Abi_2_Aki's world

So it is already December...yay!?

I'm finally done with Blue Lanterns, tear. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted, it gave me something to do. Now I have to find another gig.

I'm babysitting the cats more and more now. Actually I think I practically am gonna live in the cat house for this whole month, yay. Too bad Judy just had to get heart desease and pneumonia, and now I have to give her pills. It's so hard to stuff 3 pills down a cat's throat especially if they have sharp claws, it hurts. Bu poor Judy, I hope she gets better.

So now I've recently gone back to watching dramas. And I just discovered that I can't really watch Korean dramas, I'll watch the first episode and I start to skip parts on the others until I stop watching it. Anyway since I've become such a big of Miura Haruma after watching Gokusen 3 and Koizora, I decided to watch Bloody Monday. OMG, it was so good. And the girl from DBSK's Doushite MV was there. Why are people hating on her so much? Seriously, I was reading the comments and people were like, "Her face is weird" or "Her voice is too squeeky", what's up with that!? But anyway, it was awesome, I cant wait for season 2, yay.

I loved the Koizora movie and so I was really hesitant to see the drama version but I gave it a shot anyway since I had nothing else in mind to watch after Bloody Monday. I stopped watching it, I just can't. Seto Kouji was pretty good as Hiro but the girl that played Mika was terrible, in my opinion, her acting was just not that great.

After that I moved on to watch Crows Zero and Crows Zero 2. Woohoo, Oguri Shun, yay. Awesome action movie especially after watching Ninja Assasin, go Rain and Sungwoong (aka Mini Jaejoong). But back to Crows Zero, it was a bit funnier than the second one, it just had more of those funny "WTF!?" moments. For example, Genji getting advice from Ken on how to take over Suzuran and Genji has to refer to his notes and when Genji was crying right after the "date" got messed up.

And now I am currently watching Tokyo Dogs, Liar Game season 2, and Samurai High School.

And I also finally saw New Moon. It was pretty okay, had better fight scenes than the first movie anyway. The wolves turned out pretty cool looking but they still did not fix the damn glitter, argh. Lois and I started cracking up though during the "October, November, December" scene started since it was the most annoying part of the book.

And of course, Ninja Assasin. It was so cool, I loved it, even the sci-fi blood, haha. But how many people have their hearts on the right!? Rain didnt have much lines but he was still awesome, haha. I can't believe Sungwoong was playing Young Raizo. I thought he looked familiar when they showed him in the previews but I couldn't find out who he was until Lois told me and I was like "Oh shit, it is". I wonder what the other Mini-DBSK members are doing.

Wow, it's been a reallllllll long time since I updated, nice job Abby.

So I'm already 19......greatttttttt. I hate it. For one thing, I'm getting older. And, I STILL CAN'T DRINK, what kind of fucked up country is this!? I can legally buy cigarettes but I cant legally drink, does that make sense!? In most every other country, I would have been able to drink last year. I really must visit Canada.

Aside from that, I haven't really been doing anything. I mean, I should really be working on my college applications, but I don't really want to. Actually, I don't even want to college. And even if I do decide to go I'm planning to go out-of-state, which is gonna be really expensive. But everyone wants me to go, Christian especially, and I really dont wanna let him down but I just cant. And I dont even have a job yet, I have a gig right now that's ending at the end of the month but its really nothing special. Getting older is annoying, I hate, especially if you cant drink.

So that pretty much sums up my life at the moment, not really but that's the gist of it.

Oh yeah, I hope that this dispute over DBSK and SME will end quickly. It would have ended on my birthday when DBSK won in court until SME just had to ruin it, but yeah, I hope it gets resolved soon. I miss the boys and they're smiling faces. And I'm looking forward to more of their songs. DBSK fighting!!!

Been a long time since I updated. So here's what's happened to my life. Mainly about tech since I dont really care about my academic classes.

Freshman year (2005-2006):
- Started high school obviously
- Started tech theatre with a specialty in carpentry
- Became known as the "Machine" (thanks Christian) for working so much
- Worked on every show the whole year
- Failed Global 1 because I never turned in the final paper and was constantly late (I had to run up to the 6th floor from the basement, of course I'm gonna be late douche bags)
- Christian left during SDF1 (The Government Inspector) and we threw him a small party
- Failed both my science classes

Sophomore year (2006-2007):
- Christian becomes our teacher because Silva left
- Zimmer left during the summer and Christian becomes the shop foreman
- Our tech class is split in groups for a design project. I hated my group and I wanted to especially kill my partner in set design
- Wasn't very involved with tech and I just did not care. Christian called me unreliable, didnt sink in until junior year when I started working again
- Introduced to props during Ragtime (made guns but they were really crappy now that I look back on it)

Junior year (2007-2008):
- Created the best set ever for City of Angels
- Became part of the props crew and got to know Chelsea (props master) and Leah (assistant props master)
- Janett joins our class (she was an incoming sophomore during sophmore year but had to be with the freshmans to learn the basics)
- Sherwood left us in October and no one's heard from her that much anymore (she's still alive)

SENIOR YEAR (2008-2009):
I actually graduated this year just in time. Amazing. I just cant get over it. I almost failed because I never made up my work for Global 1. But thankfully they let me do a project inorder to get my credit. Handed it in just before graduation. Didn't join in on the ceremony though since I never went to the rehearsals or picked up my cap & gown and tickets. I don't regret it though, I still saw my friends afterwards anyway.

Anyway, so much happened this year and a whole lot of it is drama. Due to budget cuts we didnt put on our annual musical. We still had Rising Stars though. The theme was "Inspired by..." and Andre designed it. We made it rain. But of course people just thought it was effects and it was only used 3 times during the show. Damn them, rain was pretty. Anyway, I was crew chief, didnt expect that at all, I signed up only as a stage hand. Hated my job though since every cast member was basically on my side and they shut the fuck up, Christian had to come over and shut them up. I really hated that part, it was my job to shut them up but I couldn't do that.

