Live report: One Korea with Brian, Kil Gun, and Soy (or, how Kara fell in love)

Music: Brian - 가슴 아파도...
Mood: in love

(A fan shot of the stage. Brian's off to the right. I'm further to the right, not too far from him, just off-camera.)

I saw my future husband on Friday night. :D

I went to the One Korea concert on Friday night, and it was AWESOME. I was one of the only non-Koreans in attendance (I think there were around 10 of us total), so all the tiny Korean girls (who then seemed even shorter because I was wearing heels) were staring at me, wondering who the hell I was and why I was there. I could understand everything they were saying, though, so I was more amused than disconcerted. JayJ and I passed the time in the line by grading papers from her math classes (she student teaches) and joking about how dumb her students are. (Princess decided not to come with us.)

The concert hall was the main auditorium of the Christian Heritage Academy, so there was only an 880-person capacity. We didn't even fill it all the way, though, so I estimate that there were perhaps 500-600 or so in attendance. JayJ and I got pretty good seats on the right side of the auditorium, 10 rows or so back. There was no one sitting directly in front of me, so I got a great view--perfect for taking pictures and video! (I'll post them when JayJ uploads them.)

And then Kara's brain exploded from AWESOME!

Music: JJ Lin - 主角 (feat. MACHI) (Leader)
Mood: excited

(Poster for the event fangirled about below. From One Korea.)

OHMYGOD.

October 30th. Chicago.

A concert featuring none other than Brian (ex-Fly to the Sky), Kil Gun, and Soy. (I actually don't know who Soy is, but she's one of the acts.)

..BRIAN!

My love for Brian is fairly quiet and nowhere near as exuberant as my love for his boyband counterparts. Still, I love that kid. I love his voice and his personality and his sense of humour and his darling baby face. I want him to be my ridiculous and embarrassing older brother, and have him introduce me to ridiculous and embarrassing things. Spending time with him would be a laugh a minute.

For those of you who don't know, Brian was one half of the power duo Fly to the Sky (the other half was Mr. Voice, Hwanhee/Fany). Although he wasn't "the voice" of the group, I've always loved the way he sounds, and I was sad when the duo split up. Apparently I missed his solo release back in 2006, but I recently discovered it and have been listening to it on repeat. He's not a power balladeer, but his vocal talents aren't unrespectable.

Brian is also hilarious. He was born in NYC, so he speaks fluent English (which has gotten less fluent the longer he's lived in Korea), and he has a silly sense of humour.

And now, he's holding a concert in the States. In Chicago. The day before Halloween. FOR FREE.

Kil Gun is also going to be there, and while I'm not really familiar with her work, what I have heard is AMAZING. That lady's got a killer voice, and awesome dance moves.

(I have no idea who Soy is, so let's just move on.)

..I am SO GOING.

There's also an after party at a club in downtown Chicago, and JayJ and I have already decided we're going to that too. I doubt we'll see Brian there (there's both a private and a public section of the club, and he'll probably be in the former), but it'll be exciting to even have a possibility of seeing him there. And even if we don't see him, clubbing is fun!

I don't know who else I'd get to go with me, though. JayJ can't make it to the concert, and I don't want to go alone, but the only other person I can think of who might be interested is Mae, and she's in Korea (lucky whore). I might be able to convince Ginger to come, if only for the after party aspect (she used to go clubbing in Japan and misses it), but I'm not sure. Princess is another possibility, but her medication means she can't drink, and she doesn't really know anything about Kpop beyond TVXQ.

It's less than a week until the concert, though, so I really need to start asking people.


..not right now, though. Right now I need to finish my history paper which is due tomorrow.

"If you awake before we arrive I will carry you down and I won't make a sound."

Music: Owl City - Air Traffic
Mood: confused

(Possibly Taiwan? Stolen from JJ Lin.)

You know that saying, "When it rains it pours"?

I'm sort of living that right now.

