Painful Smart-Talk #3

I copied this down in my lecture today.

"... sometimes at the same time and sometimes separated by decades of temporal difference."

Lecturer, I like you, but this is just nuts!

Korean pop idol meets Monty Python

Yesung is gonna be in Spamalot! Ahhhh! My favourite singer is in SPAMALOT! *beams* How perfect is this? I think it's pretty perfect. ^^



Ooh, I found a big picture. ^^



It's like Jesse Cook randomly writing a Wheel of Time book: two absolutely awesome things, brought together. Super Junior and Monty Python! I love the world right now! :D

Relief

So I got my mark back for that demonic essay... B+. That's after taking 4 marks off for lateness, otherwise it would have been 23/25 (A+). Go me. xD I did have to laugh when I read the comments though. "You have a clear understanding of hybridity." Ummmmm.... Well, I do have good examples of hybridity, and I rambled on about Suju quite happily.

Yay yay yay for friendly markers, for Dad and his extra-extra-long-distance pep talk, and for Del who did the same, only she was very smooth and practiced whereas Dad was fumbling just like me.
❤ ❤ ❤ I love my people.

Park Sae Byul & Super Junior K.R.Y.: "Maybe In Love"

Amazing. I don't even know what to say, just... Amazing.

"Gidariiinda miiiiiinah!"

Heya! :-) Have escaped from the hole I oh-so-skilfully managed to dig for myself, and am house-sitting at Mum's for the weekend. My Super Junior CD finally arrived! I ordered it a month ago from Hong Kong (it was on sale, so no more expensive than buying a local CD would have been) and it's now playing really loud on Mum's stereo system. Yay for an empty house and deaf neighbours! I never could've got away with it at home.

Gonna add some more to my Suju post down below. See you in a couple of weeks' time!

Painful Smart-Talk #2

He was making sense until halfway through this rather lengthy sentence:

"While fragmentation is occurring in the Western-dominated sector of the world, in East Asia, primarily China, but also in parts of South-east Asia, the cosmopolitan is in a weak position with respect to nationalist and regionalist discourses, the establishment of larger geographical units, an intensive focus on development and a new Asian modernism, the extinction or integration, by assimilation, segmentation, rather than autonimization of indigenous minorities."

Eh?

The ironies of life

Turns out that one part of my demonic essay is going better than expected: I have now written a full third of what I need, almost all of it relating to Super Junior. They are the perfect material for discussions of hybridity, cultural consumption and globalisation: financially successful, multi-cultural kinda (that's another whole essay there - the polarisation of Chinese and Korean identities), multi-lingual, with (African-)American song and dance styles, obvious and deliberately cultivated pan-Asian support, a largely untapped but frickin' huge international fanbase, elaborate fan rituals, merchandise, twitter accounts... Gah.

It's a pity I need to range a bit wider, because it's all there. Clothing, definitely:
a) Eunhyuk has an NY cap, a British jockey's helmet and hip hop-style chains
b) Leeteuk talked about a 'James Dean' look for their latest music video
c) Yesung wears crucifix earrings
d) there are printed tees all over the place
e) best of all, at a concert a couple of years ago they wore costumes including Fred Flintstone, Harry Potter, a Chinese emperor, Robin Hood, Jack Sparrow, Dracula, a pilot, Bruce Lee and Zorro. It's screaming globalised pop culture!

I mean, these guys have been in Cosmopolitan. They've been interviewed by MTV. They're on a Chinese stamp. Their most famous song was performed by 3000 prison inmates in the Philippines. Their ex-member, who's Chinese, shot his second-last music video in New Zealand (as an image of paradise - yay Han Geng! ^^). And then there's fan-subbing!

*deep breath*

The problem would be how to reference all that. The official-sounding sources would be in Korean, and the unofficial ones are forum threads, polls, youtube comments and illegally translated game shows. Is anthropology relaxed enough to accept those?

Back to it. ^^

You're being repetitive, Ginny

My conscientiousness is at an all-time low. It's 1:19 am, and I am attempting to write an essay on the usefulness of the idea of cultural hybridity with reference to material and performative attributes of cultural change as they relate to globalisation. Yes. I've already used the '-_-' face, haven't I? Just below? Well, this is that feeling again. Metaphors everywhere! 'Creolizing' vs 'hybrid' vs 'diffusion' vs 'acculturation' vs 'straddling'..!

The worst thing is that I've done this on purpose. I've left it and left it, knowing there would be this time, after midnight, when I would be staring with glazed eyes at an empty Word document. Self-destructive much? xD The thing is... The thing is that if I try, I can always do it. It gets boring! Aiya, that's a ridiculous statement - I've got myself all turned round and back to front. But I still think it's true. I keep procrastinating, and I keep getting really good marks - it's disappointing, almost. Challenge me!!! Argh!

Where's my motivation? I should be doing this because I enjoy it, because I enjoy learning. But a huge part of my academic success up til now has been that I've wanted to make others happy. I wanted to make my teachers happy. I wanted to make them proud. Now... Now, I don't really have a teacher. Instead, we have men and women who come at talk at us for an hour or two, smile and leave. Lecturers, not teachers. It's so much more impersonal... and I'm so not ambitious! As a free agent, I just spin and spin in circles! I need direction! *uncontrollable laughter* Aiya... I need someone. Is this what growing up means? Doing it all on your own? ...

Maybe that last sentence deserves an eye roll. This feels very whiny. But when I picture what I'll have when I've finished this essay... It seems like there's not really much to look forward to. A piece of writing I may or may not like, and may or may not ever look at again. An A, or a B at worst. Now don't get me wrong, I like doing well - it does make me happy, and proud. The best comment is when the marker enjoyed reading it. ^^ Making people happy!!! I want to make people happy! How is correctly differentiating diffusion and hybridity gonna do that? It's just painful, Dad.

Ah, but on the bright side, music sounds so good right now! :) When you're feeling lonely, the immediacy of someone's else's voice is heaven. Ah... I'm really tired. I'm giggling randomly and my eyes are wet. I also can't write fluidly - have you noticed that? It feels very abrupt. There's a lot of writing, though; already about five times what I've managed to type for my essay. Rambling... Ramble ramble... I used to be able to ramble and sound intelligent. Where did that skill go?

Painful Smart-Talk #1

"Communicative processes that happen within a virtual interaction are the vehicle for conveying collective identity to its users."

Now I ask you: what was that sentence about? I had it in context and still had to read it three times. *beats author with pillow* Abstract, abstract, abstract! You want to be understood, right? Then cut down on the redundant words! 'Communicative' and 'interaction' mean the same thing. You can say 'conveys' in one word: you don't need five. Argh. -_- And 'a virtual interaction' doesn't even make sense!

Dear author: I want to read this article! I want to know what you're talking about! So why, why, why do you have to make it so hard?

End rant.

My 21st

I'm 21, I'm 21! Hi Dad. I am happy. ^^

Going to the movies tonight, and then an Italian restaurant: do you remember the Etrusco, upstairs opposite the Rialto? You took Jess and I there once, a long time ago. They're not too expensive, and it's so pretty... Pasta pasta pasta.

Love you!