The senior drama majors put on scenes every time but this time Brad decided to involve us in it which was really stupid. And it became known as FDF (Fall Drama Festival which doesnt make sense because it happened during winter) almost liek the SDFs. We had to build all this crap and just wasted everything. I was also made props master this year (thanks Chelsea) but they call me props mistress instead, which is okay with me. But during this time I was made lighting designer for L's scenes and technical director for Shifman's. But I pretty much worked on all of them because I had to pull props for all of them. Harden's scenes went by well but everyone just snapped during Harden's.

Shifman's crew which included me just walked out on them and we were suddenly on strike. Our tech class were just on the verge of breaking point that time and then Jordan and Brian (drama majors) just had to climb up to the catwalks without any permission or guidance from us (catwalks are forbidden for actors to go to). And when Brad was "yelling" at them, they had the nerve to say "there was no sign", its an unspoken rule genius. and then they go on to say "we can perform without techies but they cant work without us", damn bastard. If any actor wants to perform without techies then just perform in the middle of the street because every theatre and other places you sign up to work in will always have techies around. And yes, we can work without you, ever heard of concerts and festivals, places like those.

And to add fuel to the fire; I was sitting down with nothing to really do and some of the other crew members went to get dinner so it was only me and Nessa. They were changing scenes so Nessa went to help them with their costumes and Jordan decides to call to me rudely because they needed to move the couch onstage but stuff was on it (they did the changed themselves since they Christian said we shoudlnt). But he was like "yo techie" but I tried really hard to ignore his rudeness and started moving the stuff. But he had to just go and be like "just throw that shit around, its probably that bitch, Valerie's stuff". At that point I just started yelling back at him but he continued to say shit about Val (she didnt get along with them and she really hated these FDFs) to a point of calling her a cunt. They go on stage and I storm up to the soundboard where Christian was with Val and without thinking I just blurted out what happened with Val there. If I wasnt so mad I would have pulled Christian aside. Luckily enough I didnt punch Jordan and made everything worse. We stopped working after that and locked ourselves in the tech office. After that we were on strike for a week.

I really hated how we handled that though. So many people that wasnt even there had so much to say even though they didnt really know what happened or never worked that much to get enough shit from actors for the past 4 yrs.

Moving on, we started working on projects to improve theatres and our working environment. We got split into groups again and my group was supposed to design and make a cart to hold all the dance floors we had. It had to be stupid proof though since it was gonna be stored up in the dance studio with dancers (more stupid people). Never finished it since we moved on to SDF season.

SDF season this year was crazy and completely insane. The planning was once again terrible and the timing was terrible. We got through Metamorphoses just fine but our props crew had so much to do. Especially since Andre had to go get his lung collapsed and taken to the hospital, twice, on the same show, WTF!? Thank god his okay now. Hot l Baltimore was stressful. All the building had to happen during Spring Break and of course barely anyone came in to help. I had to go there everyday inorder to finish the hotel lobby desk that was the centerpiece of it all. I felt sorry for Christian since I couldn't help him since not many people came in so he had to finish the big set pretty much by himself. And then of course, we start rehearsal and then I find out that I'm the only one on props crew for the show. Val was helping the whole time even though she wasnt supposed do to anything. Christian and Lewis both felt so sorry for me and was pretty mad when Brad took out Dallas, my assistant, from the show. And then there was Orpheus Descending which had like 4 days of building days before the show opened. And of course, I had to leave for the Korean Music Festival but thank god I was able to finish as much as possible before I had to leave. I was really worried in California though and since I actually got a phone before I left, I called them to make sure everything was done and alright. I come back and had to work on the opera next which also had like 4 days for us to set up before the show. By that time we were dead tired and out of it. Our big project were the gondolas basically. And I could tell that Melissa (set designer, she was the assistant designer for Shrek on broadway) was completely out of design ideas (she designed all 3 SDFs prior to this). But the director was such a bitch to work with and he cut the xebec the day before the show because it looked cartoonish. He was also about to cut the cornice which Mike worked so hard to put together and Christian cut his thumb for during the actual show day. It was the only set piece. The Gondoliers was a crap show, we only managed to finish because we only cared about Christian.

And then that was it. No one came in anymore. Christian was too busy resting and going in and out of the doctors to come in. And thats it. We were done for the rest of the year. Well there was the graduation dance concert and some other small shows but who cares about that, especially since I didnt have to work on it.

That about sums up the whole 4 years of my life.

Damn, its been a long time since I've written here. . .oh well.

Let's see, what happened last year:

Our fearless leader decided to make a Fall Drama Festival, which didn't really make sense since it was during winter, but yeah it was a VERY stupid idea. That resulted in a very strainious relationship between the Drama majors and us Technicians. Which eventually led to an all out verbal fight during Shifman's scenes, which resulted in us walking out and having a STRIKE.

Yay for strike (do notice the sarcasm in my words). First of all, I think we went at it in the wrong way, where we presented ourselves as weak and guuilible, but oh well, it's not like anyone's gonna listen to me anyway. Strike's basically over after just a week and I don't really think that it did anything helpful.

They just better not mess with me during the Spring Drama Festivals or its war. The main person that caused the strike to happen has been giving us all the evil eye. You can give me all the evil eye you wanna give me, I'm pretty good at ignoring you anyway.

What else happened!? Oh yes, I've stayed at my friend's house for a while during the breaks when she was away. I was house-sitting and baby-sitting her cats. I actually miss those cats now, despite how annoying they were. Actually, I miss her room more. I wish I had a room like hers, or as big as hers.

