Mixed bowl

So many things happened since the last time I posted...Did a lot happen? Well I definitely got busier.

   The Mac

It was time to say goodbye to my good old Toshiba laptop. I used the thing for 5 years and it was slowly dying. I can still use it but it is so slow and becomes hot after only a few minutes then crashes. I am now the proud owner of an iMac...which I am still learning to use. (not to mention the changes in blogger!)

  Acting School

It's been a dream of mine since I was very young but when I finished high school my mind wasn't there...I was obsessed with Japan and Korea and wasn't ready to enter an acting program. Last year I realized that I couldn't just let go of that dream and work hard to find an office job that I don't even want to start with. So I auditioned for two acting schools, the National Theatre School of Montreal and Dawson College. I didn't get into NTS (they pick 12 people out of like 800) but got into Dawson yay! I like it a lot and I'm learning so many things every day it's crazy. It isn't easy though because the average age of students is 18 and most of them are straight out of high school. At first I didn't feel comfortable, but now it doesn't really bother me and I tend to forget about the age difference. So I'll be there for 3 years, given, of course, that everything goes well. 

Korean grandmother make up and clothing ^^

 Minzy

My little kitty has been growing faster than I could imagine. She's as cute as ever and very healthy. 10 days ago she got sterilized so I had to make sure she would heal correctly. It was very stressful because she ripped off her stitches only after two days. That got me very nervous and I kept on imagining her insides coming out of her belly. Fortunately for me, my father's girlfriend is a vet and she reassured me and now Minzy is healing correctly. 

I will try to write part 4 of the Misuda adventure, it just takes me longer than a normal post because I go through my files, find the perfect pictures and try to structure the whole thing (I also ponder about what I can put and what I should censor...sad but true).

 Music

I'm very happy because on this Thursday I am going to see Evanescence. Yes, I hear you saying whatever you think about them, but I like their music and I WILL go. Also, in Kpop there has been some interesting new releases (many horrible ones too but they don't deserve our attention). One song I've been addicting too is "Sixth Sense" by the group Brown Eyed Girls. I think the song is powerful and doesn't use sexiness in vain. I'm not exactly sure what the song is about, even if I understand the lyrics, and there are many interpretations. That's the beauty of it I guess.

 I have ideas of posts I would love to do...one of them concerning the history of some Kpop groups. At first I wanted to make videos, but I doubt I will have enough time to work on that. Anyways, we'll see. Being busy is a blessing, because sitting and doing nothing gives too much times to think, and for me over thinking can be very dangerous. 

I'll be back soon! Promise! 

The “Misuda Adventure” Part 3

First Part

Second Part

This third part was long due and this time I won’t give you any bad excuse except that I’ve been very lazy hehe. Since my cat is now healthy I guess I can get back at writing!!

….

Life went back to normal and all I could look forward was to watch the show on TV. I had planned a trip to Sokcho, which is a coastal city on the east shore of Korea, with Vivian and Janelle, another Singapore friend. We decided that we would watch the show from the motel room in Sokcho. We woke up on the Saturday morning of chuseok and set the TV to KBS2. For the first time, I watched myself on TV for a whole hour. It was quite embarrassing. First of all, you could totally tell that I was nervous and that my Korean sucked. My friend Vivian was quite disappointed to see that all of her lines, except her presentation had been cut. We knew so little of show business we didn’t know what to expect. Still, we just laughed it off and told ourselves that probably very few people watched the show (oh dear…). It wasn’t THAT bad, but when you see yourself on camera or record your voice, aren’t you always the worst critic?

 A screen shot from the first show – Dancing backstage

After the show, I didn’t hear much about it. Of course no one would recognize me after only one show and I wasn’t expecting it either. I still wished for similar opportunities to come by though. Then, about 10 days later, I got another call from the writers of the show, basically saying “The show attracted a lot of attention, so much that we decided to make it a weekly show. Would you like to be part of it?” Of course I said yes right away and became very ecstatic. Not only would it mean that I would get to be in the studio every week, but it would also provide me with some financial support!

A few days later, we met up for some reunions and interviews. I don’t remember exactly how the preparation for the first show went on, but it did take a while; the first show wouldn’t air until the end of November 2006. We had to go through a photo shooting for the opening of the show and it’s promotion. If I had known that these pictures would haunt us for years to come…I would have tried to pose better. Still, I didn’t have the power over my outfit so…

 Love the smell of amateur posing

For months every time an article about me or the other girls would come out, they would use pictures from this photo shoot…Eva and I became very scared that they would use these pictures and when the writers would do it in the future, we could only start laughing. I bitch a lot about the pictures, but when I look at them I think it’s nice to see us so innocent, no idea about television fame, just really happy to be part of something bigger than us.

