Ad Astra

Posted At Kirei.

“You have $100 to spend online in the next hour. How are you going to spend it?”

I’m a stationery whore. Even though I already have a ton of it, I’m always looking for more. So, I’ll start this $100 online shopping spree with “part stationery, part distraction” note cards from Anthropologie.com (1: $12.00 Poste Haste Paper Airplane Note Cards). I also “need” some file folders so why not grab some Vintage Map File Folders while at Anthropologie.com (2: $15.00 Vintage Map File Folders). If you can’t tell, I’ve got a thing for “vintage maps.”

I’ve also got a thing for skirts. I love skirts and I love dresses. My skirt to pants ratio is quickly becoming 4:1. Finding pants that fit is a pain anyway (I could never buy them online). So – skirts FTW and this particular skirt for the win right now (3: $42.00 J.Crew’s Luxe Knit Skirt in green).

Now – for more interesting and random things like band-aids… A brown banal band-aid will always do but, why deal with those when you can use cuter ones and earn compliments on your bandages (4: $2.00 Pretty Band-Aids). If it’s okay to cover ugly wounds with unnecessarily pretty bandages, it should be okay to cover ugly and burned DVDs with unnecessarily pretty labels (5: $3.00 CD Label Stickers). It’s also fun to mark books with unnecessarily pretty page markers (6: $2.00 Book Tags).

I “need” a case for my passport (7: $4.50 Cat Passport Case – my cat is white with green eyes).

It’s also time for me to retire my current cell phone charms (8: $4.00 Parisian Cell Phone Charm; 9: $4.50 Bibimbap Cell Phone Charm; 10: $3.50 Cat Cell Phone Charm).

I'll end with a few sets of lovely stickers, stationery FTW (11: $1.50 O-Check Design Label Stickers; 12: $1.50 O-Check Vintage Stickers; 13: $6.00 Jamsan Make Diary Stickers).

Grand Total: $99.50 or thereabouts

In real life, I got this in toffee from the mall (RL: Flare Trench Coat).

C.net— Don’t forget to visit my photoblog (S.A. Waltz). I update it more than I update this…

CROSSPOSTED - From  Kirei (kirei.callistonian.net)

At the onset of winter, I feel as though spring has seeped into my bones.

It's a good feeling: an even though I'm tired and things are kind of bleh I can be cheerful feeling.

Several things are to blame for my spring in winter mindset. The first and foremost is Spring Waltz. Its cinematography makes me smile in awe and its soundtrack (despite the somewhat annoying overabundance of Clementine related tracks) makes me happy.

I have been listening to this dear soundtrack (4 CDs of soundtrack) repetitively for the last few days. I adore it, obviously - but maybe too much as... it's making me seriously consider trading in my summer of violin lessons ('07) for one of piano.

At any rate, while I said that the next Kirei layout would be Versailles based - after a spontaneous Photoshop session this is what was produced.               

What can I say? It's spring-ish with a calming influence of grey. Hmm... I hardly know how I managed to get such "Spring Waltz" colors with my own photographs.

At least, Kirei is back (haha! spring is the season of rebirth). It's been far too long. I missed this blog terribly while hiding out in hardly customizable sites like LJ and Vox.

Jya~

How many languages can you speak?  Which languages can you read or understand?

I can speak four languages... relatively decently (not fluently). The magical four are: English, French, Japanese, and Korean. I'm obsessed (seriously obsessed) with learning foreign tongues. They're fun. Besides, being able to understand strangers' "secret" conversations is amazing.

From an ancient LJ entry:

Setting: National Museum of Korea, a fabulous museum, really. Day 2.

Before Y and I could get around to looking at any of the displays we dropped into one of the museum's three gift shops. The bookmarks distracted us. They were pretty and very Korean, with decorations of historical significance. But, I had to spin the stand around a dozen times because I had trouble finding one that I really liked. While I was a-spinning, a group of middle-aged to elderly Japanese women entered the store. Inevitably, the bookmarks caught their attention. One of them asked how much they were. Another responsed 250 yen.

