usafangrrl

They are done!

2009-09-24T14:08:11Z

I am printing out the last of the picture notepads.... ha, that was way harder than I thought it would be. I won't even enjoy the first batch, because I am shipping them off to the one who shares my brain, someone close to my heart, even though she is spending the next few months in Japan!! She is studying abroad and I am jealous!

She is going to keep one or two and give the rest to friends.

I am heading off to pick up another friend. I am taking her to the doctor. While I wait for her, I will be binding up these babies and then off to Japan they go.

I never thought I would say this, but I am tired of looking at bishies! At the end, these books weren't fun, they were just work. When I was doing it for just me, it was ok, I could do the work at my leisure, but when I said, "Oh, I am making these cool notepads, can I send you some?" I gave myself a deadline of -needs to be done right now.

But now they are done! I can print out more easy peasy, so that will be good.

Oops gotta get goin.

It's been a long time

2009-09-13T18:52:46Z

I have been busy with life... and livejournal has been forgotten in a corner (sorry journal).

My latest project has been making notepads of dbsk... you know, writing paper with lines and a faint picture behind it. I saw one on ebay and I went, "Whoa! that is really cool! I want one of those."

Well, being the do-it-yourselfer that I am, I went about learning how to make them. That was the easy part. The hard part is deciding which pictures to put in them. I am making 7, one for each of the boys and then two with all of them, at 100 pages each, so I want 100 diff pictures for each notepad. Looking through my thousands of photos has taken forever. I put my fave photos from my collection in a folder to be chosen between later. I only have to pick 100 of my favorites. I worked on Yunho's first because it was easier... ... yunho only had 283 to chose from... the rest had over 350... sigh... I feel bad now.

Anyhoo, his are picked. Work on Junsu's... done. Print out, bind, done. Now I find more cute pics, another sigh.

The rest of the boys, hmmm... Changmin-ok, Yoochun, a little harder. I have them organized now and are just awaiting printing... I can't seem to start on Jaejoong's because I have over 800 pics selected. What was I thinking? I was thinking that I can't get enough of his pouty, vulnerable self.

I keep finding more pictures in out of the way folders in my computer. I keep adding to my choices. I had CM's and YC's all ready for printing, but I added so many more pics that I am going to make their notepads bigger. Poor YH and JS. I already bound those notepads so they are stuck with 100 pages.

Why am I spending so much time on this? I miss the boys. I really wish they could get all their stuff figured out and they can go back to what they love doing, making music. I don't know what is going to happen to them as a group, but I just want them to be happy. In my pictures they are smiling, laughing, having a good time. I want to capture that feeling and keep it close.

Not again..... I need a drink.... too bad I don't drink...

2009-04-28T15:19:06Z

For the second time in two weeks my hard drive has taken a powder, has taken a nose dive, has taken my sanity....

My laptop gets heavy usage, on 24/7. I am hard on hard drives, so when mine turned up corrupted two weeks ago, tragic but not too unexpected... replace drive, and begin the laborious process of replacing files that I hadn't backed up. Reinstalling programs, getting things off discs, downloading things... new bookmarks, new tweaks to all my fave programs. Everything was fine until I updated windows, and the infamous "Must restart system, restart now?" My laptop's last words.My hard drive has a read error and my computer won't boot up.

Not again...

I just want to cry. I tried reinstalling windows, it won't get far enough to do it. I put the drive in another laptop, same problem. A wonderful Western Digital Scorpio drive has been killed. Since this is the second drive to die, my laptop is the problem and is murdering the drives before their time, and I am unable to replace it.

I am so shocked at how much this upsets me. I feel like my life was tied to that laptop. My friends webpages, my email, my music and videos

My book...... ahhh my book! Thankfully I had printed it out a few weeks ago, so I have a semi current copy on my desktop, but the ability to just pick up and write anywhere.

Maybe this is God's way to get me to do something with my life. I am sure someday I will thank Him...

but right now I just want to kick Mr. Gates in the crotch. Grrrrrrrrr, Windows sucks!!!

usafangrrl @ 2008-09-15T09:33:00

2008-09-15T14:37:10Z

School lately has been an absolute bear, I have very little time anymore, what little time I do have, I spend writing... I need the world to stop for like a solid week so I can catch up on everything.

