겨울나기

어제 핫요가를 하고 다녀온 후 갑자기 다 나아가던 감기가 역습을 해온것인지 새로운 종류의 감기가 든건지, 하루종일 힘이 없어서 떨며 졸다가, 기침하다가, 머리가 뻐개질 것 같은 두통에 할 수 없이 포기를 하고,  ‘미안하지만 못 가겠네요’ 란 문자를 보냈다. 모처럼 친구들 카페에서 크리스마스 파티를 해서 기대했는데 못 가게 되었다.  역시 나는 노는 일에는 운이 없는 가 보다.  일복은 참 많은 것 같은데도 말이다.

다행히 휴일이라 오늘 저녁까지 집에서 휴식을 취하고 있는데 두통은 좀 나아진 듯 느껴진다.  하지만 밤에는 감기증상이 더 심해질 것이기 때문에 약 안먹고 버티는 나에게 조-금 두렵긴 하다.   낼 아침 일어나서 기차타고 조치원에 내려가 11시 미팅준비도 해야하는데 벌써 저녁 7시가 넘었네…  혼자 몸도 아프니 이런저런 생각이 든다.  아무래도 2009년의 마지막 날들은 의미건조하게 지날것 같다.  올해는 연말 휴가계획도 다 미루고 그냥 일에 전념을 하고있다.  그래서 계속 아픈가?

겨울이 아주 추운것도 견디기가 힘들것 같다.  타양살이는 이래서 힘들다고 하나보다.  얼른 기운을 내야 겠다.  난 원래 낙천적인 성격의 소유자 아닌가?

 

spring is here loud and clear

Last two weeks have been warm in 60s & 70s with soft breeze in the air. It’s really hard not noticing these blossoms everywhere even if I was spending most of my time indoors working in front of computers or in front of a projector & students. Luckily, I have a wall of large windows in my apt looking down the street and I found all the trees are green all of sudden. Now, I have natural shades to walk pass by in the street in my neighborhood. Colorful flowers are everywhere trying to remind me it’s spring. Pink, red, white, yellow…with baby green.

Spring is nice but, it’s also tough. It’s hard to concentrate on work when weather is this nice and also, I wish I could go away somewhere with someone special.  hmmm… I guess that’s why girls get wandering feelings in spring more than guys… it asks me to get out and smell the air! ( also not to forget to look at the mirror one more time before I walk out. )

Students were also looking at me like ‘why should we stay in this dark room with a projection?’ so I had two classes outdoor last week. I found an architectural looking sculpture in the sculpture garden and declared it as my outdoor office. I asked them to smell, listen, touch, see everything they could feel in any kind of ways – while they wait for their turn to get one to one advising session with me. They will deliver a photo image that they took to represent what they felt. I’m waiting for it so will see what they bring me back with. Interaction design is designing for five+ senses that human experiences in, therefore they should tune into all their senses, not just visual sense.

This post is totally mumbling but, please forgive me. It’s spring and it’s very loud and clear in Korea. I’d better enjoy every bit of it while it lasts. 🙂

 

New Year’s Note

Well, I don’t have any good new year’s photo so I decided to use this old photo that was taken at my campus. My second half of year 2007 has been very difficult. I wouldn’t go into the details but, I’ve been very stressed physically and emotionally. I’m glad it’s almost over. I’m still having stressful tasks to finish before Feb is over but, as long as I get 7 hours of sleep at night, I might find back my usual optimism.

The above photo was taken really early morning around 7:40 am. It was Sunday but, I had to go to the campus by 8 am in order to full fill some administrative duties. Yeah, there are 300% more administrative work than teaching at the universities here & they never tell you the schedule until few days before. It’s like a reality show on TV when you get a special note from the host to tell you what to do next. Every semester, my sleep schedule gets wacky – meaning sleeping about 3, 4 hours a day during school days… after 8 months, I got sick. Perhaps everyone else is immune at not sleeping enough hours and working around the clock even they are at their 40’s here but, I’m certain that I’m not made for that.

However, teaching is a blessing. Teaching my talented students is like resting in a beautiful island in the middle of storm. I guess teaching them & getting summer and winter vacations are barely keeping me here…although I begin to wonder if I’m shortening my lifespan by taking so much unnecessary stress from this unchangeable society. I need to figure out how to get by without stress… This is a new challenge since I’ve never had this intense stress before. First thing is to figure out what really stress me. Then I could see what would improve the situation. I usually don’t have New Year’s resolution but, perhaps “Being free (almost) from stress” would be the one this year. Happy New Year!!!

I think I can be cool if I can get enough sleep a day. That’s a bottom of it. What to do about it…huh?