I laughed - sweetly. It's trivial but the price of the bookmarks: 2500 won. Not $2.50. Not less than 2.50 euros. Not 250 yen but 2500 won. But, who thinks in won? ^^ I don't. I think in dollars. I automatically drop zeros. Whenever I talk of the price of things with my American friends here we also speak of things in dollars and tend to throw up our hands when people say two hundred thousand won, "??? What? Hold on let me think." I was thrilled with the discovery that these women were the same way.

One of the women asked me, curiously/politely, in English, "Oh, what's funny?" I found it all terribly funny. Y & I both understood everything that they said since they entered the store. When they talked of us. When they talked of buying souvenirs. All of it. When the ladies talked among themselves about how they might have been bothering us and crowding our space, Y & I gave in and began to speak Japanese. To their surprise, I told them that it was okay and that they weren't bothering us at all.

Unfortunately, I didn't fair as well when I rented my mp3 guide to the museum's collections. I didn't do as badly as the French couple in front of me but... when the lady asked if I wanted an audio guide in Korean - I had to decline.
Her(in Korean): Is Korean okay?
Me(in Korean): sheepish smile English.

I have a thing for boys.

I also have a thing for books.

The first makes me heterosexual. ^^ The second may make me something of a nerd.

Regardless, I spent 60 minutes or thereabouts on amazon.com scanning reviews and award lists in search of a more-than-decent novel to read. My time was well spent.

The delicate novel that I (just) completed: Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. It's good, damn good, seriously. Or - at the very least, I think that it is. I would say, "Read it." But, I'm afraid that if I do someone will read it. Then, said person will think, "What the hell is this piece of crap that makes no sense?" 

Housekeeping is literature, beautiful literature. It makes sense - it's just - well, it might be a little difficult. Robinson's novel flows and feels like a dream. Even though it may resemble a piece of crap with pretty words thrown here and there to confuse the reader, it - is - not. It's beautiful, somehow poignant, and also a little disconcerting. Consider reading it.  It speaks to Pisces, to dreamers, to the nearly insane, to the rebellious, and to those whose loved ones have passed away.

The smallest of snippets:

She did not wish to remember me.  She much preferred my simple, ordinary presence, silent and
ungainly though I might be.  For she could regard me without strong emotion--a familiar shape, a familiar face, a familiar silence.  She could forget I was in the room.  She could speak to herself, or to someone in her thoughts, with pleasure and animation, even while I sat beside her--this was the measure of our intimacy, that she gave almost no thought to me at all.

But if she lost me, I would become extraordinary by my vanishing.

Robinson managed a Pulitzer.  Not for Housekeeping but, all the same; in the words of Paris Hilton, "that's hot."  She did score a PEN/Faulkner nomination for Housekeeping, though. That's hot too.

Robinson is what I want to be when I grow up: a novelist with a Pulitzer Prize. I say this half in jest (lofty goals are embarrassing) and half in earnest (writing is fun). Hmph.

If only someone could say this about my debut novel:

Here's a first novel that sounds as if the author has been treasuring it up all her life...You can feel in the book a gathering voluptuous release of confidence, a delighted surprise at the unexpected capacities of language, a close, careful fondness for people that we thought only saints felt. Anatole Broyard, The New York Times

What was the last wedding you went to?  Were you in the wedding?

Wedding? Ha. I've never been to a wedding before.

My newest guilty pleasure: a non-talented off-beat out-of-sync out-of-tune boy band. Most of them are younger than me, too.  I like them, anyway. It's true love.  We're going to get married. Yay for Super Junior.

They're cute? Perhaps. What matters is that they're upbeat and uproarious. Their playful antics never fail to amuse me. However, I'm convinced that one of them is nuts. He amazes me with his relentless, ceaseless, forever going on weirdness; his pink cowboy hat; his self-proclaimed nickname, Cinderella; his English.

Heechul's English:

while flailing his arms about Yo! Yo! Yo! What's up, my man~ Yo! Yo! Yo! YO~ You are so~ gorgeous! Don't get me wrong. Don't get me wrong. Yo! Yo! Yo!