We shot the first show sometime in November, on a Saturday. The show was to be aired every Sunday morning around 11AM, if I remember correctly. Somehow, I have very few memories of the shooting of the first show. I know I preferred my clothes, but I think the fact that my Korean still wasn’t very fluent I had a hard time following, hence I can’t remember well what has been said and done. Plus, it’s been 5 years!! I remember that I said some lines that fell flat and for the first time I experienced the awful feeling of getting no reaction from the public. It’s very embarrassing but with time I learned to not take it personally and to just leave it behind and move on to another subject. Or just say things differently to get people’s attention. Storytelling skills really need to be learned through experience. Especially in a foreign language, you can’t tell a story the same way you do in your native language. It took me a while, but I know that my listening and my perseverance are what made me stay in the show for so long, because I could capture people’s attention with what I said, certainly not because I was the pretty one. Other girls had that role ; )

But I’m digressing. On that day, someone I really wanted to meet was in the panel.

I almost fell down the stairs before this picture so he had to catch me before I fell. It WASN’T on purpose!!

Yes, it is 김종민 Kim Jong Min from the group Koyote. I had watched him in variety shows online while I was in Canada and just loved his crazy personality. I was glad to meet him, but then realized that he is a stranger, just another human being, he doesn’t know me and even though I watched him on shows…I don’t have much to tell him. There’s no way to make a meeting with a celebrity NOT awkward. You either act too cool and look like a pretentious person who doesn’t care or you’re shy and laugh awkwardly. I think it’s because there is no socially established way to deal with these meetings. I took a lot of pictures with singers and actors during the first two years of the show and after a while we mostly all stopped doing it, unless it’s someone we REALLY wanted to meet. The novelty just wore off. I won’t post all the pictures I took with celebrities unless I have something interesting about it. I don’t want to write this blog about celebrity meetings teehee ^^

More importantly, I think the people I met behind the camera are what made this experience so memorable. I met awesome girls from all around the world and some very kind staff.

One of the writers with whom I became close

Of course, there were some people from the staff with whom I could never create a close bound, but that is the case with anyone in whatever social situation.

When the first show was a wrap, we already got prepared for the second show, but then things got complicated for me. Later that week I received a call telling me that I couldn’t take part in the show because of visa issues…I was very very very disappointed…

To be continued

Minzy

Blogging really isn’t as easy as it seems. I think I lack the discipline to do a blog. Or maybe if I had more readers ;) Anyhow, here I am and today I shall present you a new member of my family: Minzy.

 

This little kitten is almost 4 months old and she definitely stole my heart. I adopted her about two weeks ago. A friend of mine had another friend who found kittens in his backyard because the mother had abandoned them. I just happened to be looking for a kitty to adopt so the timing was perfect. I went to get her at their house and she was quite traumatised when I carried her all the way to my apartment. Once we got in, she looked around and tried to hide for a little while. I expected her to stay hidden for at least 2 or 3 hours, but as soon as my dad left the apartment, Minzy just came in my bedroom and decided to hang out around me while I was at the computer.

  She seemed to adapt to my place very quickly and I let her sleep with me from the first night. I soon realized how kittens are hyperactive. God…as soon as the sun came up she started to play in the bed, trying to wake me up. Brutal first days I must say.

My first day at work, I was very tensed at the idea of letting Minzy all alone but it also went well. Cats are very independent creatures but at this age they look so fragile and full of needs that I feel like a mother caring for a child. For a week it was all fine…Until last Friday. I woke up in the morning only to find out that she had peed in my bed. I found it weird since she had never done it and she used the litter box very often. I proceeded to wash my sheets but then she started to pee AGAIN on my bed, directly on the mattress *facepalm. I got very angry and thought she was being naughty. That’s when I made a connection with a behaviour she had had for a few days; every time she went in the litter box to pee, she would cry. As I didn’t know her I just thought it was her thing, but no, she was sick. I quickly called my dad and he spoke with his girlfriend, who happens to be a veterinarian, and also searched the web for information. Minzy happened to have many symptoms of a cystitis, which is a bladder infection. My dad came by and picked her up, so that she could be treated at the vet’s clinic. The day after it was confirmed that she had cystitis and that she would need two weeks of antibiotics.