Ike has come all the way to Chicago. We have had rain for several days straight. We got 10 inches. I don't know how people do it who actually go through the hurricanes. All this rain is too much and we are half the country away. We got 6 inches in our basement. Our basement is unfinished and just used for storage, but it was packed to the gills. Now my sister and I have the auspicious job of going through and throwing out oodles and oodles of stuff. What fun. I am hiding in my room doing this instead of facing the basement.

Auuggghhh! Better face the music.
Blah!

Clubboxing + Fanfiction

2008-09-01T05:34:01Z

I have been having loads of fun finding new videos of DBSK with subs. I figured out how to use Clubbox (thanx Soompi forum for the detailed explanation!!!) It is really easy to get my hallyu daily fix with all the wonderful people who update their blogs, websites every day. I have a few that I regularly visit to find out what is happening halfway around the world.
My girls and I have been bonding over the vids. Ah, the internet rocks!

My collection of mp3's is extensive and I had to organize all the id3 tags. That took me a long time, but now it is all good. My mp3 player with the 80 gig hard drive will be getting a work out in the next few days.

Learning Korean is going well, I have a text book for the basics plus a book on how to pronounce Korean. Given that the english language doesn't have certain sounds that I will be hearing and expected to make, the book on pronunciation is really important. That book is also fun to read. I think I will be getting the author's other books as well.

I just got over a nasty head cold and my left ear is still clogged and I can't hear out of it. I am a silver lining kind of gal. Not being able to hear has kind of been nice.. Let me explain why. There are ten of us in my family. We live in a big house with six bedrooms, but with 10 people, it can be noisy. I have been enjoying the forced quiet . I usually have earbuds in my ears listening to music 24/7 but I haven't needed to since I can't hear all the ruckus. Normally my earbuds dim the noise to a manageable level and it is my escape to just listen to music and tune out what I don't want to deal with. Is someone talking loudly in the next room, turn up my music. Is the tv on next to me while I am trying to do something, crank up that DBSK baby! Do I need calming music at bed time? Listen to the quiet tunes to help me fall asleep. [My DBSK bedtime playlist... Beautiful Thing from the Vacation soundtrack; Doushite, their newest single; and Love in the ice, the Soul Power concert rip (I don't like the album version)] I play them on repeat and my mp3 player has a sleep function and I am always asleep before the half hour timer is up.]

Ok, I feel like I have 70 million things to talk about, pardon the flipping from subject to subject, it is just my ADD kicking in.

I have a certain pair of ear buds that are my favorite. I have tiny ears and the normal earbuds are just too big. Sony had this nice pair that fit into my minuscule ears. The problem is that they don't seem to make them anymore. They changed their format to a larger size. Ppphhhbbbtttt!!!
I have had this pair for a few years now and the sound is still great. The rubber that was coating the wires couldn't stand up to me falling asleep with the buds in my ears and rolling over them while I slept. The coating started coming off. What I ended up doing was pulling off all the soft rubber . They are actually my third pair. The first one, the rubber came off and I threw them away. The second pair my macaw bit through (grrr.). This third pair has to last. The wires weren't damaged and I crocheted over the cord and made it fuzzy. It is really soft now and doesn't tangle as much now either. I love them! I will use these until they finally die. I am really hard on these things and they have stood up to my use and I wish Sony still manufactured them.

Fanfiction... I started writing my own fanfiction featuring the DBSK boys... I got up to 120 pages... It was incredibly fun and rewarding to write. I really *saw* my character, like I was watching a movie play out. It was really cool...When my muse would hit me I could crank out 30 pages. I even had a light up pen to write at night as the words flowed. I carried around a note pad because ideas would come at the strangest times. It was all going well and I had one of my peeps read it to critique it. She is an english major and a sophomore in college... umm... she knows all about DBSK and she kept saying things like "They wouldn't do that. You need to change that. Don't tell the story, show it." She brought up all this stuff and I realized that I was not ready to have someone read my story. I kept writing it for others to read it, at least that was my original intent... after I spent weeks on it, pouring out my heart, everytime she would pause and say "Umm..." I would cringe. I didn't realize what a personal experience it would be to write. I decided to not post my fan fiction. At least not this first one.

I had probably revised the first 30 pages 10 times already. Everytime I would sit down to write I would read at the beginning of my story and then change things as I went. Two hours would go by and I was only up to page 50. Finally I had to resort to skipping to the end and writing. If I did read it through, I had to skim.

