August 2005 Updates
Hiatus - 8/23/05
I am leaving for campus on Thursday. When I drive off on Thursday morning towards my campus, I will not have internet access until my laptop is ordered on the 3rd of September, and I probably will not receive my computer or internet card until a week after that. So here's what is going to be happening at Ballads & Bows in that time:
That being said, I would like to remind everyone that I will not be checking my e-mail, or updating ANY of my websites until such a time arises where I have both internet access and time to do website work. I am taking 17 credits this semester, which many of you realize is a very busy schedule. It is not likely that Ballads and Bows will be updated in the regular manner that it has been during my senior year of high school and this summer. As much as I would like to update Ballads and Bows as much as I have over the last several months, it is no longer possible.
I will miss working on this project very much, and will try to maintain it on my free time. I regret that there will not be any more than 5 translations completed per month (if at all) and I will not be able to provide any extra specials for the fans. Hopefully I will meet some other Japanese majors at Albany who will be willing to help me out with the translation work, but for now I'm thinking it's not very likely.
So for now, goodbye Ballads and Bows! Staff: remember that your reviews are STILL due on time, this site isn't done with yet! The announcements will just be a little slower, is all =)
That's all for today. I'll be back with you people in a few weeks. Wish me luck!
Blah... - 8/18/05
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Anyway, updates for today: Delf (aka def soul, but I'll be changing her name around to suit her on the site later on) has submitted three new French translations: I'm Here, Happy Time, and lastly Sayonara ~ Sweet Days. She also pointed out that I didn't have links to translations of Sayonara ~ Sweet Days in any of the other languages, even though the translations were there. I fixed that error and the lyrics page has been updated. Thank you Delf!
Oh right. I opened a blog. I've been attempting to learn php over the last couple weeks to make site maintainance a little easier for myself, but so far this is the only script (other than phpfanbase and other fanlistings scripts) to work out for me. It's definitely a step in the right direction! My blog is called "Outspoken: Elly's Blog". I think the title pretty accurately describes me =p So if you're totally obsessed with me (and why wouldn't you be, since I'm such a charmer =p) you can read about me and my random scrabblings over there. Anyway. Just figured I'd give it a little plug on the front page before I head out with my little brother to the airport today. He's going back to California for the school year. I'm also supposed to be going to the mall today...so we'll see how that all works out. Since my mother didn't wake up in time to take Maxwell to his original flight (at 7:30 AM) now his flight is at 4:30, meaning that my schedule is just...completely ruined. Ugh.
Also, be sure to stop by Serena's Moon Palace, a BSSM fansite that is now run by Molly. I created it six years ago yesterday, so be sure to stop by the site and wish it a Happy Birthday! I wrote a little update thingy for the website there, so I hope everyone will enjoy it =) I can't believe I've been online doing website work for six years now...yeesh.
That's all for now. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures with Paul's mom's digital camera while we're at the beach, and to have everything with that online before I leave to school. I'm so excited! Broke as hell again, but totally excited!! College, WOOT!
Time for another bender - 8/15/05
So sue me, I pulled another dissappearing act =p I haven't been doing much in the way of translation, and I still haven't figured out that database glitch just yet. Here's to hoping that I meet someone at college who can out-code me and everyone else on the internet that I know. For now, the lyrics page has been re-organized, getting rid of all links that were not filled in for all of the languages, and re-organizing everything to be sure that the tables are alphabetized. There were four or five links that were not in correct alphabetical order, but that has been fixed...for now =) Let's just hope that I eventually come across a script that can do what I want.
I'll be translating the things from folwre from the Three Lights Forums by Moriwaka Kaori later this week, if I ever get the drive. I'm seriously burnt out on translation at the moment: I translated five songs last week, a few different articles for RinaKoike.com, and some other random translations for various friends online. Not to mention that I've been attempting to brush up on my kanji before school starts, so that I don't look like a total ass in college.