 

Two sad news this weekend

I had a pretty good weekend this week. I finally got to catch up with some friends and met some interesting people and I watched a musical, “Thrill Me” & saw some interesting Pop Arts today.  I will write about it later because I got two sad news this weekend.

One is that one of my favorite live music club, Tonic is closing soon and the other is that one of my favorite writers, Kurt Vonnetgut has passed away at his age 84 last week.

Tonic is located on Norfolk Street near Delancy street in my NYC neighborhood, LES (Lower East Side) and they have a basement dance lounge called, “Subtonic” where often ITP’s interactive sound performances are held as well as artists and musicians explore their ways of expression. I once went to see an afropunk band playing live in Tonic and was amazed that they were open near huge construction site (yup, another expensive condo was constructed) oh the show was awesome.

I saw an email titled, “tonic is closing –> CULTURAL EMERGENCY – demonstration @ Tonic 4/14″   Musicians and Friends: It is time to Claim what is our Right!   I hear them! I hope their demonstration was successful and hope that Tonic can survive late fast development of LES area.

For Kurt Vonnetgut, I like his sense of humor and line of thoughts… his writing style reminds me of ‘hyper text’ and that’s a lot like how I think. I know my friends often find it hard to keep up with my conversation which jumps to different subjects… goes out and come back, if you know what I mean. hmmm

Anyway, I found an interesting writing about him online that I like to share on my post.

“Kurt Vonnetgut’s 8 Rules of Writing Fiction”

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

— Kurt Vonnegut

 

days before my new older self

My new goth bear on Bar Da table

That black bear is my new buddy who I bought for $4.50 in the street to protect me from losing my cellphone again. I haven’t found a good name for him but, he seems tough with skull drawing on his chest… He doesn’t have a face but, he seems to be caring enough.

He was with me when I drank with my old friend Y and newly met Bar Da’s regulars there. It was Saturday night so, I was pretty much relaxed and enjoying few days of my previous age. I’ve only been there 3 times so far but, already I could recognize some regulars there. They seem to recognize me as well. (not sure that’s a good sign…) I found out that day, that owner is usually drunk with regulars, he enjoys traveling and taking photos. The photos that were projected on the wall were pretty good. He opened up two bottles of Jonny Wallker Blue Label one after another, sharing with people who were sitting inside of a tiny studio room across the main bar area. He was celebrating of creating new sign for third floor performance/bar area he plans to open. I heard Portish Head so, I said, ‘I like them, I didn’t expect to hear them here…’ then I also recognized “Politik” by Cold Play… ha. I think I got some recommendation of new place to visit for live music…good live music. The guy who played music kindly sent me an email with the right link, “The House Concert” it’s a free concert by real artists. Next concert’s guest musician is called “Hachi(Kasga Hirofumi) & TJ” Japanese & Korean artists…intersting

The rest of night was remembered with blurry photos I took (I think) I guess I’m still learning this culture and there are a lot more than I imagined. I joined online cafe made with Indie Music Band goers… all the information about good live indie musicians were all there…! I will post more about it once I’m done with numerous responsiblities I still have to do here. Anyway, my actual birthday was uneventful except few text messages and a lovely delivery from distance brightened my office. It was a quiet work day ended up with lots of drinking among my work colleagues (work reason) Well, that is another blog. Anyway, I had lovely days prior to my birthday which was a really great way to close my previous year. Now, I’m starting fresh year again. New adventures awaiting for me now.

 

Taking a challenge of play tag

Thanks to miserychick, I’ve decided to take this challenge. Let’s see how ambiguous I can be with this post. 🙂

The Rule:

“I have to blog about 5 things that people wouldn’t necessarily know about me, and then in turn tag 5 other people.”

1.

Ok, before take this challenge, I spent 15 min taking BBC online “Brain Sex Test” – thanks to Miserychick. So why not this to be #1 thing about me to find out? The result? I’m very much female in my brain (50% female) but, I found that in some, my brain is more toward male but, over all I scored average female. I think it’s something to do with picking attractive faces and I definitely like masculine look in men. That probably put me back to Female arena right back.

Part 1. scored more toward male

Part 2. (hands) more toward male

Part 3. (Emotion and system) mutual

Part 4. (fingers) more toward male

Part 5. (faces) definitely toward female. (interesting factor to consider according to this test, “Interestingly, women’s preferences are said to vary across the menstrual phase. A more masculine face is preferred during the 9 days prior to ovulation, when conception is most likely.” Ha!

Part 6. (3D shapes & words) definitely toward female

2.

