Things have changed since I started this blog as a way to sort out all that I was mentally and emotionally going through in the wake of returning to America & attempting to be an adult. I no longer have this crippling worry about fitting in or then over-compensate for my anxiety. And while I still think about Seoul from time to time, it is not with that deep longing and heartache as if I might have made a wrong decision in returning home. I am mostly a functioning adult with my mind firmly set in the present and near future.
All in all, things are good.
And so I feel like I'm in a good space to return to the blogging world. I know this blog has been neglected for most of this year, largely due to the fact that instead of blogging, I've been journaling. I didn't make any firm resolutions this year, but one thing that I wanted to get in the habit of is journaling more often. I like the idea of me writing books about my life--if only for me and to be read by me. As I get older, I've found that my memory isn't as dependable as it once was, and that I being able to reference an event or a time in my life in my journals is useful in keeping my mind right. It's also nice to revisit with myself from ages past, and I think it's also useful in seeing what personal developments, if any, I've made. I know that I could also do that with a blog, and have quite often done so in the past, but as a blog is, by definition, a public thing, I am not always forthcoming on my posts, and sometimes what's needed in a moment isn't a well-planned and executed blog post but a long rambling tirade of emotions that can happen in the privacy of your journal. I have little doubt that my journaling this year has helped me see my life in certain ways and focus my attention on the things I wanted to change.
So now that I'm in a much better place than I was last year, consider this my comeback. I've thought of a lot of different things of this blog during my hiatus, and I'm excited to get to them.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Friday, May 2, 2014
K-pop Corner #1: Akdong Musician
I know I've been neglecting this blog (for reasons) but I'm going to try and ease into blogging once more. I find that after a long hiatus, I come back to my blogs with renewed enthusiasm. And with that in mind, I'm presenting this new series on my blog called "K-pop Corner" where, bi-monthly, I will introduce some (hopefully) interesting piece of k-pop to all your inquiring minds. It may be something as simple as a song, a short video from a variety show, a trailer for an upcoming movie, or something of the kind. There is just so much to k-pop besides Psy & "Gangnam Style" and the aim of this series is just to broaden the horizons a bit on what else K-pop has to offer. Think of me as your K-pop ambassador, if you will.
For this inaugural post of "K-pop Corner" I decided, after much a long debate with myself, to go with something a little more accessible and familiar, but not lacking in punch. I give you the talented sister-brother, singer-songwriter teenage duo, Akdong Musician.
The siblings (Lee Soo-hyun + Lee Chan-hyuk) first came to the public's attention when they competed in the second season of a talent survival program (similar to American Idol) called K-Pop Star in 2012-2013. They were a favorite to win, capturing judges and audience votes with their combination of clever lyrics, skillful composition, unique voices, and just over all adorableness. After winning the competition, Akdong Musician signed with one of the "Big 3" entertainment agencies in South Korea, YG Entertainment, and have recently released their debut album entitled "Play."
The album is fresh with a whimsical youthful sound that seems to embody all that Akdong Musician is. But don't be fooled; behind those child-like smiles and serious musicians are singers with talent and skill in excess. "Play" consists of 11 songs, all of which were produced, composed, and written by Chan-hyuk, who is a mere 18 years of age, by the way. Just because Akdong Musician are young and want to capitalize on the essence of being young, doesn't mean there is anything juvenile or childish in the music they are producing. And while the entire album is A+ in my book, I narrowed my selection to 2 of their songs (I couldn't pick just one) that just so happen to be their title tracks.
The first, the up-beat, incredibly delightful "200%" that perfectly captures the flush of feeling for a young love:
And to prove that young doesn't necessarily mean unperceptive, "Melted" demonstrates a more serious turn for the duo and seems to express that pivotal moment between adolescence and adulthood, where one questions why the world of adults is so cold compared to the warmth of youth. When Soo-hyun asks, "Why is ice so cold?" (a play on the words for "ice" and "adults"), it is a question that lingers with you as much as her hauntingly beautiful voices does:
What I love so much about Akdong Musician is that they occupy such a unique niche in mainstream k-pop. They're almost indie, but not quite. They're mainstream, but they're not an idol group. They have a ridiculous amount of autonomy when it comes to their music production, but they have the backing of a major record company. The result of all of that is presence of otherness in mainstream k-pop--a slightly different sound, a slightly different look--than what is pumped out of the k-pop factories. But all of that aside, I just really enjoy Akdong Musician's music. "Play" is their first musical offering, and if it is any indication of what we can expect from the Lee siblings in the future, they'll be around of a long time yet.
As an added bonus, here is the duo performing their original song, "Don't Cross Your Legs" (다리꼬지마) from their days on K-pop Star:
[ROM/HANGUL/ENG] 악동뮤지션 (AKDONG Musician) - 다리꼬지마 (Don't cross your legs) Live from Joel Ramirez on Vimeo.
Their album is available on iTunes for purchase.
For this inaugural post of "K-pop Corner" I decided, after much a long debate with myself, to go with something a little more accessible and familiar, but not lacking in punch. I give you the talented sister-brother, singer-songwriter teenage duo, Akdong Musician.
The siblings (Lee Soo-hyun + Lee Chan-hyuk) first came to the public's attention when they competed in the second season of a talent survival program (similar to American Idol) called K-Pop Star in 2012-2013. They were a favorite to win, capturing judges and audience votes with their combination of clever lyrics, skillful composition, unique voices, and just over all adorableness. After winning the competition, Akdong Musician signed with one of the "Big 3" entertainment agencies in South Korea, YG Entertainment, and have recently released their debut album entitled "Play."
The album is fresh with a whimsical youthful sound that seems to embody all that Akdong Musician is. But don't be fooled; behind those child-like smiles and serious musicians are singers with talent and skill in excess. "Play" consists of 11 songs, all of which were produced, composed, and written by Chan-hyuk, who is a mere 18 years of age, by the way. Just because Akdong Musician are young and want to capitalize on the essence of being young, doesn't mean there is anything juvenile or childish in the music they are producing. And while the entire album is A+ in my book, I narrowed my selection to 2 of their songs (I couldn't pick just one) that just so happen to be their title tracks.
The first, the up-beat, incredibly delightful "200%" that perfectly captures the flush of feeling for a young love:
And to prove that young doesn't necessarily mean unperceptive, "Melted" demonstrates a more serious turn for the duo and seems to express that pivotal moment between adolescence and adulthood, where one questions why the world of adults is so cold compared to the warmth of youth. When Soo-hyun asks, "Why is ice so cold?" (a play on the words for "ice" and "adults"), it is a question that lingers with you as much as her hauntingly beautiful voices does:
What I love so much about Akdong Musician is that they occupy such a unique niche in mainstream k-pop. They're almost indie, but not quite. They're mainstream, but they're not an idol group. They have a ridiculous amount of autonomy when it comes to their music production, but they have the backing of a major record company. The result of all of that is presence of otherness in mainstream k-pop--a slightly different sound, a slightly different look--than what is pumped out of the k-pop factories. But all of that aside, I just really enjoy Akdong Musician's music. "Play" is their first musical offering, and if it is any indication of what we can expect from the Lee siblings in the future, they'll be around of a long time yet.
As an added bonus, here is the duo performing their original song, "Don't Cross Your Legs" (다리꼬지마) from their days on K-pop Star:
[ROM/HANGUL/ENG] 악동뮤지션 (AKDONG Musician) - 다리꼬지마 (Don't cross your legs) Live from Joel Ramirez on Vimeo.
Their album is available on iTunes for purchase.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
I Left My Heart In Seoul
My most favorite Oppa (and only oppa lets be real) is getting married! I could not be more happy for him and his fiancee. The wedding looks like it will be in October of this year in SEOUL. While I was thinking about making a return trip to Korea next year, I certainly don't mind going sooner than that.
I'm seriously too excited over the prospect of being in Korea in 6 months that I can't think of anything else.
(But to be honest, I've got a lot of things to do this year w/friend's baby + bridal showers that I don't know if I can go to Korea this year < /3)
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Winter Wonderland Tag
Something a bit different on the blog today, a tag video! I recorded this a bunch of times on different days because I was never satisfied with the result, but after 3 days of this I gave up and what you see is the best of the bunch lol.
I tag, Ashley, Andrea (& Mike) and Olivia! All of their blogs are linked on the sidebar under "Favs." :)
I tag, Ashley, Andrea (& Mike) and Olivia! All of their blogs are linked on the sidebar under "Favs." :)
Thursday, December 5, 2013
News Flash: I Miss My Language Partner!
Since I'm back in CA and have time to spare these days, I've been wanting to get back into studying and learning Korean. I don't really want to pay to take classes in an extension program ($$$$) and I don't really want to go to an academy-type of language institute, so I thought I might partake in an language exchange meetup.
Lets just say that after trying it out twice, I came home and immediately messaged my old language partner(이상형) from Korea. I met some very nice people who were extremely welcoming and fun, but I'm just not sure a group language exchange is what I need right now. And not to say that my LP is replaceable by any means, but I'm only just now fully appreciating our study situation and really how well it turned out. I definitely appreciated my LP before, and thought it was pretty lucky that we got along so well as people, but now I'm appreciating just how well we got along as language partners. I just didn't think it would be this difficult to find a compatible language partner.
