so people are making 'this is what's up with me' posts so i thought i'd make one too?

[lirazel]

as usual, nothing all that exciting since Vienna, but we'll do it anyway (and I will endeavor to use capitals because this is not tumblr):

+ INFINITE CONCERT PENDING. OMG. It seems Jamie will not get to go with me (I can't talk about this because DESPAIR), so I'm thinking of the DC one? I just need to find someone to go with, to room with/sit with/sing-along-on-the-top-of-my-lungs with. Warning: if Woohyun and/or Dongwoo start crying, I will probably cry my eyes out too. So. You've been warned.

+ In case I haven’t talked to you since then, the Vienna trip was great. Nearly perfect except for the heat which was EXTREME and Europeans don’t know how to use air conditioning (they say they have it, but it doesn’t ever seem like they actually use it!) and also you can’t get a big glass of cold tap water anywhere + there are almost no water fountains anywhere so it was a very thirsty trip. But we had a great time, everything went smoothly, I was the tour guide and arranged EVERYTHING (which was partly stressful but also kind of awesome?) and the parents loved it, so I’m very happy.

+ The little sister is in Ecuador. For almost a year. I am living alone. I LOVE living alone (even though it enables my anti-social behavior in ways that probably aren't healthy), but I miss her a lot.

+ Working on a new novel. AGAIN. Because, no, I am not physically capable of just sticking to one. But I feel really good about this one? Let’s ignore that that’s often the case when I start a new one. I literally had a dream about it and woke up with it fully-formed in my head. Often when I dream, I find myself thinking, “This would be a great book,” but then I wake up and realize the dream made no sense. But this one actually did! Also in the dream the love interest was Sunggyu. I kid you not.

It’s set in a fantasy version of like…late 18th century/early 19th century Madagascar? And you would not believe how hard it is to get ahold of a book on Malagasy history. Our library is fantastic, but the only history books they have are either A) for children or B) natural history. I get that the place has all sorts of flora and fauna found nowhere else on earth and that’s awesome BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE?

Anyway. I’m really trying to work on it. I want to make it work. I do.

+ So fic is going on hold for a bit. I have signed up for an OT3 bigbang and also for Infinite’s secret santa (and I will for Yuletide), but honestly I think it’s time to put fic on the back burner for just a bit until I get some actual work done on the novel. It’s time for discipline.

+ I did a remix fic for kpop-ficmix and I AM SO HAPPY WITH IT. I can’t wait till it’s posted and writers are revealed and I can tell you about it.

+ The job keeps requiring people to work mandatory overtime, and I am SO GLAD I took the time to fill out my FMLA paperwork so I don’t have to do it too. The company just all-around sucks with the way it treats employees, and yet I can’t bring myself to find something else because I can’t find anything else I’m actually interested in or a place that lets me spend as much time writing/interneting as this one does.

+ On Saturday I had my mama come over and we did some serious overhaul cleaning. Like, went through all the clothes I had and I took like five garbage bags full to goodwill. Which sounds ridiculous and like I have massive amounts of clothes, but honestly I still had some stuff from high school. High school. It was just a matter of actually removing them from my home.

Also went through closets and things and organized. Still have some to do, but I'm feeling good about it. I have a tendency to drive everyone around me crazy with my clutter because I live so totally in my head that it doesn't bother me but it bothers everyone else. But getting rid of stuff feels good.

+ I really need to stop reading about polygamist Mormon cults, but y'all, I can't stop. At this point, I feel like I know more about the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints than any person should know. BUT I CAN'T STOP READING.

+ Also reading The Family by Jeff Sharlet and it keeps plunging me into despair re: fundamentalist Christians. Since I'm also a Christian I feel like it is my job to battle the fundamentalist ones but that is a lot for one person to take on. I need some perspective.

+ I haven't been good at actually watching things lately? Slooooowly watching I Hear Your Voice and weeping over Lee Jung Suk's everything. It's so good. But I only manage one episode every few days. I need to finish You're the Best Lee Soon Shin and watch the last episode of Monstar and start Master's Sun, but for some reason my attention span when it comes to TV is very short right now.