I wanted to be an archeologist and travel the world to explore when I was nine years old. I read about ancient Maya civilizations and ancient Gaya’s civilization (one of ancient Korean Kingdom during B.C.) If you visit me, all the books in Korean that I’ve bought are all history related books.

3.

If my family haven’t immigrated to the US when I was a teenager, I would have gone to a private foreign language high school and finished a university degree in Seoul then go to Europe to continue my education and might have learned French. Oh, I was a geek in Korea, too. I wonder if I would ended up getting BFA degree if we stayed in Korea because I had to really stand up for myself against my parents to go to an art college in New York City

4.

I used to ice skate (speed skate, not figure skate!) a lot as a kid during winter. Once we lived right front of a river for about a year where they used to make a track for ice skaters in the middle of frozen river and I used to speed skate, going around the ice track really fast on my pair of red speed skates. I often saw tiny fish swimming below, through thick frozen river surface. As an adult, I haven’t had a chance to try on a pair of speed skates but, I have tried to skate in Central Park on figure skates once and I really sucked at it.

5.

I started to design bags and clothes just because I was bored of designing on computer screens. I pretty much stopped drawing and painthing at that time but, I needed to touch and feel my design materials in my hands. I began to collect textiles and bought a sewing machine and started design and make bags, then tees. I learned to use a sewing machine via its manual and made paper patterns without knowing how. After few years, I’ve decided to make interactive fashion technology projects and I did. It’s been already 3 years since I picked up fashion technology as my creative outlet. I have more project ideas in my head which need to be out soon.

There goes my 5 things. I might have a lot more than people necessarily know about me but, I like to keep them to myself so I can write about them for some other time. Now, 5 things are done, I need to tag to 5 bloggers. Any Takers? JiMong? Mainasukhumvit? Annamatic? Anyone?

 

My bro – a Battlestar Galactica fan

This photo was sent to my cellphone – which I later realize who Jay was with…

In the middle of night, I found out that I had 3 missed calls from my brother then I had one picture message in my phone. It was after midnight… I was thinking what is that…I looked at the photo. Due to my small display in my phone, I could see it was my brother with someone who looks familiar but, I couldn’t figure out who he was with. I didn’t think much of it and went to bed.

Next day, I missed his call again at the office and when I called back, his voice message ran so I left a message, “dude, what is that picture? why did you send it? Who is he?” A few hours later, he called back and told me that he bumped into Edward James Olmos who plays, “Admiral Adama” in “Battlestar Galactica” at LA airport. Jay is a lot friendlier person than I am so I can imagine that he went to him and told him how much he loves the show and he is a big fan. There it is a photo with Admiral Adama… Wow, THAT IS COOL.

Here is how I got my brother and myself hooked into BSG…

I love scifi TV shows, movies, graphic novels…umm books. (ok, I’m a geek) It was sometime like a year ago, I was on the way to LA for a business trip with my colleagues, flying jetblue for 6 hours. Apparently that morning until 4 pm, they had a special Battlestar Galactica, Season 2.0 marathon on Scifi channel. Tina and I started to watch (which was in the middle of season) and we both got slowly got into the show… we were talking only during commercial break. I was even hesitant to go to the restroom in flight because I didn’t want to miss what happened next…. Yeah, their marketing strategy worked. I was hooked by then.

This summer, I got BSG Season 1, DVD rented and itunes episodes downloaded and caught up all the episodes I missed. Of course I had to share this with my brother who loves animation, Gundam, scifi and etc… He didn’t seem to be convinced when I told him that he should watch DVDs first. Many still have an impression of old TV show so, they are not motivated to watch the new TV show at first. Then with my ongoing praises of this show, he finally got Season 1 DVD in netflix. After first episode, he was like, “What’s up with Frack? it’s silly” I told him that he should watch one more episode… after that, he was hooked. Now, he is a fan. We had BSG season premeire party (READ Battlestar Galactica, Cheers for Frack!) and now I get this surprise on my phone. Jay was also on the way to fly out for a business trip so, his colleage took a photo of them in her cellphone then forwarded it to me. It is just something that makes me smile.

Oh, I have to confess that I’m also a TV junkie.

 

Jaurim, “death to Korean Pop music culture soon….”

From an Artcle from Chosu.com

Jaurim (자우림) is one of few Korean Pop music bands I listen to. I read this article that lead singer of Jaurim stirred many over-patriotic Korean fans by her comments saying that there will be death to Korean Pop Music soon if they don’t support indepently produced music. Honestly, as an outsider, I could relate to her comments. Well, some people who commented to this article even wrote, “isn’t it dead already?”

