Happy New Year 2009!

2008 was a very eventful year. I was busier than ever and spent more money than ever. As always, time simply flew. I wish I could say that I welcome 2009 with open arms, but I still childishly wish time would stop for just a moment. I feel a mixture of fear and excitement because I will be graduating from high school this spring (Oh. My. Gosh. There, I said it.) The time will come, whether I'm ready for it or not. Perhaps that is why I enjoy reading/watching books/movies dealing with time travel. It allows me to fantasize a bit.

On New Year's Eve, I finally got to watch the much anticipated movie, Summer Time Machine Blues, starring Juri Ueno and Eita. The movie has been sitting on my computer for almost a year (since January 2008!) but I never got around to seeing it. The movie turned out to be everything I expected so I was very happy. Fun! :)

I'm really enjoying winter break (I've learned how to relax!) But maybe that's just another way of saying that I've gotten lazier. School starts next week and I haven't started on any school work...oops! DX



I did design a bag though! It took me around eight hours to finish because I'm slow. I actually woke up last Sunday morning dreaming about the bag. I thought about it all morning, but didn't take any action. My head started to hurt as it screamed, "Do it!" So I did, but not without watching some anime (Monster) first to relieve the anxiety that had built up. I sometimes do get panic attacks like that for no reason...

A close up of the hedgehog:

I showed it to my co-workers and one thought it was a mouse. ^^; Ah,well, that was better than my mother, who thought the mushroom was an apple. I want to make more, but I don't think I will be able to since I haven't done any school work... ><

My 2009 resolutions:
1) Don't stress!
2) Think positively!
2) Be healthy!
3) Be happy!

I hope everyone is enjoying the rest of their winter break (while it lasts!) ^o^

Lee Junki Appearance @ HIFF

Lee Junki made a special appearance at the 27th Louis Vuitton Hawaii International Film Festival last Friday, October 19. He was presented with the "Rising Star" award at the U.S. premiere of his latest movie, "May 18" at the Hawaii Theatre.

I did not expect to get to see Lee Junki because 1) I found out last minute, 2) Tickets must be sold out, and 3) Tickets must be expensive. But no, tickets were not sold out and tickets were only $12. Yay!

The movie did not start until 8:00 pm, but there were already long lines of people waiting when my friend, my sister and I showed up at 6:00 pm. Standing in line was a horrible experience because we literally had to smell poop (this was an area where homeless people dwell) for more than an hour. We passed the time talking to another wonderful Lee Junki fan standing in line with us. Although we all just met, we got along very well because we fangirled together had similar interests. We even exchanged email addresses before exchanging names! ^___^

At around 7:30 pm, the lines started moving, a black limousine drove by, and screams erupted. I ran to the front. At first, I couldn't see anything because there were so many people, but they all held their cameras and phones up, snapping away so I knew he was in the crowd somewhere. And then I spotted him! My heart nearly stopped.



It is not that I was particularly in love with him (I am now), but the experience of seeing him in real life, and not on television or in pictures, is staggering. He was just as beautiful and handsome pretty as he is in pictures, if not more. This was my only shot of him standing outside because people were blocking my view. =(

We were lucky to snag seats in the front, where we met more Lee Junki fans. Again, we spoke like old friends. (Fangirls unite!) It felt like forever before Lee Junki finally appeared on stage. Along with the "Rising Star" award, he was also presented with a bowl made of koa wood.



I felt very happyyy for him! ^^ He began his speech with the traditional, "Aloha!" His accent was fobby, but so adorable. <3 There were two translators: English and Japanese. After he said one line, he would wait for the English translator to finish her translation. He then opened his mouth to say his next line when he was interuppted by a man saying, "Wait, wait. Japanese first." IT WAS SO CUTE. <3 He forgot that there was a second translator more than once. xD

The movie experience was not as wonderful. For starters, the theater experienced some "technical difficulties." I couldn't believe that they experienced problems on such a night. ^^; There was no sound in the beginning. The sound came back on when the movie started but we found something new to complain about: the quality of the film was bad. The movie looked like it was being played from the computer.

"May 18" started out good. I loved the first half in the movie...and it is entirely coincidental that Lee Junki starred in only the first half. Or maybe not...? I really enjoyed the scenes between the brothers, Jin Woo (Lee Junki) and Min Woo (Kim Sang Kyung). My favorite scene is the bicycle scene (people who watched it should know what I'm referring to). I won't describe the scene because I know I will take the humor out of it.

I did not understand some parts of the movie very well because I was not familiar with the historical context behind the movie. I did some research after seeing the movie (*coughcough*) and the movie basically recounted the Kwangju Massacre in Kwangju, South Korea that lasted for ten days from May 18, 1980. The movie focused on the people caught in the upheaval and presented a shallow portrayal of the events. All of the soldiers were "evil" and all of the civilians were "innocent." I only got to see the civilians' side of the story. I found it horrifying to see so many innocent civilians getting beaten to death by soldiers. Somehow, watching this sort of violence on screen feels even worse than watching soldiers kill with guns or cannons. Women and children were not spared.