And now, it is 2009. I'm graduatin soon, hopefully anyway. I really don't wanna have to take summer school inorder to graduate. Stupid me for being lazy.

But on the other hand, I am going to the 7TH KOREAN MUSIC FESTIVAL, woohoo. My friend and I wanted to get the Garden Seats but we couldn't cause apparently you needed 4 people to get the boxed seats, so we had to settle for the $80 benches. We could've gotten the pool seats but we didn't have the money at the time. Oh well, we saved money and the seats are still pretty okay, its not like its all the way back there. I can't wait for May.

I was kinda hoping to work all 3 SDFs though, for my last year since were not having our anual musical (haha, it was even mentioned in the NY Times, now that's just sad). But oh well, may be I'll work Operah, whatever.

I turned 18 today, everyone cry for me.

I am so old.

Okay, so Rising Stars finished yesterday. . .thank god.

We did not have enough rehearsals for this thing. We started rehearsals like 2 weeks ago basically. . .actually, more like 11/2 weeks. On the 15th and 16th we did the tech rehearsal for Act I. And 17th and 18th was for Act II. Then on the 20th and 21st, we had a run through of each act, one for each day. The 22nd was when we had a run through of the whole show. That's just 6 rehearsal days, usually there is a lot more rehearsals.

We didn't even have rehearsal on the 24th, the day before the show, because of Parent/Teacher Conferences. I swear, this year's schedule sucks. Rising Stars is usually around March but I don't know why they changed it this year.

And then were these 2 staircases used and I had to make them. I was so stressed out because I did not have time to do it at all. Seriously, I was messing up so much because I was trying to finish them quickly so they could rehearse with it. . .they couldn't though, because I didn't finish them on time. Nomie and Val had to come and help me, they built the smaller and easier staircase, the Cinderella steps (it really was for Cinderella), which actually was built comepletely before a rehearsal so we got to use it, but it still wasn't painted. My group was working on Brownstone steps for the spoken word piece. The thing was ridiculously huge and heavy. We had to have every stage hand on it and Christian to set and strike it. The sad thing is, the steps were only used for one act each, it's horrible.

We had a half day on the 24th because of the P/T Conferences, so I didn't have any academic classes, I just had tech for 9th and 10th. I originally wasn't on coming because I was sick and needed to rest but my group couldn't finish it the other day. So I came in 3rd period when my tech teachers were certain to be there in order to finish it, and my group came in later to help. I was the only crew member in my group, so the day of the opening, I was in school, sick and getting covered in saw dust, sweat & paint. . .and maybe a little blood.

On the first show, things were already starting to go bad. The lights were just not working, and sound kept missing mics, most of the time its because actors won't give it back. . .like during rehearsals, actually during rehearsals, wouldn't even show up to get miced and so they're late for their act and we get blamed.

The house was practiacally empty on Saturdya's matinee and they were dead too, it was the worst day for me too. One of the dancers decided to start cheering backstage for one of the performance so I had to go shut her up.
Dancer: WOO!!! YEAH!!!
Me: Could you please not shout backstage?
Dancer: I'm in this act.
Me: And? You still can't shout backstage.
Dancer: But no one else is cheering, so I did it.
Me: You still can't be loud backstage.
Dancer: Okay.
That was basically my conversation with her. I probably would have been annoyed but let it go if the audience was actually cheering themselves, but the they were dead. She was the only one cheering, and worse, it was backstage. And then I was asked to bring the instrumentalist in their places already even though they still have 2 acts to go before theirs, but we alwasy have to be ahead. So I go and do as asked and ask kindly for them to get on. They start smiling and complaining that they still had time so I start yelling at them to go backstage, and they start walking slowly. And then Christian starts asking where they were on headset so I tell him that they're walking slowly and refused to listen to. That was the first time Christian had to talk to the cast members for me to get them moving.

I thought that the afternoon performance would go a little bit better because they've been told to listen and do whatever I say, but it was worse. The cast just refused to leave when the crew tells them to. They're not supposed to be backstage yet and it was already getting congested backstage. It was so horrible, especially for one number when we have to start pre-setting for the Finale. Everyone is backstage watching the African dance. The African dance was great but people were not supposed to be backstage during that time, only Billy & Anthony should have been there. So I start moving the stuff we need to the wings, and everyone is just crowding the whole place, I have to physically run them over because they wouldn't move when I asked them too. I fuckin' hate the cast. I also hate the fuckin' instrumentalist who keeps being loud during a quiet act. And then the spotlight fell off it's clamp during the finale. The nut broke so the unit was only held by the safety cable on top of the audience. I did not know what was going on at the time. I just heard "Whatever you do, don't unclip the safety." and Christian bolting up the catwalks, he pretty flew up there. 

Sunday, everything pretty much went wrong. The moving lights were not working and they had to be reset to work again. And spotlights were just not one their mark but atleast they didn't fall. And the cast was loud as always. And the mics kept being left on. Well, they're on all the time but we mute it on the sound board. But the Zija just kept leaving them up, and when we tell her, she keeps saying that its muted when it obviously wasn't. But I wasn't about to let those stop me form jumping out with everyone else on the Finale, hell its my senior year, I'll jump out on stage whenever I have a chance to do it. But we blocked the side doors with like 150 lbs. of stage weights before going out, haha, we planned to lock everyone out again like Saturday night when they started knocking on the doors, it was so funny, I could feel them knocking when I leaned on the door. But we all jumped on stage when the cast ran to front of the house and we just started dancing. And then I ran backstage to lean agaisnt the door with practiacally every crew member. I wish Val just dropped the curtain on them and lock them out there, it would be so funny to see them going to the side and start knocking on the doors since they're not allowed to open the curtains.

