I'm PandaPon (feel free to shorten that however you like) and, though it's a little redundant to say so since I'm posting in this forum, I'm new. Hi.

I'm 20 years old, and currently on summer break between my second and third years of university. I study Japanese and Linguistics - I'm a big geek when it comes to learning languages. I speak some French and Japanese, understand a little Spanish, and have designs on learning many other languages before I die.

I'm a big fan of avatar sites and have been a member of several, although Gaia was the only one that really stuck for me. I got my first account there in mid-2003, but I lost the password to that pretty quickly. It sucks, I could've been rich~ XD I recently became kind of disillusioned with it (the site and the userbase), so I've been looking for somewhere else to satisfy my pixel-item cravings.

I like pandas (haha, also redundant to say?), rainy weather and cooking, amongst other things. I really don't like tomatoes and spiders. There was a massive brown spider crawling around my bedroom at about 3am last night. /shudder

So, that's my introduction. If you have any questions, feel free to ask - I don't bite.

Welcome to Menewsha!

Wow.. um, well english is the languages of the boards and most users. But that is an amazing feat to be able to learn so many languages. =)

Well, hopefully we meet your pixelation cravings. =) We have a wide variety of items to choose from. Earning gold is pretty simple you can post around to earn gold, or when its dead there is always the option of the games with a 500g cap for each day.

Pandas are amazing and we have pandas! There are Panda Slippers, Panda Headphones, a little panda buddy. Those are just our limiteds. We have panda stuff in the stores too. =)

Thank you!

Haha, well, I think words are just the way my brain works.

Oh, I've seen the range of items - and taken particular note of the panda-related ones. XD I downloaded the MAC and played with it for a bit before deciding to make an account, and I already have a couple of avatars-worth of items I'd like to get. It may be a little ambitious, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually.

Thanks for the advice on earning gold, too.

=O Did you spend like a few hours going over all the stickies before joining?! :hug: You are like, the perfect member.

I haven't read all of them, but I've read all the ones for new users so far, and I'll probably check the ones in other forums as I want to post in them.

I'm not perfect, just paranoid of breaking the rules~ XD;; I have had bad experiences with not reading stickies and just assuming I understand the rules in the past, so I learnt from my mistakes.

Welcome to Menewsha Panda!

:) Pandas are adorable, I totally agree. And it seems like you've taken plenty of time to explore the site and read up on the essentials, which is awesome! If you have any questions about how things work, feel free to send me a PM or ask here. Have fun!!

Hello Panpo :'D
And welcome to Menewsha~

I'll be 20 in October, so I'm not that
much younger than you (n wn)
I always thought it'd be awesome to
learn Japanese <3 Sadly, all I
know right now is English xD

I was once a Gaian, but that was
a long while ago. I recently
discovered Mene myself :'3

Pandas are cuuute, I try not to
be but I'm sometimes a picky
eater >w< & I love rain

Hope to see you around!!

@fiarra: Thanks for the welcome. If I have any trouble, I'll take you up on that offer. :)

@Nova: Haha, 1989 babies for the win. :'D Also, that's an unexpected abbreviation. You get points for originality! I've been a picky eater since I was a kid. I'm quite ashamed to say that I only really started eating vegetables about a year ago. XD That's the great thing about cooking - you can put in whatever you like, and skip the things you don't. Well, as long as they're not essential to the recipe. Hope to see you around again too~ I'll be on the lookout.

Heck yes! ^o^

Oh really? Yay
n////n <3

I'm awful with veggies >.>
I barely eat any of them

I love watching cooking shows
on the food channel <3 Though
I don't cook all that much xD

Uh-huh ;B

Hello, Panda! :)
Nice to Meet you, Im Alt and WelCome to [email protected]!

Hope you EnJoy your stay! xP

@Nova: That's what I used to be like - literally the only vegetable I would eat was carrots. But I had a moment recently where I was eating a meal I'd just cooked and thought, "Huh, I didn't cook enough broccoli... wait! Don't I hate broccoli?" XD I was so proud of myself, haha. I guess I'm kind of the opposite of you when it comes to watching food shows - I feel like I should like them, but I can never get into them. Apart from the occasional episode of Ready Steady Cook.

@Alt: Thank you! I'm sure I will. :')

I'd seen you post somewhere in the forums, but reading your Fresh Meat thread, I'm even more impressed. XD You'll do well here in Menewsha. You have things to say! And you express yourself well! And you seem to have a sense of humor too - that's a good thing. ;3 I'm also pretty psyched by your researching the site before signing up. I did that too - reading the stickies to see what the rules were like before I bothered signing up. XD At least I'm not alone in that sort of thing!

As much as I love languages, I don't seem to have a head for them. Even when I was a kid, I couldn't pick it up easily. I know a smattering of French, German and Spanish and know a few words in Japanese. I'd really love to learn Chinese (I'm not sure if I'd prefer Mandarin or Cantonese) and Italian. :'

Aw, stop it! making me blush here. :lol:

Haha, but seriously thanks. I didn't know being a overly-rule-conscious nerd would stand me in such good stead here. XD

I'd love to learn German and Italian. I think they both just... sound really good. XD And I like the way German words can be broken down into bits that make up their meaning, like it's building blocks. Or, well, I could be wrong about that. I only know the German I've heard a couple of my friends speak, so I sort of tried to piece together meanings from French and English words I know. ;;

I used to eat only
corns and potatoes xD
Well, and lettuce; salads

Now, I'll eat carrots, celery,
peas, onions, peppers
and some others. But not by
themselves. In soups,
potpies, sandwiches, etc

I love food channel shows Cx

...Slowly growing to eat more vegetables high five? :'D

Which shows do you watch? I wonder if I've heard of any of them.

