#and somehow get an English class I took like 5 years ago approved for my science degree electives :(

[booklover1323]

Hey, can anyone tell me funny stories about their pets? Fucked up today :(

[sekinosemimaru]

Joker Game: The Animation Chapter 13

Joker Game Manga Chapter 13 - 「Codename Cerberus Part Two」Translation

Read chapters here -> http://comic.mag-garden.co.jp/jokergame/

Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter 3 / Chapter Four / Chapter Five / Chapter Six / Chapter Seven / Chapter Eight / Chapter Nine / Chapter Ten / Chapter Eleven / Chapter Twelve / Chapter Thirteen / Chapter Fourteen (March 25)

Sorry for the long wait, I had some complications with my schedule, plus I had to apply for some extra classes to help beep up my portfolio. Prepare yourself for a small bittersweet Grane family moment later.

Page 1

Joker Game

THE ANIMATION

file 13. Codename Cerberus (Part Two)

Page 2

Yuuki: Louis McCloud. He was employed by the British Secret Services during the last war in Europe and was the man who took an active part in decoding German encryptions. He has changed his face and is now planning on traveling across the Pacific from America to Japan.

Page 3

Yuuki: ….Don’t allow him to enter Japan.

Amari: …...Operation Gardening.

Page 4

Captain: Utsumi-sama. Are you implying that you know nothing of the late Mr. Morgan other than his name?

Utsumi: We just happened to meet on board. Surely that’s nothing unusual. So you happen to know the cause of death?   

Crew member: According to the autopsy of our ship’s onboard doctor, the cause of death is…

Page 5

Crew member: cyanide poisoning.

Captain: You mean he was poisoned!?  

Crew member: Well, it’s not certain yet….

Louis: You…. so you were…. Cerb-...

Utsumi: So, the life of McCloud, a central figure of the Enigma decryption team, was targeted by someone

Page 6    

Utsumi: whose codename is the guard dog of hell, Cerberus…?

Captain: As the captain, I would like to object to this. Your actions violate the international law. I would like a proper explanation for this.

English Captain: We have been informed that an Englishman who goes by the name of Jeffrey Morgan is being held under control on a stateless vessel.

Captain: An Englishman?

Page 7

English Captain: We consulted with the American authorities and thus are conducting unannounced investigations of suspicious ships. there shouldn’t be any problems as long as his safety is confirmed and he has been handed over to us. Now tell me, where is he?

Captain: ….He’s…

English Captain: What? It’s fine with me if you refuse to hand him over. I’ll just have to search ship myself.

Crew member: Are you feeling alright? Mrs. Grane.

Cynthia: Yes, thanks to you…

Page 8

Utsumi: …..! …..

[Looks through passenger list]

Page 9

English Captain: What!? He’s dead…? You must be joking what in the world….

[Sharp whistle]

Utsumi: Come! Frate Come here!

Captain: Utsumi-sama, what are you….!!

Page 10

Utsumi: Allow me to shall explain Mr. Morgan’s death. However, can you give me some time before that?

Page 11

Captain: Would that be fine with you?

English Captain: ...Very well. As long as I get a sufficient answer in return.

Page 12

Utsumi: So you are Cerberus, am I right?

Cynthia: ….

Utsumi: Since Frate doesn’t bear any resemblance of the guard dog from hell.

Page 13

Utsumi: Would you mind explaining this to me?

Page 14

Utsumi: How did you know it was him?

Cynthia: I recognized him the moment I first laid my eyes on him. Since I stared long enough to open a hole into that picture everyday. I heard that McCloud had changed his face. Although his features may have changed, the shape of his ears would remain the same, so I made sure to focus on that the most…

Page 15

Cynthia: After Emma, who fell ill the ship left port, finally recovered I began to search around the ship for ears that were the same as the ones in the picture. However at that moment… Frate just happened to be at McCloud’s feet when I spotted him and so I panicked. For this picture was in his collar.

Page 16

Cynthia: No!! Stop! ….Stay!

Utsumi: ...That’s why you raised your voice at that time. But surely you have accomplished your goal. If you have thrown this picture into the ocean, I’m certain there wouldn’t be any evidence held against you…?

Cynthia: This… picture is where Raymond looks the most handsome in. No matter how repulsive my foe standing next to him is, I cannot throw this away.   

