I Get Parental Anxiety

Feeding Bach has become such a routine lately that a lot of days the drudgery of the activity leads me to forget whether or not I've actually fed him yet that day. It's one of my greatest fears that I will overfeed him and come home to find him floating belly up because of my negligence. Is this what it's like to be a mother?? If so, it is too stressful for me.

I'm a little stressed out about my Writing Fiction for Publication class because it has become clear that everyone there took Creative Writing together and therefore are adhering to unspoken rules that I am unaware of. Like, for instance, last class they all got out critical responses they'd written up to give to the person who had handed out their short story the week before, and when I asked if that was a requirement, they all looked at me like I hadn't listened to anything that had gone on in class thus far when I know for a fact that no one mentioned writing response letters at any time during the class, least of all the teacher.

Another thing that makes me unsure about that class is that so far every short story I have read is about some who is crazy or is going crazy. I wrote my short story about a twelve-year-old boy. Next week when we go over it I'm afraid they're going to tear it apart for being too boring. I'm ridiculously nervous. I love reading other people's stories but I am not sure about other people reading my stuff. I still have the feeling that my writing is a part of my private self that I never show to anyone. It seems indecent to put it in the light. In fact, the more I think about the story that I handed out, the more uneasy I get. Maybe its because I'm afraid that since I so rarely share my writing that my thoughts won't be transferable at all.

Or it could just be that I have this bad habit of selectively remembering only the negative parts of a given memory (maybe that's why I can never recommend dramas/movies to you because I'm remember everything I didn't like about them and nothing I did like).

Speaking of movies I didn't like, though, the other day I went to see Seeking a Friend for the End of the World because it was playing for free in the Union and it looked interesting. Well it wasn't interesting. It was stupid and everything that happened was predictable and sad. Steve Carrell and Keira Knightly actually made for a pretty cool couple, even though their roles were very specific cliches, but the screenplay was written in such an awkward way that I couldn't even like them.

After I did that, I needed a pick-me-up so I went and checked out a small pot to make an unnamed dish involving the Basmati rice Mom sent me for my birthday, carrots, and a potato. It was around midnight when I finished it, but that made it no less delicious.

I also had crackers and gouda cheese, also courtesy of Mom. Thanks. :D

I was reading Elise's blog today and she mentioned having new pens and it being awesome. The problem with pens is that there is never enough ink in them. I take all my notes in pen and I doodle a lot in the margins and in my journal, so basically I run through a good pen about one every month. And good pens aren't always easy to come by. Taeream gave me a set that I loved so much that I've used one up already doing things like drawing octopi,

 

or the logos of whoever I happen to be listening to at the time:

You know, important things.

-Amy

Saturday Morning

11:05 - today I woke up and realized that I look like a boy.

I don't think I mentioned this before, but a couple of days ago I cut my hair. I don't really know what I was thinking, honestly. I didn't start until it was about 11pm, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't thinking clearly at the time or something. Anyway, I only narrowly avoided disaster and instead arrived at absolute mediocrity. This has got to be the most boring haircut I've ever had. I didn't even think to keep it at least a little longer on top. I took a picture to document this occurrence.

Sexy, right? I'm taking selcas to the next level.

While I'm sharing pictures, here's one from a couple of weeks ago of the white board we have on the outside of our door. I wrote 안녕하세요 (crookedly, I know) but someone else wrote what's underneath it.

It made my day (week), anyway.

So as you know, with Deathnote I had my first real experience with graphic novels, and then this week for my Literature for Adolescents class I read American Born Chinese, which wasn't awesome but it was pretty fun nevertheless. Anyway, I was inspired by trying something new like that, so I played around a little with drawing one of my writing works in progress in comic book form. And it turned out being totally fun. Here's the main obstacle I ran into: it's really, really hard for me to draw the same person from panel to panel and make them actually look like the same person. I have to really, really carefully think about what features make them that person, and draw them the same every time. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be. But it's fun anyway.

11:30 - 2NE1 is awesome. But their band is awesomer. Imagine being so famous and great that you get to just go to a recording session and sing with musicians like this.

I started reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. You can tell it was written by someone at least slightly bitter about their childhood. Here is an excerpt:

Harry had been sent to the best elementary schools - and when that didn't work out, he was provided with tutors from the endless labor pool of starving students. Always Harry had been encouraged to study whatever caught his attention, bought all the books that caught his fancy, sponsored in whatever math or science competitions he entered. He was given anything reasonable that he wanted, except, maybe, the slightest shred of respect.