+ And I was thinking about kdramas and how they seem bent on giving me a schoolboy kink. Oh, let's put Sung Joon and Myungsoo in school uniforms. Let's put Lee Jung Suk and Kim Woo Bin in school uniforms. Let's put Seo In Guk and Hoya in school uniforms. WHAT NEXT? I am trying not to be a dirty old lady, but kdramas are making it really hard.

+ I...do not really go to church anymore because it's just too hard for me to go and yet never actually talk to anyone. I know I should, but I don't. However, I read progressive theology blogs like ALL THE TIME. I have zero interest in ever going into ministry, but man, I would love to go to seminary just so I could geek out about theology. Nothing more fun.

+ Oh, and I’ve been thinking and I want some advice.

I have never been able to find any kind of exercise/physical exertion that I actually enjoy. Every sport is loathsome to me both because I hate competition and because I am hopelessly clumsy and have no athletic ability. “Working out” seems like such a waste of time to me (I know it isn’t, but that’s what it feels like) and I can’t bring myself to pay to go somewhere. So I’ve been walking. Some. When it’s not too hot. But even that I don’t really like. (I do love taking nice leisurely walks or walks/hikes in places with beautiful views, but the former isn’t really good exercise and the latter isn’t really accessible).

The only thing movement-wise (I am so sedentary, it’s pathetic) that has ever appealed to me is dancing. And I grew up in a denomination that had a long-standing ban (unofficial, because nothing’s official in that denomination since there’s no central governing body) on dancing (also drinking, etc). By my generation, nobody much cares about that ban and it’s melted away, but the residual effects of it are that I grew up in a world devoid of dancing in real life (though I also grew up in a world saturated with movie musicals, so). No dancing even at weddings. (Part of this is because in the South--at least in the evangelical subculture, which is a significant part of the region--nobody used to have real receptions unless you were rich. Receptions have always been: cake, maybe some other desserts, everyone stands around and talks, then you send the bride and groom away with rice/bubbles/sparklers/whatever's the trend right now. No sit-down dinner, no drinking, no dancing. This is shifting quickly and is no longer the case, but I was literally in my twenties before I ever went to a wedding with a dinner, drinking or dancing. And the wedding was of a college friend from outside the South, so that explains it.)

ANYWAY. (I always overexplain things, it’s one of my worst habits.) I have always been really fascinated by dancing (all those musicals! Fred Astaire! Gene Kelly! West Side Story! Also: figure skating!), but have zero experience with it in any form.

But now I kind of want to do it. That’s how I want to get my exercise. And I want to do, like, kpop dancing. Which I guess is hiphop? I don’t know. There isn’t a dancing school to teach you how to do the “America” dance from West Side Story, so this is my second choice.

BUT. I am a very, very slow learner when it comes to anything kinesthetic. In school when we had to do like line dancing and folk dancing and stuff, it always took me twice as long to learn the steps than anyone else. And once I know them, I can do them, but I lag so far behind everyone that it was always miserable. So I don’t want to take a group class. I want to do private lessons. I think it’s the only way to do it.

But I’m having trouble A) finding someone to teach private lessons (they’d have to provide the space, too, since I don’t have any, as my duplex is TINY) and B) figuring out the expense thing. I mean, private lessons would have to be hella expensive, right? I’m okay money-wise (since I have no debt and I’m only supporting myself; my income would be painful if it weren’t for those two things), but I don’t know that I have enough? And I don’t know how to find someone I’d feel comfortable with? I want to work with a lady (a gay guy would be okay too, I guess, but it’s kind of rude to ask, “Are you gay?” to someone you don’t know. I would not feel comfortable alone with a guy who’s attracted to women) and someone who I get along with who knows what she’s doing and won’t think I’m embarrassingly terrible. But I just don’t know how to go about making it happen.

