Momento

It has been a while since my last post. Heh. Not that I didn't have nothing to write about, but oh well. The past is the past.

Updates on mi life!

Doctor Who has suddenly entered my life. It is quite fantastic. I feel like i enjoy it way too much. My starting history is quite weird though. The first clip I remember watching was the Eleventh Doctor running into Central Park to pick up a note. I won't leave too many spoilers, but I admit I was bemused as I watched this man with a ridiculous chin and a running posture that pushed his chest completely out.

That was a while ago. At the moment, I'm eagerly awaiting for 11/23. I've watched all the 2005-onwards episodes aka Nu-Who, and am thinking of going back to watch Tom Baker's years when I have time. 

My favorite Doctor at the moment is Matt Smith's. He was my first, technically speaking, and like they say, you always remember your first Doctor. So much fun involved, yet hiding so much rage and regret. I'm partial to Tennant, however; he seems too overrated, and while it is for good reason, I've come to detest fans that keep asking for him to come back. Perhaps I found the way the stories are portrayed by Russet T. Davies a bit lacking in some element compared to Moffat's. Still, he was excellent in portraying the Tenth Doctor. On the other hand, Eccleston never gets as much credit, which is extremely saddening. He was quite FANTASTIC. Him going through a process of healing after his involvement in the Time War throughout Series 1 was a joy to watch.


As for other topics...I have rather lost interest in music entirely. This compares to my earlier years before I ended up going to Korea. I had no interest whatsoever in the current pop music. This was somewhat because I had no exposure to it. In Korea, however, with tons of idols popping about on TV and being involved in everything, I soon became a control freak and tried all kinds of Korean music. I was very serious about downloading and organizing all the songs on my iTunes. My current list of music reflects this; according to the program, I have a total of 19.21 GB of songs. Anyhow, this interest began to wane a bit in my high school years, and after coming back to America, I've very nearly kept myself out of that area. For a short period of time, Pandora helped me gain some interest back, and Youtube covers from KurtHugoSchneider definitely helped. However, even to this day I have no idea or interest of who Macklemore is.

Honestly, after contemplating my blog posts up until now and the drafts I've made that I never ended up finishing, I should rather go for smaller posts. It isn't what I want, but due to time constraints, I might have to end up doing so.

Anyways, stuff to do. Finally, another post out in a while! Laters.

Still Summa~..........?

Nothing to do...basically.

After I recently found out my cracked version of Minecraft could let me play on cracked servers, well, since then, my Minecraft experience hasn't been the same. I have mixed feelings about various servers though; I've had my share of various acts of unfairness.

I guess it all started when one of my friends opened a server about two weeks before my school's finals. Here, finals count more than 50% of the grade, unlike other schools in USA; one school one of my friend attends have finals only accounting for 10%. That pretty...warped. But anyway, a whole group of us suddenly got addicted to Minecraft because of the server, and we would play it through the night even on the days of the finals. More than once we played right before a final at school. It wasn't too bad.

After our finals ended, school was over. It was my last official day at my school, and I was already missing everything. That very weekend I went on a trip, and came back on Sunday and found out all about something quite...explosive.

Apparently, one of our friends, on the server, had decided to...try a scheme to get a huge amount of money and stole enchanted tools from the rest of the group to sell on our server market. He had a house in the clouds, covering much of the land from skylight but often falling down and killing himself. Suspicions arose among the server members, and four of them decided to investigate and created a pathway to the cobblestone, one-layer dimension above.

What they found angered them. Heaps of weapons, armor, and various other goodies in the chests. Somehow they managed to attack and take all his stuff, which prompted this guy to somehow obtain or create tons of TNT and link it all around the spawn point, where various buildings including my old treehouse (basically a floating house with only a farm underneath by then, for after someone had broken in and stolen my ores and my painting, prompting me to move to another location far, far away) were located, and detonated them all at once. In the process, he somehow managed to find my hidden enchantment library, and thinking it was a stronghold for whatever reason, took the chance to blow that up as well. Immediately after, he took some lava and poured it upon a wooden house created by one of our more innocent members on the server, burning it up, although according to the owner, the lava had missed most of his items. In the end, the server owner shut the server down and created a new server with a whitelist that kept intruders out.

Simple? After I came to know all this, I laughed for a good while, regretting the fact that I had missed this spectacle. I sure would have liked to see that all go down. Heh.

So now, most of us are on the new server. Living happily ever after? Well, maybe I am; after having been granted God Mode and temporary flying powers to build a structure, I was pretty much ready to enjoy another chapter of Minecraft. I await the next hour the server comes back on.

For now though, I've been busy torrenting and trying out another server called KingsCrafters. Had a hard time adjusting initially, although I think I've got a stronger grasp on my surroundings now. I yet have to use the economy there though. Honestly, though...Minecraft servers do have problems.

Summa~

What do you know. It's summer break! One day of school left, but already playing for two days. Pretty laid back on anything and everything.

School though...I'm gonna miss GSIS. My middle life was great here, but now tomorrow is the last day for me. Sigh...California awaits...although I would say that I would desire the East Coast more. I like the atmosphere there. You know, the busy-busy kinda feeling. I think it fits me, rather ironically, for I really am laid back sometimes, but it does anyhow.

As for the drama program here, I received a patch drawn by Eric, who already left. The requirements were acting and performing in two plays, which began with last year's Alice in Wonderland, 1st semester's It's a Wonderful Life, and Guys and Dolls Jr. I apparently was the only person who acted in all three! It was...interesting. Ha ha.

Next year the 1st semester play will be a combination of three plays about Christmas. Two will be done by students in elective drama classes (which worsens the quality, I guess) and the last will be the one that is possible to have auditions and be done as an after-school thing for. Then in the spring, a musical named Oklahoma will be performed. At this Kylie jumped in astonishment, as she was leaving that year as a senior. We've decided to add a cameo of her!...hopefully. I guess this Wild West musical called Oklahoma is famous though, but I've never heard of it. Makes me wanna try it as well. Sigh...I'm really gonna miss GSIS.

But for now, the time to play has come.
And hakwon.
Let's go.

Life? Just lifing Life.

Easter here! Not much to do...
Missed out for more than four months on blogging...huh...it's hard starting one post, but when you begin everything just pours out.

Life from Jan til now in one sentence: new drama/musical Guys and Dolls, role of Lt. Brannigan changed to Society Max/MC (a semi-main role to a minor one regretfully, although I'm able to dance and sing, which the Lt. was not able to do (other than running madly around and throwing sarcasm and his annoying weight around) but this time around, with only one line to memorize life has certainty got much more easier compared to being George Bailey (300+ lines < 1 line, yes?)), creative story writing in english class, currently being rewritten for sake of publishing it on this blog and on booksie.com, short vacation during Spring break skipping PTC (parent teacher conferences) and got sick with my sister and spent nearly 6 hours in a hospital), and......Sherlock.

Sherlock. TV drama series by BBC. Best thing I've ever seen. When a certain Matthew showed me a part of the third episode during an Algebra 2 class in which I was supposed to be studying for an upcoming test...I was hooked. The following week season 1 and 2 were on my Mac.
Amazing, amazing work. The acting and the story just dovetail magically together. Bloody brilliant. It's....just...wow. The script/story is impossibly clever and dexterous, and the humor and suspense- oh the suspense! It is really a work of art. I need to work on my describing skills, so kindly refer to imdb for its reviews; people there manage to be quite descriptive about their feelings. I've seen 11/10 ratings on some, and that-that is really not an overstatement. Currently, I've been spreading around Sherlock to various people. Each one have shown great interest.
Now.......I am waiting for that third season. The world shall wait with me with baited breath (heaven knows if that is 'bated' or 'baited'), that day the third season airs.

As for the school yearbook - although I'm not exactly an editor, the teacher assigned me to fix some grammar stuff on one page, and boy, its state was quite....interesting. After spending nearly 4 classes on that one page with two articles and various captions, I decided to move to another page from the same team that made the page I had fixed. Thoughts? "Wish we had a yearbook page editor." Goodness.