When they brought Minzy back the day after, she seemed alright at first, but then I realized how sick she was. She kept on trying new places to pee: the floor, the mop, the mop bucket, the wires behind the TV!! I kept running around the apartment wiping off the pee. It made me very tired and exhausted. I was almost angry at her, even though she didn’t chose to be in this situation. Two days passed, and there wasn’t any amelioration. I started to panic and planned to bring her back to the vet. Fortunately, the antibiotics finally kicked in around yesterday. Although I won’t let her sleep with me (I had to wash my bed sheets so many times in the last 7 days I’m sick of it!) I can see she’s making progress. We’ll see how it goes…and I hope she stays healthy for many months and years to come!

Night creature

Is everyone enjoying summer? I can’t say that I am as I’m working a lot, but my body sure enjoys the warm weather. Somehow, summer really makes me more energetic and optimistic, which is why I always end up being very depressed around the autumn. It’s been about six weeks that I started my new job at a big chain hotel but it feels like I’ve been working there for much more than that. Doing that many hours, I got accustomed to the place and its people. Lately, I worked night shifts to learn the night auditor job in order to replace regular people when they go on vacation. To my own surprise, I find myself enjoying it. During night time you don’t have to speak to a lot of guests and just do some paper work so it’s less stressful. I’m not saying I don’t like talking to people, but doing 150 check-ins in a row can be very tiring.  Anyway, new job is okay and my brain is very working hard to absorb all the new information.

Another thing that’s been on my mind lately is the purchase of a new laptop. I love my little toshiba, but it’s now 5 years old. It gets hot easily, crashes once in a while, is slow and doesn’t have enough memory (100Gigs…yup..you can laugh). Now the question is…what do I buy? I was thinking about another PC but my dear friend shmuberry has been telling me about a mac…Since I like watching videos, creating things like websites, pictures and video footage, it would be the intelligent choice…but then, all these stories about incompatibility really scare me! What to do…what to do…

But the most and foremost thing that I must think about right now is me moving out of my apartment next week on Friday. I’ve already packed a lot of boxes but there is still a lot to do. I foresee many hours of boxing coming up…yay…but the good thing is that I go the day off to move! I can’t wait to unpack, redecorate and move on with life without thinking about boxing and all that.

Home makeover – The canvas

Yes, I know…I do a lot of posts with many parts, but I promise I will finish all of them. Lately I’ve been busy with a new job, where they pay me much better and actually give me working hours! It’s been about a month since I’ve started now and I’m getting used to it, to the system…The other thing that is keeping me busy is the moving preparations! On July 1st, like many other people in Montreal, I’ll be moving to a new place. The place is empty right now so I am slowly planning the decorations.

For almost a year I’ve been living in a small apartment that I have to pay alone and it’s been a burden on me. I decided to find a new bigger place where I could get a roommate and split the rent and the bills. After some research, I finally found a place that I like and also found a roommate (she will come in the fall). The place isn’t perfect, it is an old building, but it is a typical Montreal apartment in a developing neighbourhood. As the moving date is approaching, last week I started planning the decorations with my great high school friend Marilou, who just happens to be studying in interior design right now.

It is quite hard to decide between colors, but since I have already colourful furniture, my choice was narrowed down to only a few of them. I already knew I wanted a yellow kitchen, so it was only a matter of choosing what shade of yellow I wanted (there are like a million of them!!) After looking at many shades, I finally decided to go for “Spring Honey”.

As for the bedroom, I went for an aqua color, which in this picture came out much more like sky blue. In reality, the color is more of a “blue-green” or should I say “Mediterranean Mist”. You gotta love the name of the paint colors. I’m sure there is someone who’s job is to come up with color names. Since I have red and white furniture in my bedroom, the aqua seems like a wise choice as it will make the colors pop. I didn’t want to go with a pink or beige because it would be too boring. I’ll chose boring colors when I’m like 50 or something. I found some inspiration on the internet to help me support my choice:

Of course it’s more flashy this way, but it does confirm that both colors go together. Before buying the paint I went to my new apartment, which is now empty, and brought Marilou along. She wanted to see the place and make sure that the color would match the walls and the light.

  The place has a long corridor and I might consider painting it later…it’s not a priority right now. Marilou was also unaware that I was taking pictures hehe :D

My future bedroom which has no window but has French doors connecting with the living room. It isn’t as big as the room I have right now but I think I can fit most of my furniture. I love the double closet and the mirror makes it look a little bigger. Can’t wait to put color on the walls!

The French doors leading to my bedroom will stay closed most of the time and I will shop for curtains eventually. I’ll need to create some privacy especially if I want my future roommate to be able to use the living room without feeling like she’s actually in my bedroom. As for my future roommate’s bedroom, I won’t touch it because she will probably want to do something personal with it. For the first months I might put boxes in there until I find a place for all my stuff. As for the living room, I do not intend on painting the walls. I already have a blue couch and some colourful accessories so adding a color would be a bit extreme. I’m going to give the living room a little retro look.

