crazypig

5 days before the summer.
3 days of exams.
4 days till I actually start getting to meet my friends.
which means…
I NEED TO START LOSING WEIGHT
I admit, I’m not like.. fat. But seriously, I gained like five to six kilos since I came to Korea. This is outrageous. I also grew like three or four centimeters, but still… I need to lose weight. I honestly don’t know how to. There are so many different types of delicious, mouth-watering food that it is just IMPOSSIBLE to refrain from stuffing food into my mouth. I keep on eating even when I’m full. This is sick. One day, my mom looked at me and said,
‘You seriously got fatter. You need to lose weight. Your legs are like english breakfast sausages.’
Shit.
Now, my mom is trying to take away my food when she feels like I’m eating too much. But somehow, I always find ways to eat.
I gained weight and fat pretty much everywhere, especially my waist. I think it is very imposing. One strategy I thought of was to study so hard that I could forget about food.
FAT CHANCE
Maybe I can exercise…
NO
I vowed never to run after my final class of PE.
I hate exercising anyways.
I need to stay home and study for finals (not like it’s going to work…)
I’m going to try to eat less…………………………yet I find my feet heading towards the refrigerator.
I’ll write another post about my attempted diet.

Here I am miserably writing my Jane Eyre essay. Sorry, I got that wrong. ATTEMPTING to write my Jane Eyre essay. Honestly, I don’t know what to write about. It’s either there is too much things to write about so it’s all jumbled in my head, or I have none to write about. I think it’s the former. For two days I’ve been frantically thinking about what to write after my intro – I know what to write about, i just don’t know how to put it all in words; as usual. So evidently, I switched my screen into quietly writing a blog post, complaining about my lack of organization for the final essay.
I guess Jane Eyre is a beautiful classic, but I don’t necessarily like it. Jane Eyre runs too smoothly for my liking – the wording is beautiful, but the symbols and motifs weren’t too obvious – I didn’t even notice that the word ‘fire’ was a motif until Ms. P talked about it during our discussion. Why couldn’t Jane Eyre be something more fiery, interesting, and attention-grabbing like ‘Beowulf’, ‘Grendel’, or ‘Macbeth’? It’s not like I was in love with any of these, but they were certainly more interesting than Jane Eyre. Or, instead of changing the plot, why couldn’t sister Bronte just alter Jane into a more interesting character? Maybe Jane could have been such a gorgeously hot woman so that all men (including John Reed) could have lusted after her. Maybe Jane could have just been a flat character and never befriended Helen Burns and never changed. Maybe Jane could have passionately loved John Reed, or Brocklehurst. Maybe Jane couldn’t even have met Rochester. I was frustrated with the ‘expected happy ending’ when Jane turned into a happy house-wife with Rochester and a child. This was so… cliche!
Back to my essay (FINAL ESSAY ). I am at loss how to start my first solid body paragraph. Heck, I’m not even sure about my introduction. I couldn’t even find all the quotes – it’s basically re-reading Jane Eyre again to find quotes. I seriously regret the fact I didn’t think about the final essay beforehand and just stuck paper on the quotes – waste of paper and trees. It’s surprising how quickly I can finish my blog post when I start a paragraph for two days when trying to write for an essay.

Stupid Jane Eyre.

Just kidding.

Contrary to other people’s beliefs, my sophomore year did NOT go by so fast. It was more like an originally slow caterpillar which had its ups and downs WHICH correlated with its speed. I learned many things during my sophomore year, one of the including that my sentence before this one did not make any sense to anyone other than me. I talk a lot of gibberish – I am random – I am VERY sarcastic – I have a dual personality (no, I don’t have bipolar syndrome) – I almost always act the opposite of how I feel – I am VERY hard to read (according to many people).

Warning : This blog post is essentially going to be about nothing – just a nasty trail of my thoughts. You, my wonderful reader, have the liberty of pressing the back button on your window to not read my lovely stream of consciousness.