Okay, so Rising Stars rehearsals officially starts tomorrow. . .yay! But we have our senior class photo tomorrow and I still have to go to class afterwards. And I get to leave school at like 1 but we have rehearsals at 4, that's 3 hours of me not doing anything and still stuck at school. So annoying.

Good news is, LEARN IS BACK. WOO HOO!!! So happy, now I can get paid for working in school. The best part is, it's only for techies, that means no other majors are gonna come bother us.

The 1st marking period ended today, 2 more to go before the end of the semester. I feel like we've been in school for far too long right now, despite all the school days off.

We have this awesome project in Asian Lit. Our teacher wants us to do things that we wouldn't think of actually doing. I decided on taking a taekwondo class. Okay, so it's not something that I wouldn't really do but I guess I wouldn't actually take an actual class because I prefer lazing around. Now I just have to find a place that's close by and CHEAP.

Woah, haven't been here for a long time. But then again, I don't really have anything to write about except that everything's pretty much the same...BORING.

Let's see, what have I been up to:

Asian Lit.

It's already been 2 weeks of school, how long till graduation?

So far we got this stupid project for Government regarding the elections. In order to educate the people in school about the presidential elections, the Government teachers have been dividing us into Democratic and Republican, and I'm a republican. Okay, so I may not be politically aware but I do know what I like and don't and I don't like McCain. I don't really like Obama either but he's a sure win after McCain picked Palin to be his VP. But the main point is, I hate projects, especially if it has something to do with politics, I hate it. The thing is, there's also this girl in my class who's also in my department who I'm not fond of. She's okay sometimes but most of the time, she's VERY SNOBBY. She's smart, bad thing is, she knows it and she will get that look the she's better than you or something.

Our teacher in Asian Lit. seemed okay at first, I thought he was cool but sometimes, I don't know, he can be very...creepy. I don't know, he's just very weird at times. And he's making us read the Life of Pi because we didn't read it over the summer. I don't wanna read it. The funny thing is, he's making us read it to talk about religion and he wants us to read the Gospel of John. I'm not religious but I have no problems with reading anything religious but I thought we weren't supposed to bring up topics of religion in school. Seriously, he read us a passage in the bible in class. Religion is not a very good topic to talk about because some people have strong opinions about their religion...or lack thereof.

One thing I'm not gonna miss after graduation is that annoying school police that patrols the basement. He's so annoying, he comes into every room and looks around. He comes into OUR tech office/lounge when we're having lunch and just stares and moves on. We already know that we're not supposed to be alone in a room without a teacher but it's our room and it's not like we're doing anything illegal, we're having lunch. And our teachers pass through the doors every single time and they don't mind us being there as long as we don't cause trouble. But every single time we're alone in the hallways, he goes up to you and is like "Where are you supposed to be?", he sees us there every single day at the same times. I hate being stalked in my own school.

But what I hate the most that I learned recently is that they cancelled the Learn Program. It was the main reason for me to agree on becoming the prop master, if I was gonna spend most of my time in school, down in the basement working then I would have liked to get paid but since they cut it, I won't. I need money, I need to move out and I need to go to the 2009 Korean Music Festival, how the hell am I supposed to get money now. Sure, I can get an after school job but it's pretty hard considering the situation I'm in. If I'm gonna deal with people I hate, then they better get the program back.

Why did school start so early, I swear it's getting earlier and earlier every year!? I knew I was a senior when the former seniors graduated but I guess I never fully realized it until school started again this week. It's weird, I only have 2 academic classes and my regular tech classes. I had better pass this year with atleast an 80-90 average considering I have 2 classes. Besides, if I failed then I'd actually have to go to summer school to get my diploma, I don't want that.

Period 1: FREE
Period 2: FREE
Period 3: FREE
Period 4: Asian Literature
Period 5: US Government
Period 6: Lunch
Period 7: FREE (I used to have Pre-Cal Honors but I dropped it since I'm not smart enough for it)
Period 8: Tech
Period 9: Tech
Period 10: Tech
Period 11: Tech (Tuesday-Thursday only, just so we don't have to take gym)

The stupid thing about our school is that we have to swipe our ID cards in when we enter the building but the official period is 3rd, since a lot of seniors like myself don't start our classes until later, we still have to come in 3rd period and sign in at the attendance office. What's the point of swiping ourselves in if it doesn't even take the atendance automatically!? For a school full of teachers and staff, they still haven't thought of that. I WILL LEAVE THIS SCHOOL THIS YEAR, PASSING OR NOT, I WILL LEAVE.

So the games end after 2 weeks. I think that despite all the controversies and upsets, it was great overall, not bad for my first Olympics that I bothered watching. I wanted to see Taekwondo though but I never got a chance to see it, all I saw was basically swimming, gymnastics, volleyball, diving, track & field and some bits of water polo and field hockey. There's also table tennis and badminton. I can't really blame the station though, games are being played at the same time, they can't possibly show them all at once.

The swimming was great, it was really fun and exciting. Kitajima was awesome with his breaststroke, go Japan. An how can you forget about Phelps, that guy swam like crazy and won 8 Olympic gold medals in one Olympics games beating Spitz's 7 medals. The heart-stopping games were when the swimmers won with just miliseconds against each other, it was so exciting. And the diving, I know some people don't think it's a sport, but I think it was still great. China really dominated it winning the gold. I slept through the last one, so I was shocked when I saw on the blogs that this Australian guy won, that was really unexpected. But the 'Water Cube' was great, seriously, at first I thought it was made out of glass but its actually made up of plastic...PLASTIC, that's so cool.

