It's been a while since I've said anything of subsistence. I'm going to be saying a lot, so I'll put it under a cut so that you wont be initially scared off by a wall of text.
Includes links to all of my essays and some art projects, and some rambling about 100%, Korean entertainment, random splooge like that. It'll be fun times, I swear.
New topics are bolded. So if you get bored of something skip to the next bolded thing.
As of 2:00pm today, this semester is over for me. I am SOGLAD. This semester has sucked, and not just me. Everyone has said that this semester has really sucked, and it's because we had those flood days where we missed three days of classes and screwed up all the professors. Anyway, I think I did great on all of my finals.
But this weekend I nearly died. I had SO MANY THINGS besides studying that I had to do!
For my Asian Art History class, I had to write a five page research paper. We could choose any photo in the book and write about it, basically, so I chose this:
Which is The Dwelling in the Qingbian Mountains by Wang Meng.
So. I wrote a five page paper that was basically about the political meaning of brush strokes and it makes no sense unless you've studied Chinese art before.
You can read it here, if you wanted to.
For the same class, we also had to write a page as an answer to an essay question for our final, but she gave us the weekend to do it. (I waited until today, but whatever I knew the answer) We had to find 3 Korean art pieces (we studied no Korean art at all and our book completely ignored Korea so I relied on the optional lectures of which I was the only person in attendance for) and discuss how they were influenced by India and China and then how they influenced Japanese art.
That one's here.
I wrote this essay about how awesome Japan was in an hour for my $750 study abroad scholarship.
that's here Computer Art, I made a CD portfolio doodad, went and printed it myself and put it together. I loved holding it omg. It included CD packaging, booklet and card and insert for the cd case, and a cd label and things. I thought it was cute in person. Here are some exported .ind files from the booklet as .jpgs for you to see.
So my Chinese teacher finally gave us our Chinese names. Last day of class. I don't know, a reward for actually showing up. She gave us all the surname Long, which means dragon. Of course I only thought about this:
but anyway, the rest of it (the Chinese name my teacher gave me) is 乔安, Qiao An which sounds suspiciously like Joanne, which is my mother's name... but 乔 qiao means tall. That's exciting because nobody's ever called me tall but I guess in comparison to my teacher I'm a giant. 安 an is peace, and I like it. Plus 安 is yasu in Japanese which would be kind of a cute name there too.
But I seriously wish my teacher used the character for qiao that means bridge because I LOVE bridges. Actually, I think I'll just use that one, it makes more sense XD. 桥安!
I watch 100% Entertainment (娱乐百分百) every single day, everybody is painfully aware of this fact. Especially since I screencap the hell out of it and most of my screencaps look like this:
But recently I've had issues with Alien's head. At first I was just complaining that he needed a haircut. Then he started wearing his hat. Then I knew he had had a haircut but he was just wearing his hat to hide it. Then they were like, "lets show a clip of Alien doing stuff!"
Hot, right? Like really.
But he's wearing the hat. And he wears and wears the hat and he only takes it off when Show's not there.
(Haha, Show's face in the first one XD)
But today (well and yesterday, and a time before that) he finally didn't wear a hat!
But Show did.
vs without a hat:
*sigh* See what I mean? Although I will let it slide with him, because he's got that "I just got off the plane and Im hiding from the paparazzi" look. But seriously. Hats seriously hinder the attractiveness. I will refer to this Xiao Zhu in white image later.
More evidence for this no-hats business:
Although Benji's hat is good for the LOLs. (And George's hat is a little against my point, as he is so cute in it.)
This transitions us nicely to KO3G (终极三国)!
I'm on episode twenty-something.
And my favorite of the Jiang 5? Benji, of course. They paired Benji's character and Wu Xiong's character a bit! He does things like ruffle her hair and feel sorry for her at this point. kajkldfjas I squealed like a schoolgirl and you know it.
Plus they do things like this now.
And things that I can do this to:
&
We all know I have a girlcrush on Wu Xiong but oh my god I love her sooooo much. She's been on 100% a lot lately, doing things like singing with Genie and stuff.
And Alien stuck his shoe in her face yesterday and I was like "whuuuuuut?" and he didn't apologize. He shouldn't do that to my cute Chinese girlcrush*, I'm not sure that I can forgive him for that.
You know what, they do this thing where Xiao Zhu and Xiao Gui talk for a bit to the guest and then the guest has to pick one of them. Used to be only with girls but now they do it with guys too (who you want to be your best friend?).
Yeah, I think I'd choose Alien. Xiao Zhu is hot and funny and everything, and even though I know he has the capacity for seriousness, and probably is a very serious guy, I feel like he likes joking around too much. Sometimes he goes off acting silly and I'm tired of it. But Xiao Gui, he's adorable too. He can also be very funny but he really is the business end of the shtick. I dont know, there's just something I like about little ol unappreciated Alien. Even when he wears hats, ok? So yes, I finally decided who I liked more, although it's still pretty close.
Xiao Zhu's in this show called Shanghai Sweetheart (海派甜心) right now. It's pretty cute and I've cried a few times already, and we're only at episode 6! It's also got Rainie and Lee Wei in it. So basically, Show's character is this Da Le guy who seems like he would be pretty socially awkward, but I feel as though he really isn't.
Anyway, he ends up dating Rainie's character and then they get separated for a few years and Da Le transforms into... Show Luo!!
Honestly, that's how I felt. He doesnt know what to do when he finds her again so he ends up being a jerk and denying that he's Da Le. ugh.
But there are hats like this!:
I'm also watching Autumn's Concerto (下一站幸福) because the subs come out within the week. I like it way more than I expected to like it from the first few episodes. I've really cried about this one, and it sincerely satisfies my "I NEED to watch the next episode NOW" quotas.
Also watching Samurai High School because I like Miura Haruma. At first I thought the entire show was very badly cast. Who's going to believe that Shirota Yuu is going to be bullied by some high school girls, seriously? Also, I'm not really comfortable with Miura's character's goofing-off stuff. I don't feel as though it suits him, I'm used to Miura Haruma doing things like dying from cancer or fathering babies at 15 or fighting terrorists. I dont know. But DAMN when he turns into a samurai. OH.MY.GOD.YES.PLEASE.
And I approved.
My favorite part about Samurai High School is the father, though. He's GREAT. I love it.
Plus this happened:
I'm going to start watching Ohoritasama tomorrow, because it's got Teppei in it. And Teppei is ADORABLE. I was watching the Kayousai FNS special the other day and he was in it and I nearly peed myself because he's so adorable.
Plus FNS was fun. Lots of good stuff. Exile, Yuzu, KinKi Kids, Arashi... and fun stuff, like they put SMAP in chairs next to DBSK.
There were NYC Boys and Nakayama Yuma's pretty self.
And Big Bang.
Okay. Let's talk. I think Big Bang is great. I love them, they're hot and talented and all of that jazz, whatever. And G-Dragon, he's amazing. Scary, yes, but amazing. There's something you have to understand, first.
I usually purposefully swear off listening to Korean boy bands. I don't want to get sucked in. That's my excuse. I love the HELL out of Super Junior, they're my favorites. And my thing was that they're the only Korean band I'm going to really bother with, ok? But everyone, even my school has been bombarding the hell out of me with Korean entertainment. I like a lot of Korean bands already, you know? Why not. I like Big Bang, ok?
The real problem is that I can't listen to them.
No, the real problem is that I can't listen to them sing in Korean. I have absolutely no issue listening to them (or DBSK, SS501, etc) singing in Japanese.
It's just Korean. It's not that I don't like the sound of Korean (I kind of don't), I do think it's awesome (especially when that hot guy at my favorite Korean bakery says stuff) but I just... can't... do it. With some words, the way they are pronounced, I find it really annoying. My brain thinks that it's somewhere between Japanese and Chinese and then a pronunciation happens that totally offputs me. It hurts, guys. I wouldn't mind, I'd like to not mind. But I honestly can't stand listening to the language. It's fine for a while, it really is. Sometimes when it's sung, I can't hear the things that I don't like about it, which is how I manage so well with Super Junior (there are a lot of good Suju songs I cant listen to, actually), but if there's anything spoken I kind of don't like it. I'll listen to it, yes, there are lots of Big Bang songs I absolutely adore, it's just that I can't really do it. It's the reason I only listen to DBSK in Chinese and Japanese and the reason I got so dayum excited about SJM. That's what.
/language racism
While we're talking about music, I'm going to share the two songs I can't stop listening to right now. Weird that they're both featuring people.
01. Wilbur Pan- Be with You feat. Akon
here02. Elva Hsiao- WOW feat. Show Luo
here I tried giving Gackt a chance again today. Because... since I grew up and realized he was a creepy old man, I successfully ignored him for years. Then he started shoving his way into my fandoms and I couldn't ignore him anymore. Instead of ignoring him, I just hated him. So I downloaded his brand new album, RE:BORN, and gave it an honest try. I even forced myself past the whole "ewwww gackt change it change it" thing and forced myself to try listening to it. I can't. He can't (well he probably can, but he wont) hold a steady note and it drives me NUTS. All of his songs sound the same as they ever did or even less creative. I just wanted everyone to know that I gave him another chance.
Semi-related, apparently L'Arc is back from hiatus next year?
Thing I find attractive: Suits. (refer back to Show in white suit and the images of Teppei)
SJM wear suits a lot. <3
I should stop typing and go to bed now, seriously.
And my 'aliens' tag I think is now officially my 100% tag, ok?