I’m really sick and tired of 20 years of copycat R&B musics by pretty faces and pretty dances – mass produced by the main stream commercial music producers who only think about their profits. (I personally don’t like R&B so I could be biased) Very often, some of my New Yorker friends ask me if there are any good Korean bands to listen to or ask me about underground & indie music scene in Korea. Well, I don’t know. Is there? Can anyone tell me if there is any? Couple of bands were introduced to me but, I wasn’t impressed. Therefore, I could only sigh~ as an answer. Where is new 들국화(Dulkukwha, wild Chrysanthemum) where is new 시나위(Sinawi)? like good old 80s?

Why can’t we stand Korean pop music on network TVs? Why? Becasue it’s all boy band and girl band dancing and singing about whatever top hit producers gave them to sing. No exploration, no invention… just safe rythme and safe melody. Something big (such as soul, social comments and art)is missing if you listen to the most of them carefully. I was saddend by the fact, that I often have to defend awful taste of Korean pop music fans to foreigners who are already open minded to foreign pop musics. I blame the mop of commerical producers who only calculate that pretty faces and shallow musics will bring money in their pockets. (I’m generalizing to point out for the majority. I’m sure there are few true music producers.)

Sometimes, I watch Korean music TV shows and think about all those truely talented gifted artists who don’t get any chances. I had to turn the channel within a minute…. sigh~

Few years ago, I stumbled into Jaurim in a small article and got CD, “Purple Heart” and I liked what I listened to. This was one band I acutally could refer to friends who have despeckable taste in music. Even Jaurim gets okay review among them but, I wanted to give them extra points for trying to make their own music with social comments and trying new things. In America, main stream pop music still sucks and real RAP music (that used to be political, social comments but now it’s all about boobs and butts) is gone but, you would still hear new good music once in a while like Cold Play, Green Day, Artic Monkeys and TV on the Radio – even Radiohead.

The reason America and UK has creative new music artists found continuously is because there are good number of underground independent music scenes in every major cities. That’s what gives young aspiring artists the nurturing environment to create and grow. Even for my neigbhorhood (LES), there are tons of live music bars and they are populated by aspiring young musicians and and their new young fans. When their music is good, you can see fans are forming rapidly. There are stages for young musicians and there are audience who refused to listen to pop music that were selected by money hungry producers.

Japan has their own Punk music, India has Bangra music, which is by the way very popular in the US and UK and influencing a lot of other artists and Portugal has good singer song writers who sings Flamenco spanish tune. What do we have? We do have our own tune and I’ve listened to some of our artists tried to integrate them with Jazz, which was cool. I want to listen to new young good Korean musicians. If audience doesn’t give a chance to new young underground artists who sing their souls without rich sponsors, who would? ok… enough ranting.

 

My Hairstyle in a decade

It might appear narcissistic but, I’ve decided to compile my hairstyle in last 10 years as Tina commented on my “Happy Halloween!” post. It’s of course more for myself and fun.

I have some friends who perfer to keep their best hairstyles without changes but, I’m totally opposite. Due to often visited boredom, I can’t have one hairstyle for a long period time. It’s fun to change hair to long to short, brown highlights to jet black with red highlight and so on. Lately, I’ve decided to take a break and leave my hair alone but, once in a while, a temptation still sneaks in.

Anyway, to summarize the compiled images below, there seem to be a pattern in my hairstyles. During a decade of period, I have cut my hair drastically short 3 times from long hairstyle then slowly grew them for years.

1995-1999 :

I cut my straight long hair to short in a bobcut style(no photo) then grew back long in same length. In ’99, I’ve changed to highlights and layered long haircut.

2001:

I was tired of long hairstyle so I got layered haircut. I died my hair black and cut more to shorter and curlier then grew back down in highlighted brown hair again.

2002-2003:

I think I’ve enjoyed my long hair, just changed in bangs & straight & curls until 2003…

2003-2005 :

I went back to short haircut again but, this time more degree of layered look in lighter brown color. As I kept my hair length above my shoulder, I have gone back to my natural hair color without any highlights by 2005.

2006:

I’ve started to get some red highlights on front only – which I think I did it for sake of changes and this fall, I’ve gone back to simple black hair but, long.

Obviously, who cares? It’s just kind of fun to see how I got older, too! My baby fat on my face has disappeared over last 10 years…

 

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Thanks to Jonah’s blog, I’m rebloging this world first electronic turkey for my friends and family! If you know me, this turkey will be the most appropriate to share my joy and thank. (No, I won’t order one for you.)

I’m thankful that I’m generally healthy. I’m thankful that I could interact with brilliant group of friends, stimulating creative ideas and sharing resources. I’m thankful that there are still love left in me. I’m thankful to YOU who is a part of who I am.

Happy Thanksgiving!