Gymnastics was pretty much owned by China and US, China owning it more on the men's side. You just gotta love Yang Wei he's so stoic most of the time but he was absolutely adorable when he won the men's all-around, his laugh was just so funny. The Japanese were great too but it didn't really seem like they were into it, I don't know, that was just the feeling I got. And the age controversy about the Chinese women's ages still rages on with new reports being found here and there. I don't really know, we'll see what happens, I just hope that people would stop saying that they're underage just because of their looks.

It looks so much fun to play the games and I really want to but I'm not about to join a team or anything like that. I just wanna play for fun but I don't know much people.

^_^

Woohoo countdown for the Ending ceremony, love the pyrotechnics. I'm so excited.

I absolutely love the costumes, they're just so vibrant.

Again with the drumming, its so intense. It's actually different too from the opening ceremony, complete with dancers, although, I question their head gears - the drummers are wearing bicycle helmets and the dancers have those weird thing on. Those giant drums with the drummers on the air is just awesome.

Now it sounds just like the circus with the weird music, it's actually pretty entertaining especially with the choreography.

Those "bikes" are awesome, if you can even call it that it's just a freakin large wheel. 

It's like a block party in the 'Bird's Nest' now with all the athletes just running out, to be able to hold that many people on the field, it's huge. And I think I just saw a little kid playing the drums in the middle, or were there 2 of them, I'm not sure, I wasn't really paying attention.

 Applause to all the hundreds of volunteers that worked on the games, as well as the construction workers and anyone else that worked hard in order to put up the games. I think everyone's been mainly focused on the athletes that they don't realize how hard it is as well for people 'behind-the-scenes', they deserve a bit more credit. I know I want to be recognized for putting up a show with the technical aspects being better than the actual performers *coughCityOfAngelscough*.

They really know how to put on a show, just the hand-off between China and London was showy. Jimmy Page from Led Zepplin was amazing, makes me want to listen to them. Not to start a controversy or anything but to me it looked like Leona Lewis was lipsyncing, I don't know, her lip movement just didn't seem to match with the song, it's probably just me.

Zhang Yimou really outdid himself again with the extinguishing of the Olympic fire, very sad but wonderful performance, especially the tower of people afterwards with all the pyrotechnics. They really did a whole lot of rigging for the ceremonies in order to put up things, I'm amazed they're not getting tangled.

Hahaha, I saw Bi performing with the other artists singing "I love Beijing". You can barely recognize with with short hair until that closeup. First I saw him in the movies with Speed Racer and now I see him on TV and not on youtube, now if only DBSK performed. And this is the first time that I actually saw Jackie Chan during the games, he's adorable.

I wish I was there, it was amazing, I would have actually loved to watch the games up close.

Next Olympics will be in 2012, London. I wonder what will happen!?

Winning gold on the team's final

I'm so sick and tired of reading things about how the Chinese women's gymnastics team are always being criticized about how they're underage and instantly, China becomes cheaters.

I never knew much about gymnastics befoe this year's Olympics, only that it's pretty cool but I've been able to understand it as I watched the game. Everyone probably already knew even before hand that China and US would be at the top, fighting for the gold medal. While everyone was fine with the male's gymnastics, a whole bunch of sore losers a thing or two to say about the women gymnasts, mainly about the Chinese. I've been watching the Olympics on NBC and the commentarries always mention about the age controversy but when they actually won the team final's all these blogs appear about how they cheated and all that crap. 

Yes, the rules say that you have to be 16 in the Olympic year in order to compete, and yes, I admit that the Chinese women do look very young but that doesn't mean that they're not 16, you can't just judge them by their looks. The IOC checked they're passports and says they are, despite all the accusations that they faked their passports. What's really horrible is that, they don't just take it out on the gymnasts, they had to go and start bashing about how China is horrible and all the crap. Yes, they're communists but so what, they're changing and welcomed everyone into their country with an awesome performance, of course that doesn't seem to stop people from saying that some of the fireworks in the opening ceremony was fake.

After they won the gold medal on the team's final competition, a whole bunch of blogs come up about how the Chinese cheated because they had more Chinese judges and the age controversy arises even more. It was so stupid, and of course when America won the gold and silver from the all-around, no one said anything and were just happy with the results, doesn't that tell you something!? America sure is full of sore losers, just enjoy the fuckin' games instead of making the team look bad.

First of all, the judges are horrible due to the fact that they're from countries with not-too-great gymnastics. And secondly, Asians tend to look younger than most, especially since they're small. And everybody should have already heard that China starts training their gymnasts basically right after they learn to walk, that's going to stunt your growth; people should realize that first before making accusations without any strong reasoning outher than the fact that they look young. The Chinese won their medals because they were great just as the Americans won theirs.

King of the Sea Park Myung Soo married just a few months ago with Han Soo Min had their first child, earlier than expected (October). The baby is a healthy baby girl at 3.3kg. Congrats to the happy couple. Though, I'm not gonna lie, I'm curious as to what the baby chick looks like!?

On another note, I heard SNSD's "Girl's Generation" being played while I was watching the Olympics. Why would Park Tae Hwan choose that song of all things to play when he won his gold medal, WHY????

Currently watching the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics opening ceremony right now and it is awesome. To be honest I've never been much for any of these stuff like the Super Bowl or the Olympics but hey, why not!? Besides, it's in China and Han Geng was one of the torchbearers, haha, kinda seem like stupid reasons but oh well.

The Bird's Nest is fuckin awesome, it like exploded from the fireworks and it kinda reminded me of DBSK's "O". Any artists that performs there better be really well-known to fill up those seats. I would love to meet the designer of the Bird's Nest as well as Zhang Yimou, the famous Chinese director that just did all the amazing work. The floor and ceiling were actually screens, so cool.

The drummers doing the countdown were simply amazing, just the drums themselves were amazing, they were drums fitted with lights, that lights up with a touch. But they're choreography was just amazing for that countdown. Actually when they were drumming with the red drumsticks, I thought it was Cassiopeia for a second, lol.

