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1. We had a snow day today! We've been getting a lot of snow this winter, especially for Arkansas. I was really surprised when I got out of bed this morning and looked out my window. The forecast didn't call for snow until tonight (Monday night), so it was very unexpected. I saw that it was already 7.30 and assumed school was canceled (my mother confirmed this when I went into the living room to find her napping in the recliner - she's been sick for the last couple days anyway).

2. I finished getting my iTunes library all cleaned up and sorted out today. Now everything is in one format (160 kbps mp3), and my purchased music is all squared away in one location. :)

3. I got a bit of writing done, and while it's not as much as I have been doing, I'm glad it was something.

4. Not sure if I mentioned this, but I got seasons one and two of Will & Grace on Saturday at Target for $24.99 in a combined package. I've been watching those today and it's nice to see the older episodes that don't get re-run as often.
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I'm going to try my best to start updating again, and daily happiness posts seem to be the best way to do that. And it's just plain positive thinking, which I advocate. :)

1. We finally got my enrollment deposit sent off to Hendrix. (I did an overnight visit a couple weeks ago and decided I do want to go there for sure.) It was $350 for the deposit, so my parents wanted me to be absolutely sure that I wanted to go there. I do, and as long as I get the Governor's Distinguished Scholarship like I hope I will, everything is on track for Hendrix. :D

2. I had a birthday last week, so that involved getting some good stuff. My parents bought me Stephen King's new book, Under the Dome, so that I would have something tangible to open. We did that and had cheesecake (I'm not a huge fan of normal cake) on the night before my birthday, because my birthday was on a Wednesday and Wednesdays are always hectic because of church. My Granny and aunt Sandy came over and had cheesecake with us, but my Memaw wasn't feeling well so I took her a piece on the night of my actual birthday.

My Granny gave me $100, as usual, and Sandy gave me $20. Memaw also gave me $20 when I took her her cheesecake. My parents are going to get me another gift besides the book, but I'm not sure what I want yet. :/

3. I've been enjoying the new (to me) iMac! I've written about 3000 words since I've gotten it, and this is good, because I had gotten out of the habit of writing regularly. I'm about to finish up the third (and final) draft of my first novel, so this boost of productivity is just what I needed. I've just been using TextEdit on the Mac, and I've found that it's an extremely capable writing tool. It's a lot nicer than WordPad without being too feature-rich.

I am not a Mac convert, though, nor am I a hardcore PC. I am now both a Mac AND a PC. I don't even know which commercial to be in favor of now. :p Thanks again to [personal profile] seishun  and her aunt for giving me the computer! :D

Ugh

Jan. 20th, 2010 03:40 pm
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I'm so behind lately. On everything. Laundry, homework, scholarship essays, internets, writing... >_< I have been writing a lot recently, though, which is a big reason why I haven't posted in a while. Just keep following Twitter, I promise I will always update that - the addiction is too strong. XD
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We didn't dissect all week. >_< Yesterday's reason: two students (out of a class of six) didn't yet have their lab safety forms signed by their parents. Today's reason: we had a pep rally, so the classes were on activity schedule (meaning that every period was shorter, so we didn't have time). But it's okay, because we took blood pressure and played with stethoscopes! :D

I had to catch up on three days' worth of tweets today. ^_^

I'm all over the place right now. I don't necessarily have a lot of pressing tasks that need done, I just can't really focus. I do have an essay contest that ends tomorrow, but I'll just do it at the last minute. I'm not really all that interested anyway.

In good news, I acquired some really awesome music recently!
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We got out all of the tools and cleaned them (they hadn't been used for a while), we'll be learning material tomorrow (so that his lessons match what we're doing if the principal checks), and we'll be dissecting Thursday. We did get the pigs out, though. Everything's ready to go when we start on Thursday, though! :D

Avoidance

Jan. 4th, 2010 07:07 pm
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I'm on a friend's MacBook while she watches The Secret Life of the American Teenager, because I do not care about the show at all.  XD I feel like a good meme, but don't have one to do. I'm caught up on tweets, so MLIA? Maybe that's a good distraction for now.
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No school today! It was going to be the first day back, so of course going back tomorrow will be even harder... But still, snow day! Yay.

