This is one of my favorite moments from the Korean TV show You’re Beautiful but I can’t find an mp3 of a finished version of the song. Funny enough, there’s lots of kpop on Itunes, just not this soundtrack from a movie about a kpop group. So I’m posting this here for my own reference, and consider yourself warned that this contains spoilers for the show if you wanted to watch it (it’s from the 14th episode of like 15 or 16).
What I’m watching: As you know, I’ve been on a Korean TV kick lately. You’re Beautiful, a HILARIOUS show about a nun candidate who takes her twin brother’s place in a boy band while he recovers from surgery. She has to hide the fact that she’s a girl from all the band members as well as the public, including some very nosy entertainment reporters and a nasty actress who everyone thinks is a beautiful, kind, fairy-like girl. IT IS HILARIOUS, y’all. You have to particularly see this clip, in which the lead singer of the band, Tae Kyung—who has teasingly called the main character both a piggy because she holds her nose when trying to keep her feelings in, and a bunny because he’s afraid of bunnies and and she tends to cause trouble (he was once bitten by a bunny)—does a little “surgery” to make a present for her and return a hair clip she lost.
The best part is that the humor is also really smart. Even when it’s goofy.
I love a guy who can wield a hot glue gun for a good cause.
I can’t help myself. I have to keep rewinding the part where he glances at the piggy after removing its nose, turns it over, and pats its butt.
And of course, the moment when Minam finds the piggy bunny has its own hilarity. Someone even made a gif. This will only make sense from having watched the show, I suppose, but I can’t help but share it.
So: Go watch it. If you like goofy romantic comedies, this one’s a smart one.
I really love my job. A lot. I’ve been really busy at it for the last month or so, working toward getting Fall books out the door and working on acquiring/editing the books I’ve acquired for the next couple seasons. But what about outside of work? I’ve been thinking lately that part of my life isn’t so interesting.
Today I was hanging out with a friend and he asked me—my memory is fuzzy, but I believe in the context of me talking about yet another TV show I’ve watched—just what do I do after work. Maybe it’s because I was feeling like I don’t have much of a life—I’m still looking for my niche here in this city in many ways—I was a little embarrassed to admit that if I don’t have somewhere to be, I just go home and veg, watching a lot of TV. The answer would have involved WoW if I remembered to play anymore. I’ve gotten out of the habit these last few months.
But I’ve been thinking about it and I don’t know that I have much to be embarrassed about. Here’s my day: Out the door to work at 8:30, or even earlier if I have trash to carry down with me on my way out.
An hour commute; at work by 9:30. Work all day, yadda yadda. I officially get off at 5:30, but I generally don’t leave right away unless I have somewhere to go in the early evening. I usually end up working till at least 6, if not 7, because I’ve just got so much to do. A week ago Friday, I was at work till 10 pm because I had a project I was trying to finish (and ended up having to finish it Monday because I made myself go home at 10 with just 2 or 3 things left to finish).
But on a normal night I might get home, after errands/taking a walk/ etc., at 9 or 10 pm most weeknights! And it really IS okay to watch a little TV at ten o’clock at night. Or eight or nine.
That’s only one kind of weekday evening. Other nights I might leave early from work to attend a book event of some sort—a signing or reading or something. I’ll still get home just as late, but at least I’ve been out real-life socializing in the meantime. Or hang out with friends feeling guilty about how much TV I watch (not what the friend said—just my own thoughts in relation to the conversation).
Weekends are more varied. Some weekends I might stay in and marathon Doctor Who. Some I might be out on a bike ride in the afternoon and watching a movie with friends or playing WoW in the evening (that’s the plan for this weekend, only the video games will be on one of my friend’s consoles, not a MMORPG). Some I might be gathering for Korean barbecue or a movie. I’d like to start getting out with my camera in the late afternoons to practice my photography (I’m getting rusty) but haven’t really done it enough yet. Then there are the weekends that are consumed with mundanities like errands at Target and laundry.
So perhaps my life isn’t so boring as I think it is (except for the errands at Target and laundry). It’s just that I am busy enough in the weekdays that I have to remember to allow myself leeway in the evenings. So if you see me tweeting about yet another TV show, now you know why I do it.
On the recommendation of a friend, I watched an episode of a Korean romantic comedy, The Woman Who Still Wants to Marry, describing it as “a Korean Sex and the City, but perhaps with less sex, and funnier.” You might have heard me gushing about it on Twitter. It was HILARIOUS, so I must share it with you, and now I’m on to discovering other K-dramas, as apparently they’re called. There are a bunch of them on Hulu. What’s interesting is the next one I’m interested in checking out, Boys over Flowers, is based on a Japanese manga and anime series. Which of course makes the anthropological side of me wonder about the pop-culture bleed-over between Asian nations, and so forth.
Here’s the first episode. Maybe you’ll be as hooked as I am. You *have* to at least get as far as the asphalt incident.