Page 17

Cynthia: This man is my husband and this child’s father… and this man is the spy for the British Secret Intelligence Agency. This man had stolen my husband and my child’s father from us. No that I have killed, I have avenged my husband. I have no regrets.

Page 18

Utsumi: Raymond Grane was the first mate on the British cargo that was sunk by a German merchant cruiser about a year ago, am I right?

Louis: Please do not be disheartened Cynthia.

Page 19

Cynthia: Yes, I’m fine.

Louis: Raymond has accomplished his role as an English seaman… He was a good man.

Cynthia: Yes…. ...Emma? Please excuse me.

Page 20

Cynthia: Emma! Where are you Emma? Emma…

Man: This is too horrible!

Page 21

Louis: Wait, your voice is too loud…

Man: I won’t approve of this strategy. Using civilian ships as decoys like this…. You used a double agent to purposely leak intel.

Cynthia: …?

Man: Surely you would have known that the German army would have eradicated all evidence altogether with the freight vessel….  

Louis: As long as we cannot decrypt the Enigma cryptography, England has no chance in victory.

Page 22

Louis: And this plan that I’ve devised would surely destroy the impregnable Enigma. I will sow the seeds and harvesting the crop, I name this….

Cynthia: “Gardening”…

Page 23   

Cynthia: I’m certain that McCloud named his strategy that.

Utsumi: ….The German army used Enigma to encode the contents of stolen orders and telegraphed it to allied forces. The British then intercepted the transmission and through comparisons with the encoded Enigma message they gained a clue in decrypting the code. However, since he acted out of his own discretion, McCloud’s strategy was met with antipathy instead and so he was driven off from the British Secret Intelligence Agency. After altering his face, he probably set his eyes on Japan to find a new place for himself.

Cynthia: Just are are you...  

Page 24

Cynthia: ...You also burden your life with mysteries, don’t you. I became a German spy for the sake of my revenge. I was prepared for this. But whenever I look at this child’s face, I don’t know anything anymore. ..  

Page 25

Cynthia: Of what I have lived for, of what I should have lived for.

Page 26

Emma: Mama? What’s wrong?

Utsumi: Emma, would you like to see the dolphins again?

Page 27

Emma: Un.

[Utsumi picks Emma up]

Page 28

Cynthia: !

Utsumi: Come, Frate.

Cynthia: Raymond!

Page 29

Emma: Mama! I got a ribbon from Papa!

Raymond: I’m sorry that I couldn’t come home earlier. Did anything happen when I was away? What’s wrong? Could it be that you’re angry that I wasn’t able to keep in touch with you?

Cynthia: No, it’s just that you came back so suddenly that I was surprised…

Raymond: Hold out your hand for me.

Page 30

Raymond: Here’s one for you Cynthia. I feel back bad for making you anxious. My job as a seaman doesn’t allow me to come back home as quickly as possible, this may seem as an excuse to you but... ...I always am thinking of the welfare of my beloved wife and daughter. Oh! Frate, you’re also doing well? I also have a present for you too.

Page 31

Cynthia: Farewell… Emma.

Emma: Dolphins… are they napping?

Utsumi: You can see them tomorrow.

Emma: Un, with Mama.

Utsumi: Don’t worry Frate, you’re also included.

Page 32

Utsumi: Two people and one dog...huh. Well, it’ll somehow work out.

[iamcediesmom]

Philippine IMMIGRATION experience (and some TIPS)

Just a little bit of information about me. 

I am a work-at-home mom. I am an ESL online teacher for two and a half years now. I have no ITR (yet). My company deducts my taxes but they don’t provide a BIR 2316 just a 2307 (which is like a breakdown of the taxes I already paid each quarter). 

It was my first time travelling abroad last October 2016; I used to go on domestic trips around the Philippines but I’ve never ventured out of the country before. My friend and I were planning the trip for like six months. She has been to other countries in Asia before but this was her first time to go to HK and Macau. 

I was so excited I read all kinds of blogs regarding my situation. That’s when I discovered something….OFFLOADING… I’ve never heard of OFFLOADING before and I didn’t know what it meant. Some of the stories I’ve read online only made me nervous and I somehow dreaded my trip because of it. 

Okay, so now here goes my story. (sorry for the long introduction hihi)

My friend and I decided to meet at the airport 3 hours before our flight. Our reason was we just want to be extra early. Maybe it’s the excitement?? OR we had a feeling of what’s about to happen??

We filled up the arrival/departure cards and proceeded to the Immigration queue for Philippine Passport Holders. There were four windows open 2 guys and 3 girls. I told my friend that we should go to one of the guy's windows because I thought it might help that we are girls and that we can somehow use our charms (??hahaha) Anyway, she said NO and we ended up lining up into a window were there were 2 women. I was a bit suspicious but my friend said that they looked very approachable. There were only a few travelers during the time so we only waited for a bit. My friend went first. I wasn’t nervous at all but I overheard their conversation and the line of questioning they had. 

At first, they asked standard questions like; 

Where are you going? : HK /Macau

Who are you going with? : My friend (and she pointed to me)

Where are you going to stay? : At my Aunt’s house (she gave the address) 

They asked a few more questions about their relationship…

Where do you work? Can I see your ID? 

Where did you study? Can I see your school ID? 

>>> My friend didn’t expect this at all and she didn’t bring her College ID or her Alumni card. All she had was an ID from a school she took some classes from for her job. They allowed it. When I heard this I looked for my school ID and I was glad it was in my wallet.(hahahaha)

Have you traveled before? How many times? When?(while turning the pages of her passport) : Two Times, SG and Thailand. Last year (2015). 

This time I was a little bit scared because I heard once you’ve traveled before there would only be a few questions asked. Then they finally allowed her to pass through and stamped her passport. 

FINALLY, it was my turn. I smiled and said Hello. Both of them just nodded.  They asked almost the same questions at first and I had the same answers as my friend. Then they asked…

Where do you work? Can I see your ID? : I work at an ONLINE ENGLISH SCHOOL. I don’t have an ID because it’s HOME BASED. 

Are you a certified teacher? : No. 

What and who do you teach? : English grammar; Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean students. 

Do you have a COE? : Yes

Where did you study? What’s your major? : I showed them my ID. MIT-Manila; BS Chemistry.

Then they started to ask about my friend. 

How long have you known your friend? : Since 2011.

How did you meet? : We met at work, at a call center. 

When’s her birthday? : (I’m totally forgetful about this information, I only know my family’s birthdays, luckily I remembered my sister and my friend’s birthdays were the same.) 

Are you sure? : Yes. 

Do you have a picture of you together in 2011? : (yeah! I know right? Shocking!! I had those but the night before I just deleted old pictures from my phone to free up some space for the trip, I asked if I can open Facebook and they approved. During this time the internet connection at the airport wasn’t very fast and I couldn’t get to the bottom of my picture albums. I showed them a picture of us together from 2 years ago and then they said NO I want a picture from 2011. I started getting irritated.) 

Then the woman said: MAM, I think you should follow me. I will refer your case to my superior because you did not pass the initial screening. Then she said, actually it would have been okay if you have an ID.

I butted in. I don’t have an ID because I work-at-home. (IS SHE THICK IN THE HEAD? WHY CAN'T SHE UNDERSTAND THAT AT ALL??)

And she continued, the COE that you showed me is fake. 

My blood pressure was rising and I said “HOW CAN IT BE FAKE WHEN MY BOSS SENT IT TO ME BY EMAIL AND I JUST PRINTED IT?” I was trying SO hard to control my tone and said it through gritted teeth. 

Anyway, she didn’t listen and just led the way. 

I was told to fill up a form and wait in line. I was the third in line. There were no rooms. It was just a space with a lot of chairs beside the security check area. When my turn finally came, my heart was beating so fast I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. 

I only waited for a few minutes then it was my turn. I was lucky because the woman who motioned for me to follow her looked really nice, and she was (Thank GOD!). She asked me to just give her all the documents that I have. I handed her my flight ticket, all my reservations to the attractions I was going to, marriage certificate, my son’s birth certificate, COE. Then she asked me to show her pictures of my friend and I together. I showed her my wedding pictures. She was a bit distracted because there was a man beside us who kept pleading to her to let him board his flight to Oman or SOMEWHERE. She stood up, I maybe waited for 3 minutes when she got back she said, “Oh mam! you’re still here? I thought I already approved you.” She signed my papers. Then I went back to the original window and the woman there said, “Mam if you had an ID you wouldn’t go through that.”