He cannot speak English without the term "Yo" and over the top I-might-accidently-hit-you-in-the-face hand gestures. Herm... I watch this boy ceaselessly, always wondering about when this insane personality of his will crack. What is he really like?

Then, there's Kibum. He is cute. Heechul puts flowers in his hair and prances around - not cute. But, Kibum is a playa'-in-waiting.  His overbearing charm, his smile, his quiet personality, his absolute cuteness has girls tripping over themselves to serve him.  Female celebs too. I kid you not. They "Aww~" over him. If a female celeb calls him he'll go over and smile at her. Then, another girl will call him. He'll go over and smile at her. Then, another... To the chagrin of the over two, he'll go over and smile at her, too. He has Jude Law potential.

For some strange reason, where he sees himself 30 years from now, cracks me up:

Yourself 30 years from now: How am I supposed to know.. -.-;; I’ll go to America with my wife and live while watching the ocean

He'll move to America and watch the ocean?!?!?

There's also Shiwon. He has big eyes. He's tall-er, very athletic, also cute, also strange.

Okay. I must go. I have a final tomorrow. I haven't studied.  I'm also in love with a boy band. Someone save me! Maybe it was love at first sight. I came to Korea. I turned around and bam they were there. Okay, it wasn't really like that but I saw them live. Random: But, Heechul, Cinderella o_O, was in a really bad accident. That's sad. I hope he gets better soon.

 

How well do you know your next-door neighbors?

I don't know them. I don't know their names. I can't even tell you what they look like. I'm not unfriendly. I'm just never home. Like, right now, I'm not at home. I haven't even spent a month in my house this year. Most of the neighbors who I know have moved away.  

That's not to say that my neighbors don't know me. Whenever I am home and whenever I am outside, they greet me.

Hello! Hi! You must be T's daughter? You're in college, aren't you? I've heard so much about you. You're spending the summer in Japan? You go to Har-vard, right?

Everyone is friendly, really friendly, and so sweet. I just wonder about where they get such completely incorrect information. My mother? My grandmother? Or perhaps they don't quite remember and just make educated guesses.

My mother knows where I attend college. It's not Harvard.  She would never let the H-word slip. My grandmother wouldn't either? It must be the grapevine effect. Nevertheless, I have heard my grandmother on the phone, spreading incorrect information, telling people that I was going to Japan. It's Korea.

Hmm... I am well acquainted with my neighbor's cat, George. She likes me. I like cats. It's great. Whenever I call her name, she jumps their fence and runs into our yard.

 

I read  Eats, Shoots and Leaves. I love it. It's hilarious and filled, absolutely overflowing, with historical asides.

The opening:

Either this will ring bells for you, or it won't. A printed banner has appeared on the concourse of a petrol station near to where I live. "Come inside," it says, "for CD's, VIDEO'S, DVD's, and BOOK'S."

If this satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes causes no little gasp of horror or quickening of the pulse, you should probably put down this book at once. By all means congratulate yourself that you are not a pedant or even a stickler; that you are happily equipped to live in a world of plummeting punctuation standards; but just don't bother to go any further. For any true stickler, you see, the sight of the plural word "Book's" with an apostrophe in it will trigger a ghastly private emotional process similar to the stages of bereavement, though greatly accelerated. First there is shock. Within seconds, shock gives way to disbelief, disbelief to pain, and pain to anger. Finally (and this is where the analogy breaks down), anger gives way to a righteous urge to perpetrate an act of criminal damage with the aid of a permanent marker.

I am not a stickler; however,  apostrophe-abuse annoys me.  Nevertheless, Truss probably wants to stick it to me like she wants to stick it to apostrophe-abusers. I claim to dislike hate capital letters. My e.e. cummings-esque entries in which a capital letter cannot be spied - well, let's just say that they give grammarians room to despise me.

=P (Right, no emoticons). Whatever. I stick my tongue out at them. Hmph.