Heck yes! :boogie:

Well, I don't have cable, so no tv
But I sometimes watch it at my
sister's house. I like Chopped,
and sort of Hell's Kitchen, and
I love Ace of Cakes, plus
other cake shows! ^__^ and then
I sometimes watch several cooking
shows, depends on whats on

Oh! I've always wanted to see Ace of Cakes. I don't really like eating cakes, I'm not a big fan of sweet foods like that, but I love looking at them! X'D

I enjoy Hell's Kitchen when it happens to be on. At least, I think it was called Hell's Kitchen... which one is that again?

It's pretty cool :B Yeah me too, I only like cake once in a while, for a birthday or something. But some of the stuff they can make/design is like, homygosh!

The one with chef Ramey (however you spell his name) xD

It'd kind of make me sad to eat anything that looked so good, though...

I thought so! I think he's awesome, though I wouldn't like to have him yell at me. XD;;

I know! It'd take a ton of pics
of an awesome cake before I ate it Cx

I watch that show every season <3
It can be funny to watch him work, though,
I agree. Definitely wouldn't want to be
on the recieving end of his yelling >w<

Oh, you'd definitely have to take pictures. I just still don't know if I could bring myself to eat it even after doing that. XD

I think he does a good job. I mean, it's clear that some of the people do actually need to be yelled at in order to help them change the way they do things.

...Watching stuff that's set in restaurants, like Hell's Kitchen, reminds me of what a friend of mine who works as a waiter as Pizza Hut says: "Never take a look at the kitchen before you eat the food."

Kind of scary advice, right? :'D

I think it's just that what you'd forgive in your own kitchen would make you cringe to know it was going on in a restaurant. XD; You know, if you used your bare hands to touch food to make sure it didn't fall/was properly arranged/was cooked properly. You either know or don't think/care about the last time you washed your hands, but to have someone you don't know do it would make your skin crawl. And you may not clean the kitchen before you prepare your own meal, but if a restaurant didn't do it, you'd be aghast. XD

That said, I'm always leery of eating soft-serve ice cream or frozen treats of any sort when I go out. I used to work at TCBY (frozen yogurt place if you've never heard of it) and knowing how much work goes into properly cleaning the soft serve machines and how easily you can let things "slide" until they're unsanitary makes me cringe.

I love Hell's Kitchen... I just got off of a kick of watching seasons four and five on Hulu and then reading the recaps on Television Without Pity. XD I keep hearing about Ace of Cakes and I suppose should hit up Hulu and see if they have episodes. :3

I forget what else I was going to respond to because I've been distracted. D: Oh well, it was just chit-chat. XD; If you'd had a question about Menewsha, I would have remembered to answer the question. :P

Yeah, I'm sure that's all it is really. :3 After all, they couldn't be too bad, or people would get sick.

I can imagine those being really hard to clean... Actually, I guess most machines would be.

Ah, Hulu... I wish I could use it. Still, there are various places I can watch TV online that don't mind me being in the UK. I'll always associate Hulu with good times related to Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. X3

It is just chit-chat, so even if you forgot something you wanted to say, you can just say it later. I have no doubt that you would take your duties to inform me about Menewsha seriously. :'D

The machines are just kinda icky. XD The frozen yogurt spends all day getting caught up behind the star-shaped caps (the things that give frozen treats their pretty ribbed shapes).

So at the end of the day, you take off the caps (which can be difficult as they're stuck on there pretty well) and clean and soak them in disinfectant. And then clean the actual nozzles the yogurt comes out of.

The dip trays have had stuff drop into them all shift and the yogurt half-dries onto them, so you have to wash the metal grates *and* the plastic trays underneath them. (If you work a double-shift, that's twice a day. And it's gooey as well as being dried-on in places.)

I won't even go into what it's like in the hopper (where the frozen yogurt mix sits). But we cleaned our machines out every other day. It's a tedious task with lots of lifting of gallons of liquid, so it can get tiring.

All of these tasks make sure the product tastes good and is hygienic... And of course, it was like pulling teeth to get the teenagers to do their cleaning properly. Unless the management is good and keeps an eagle eye on the people responsible for cleaning the machines, your product can easily be contaminated or go 'off'...

I would frighten you with what happened after the management that kept an eagle eye on us walked out. I put in my two-weeks notice when they got shafted and in that two weeks I decided I would never eat there again. I kept things to a certain standard - I didn't want people getting sick. But after I left I heard horror stories of what the new staff weren't doing. D:

You're right, management does need to keep on top of things. It's a shame that the new staff couldn't do that. It's probably a little idealistic of me, but I guess I think that if something's part of your job, even if it's hard, you should do it. Especially something that important.

That frozen yoghurt looked pretty delicious though. = w=