Paul's visit was postponed due to family issues, so we'll have group photos of all of us hanging out together next weekend instead. However, me and Molly did get bored last week, so there are some new shots of us being weirdos at 3 AM on the creator page. I only have one more free weekend before I'll be at college, wai! I'm actually a little nervous, even though I'm really excited about living on campus. So that means I'll be doing a hell of a lot of site work, to get as far ahead as I possibly can. I'll be training Molly in how to update this site (it's actually more complicated than you'd think) this week, so that if necessary, she can take over as webmistress for me. On that note...
I am looking for a new staff member to help out with site work. Whether or not they do reviews is optional. I'm looking for someone...
...if you're interested, please send me an e-mail at elly[at]reisei-sa.net with the subject "Ballads and Bows Site Maintainance Staff Application".
I'm also looking for a secondary Japanese to English translator for this site. I can try to get a few months ahead as far as translation goes for now, but that doesn't ensure that I'll be able to translate five months worth of songs during my Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. Here are the requirements:
...if you're interested, please send me an e-mail at elly[at]reisei-sa.net with the subject "Ballads and Bows Japanese to English Translator Staff Application".
Please note that neither of these staff positions will be required to write reviews for this website, unlike other staff members. I need these two positions to be completely devoted to their duties, and I do not want them to be distracted by feeling the need to meet review deadlines on top of their already demanding schedules (trust me, these are not easy positions). If you plan on applying, be sure to include any and all experiences/references that may help you get the position. For example, if you have translated for a website for some number of years, and have examples of your work, that would DEFINITELY put you ahead of someone else who I'm supposed to believe without any examples of their translations. If you are applying to be site maintainance, please let me know for how many years you have been coding, which languages you can code in (if any other than HTML and CSS), and any websites you may be involved in. I am interested in seeing your work, since if you are accepted that is the standard for what their will be on the site.
Applicants must also note that there will be a 1-2 week training period, in which I will personally train you how to do your "jobs". Running this site is not an easy task by a long shot, and I generally spend 3-4 hours working on it per day, if not more. Translation takes a long time. Site maintainance also takes a long time; I pride myself on having NO broken links or any errors on any of the pages on this site. And with 7,538 files (Yes, I actually know how many files there are just for this website) totalling 80 MB, not counting the music that's up for download, maintaining the site and making sure there are no errors is a big deal.
Anyway...now that THAT's out of the way...I've completed all of my reviews for the month: Break Through, Natsu Iro, Hello, Sotsugyou, and Still. Now, to work on September reviews before I leave...heheheh...
The staff page has had a bit of a make-over. G.E. Artemis has submitted a new staff picture of herself; she's so pretty! Also, Ilse celebrated her 14th birthday on the 7th (Happy Belated Birthday!) so that's been updated as well. Ilse says she'll be submitting a new staff image of herself soon, so look forward to that as well!
That's all for today. Enjoy the additions, and have a great day!
Working hard - 8/10/05
As the title says, I've been busting my butt getting work done for this site before I head off to college for my first semester. Can you tell that I'm just a little nervous that I might not have the time to update regularly anymore? So for now, I'm putting all of my energy into translating as many songs as possible, so that in case Molly does end up taking over, you guys will have the lyrics for the songs you review =)
That being said, I would like to introduce the all-new Sae Special!! In just a day, I sat at home and translated all five of these songs and romanized, back to back. Molly thinks I'm insane o.O; I worked hard on the translations and images (you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to find pictures of Sae online. Even her official website only has just one picture of her!), so be sure to check the page out =)
The lyrics that I have added are not on the lyrics page...yet. I'm in the process of converting the lyrics translations into a database, to make my life easier so that I don't have to modify four separate tables each time I want to add one new song for each language. Besides of which I suck at alphabetizing things =) The script is not functional as of yet, however, I plan on having it operational and having the lyrics page completely re-organized with a spiffy new script by Friday night. I'm having a *load* of fun trying to switch everything over and trying to get the tempermental database to work, can't you tell? *grimace*
Ruth (Sailor Neptune) has submitted her reviews for the month: Break Through, Natsu Iro, Hello, Sotsugyou, and Still. Great work, as always!
