Callistonian.net

I’m in the States now. I live in the South too.  Everything shuts down at the mere hint of snow. The weatherman said that we might get three inches of snow on Friday or Saturday, so everyone went into a panic. They went to the supermarkets, bought up all the stuff, and clogged up all the aisles with their bodies, carts, babies, etc. At times like this, I think people buy candles? flashlights? (electricity doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to storms here) and basic foods.

All of the public schools are already closed for Friday too. Anyway, does it snow where you live? If so, what happens when it does? Tomorrow or on Saturday, I’ll take a picture and show you exactly how much (how little) snow we actually got.

*A snow dance is a dance performed to encourage cold weather and snow. Dancers, typically, hope that the snow will cause their places of work and schools to close.

18 days into 2010, how are you new year’s resolutions holding up?

This year, I decided to focus on eight special things.

• reading I need to read more books, articles, journals, blogs, etc.
• Korean I want to become fluent in another language ASAP. I want to have the ability to work as a diplomatic translator, even though I’m not trying to become one. Of course, I had to pick one of the hardest languages—but it is what it is. I need to study tons.
• Callistonian.net I’ve had this site for 8 years. I’m not ready to let it go.
• exercise Staying healthy is important.
• traveling Not only do I want to take long trips across oceans, but I also want to visit local hot spots (restaurants, museums, cafes,  and one-of-a-kind stores).
• photography Memories are wonderful, and they’re so much sweeter when there are photos to accompany them.
• writing I’m not too sure about how far I want to push this one. Am I willing to work hard enough to get something (non-fiction) published or is it enough if I just keep a journal and write as I normally do.
• give Last but not least, I want to volunteer and give money to charity.

At day 18, I’m doing okay. I’ve read a novel, at least two dozen newspaper articles, and some blogs.  I’ve studied Korean for hours. I’ve also been giving. I gave money to Doctors Without Borders (for Haiti) and to another organization. I also volunteered.

I want to explain something slightly cryptic and oddly teenybopperish that I posted on Twitter awhile ago. Here’s the post:

Azn Song Fest. so fun~ i was one of SuJu’s E.L.Fs. XD crazy, but SJ balloon + SJ glowstick + SJ binoculars = me. http://twitpic.com/ibru7

Did you see this? Do you understand? No? Well, I’m a bit sorry for being incomprehensible, but Twitter encourages seriously brief posts. I could only use 140 characters.

Generally speaking, I type my “tweets” in standard American English, but then I get these threats saying that I’ve used too many characters and that if I don’t get rid of some of them, my message won’t be posted. So I go back, delete vowels, and turn seemingly random words into abbreviations and acronyms. How do you deal with text messages and Twitter?

Anyway—on a Saturday awhile ago, I went to a concert called Asia Song Festival. A bunch of pop artists from all over Asia came to Seoul and performed. The concert was great. It was a lot of fun.

I hardly know how things work where you are, but in Korea, the big concerts are segregated. Normal people sit in one area. Everyone else sits according to the fan club they’re in. Thus, CRAZY enthusiastic female fans of a specific group sit in their special section all by themselves. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that sitting with normal people is nearly as fun as sitting with screaming girls. Screaming girls = awesome. Screaming boys = fun too, but sometimes they’re a little scary.

Unfortunately, my friend and I arrived at the venue late. Whoops. We weren’t tragically late, though. The concert had yet to begin, but we wanted to get inside quickly because something had started. What had started, exactly? Well, we didn’t know because we weren’t inside. T_T

Sadly, we also could not just run into the venue, because there was a gate, and there were lines, and we had to show our tickets, and …

Read the rest of this entry »

I returned from Japan a few weeks ago. I love Japan, and it was great fun, but …

I was ill. I had a wretched cough and no voice. I almost died several times due to laughter induced coughing fits. The worst was when a friend forced me to laugh with one of his 2,331,223,294,394,233,231 unsponsored iPod Touch advertisements. After hearing about how this less than one week old iPod Touch was so slim, about how it had wireless, about how it had Skype, about how it could be used to display random facts, about how it could be used as a light saber, about how it could (not) be used as a dictionary, about how it could be used as a flashlight, etc. 12,123, 239, 223 times in a less than three day span, this happened.