With all this Hunger Games hype, I'm probably not the only person writing about it. No, I haven't seen it, although I was supposed to yesterday, but some unfortunate setbacks occurred...wish the movie-making people luck on their story/film for Catching Fire. That, and Mockingjay. Urgh..messed up the story completely....anyhow, the Hunger Games (book) was a great story. The story, suspense, everything was quite believable. I'm both glad and disappointed to see it being turned into a film. Sure, it's a perfect story for film because of its amazing action, but, as I've written on a test a couple of years ago, films for books steal your imagination away. What you could do with books is imagine a world of whatever YOU thought about the story. With film and all its in-place setting, characters, and so on, everything is placed so realistically we just can't imagine anything else up. Voldemort could have looked different to each person who read Harry Potter, but by watching the movie, the image of Ralph Fiennes (the actor of old Voldy) with a purely-white face and slits for noses is engraved in our minds, effectively sealing off all of our thoughts of what we originally thought Voldy might have looked like. Still, I honestly hope the Hunger Games..well..it already has succeeded, ha.

Oh and...Pokemon. After my friend began playing Black on his computer with a program called desmume...I've stopped at Victory Road at the moment, instead switching to HeartGold, where I've just cleared my second badge. Heck, Pokemon, even now, is still fun. But since I'm playing on a computer, the experience itself is different; I have easier access to walkthroughs, so I've been using one to get the most out of the game....along with the fact that desmume tends to crash fairly often...often resulting in the loss of hours of playing time after forgetting to save. Combined with my PokeXperience, I quickly managed to complete the journey up to the Victory Road for Black. As for HeartGold, even though I haven't played Gold and only played a Silver version that was already beaten (Elite Four beaten, multiple times), it still felt familiar and new at the same time. Guess that's just the magic of Pokemon after seeing them for quite a long time now. My Pokemon gaming history started with first getting a Pokemon Emerald at Gamestop. Before that, I watched Pokemon on tv in my childhood, and consequently, knew all the Pokemons' names up to the second generation. With the introduction of Emerald, Pokemon officially became a permanent part of me, helping me gain friends at school and affecting my habits to a certain degree. Later on, I got Diamond and soon after, the official handbook, but a weird fact is that although my strongest Pokemon together are easily capable of taking on the Elite Four a second time, I have been avoiding battling them for a second time, instead choosing to finish the pokedex by raising Pokemon and using the vs. seeker. Perhaps White and HeartGold will finally bring an end to that reluctance, although it makes me sad that I can't connect desmume to an internet connection...
Oh, have I mentioned I have Platinum downloaded as well and waiting in the wings? Chances of playing that is a bit less though, since I've already done Diamond. Who knows.

Oh, and The Orphan Master's Son is quite an interesting read. Recommended?
Speaking of reading, my english class has started us on Lord of the Flies. After a brief glimpse of the last page, I hope I haven't spoiled the whole story for myself. Yet. (smiles.)

Well, I'm off to bed.
And I guess everything really did pour out. Heh.

Here's the opening music of Sherlock. Always gives me that tingly feeling. And a little glimpse of Sherlock and Watson! Sneaky sneaky.

dada dan dada dan dada dannnnn.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! For the folks here in South Korea! And Happy New Year's Eve for all you Westerners out there! It is, or will be, the start of the new year, 2012. Let all our superstitious thoughts rise...

But what does the new year mean to me? Well, I was caught starting it with some karaoke with my dad, and I thought "until that ball falls in Times Square it won't feel like an actual start" because I'm just like that. But what intrigued me was the feeling of something in the air, as we stepped out to the road. It was a clean, new scent, that seemed to spiritually cleanse everyone around us. As we got in our car, we saw jubilant groups of people of many different ages smile and laugh as if they had never done before, drunken with this fresh spirit floating around (and some older men (ahjushis) actually drunk).

This spirit seemed to bring a wind of hope, telling me that everything, worries, troubles, broken hearts, would come to mend in time. I hope this comes true. Very much. Its been a hard year.

Song: #1 - Jaurim
I recently found a very old music CD of a Korean band named Jaurim (자우림 in Korean). To this day they are still performing very well in the music industry. As it turns out, my mom and dad had both enjoyed Jaurim's music in the past, and had bought this CD. This CD was their fourth studio album, released in 2002 and simply titled "04." Likewise, the very first song in the album was a song titled #1. I felt this song, which sung in english (and a little hard to understand at certain parts), was very moving. Especially the lines "La La La, I'm a King without a Kingdom, La La La, I'm a mother without a womb for my children La La La, I'm a lover without a lover oh. I'm a foolish clown of the world." Give a second and try listening to it!


Again, Happy New Year everybody! ☃☃☃☃☃☃☃☃☃☃☃☃☃ May these twelve snowmen light your way throughout the new year!