I don't plan to get a whole lot done today. I was going to start my morning yoga routine today (I bought a DVD designed for yoga when you wake up). I set my alarm for six a.m. and I went back to sleep. ^_^ I'm just not a morning person at all. I'll be doing the a.m. yoga in the evening, like always. :)
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January

Recovered from my second wisdom teeth extraction surgery (the top wisdom teeth), which happened on 29 December of 2008. Massively enjoyed my new laptop. Went to Little Rock for Abbey's cardiology appointment (we thought she might have the same heart condition as me, but she only had a couple episodes and it stopped). Got hit in the parking lot at school, which caused ~$1200 worth of damage to my car (their insurance paid for all of it and more). Had a minor ice storm, which resulted in a day off school. Went to the annual Beta Club convention in Hot Springs, at which I ran for state president. I was so nervous, but it turned out to be one of the most awesome experiences of my life. I met some really great people and was hit with a huge high when all of the stress was over. :p Continued to watch Queer as Folk, which I started watching in November 2008.

February

Went to London (not England) to visit my aunt. Played frisbee golf for the first time while there. Did a massive de-junking of my closet. Turned seventeen. Completed my collection of Friends DVDs. Got the too-short-haircut from hell (not quite that bad, but it took a lot of getting used to). The insurance money from my wreck finally came (we weren't able to get an appointment with the body shop until March). Watched the series finale of Queer as Folk (so sad but so awesome).

March


Took the state-given Grade 11 Literacy Examination. Got to tour the new high school (which wasn't completed then). Bought Bob Dylan's two-disc essentials collection and fell in love with his music. Finished reading Are You There Vodka, It's Me Chelsea by Chelsea Handler. Went to Mi Casita on our Spanish assignment, where we had to order in Spanish and only speak Spanish to the waitstaff. Got a data plan for my BlackBerry. Got more involved with Twitter (I'd had an account for a while, but I really started using it in March).

April

Decorated for prom on the third and had prom on the fourth (I was class president, so I was pretty much in charge of prom). Changed my Twitter username to match my real name when it got tiresome spelling 'mikotokun' for my friends. Read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne for my AP English class. Took the free ACT that the state provides to juniors. Bought Baby Mama on DVD, which I had seen in theaters and decided was one of the funniest movies ever. Decided to go to UA Fort Smith.

May

Tried out yoga and really liked it. Lost my wallet, which required me to get a new driver's license and wallet (I didn't have any money in the old wallet). Started watching Grey's Anatomy. Decided to go to medical school (this decision was not completely related to GA). Renewed my library card. Dropped my BlackBerry and sorta broke it. Bought tickets for the U2 concert in October. Carried the American flag at the graduation of the class above me (because I'm my class's valedictorian; Tyler is salutatorian and carried the Arkansas flag). Got my BlackBerry fixed (it only cost $5 to replace the side piece that was broken). Took the CLEP test for College Algebra and passed it. Left on the 31st for Boys State at UCA.

June


The part of my life that I have blocked out, a.k.a. Boys State, happened. Almost had two panic attacks, but it became somewhat tolerable after a couple days. Worked at my church's annual vacation bible school. Bought the Star Wars prequel trilogy on DVD. Started my babysitting/nannying job. Had quite a storm on the last day of VBS, which resulted in some minor damages to my dad's storage building because of a fallen tree from the neighbors' yard. Started the summer tradition of Movie Monday with some close friends. Went down to Little Rock for my mom's boss's daughter's wedding (we stayed at my relative's house in London on the way home).

July


Went to Russellville for a visitation for the mother of a family friend. Caught up on Grey's Anatomy. Started watching Private Practice to hold me over until the new season of GA came on. Wrote quite a bit. Got my new BlackBerry (using my cousin's upgrade so I could get it a month early). :D My madre turned the big four-oh. We seniors took our cap-and-gown pictures (without the caps).