My other problem was that I wanted to write like it really could have happened so I wanted every little detail to be true to life. Would a Korean person do this, is this how you address a person you just met. I got books on Korean culture, food and customs. I did research, studied... If something didn't ring true, it would ruin my story. I was even picturing people reading the story and wondering if it was true. That is how I wanted it to be...
Then I read some information that would make what I wrote about impossible. The part that this new information related to was integral to my story and took up half of the writing. I was shattered.

I had to step back and chill on the writing for a while. I knew what direction my story would have taken, what was going to happen in the rest of the book, the ending... sigh. I wish I wasn't such a perfectionist. I wanted my story to be as if it could have been real. Since I learned the fact about one of my characters, it ruined it for me.

I tried to start a new story, and I have a good foundation started, but it just isn't as fun as the first one was. For my first ever story, I thought it was good. My bf loved it and said it was really good. He has a book published. I felt really good writing it, it just filled me with complete joy. I would laugh, clap at the screen, it just felt great... now... sigh... this sucks... I know I have control over what I write and I can write whatever I want... but still... *I* can't continue knowing what I know... [giant sigh] I said earlier that I had poured my heart out into the pages, and I feel that is why this is bothering me so much.

I haven't found the silver lining here yet...

Well, my new story is very different from my first one. My original story turned a smidge smutty and I didn't feel comfortable posting it to the internet where anyone could read it. My new story is very G rated and everyone can enjoy it when I am done. I guess that would be the silver lining in all this... [again giant sigh...]

Ok, I am totally depressed thinking about this... I am going to bed... Love in the ice coming up...

Peace out
Kiki

SM Town Concert

2008-08-21T03:37:55Z

Yikers, I wish I could see this concert in person. I have seen clips from fans that have been posted to youtube and some clubboxes... I have posted up pics, to see all of them check out the scrapbook. Ahhh droolage, where is the towel?

Learning Korean vs. Japanese

2008-08-01T01:03:12Z

I want to learn a new language... Japanese or Korean. I watch more asian tv than american tv and it would be nice to know what they are saying. I have to wait for shows to be subbed by others. I would like to become proficient enough to become a subber one day. Also, in my fantasy life, I will be traveling to Korea or Japan.

I asked around and found that people feel Japanese is easy to speak, but hard to read. Korean is easy to read, but hard to pronounce. Most of the shows I watch are Korean, so I think I am going to learn that language first. I ordered some highly rated texts from Amazon, but I don't have them yet. I found a few universities with study helps so I have high hopes that it will go well. I've already learned Hangul, the Korean alphabet, from a cool website.

I ordered a few cookbooks with authentic Korean and Japanese recipes. I have always been fascinated with other cultures. I look forward to treating my family and friends to some cool new dishes..

Speaking of my family and friends, they are praying for me. I spend much of my time online and they miss me. I have brought several of them over to my side.. the dark side. We will watch movies, dramas, concerts, listen to music, etc. It is nice having friends to share your obsessions with.

One of my friends [who doesn't know how deep the rabbit hole goes] saw my laptop yesterday. I have a picture of JaeJoong (from DBSK) as my desktop. She was, "Oh... who is that."

"He is a member of this band." I smile as I point at the computer. Their newest single is coming out of the speakers. I had the Amazon website open and she saw my cart full of Korean books.

"Oh, are you still into Korean things?" Looking down her nose at me.

"Yeah." I say as I shut the lid of the laptop. She will never understand.

Beginnings.....

2008-06-22T07:05:46Z

Hi! I am totally a newbie when it comes to this... This will be my first journal entry. I have read tons, but never put my crazy thoughts down in print. Yikes, I don't want anyone to know what rattles around my head! I would scare people!

FYI...my grammar sucks! I am warning you now, if you are an english major, forgive me. I slept through english and comp classes! Math & science were my specialties, algebra questions, throw them at me, biology, I'm your girl... punctuation, sentence fragments, hanging participles... huh?? You are warned! I write like I talk, sometimes ending my writing not where the sentence would end, but just stopping my thought... You will find many "..." in my writing. If that bothers you, you should stop reading now, really, don't go any further. My thoughts just jumble out all over the place. If they are not a complete sentence, I don't like using a period, so I just use... again, you have been warned. ok, still with me? Let's take a look into crazy Kiki's head, shall we?

Ok, all joking aside :-)

I have become absolutely obsessed with asian stuff... dramas, music, and the Kpop/ Jpop boy bands.... (swoon...)

I had an interesting experience earlier this year. I got really sick; like raging fever, delusional, pneumonia sick. I ended up in bed for over 5 weeks. What did I do? I had my handy dandy laptop with internet for company. I had always read manga (japanese comics that read back to front, right to left), and my boy hooked me up with a website where you can watch anime (japanese cartoons, mostly based off of mangas).. oh cool.. at the bottom of their webpage they had a little blurb on dramas (real people, limited tv series, like US soap operas but with no sex, some were of my favorite mangas)

... Oh kay! I was hooked on these babies in no time. With being sick and confined to bed I would start a drama and just watch from one episode to the next until the series was finished. They ranged from a series length of between 11 - 21 episodes and each episode was roughly 45 minutes or some were longer like 1hr 20 minutes. This is better than TV! No commercials and I don't have to wait a week to see what is going to happen next. I was drawn to certain dramas with certain actors. Like that actor? Look him up and check out his other dramas.

My smart friend noticed that they all had bishies in them... bishies?? bishonen= japanese for beautiful boy, pretty boy, boys that could pass for girls... oooohhhhhh... I had always liked long hair on guys. This just went further, with hairless faces and - um - just pretty.

Wanting to know more about what a bishonen is, I googled it and found a website that listed real people as examples. I started doing searches on them. It listed men like Brad Pitt (in Interview with a Vampire), Gackt (Jrocker), Hyde (another Jrocker), Lee JunKi (Korean actor), and my favorite of all time Hero (JaeJoong) from DBSK (Korean singing group).

Who the heck are DBSK? Dong Bang Shin Ki, or TVfXQ, or Tohoshinki (depending on which country you are from, their name is different) all roughly meaning Gods Rising from the East. I found some wickedly cool YouTube videos and just became hooked. I have listened to their music for three months now and I just can't get enough of them. I've bought their albums, all their DVD's that come with english subs (Hey! Lets get those japanese ones subbed ok!!! AVEX - you listening??!)

They sing, they dance, they look hot. What more could you ask for? They are at the top of the charts in Korea and Japan, and are branching out to China and Thailand. I can not wait until they have a concert in the USA. I will drive anywhere. I will be bringing, um lets see, how many have I infected with the DBSK bug.... Starting with my house alone, six, then add more friends I 'bit'. We will be caravan-ing that is for sure. Ok, one disclaimer, they were here last month, in LA at the Hollywood Bowl for the Korean Music Festival, but it featured bunches of singers and didn't even start until 6:30 pm or something. I couldn't justify driving for 20 hours and spending over $1500 to see them sing, three songs. I did really want to go, like really really wanted to go, like painful to have to sit at home while they were in America, like pacing my living room when they were actually at the concert, whimpering... wow, ok, just remembering the pain of knowing they were on the same continent as me and not being able to see them... ouch... I need a moment to gather myself again... ow... that really hurt not being able to go... It didn't help that there were six of us who really, really wanted to go. I was the final decision maker, so I had the extra burden of disappointing everyone else, and carrying their pain too.

I need some chocolate. Talk amongst yourselves, I'll be right back.

... some time later, chocolate and milk in hand... ok back to writing :-D

I have found several very friendly websites who feed my obsession with news or english subbed video clips from Korea and Japan. Until I learn another language I have to rely on others to let me know what they are all saying.

I would encourage all of you to check them out on YouTube. The variety shows are the absolutely the best and guaranteed rib ticklers, if not even pee-in-your-pants funny. Many of them are subbed so if you are an anglo like me just search for 'DBSK eng sub' and you will find a ton. (check out tohoshinki or tvxq too)

My current favorite song is their newest single that will be released in July, the 16th I think. I think it will be called Doushite Kimi Wo Suki Ni Natte Shimattandarou... in english... why did I end up falling for you? It is just so beautiful, and haunting. Hero sings the chorus and his voice is so... I don't know how to describe it. When he sings, it is like my body lifts off the ground. His voice just takes me places. My heart literally catches in my chest when he sings. Oh... I need another moment ... ok, back on the ground now.

I have an mp3 that was taken from their Japanese radio show (BigEast Station), a preview, and I keep playing it over and over. I have already pre-ordered the single (with dvd) from cdjapan, and can't wait to get my hands on my very own copy.

Well, I have blathered on enough for one post. I will write more later on why exactly asian dramas are better than anything on tv in the USA, and why exactly I love DBSK.

Ciao!