During the movie, I cried during a scene where a dad gets killed while trying to tries to save his son during an attack. The next scene showed Jin Woo trying to help an injured person. He also gets shot in the process. These scenes were heart wrenching. However, I felt that the biggest flaw of the movie was that they over-victimized the civilians, making it seem somehow phony. I think the filmmakers tried too hard to gain sympathy from the viewers which played down their effect of pathos rather than playing it up. To appeal to the audience's emotions, "less is more." I found a few scenes that were unnecessary and could have been removed. In fact, I think the movie would have been a lot better if they removed the third of multiple scenes of Chang Su's blind mother crying for him and the scene where a little boy cries for his dead father. In another scene, the civilians started dying one by one as they battled against the soldiers at the City Hall. One guy starts to say his name on the walkie-talkie and is later joined by others who go down. The talking scenes went on for quite a while and I felt that they were overly redundant. I do not mean to sound heartless, but it felt like too much.

The movie did hold surprises for me. I never expected to see Jin Woo killed off so early in the first half of the movie because he was our star. <3 It was also the first time I've seen a movie in which the main hero (Min Woo) of the movie dies (and it was a very senseless death, too). In fact, all of our main characters die except for Shin Ae, our leading girl. =(

If the movie weren't so shallow and if a few scenes are deleted, I would have like it a lot more.

...But I'm happy because I got to see Lee Junki. <3

Christmas Day

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Let me recall the days that had passed since winter break started. When school finally let out on the 20th, I bought some last minute Christmas presents and hurried home to bake a lemon cream dessert for the Christmas party tomorrow. I stayed up all night wrapping presents with the help of my sister. I had to carry three bags the next day and it was so heavy that I needed to stop every few minutes to rub my sore red fingers.

The party was a bit chaotic. We exchanged presents first. There was a lot of fuss with the ingredients to make gingerbread cookies, but we did it and it was a success. Everyone was crowded around the living room watching the Final Fantasy VIII movie while I traveled back and forth between the kitchen and the living room. We had pasta and fried rice for lunch, my cake for dessert, and many junk food. I was really happy and relieved to hear that my cake tasted good and that many people enjoyed it. I was worried that something would go wrong and that it would taste horrible like the time I tried to make cheesecake for my sister's birthday. I hear empty compliments about my baking from my mom all the time, but this is the first time people actually showed they meant it by eating the cake. And it was the first time the cake was finished so fast~ and not by me! I spent the next two days out with my brother and my sister shopping. I tried to force myself to work on some Chemistry homework, but it was really boring so I couldn't bring myself to write more than two pages. I finally got to watch dramas again though! Currently, I am watching Cheap Love and Nodame Cantabile.

For some reason, today wasn't very Christmas-y for me. My sister is sick with a bad cold and that cold was passed on to my little brother. All my mom could do was yell and yell and yell. This caused my dad to get angry and he would start to yell back. My sister and I would shut the door to block out the noise, but they always get even angrier when we do that. Although most people wake up really early to because they are eager to open their presents, I woke up late with a slight headache. I ate a bowl of Chinese porridge with chicken and "figaro" cookies for breakfast. After breakfast, I carefully opened all of my presents. I'm a good girl so I opened all of my presents on Christmas day. The homemade chocolate I received doesn't count (I ate that on Christmas Eve). Afterward, I made a simple lunch with my brother and my sister and watched the Death Note movie.

I was really excited because I waited very long to watch this. Overall, I think the movie was not bad. However, Fujiwara Tatsuya looked too baby-faced to play the role of Kira. He is defintely a pretty boy, though, and looks like a cross between Elijah Wood and Teppei Koike. The one thing I really didn't like was how the character Kira differed from the one in the book. The Kira in the manga was most definitely smarter and no matter how how many criminals he killed, he still had a strong sense of justice. Remember, Kira's goal was to create a "perfect world with no criminals". (The following sentence is a spoiler to the ending of the movie so please highlight the text if you are not afraid to view.) The Kira in the manga would never create a situation in which his "girlfriend", Shiori, would be killed. I think he would be smart enough to figure out a different plan to avoid unnecessary killings because Shiori was not a criminal. He only killed others [that were against him] because their deaths were absolutely necessary for him to continue to exist. L also looked very young and Sayu a little too old, but all of the other characters matched well with the manga (especially Matsuda-san!) I was a bit disappointed to discover the movie ending when the story was just getting started (like NANA), but I guess it couldn't be helped since movies are not made to be a million hours long. I heard the sequel wasn't as good as the first, but I would expect it to be better since there should be more action.

After watching the movie, I spent the rest of the day studying for the Japan Wizard. This is similar to the Japan Bowl, but is a statewide competition instead of nationwide.

"The Japan Bowl is modeled on a quiz show format and aims to make the study of Japanese challenging and enjoyable. Teams of students are asked questions regarding Japanese culture, grammar, kanji, katakana, kotowaza, and onomatopoeic expressions."

Tonight was very upsetting for me because that bogus Beijing doctor visited our place again. Refer to this previous post. This time, she had to torture my sister with her weird concoctions and other things. I think she has to drink that medicine that gave me stomach cramps as well. Another sad thing is that my mother is wasting so much money on that useless lady.

Winter break has just begun for me and now I realize how short it is. I still have a lot of work to do. I should have to use my time wisely...

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Updates on Inspiration
I spent about two hours revamping some of the pages in the artwork section. You might not notice a difference, but I changed many things that were bothering me. I found many embarassing errors in my coding and also deleted some of my stupid comments. As promised, I also added a new drawing. I'm sorry it took so long for me to put it up. I was planning to color it, but I changed my mind now.
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Because I will be participating in the Japan Wizard, I think I'd like to start ending each blog post with a random fact about Japan. This will start today and end sometime in the month of February. Who knows? This might help me remember better and visitors get to learn something new.

Yukari hates fish anyway.