I'm still not completely over that whole mess of emotion that I wrote about previously, but it's faded enough for me to be open to other things. Which is good, since something I never saw coming is happening.

So. My roommate from last year (whom I'll call Whittles) had a pseudo-boyfriend for a few weeks during the fall semester. (I'm going to call him Bear, since he reminds me of a teddy bear.) I got to meet him a couple of times, and I instantly took a platonic liking to him--after all, he sort of belonged to my roommate, even though they were only casually dating. I thought he was a really nice guy, though, and I genuinely enjoyed his company. After my roommate called it off, though, I decided not to pursue a real friendship with him because (a) that's awkward, (b) I would never really see him around on campus anyway, and (c) I was distracted by drama in my own life at the time.

Well, one of my friends had a potluck last night. Rita made broccoli, while I made my fool-gogi again, and we headed over there expecting it to be mostly people connected only through this friend. To my surprise, though, I heard that Bear was coming and bringing a friend. I was excited, since he graduated last year and I thought I wasn't going to see him again, so I hugged him rather enthusiastically when he arrived.

Dinner went wonderfully (everyone loved my fool-gogi, including Bear), and we all parted on really good terms. After I got home, I posted a message on his Facebook wall saying that we need to hang out and stuff, so today he suggested that we go see a movie with some of the people from the potluck last night. I agreed, so I called up some people, including last night's hostess (Violinist) and our friend Mezzo (who's a mezzo-soprano). We all decided to go see Zombieland (which is made of awesome, in case you were wondering), so I drove the girls and Bear drove himself and his friend Battle Axe (another pseudonym).

At the theatre, I sat between Bear and Mezzo, while Violinist sat on the other side of Bear and Battle Axe sat in front of us. The theatre was entirely empty except for one other guy who sat in front by himself, so we were all loud and irreverent and goofy throughout the entire movie. We even ended up switching seats a few times due to our shenanigans, but I always ended up next to Bear. I'm an extremely jumpy moviegoer, so I spent a lot of time cowering behind my sweater or into Bear's shoulder. He didn't seem to mind, though, and although I knew that what I was doing could be construed as flirting (and I suppose it technically was, since I literally flirt with everyone) I did nothing to rein myself in.

The flirtation continued after the movie, when I hugged Bear and Battle Axe goodbye by hanging from their necks--I often do this with tall people regardless of gender, but I also use it to flirt because it's extended contact. Bear and I raced our cars somewhat dangerously back to campus, where I eventually lost him after dropping off Mezzo and Violinist.

When I got back home to make dinner for myself and Rita (the movie was an early showing), the flirtation continued via text, as we joked about how he only had 1 1/2 dimples (which I've never noticed and need to confirm with my own eyes) and how I was more than welcome to play with them. He said that my proposed action of pinching his cheeks was kinky, to which I replied that he must be really repressed. He replied that I was welcome to find out just how repressed he was, and then I (unintentionally) killed it by just telling him "We'll see."

So. I don't know what I'm feeling. Do I actually like him, or am I just giddy about seeing someone I'd liked (platonically) and hadn't seen in a long time?

Pros: Tall (at least 6'1"), funny, musical (he's a music teacher), understands my sense of humour, makes me feel comfortable, cuddly, seems to be interested, comes into town fairly frequently, already knows a lot of my (musically-inclined) friends.
Cons: Already graduated and in the real world, working ~2 hours away from me, a little on the heavy side physically, previously dated my old roommate (whom I'm still really close with), may or may not still be attached to his girlfriend before her.

He's staying with Battle Axe this weekend, and he's invited me to come hang out with them some more after I finish my homework if I want.

I..don't know what to do. On the one hand, I want to take him up on his offer and spend more time with him, but on the other hand I don't know if I actually feel something for him or if I'm just (a) rebounding off of Philosopher or (b) desperate.

..although I suppose I should finish my homework first before I try to figure it out.


Also, according to Battle Axe, I'm either a bunny or a sparrow. I'm going to go with the former.

"Let's talk and we'll fill the air with imagery that lasts forever.."

Music: Azure Ray - If You Fall
Mood: over-thinking

(Visitors look around a pinwheel field at Imjingak Pyeonghoa Nuri Park in Paju, Gyeonggi Province on Sunday, the last day of the Chuseok or Korean Thanksgiving holidays. Courtesy of the Chosun Ilbo.)

My brain needs to stop going into hyperdrive right now. Seriously, STOP. I've been checking Facebook all day, hoping he's added me back. He hasn't yet, but he also doesn't appear to have been on Facebook at all since last Thursday, so I'm fairly certain he's not slighting me.

ACK. What if I'm the only one working myself up about this? Sure, he seemed interested at the party, but what if decided he wasn't interested after all after he got home, or worse, forgot all about me? Surely if he was interested, he would've jumped on Facebook and sent me a friend request. Right?

I broke down and told Laura about it over AIM, after swearing her to secrecy. Turns out they're sort-of friends (they have mutual friends, and they've eaten meals together a few times). In her words, he's "pretty adorable" and "genuinely a nice guy," which makes me slightly less nervous about having possibly misjudged him. And he's a runner, which is always a plus (I have a mild thing for runners). Although, according to her, he's "slightly shy-ish," whatever that means. Do I have to be proactive here? Do I have to go drop hints somewhere (i.e. tell Rita and let her gossip to the world) to let him know it's okay to make a move? Because that's really not my style.. I'd much prefer to just flirt whenever we're together and hope he gets the hint that way. Bah.

Laura also has a crush on a junior guy (who happens to be friends with my new crush), which is funny because she graduated this past year. I told her we were like cougars; she approved.

She's also coming into town for Halloween, which should be epic. We had a blast together last year, even though she had a broken foot at the time. This year promises to be equally awesome, largely because (a) Rita and I are gonna be dressing sexy, and (b) because all three of us have guys in mind this time around. :P Plus, Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, which means that there are going to be some craaaaaazy parties. We'll probably hit up two or three of the big ones, unless there's a smaller one going on at B-House or something. I'm hoping I run into him at one of these parties, so I can work my magic on him. I'll be looking sexy and cute, dammit! I want him to appreciate it. (I bought the costume before I met him, but now I'm glad I went with this one. Might give me an edge in the seduction, muahaha.)

Dammit. How did this change from mild interest in a sorta-cute and really nice guy to a full-fledged crush? This is what happens when I allow my brain to run unchecked.

Anyway. Parties (and boy) aside.

Our landlord came over this morning to check out our fuses. I was asleep, so Lynn handled him. He showed us where the fuse box was and got the power running again, but the heat still doesn't work. He's supposed to send someone tomorrow (today) to fix it.. I hope so, because it's ridiculously cold in every room but mine.

And now I need to churn out a quick one-page thought piece for Lutze's class tomorrow. I've been putting it off all weekend, boo.

이제부터, 그 사람을 생각 할꺼 않아요.

진짜야. 정말이야.

...그렇게 믿고 싶어요.

"Watch the sun, watch the moon, taking turns in the same sky.."

Music: Maria Taylor - Time Lapse Lifeline
Mood: confused

(We painted a version of this on our suite windows sophomore year. We were awesome.)

So today was..interesting.

Had my Korean lesson today, where we mostly talked about the places my classmates have traveled and how I need to travel while I'm still young and relatively carefree.

Afterwards, I grabbed some stuff from the library for paper-writing later and came home to eat lunch and hang out with Rita. We both decided we were sick of being so cold all the time, so we went to buy space heaters.

While we were out, we went costume shopping. Annnndddd..I totally bought a costume. I'm some sort of sexy devil or something. It's modest enough to work with my self-consciousness, while still sexy enough that I don't feel like a prude. Plus, it's red, and I look good in it. :P I can't wait for Halloween~~~

I also picked up the first season of Big Bang Theory, so Rita and I spent the next several hours watching it. (So good! I love Sheldon..)