An approximate re-telling of the particularly offensive commercial:
setting: the lights are out & its late at night

a: what’s that noise?
b: my iPod Touch makes soothing wave sounds. they help you fall asleep.
i laugh and almost die as the obsession can no longer be denied.
a *after recovering from her own laughter*: o_O wtf?
b: do you want to hear forest noises instead?
a: …

The sound goes on for about 2 minutes.

For the record, there was nothing soothing about those ocean noises. The sound looped every 8 or so seconds. It stopped abruptly, in a terribly jarring way, and then started again. -___-;

a: TURN IT OFF!

Anyway, I was sick. My friend, his iPod, and my other friend took the hotel shuttle to Tokyo Disney early the next morning. As I was sick, I was going to go to the pharmacy when it opened, get some meds, and take the train to Disney (the shuttle only ran from the hotel to the park during morning hours), and meet them in front of the Haunted Mansion in the afternoon. Things didn’t quite work out.

I wen to the pharmacy. I got my medicine (aka souped up cough drops). So far, so good. When I was trying to get to Tokyo Disney, the trains randomly broke down—thank goodness I could understand Japanese—my 30 minute trip turned into 4 hours of … something terrible. I didn’t even get lost, though.

I got my refund from the people working at the station. I walked to another one (yay detour?). I got on another train. I walked to the Disney bus stop and thought, “OMG!”—the bus line was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people long. T_T  After 240 minutes or thereabouts, I finally reached Disney. Nonetheless, it sucked because I couldn’t find my friends.

I spent my time at Disney all alone. I rode one ride (it’s A Small World). I also wasted about 63 minutes vainly searching for familiar faces. Finally, I decided enough was enough. I left.

I spent another 240 minutes getting back to my hotel—Just kidding. Actually, there was no way I was enduring those kinds of epic lines again. I took the limousine bus/shuttle bus back to my hotel. I didn’t know if the driver was going to let me on the bus, because I didn’t do anything you were supposed to in regards to that (e.g. get a ticket). So I was upfront with him, and said things like “Hi! :) I don’t have a ticket. I didn’t make a reservation, either. :) But I’m staying at this hotel. I have a key. :) Here it is. PLEASE let me on the bus. Thank you.”

In the midst of all that, I lost my $400 dictionary. No joke.

Three slightly random tidbits from the last 60,840 minutes of my life (i.e. what’s been going on since I last blogged).

JAPAN—I’ll spend a few humid days during July and August in Japan. My tentative list of things to do is quite schizophrenic (because I’m going with friends and our personalities are different). So far, must-dos include visiting Tokyo Disneyland, the notorious Yasukuni Shrine, and an aquarium. Mountain climbing is also under serious consideration. If you have any suggestions let me know.

VOLUNTEER—Maybe I’m a little psychotic, but I haven’t done any noteworthy extracurricular or volunteer activities for a few months now. I haven’t been bored, but me not volunteering (or participating in some kind of crazy thing like sacrificing my fingers and learning to play an instrument no one has ever heard of) is like a caffeine addict going for weeks without coffee or soda. It’s unsustainable and enough to make me crazy. So, I’m ecstatic that an opportunity has finally presented itself—it involves teaching English, which is definitely kind of bleh and run-of-the-mill, but it has potential. I’m skeptical about the whole thing working out, though, because I’ve had things fall through before.

RANDOM OBSERVATION—Keyboards. I realized something. I don’t know where the keys on my keyboard are. My fingers know, but on paper I cannot draw a keyboard with correctly placed keys. Is this strange or just a by-product of never looking at the keys while typing?