Just a reminder, that the picture to your left is what I will look like if you fail to turn in your reviews on time this month, after last month's perfect attendance and punctuality. Me and Molly got bored last night at 2 am, and she took a picture of me and photoshopped it a bit. I do look rather scary, don't I? *so proud* Maybe I should be a vampire this Halloween...
More pictures of me and Molly will be online sometime this weekend, since Paul is coming up to visit again. Group shot, anyone? =p I'll be sure to suck all of Paul's blood and leave his lifeless corpse in a mausoleum at the local cemetary take lots of pictures of all of us, since I completely forgot to last time he visited. Paul just moved into his new apartment, hooray! *is SO going to have drunken naked parties there during college breaks* Life is teh awesome. For anyone wondering, yes, the circles under my eyes are Photoshopped. I do get pretty tired from pulling all-nighters working on the website, but I never look THAT tired, even when I feel that way =)
That's all for today. More updates when this damned script decides it'll let me install it =p Enjoy the new translations, and have a fabulous day!
After a short hiatus...8/8/05
So sue me, I decided to spend time with Tim =p I've been working on a new project of mine in my spare time, and I haven't really "needed" to update Ballads and Bows until now. So don't kill me for not updating for five days =) Here we go:
First and foremost: G.E. Artemis has done back reviews of the following songs: Sakura Fubuki, Hoshi Furu Yoake, Katagoshi ni Kinsei, Here we go!, Over Rainbow Tour, Sweet Little Resistance, and Change of Pace. Please take a look, they're excellent reviews!
Kaitlin (Princess Sailor Moon) has had to leave our reviewing team due to time constraints in her schedule. We wish her luck in all of her future endeavors, and hope that she will return to Ballads and Bows when she has more free time! As such, her position is up for grabs at the moment. If you want to join Ballads and Bows as a reviewer, now is your chance!
Lastly, we have received our review from Serenity Reviews. And I must say, I'm not exactly thrilled with what we received. I have applied for re-review as per the offer the webmistress of that site gave me, because the review we got was just...atrocious, at best. If you are interested in reading, you may do so by clicking here. They gave us a 60% or D-...can you believe that?! Ugh. Here's to hoping they select a better reviewer for our website next time.
That's all for today. Thanks to folwre of the Three-Light.Net Forums's kindness, we now will be reviewing music by Sae (the singer who sings Kirari*Sailor Dream) and Moriwaka Kaori (actress who plays Ikuko-mama) in future months. Hooray, we have a few more months' time where we won't have to review BGMs! I'm excited =) Thank you again to folwre for the heads up about the songs, as well as for providing the .mp3s and some scans. Enjoy the rest of the site, and have a great day!
Back on track - 8/3/05
I've gotta get this out of my system: college orientation was AWESOME! I met a lot of really cool people, even another girl who will be majoring in Japanese, just like me. Her name is Christine =) And she thinks that she might join the staff at Ballads and Bows one day to help me translate! WOOT! I also got friendly with these two Russian majors (I didn't even know they offered that at University at Albany) named Maureen and Eric. Very cool people. College is just great and I can't wait until the 25th when I finally get to move into my dorm and start classes on the 29th. So excited! So yeah. College is cool, can't wait until it starts. My schedule is something crazy (I'm taking 17 credits this fall) but I'll try to drag through it. Worst comes to worst, I'll continue to do just translations and reviews, and Molly will temporarily take over as webmistress and put up everyone's reviews and things for me, because she's so nice and sweet and lovey =) Anyway, moving on:
I got bored earlier today and decided to translate Summer Breeze from the new Matsushita Moeko special set (which has also been updated). You can find the lyrics in our lyrics page as well =)
Tons of reviews have been submitted today for some reason. Coded 20 of them or so in just today o.O;; I guess everyone just decided to get them out of the way for this month (which makes sense, since everyone is going back to college soon). Here we go:
Miri-chan (Sailor Saturn) has submitted her reviews for August: Break Through, Natsu Iro, Hello, Sotsugyou, and Still. Great work!
Kara (Kuroki Mio) has also submitted all of her reviews for the month: Break Through, Natsu Iro, Hello, Sotsugyou, and Still. Awesome reviews!