Overall, sophomore year was pretty tough – both academically and non-academically. To be honest, I am a little scared for my junior year, and this is the first time I expressed fear about school after I found out in sixth grade that my Humanities teacher was gay – I do not mean offense to anyone, at that time I thought two people of the same sex making out was not nice to see – but heck, who cares? Just as long as love exists. I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST GAY PEOPLE. So yes, I am scared for my junior year. I’m not taking any APs right now and I believe I am also suffering from the ‘too much work syndrome’ every KISer has. Seniors – lucky them. I really don’t have the guts to paste my behind on the chair 24/7. It’s not like I don’t study – I can’t study. The first time I really got my mind onto a subject and really studied for was Econ – some reasons include
1. I was almost failing Econ – like literally – I’m very honest, I don’t scream ‘I FAILED IT!!!’ when I get a B+ on an assignment. When I say fail, I mean it literally. I might as well spit it out. My grade for Econ before I actually learned how to study for it was 69.5. That was the worst grade ever in my high school career. I never really got anything worse than a B- as an overall grade in my memories of high school years.
2. My dear Mother, a typical KOREAN PARENT, thought that I would have gotten some genetics from my grandfather and father since they were whopping geniuses at Econ. When it became crystal-clear I did not receive any of the ‘good’ genetics and instead received ‘not-so-good’ genetics such as lack of speech, poker-facedness, and laziness, she found a tutor who REALLY made me study.

The fruit of my hard work came out as a B- and my overall grade jumped by 9.7 percent. My first time really studying for a subject was fruitful – in my standard, which differed more than slightly with my mother.

So, I had to study during my sophomore year. This resulted in crankiness. Usually, I am a very laid-back person who rarely got into conflict with anyone – this doesn’t mean I had good personalities – I just didn’t care when people insulted me because I hoped it would be BS. This did not work with my mother. Unfortunately, out of all people I could have been impatient with, it was my mother. We fought A LOT. Every single day of my life during that year I dreaded going back to my home – because I knew I would have to fight with my mother again. Honestly, I got very sensitive when my mother started talking about school and my personality. It usually included things like :
-you never study (…)
-you never talk (there’s nothing to talk about)
-you never smile in front of me (as far as I’m concerned, I am NOT little miss Sunshine)
-you play too much (standards differ from one to another)
-you text too much (that too)
-you never do your homework (OH YES I DO)
-you never eat healthy foods (I don’t eat what I dislike)
-you put on too much lip balm (because my lips get chapped easily)
-you never get happy (I do when there is something to be happy about; which is rare)
-you always complain (like someone doesn’t)
-you always stare at your macbook (it’s more interesting than anything else in the house)
-you pretend to be smart (no comment)
-you are smart, so why don’t you use that blessed brain of yours to study instead of letting it rot? (blessed brain, my @$$, I am NOT smart)
-you’re too full of yourself (honestly, I’m not)
-you are unpredictable (neither are you, mother)
-you never like Church (I do; I get the best naps in the Church – not to be mean, but I’m being honest here)
-you lie too much (because my mother would be a million times more mad if I told the truth about everything)
-you got fatter – your legs looks English breakfast sausages (I laughed – that was funny)
I am not trying to degrade my mother in any way. She is a great person – she is (or can be) nice, funny, forgiving, quick in making decisions, and dead-smart (she is also a perfectionist, but that is not good in my opinion). It is just that I don’t get along with her very well. The insults (not really insults) listed above are just nothing, and I really would not care if someone else said it OTHER THAN my mother. For some weird, twisted, demented reason, it all just becomes a billion times more offensive when she says it. A clapping sound is made when two hands hit each other – a fight/quarrel is formed when two people conflict with each other. I also do wrong – I rarely smile or show my emotion in front of my mother – which she hates. I don’t do it on purpose, but I can’t help it. I just get trapped in my own world at home that I can’t be bothered to put up a conversation lasting more than three-minutes with my mother.
I keep on hoping that someday, our relations will improve.
When I am not making that nasty poker-face, I can sometimes be a funny person. I’m just straightforward, which can sometimes be insulting, but pretty funny. For example, I do not hesitate to say someone looks awful or ugly. Why should people be deprived from the truth? I am also very sarcastic – not as much as Ms. P, I’m guessing, a certainly to a degree when sarcasm gets on me all the time. I also like to mess around with people I do not like – sometimes, people I display the most interest to are the people I dislike the most (this is not always the case). I guess it is just fun when other people do not know what you are thinking about.
My trail of thought just stopped midway when an upperclassman started talking to me on msn. After my trail of thought, I just realized how hungry I am, which I attribute to too much thinking

About three more weeks of this awful school and FREEDOM!

