Hey everyone, my name is Kris, you can call me various forms of izaori (iza, iz, izzy, etc) and I'm bad at pet websites!

My friend (Eros on here!) mentioned it yesterday off hand, and I was like, another pet website? Sign me up! Luv them pet websites

I love to draw, and also I love studying languages! I thought about including a bit of that in my intro, but the website is English only, so maybe not, haha. I have four cats and a dog. I named my (first so far) pet after my cat, Dib! The Dibster is very sweet. Right now I'm binge watching a show on Netflix- I just watched Dib rip off fur from her toy and eat it. okay. great distraction

It reminds me of Neopets but less hectic, so I like it better. It took me a while to get the hang of a few things and I still haven't figured out some 'shortcuts' to different places, buuuut I'll figure it out. I like exploring. Also, the pets on here are so good.

I'm bad at names (other than Feli since that's the one I got) so I'll describe them! If I didn't pick Feli first, I thought about picking the grim reaper, the oddly coloured puppy, or one of the dragons, specifically the one that seems Chinese dragon inspired. (I love dragons.)

Uhhh that's about it! If you can't tell I tend to type more than probably necessary haha!

Welcome to Subeta! There's a few links below to help start you off! Besides Dib, what are the names of your other pets? :D

Useful Links:

What to do on Subeta? FAQ Useful general information for newbies Customise your dashboard Finding friends (Chit Chat) SubetaLodge (Offsite item database, pet colours etc.)

Thank you for the links! I've taken a look around, also the Newbie thing isn't properly loading on my screen for some reason. Not totally sure why.

My four cats are Alice (momma kitty), Lawliet and Mello (Alice's babies... yes named after Death Note characters), and Dib! Dib is... named after... Dib from Invader Zim, haha...

And my dog is Portia! She's our wild child.

Do you have any pets?

Welcome to Subeta. (: You look like a humble person. My family has 8 dogs and my aunt has a lot of cats, lol. We used to have more pets, but only during my childhood. The one who stays with me always is my poodle, Nina, she is my beloved angel and recently she needed to go through a surgery, but she is fully recovered now despite being old. I also named one of my pets on Subeta after her, haha.

Thank you! And... Wow! That's a lot of dogs. My family is good at handling cats, so we're okay with having more, but I can't imagine that many dogs in one place. Sounds like a real party. I'm glad Nina turned out well. I recently had a scare with Dibby, too. She suddenly lost all the fur on her tummy and hind legs, and after going through a hectic "its this, no its that" with a doctor I've never met prior, it turns out she was just too fat to clean herself properly and was overcompensating by cleaning her tum/hind legs too much. I'm just glad she's okay.

Dibby isn't even my biggest cat. It's... unfortunate! But I love my chubby Dibby <3

Chubby Dibby. That gotta be the funniest title for a cat. LOL If you don't mind, I've sent you a friend request, I would love to help you in your first days on Subeta.

I know, right? She has all sorts of Dib-related nicknames. The Dibster. Diberoni and Fleas. The Dab. (Sometimes I dab lol). And thank you! I'd like to be friends, too.

I'm actually a really busy person though, so if it seems like I'm on and off a lot, that's why. rip

Hi, Kris! 😀 Welcome to Subeta! It looks like you're settling in quite nicely so far--that's good!

Awww, your pets sound so cute! 😊 I'd love to own a dog or cat one day--but sadly, I only live in a small apartment, so not much room for a relatively large pet. So instead, I have a dwarf hamster. 😆

What languages do you study, if I may ask?

Also, if you want to have easy-to-access bookmarks for parts of the site that you visit frequently, there's a + tab in the upper-right hand corner that you can click on to add them. It's super handy! 😁 I have a couple bookmarks for places that I always check out.

Thank you! I really appreciate it. My friend got me addicted fast lol

Bookmarks are a good idea! When I realized I could add quest stuff to my dashboard that cleared most of my problems, but I'll probably wind up bookmarking training/battle stuff lol.

I fricking love hamsters. I had three hamsters when I was little, and named one Bijou after a character from Hamtaro!! Also, I named one Sandy, which is... Hamtaro. There's a theme in me naming pets.

At the moment, I'm mostly focusing on Japanese. It's my favorite language to study and I intend on going to Japan sometime between 2020 (if I can save enough by then) or 2024 (long term saving).

Other than Japanese, I've taken 2 years of high school level Spanish, 1 year of hs German, and one year of hs French. I attempted briefly to start Russian, but it was around the same time I started Japanese seriously, so it was a bad combination. I might pick it up again later. Also tried to pick up Punjabi, but there's not a lot of free resources for that. Again, maybe one day... Can you tell I love languages/linguistics?? Hehe.

Aww, that's cute! 😊 My current hamster is my second pet hamster ever--his name is Mochi (because he's white like mochi, lol). 😆 He's about 5 months old now. ❤ My first hamster was Chara, but he passed away last November. He was 2 years and 10 months old! I absolutely adored him. ❤

Omg, you're studying Japanese?!! Me, too! 😀 I'm actually living in Japan right now--my fifth year here. I've been working here as an assistant language teacher. But I'm planning to go back home in August to (hopefully) attend grad school.

😮 Wow, you've studied a bunch of languages! Good for you to have a passion for them! 😁 I took a semester of Korean in university just to see how it was, and I was trying to actively study Brazilian Portuguese two years ago--but then I got busy studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (just as a personal goal) and PRAXIS (for grad school), so yeah...haven't really studied it since then. I'd love to get back into studying Brazilian Portuguese again, but I'm still busy with other stuff, so I'll have to see when I can really get back into it. 😅

How/why did you get into studying Japanese?

Aww, your hamsters sound really great. Those are both cute names!

That's so cool and one of my goals!! Did you use the JET program or did you find some other way to do it? Regardless, that's so amazing omg!!!

Korean's pretty interesting, I like how everything sounds. Once I'm more proficient at Japanese and either Spanish or German, maybe I'll look into it more... so many languages, so little time. And wow, Brazilian Portuguese!! I never thought about how there's probably variations of Portuguese, so that's interesting. I've still got a lot to learn.

I plan on taking the 5th (easiest?) level of the JLPT in December this year, and I'm feeling pretty confident. I'm pretty good at writing kanji and am currently best in my class!! Not like a 'I'm better than everyone' but a 'I put proportionally more time into it than them, so I am more fluent'. We recently did self introduction videos, and I put mine on youtube... too embarrassed to share it. I'm a loser.

I got into studying Japanese because I've wanted to learn that and Spanish since I was like, able to understand that I don't have to only speak English lol. But my deeper reasons are that I've always wanted to go to Japan, and I just thing the language is really great? The way I tend to talk offline is similar to styles used in Japanese, so I can really appreciate that for sure. And I like that it's really straightforward with pronunciations. Everything sounds the same all the time. No sudden oo vs oh, or stuff like that.

Yep, I'm on the JET Programme. 😁 There are some private companies that hire assistant language teachers as well, but I think the JET Programme is the most reputable, so I applied to it--and I've enjoyed it all this time! 😊

Ooohhh, yeah, I like the way Korean sounds, too. I think having learned Japanese makes learning Korean a little easier because some sounds, grammar, and words are very similar between the two. And same here, I totally wasn't aware about Brazilian Portuguese until I made some Brazilian friends here a few years ago. (There are a lot of Japanese Brazilians in my area.) I love the way it sounds, too, so I'd like to continue learning it if I can. 😀

Nice! It's definitely good to stay on top of kanji--once you start learning more complicated kanji, you'll be grateful to have a strong foundation for it. 😁 (I don't have a strong foundation for kanji anymore, so I'm awful at writing it now, lol.) Aww, no need to feel embarrassed! But oh gosh, I know what you mean about self-introductions...I love watching and listening to others share their self-introductions, but I always cringe when I have to do mine. I just feel awkward, lol.

YES, I know what you mean! All the pronunciations are neat and uniform, so no need to play a guessing game like you have to do with English, lol. And yeah, I think Japanese is great because it's full of rich words and phrases to express various emotions and thoughts--a lot of which just can't be translated into English because there are no appropriate equivalents. (Though admittedly, a lot of other languages are like this.)

Are there any places in Japan in particular that you'd like to visit/live in?

That's so cool @ I've never talked to someone who's been in the JET program so now I'm a little star struck, haha. It's good to know you're having a good time, one of my worries was that it might not be as enjoyable as I've imagined.

Oooo, that's cool. I remember once reading that the Korean writing system was designed to be really easy to pick up, but I didn't know the grammar was similar :O Now I'm really tempted. Looking up the languages in Brazil... Wow! Brazil seems like a pretty cool place as far as languages go, so I imagine Brazilian Portuguese might be a bit friendlier for language learners than something like Japanese. Maybe I'll look into it sometime.

I believe in you! When you start studying it again, I'm sure it'll come back. I haven't taken Spanish in years but when I hear stuff I learned, I'm like, hey I know that? Even if I couldn't respond. Also, I definitely agree. I was super excited to watch my classmates' intros, but when it came to mine, I almost died of embarrassment. Talk about awkward!

One of my favorite phrases is a way to say 'I love you'. I'm pretty sure it goes like, 'The sky(moon?) is beautiful tonight.' Something like that. Also, my friend (Chris like me, but I'm with a K lol) told me they have a "thank god it's Friday", and it's "hana kin" or "hana kinyobi". I thought that was pretty cool, too.

There's so many places to go!!! I definitely want to go somewhere I can see the cherry blossoms blooming. Another thing I'd like to do, unfortunately at a different time period than cherry blossoms, is go visit Fuji-san. It closes right before my birthday. A few places I'd like the visit are Ikebukuro, Harajuku, and Kobe.

What kind of places have you been able to visit? Is there anything you still want to see?

It can really depend on what you make of the JET experience. I know some people who have taken it for granted or struggled because they didn't keep an open mind as to how much Japanese society and culture are different from their own. But that's only a small percentage of people. Otherwise, most people enjoy it! If you ever want to ask me any questions about it or advice for the application/interview process, feel free to contact me!

Yeah, actually, since you've studied Spanish before, you'd probably have a fairly easy time picking up Brazilian Portuguese! They're quite similar in some ways (so I've been told by both Spanish speakers and Brazilian Portuguese speakers).

Omg, right?! I love the various expressions in Japanese! 😊 Even though Japanese people can be really modest and reserved, their language is rich with emotions.

Nice! You can see cherry blossoms all over Japan, but they may bloom at slightly different times--depending on where it starts to get warm first. In general, they bloom from mid or late March to mid April. (In my prefecture, they usually bloom in the second week of April.) Ikebukuro, Harajuku, and Kobe are great to visit! I haven't been to Fuji-san yet, sadly, but hopefully I can get around to it someday. X'D

I've been to a bunch of places: Hokkaido, the Greater Tokyo Area (which includes Chiba and Yokohama), Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Nara, Wakayama, Tottori, Shimane, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Okayama, Kita-kyushu, Fukuoka...and I think that's it, lol. I'd still love to go to Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Ehime (on Shikoku), and Okinawa--but I'll have to see if I have the time/money to go. 😅