Promiseland

[Fetian]

Alright, submitted my essay. I'm positive the professor will have corrections for me, but she's so far been very generous with points, giving me full marks even if I have a few errors. Of course, I have once again attempted to be Clever with it, so we'll see if that bites me

For the curious, my essay:

私の好きなレストラン

私の好きなレストランがリヨンズでした。リヨンズはありません、でもありました。子供の時は私と母がよく行きました。りょうりはアメリカりょうり。おいしくて、やすかったです。たいていクラブサンドイッチが食べました。リヨンズのアイスクリームが大好きでした。シズラーの前でした、マディソンにありました。オーバーンとマディソンでバスを降りて、まっすぐ二十分ぐらいです。でも、あそこに行ってはいけません、リヨンズがありませんでしたから。

Here is what I tried to write:

My Favourite Restaurant

My favourite restaurant was Lyon's. Lyon's doesn't exist, but it existed. When I was a child, my mom and I would often go there. The food is American food. It was delicious and cheap. I would usually eat a club sandwich. I loved Lyon's ice cream. It was across from Sizzlers, on Madison. At Auburn and Madison, get off the bus, walk for about twenty minutes. But, don't go there, because Lyon's doesn't exist.

(It's a different but functionally identical restaurant now so actually sure go there if you want, but you know, for the sake of the essay.)

Definitely some stuff I'm not sure I did right, but various automated translation tools have at least got the gist of what I was trying to say, so I can't be super far off.

Going to take the chapter test tomorrow, for the rest of the night I'm going to chill. I've got a headache trying to exist, but I took some advil and I'm wearing my special glasses so hopefully that stops before too long.

[Fetian]

8.5 out of 10, I'll take it. Most of the corrections are things I wasn't sure of how to put, one is a dumb ADHD mistake

Here's what she corrected it to:

私の好きなレストラン

私の好きなレストランがリヨンズでした。今はリヨンズはありません。でも、まえはありました。子供の時は私と母がよく行きました。りょうりはアメリカりょうりでした。おいしくて、やすかったです。たいていクラブサンドイッチが食べました。リヨンズのアイスクリームも大好きでした。シズラーの前でした、マディソンにありました。アーバーンとマディソンでバスを降りて、まっすぐ二十分ぐらいです。でも、あそこに行ってはいけません、リヨンズがもうあそこにありませんでしたから。

[Fetian]

I do think a little bit of this is correcting against stylistic choices, but I'm not at a point where I should be making stylistic choices over sounding as natural as possible anyway, so it's still a valid correction

[Fetian]

I'm glad 子供の時は私と母が… and おいしくてやすかったです both passed muster, I was worried the former would mean 'when my mother and I were children' which doesn't make sense, and we haven't officially learned how to put i-adjectives into te-forms yet, so I wasn't positive I was doing it right. I also think I got the formality stuff right? Mostly just threw myself off with trying to do something in the past tense (with a present-tense frame).

[Fetian]

("kodomo no toki wa watashi to haha ga...", "child's time (<-topic) I and mother (<-subject)..."; "oishikute yasukatta desu", "delicious and(te) cheap was it")

[Fetian]

Oh speaking of subjects and topics, I also think I handled that well enough?

[Fetian]

Man, my phone case is falling apart

[Fetian]

Let's start using 'figuratively' as an intensifier

[Fetian]

30/34 on the test, and this time the right answers are hidden so I have no idea what I got wrong

[Fetian]

ash and I went to the drive-in to watch Beetlejuice Beetlejuice! It was fun, but I'm gonna complain about it:

Here are a list of plots in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) (spoilers!)

-Lydia Deetz wants to repair her broken relationship with her daughter, Astrid
-Lydia Deetz's manager, Rory, scams Lydia into getting engaged to him
-Astrid falls in love with a ghost boy who tricks her into giving him her life
-Obviously Lydia has to try to save Astrid, in the process promising Beetlejuice that she'll marry him
-Beetlejuice's ex-wife, Delores, is looking for him because she wants to suck out his soul
-Wolf Jackson is a detective looking for all of Beetlejuice, Delores, Astrid, and Lydia, each for different reasons
-Delia Deetz dies and goes looking for Charles Deetz (also dead as of the beginning of the movie) in the afterlife, to get his help to stop being dead
-Beetlejuice wants to marry Lydia, for one of: "he's obsessed with her and genuinely wants to marry her", "marrying her will let him escape the afterlife somehow", "marrying her will stop his ex-wife from coming after him for some reason"

These are resolved by (spoilers!!)
-When Astrid's ghost boy tries to get his passport stamped to make the life-exchange permanent, Beetlejuice opens a trap-door beneath him that drops him into (presumably) Hell, he is never seen or heard from again
-After a song and dance number at the wedding (first between Lydia and Rory, then Lydia and Beetlejuice), Astrid summons a sand worm which eats Delores and Rory, then leaves
-Astrid declares the marriage contract between Lydia and Beetlejuice null and void, due to Reasons
-Lydia says Beetlejuice's name three times, he does not try to stop her, and he leaves
-Because all the ghosts have left, Wolf Jackson also leaves
-Delia and Charles find each other and move on to the afterlife (distinct from the limbo seen in both movies), despite saying that they'll hang around and 'haunt' Lydia and Astrid, which is implied to be impossible to do once they've moved on (but is probably how Lydia and Astrid would actually have wanted things so I guess that's fine)
-The rest of the movie is a prolonged dream sequence twist, so we don't actually know if Lydia and Astrid have repaired their relationship but we can presume it to be likely

Nothing ties together, the ending just kind of happens, none of the ex-wife stuff needed to be there at all. None of the fiance stuff needed to be there. A lot was clearly just put into the movie to be references back to the first one. I also found the effects kind of lackluster, there was a lot of meh CGI and the practical effects that were there felt a bit cheap, often. Which is disappointing since honestly most of the reason to see the first one is the effects. But the performances were largely good, and there's definitely a good story in there among the chaff. And the song and dance number was very funny, despite clearly being there to cash in on the dayo bit from the first one -- it was worth cashing in. I did not get bored during it. It's just such a disappointing ending that it really sours my opinion on the movie as a whole, because if you wanted to keep all of that then it's definitely possible to tie it all together at the end and give a satisfying ending! But they didn't, and it wasn't, and that's all not even talking about the dream sequence twist.

(just gonna note that none of the writers for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice had anything to do with the first movie)

(huh, also that apparently the credits have it Betelgeuse in the first and Beetlejuice in the second)

There was also a guy in a car next to us who spent too much time yelling at someone over his phone, and also yelling at a crying child in his car, something about wanting to know if his car would start via fob if his battery stopped working? Like a, figure all that out before you go to a drive in, b, do it not right next to other people at the drive in who are trying to watch a movie, c, stop yelling at your fucking kid. Didn't turn out to be an issue I guess because he sure got his car working fine for the last third of the movie, though that didn't stop him from continuing to yell about things from time to time! He also drove out fine after the movie ended.

Before the movie we got dinner at a little hamburger place that had a bunch of shake options, so ash got a pineapple shake and I got a butterfinger shake. Both were good! I have saved my hamburger for now, after the movie, but also ate popcorn I brought with us and some fries.

Tomorrow I'm gonna sweep and vacuum in my room, and ash and I have plans to watch the first Beetlejuice, because he doesn't remember much of it and it's a good movie. Tonight I will chill and video game unti bed, and hopefully go to bed early enough to actually get enough sleep for once