At first I wanted to find fabric and make my own curtains, but while shopping for fabric I realized how expensive it is. We also went to a shop on St-Hubert street where they had an interesting fabric, but the owner was so uptight and mean to us that I started disliking the fabric. It’s crazy how someone’s attitude can have an influence on your shopping choices! After a while Marilou suggested that we go to Mont-Royal station, to a boutique called Farfelue (843 mont-royal street) where they have lovely decoration items. There’s a little bit of everything and it is so colourful. They had curtains and this is where I found mine.

 

I think it looks pretty good with the stuff I already have. My friend Marilou then sketched what she imagined my living room would be:

She did that in like 5 minutes, I’m not kidding. Of course I might not put the furniture in exactly this position, but it gives you an idea. Finally, the kitchen…there is still a lot of things to repair in it and I’m hoping it will all be beautiful when the renovation guys are done with it. I know for a fact they will change the floor, which is a relief because it is so old and dirty. Also the washing machine and the dryer will be in the kitchen so I think this room will be pretty crowded. I will need to add a lot of things for storage and a few things here and there to decorate, but before anything else, I’ll need to paint it!

Marilou was explaining to me how I could position the table. Notice how both counters aren’t the same colour…yeah, it’s an old apartment indeed. BUT! It’s even more of a challenge so I won’t get discouraged.

At some point during the day when we opened the back door there was someone’s cat on the balcony. He or she just came in and walked in the whole apartment. It was so sweet :)

We’ll see how I manage to make this place pretty and warm. I can’t wait to start!!

I visited the land down under – Australia Day 1-3

Yes, my lack of updates is quite inexcusable. I will say there are a lot of things happening in my life nowadays so I’ll just use that as an excuse, although it’s inexcusable…oh well!

I wanted to write about my trip to Australia, because it was quite an adventure. This country is so far from Canada that when I was a kid I never even dreamed of visiting it! So last year, around February, a heart-broken me decided that she would leave Korea for good, but that before that I should visit a country. I wanted to travel, but also I needed to vent all that negativity my recent break up caused. So I thought about South East Asia, but then because I’m allergic to all kinds of nuts, I didn’t think it was safe for me to go there alone. It might sound silly, but food allergies can really poison your daily life :( So Instead, I chose Australia. It seemed like the logical choice for me: it’s closer to Korea than it is to Canada, my sister recommended it to me…but it’s definitely not affordable to everyone. I was lucky enough to have gathered money to go all the way down there. After a lot of planning and shopping I booked my ticket for April 6th, departing from Seoul in the evening. A night flight, which was a first for me.

   A view of Korea as I left

Day 1

The flight was long and I couldn’t get myself to sleep; I almost never can sleep on an airplane. Luckily enough, the seat beside mine was empty so I could stretch a little more. I was very excited when on the map of the plane screens we crossed the equator. My first time in the southern hemisphere! At 6AM, when the sun slowly started to rise, we arrived near Australia. We flew above Sydney and it was just crazy to be able to see the Opera House from above. I got excited and forgot how tired I was. Getting out of the airport wasn’t hard either, for the customs I was an easy person compared to all the Korean men and women who had never been abroad (they were a group of 50-60 years old and I understood from their guide that they had never been further than Jeju Island). Most of them didn’t speak English and the Australian customs really didn’t have patience with them. Of course, many of them got their food confiscated. The one thing you should know about travelling to Australia is that you really CAN’T bring food in. Their laws are very tight about that. So I got noticed by a fat custom lady and she put me out of the long line, noticing that all I had was a backpack.

I found my hostel, Sydney Central YHA, very easily, but I was exhausted. I couldn’t access my room until noon so I just sat down on the lounge couch of the hostel until I could check in. After checking in, I didn’t want to make the mistake of going to bed, so I showered and went out to visit Sydney. I went through Chinatown (where Big Bang’s 마지막 인사 was playing loud…I just got out of Korea lol), Central Station and ended up at Hyde Park, which is beautiful and so clean. It was also full of couples smooching on the grass!

 I guess if you’re confident enough to show off your chess skills!

   Travelling alone means “self-cam”! Very tired but amazed to be in Aussie

I quickly realized that food in Australia is very expensive, especially coming from Korea where you can have a really good meal for around 5 bucks. It’s a good thing there is no tip in Aussie! I found myself to be very lonely even on the first day. Travelling alone has it’s good sides but many times you find yourself wanting to share impressions with people but you can only think it. It’s completely different. On the evening of the first night, I met a girl from the UK in the hostel lounge and we decided to have diner together on the next day. I went to bed early and “enjoyed” the nice 8 people bunk beds room.