Christmas!...is nearly over and done.

It's ten minutes til midnight. Can't believe Christmas is nearly over. Yet...it was pretty quiet. A nice breakfast of waffles in the morning and some well-fitting earphones (finally!) as a present. The trip to the bookstore was a real treat though. After at least two or three hours, my family and I came out with "Justice" by Michael Sandel, "Moon Over Manifest," and a copy of "100 Successful College Application Essays." Although they weren't the books I were looking (or hoping, for the sake of the line) for, it's still a great gift.

About a week ago I received a piece of paper with Spongebob on it...signed by its very own designer. Yes, the designer of the character of Spongebob! Not being a huge Spongebob fan, I wasn't as thrilled as the "fan next to me" might be, but it was pretty interesting receiving the signature. It was written in Korean, but in such way that I had trouble making out any characters. Goodness. Why are all signatures so hard to read?

Recently saw both Mission: Impossible 4 Ghost Protocol and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.
My first thought about M:I 4 after I left the theater was "action action action." No space for even a comma at all. Amazingly placed action with the combination of stunningly positioned camera angles and great acting and...and...well, it was pretty awesome. What else can I say about it? I wouldn't want to spoil it for someone. I did manage to see the prior movie, and I was not disappointed. However, I still don't exactly understand what the 'rabbit's foot' was. Perhaps I should watch the whole movie throughly (hint hint).

Sherlock Holmes was also a great movie. I'm not a great critique, but I'm positive many others would agree with my statement. I thought it could use some more depth at first, but everything eventually would come to a full circle, with the usage of the idea of urban camouflage coming right back at the end. The ending of Sherlock Holmes was definitely stunning. Very well placed indeed. It even impressed the whole audience in the theater I was in; the audience proceeded to break into "ohhh's" and "OHHHHHHH's." Which is pretty darn impressive, because that doesn't happen very often in South Korean theaters. Other than, as my friend Sarah pointed out, during various horror movies, where screams probably ring out much, much more than often compared to other genres. I've seen American theaters cheer at certain endings of movies, but that never seemed to happen here. I prostrate you, Sherlock Holmes!
Colonel Sebastian Moran - "That's not fair..!" - When Watson, being shot by Moran with a rifle, finds a cannon near his hiding spot and turns to aim it at the lighthouse where Moran was shooting from.

Tis the time to be jolly! The new year is almost upon us! Merry Christmas everybody!

Story Outlining

There's a story I've been outlining for a friend that takes many different elements from many different stories I've read over the year(s)…and a South Korean drama. Ever heard of 'Iris?' Yeah, that's what the plot for the beginning of the story is pretty much about. I found it repetitive while outlining it at first, so I skipped that whole section and began the next 'book.' I guess I'll have to outline here. So, from the beginning:

The main characters in the first part of the story start with a teenage girl named Sarah and a celebrity she adores named G-young. The beginning is a quick spoof on our video chatting. The two characters talk to each other through video chatting, staying in a friendly relationship. But when the media finds out that the celebrity has this little 'friend' of his by accident, G-young is forced to break the law to protect her, and the government, already furious about their cultural celebrity being used as a media tool, uses this opportunity to claim that G-young needs to be put down and brought to justice. After managing to meet each other, G-young and Sarah are forced to go into hiding, aided by an online guardian that saves them continuously as they attempt escape the government forces’ clutches. The story continues (and G-young and Sarah...sort of fall in love with each other?) until one day they venture underground to hide and discover a whole new (technically old) race living beneath the surface ('Artemis Fowl,' anyone?). At first, they are imprisoned and mistreated, for the fairies are very advanced and hate the humans for destroying their original home aboveground many eons ago, but soon, they discovered that the government had followed them and were making their way to the fairy capital, with the fairies having no way to stop it. But Sarah, after realizing that the fairies must survive to hold the balance of the earth in check, and already knowing the plans of the government and their usage of their multiverse techniques ('Timeline'), is enlisted by the fairies to help them stop the human invasion (Me thinks needs more detail). With G-young, she manages to freeze the invasion in time, effectively freezing all the communication systems aboveground as a result. 

It's not complete. But I'm not sure how to continue...suggestions please? Or if you want spoilers, I'll just say that G-young is gone afterwards. :3

I'll try to continue this part after my break starts. So for the rest of the week...Ciao!