August


My sister got a cell phone, which prompted my parents to get a family unlimited text plan (I had previously had an unlimited AT&T-number-only text plan, with 200 messages for other carriers). This also prompted them to decide to get rid of our home phone...to which the internet was tied. D: My senior year of school started in the brand new high school. :) Caught up on Private Practice. Had my last day of babysitting/nannying. The internet was cut off on the 25th.

September

I didn't update LJ at all during this month, so I don't remember much. XD I know we continued with school, and that the sixth season of Grey's Anatomy premiered on the 24th. I also messed up my BlackBerry while trying to downgrade from a leaked OS. The AT&T rep at the store told me to call in a claim on my warranty without telling them the whole story. So I did, and got a brand new Bold in the mail in about a week. :)

October


Season three of Private Practice premiered. I got my BlackBerry data plan cancelled after I decided I didn't want to get a job... >_> My cousin Lee got married. Went to see U2's 360 tour in Norman, OK (the Black Eyed Peas opened the show). :D It was awesome. I upgraded to Windows 7, but downgraded to Vista pretty soon after. Decided that I might be interested in Hendrix College (my friend Beth goes there and encouraged me to apply). Took the ACT for the last time (I got a 32, which qualifies me for the Governor's Distinguished Scholarship).

November


Went to visit Hendrix College with my mom for their Pre-Med Day (we stayed with my relatives in London so we wouldn't have to get up as early to go because they live about 30 minutes away from Conway). I fell in love with Hendrix, and I had brought my application with me to turn in. Re-upgraded to Windows 7. Started catching a wi-fi signal off and on. Got internet back on the 25th. :D My parents celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary on the 25th, also. We went through our cable company, so the new connection is faster than our old DSL. Had Thanksgiving with both sides of the family, which is always awesome. Applied for some scholarships.

December

Put up the Christmas decorations for great yay! :D Discovered the joys of Starbucks's Peppermint Mocha (it's the only hot drink I've ever gotten there and I love it - I've gotten it everytime I've been there since then). I got accepted to Hendrix. :) Had the homework load of death (which I finished in time, thank God). Started crossposting to Dreamwidth. Got to skip school until fifth hour for the entire last week of school, since our college classes were over. Had the annual FCCLA Secret Santa during the last week of school. My computer shut itself off several times (it had done it ever since I installed Windows 7, but it was getting more frequent), so I restored my PC back to Vista. My aunt graduated with her bachelor's degree, which she had worked toward for about twenty-five years. My dog went through a weird sick stage for a few days that had us really worried about him, but he's fine now, thank God. Both he and I got sick the day of my aunt's graduation. >_< I was really sick for a couple days, and it lingered for about a week. Had our church's Christmas Eve service. Celebrated Christmas! :D :D :D Had a great time hanging out with friends over the break. Relaxed a lot and just enjoyed the time off and my gifts. Started writing again. Had a New Year's Eve party at Huston's house, which was really fun.

Well, I think that's pretty much it. Even though 2009 has been kinda wonky for the world as a whole, I have a lot of fond memories from it. I hope 2010 brings great things as I finish high school, move to college, and start a new part of my life.
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I haven't gotten a chance to update all week, so I'll just summarize everything in one post.

On Saturday, I went to Starbucks for coffee with a friend who is moving to Texas next month. (She was my neighbor for a long time until she moved out, and even before that, we were friends for our whole lives.) We had a nice time just hanging out and talking. Afterward, she went to dinner at Logan's (which is right next to Starbucks) with some friends of hers who came and saw us at Starbucks.