Speaking of anthropological curiosity, I was especially interested in one particular thing I had never heard of from any of my Korean friends (including two Korean roommates)—it just never came up in conversation, I suppose: the Korean spa. There’s a part of TWWSWtM in which one of Shin Young’s suitors, Sang Woo, swears he’s going to wait outside for her all night if she doesn’t come downstairs. (They’re very proper about guys never going in the girls’ apartments, which is why later there’s a sort of scandal when… But I won’t spoil it! You have to see it!) But it’s winter, and she tells him he’ll freeze out there. So he says he’ll wait all night at the spa by her house instead. And this spa! I’ve never heard of such a thing–there’s this room in it where men & women are assigned gender-color-coordinated shorts/shirts that look kind of like mini-scrubs, and people just lie in the room and sleep. And there wasn’t any context! This baffled me, and no one I asked could explain what kind of spa lets people sleep there all night.
But at last the mystery is solved. I went out for Korean barbecue with some friends the other night and the subject of this show came up, so of course I had to ask: had anyone heard of such a thing?
And they had! And of all things, there’s one in Queens! Fascinating. I’ll have to try it out at some point.
It was also hilarious to me as a 30-something professional woman. I sympathize with the three main characters greatly, especially as a fairly feminist member of a pretty conservative culture (Mormonism). Much like Shin Young, no matter how well I do in my career, for many people, the thing that defines me is that I’m an old maid. But if I end up being Miss Rumphius in my old age, how can that be a bad thing?
I have finally set up my living room reasonably well, though I can’t figure out how to bring in a couch, and I seriously need more places for people to sit. (Just found some really great-looking folding chairs at Target that I’ll be ordering—folding chairs make great small-space seating options when you need more—but I still want a couch too, or at least a love seat.) I’m considering putting the bookshelves into the entryway, where the shoe rack and the bike currently are, and rearranging the room so that the TV is in front of the windows (really, really need to get curtains, too—Ikea is great for cheap cute curtains), the kitchen table which is currently by the windows goes over where the comfy chair is on the opposite wall, and the comfy chair goes next to the fridge or in the middle of the room (splitting the room in two for “living room” and “kitchen” spaces), leaving the long non-kitchen wall for a couch. But that leaves the bike in limbo. I have no idea where to put it. I think I need to figure out a ceiling-hook arrangement. Anyone familiar w/ that kind of thing?
Seems like the best use of a corner with a radiator, for example–hang a bike rack from the ceiling. Perhaps there’s something out there that I might even put on top of a radiator, rather than having to figure out how to get something to stay hooked in the ceiling? I’m never really good at even hanging plants from the ceiling, so I don’t trust my ability to hang bicycles.
Also things I need to figure out that I could use advice on: is there such a thing as a stand-alone cupboard organizer that would allow you to add another shelf? I don’t have enough cupboard space, but the top shelves of my cupboards are ridiculously tall and could stand being cut in half to allow another shelf, but there’s a gas meter in the middle of the cabinet, which doesn’t allow for a real shelf. I’m not really quite sure where to put all my spices yet.
Where do New Yorkers look for cheap, bed-bug-free, comfy furniture? Ikea’s cheapest couches aren’t the most comfortable. A friend pointed me to a custom furniture place in Indiana that will ship cheap furniture to you that has actual storage inside it, which sounds great, but it sounds like the couches are pretty over-firm, as well, and you have to assemble them yourself. I’d rather be able to sit on a couch to test it out (ask my Chicago roommates, Becky and Siobhan, what happened the last time we bought a cheap couch without testing it out first! No stuffing, no springs, just pleather over board, seriously). Ikea might be my best option for the price, but surely there are other options to explore, right?
This really is a cute apartment, once I can get everything working properly. Not very big, but almost big enough for all my stuff. And if I can go through all my books and maybe get rid of (gasp) a few of them, particularly the ARCs that I’ve been meaning to read but never actually gotten to, and books for church that are now available online, and other such things, I might be able to cut back on one bookshelf and that would save a bit of space!
At least, that’s my thinking. But have you ever tried to get rid of enough books to equal a six-foot-tall bookshelf? It’s agony!
And don’t even get me started on the right place to put a litter box in a NYC apartment. At least, this apartment. I’ve tried and discarded several ideas, and am left with only the front hall, which has no ventilation, so I have a fan going 24-7 in that direction and an air freshener. There’s no room for the automated litter box I love (which is currently taking up closet space—anyone want a free LitterMaid?) so I have to be more vigilant, too. Yet the closet space ABOVE the litterboxes feels quite under used because there’s no organization—I’d love suggestions on shelving options that would allow me to use half the closet rod for hanging coats, etc., but still be able to put laundry/household items above the litter boxes without having to dismantle the whole setup every time I need to clean the litter box.
So, suggestions welcome on places to go to get a great small couch for cheap, how to store a bike in a small space, ways you decide to weed books from your collection, self-cleaning kitty litter boxes made for small spaces, or closet organization methods.
One of these days, I swear, this apartment will be awesome. And then I’ll move out.
