BPAL, etc.

[owlectomy]

Sudha Segara:
Light and honeyed in the bottle. Hits with a strong note of ginger as soon as it's applied. So much so that it's very bitter on me, and not necessarily pleasant.

Oh, wow, this does not work on my skin even one bit. It's just sour and bitter and very heavy, and I think even a little headache-inducing.

Dry, it's softer, and less offensive, but I still can't see myself wearing it.

NaNoWriMo:

I've been spending a little time making out bits of a children's history of Japan I have, about the beginnings of the Kamakura shogunate...

Digression: I'm woefully ignorant about Japanese history. I had scheduling issues and ended up with only four courses besides language classes to meet my minor: Japanese culture, Korean culture, film, and feminism and pop culture. My mental conception of Japanese history goes, prehistory, Onmyouji, Genji, samurai, Meiji restoration--and then it fills in somewhat. My Japanese culture prof was good, especially on the Meiji restoration, but he was more interested in historiography than in history, and used words like 'totalizing' and 'problematic.' And then I went to Japan I tried to take premodern Japanese history, but the textbook was all in kanbun, and I had to drop out or fail out. Kanbun is hard, man.

Anyway, I've been able to fill in a lot of my setting with the info from やさしい日本の歴史　(gentle/easy history of Japan) on the Kamakura era. Working out the government a little more has certain implications for my characters, which is a nice thing--of course it only makes things harder for them...

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I used a kids' book too, though reading Heike before I went to Japan filled in the early Kamikura shogunate just fine. Latwer Kamakura and Muromachi is where I go badly adrift. But I can fake much of Japanese history thanks to an indispensible little book put out by Nihon Koutsuu Kaisha called Who's Who of Japan.

A *textbook* in kanbun? I didn't realize that kanbun had any practical applications except for torturing high school kids the occasional monument text.

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

I think that it was an "authentic historical documents" kind of textbook. Which doesn't justify the torture at all...