Of course, before our awaited freedom, we hav a ton of exams, projects and essays to do. Wonderful. Nevertheless, I just can’t seem to get my mind to studies – as always. Whenever I sit down at my desk to do homework and study, I end up surfing the internet downloading music, watching  comic strips, and chatting with my friends. I also end up thinking about what to do on the weekends, and more importantly, what to do during the summer vacation. While my mother is busily checking out which SAT hagwons to send me to (I’m guessing she didn’t think of doing it any sooner until I told her I’m going to be a junior next year), I end of asking my friends out of Korea when they will come. The only thing I look forward to summer vacation is playing – I HATE the weather, and I hate hagwons. I cannot say for sure which one I hate more out of those two.

Let the summer vacation come soon…

and celebrate.

I’m doing this project about sin taxes in Econ, and I have to oppose to sin tax imposed on junk food and ‘vices’ other than alcohol and cigarettes (since they are already sin-taxed). Before approaching the controversial topic of sin taxes, I want to first question the validity of sin taxes imposed on ‘vices’ like alcohol and cigarettes. Straight out, I disagree. It’s like fighting in a losing battle. Yes, I know that without sin tax, more people will try and become addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, … whatever. According to a Times article on April 2nd, 2009, it says ‘the measure will stop 2 million kids from lighting up and spur about 1 million adults to quit’. Honestly, though sin tax may help reduce the number of smokers and alcoholics temporarily, would it be like that in the long-term? Drunks will drink, smokers will smoke, druggies will do drugs. These things are addictive, as us students are well-informed in Health classes from a very young age. Because of this, smokers are most likely to quit smoking because of their will to stop rather than because of shortage of money. Sin tax has its logic, and I can see where it’s coming from, but I just don’t believe it will help out after all.
In Korea, the cost of an average cigarette is about 2500 won (equivalent of $2, and 64. 63 rubles), whereas in Russia, home to the world’s cheapest cigarettes, cigarettes can be as cheap as 20 rubles (equivalent of $0.62, and 773.62 won). Though there is a common stereotype that Russians are the world’s most wasted people, I don’t think Korea is any better with smoking. I see more people smoking on the streets in Korea than in Russia.

Another reason for why sin taxes are bad is that it stimulates the growth of black markets, where people can get cigarettes and alcohol for much cheaper (since there are no taxes). Growth of black markets is definitely worse for the economy than too many smokers – why encourage black markets?

Is sin tax really worth it?

One of my previous posts deals with my obsession with lip balms. The second is, (this is kind of embarrassing) male clothes, preferably boxer shorts. By this, I DO NOT mean the underwear, I mean the shorts that look like boxers. There, I spilled it. I’m guessing right now I have about five of them somewhere in my closet. Somewhere. I wore my favorite boxer SHORTS with pig patterns on ‘Pajama Day’ at school. Everyone thought I was a pervert and a cho-ding (elementary schooler) at the same time; which was ironic. Apparently, they looked like male underwear (DUH, but many people people refused to accept my denial. That hurt.). Whatever. I’m pretty sure all girls would like them if they just tried wearing them. They are dead comfortable. I envied the guys for having such comfortable underwear. Girls have to wear tight ones, and some females who want to ‘feel skinny’ wear underwear like two sizes smaller so they are extra tight-assed. So if your girlfriend tells you her size, buy something two sizes larger that will actually fit her.

Switching gears, another male apparel I adore are shirts, I mean the collared ones. It may be because I’m a girl, but male shirts feel mucho snug than female shirts (I like big clothes). On one of those days when you just don’t feel like taking out every single item in your wardrobe to find a clothing you want to wear (almost everyday for me), a shirt and leggings take literally two minutes to wear. It doesn’t look that bad either, unless the colors are outrageously unmatched.

Hoodies cannot be left out of my list. During the winter, huge hoodies are good enough to keep you safe from the cold. Also, hoodies match with almost anything, and they look darn good most of the times. BAPE and Sakun have the best hoodies, but they are too expensive.