Does anybody have any suggestions? I don’t even know what suggestions I’m looking for, but I feel like I need some backup on this. This is like a huge thing for me. I’m a very self-conscious person, especially about anything involving my body (not in how it looks, necessarily, but in using it/moving it) and I know I’m going to be AWFUL at it at first, so the whole thing makes me feel all knotted up inside when I think about it, even though I really want to do it.

Gah. For someone who leads an incredibly quiet life, this got long. Kudos to you if you managed to make it through that, and I totally understand if you didn't!

Comments

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I also have mixed feelings about the show (kdrama writers need editors SO BADLY), but I loved the sisters and their love interests (BREAD MAN!) and yes, Soon Shin and Junho are SO LOVELY. I have been in love with Jo Jung Suk for a long time now, and now I'm even more in love with him!

I think since one class is included in what I pay for my uni's gym and swimming pool, I'll try it and see how it goes.

That sounds like a great idea! Gives you some time to figure out if it's right for you!

Well, in Vienna they were setting all-time high records for that week! So it was extreme even for them! I actually typically love heat—I can handle any hot temperature so long as it’s not too humid (though where I live it’s always too humid, but I put up with it)—but it was really rough because there also wasn’t any access to cold water. If you want cold water you have to buy bottles of it, and that’s expensive and totally pointless when you can just get a glass of tap water with ice EXCEPT EUROPEANS DON’T USE ICE EITHER AND ALSO THE GLASSES ARE BARELY BIGGER THAN SHOT GLASSES. Seriously, if we’d been able to get cold water (or even water fountains!) all the places we went, I would have had 3000% less to complain about re: heat. But the combination of no water + no air conditioning was too much for me. I needed one or the other!

I totally understand not having air conditioning at all (though everyone here does). I just find it funny that places have air conditioning but they barely turn it on? Like, if everyone's going to still be sweating while sitting inside, what's the point of having it at all?

Thank you thank you! I really appreciate your good wishes!

[laeryn.livejournal.com]

BREAD MAN IS THE MOST ADORABLE THING EVER, OH MY GOD. Chan Woo was a bit boring for my taste, but cute nonetheless. I just like some more humour or dorkiness in my boys, haha. The sisters and I had a difficult relationship, though :/ Yooshin annoyed me so much sometimes, and I spent much of the drama waiting for Hye Shin to be something more than the audience of the family's lives. But they were really loveable, which is more than I can say for Granny, so I loved them so so so much. The little kid that plays Woo Joo kicks ass too! But I'll shut up now cause I don't know where you're atm xDDD

Oh, but idt that's an European thing, actually. Must be an Austrian/maybe most of the North of Europe thing, lmao. We do use ice and glasses are pretty big here for instance HAHA.

what's the point of having it at all?

The thing is... what's expensive it's not buying it or installing it; it's using it. Electricity bills can SKYROCKET. So usually in locals, it depends on how well their €€€ are coming in. Before the crisis, AC was everywhere in Spain because of obvious reasons; now, most places won't turn it on unless it's like 35 ºC or more here where I live. IT SUCKS, though, I'm totally with you on there :( I really hate hot weather (despite having grown up in it; or maybe because of that, idk) and most of the time, with hot weather, I'd rather stay home than go to cafes etc with friends, lmao.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I LOVE BREAD MAN SO MUCH. He's such a sweet giant doof!

Chan Woo was a bit boring for my taste, but cute nonetheless.

I completely agree.

Yooshin annoyed me so much sometimes, and I spent much of the drama waiting for Hye Shin to be something more than the audience of the family's lives. But they were really loveable, which is more than I can say for Granny, so I loved them so so so much. The little kid that plays Woo Joo kicks ass too!

Yes, yes, to everything! GRANNY I HATE YOU!!!!!! (I think I have about six episodes left? I don't quite remember.)

We do use ice and glasses are pretty big here for instance HAHA.

Bless you! They just don't in Austria and the area around there. I seem to remember them not doing it in France, either. It drove me crazy. The only time they give you ice is if you order alcohol that involves ice.

what's expensive it's not buying it or installing it; it's using it. Electricity bills can SKYROCKET. So usually in locals, it depends on how well their €€€ are coming in. