No Problem

Today. Lots happened.

It started with me waking up at 6:20 in mom and dads bed. They're out of town, so of course I took their bed. Its like the heaven bed.

Here's what its like when I lay on my bed,

And here's what its like when I lay on mom and dads bed.

Just so you can get a mental picture of how awesome it is.

Anyway, so Tae Ream is sick so I don't have to take her to school, so I take my time getting ready, but I have nothing to do so I just go to school. I have this playlist called "strut/conquer the world" that pretty much makes me feel like a winner.

So I walk up to the school and the weather is perfect and the music is perfect, and the school museum window cleaners are speaking spanish and singing "work hard, play hard" as I pass, and then its just a perfect time to sit down and watch some Korean drama.

And then its still not time for class so its a perfect time to watch all my youtubes. Then its time to walk to class so I turn on the Crayon music video and watch that as I walk and I sit down and my teacher walks behind and was probably thinking, "the crazy things kids watch these days I just don't understand" or "omg wut.".
Then yadadadaddaaa learn about the government in class and then its another break and I turn on my playlist and strut some more,

walkin' down the halls like

Then I came home and I was so tired, but that didn't stop me from crafting like crazy! i made a nerd-hoodie for myself, and though it was hard and took way too long, it got me inspired to do more "wearable art", so next chance (money) I get, I'm going straight to hobby lobby and spending as much time as possible in their wearable art section buying all the things necessary for me to rock my wardrobe.

Ahhh, I love crafting when it involves clothes.

You know what else I love? Winter. IT'S COMING. wore a hoodie today and i'm ready to wear a hoodie for the rest of my life.

-Michelle

Lazy Days Become Too Lazy

I am not opposed to your initiative in changing the template. It seems much more interesting now.

So, I just watched the finale of MBLAQ Hello Baby... even though I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I enjoyed SHINee Hello Baby, I still cried at the end, because there were too many goodbyes, and since the kids were older they understood what it meant more than Yoogeun did. And you know how it makes the tears flow to see grown men crying because they have to say goodbye to kids for good.

Plus, I mean, I guess G.O. is pretty awesome in general.

So I recently discovered this band LEDApple. I don't know if you have heard their music before. It is a little different. I mean, they are a band like with a drummer and stuff, only they're all futuristic and their instruments are like, a bit odd. I actually have no idea what they are. They're not with a major label and they're not even that popular but all their music videos have this oddly high-budget feel to them. Like this one. It is also a little creepy but I like it. And then there's this one, which is pretty different. I think they keep changing members. Maybe that's it. I heard that one of their lead vocalists left the band because he had tuberculosis, of all things.

This has been a really long weekend. I wish I had more to do because honestly today has been one lazy day too many. I have a lot of stuff I want to do but I can't do any of it until getting home, like working off some of my substantial debt, and I feel a little detached from the finals frenzy that people seem to be in. None of my important finals are happening until Wednesday. Today I went to go sell back some of my books. As you may recall, I spent close to $300 on textbooks at the beginning of the semester, and when I took back the majority of them today, I was only able to get $20 in return for them. It really made me mad because I was kind of counting on at least $70 or so to go towards paying my tax debt.

So there's that. I think when I get home, I am going to go to Louisburg to apply for summer jobs. I expect that priority will be given to high school students, but I have work experience so maybe I can sell my skills more effectively. Only one way to find out, I suppose. I'm sick of feeling like a hungry money-eating machine with no useful output. Being grown up sucks sometimes.

I have been writing to pass the time. Even though these are lazy days I am incapable of being bored, as you know. I think my roommate probably thinks I'm weird because I spent about four hours last night writing one thing in a notebook. I really don't like typing out my stories usually because it feels creatively stifling. Lately I have felt a little creatively stifled just because I don't know. There are no rules to how creative feelings come and go. Anyway so I wrote out the beginning of this story which I am sure is complete rubbish but it was a good exercise.

Now, I will write some more and maybe study things (like I said, my first real final isn't until Wednesday), and I will also listen to Busker Busker because they just give me so much joy, and joy is good to have on days like this.

For some reason, in a lot of their songs the main singer keeps talking to the drummer, who's the white guy. "Hey, Brad, do you know 막걸리?" "오 ~ 막걸리 좋아요!" I am not sure what the purpose of it is, but it makes me laugh.

-Amy

P.S. Busker Busker has a song called 감기 걸렸어. I felt a strong sense of victory when I knew what it meant right away without having to look up any words. Ah, triumph.

Fergilicious

I listened to the Black Eyed Peas for the first time in a while. I remembered again why I don't really like their music that much (except for Hands Up. I still like that song). I guess the whole "I'm awesome and better than you (in the club)" lyric treadmill gets old after a while.

Then I listened to some Kanye West. He is slightly more interesting, but after listening to Gold Digger I figured he didn't have many other songs with the same fun factor.