For those who were looking for the slides from my conference—including anyone who wanted to go but couldn’t make it, and those who are interested in starting their family history but aren’t sure where to start—here you go! These tips really apply to anyone–the basics of talking to your family, seeing what you already know, and using research principles to go from there work for anyone just starting out. It’s when you go further back that complications set in, whether that means trying to figure out how to read old German writing (and that’s HARD–it basically looks like a long string of loops), having to delve into the Freedman’s Bureau and Southern Claims Commission records to hopefully find an ancestor, or figuring out how to research your Asian ancestry if you don’t speak the language. But by the time you get there, hopefully you’ll be more of an expert!
I haven’t had a chance yet to post about my time at the Ventura/Santa Barbara SCBWI conference over Halloween weekend. I had a great time—the organizers, including Lee & Low author Alexis O’Neill, the V/SB SCBWI RA, were extremely organized, and it was so nice to meet so many authors and illustrators who are either currently published and working on more books, or who are working toward publication. The other guests, Reuben Pfeffer (agent at East-West Literary Agency) and Andrea Welch (Beach Lane Books) were so nice to talk to. It was a lot to fit a lot into one day! But the organizers were able to do it because they kept everyone on track time-wise.
I had my camera with me, but didn’t take many shots. But one thing I did get a shot of was a milestone that any editor would count as a highlight: getting to meet one of my authors for the first time in person. This time it was Karen Sandler, whose book, Tankborn, will be out with Tu in fall 2011. (And I finally met her agent just this Thursday when we and my coworker Miriam met for hot chocolate at Burdick’s—it makes me happy that Burdick’s opened a New York shop just in time for me to move here. I was in love with their Boston shop when I was in graduate school.)
So here’s me and Karen in California on the day before Halloween:
And just for good measure, we haven’t had some good pictures of my cats around here recently, so here’s a whole buncha cute fluffies for ya.
Dropped in on the Books for NYC Schools event to see Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier read. But the trains were running late, so I missed their part of the reading, and forgot my copies of Leviathan and How to Ditch Your Fairy at work, so I pretty much listened to Bennet Madison and Cecily von Ziegesar’s part of the reading–and I’m so glad I did, because I haven’t read their books and really enjoyed hearing their work–and said hi to Scott & Justine, just getting my copy of Specials signed because that was the only one I had at home. But I was able to donate several books to the event, which was the most important thing. I love that they did this, and it looks like it’s an ongoing non-profit project sponsored by ReadThis and The Center for Fiction, so you might be able to find ways of helping out even with the event over.
Even if you can’t help NYC schools, remember that most school libraries are suffering right now because of local and state budget shortfalls. April is School Library Month, and there’s a lot you can do in your own neighborhood, city, and county to get involved and make sure that kids in your own area have the tools they need to get a good education. A huge part of that education is access to a library–and librarians to staff those libraries. Laurie Halse Anderson is this year’s spokesperson and she has a video over on her site talking about why school libraries in particular are important. Pull quote:
On the fact that math scores are up across the country, but reading scores are not: “We haven’t asked parents to volunteer to teach our algebra classes… we haven’t fired math teachers and let kids to figure it out on the Internet, but we’ve closed libraries and fired librarians, who are the central figure of literacy in any school.”
After that, I was on to run a few errands near work that I forgot to do yesterday evening, which put me in the neighborhood of a kimbap cafe across the street from the Asian market I needed to pick a few things up from. I saw it yesterday on my way back to the office from picking up japchae at a Korean restaurant on the same street, but it didn’t register until I got back to the office. I love kimbap–but it takes forever for me to make it just for me, and I always end up with too much. So just over $5 for a roll all for myself? YUM.
I’ve been meaning to post pictures to Facebook of all the things I’ve been up to lately (including pictures of my CUTE nephews from my visit as I drove through on my way to New York), but I can’t seem to find my sync cord for my camera to my home computer. I was able to upload the pictures to my work computer via a borrowed card reader, which means I can now put them on my jump drive and take them home, but I keep forgetting to.
So, while I kill an hour before meeting a friend for dinner—not enough time to go all the way home to Harlem—I thought I’d post a few pictures that I’ve taken around the city and on my way here. It’s been too long since I shared my photography (too long since I took pictures on a regular basis!). I found pictures from LTUE in February that I’ve been meaning to post for about a month or so, as well. But I’ll do those in a separate post, because I have enough from New York to fill one post.
Some pictures of a recent trip to New York before I moved. Apparently I forgot to get the camera out except for at the top of the Empire State Building—my first time up there despite many trips to NYC by that time.
My local library’s anime selection is pretty dismal. This makes me sad, because their movie selection in other genres is really quite good (especially British movies and TV shows).
They suggested that I fill out a suggestion form for anime series that are must-haves. I have several ideas from my last couple of posts about anime, but I thought I’d throw it out here, as well. What 5-10 anime series would you say were series that every library should have?
My criteria: can’t be from the 80s or early 90s. Anime has moved on since then. No Robo-whatever it was called that so many remember and love from their childhood. I’m talking *current* anime touchstones. Something from the last 10 years or so.
Suggestions?
ETA: I forgot to mention that I specifically told the librarian not to suggest Miyazaki films because I’d seen them all. I believe the library has most, if not all, of Studio Ghibli’s work.