Day 2

I couldn’t sleep well the night before because of all the noise in the room, the sudden rash around my mouth from the airplane ride and just normal travelling stress. So instead of waking up at around 8am like I had planned, I stayed in bed until around 10am. The guy cleaning the room even came in, but I was too tired to even care. I knew I had another alone day ahead of me so no need to rush. I took the Sydney subway and went to Circular Quay where I saw the very famous Opera house.

 Picture would have been better without the unknown couple!

I took a ferry leading to Manly, which is a stretch of island at the south of Sydney. There are nice beaches there and a lot of shops. It was nice but definitely a place you go with friends to swim in the sea and have a glass of beer on the side of the beach. The ferry felt so nice and I spent a lot of time texting my friends in Korea, especially the ones who had lived in Australia before. I guess I really felt alone surrounded with all these families and couples. In Manly I simply walked around, took pictures of my face and went back to Circular Quay. A bit boring I would admit, but it’s better being bored in Australia than back home haha!

 Manly…and my eyes which do not look the same size o.O

 The bridge, and some angry dude

I hung around for a little while but went back to the hostel, I just waited for diner with Sara, the girl from the UK. We both didn’t have a huge budget for food but still decided to eat at a restaurant on the side of the water, on a terrace. The only problem is that it started to rain. We finally found a place which had tables outside but covered by a huge concrete roof that was part of the building so even if it rained for a while, we were fine. The place had pastas and was pretty good, but again, very overpriced as always. It was nice talking with Sara. We both briefly summarized our lives and realized that we were both into Buffy the Vampire Slayer so it was easy to just talk about it for a long time. After diner we went around the Opera House to see it from up close. There is even a restaurant inside of it and it looks very classy. If only… Thanks to the rain, my picture of the Opera House at night came out pretty nice!

 It's much better looking at night

That night I had a very embarrassing moment at the hostel…So this place is so big that you have magnetic cards to enter rooms and even bathrooms. So in the middle of the night I feel this urge to go to the bathroom so I get out of the bedroom but when I’m about the open the bathroom door I realize that I do not have my card and that I cannot get the card now that it is inside the bedroom, which is locked…So I did what an embarrassed person who needs to pee has to do; I knocked on the door and apologized a lot to the girl who opened the door. I was so angry at myself. I could have gone downstairs and ask the front desk clerk to make me another key…but I didn’t think about that then.

Day 3

The weather was awesome on my third day so I woke up early enough to go all the way to King’s Cross which is the military/entertainment/sketchy town of Sydney. Since it was daytime, I thought it was very nice and walked around a lot. There were many interesting houses and sights. I saw MANY Aussie sailors and stopped by the famous Harry’s Cafe de Wheels where I ordered some soda and sat down a while next to some sailors (they didn’t talk to me :(

 Notice the drawing of the sailor kissing his girlfriend on the right!

After that, the Victorian era lover that I am went to visit Elizabeth Bay House, which was the house of Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay in the 1830’s. Back then there was nothing around the house except trees, the sea and apparently A LOT of flies enough to drive these little noble ladies crazy! The house was gorgeous; I could stand in a room more than 5 minutes just to appreciate all the details of the furniture. That’s when travelling alone is nice, because I doubt if I had a boyfriend he would love looking at Victorian furniture for so long!

 "Oh my god I feel like in a Jane Austen novel!" girly girl...

Visiting this house definitely brightened my day, for some reason I felt like I’ve had a constructive day in which I learned something. I had to go back to the Hostel to check out on time and prepare myself to get to the airport because I was taking a flight for Adelaide where I would start my Outback tour the morning after.

When I got at My Place Backpackers in Adelaide I was extremely annoyed because the door was locked. It was after 9pm and I guess they don’t expect backpackers to arrive this late…fortunately for me, some guy was in the entrance and opened the door for me. They tried to get someone to help me, but no one could be reached. After talking to the people who were sleeping there some girl offered me her bed, because she was sleeping in the room of her boyfriend. It was very kind of her, if it wasn’t for her I probably would have slept on the living room couch. The room had no window and felt very stuffy…the bed sheets looked old and kind of smelly. In all, I wouldn’t recommend this backpacker place to anyone. Also, the group of people talking loud in the kitchen really didn’t help me to fall asleep. I had to wake up at 5am to be picked up for the Outback tour…Which would be memorable.