Then I listened to Chris Brown, and remembered how much I like Chris Brown. Even though it feels morally turpitudal to admit that I like the music of a guy who has a pretty bad rep and seems to be an all-around scoundrel, I feel like it's similar to liking the music of people who were obviously tripping when they wrote their songs - flawed or not, they're still talented. It's a human condition.

Yesterday I started packing for getting out of here. At first I thought the deep-cleaning after packing was going to stress me out the most, but I'm quickly realizing that I have accumulated a volume of stuff that, while hardly comparable to the amount of stuff that my roommate has to deal with, is kind of more than I can handle. I packed up two big containers of clothes and stuff yesterday and it seems like I didn't even make a dent in my possessions. How did I end up with so much junk?! I also have books, which if you've ever moved/helped someone move, you know are really hard to deal with. I mean, you can just pack them up in a box, but if they're different sizes it's hard to pack them efficiently, and then they're really heavy. And I don't have a box to pack them in, so I will probably just tote them downstairs loose and pile them in the back of my car in a haphazard manner. Other things that are hard to pack are shoes and appliances, because no matter what you do they will always take up more space than they should.

These are the kinds of things you think about when you move. Is this what it's like to be grown up?! If so, I'm not a huge fan of growing up.

Your post was pretty cool. The part I liked best was the part about the hanok. I'm pretty sure that there is no place in the world with traditional houses as cool as the hanok, not even the places with castles. After all, castles are pretty inconvenient on the whole. Everything about hanoks makes sense.

I think you would like traditional Korean food. You like spicy things and as far as I know you don't mind seafood. Those are pretty much the only things most people have a problem with about Korean food. When I had bulgogi it was pretty much like something Dad would make on a Saturday night except with a slightly different set of spices. The kimchi was just divine, even though I'm pretty sure what I had wasn't nearly as spicy as it's usually made. Seaweed doesn't taste like anything, so no worries there.

Just let's avoid baby octopus. I don't think I could ever handle baby octopus.

I think the issue isn't that Taemin is wearing a GD&TOP shirt, but that he's wearing a shirt with the Playboy bunny on it. I refuse to believe that that isn't a Playboy bunny. It is obviously a Playboy bunny. It is ridiculous for anyone to suggest otherwise.

-Amy

Maybe the Longest Post Ever

5:40 - For my Literature for Adolescents class, my group has to make up a Japanese legend starring a crane (which brings health and enlightenment to all, and also oversees reincarnation). We decided to all write one separately, then come together and decide on which one is the best (or put them all together). I have until Sunday to make it really good. I think I'll make it funny, just because we've been known to be funny as a group in the past (It was mostly just our leader and the other girl in the group - as the maknae, I lack charisma, but I can try my best). Anyway, since writing is my strength, I hope my story makes the final cut.

Here's one of the things that annoys me the most - when teachers hand back writing-intensive tests with the grade and a two-or-three word note. I understand that they have a ton of tests to grade and they can't spend a whole bunch of time explaining why I got the grade I got, but really, if I get a bad grade, I want to know why. I got 87 on my American Literature midterm for "ideas not fleshed out enough", even though I spent the entire class period trying to flesh out as many relevant thoughts as I possibly could in the test booklet. I thought I did super well on my World Literature midterm too, but I got it back today with a 92, which I know is an A, but the only thing the teacher wrote on it was "explain your words". What's that supposed to mean? What am I supposed to take away from that? If there are only two tests in the entire term, and they constitute the entire grade I'm going to get, I want more of an explanation for a less than spectacular grade and, more importantly, suggestions for how I can get a better grade on the final test.

The student teachers in my Adolescent Literature class are pretty cool though. There was one assignment we had with the Eclipse group where we had to write journal entries from the perspective of an assigned character - mine was Edward, and I really hammed it up. Even though I got full points on all of them, they still took the time to tell me what I did right ("You did such a great job of showing Edward's passion for Bella!" and "I think it's important that Edward realize just how restrictive he has been to Bella"). I feel confident of their future success as teachers.

Yeah, that whole Strong Heart episode sounds pretty sketch, I don't know if I'll be able to bear watching the whole thing when it comes out. I think part of what makes it so painful is the awkward translations, but still. I mean, dang. If you've lived and worked with someone for like seven or eight years, you should 1) have at some point or another seen each other with your shirts off without being weird about it (they're guys, for goodness sake, and they change like twenty times every concert), and 2) have enough mutual respect to not dish out all these dirty details on national television. Sometimes I think Big Bang members must have really uneasy relationships (or else they're magnificent trolls).

Wooooah, that Jason Derulo MV was pretty legit. He has fancy footwork, plus the backup dancers were cool. Like I said, I'm not a big fan of him but he's definitely gone up in my book. It's true about the lip syncing though. If you're going to lip sync, at least sing as well so it actually looks marginally real.

