the new year without any resolutions…hm, that’s kind of not true, but I didn’t write them down. Like last year. And we all know 2009 was a very good year for me. For the first few months lots of stress and depression BUT in the end all the problems were solved :3
I keep getting stronger and that feels very good, refreshing, energizing. Not every day is pure sunshine, but in certain situations I realize I’ve already changed a lot – in a good way, at least for me, myself and I. And that’s what I’m focused on the most. It might sound arrogant or self-centered, but those past few years I only cared for others and their problems, while I got more and more exhausted. Now it’s my turn to care for myself.

Believe it or not, I have lost 5 kg of weight. While it seemed impossible to even slim down just a little bit in Germany it’s not impossible at all here in Japan. Due to a lot of food I don’t like, lots of healthy food I do like, biking around the city and – let’s even call it discipline – it just happened ^^

The worst thing for the last weeks has been the fact I’m not able to sleep at night, but fall asleep around 4 to 6 a.m. That really sucks! I hope to come back to a better rythm with the start of the new semester tomorrow.

Activities or What’s going on in Okazaki?

I’ve done and seen a million things since I last posted…to just name a few: I went shopping in Nagoya, had the best time of my life in Tokyo, enjoyed a Japanese New Year’s Eve with my friends, saw the kinkakuji in Kyoto and got some really nice water blisters while walking trough Kobe. Of course all of this deserves at least one blog entry each, so no spoilers now!

Entertain me

I started watching Gossip Girl and have to admit I enjoy it more than I had expected. I’m halfway through with season one and can only recommend it to all the girls (and guys who read inTouch in secret ;p) that love gossip and drama like I do.
I ended up watching Avatar in Nagoya IMAX in 3D – and loved it. The story is nothing new, but a classic. Sam Worthington is ranking high on my current adorable guys-list (actually place 3, I would say xD) and in 3D or not, the complete movie is eye-candy!

Music-wise Michael Bublé is my No.1 this week with his awesome song „Cry Me A River„, closely followed by Ne-Yo with „Closer“ and „Miss Independent„.

I finished reading New Moon after weeks and can only say it was kind of totally boring for me. Can’t tell why. Perhaps I already knew Edward would love Bella forever or perhaps because of his absence. Anyway I’m going to order the third book. If only to be able to say „Of course I’ve read all of the Twilight-Saga“ or to give the series another try (in other words to get my daily dosis of Edward and Jacob, but psst!), who knows.
I started to read the last German novel lying around here, which is Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky. I got sucked into the damp atmosphere pretty fast and see good chances to finish this one fast.
For future entertainment I ordered the first two books of Sarah Graves Home Repair is Homicide-series basically because the story takes place in Eastport, Maine. But more about that later :3

My way to the Pulitzer or What’s going on in Eastport?

Some of you know me long enough to know my biggest dream since I can read and write has been to become a writer. I’m far away from publishing a book but I give all I got to entertain you with some more or less good fanfiction. About five years ago, when I was still working as a programmer, I started to write the so called Cinderella-story. I published the first pages online ages ago but eventually removed them. The story slumbered on my harddrive and in my head for quite some time, and suddenly – when I actually decided to start another one – it came back to my mind and since then I’m back to writing and with the support of Anna it grew from a fragment with 24 pages to the first part of a novel-like tale with 137 pages.

To be honest most of the time all my thoughts are there, in Eastport, Maine, where the story takes place. I chose that little city by letting my finger circle above a map of Maine and then – picked it…just like that. I never thought it would grow on me that much! I read about it, stare at pictures, exploit wikipedia, take virtual walks with google earth… Damn, I would like to see it in reality once in my life. It’s just the perfect place on earth for the story I write. Or to live *sigh*

So be prepared for a lot more talk about Eastport and the drama that takes place there :3

OpenOffice suggestions whenever I write the word „Cinderella“? – „Barbarella“ and „Mozzarella“ xDD

Alles Liebe,



Day 21 + 22 in Japan: Karaoke Weekend

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Karaoke must be one of the best things in life after chocolate and sex, I guess. I could not await to try it out, so we gathered some people and went to a Karaoke bar called „Cote d’azur“ next to Seiyu. All in all it looks like a big brothel with all the windows barricaded and neon signs everywhere. The guy behind the counter emphasized that image and I didn’t feel too well when I signed up for a members card, but that’s just the way Karaoke is. We paid 1700 Yen per person for a time and softdrink flatrate which wasn’t expensive in my eyes, but it seems to bee a lot cheaper before 6 p.m. on weekdays.