Truss hatin' on emoticons:

The emoticon being the greatest (or most desperate, depending how you look at it) advance in punctuation since the question mark in the reign of Charlemagne.

Emoticons are the proper name for smileys. And a smiley is, famously, this:

: –)

Forget the idea of selecting the right words in the right order and channelling the reader's attention by means of artful pointing. Just add the right emoticon to your email and everyone will know what self-expressive effect you thought you kind-of had in mind. Anyone interested in punctuation has a dual reason to feel aggrieved about smileys, because not only are they a paltry substitute for expressing oneself properly; they are also designed by people who evidently thought the punctuation marks on the standard keyboard cried out for an ornamental function. What's this dot-on-top-of-a-dot thing for? What earthly good is it? Well, if you look at it sideways, it could be a pair of eyes. What's this curvy thing for? It's a mouth, look! Hey, I think we're on to something.

: – (

Now it's sad!

; – )

It looks like it's winking!

: – r

It looks like it's sticking its tongue out! The permutations may be endless.

At any rate, Eats, Shoots and Leaves is a damn good book. Read it.

I'm not a good... sleeper.

My sleeping habits are brilliant (why sleep is the enemy)

1. My body is convinced that I am cat.  A cat-nap here, a cat-nap there. My sleeping schedule is fantastically random.
   
2. I cannot sleep 7.5 hours every night. 7.5 hours for 3 or 4 days in a row = my limit. After that, my body is satiated and needs a night of blatant rebellion. It's 3:05am now. 28 minutes until my favorite time.
   
3. I'm a lucid dreamer. As a power hungry little girl, I subconsciously refuse to relinquish control of my dreams. Consciously, I rule them - sometimes.
   
4. ^ Doing that means that I'm awake-ish when I'm not supposed to be, like before my brain tells my body that it's okay to move again. Seeing, being completely conscious of your surroundings, and not being able to move is S-C-A-R-Y, scary. The first time it happened, I ran to my parents' room and spent the rest of the night with my mom. T___T   ( 金縛り~)
5. On other occassions, Hypnos and Morpheus fight back. They delight in giving me a terrible jolt which short-circuits my ability to enter dreams consciously (and which plays itself off as a nasty falling sensation... someone told me that my body jumps into such a nasty sudden state of awareness because it thinks its dying...wonderful).

You sleep well, don't you?

I'm not your Korean Princess, really. I promise.

Seriously...

I'm very seriously serious.

I went out to buy a quill. After something of a conversation, do you know what the shop owner said. The same thing that everyone else assumes or states. I've reproduced a general conversation of the sort for you. First -

You're part Korean (or Asia).

No. I'm not. I'm lacking one hundred percent in Asian-ness.

Your ancestors were Korean.

That's doubtful.

You were Korean in a past life.

By this point, the conversation is on a tangental crash-course for fantasy-land. How can I negate such a statement? So, yes, yes I was. Even though, the idea goes against some of my fundamental beliefs (and I don't mean religious). I'll accept it. Yes, I was Korean. I was a princess of Silla, an heiress of that ancient kingdom.  Look, that's my crown, in the photo. heh.

I realize that the gentleman was complementing me. But, I've had that conversation more than twenty-two times. It's troubling. I know something of Korean politics and I can rattle off a few poorly crafted sentences and thus, I absolutely must! have a Korean ancestor? That's terrible. Terrible. G-R-O-S-S.

For diplomatic reasons, it's important to learn about others' cultures and if the only ones who can possibly bridge cultural gaps are those who were ____ in their past lives... Well, then...

If you could be on any reality TV show, which one would you pick and why?

The Amazing Race as I could win. ^^ Dashing around the world and experiencing different cultures with a dear friend - doesn't that sound absolutely fabulous? It would be fun. If I were model gorgeous and if my father were still alive - I'd make an attempt at doing the show with him. I don't get lost, I am good with maps, and I can speak four languages at the survival level.  I just need someone to be strong and to eat disgusting food.

Also, an open invite: Holla' (comment) if you'd like a postcard from Korea. I don't care who you are. ^^