That's was a large sheet of "paper" they laid out on the floor. And the dancers are actually painting on the laid out mat, they're really awesome.

The moving blocks during the scroll performance was awesome, to make it seem like the wind and rippling water. And the "blossoming flowers" after the Great Wall was so cool. You would think they would use hydrolics for those boxes but it was actually people, no wonder I thought I saw feet when the boxes were lifted up pretty high, hahaha, that was great, really surprised me when they came out.

I like the banners performance, with the ships drawn on them, like everyone else, they had great choreography. It's surprising to find out that they're all different performeres, that's a whole bunch of people, that's just...damn, I don't even know what to say about that. It's a fuckin' huge stadium.

And another great choreography with the piano and the people running around with their light up spandex suits. It looks cracktastic when they do close-ups on the people but the aerial view is just beautiful, like a bunch of litle light up ants making pretty shapes. The little girl suspended in the air flying the kite was cute, I wanna do that.

Dude, the Tai Chi performance is cool with the screens in the beginning, it's so graceful and flowy. I love how the Tai Chi artists are making a perfect circle around those kids. Cute kids actually drew a smiley face on the scrim, haha.

Damn, that big ball with the people actually running around was just crazy. And now Sarah Brightman and Liu Huan actually performs "You and Me", I was wondering when they would sing. I admit that the people holding up large pics of children was a bit cheesy but it was much better when it was shown on the screen instead.

Loved the performances, after seeing it, I wanna meet the choreographer(s) as well. They performances were just so majestic, and they were so graceful. Not to mention the pyrotechnics and videography, lighting and basically just every technical aspects, it was just...mind-blowing. I'm not Chinese but you can really feel the Chinese pride.

Now it's time for the Parade of Nations. Nothing much to say, it is just a parade to welcome the athletes on the field. But I would be annoyed if I was one of those cheerleaders. Having to clap and be all smiley while every nation is being introduced for like 2 hours. I’ll be rooting for China, Japan, and South Korea, oh yeah.

Just when you think that the director ran out of ideas he makes the last torch bearer to suspend in the air and run across the whole screen ceiling before lighting the couldron.

I actually can't wait to watch the games and I don't even know 1/4 of the players.

The drumming countdown, so perfect.

Siol and I hung out again Friday and we both saw The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. 

It was SO GOOD. It was awesome, of course, it would have been better if they used the original Evelyn. I loved her, she was awesome. She was seriously kicking ass in The Return of the Mummy while looking sexy. This new one just seems too normal. But either way the movie was great. Seriously, it's Jet Li, how could it not be great? Even if he was evil he was awesome. He's getting old but his martial arts are still great, I love him, he was my first celebrity crush, haha. I'm gonna miss his wu-shu films.

I want the yeti's as pets. They were so cute, especially the one that was playing peek-a-boo, it was so acdorable. I thought they were one of the bad guys when I saw the commercials, but then again they just showed it like throwing a guy so it's an easy misunderstanding. I wish I was able to speak yeti, haha. That would be awesome.

Jonathan was funny as hell, like always. I can't believe he actually opened a club in China and called it Imhotep, with an Egyptian theme, haha. And of course, the carriage race scene. His ass catches on fire after him and Rick fire off a one of those Chinese dragon fireworks and he doesn't even realize it until Rick goes, "YOUR ASS IS ON FIRE". I love that and the yak scene. Haha, how the hell did they put a yak in a small plane (I know it's not a real plane and the Himalayas was green screened but still, it was still small). The yak got air sick, ewww. I would not want to be covered in vomit if I was flying, there's no shower. Actually, I would not want to be covered in vomit at any time, at all.

I wanna see it again. I have to get the DVD, I wanna see the bonuses.

 Yesterday I went out with my friend Siol.

We were gonna meet at Borders around noon but by then it would be so hot to walk like 35 blocks, so I went to the 66th Street Barnes & Noble first before going to meet her at Borders which was close by. I was sitting down and reading my manga, minding my own business when this woman who works there comes up to me and was like, "You can only have one manga at a time and you need to be sitting by the manga section so they can see you." And I'm thinking, "when the fuck did they come up with this stupid rule." I've been there many times and grabbed a whole lot more manga than I had at the time and sat by the windows, away from the grapic novels and no one said anything to me. What is wrong with Barnes & Noble these days, they're hiring all these bitchy people. I thought you had to be friendly to the costumers when it came to business. For cryin out loud, I can do a better job than them. First there's that bitchy lady at my Barnes & Noble, I've been going there before she started working in it and now this. So annoying.

Then something weird happened when we stepped out of Time Warner building. It's summer so a lot of people are standing outside with petitions for different stuff, like politics and all the crap. They were out side and it would be normal if it was politics or the environment, this time it was about vampires. I don't know what these people were thinking. So we ignored them after they approached us and just laughed about it and say that it was...new. We were just waiting for the bus when this asian who I thought was a tourist came over and started talking to us with the "for vampires" group with him and their stupid petition. They were surrounding us and telling us to just sign, it didn't even matter if it was fake, just write a name, it was for a TV show in HBO apparently, whatever. So I sign hoping they go away while the guy was taking pictures. But then the "against vampires" group pushed the others away and started telling us to sign their petition. So I just signed saying, "fine, if this will make you guys leave us alone". Me and Siol got 2 buttons each, 1 from each group. What is wrong with this world, what's next, werewolves? Frankenstein? Bigfoot?

We went to the new Cafe Zest, that just opened and they were having a 50% off everything. They basically had the same stuff from Kino with a some other new new stuff. I wanna go there again, I wish it was closer though.