Chris Brown - Chris Brown is pretty intense. I mean I don't like his voice hugely, but I have the same view of it as I do of Taeyang's: doesn't sound great, but he has awesome control and is super versatile. Plus I can never resist men dancing in suits. What's with the animal suits though? Is this Chris Brown on acid? At one point there was a guy with a panda head in the background, and I lol'd. But yeah. The man can dance, especially in the Gene Kelly getup. I like.

B1A4 - Aww, that's a pretty cool video. They are all super cute except yeah, the girl was scary. I like the guy with the long hair. The video of theirs I watched the other day that I thought was so awesome was Beautiful Target. Literally every second of it makes me happy. I was going to mention a few specific things but I couldn't point out anything without wanting to point out everything.

NU'EST - is that their only song? It is pretty cool, and yeah, that guy seriously looks like a girl. The blonde ponytail isn't helping his case at all. And the end - ENGLISH. I feel like they're doing that thing that BAP did, debuting with a super intense song and dance that sort of surprises everyone into liking them. And instead of Zelo they have a girl.

7:00 - I can't stand LMFAO, really. I liked "I'm Sexy and I Know It", but their music videos are pretty inexcusable. I feel like there's a point, as a musician, when you should step back and question whether or not you're actually making music that people enjoy for more than just a catchy beat.

Beast - I have seen that video, but I didn't realize the first time that KiKwang was singing in English at the beginning. "I'm hurrsick" made me laugh. As the Arms, I feel like he shouldn't have such a ridiculously pretty face. As always, YoSeob is my favorite. The outfit he's wearing at the end is hilarious.

2PM - Yay Thailand! Yay Nichkhun! They are pretty funny unscripted. And Chansung is pretty tall. I don't know how, but I'm sure that the second I post this post I will forget his name again. I don't know why I always forget his name, but by now it is a regular occurrence. If these making of/behind the scenes films are to be believed, all these groups are basically just messing around having fun all the time. Which seems pretty cool, but I don't think it's true. Anyway Wooyoung on the keyboard is pretty funny.

I would pick yellow, because Wooyoung, or pink, because Nichkhun in a lace button-up and pleather vest is too hilarious to ignore.Though black is close too, because those backup dancers are pretty cool, and you know how I feel about black. Yes to the cornrows; no to the suit jacket with no shirt underneath.

Gotta stop this, seriously. I have other stuff to do! Though I'm proud to say that I wrote my two literary analyses with a vengeance last night with time to spare before bedtime (though lately I have been sleeping very badly).

You're going to Jeff City. Even though I'm not crazy about the city itself, the Capitol is pretty cool, and you'll probably have a grand time with all those people. Experience being a minority!

-Amy

Best day

I pretty much agree with everything you said in your last post, mostly the parts about talent envy. Usually I avoid that sort of thing by passively avoiding people around me who are talented and only concentrating on talented people from afar, like on YouTube, because if I don't know them I don't get as depressed.

So today has been pretty awesome as far as days go. Classes were cancelled in the morning because of this college function, so I went to get donuts with a few people in my hall, and then when we got back I went and printed out some sheet music. It cost $0.60. I feel robbed. However, it was totally worth it because I went straightaway to Utt (for a music building, it doesn't have a very musical name) and got to work! You should know that the vigor with which I set forth was entirely inspired by your awesome and unexpected video that you posted this week of you Gagaing it up. I am working on something similar but it will take a little while to put together. Anyway, I was so involved in learning this one song that before I knew it, two and a half hours had gone by. I rarely get so lost in something that I completely lose track of the time, but it happened today and it was great.

One of my main issues with nerdy shirts is that if I wore them no one would understand the nerd in-jokes. I have met a few nerds since I was here but they are all nerdy about things I don't understand. So I figure it's pretty unlikely that I'll meet someone who's nerdy about things like musicians on YouTube or British and Asian television or writing stories about all the adventures they wish they could have. If I do meet that person, though, I'll probably be so happy that I'll propose immediately.

The song you linked was beatlicious. I am putting it on my mp3 player straightaway. I have a playlist called Dance, and everything in there is phantasmagorical. I think I used that word slightly incorrectly, but I don't care one bit.

I can't help liking school. The weird thing is that most of the time it's not the actual school that I love, only the good feeling that comes when I do an undeserving amount of work and still get an A. Sometimes I think that colleges sacrifice a lot of potential smartypants in order to make sure that no one gets left behind. That's why all the lower-level classes are obscenely easy. It's sort of depressing. Another think I like about school is the fact that I'm here, but since I don't have any obligations here, I get to spend all my time engrossed in my own betterment. So far it's working out really well. That probably means I need to get a job. Also I'm thinking about joining this honor society. They don't really do anything but it will probably look good on my resume. Thoughts?

-Amy