Because of what the IO said, I wondered if I should have made a fake ID? I’m really conflicted about that ID issue. Would that have been easier? Can’t she understand that I really can’t provide one since I don’t go to the office? I just do it all online, my salary, payslip, tax records can be accessed or sent to me online. I really don’t know why she can’t understand that.

Looking back to that experience, here were some things I learned. 

1. Don’t go to a window with two people in it. They might be training the other one so they would ask twice as many questions as they normally would. 

2. Wear something totally formal or something that would scream that you are RICH! I was only wearing a fitted black shirt and jeans with sneakers. I love comfy clothes and my thought was I was gonna arrive in HK at night I won’t take too much pictures so I didn’t made any effort. I didn’t have a suitcase just a backpack and a shoulder bag. I must’ve looked pathetic in their eyes. I didn’t wear any make-up too just some lipstick.

(a picture at the airport with my mother before CHECK-IN)

(Here’s a picture of me with my totally matching backpack and cross body bag)

3. Bring all of your documents and all your IDs. Print out everything and scan everything just to be sure. 

4. Keep your answers short. 

5. Control your voice even if you are already angry and if they say something ridiculous or ask something out of line. Stay calm and keep your cool. 

I was able to go to HK and Macau. I had a blast but I would never forget my first Immigration interview. 

(after the long and gruesome interview; I can finally smile again!) 

Now, I’m preparing to go to Singapore with my sister in July, she’s 18 years old and it’s her first time. I have already booked the tickets and the hotel. I am going to buy the tickets for the Universal Studios online (klook.com) too. I would be the one financing this whole trip since it’s my birthday gift to her. What do you think I should do so that this situation won’t happen to me again? I don’t know. I’ll just keep on praying this will never happen again. I read somewhere that someone signed a waiver in Singapore stating that he has no intention of working there. Do I need to do that as well? Maybe. Do I need to make a fake ID? I want to but I’m scared it would make matters worse. Anyway, I just wanted to share my experience to whoever. 

Ciao!

~KC~

P.S. 

I would be posting my IT in HK-Macau and more pictures next time. Thanks for reading this. :) Totally appreciated. 

[mzungu-in-tanzania-blog]

Expert in fisheries and the plague

Hello my friends and family!

Habari za mvua? Or: how is the rain? The question of the day, because it has been raining for 1,5 days, and if I say rain I mean rain. Half the city is already flooded, I heard of parts of the road that are completely closed, and houses that have been flooded. One big adventure for me, but the part where I live is of course one of the richest neighbourhoods in the city. And this is only day two of the small rainy season, so I am curious what the big one will be like. They call these the mango rains, so at least we can console ourselves with the thought that we will soon have mangos every day.

So, how is everybody doing? I know I am terrible at skyping with everyone and answering all emails and messages, sorry about that. Previous times when I was abroad I had much more time, but life is just so busy here (which is no excuse I know). So let me try to give you a little glimpse of my life now. Last week I spent house- and dog-sitting for one of my colleagues, who was on holiday. And we all know what that means: huge expat house, pool, GOOD coffee machine and a cute dog! In other words: pool parties all week, I definitely increased my popularity levels (ha ha) and I did not know what to do with the embarrassing number of empty bottles by the end of the week. ;) Tried to hide them in the cleaning closet, didn’t work haha. But for real, it was wonderful to stay in a cosy and well-furnished house, with a comfortable couch and a big garden. Although the guards showed a little bit too much interest in me, I managed to keep them at distance. ;) I have also gotten a second housemate in my apartment, Deborah. She is from Tanzania and plans to go to the Netherlands soon, and it is fun to have someone else around! Oh, and I have a weekly Swahili class now, with three friends, so Monday from 5-7 we sit in this small room in a tiny language school, and get taught by a very patient and enthusiastic teacher, Msigaro. It is a lot of fun (although a Monday lasting from 7-7 is quite long) and we are definitely making progress, but the verbs are becoming very complicated. They basically manage to squeeze the entire sentence into one long word, so to try and figure that out is quite the challenge when the Tanzanians are always speaking at top speed. Swahili is a funny mix of Bantu (a group of African languages), Arabic, and a bunch of others. Especially the words derived from English are my favourite, because they put an i behind everything: lefti? Righti? Paty? Waini!