When she left to go to dinner, I went to the movies with my friends Beth and Jessica (I've known Beth pretty much my whole life and Jessica is someone I met through her), who are both freshmen at Hendrix this year. We saw Avatar, which was really awesome. It resonated really deeply with me, but I'm not sure why. It was such an emotional film. When the biologists start defending the Na'vi to the military, the movie got really good. From then on it was a big emotional ride and I loved it. All of the ethical and moral issues really made me think.(Highlight the above text to read it. May contain spoilers.) But anyway, it was a fun night and I got to hang out with some awesome people who I don't get to see very often.

We did not go to church on Sunday morning because we slept in... :) The last few days have been really lazy. On Monday, I did not do much. On Tuesday (yesterday), Kortney and I went to eat at Taco Bell and stopped at Starbucks for coffee. We were going to go see Nine, but it was supposed to start snowing during the film and our parents didn't want us out during the bad weather. We ended up renting Eurotrip, but we didn't watch it  - I had brought Brüno over on my flash drive and Kortney hadn't seen it so we watched that instead. :D

I slept in pretty late today (I woke up at 9.30, but I dozed in bed watching TV until after one o' clock...), but I wrote a couple hours ago to make up for it. :D I got over five-hundred words written and it felt really good to get it done. (Maybe it'll get me back in swing for the new year.) Even though I've been pretty lazy over the break, I've enjoyed the time off and I'm glad to have the time to enjoy my gifts and just relax.

Also, this is very amusing.

Christmas

Dec. 25th, 2009 09:35 pm
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I had a really nice, laid-back Christmas today.

Here's what I got:

From Mom and Dad:

- Awesome laptop case (which came with a mini corded mouse)
- Season three of Grey's Anatomy
- Season one of Private Practice
- The Peanuts holiday special DVD three-pack (Great Pumpkin, Thanksgiving, and Christmas)
- An electric shaver (I normally use a blade and cream)
- $25 iTunes gift card
- $15 iTunes gift card
- $15 Starbucks gift card
- $10 Sonic gift card
- Gift card for the automatic car wash 
- Pair of lounge pants
- Package of socks
- 8GB flash drive
- Candy stuffs in the stocking

My sister got me a CD of the live recording of Janis Joplin's Woodstock performance. I saw this as Best Buy a few weeks ago and fell in love and made her get it for me. :p

From Granny:
- Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for Nintendo DS
- Season four of Grey's Anatomy
- I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown (DVD)
- Peanuts 1970s Collection Vol. 1 (DVD)
- The Complete Peanuts: 1959-1960 and 1961-1962 (two comic strip hardcover anthologies in one box)
- U2 - The Best of 1990-2000
- Bob Dylan - Christmas in the Heart

My aunt Sandy gave me a bag of candy with a $20 bill inside. My uncle Brian gave me a $20 Wal-Mart gift card.

We did not do gifts at my Memaw's this year, but I got a pretty good haul otherwise. :D Now I'mma go watch some Peanuts and play some Lego Star Wars...

*bounces*

Dec. 24th, 2009 03:18 pm
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Guys, it is Christmas Eve. :D We have a church service tonight at six, and I may be making cookies with Kortney afterward. I'm really excited for Christmas but I have no idea what I got. This is the first year in a while that I haven't asked for a large/expensive gift (I made a wishlist of a lot of smaller things from which my parents could choose), so I'm kind of lost with aimless anticipation. XD

Website

Dec. 23rd, 2009 09:54 am
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I just canceled my domain for mikotokun.info, because mikotokun.com is available. I'd really like to keep up with my website better this time around, and update more often. I would also like to do more than lyrics (since I haven't done a whole lot of those as it is). I'm also thinking of not using GoDaddy and going with a regular web host this time. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Gah

Dec. 23rd, 2009 12:20 am
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Fuck LiveJournal and their new intrusive ads. Seriously. Before I even had the chance to log in, I was hit with an ad that I couldn't exit out of for X amount of seconds. >_<

Huh

Dec. 21st, 2009 12:50 pm
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So there's a chance that I slept on my PC last night...? I had it in bed with me (on a board/lap tray thing that is actually an unused shelf), and I pushed it to the corner of my bed so I could lay down. I shut it down and it said it was going to install updates, so I decided to lay back and wait on it. It had fifty-nine updates to install, so I sat staring at the screen...and fell asleep. When I woke up around four a.m. to my dad banging on my door (I accidentally left it locked and Cooper wanted out of my room), the laptop was still on my bed, but shut. I'm, uh, not sure if I kicked it shut in my sleep or if I shut it while I was half-asleep and just don't remember.

