One little kpop spam

Okay, so I've been pretty good at keeping this mostly k-pop free because, well, I started that tumblr account of mine that is pretty much strictly dedicated to all things k-culture (pop, drama, culture) and this is going to mostly anecdotes and stuff from life in Korea, food, school, activities, events, etc. If you are interested in that stuff, I recommend you head over to tumblr and subscribe/rss feed/read religiously/ask questions/etc!

But, tonight at 12 a.m. marks a major moment for me personally here in Korea. It's BigBang's comeback (after 2 years and 3 months... but who's counting?) and as lame as that may be, I am anticipating this and hyped for this more than perhaps anything in my whole life. This, to me, is more exciting than making the varsity basketball team, getting into college, starting university, turning 21, getting a bid to college nationals for ultimate frisbee, getting a job right out of uni, leaving America to teach English in another country, traveling to 3 continents in less than 12 months, and any other major life moment I can remember.

It's just that this group has really defined my experiences here. If it weren't for bigbang, I think a lot of my life he would just be lived in a state of: "this is just temporary, so don't bother getting attached" but via my love of bigbang I have been able to engage my students and initiate deep and meaningful relationships with them, have opportunities to meet people (both famous and not) that I'd never have met before, and learn a tremendous amount about the culture I am living in first hand.

If it weren't for big bang, I think I'd probably still believe that my living in Korea is 2-5 year commitment and just a break from a "real" life beckoning from America. However, this "temporary" Korean life has become so much more than that, and I can frankly say that this 2-5 year commitment has suddenly developed into a love that will last my whole life for a culture that I was turned on to at age 21 when I first saw the video for 거짖말 on youtube.

Thanks big bang for 2 years of memories and amazing experiences, and hopefully to many many more years filled with your music and concerts!!

Anyhow, here's the last teaser before bigbang has their comeback at midnight tonight. I hope you can see in it some little sparkle of love that I have huge quantities of.

p.s. In another life update, I'll add that I got my first kitten, Casanova, last friday, and am picking up my other lovely baby tonight. He doesn't have a name yet, but I will post pictures tomorrow. I promise.

p.p.s. OMG BIGBANG BIG SHOW IS FRIDAY. I'm dying.

A New Video

So I finally tried making a video with a Korean song and its English translation subbed. I did GD & TOP's Intro for High High because I'm currently working on translating the cd. If I'm lucky I'll get all the singles translated. It'd be extra nice if I could get 집에가지마 and Baby Goodnight up on youtube before they start promotions in mid-January. I don't want to make any promises because my pace has been pretty slow (only two songs translated so far...)

But anyways, here's my first attempt at subbing a song (GD's part is a little rough because I struggled with the controls and it's too much work to re-edit it at this point, but TOP's part and the hook is pretty perfect).

Also, I'll hopefully get a blog made sometime this week. Luckily I don't have any classes, AND my office partner has vacation this week so I can make videos without much interruption. I'll probs be bringing my laptop to school a bunch starting tuesday or wednesday.

Also also, in the apartment above me people are having sex. It's kind of annoying.

xoxo
A

A day in the life of a Korean High School Student.

This video is awesome. It's the third most viewed video of the week. Freaking awesome.

The opening screen reads: 고등학생의하루 Which just means High School student's day.
The final screen is 끝 which means finish.

Here's the video:



p.s. my youtube channel is the 89th most viewed Korean channel of the week!!!!!

Busy Days

In 5 days I went from roughly 10,000 total video views on 30 total videos to almost 20,000 currently. I also had a mere 9-11 subscribers, and now stand at 56. Yahoo!

Also, today was hella productive. I had a super busy day at school: 5 classes back to back, including the two worst classes at my school. Then I managed to get off work early and hit the bank to pay a bill AND the post office to mail Christmas gifts back home (last year I barely managed to send my gifts before January 30th). Then I took a bus to the 한의원 for acupuncture. Got my acupuncture and discovered I've lost 2.5 kilos so far (YAY). Then I took a cab back to my neighborhood (it was raining) and picked up contact lenses. Then walked home (it stopped raining) and stopped to get some mandarins from the traditional market, and then some granola bars for breakfast this weekend. Now it's 6:30 and I don't really know what to do.

Not eating dinner at all really takes the fun out of evenings.

I'm pretty exhausted though. Hopefully I'll hit the sack early today.

YouTube Videos

My youtube channel is currently ranked at the #46 most viewed South Korean channel of the day. This is a pretty awesome accomplishment. I'd like to thank GMarket for being amazing at finding me really close seats less than one week from the concert date, and YG Family for making an awesome concert.

Anyways, here are the videos from YG Family concert:









Share them with your friends, and get me even higher on the most viewed list!! And subscribe to my youtube channel!

Hot List December

The hottest things of this winter!

1. Kanye West: My beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Holy Jeezus Yeezy, you killed it on this one. It's getting unbelievably high ratings from every review site out there (pitchfork gave it a perfect 10? now that's impressive). This album is an epic. It's a story and it's an apology and its a huge fuck you with love from Kanye. Packed with anthems about douchebaggery, throbbing lines from Bon Iver, top notch featured artists (see: Jay-Z, RZA, Kid Cudi, John Legend, Nicki Minaj and more), a closing track by Cornel West, and a Chris Rock comedy bit interspersed with a woman voice breathily saying "Yeezy taught me," this cd has all the heartbreak of 808s with only 10% of the autotune, all the bling of graduation, and so much more. Buy it if you haven't already. It's pure fire.

2. SNOW
It had snowed only once so far here (Twice, but one was at 2 a.m. for 10 minutes and I don't count that) but I am anticipating snow and the hope for snowmen and snow fights and cute moments with my boyfriend. Also, trying to go skiing this break.

3. Haesa Go finished!
Like I mentioned before I've got only one more week. Tonight is a movie. Two weeks from now I have final prep, final exam administration and a last day party or celebration of some sort. Thank God.

4. Angry Birds
This ipod app is seriously addicting. I'm gonna download the paid version tonight and I just can't wait!!! It's so simple, but it's so fun. Good for passing time.

5. YG FAMILY CONCERT
Sunday!! Today I managed to snag tickets for a MUCH better set of tickets than I had before. My old tickets were standing, but towards the back. Now I'm in the front-most section just right of center. I just logged onto gmarket randomly and discovered it, and was sooooo happy! Now I just need to sell the old tickets and get to the concert venue hella early on Saturday to snag some concert goods!

6. prank vs. prank youtube channel
This maybe too early for me to definitively say, but this youtube channel seemed hella awesome last night while I was watching videos. The premise is this couple lives together and constantly plays pranks on each other. It was really funny.

7. Bangs
I forgot how much I liked them. Currently I have them sideswept, but I'm thinking about going full Korean and doing some blunt cut bangs. I always imagined them as being super horrible, but the more I think about it, the more I could see it being really cute. Also, when I style my bangs in the morning I get a glimpse of what they'd look like blunt and slightly curled (since essentially thats what they are, except at the end I sweep them to the side).

Welp, that's all folks

xoxo
A

Bored

Please don't ask me where I find the time to discover gems like this:

Hiatus. Apartment. Music.

So, my other site, www.reallykpop.com has been on a hiatus. Why? Well, I sort of discovered after translating the lyrics to Taeyang's Solar album, that I don't really care about anyone else except Taeyang. But, I will try to get back into it soon. It's just really time-consuming and less fun than I had hoped.

Also, I'm considering (sort-of) changing the lay-out of my apartment. I just feel like I'm not using the space in my apartment well, so I'm gonna try to change that. But, I don't know when I'll actually do that. Probably never, if I'm being honest with myself.

Lastly, oh. my. god. Sungha Jung is like my new favorite Korean person. Seriously. He's a fingerstyle guitarist who is pretty popular in Korea and on YouTube (#1 subscribed youtube channel in Korea, #29 most subscribed youtube musician worldwide). Anyways, he's 14 Korean age (will turn 14 this year by American standards), and is freaking awesome. He's been playing since he was maybe 9. On his channel, you can watch all of his videos. If you start from his first video you can basically watch him get older before your very eyes. He's adorably cute, and I hope that he becomes super famous. Below is his newest youtube video, which is him playing Michael Jackson's Don't Stop Till You Get Enough. SO EFFING GOOD.

Pardon the Interruption

We interrupt the regularly schedule broadcast of my trip to Shanghai in order to bring you this time waster:

Time Magazine's list of YouTube's 50 best videos

From number one spot Charlie Bit my Finger, to #13 Kittens inspired by Kittens, #3 David After Dentist, to #36 Auto-Tune the News and #38 Chocolate Rain, the list was filled with some of my classic favorites, and with others I had never seen before.

Also, surprisingly high at #7 was something very close to home, the Don't Tase me Bro incident of 2007 at University of Florida's open forum with John Kerry. Additionally, Korea getting props with that adorable "Hey Jude" kid at the #25 spot.

By the way, this was a new one for me and my absolute favorite (who can resist a dancing baby?):



I wasted a full hour and 20 minutes loading and watching these videos at work today. Enjoy!

OMG OMG OMG

This video just went up on Jay Park's youtube account, and it's AMAZING. He is singing a cover of Frankie Valli's classic, "Can't Take my Eyes Off of You" which naturally sends me back to that time I visited Amy in Chicago and saw the Jersey Boys musical and fell head over heels (again, considering I was brought up on that music) for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Seriously, this made me miss Amy and the LOEF a whole hella lot.