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We had two microphones, two telephone book sized index books with like every song that was ever written and a computer/remote control thingie to add songs to the karaoke machine.

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As it is supposed to be, we were all more or less awful singers and had sooo much fun…I cannot put it into words. Just try to sing/rap Black Eyed Peas‘ songs yourself XD Well, William is MC William from now on, because he rocked it!

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Dan is awesome with Disney songs, and I just can’t hide the comments from you the following picture’s got on facebook XD

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Sarah: xD xD xD

William: Dan’s on fire

Dan: Now if only I could shoot lasers out of my eyes :(

Sarah: thanks to my ultra modern camera u’re eyes are red xD sorryyy, i just HAD to upload this ^^

Mina: So you are Superman but didn’t tell us? XD

Dan: Since when can superman shoot lasers out his eyes!?!? I must be Cyclops from XMen.

Sarah: o.O i thought u only watch disney movies??? hontou ni kowaaaaiiiiiii

Mina: I just imagine Cyclops singing „Be our guest…“

Dan: If Wolverine sang a song about playing with animals at the bottom of the ocean, I’m sure I would sing it too.

Mina: Oh, don’t say stuff like that…I imagine all this, you know!? XD

Dan: We were thinking the exact same thing, LOL.

And last but not least a picture of me singing enthusiastically and with an angel’s voice…of course!

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With this entry my daily reports end after three weeks without sleep because I stayed up every night to write the entries for my blog XD

Daily life takes over and there isn’t something to tell every day…well, perhaps there is, but I can’t keep this up. Still there’s much to come, but on a less regular basis. Please keep visiting my blog!

Alles Liebe,



Day 20 in Japan: Lazy Friday

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On Friday our ways started to part ^^ Sarah’s class is pretty cool and so the teacher organized a dodgeball game for after school. So Anna and I had to entertain ourselves and decided to check out the next department store: „Feel News“. It more or less consists of only a supermarket and a cheap clothes store, but in the basement there’s a small Serie 100 Yen store and a kid’s corner. I just had to take some pictures for you XD Do you know this guy? It’s Anpanman!

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He’s so big, you can actually sit inside (well, at least when you’re a kid).

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There are like gaming machines everywhere, but of course they are super cute!

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Ans most of you may know gashapon. There’s not only one automat here and there, but there are walls of them. Ther’s nothing you cannot find as a gashapon toy. Anime characters, catpaws that purr if you press them, and squeezable cookies.

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They day turned out a little bit boring. Sarah was hanging out with here class in the vening, too, so we two leftover girls rode our bikes to Aeon and strolled around. When we felt hungry we bought some (can’t read the kanji)-yaki. It’s like a fish-shaped pancake with different fillings. This one was a savory variation filled with ham, salad, mayonnaise and ginger. Of course I received a stampcard (you can guess, with little fish-stamps)…my wallet ist full of them >_<°

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With a whole week of sleep-shortage I was half-dead and finally took a very hot bath and went to bad. You see, japan – besides the fact it’s JAPAN – isn’t exciting every day XD

Alles Liebe,



Day 19 in Japan: Mr. Craftman & Bavarian Imports

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As times goes on daily life hits me and the tome to blog gets less. Of course afterwards I forget what happened and I can’t tell you as much about day19 as I had planned but I will do my very best. The story about that day starts in the evening…whith someone ringing the bell at my door. It’s not that I had any visitors in my apartment before (besides Anna and Sarah of course) so I was a little bit suprised. It was my neighbour to the left: Matthew from the UK!

The reason for his visit wasn’t a pleasent one – I was too loud the night before…well, embarrassing. But do you know what? It happened that we had a pretty good talk about…Japan…for about almost an hour XD That was pretty fun! He told me about import/healthy food shops near school and at the Aeon Mall…and as luck would have it, we planned to go there. It’s not like we wanted to go shopping again…one heel of my pumps was broken. If that is not a good reason to go there XD

Of course I checked out the import shop and we were in „in case of homesickness“-paradise: Ritter Sport, Haribo, Milka, Röstzwiebeln und Stanglmeier Weißwürste XDD

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We weren’t able too find the shoe repair, so I had another chance to use my new Japanese skills and ask politley for the way at the information. Afterwards we easily found „Mr. Craftman“ XD

I swear I brought the biggest shoes for a woman he had ever seen (those would be something like queen queen queen size in Japan^^) but he understood what I wanted (and that is more than I can say about some other occasions here).

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All three of us LittleRedRidingHood-Gang-members love cute stuff, but Sarah is especially fond of frogs, and Japan is like a frog pool!

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Over and out for today XD

Alles Liebe,