I hope the latter. I think I did, because my TV was off. If I had the presence of mind to turn off the TV, surely I would have shut the computer. I hope so. Anyhow, it's working fine (*knocks on wood*) and the screen wasn't damaged, so if I did kick it, it wasn't too hard. ;)

In other news, both Cooper and I are feeling much better. He's been running around playing and jumping up and down. I'm not great, but I'm okay. Still coughing and a bit stopped up, but decent. Abbey and I are going Christmas shopping tonight, so I'll take some ibuprofen before I go so I'll feel better (at least for a little while).
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...and it's only Sunday.

Yesterday was my aunt's graduation from John Brown University. She finally finished up her associate's degree at UA Fort Smith a couple years ago (she's like forty-eight-years-old now; it took her about twenty years to finish the two-year degree because of kids and work and stuff) and started an accelerated night class program through JBU's Fort Smith satellite campus to get her bachelor's degree. She finished the bachelor program in September, but since they don't do commencement until December, she had to wait until yesterday to graduate. She got a B.S. in Organizational Management. Her company paid her to finish her degree, and I think she's getting some sort of pay raise for having it now.

We had to be at the graduation by 10.00 am. It was in Siloam Springs (which is ~1.5 hours away from Fort Smith), so we stopped in Fort Smith to have breakfast at Hardee's. :D Unfortunately, we left the house at 6.45 (Mom woke me up at 6.00). >_< By the time we got home, it was about 3 o' clock and I was ready to just relax. But, of course, I had restored my PC on Friday night and it needed to be set up...

I think I mostly have everything settled now on the PC. I need to sort through the backup files again to make sure I copied over everything. I think it's good for now, though.

I went to bed last night with a minor headache and a slightly sore throat. I took two Tylenol and threw up not long after. >_< I went to bed feeling bad and woke up feeling worse. My throat was sore and my stomach was meh, but the headache was a little better.

Cooper, however, is not okay. When we got home yesterday, he greeted us as he always does; but when we tried to pick him up or pet him, he yelped. We thought he was sore or something, but he was also shivering and whimpering. We found out that covering him with the heating pad and a blanket made him stop shivering, but he hasn't acted like he feels well at all. He slept with the heating pad in bed next to me last night, and he seemed to be doing better. Around six, he woke up and wanted to get out of my room. I opened the door and he went into the living room and laid under the Christmas tree...and stayed there. I left him alone, but I worried about him.

Today he is doing much better. My sister gave him a Benadryl (after he had been lying under the Christmas tree with the heating pad), and when I went to go check the mail, he ran outside after me and jumped in my car. When we got back, he ran around outside and played before coming inside to lay down on the couch. He finally ate a little bit (he had drunk some water after taking his Benadryl, so that was a good sign) but he came back to my room and laid down again. When Mom and Abbey came home from church (Dad and I stayed home because Cooper and I were sick and Dad wasn't feeling awesome, either), he yelped when they tried to pet him again. After that, he was fine and let everyone gently pet him.

My theory is that he just feels really awful and doesn't want anyone touching him. I don't think he's injured in any way (rib, disc injury, etc.), because he was chasing squirrels when he was outside. I think the yelping was his way of saying he didn't want to be played with. If he keeps up feeling bad, we're going to take him to the vet tomorrow. This really worries me, but his playing outside made me feel better about it. We'll see how he feels overnight.

In other news, I bought Revolver (feat. Lil Wayne), the only track from Madonna's Celebration compilation that I didn't already have (I bought the title track when the single was released). Revolver is really awesome and catchy, although Lil Wayne kinda ruins it. XD Here's a link to download it if you'd like to give it a try. I love it. It doesn't quite beat Celebration, but it's a close second.