Things at the Embassy are going well. The most important news is that our Ambassador has presented his credentials to the President yesterday, so we are officially represented again! A good reason for us to eat cake. It had already been planned before, on a Sunday at 8 AM, but I guess the President decided he did have to go to church in the end. In the meantime, we have been working on a hundred different things. Our annual plan has been written and is now awaiting approval from The Hague. I have been gathering information about Madagascar, where the plague has broken out (yes, the one from the Middle Ages), to update information on the website. I can thus now proudly say I am a plague-expert. I have also been working on the Netherlands’ contribution to Mauritius 50-year independence, on a human rights movie event, and I went to a workshop about waste management. Perhaps I already said this before, but one of the projects the Embassy is assisting in, is the improvement of Dar’s waste management infrastructure. The biggest landfill will (hopefully) be rehabilitated, which will make it healthier for the people living and working there, and recycling facilities will be introduced. The workshop was about how to change people’s behaviour, via incentives and nudging. I think that’s a fascinating question, if you consider people’s behaviour regarding waste here: they throw everything on the ground. There is no education about this, so the difference between a banana peel and a plastic bottle is really no common knowledge. So often I have been in a car and the driver will just throw his plastic waste out of the window. Or sometimes you can’t swim in the sea because it is so dirty and smelly. It is just such a different perception than we have, and so difficult to change or even grasp. But very necessary nonetheless. Oh, and of course, I have been working on a sustainability project for the Embassy! As part of the Rank your Embassy-initiative, a ranking between Dutch embassies worldwide, I interviewed all staff-members and wrote an article about it (which will soon be online). I also prepared a powerpoint presentation about our sustainable practices, so for a week I made people walk the stairs and eat less meat and recycle. Some of the expat staff now even walks once a week to the Embassy, and we try do carpooling (aka me forcing people to give me a ride). The Ambassador presented the presentation at the regional conference in South-Africa, and now all embassies in the region will participate! The next step is of course to keep up our good behaviour, so we will have a group session about this.

Political developments in Tanzania are interesting, though not always encouraging. As you might have seen in the media back home, again a group of people associated with homosexuality has been arrested. The same happened in Zanzibar last month. Charges are “promoting homosexuality”, because the latter group was for example following a workshop on HIV/AIDS. Several HIV clinics have also been closed, so that’s not too good news. Also, schoolgirls who become pregnant are not allowed to return to school anymore. This because they would give a bad signal to other girls, and would not be able to raise their child and continue their education. Only vocational training will be allowed. I had an interesting conversation with an Uber driver about these issues, who was saying with regard to the school girls that it was perfectly fine because they can still go to private schools. Which of course hardly anyone can pay for. Plus they shouldn’t seduce men all the time. Often, girls living in rural areas have to walk for long distances, and get offered a ride by a boda boda (motor) driver. But only in return for something. It is so unfair that they are punished for this! About homosexuality, it was his opinion that people who stay single, choose to become homosexual (or lesbian), thereby choosing to not be a man anymore. So, what more to say. This is just one opinion. Sometimes the things happening in this country are insane and hard to wrap your head around. Because what about the people who have albinism, who are still being hunted and whose body parts are chopped off for spiritual beliefs? Or the elderly widows living in villages, who are believed to be witches (your eyes turning red is one of the signs for this), and are killed? Of course, many things happening are very positive and the economy is growing and all, but these are the human rights issues that fascinate and astonish me. And it touches upon the debate that we constantly had in my human rights classes last year: what is acceptable and what is it, till what point do you meddle in other cultures, or when are you imposing your own views?