G.E. Artemis (Sailor Uranus) also decided to submit her reviews =) Here they are: Break Through, Natsu Iro, Hello, Sotsugyou, and Still. Excellent work!
Last, but certainly not least, Emo-chan (Sailor Luna) has also submitted her reviews: Break Through, Natsu Iro, Hello, Sotsugyou, and Still. Great job!
That's all for today. I'll update later on when I need to. I'm going to translate a lot of Yoshito Endo songs while I get the change, so that I can try to get ahead for September and make Molly's life easier just in case I won't be around to do site work during the fall. I'll try to have everything on his website translated by the end of this week. Wish me luck =)
Yes, I pulled an all-nighter - 8/1/05
I just couldn't bear with the idea of not doing my regularly scheduled updates on the first of every month, so with Molly's fabulous coffee-making skills she and I stayed up all night, she and I chatting while I did updates and translations and romanizations. I started work on the update for the beginning of the month at 10:00 at night. It's now 6:15 AM, and I'm just now finishing up. I get to leave for Albany for Orientation and Scheduling in less than an hour, and I haven't even packed yet. Fabulous, isn't it? Anyway, enough of my rambling. Here's the updates:
September's review songs have been announced. Everything we're reviewing for that month is a bit of a mix match, but it ties up a lot of loose ends with Matsushita Moeko, and starts us on a new loop for October reviews, which will include a mixture of songs by Yoshito Endo and Matsushita Moeko. After October, we should OFFICIALLY be out of vocal things to review (unless more new stuff comes out) so we'll be beginning on BGMs. Please be aware of this.
I've been working pretty hard at translations. New today are translations of Doki Doki ~ Jitensha Ni Notte (Thump Thump ~ As I Ride My Bicycle - sorry to Sailorasteroid for giving him an incorrect translation of the song title earlier today. Aparently the person who sent me the song was not incorrect as romanizing the title as doki doki instead of my assumption of toki doki, which means "sometimes" instead. I told Sailorasteroid the title meant "Sometimes I ride my bicycle", but it actually means "Thump Thump ~ As I ride my bicycle". Doki is a sound used to describe the noise your heart makes when it beats, usually when you are nervous or excited about something. Sorry about that!) and Sunflower. More coming soon!
I have updated the specials page, to include the new Matsushita Moeko specials page. Enjoy!
Also, a translation for Ame Agari is available. I did not do the translation or romanization for this song; the credits for the people who did all of the work can be found on the page with the lyrics and their translation.
And, we have tons of August reviews already in. Let's begin:
First up, Jessica (Sailor V) has submitted all of her reviews for the month: Break Through, Natsu Iro, Hello, Sotsugyou, and Still. Excellent reviews to start your month off with!
Ilse, (Dark Sailor Mercury) coming in at a close second, has also submitted her reviews for the month: Break Through, Natsu Iro, Hello, Sotsugyou, and Still. Excellent work!
Last (but certainly not least) is Kero-chan (Tuxedo Mask) with his reviews for the month: Break Through, Natsu Iro, Hello, Sotsugyou, and Still. Great work as usual!
We have a new staff member to announce today! Please welcome Merian to our reviewing team! They will be reviewing as Sailor Jupiter from now on. Merian has started off by submitting a review of the August song Natsu Iro. Excellent start for a new reviewer! Check it out when you get the chance!
Speaking of the staff, the staff page has had a few updates. Links have been changed/added regarding Molly and Miri-chan's sections, so please check that out if you're interested.
I also have new French lyric translations to add to the site today, courtesy of Def Soul. New today are translations for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Romance. Def Soul has also provided updates for lyrics for Kirari*Sailor Dream, C'est la Vie, and Katagoshi ni Kinsei. Thank you for all of your hard work!
...lastly, you can find all updated lyrics and things on the lyrics page. Wouldn't want to fall behind on that =)
Just a note to the staff: If I haven't responded to your e-mail, it's because I'm leaving to Albany in around 45 minutes, and I really have other things to do right now. I'll respond as soon as I get home to all e-mails, I promise!
That's all for today. Enjoy the site, and have a great day!