And then, for the main part.. There was a party at B-House (B-House = Bulgaria House) tonight, so Rita and I showed up somewhere around 11.30. There weren't many people I knew there, so I mostly sat around awkwardly and tried not to follow Rita like a puppy.

Apparently, though, being a wallflower is intriguing to some guys, because I got hit on. By a sweet, kinda cute junior.

Hrmmmm.

I don't usually go for younger guys, but he was really sweet, and pretty interesting, and pretty into me. (I'm not being an egotist; he kept telling Rita how pretty I was and how he just wanted to talk with me and dance with me and stuff.) I feel a little bad, because (a) I'm not good in situations where I don't know most of the group, and (b) I think he may have felt like I was blowing him off because I didn't want to dance. (I DID want to dance! I just.. I'm too self-conscious to dance when no one else is dancing. Because really, it was just the two of us, and everyone else was sitting down.) He retreated outside a little while later to smoke (ew!) with some people, and I wanted so badly to join him without being obvious.. So I followed Rita out there, haha. And he seemed glad to see me, and asked me to sit down and chat with him, so I did. And it was nice, until we went back inside to escape from some drunken people and I lost him. I got trapped into conversations with other people and couldn't find an excuse to go talk to him again, even though he was literally sitting right next to me. I didn't really get a chance to talk to him for the rest of the night, because he left soon after.


Pros: Interesting, nice, intelligent, tall, seems to like me, kinda cute (not my usual type, but not bad), philosophy major (I like philosophy).
Cons: Younger than me, smoker (I could forgive it if I really grew to like him, but I still don't care for it), don't really know him.

GAH. I'm over-thinking this. A lot. I know I am. It's a guy I met once, and I never gave him (or anyone) any indication that I was really interested in him. (Because I'm not. Am I? I don't know..)

Grr. Argh. Why am I so passive?

I did send him a friend request on Facebook though, so..maybe? Who knows? Gah. Whatever.


Sleep now. We blew a fuse or something in our house, so the only rooms with any power are my room and my bathroom. Our landlord is sending someone over tomorrow (today?) morning, so I should probably sleep so I can be awake enough to talk to him tomorrow.

"If my life is mine what shouldn't I do?"

Music: Metric - Help I'm Alive [ download ]
Mood: sleepy

(You know you love him.)

Title of today's post taken from today's song. I quite enjoy Metric. (And I like one fan's interpretation of this song as Emily (the singer) being chased by zombies. LOLZ.)

COLD. Very, very cold. Extremely cold, you might say.

Well, I'm a wuss, so maybe you wouldn't say. Although really, 64 degrees INSIDE is pretty cold. (It's 55 degrees outside.) We have the thermostat set to 69/70-ish, but it's not heating up enough. Coooooold~ *whines*

I'm sick again, which isn't fun. It's not the same as my last illness, though.. This one is mostly manifesting itself in a rather annoying cough (and I'm pretty sure there's more fluid in my lungs than last time) and me getting tired faster, but whatever. Better than a couple of weeks ago, when I just wanted to die.

Rita's started smoking again. She's been doing it off and on since high school, apparently. I've taken it upon myself to yell at her everytime I smell it on her, which she doesn't really like. Still, I figure that if she's allowed to yell at Mike for smoking, I'm allowed to yell at her for the same thing. (Double standards are unacceptable, Rita. Although now she and Mike are smoking buddies, which appears to defeat the purpose.) Lynn apparently also smokes, which I didn't know until Rita told me. Thinking back on it, though, it doesn't really surprise me. Still, Lynn's a nursing major. She should know better, no?