Although it is already some time ago, I also joined on a scoping mission for marine fisheries and aquaculture! Scoping mission scoping mission, what? This is done in preparation of a trade mission, when Dutch companies will visit a country to look for business opportunities, to explore and map out the sector. And somehow, thanks to my amazing colleagues, it was decided that it would be a good idea if I joined! Because next to being a plague expert, you of course all know me as the mastermind of marine fisheries and aquaculture (not). But it was so much fun, and it taught me how cool it can be to delve into a topic that is completely different than your field, but can be interesting nonetheless! Tanzania has a very long coastline, and a bunch of huge lakes, so the question is why the fishing industry has not yet developed that much. Together with Ulrich, our Economics/Trade Officer, and Rik, a trainee from Nairobi, we visited two companies in Dar es Salaam. Funnily enough, there was not one fish to be found in their factories. ;) Turned out it was the low season (the sea is too rough), so just small amounts of fish get processed. If I talk about fishermen, by the way, don’t imagine too much. The few big companies do have fleets, but most fisherman are just guys on surfboard or a tiny tiny boat, who try to catch a fish with one thin line. Or you will see these small wooden boats with 50 people in them, who look like they might topple soon. In some of the coastal areas, there is also a lot of overfishing, disturbing the balance of the ecosystem, and dynamite fishing is a big problem here. Room for improvement and development! Next morning we took the 7 AM ferry (travelling in royal class, obviously, where you get a tv with your seat but no headset, so everyone is just staring) to Zanzibar, where Omar, a very cheerful man from the ministry who seemed to know everyone on the island, gave us a tour. We visited an anchovies landing site, which I thought was very impressive. There is no dock, so the fishing boats sail towards the coast until they get stuck, from where women carry heavy buckets full of fish to the shore. There, the anchovies is boiled in steaming buckets, sorted on dozens of plastic canvases, and dried in the sun. And then it is transported to end up on your plate. I was shocked by how simple this process still is, and the hard physical labour that is being carried out mainly by women. Next stop was a seaweed farm, which was fascinating – when do you ever learn how seaweed grows? Small bits of seaweed are somehow tied to ropes, growing very fast in the (at that point) low tide water, which is harvested by (again) women. The surroundings were beautiful, and we bought some seaweed soap and –cookies. Seaweed is used in a lot of cosmetics, especially in Europe and the US. Finally, we dropped past the harbour and the fish market.

But the most spectacular part of the journey was yet to begin, because we then flew (jaja) to Mafia! This is another big island, 130 km south of Dar, and which is not visited by many people given the high flight costs. Despite the curious name, which is said to derive either from the Yemeni rules from the state of Ma’afir or the Arabic word ‘morfiya’ meaning group and thus archipelago, it was a lovely place to visit. The flight was spectacular, to say the least: in one of those tiny planes with 14 seats, flying over a big river delta called Rufiji, tiny tropical islands (where people actually live, imagine), coral reefs, and I swear I spotted a humpback whale. And guess who got to be the co-pilot!!! Absolutely stunning. Compared to Dar and Zanzibar, Mafia is a very quiet, and I must say quite poor, island. There was one big road from the airport to the other side of the island, big enough for four cars to drive next to each other, but every time we were the only one. We passed thousands and thousands of palm trees, and funnily enough, many of the mud houses had solar panels. While many of the hotels are so exclusive they cost $300 per night, I found a lovely and much more affordable hotel right beside a bay full of sea life, which was, with its diving school and cute bandas (huts), a haven of peace. After a delicious dinner and a good night’s sleep, we were summoned to the ministry first thing in the morning. The gentlemen had not been updated about our arrival, so they wanted to know what we were doing, but they turned out to have a real heart for the island and its marine conservation area. A big part of the island and most of the surrounding waters are a protected marine park, and as a visitor you pay a daily fee for this. We then went to visit another anchovies landing site, bigger and a bit more professional than the one on Zanzibar. And this was so typical: we were put on plastic chairs in a circle, and all the important people from the company joined, and talked at length in Swahili, with some interruptions in English in the meantime. It felt like one of those village meetings, that you so often see in the news or in movies about Africa. Afterwards, we had an hour left so Rik and I swam into the bay and stumbled upon a coral rock with the most beautiful fish swimming around. A brief glimpse of Mafia’s underwater life. It was too short, but I’ll be back! And although I am not entirely sure if fisheries is my new fascination in life, it was extremely interesting and I am very lucky and grateful to have been allowed to join!

I will force myself to stop here and save the travel adventures for next time. All in all, time flies. Last week the vacancy for my successor was published, which means I am already half way! In December, a second intern specifically for agriculture will come, so I am very excited to get a buddy. This weekend I am going to hike in the mountains (yes of all weekends I chose the most rainy one), so wish me luck. I’ll give you a brief update next week about this and previous travel adventures, before my dad arrives!

Love, Julie