Then we went to go look for Asahiya. We haven't been there in a while since Kino was basically better, so we were basically walking around looking for the place, trying to remember where it was. Then I remembered that I always passed by a gold building when I used to go there. Of course Siol didn't believe me and I was pretty doubtful myself but oh well its not like we would get lost, haha. We were basically looking at magazines and basically laughed the whole time. I mean seriously, if you see Takuya Kimura's permed head, you would laugh too....WHY??? Like seriously, it was horrible. Kimura-san, what did you do to your head? And of course, we were surprised by the fact the the guy who played the man teacher in Hana Kimi was actually a member of SMAP. That was pretty weird. And there were those moments of hearing the wrong words and pronounciations. Were forgetting our english, that's just great. Of course there was a downer. We were basically comparing ourselves to Hey! Say! Jump! all the time since they're in ike every magazine, we both feel old. I never cared much for age before but now that I've grown, I feel that I'm old. I;m turnign 18 in a few months, arghhh.

After another Barnes & Noble trip near Asahiya, we went to Korea Town. Why did their prices go up? It used to be like $10 for a single, now it's $20. Since we couldn't find anything to eat there we went to Kino, again but this time we actually sat down and ate. We were eating surprisingly slow and then rushed ourselves when we saw that they were closing. Siol finished the sandwich while I stuffed the cake in my mouth. That was fun.

I hate Times Square. Why do people love it? It's so jam packed of people, its so annoying when you're trying to walk. And of course, the tourists are the worst. They stop everytime to take a picture and in the middle of the street so you have to walk around them and its just so fuckin annoying. I hate New York, well no that's a lie, I don't hate it, it's just that I.......hate it!? That doesn't make sense does it!? Haha

TRANSLATION:

The five member idol group Tohoshinki's third single Doushite Kimi Wo Suki Ni Natte Shimattandarou sold 68,000 copies in its first week. This is Tohoshinki's third consecutive #1 single on the weekly charts, making them the first group to achieve this.

Tohoshinki's singles Purple Line (1/28) and Beautiful You (5/5) and lastly Doushite Kimi Wo Suki Ni Natte Shimattandarou attained 1st place on the weekly charts. They are the first foreign group to achieve this feat. The last two groups who held the record were Ou Yang Fei Fei in 1971/72 and Ravisu Ova in 1984 whom each had two consecutive #1 weekly singles.

Tohoshinki, the male idol group, debuted in February 2004. The five members are Yunho, Jaejoong, Yoochun, Changmin, and Junsu. They debuted in Japan in April 2005 with their single, Stay with me Tonight.

http://www.oricon.co.jp/news/rankmusic/56557/
Translated by: mkalis12

Congrats to DBSK however, for getting #1 on the Oricon Weekly Charts earlier this week. That's their 3rd single in a row to reach #1. I don't know the current place right now but I'm still proud of them. They hold the record for reaching #1 on the weekly charts for a foreign group, yay.

And congrats to couple Kang Ho Dong and Lee Hyo Jin. Hyo Jin is 6 weeks pregnant, Ho Dong will be a daddy soon. Awww, I'm so happy for them.

Haha, love it. they so deserve this. So proud of them, they're amazing. I felt that the song was going to be #1 when I heard because it was just that good, but considering that it was leaked SOOO early it would have died down by the time it's released, guess it hasnt. Then again, people did pre-order, but people still love it.

I'm just really happy for them, they deserve this, hopefully it remains on #1 in the weekly charts.

Now that it's officially released, they'll be performing it live. I really can't wait, especially when they go to Hey! Hey! Hey! and Music Fair 21. I love it when they perform live, especially songs they don't dance to, like ballads and acapella. It just really shows off their voices even more.

I went to Kinokuniya today hoping to get myself a copy of the single, too bad they didnt have it. I ended up getting a movie instead, House of Flying Daggers. I've heard that it was really good, hopefully it is cause I just spent my money on it meant for the cd. I should have gone to Koreatown but I didnt exactly have the metrocard for it, oh well. I'll go back Friday, hopefully they have it.

I just finished watching Koizora and I would be lying if I said that I didn't feel like crying by the end of the movie, but I didn't anyway. But this is such an amazing movie, I don't really want to watch the drama version cause I really love the characters in this.

The story is about a girl, Mika, and her first love, Hiro. They get together in a pretty unique way in which he was made to seem like a stalker. I thought he seemed like a stalker anyway. But it's basically how they start out facing trials together being teenagers and in love. You know, the usual, sex, rape, pregnancy, family, and friends.

Koizora or Sky of Love was originally written by Mika publicized in a cell phone novel site, Mahou no Land. And with it's popularity it was turned into a novel, a movie, and a drama.

In the movie, Mika is played by Aragaki Yui. She's so adorable and she's a pretty decent actress. And I can't believe it was Miura Haruma that played Hiro. I first saw him in Gokusen 3 as Ren and I thought he was really adorable especially when he smiles, still a Jaejoong fan though, haha. But it took me a while to notice it was him until he smiled. I guess I'm not used to the platinum blonde hair, I prefer him with dark hair, blonde's just not working for him.

They did such an amazing job together though, they were cute together. Him and his sister are pretty sadistic though, haha. And it's kinda surprising how easily their parents consented to them having a baby, it was like "I'm pregnant", and the parents are like "Okay, let's eat dinner." It was quite weird. 

Anyway, I definitely really recommend this movie along with Taiyou no Uta the movie starring the amazing singer YUI and Tsukamoto Takashi.

I saw the Taiyou no Uta drama version before I found out there was a movie. I really loved it. It stars Sawajiri Erika and Fujishiro Koji, but I much prefer YUI singing rather than Erika, no offense to the girl.

 

Okay, I'm out of it. I don't know, I just feel out of it.