So you know how I was talking earlier about how weirded out I am when famous and/or talented people are younger than me? The same is true when I meet actual peers who are younger than me (basically my entire floor save one). I think this disorientation comes from growing up with almost everyone around me being older. I didn't have any friends who were younger than me. Besides you, I didn't even have any family who was younger than me, and so I always automatically defaulted to the youngest, or one of the youngest. Like, me and you and Joseph are still "the kids", and you and me are "the girls" (at least we've graduated from "the little girls"). It's ingrained in my mind, so being the unnie on 4th Hosey is odd. And people know I'm older, so they keep coming up to me to ask exactly how old I am in case I'm old enough to buy them alcohol. It's profoundly unsettling.

Lunchtime.

12:35 - Biscuits and gravy for lunch. Yes.


So here is what has made today so great (so far). I have been listening to my dance playlist all morning while I do all this stuff. I don't listen to my dance playlist often because it makes me feel restless sometimes, but on a sunny morning like this when I'm doing fun things, it is perfect. I put on those huge headphones and turned the bass all the way up, because I can. I am slowly refining all my playlists and they are getting good. You should check them out. "Smooth" is currently my favorite. I took the "kpop" off the front of the title because I put a JB song on there and I may add more. After all, it would be silly of me to abandon all the other music I like in favor of kpop.

Okay, pause writing while I listen to Digital Bounce. I think I've only actually heard this song all the way through two or three times, so it is pretty cool right now.

...and, TOP. Awww yeah.

In other news, I just saw this picture and I think it might prevent me from sleeping at night.

I don't have anything against Niel, and honestly his voice is pretty good, but I don't know if I will ever get used to whatever he has going on with his face and hair. 

2:03 - 2PM's My Color may be my new favorite song.

And I realized that in GD and TOP's "High High", they spell out ghetto at the end, and then electro. So it's "ghetto electro"? Makes about the same amount of sense as the rest of the song.

6:17 - I got tired of sitting down, so I am following the advice of office-space gurus everywhere and putting my laptop on top of the dresser. It is actually at exactly the right height for typing.

Today, I finally got around to finishing Coffee Prince. I'm glad I didn't abandon it. I wasn't ever a huge fan of Han Gyul (he always seemed a little whiny and desperate, even though he was funny and sweet), so I was tempted, but the supporting characters gave me hope. By the end I was in transports of joy. I'm glad that not everyone got a perfect ending, and I'm glad that the Japanese guy could find happiness even though that lady left him after everything (that sucked). And I definitely cried a lot when the three guys were saying goodbye to her right before she left for Italy. Ha Rim, so sweet.

Apparently, Yoon Eun Hye (the actress who plays Eun Chan) is like one of Korea's national treasures and everyone is in love with her. I guess she's pretty cool. She was pretty cool in Lie To Me too, but I think I'd rather see her in a movie. I will have to look one up.

I should go, because I think I might actually do homework tonight or something. I have been reading this book for World Literature, it's called Madame Bovary and even though it is chock-full of admirable moral lessons, it is still exactly the sort of crash-and-burn romance novels I despise. Maybe I despise it even more because I can see myself in the main character (who is, incidentally, a terrible person). I will prevail, however. I suspect that she will die in the end, because it is that sort of book.

To be honest, I have been hoping that she'll die for at least the last hundred pages. I suppose that's too much to hope for, though.

-Amy

P.S. 7:55 - I'm putting this at the end of the post because I feel like if anyone else reads this they will abandon the chore of getting through it before they get here, and I will be spared undue shame. I just wanted to relate to you that last night, the dining hall closed at 6:30 and I was so hungry that I wasn't satisfied just with the ramen I made at 8:30... I had to put ranch on it. I know. I'm sorry.

I Remember How To Draw!

So today was pretty uneventful, except while I was sitting here at my desk listening to kpop cranked to 11 and finishing this letter I wrote to Kristin, I thought, why don't I do some drawing? And so I did. In hindsight, it would have been good to do some drawing with an actual subject that I was looking at, but as we all know on the weekends I am sometimes known to be a lazy butt and it seemed like too much trouble at the time. So I drew a guy freehand without looking at anything, took a picture, drew on it some more, and then took another picture. Here is the result.

I could have taken the pictures in better lighting, but at the time the lighting seemed fine. I think it's just my camera not being the best camera around.

I think this picture is probably not finished yet. I feel like it still needs more depth and detail to it, so if I add to it maybe I'll put up another picture. We'll see.

-Amy