I also bought The Killers' 2009 Christmas song, ¡Happy Birthday Guadalupe! (feat. Wild Light & Mariachi El Bronx). It does not beat A Great Big Sled or Joseph, Better You Than Me, but it's better than Don't Shoot Me Santa. I really like these Christmas songs that they do, and it's for a good cause: the benefits from the purchases go to Product Red. If anyone really wants me to upload that, I will; but since it's such a good cause, I'm less willing to upload that one. It's only $1.29, which will benefit the fight against AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.
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Before I say anything else, just know this: I love Vista. I never had a problem with Vista (*knocks on wood*). I'm not saying it's perfect, but it worked extremely well for me.

I upgraded to Windows 7 the same week that it was released. I did not like it very well. Yes, it ran faster and did some neat things, but I missed the comforts of Vista. So I reinstalled Vista onto the machine with the included restore discs. After a couple weeks, while watching my uncle using Windows 7 on his laptop, I decided to reupgrade. XD I've had 7 on this machine ever since, and it's great...but not without problems.

The computer has randomly restarted itself several times since I've had 7 installed. Almost every time has been when I wake it up from sleep, but yesterday it happened spontaneously. I was just chugging along doing my normal thing. I had Firefox, iTunes, Photoshop, Word, Excel, and Adobe Reader open. It wasn't the load of programs I had open that triggered it, I don't think. I've had more than that open before. But it just randomly rebooted. Firefox did, thank God, save my tabs, and I didn't lose any work in any of the programs, but still. Annoying.

I'll give it a little longer, and if there is another random reboot, I'm going back to Vista. I never had these problems in Vista. I think it's just because this machine wasn't designed for 7, so while it technically is compatible, there's some little driver or something that's not quite right. Vista sounds really good right now because 7 is nice, but I need stable. I need to know that I'm not going to lose work because of a random reboot.

*sigh*
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I finished my art project today. I emailed in my sociology final yesterday. Tomorrow is the last day that I can skip until fifth hour, but Friday morning is the Secret Santa breakfast. :D (In order for my Secret Santa gifts to arrive for first hour this week, I've been giving them to Jessica in the parking lot when I take Abbey to school. I get out, run to her car, give it to her through the window, and go back home. We joke about it as being similar to a drug deal. XD) Lots of good fun.

On the downside, I have lots of stuff from Hendrix to fill out (scholarship stuff) and lots of stuff to do online (more scholarship stuff).

CHRISTMAS IS ONLY NINE DAYS AWAY!!!!! Holy crap, I'm so excited. *bounces*

Also, does anyone know of a program like Semagic that works with Dreamwidth?

LJ vs. DW

Dec. 15th, 2009 06:59 pm
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Ever since I found out about LJ's recent expression of blatant sexism today, I've been considering moving over to Dreamwidth. I'm not sure about this, but I'm going to give it some more thought. It's on the table. I would still crosspost to LJ no matter what, I just haven't decided for sure.

Hmm...

Jun. 27th, 2009 11:15 am
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So I apparently missed the deadline to sign up for [community profile] greys_exchange. I didn't actually find the community until it was already past time to sign up. This doesn't deter me from wanting to write Grey's Anatomy fic, though. I may write something soon (at least a drabble).
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I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do with this Dreamwidth journal! XD I've been at LiveJournal since January 2006, and I've gotten pretty comfortable there. All of my online friends are there and there's really no pressing urgency to move to Dreamwidth. Then there's the possibility of crossposting, but the only friend I have here is [personal profile] kanata, who also has me friended on LJ.  

So I've come up with the idea of posting to Dreamwidth things that I would like to be available to the public, such as fanfic, icons, lyric notifications for my website (Mikotokun's Jpop Lyrics), etc. This is a good alternative, I think, because my LJ is friends-only and I've been looking for a way to have a public journal for my website.

So that's the plan! :)