I went to B&N today since I had nothing better to do. They had nothing new of course so was rereading Hana Kimi. Then bitchy lady came. I swear she probably pays a costumer to go with her to the section I'm sitting in and pretend like he/she is looking for a book. And for some reason it's behind me and makes me move, not with an "excuse me", but along the lines of "i need to get something behind, so could you move", that kind of thing. so i decide to move to an aisle that rarely gets any costumers, the photography section. she follows me and pretends to fix the books really loudly, banging them against the shelves. what the hell is her problem!? there are tons of people there that read against the shelves and even louder and messier.

Then I come home expecting to have a relaxing day to myself but instead I just get angrier even more, why, I don't know, I just stepped into the house and that's how I felt. I guess it's just one of those days when you feel like the whole world is against you and you can't do anything about it but think of the bad stuff and lower your self-esteem even more.

What bad stuff have I been thinking about? For one thing, there's the fact that I'm already a senior in high school and now everyone expects me to go to college. I don't wanna go, I don't see the point in ME going. I don't have a future in college, I don't really think I have a future in general.

Also living in this studio is depressing me. I'm 17 and I live in a studio meaning I don't have my own room. I have no fuckin' privacy at all. There's so much junk that the woman I'm living with refuses to throw out even though we have no space what-so-ever, so I have to throw my own stuff but it's not enough. I mean, sure, recycling is great and all but I feel like I'm gonna sufficate in here. There's basically no air circulation, and I can't open the windows, it's hot and it's summer. Funny thing is, she complains about the heat even more than me but for some reason, she doesn't see that the stuff everywhere makes its all stuffy and hot.

As if living here wasn't enough, I feel as if I'm gonna live here forever, I don't want that at all, I want to move. Sad thing I know that I will live here for a few more years. In my dreams, I walk out that door and never turn back right on graduation day. In reality, I have to stay here after high school and that is IF she doesn't kick me out yet when I tell her that I'm not going to college or plan to take a year break from school before going.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I should talk to her and tell her how I feel and all that crap but I don't want to. And if I do, it won't last long. Or she would just start comparing me with her or my brother. She'd start talking about how her family was poor and she had to work in the while going to school, and helping raise her siblings since she's the oldest. And then she was sick and was hospitalized and yada, yada, yada. I respect my mother and all for going through a lot and getting through it all but I'm not her and Idon't have the same lifestyle she used to have, I have my own life. And when it comes to camparing me with my brother, she just belittles me with how successful he is. How he was at the top of his classes in school and how he had to work to pay for college while we were still new in America. And on and on about how great he is. Well, I'm not my brother either.

This is probably one of the reasons for my depression and self-injuries during 8th grade, I wanted attention from my own family, just because I was jealous of my brother. Yes, I was jealous of my brother and I would be lying if I said I'm not jealous of him now. I mean, I like brother but he gets so much attention because he's in the army and how cool he is with the guns and tanks and all that. And how they love him and dote on him all the time, I was just sick and tired of it, I wanted to be known as well, I wanted to matter. I didn't want to be just his sister, I wanted people to call me by my name. Even now, I still feel unnoticed, but for some reason I'm starting to care less and less about trying to get attention from my family. I just want to get everything I can get from them and then disappear to live my own life.

But then, will I even have a future? I mean, my future plans are way beyond my reach in which I can only achieve in my dreams but doubt in real life. I plan to move to South Korea as soon as possible, but will I be able to move to a country with the fact that, I don't want my family knowing about my plans to live there meaning no help from them, not knowing the language and culture, and not knowing anyone personally living there!? But before that, I need a lot of money to move, for the apartment, shipping the stuff that I want to keep. There's even paperworks to deal with and getting citizenship. And that's not the impossible one, it's working with DBSK that is. I want to work with them, plain and simple. Designing or just working on their concerts, shooting their music videos and all that stuff. So far, I have no contact of a technician outside of US or just someone that specializes in concerts. I don't want to work Broadway plays, from time to time maybe but I want to concentrate more on concerts and filming, mainly with DBSK.

It's a long shot, a really really long shot that has basically 100% of chance not happening. But even though, I really want it to happen, I can't push myself enough to go after it, hence the 100% chance of not happening. I guess my subconcious is telling me that it's impoosible dont waste your energy trying to go for it. And the fact that I know it's impossible depresses, especially when I see or hear DBSK. I love it, and then I start to think about my non-existant future with them. And it's horrible because I love them, they're special to me even though I haven't personally met them and they don't know of my existance, they're still special to me.

Everytime I think of my life and future I just feel like crying, even right now as I'm writing this. But I can't seem to even shed a tear or moisten my eyes for that matter. I keep hearing/reading about how you should cry and let it all out when you need to but I can't, besides I'm a big girl now, big girls don't cry.

 
Aww...isn't that cute. Actually to me he looks like he's kissing her ear, hahaha. But forget about that, our favorite grasshopper, MC Yoo Jae Suk got married to MBC announcer, Na Kyung Eun, at the Shilla Hotel on the 6th of July.

I'm so happy for him, I would say I'm happy for her too but I also don't really know her. Now all the XMan hosts are married. And of course, whenever a celebrity gets married, a whole bunch of others comes along as well.

Starting of with the lovely couple


Of course our other favorite MC would be there. Dwaeji (pig) Kang Ho Dong. Hey, where's the wife at?


Yoon Eun Hye. Her hair's longer now, the recent I saw of her was in Coffee Prince and that was pretty long ago. Love what they did with the mics by the way.


"Square faced" Park Kyung lim is also there along with her husband who's name I do not know, or just forgot.


Jun Jin and Minwoo, yay. Shinhwa forever


Chicken Park Myung Soo, yay, and some other guy I can't recognize, my bad.


Congrats to MC Yoo for his wedding. Hope for the best in your new wedded life.