I made bulgogi (불고기) for dinner (for myself) last week. Or rather, "fool-gogi" ("바보"고기?), since the recipe I used isn't really authentic. I think it's an approximation. :P Plus, I didn't have any rice wine, so I used apple juice for the marinade. (The acidity in both tenderizes the meat, but apple juice gives it a slightly sweeter flavour.) I actually liked the apple juice in the marinade, so I think I might do it this way more often. I did oversalt the fool-gogi a little, but that's because the piece I taste-tested apparently didn't get ANY salt somehow, so I overcompensated. -_-; Ah well. Rita liked it anyway (she tried a piece), so she made me make it again yesterday.

Second time was definitely the charm. I invited Mel over to (a) help me prepare and (b) hang out, since I hadn't seen her in awhile (I overslept and missed class on Tuesday). I had gotten up early-ish and marinated the beef before class, so it had had around 6 hours to marinate and the only things left to prepare were the broccoli for the side dish and the onions for the bulgogi. I cut way back on the pepper in the marinade--the recipe called for 3 tablespoons (!!!), which is way too much--and used more sugar than last time. I also waited to add the salt until actually cooking the meat, which helped a lot. It turned out really well--both Mel and Rita loved it. I think it's the first time since we've moved into this house that we've finished everything on the table with nothing left over. I'll definitely have to make it again. Maybe I'll even introduce it at home, since bulgogi is really mild and it was really easy to make. (Seriously, if I can make it with my limited cooking experience, pretty much anyone can make it.)

Cough. Hack. Cough. Illness interlude.

Anyway. I did end up finishing that history paper. I wrote most of it the night before it was due, so I only had the conclusion to do in the morning when I woke up. I actually went a page over the limit, though, so I had to rearrange paragraphs and trim sentences and shrink margins in order to make everything fit. It was..annoying, haha. But I did it! Hopefully I didn't accidentally cut out any key points or anything; I'm always afraid of doing that. I think it went well on the whole, though, and I can't wait to get it back so I can see how I did.

In other news, I think I know what I want to get my Masters in--Korean History. "But what happened to Translation?" you ask. (Well, maybe you don't ask. That's okay, I'll ask for you.)

Well..to be honest, I love history. I've always loved history. AP U.S. History and AP European History were two of my favourite classes in high school (largely because of the awesome Coach Carter as our teacher, but also because I enjoyed the subject), and it's consistently been one of my favourite subjects in college (not just because I think Prof. Lutze is awesome, either). Asian history fascinates me in ways that European history never has, and Korean history is especially intriguing. Perhaps it's because I haven't formally learned anything about Korean history other than how it used to be a Chinese colony, then got stolen by the Japanese, then became independent--in about that much detail. Or perhaps it's because I find the Joseon period (1392-1910) endlessly interesting. (The Goryeo period (918-1392) is interesting as well, but not to the same degree.)

(The reason I'm an International Studies major is because I entered college with the idea that I would be a translator or a subtitler, and I wasn't as in love with Korea then as I am now. Besides, the History program here mostly focuses on European or American history, and my interests have always run more towards Asia. Still, sometimes I wish I'd been a history major instead.)

The question is, what would I do with this degree? Especially in Korea, where any Korean with the same Masters would automatically seem more suitable for any job. I could probably find a job at a museum in the States, but how easy would it be for me to do the same in Korea? Because I still plan on living there for the rest of my life, or at least until something happens to change my mind. (Just watch me marry another foreigner and get whisked back to his native country with him. Just watch.)

I'm currently reading Edgar Snow's classic Red Star Over China for Lutze's class, and while I find it interesting, I also can't decide whether or not I think Snow is objective or a Mao fanboy. I'm leaning towards the latter. We're supposed to write a critical review of either this book or William H. Hinton's Fanshen, and I'm thinking about doing it on this book (Fanshen hasn't really done anything for me so far). But whatever, we'll see.

On the subject of Lutze's class, I need to finish my reading for that now.. The homework isn't due until Monday, but there's a lot more reading for this week than usual, so I need to get at least half of it done for tomorrow. Argh. I adore this man and his class, but he assigns SO MUCH READING. (My fault for not staying on top of things.)

So. Off to Reading Land.