I have a friend who I can’t stand without talking with at least once a day. Though he is NOT in Korea, and we haven’t actually met in person, I trust him, and hopefully, he trusts me.
We first got to know each other through another friend of ours. I didn’t think much of him at that time, but when I saw pictures of him on Facebook, I was just curious to know how he was, so I added him on Facebook. Then we got to know each other’s msns and phone numbers, and eventually more about each other. Though it started out as just a simple, fun friendship, as we got to know more about each other, I believe our friendship became even stronger. I really like him, and on top of that, I realized that I always needed him when he was gone for a whole week on vacation. A lot of things just ‘happened’ to me during that week, and I couldn’t find the one specific person I wanted to talk to during that week. Though I can’t really describe him in words, I can try :
-he is one of the nicest people I’ve ever known; he can stand all of my mean comments on his height
-he understands how I feel in certain situations
-we have a LOT of similarities, but we are 180 degrees different on others
-he is a year older than me
-but he is SO innocent (or more like pretends to be)
-he is broad-chested
-he looks like a bear, so he is cute
-he needs to grow
-I trust him more than my elementary school friends
-he never makes me feel bad
-by just talking to him, I already feel better
-he is a wonderful person
-I’m not being sarcastic, I really do mean it
-he is always there for me
I really thank anyone above (God, Allah, Buddah,… etc) for having let me meet my friend. By knowing the fact that someone is always there for you and you can do the same to them has made my life better. Lastly, 친구야 사랑해 ><

I watched the school-play ‘Children’s Hour’ on a Friday night. I just helped a little bit for the make-ups and hair-styles. To tell the truth, I was not expecting a lot out of this play; probably because I participated in the play ‘Blood Wedding’ last semester, which I couldn’t do this time.
Watching the play, I noticed I was more aware of the background and cues than I used to be. It just made me realize how much I wanted to be a part of the stage, looking over the actors and making sure the make-ups and costumes were just right.
For those of you who were careless enough to not watch a school production play, ‘Children’s Hour’ is basically about two headmistresses of a girl’s school getting framed for being lesbians by a ‘devil child’ called Mary, and one of the headmistresses IS actually a lesbian. She confesses her love to the other headmistress and later kills herself. The plot may sound lame to some people, but the acting paid it off. Two backstage members actually cried at the end of the play!

Credits to :
Helen Kang
Jane Woo
YongMin Cho
Alex Lee
Michelle Kim
Angie Jo
YuSun Chin
Hanna Kim
Sarah Hwang
MyungJin Cha
Jennie Chang
Megan Song
Kristin Chung
David Shin
Beatrice Park
Ann Yi
Isaac Han
Eungi Choi
Alice Ahn
Sylvia Jung
Priscilla Kim
Jenn Kim
Jessica Choi
Most importantly, thanks to :
Mr. Johnson and Mr. Hadley!!!

A great poster done by Beatrice Park!

Everyone is going through a hard time now. People around me are constantly facing trouble – school, relationships, parents, and society. It’s getting on me too – I find it hard to face a new day every single day. It feels as if my heart is pounding the moment my Macbook clock turns into 12:00 am. Anyways, this post is for everyone suffering from whatever reason.
1. Don’t think that people around you will think the same as you.
Everyone is different. Don’t think that you are the norm. People are from different backgrounds and societies. People are always bound to have different views on different situations.
2. Don’t try to keep it all in.
Keeping your problems worries, etc is not good. This comes many times from my own experience. I am not the type of person who speaks out her problems and worries. I just think that it is less troublesome if I just don’t tell anyone. Even I faced consequences from this habit many times, I was stupid enough to realize that this never helped until yesterday when I was talking with a friend. He told me that keeping things in your heart without telling anyone would cause you even more pain. I guess it is true.
3. You can cry once in a while.
Also coming from my personal experience, I never cry. Well, not exactly. Almost never will be more precise. I once watched in a documentary that crying helps relieve our troubles.
4. Try to smile a lot.
Just a few months ago, I didn’t smile much. I just thought there was no point in smiling. My mother sometimes forced me to practice smiling in front of a mirror. After I learned to smile, I learned that it was easy to do than just frown. It also made myself a much happier person (although I’m not exactly a happy person now either).