An example of this compatibility issue can be seen in something as small as the choice to speak formally or informally to one another. Last night, after asking the ever important age question, a Korean male found out that I am actually older than him. He was surprised because he thought for sure that he was "oppa" to me. Suddenly, he rejected my older status and decided that he would be the older of us so I should call him "oppa." After I put up a fight because lets be serious that doesn't even make sense and to be honest I HATE using the world "oppa," he then made the suggestion that we should be same-age friends to speak informally.
I don't know if this is an issue now that I'm the native speaker of the host country (instead of vice versa when I was studying in Korea), and that the culture/group has promoted speaking informally, or that the Korean students studying here want become closer to Americans, or what, but generally, I'm not someone who uses informal language with people without reason--especially not with someone I just met.
Compare that situation to my old LP. LP and I are actually same-age friends, but we spoke to each other formally for a good while before we switched to informal language. And that's because we got closer to each other as friends and felt more comfortable, so it made sense.
I think I just like to reserve informal language for people who are really close to me--I like for it to have meaning, and since I don't use it freely, when I do use informal language with someone, it really conveys the feeling of closeness, on my end at least. Likewise, the only people I like to call "oppa" are guys who 1) are actually older than me, and 2) I have that close relationship with. It's not just a superfluous "oppa-dongsaeng" relationship.
Call me picky, but that's just how I roll. #kanyeshrug But apparently its not just me. LP is having a hard time getting a new language partner on his end as well. In the end, we agreed that we'll never find better language partners than each other.
He also said "you must miss me," and then I responded, "ㅇㅇ 보고싶어" because its true and I'm glad we still keep in contact and that I can interrupt him while he's at work to complain about my life and that I speak to him in 반말 because I don't usually speak to others informally and that I accept him speaking in 반말 to me because generally I don't like when others speak to me informally.
So it looks like its back to more k-dramas in the meantime, and then enrolling in a class sometime after the start of the spring semester. I'm toying with the idea of introducing him to an acquaintance in Korea who expressed not only wanting a Korean language exchange partner, but explicitly said she wanted him as a partner. LP was pretty famous on my seoul blog and I never got more comments or likes on any posts as much as I did when I blogged about him. Except that I selfishly don't want him to replace me haha. I'll get over it though, because I do want good things for him. I just need to make sure this girl isn't crazy and will treat him right (I sound like his mother).
Lets just say that after trying it out twice, I came home and immediately messaged my old language partner
An example of this compatibility issue can be seen in something as small as the choice to speak formally or informally to one another. Last night, after asking the ever important age question, a Korean male found out that I am actually older than him. He was surprised because he thought for sure that he was "oppa" to me. Suddenly, he rejected my older status and decided that he would be the older of us so I should call him "oppa." After I put up a fight because lets be serious that doesn't even make sense and to be honest I HATE using the world "oppa," he then made the suggestion that we should be same-age friends to speak informally.
I don't know if this is an issue now that I'm the native speaker of the host country (instead of vice versa when I was studying in Korea), and that the culture/group has promoted speaking informally, or that the Korean students studying here want become closer to Americans, or what, but generally, I'm not someone who uses informal language with people without reason--especially not with someone I just met.
Compare that situation to my old LP. LP and I are actually same-age friends, but we spoke to each other formally for a good while before we switched to informal language. And that's because we got closer to each other as friends and felt more comfortable, so it made sense.
I think I just like to reserve informal language for people who are really close to me--I like for it to have meaning, and since I don't use it freely, when I do use informal language with someone, it really conveys the feeling of closeness, on my end at least. Likewise, the only people I like to call "oppa" are guys who 1) are actually older than me, and 2) I have that close relationship with. It's not just a superfluous "oppa-dongsaeng" relationship.
Call me picky, but that's just how I roll. #kanyeshrug But apparently its not just me. LP is having a hard time getting a new language partner on his end as well. In the end, we agreed that we'll never find better language partners than each other.
So it looks like its back to more k-dramas in the meantime, and then enrolling in a class sometime after the start of the spring semester. I'm toying with the idea of introducing him to an acquaintance in Korea who expressed not only wanting a Korean language exchange partner, but explicitly said she wanted him as a partner. LP was pretty famous on my seoul blog and I never got more comments or likes on any posts as much as I did when I blogged about him. Except that I selfishly don't want him to replace me haha. I'll get over it though, because I do want good things for him. I just need to make sure this girl isn't crazy and will treat him right (I sound like his mother).
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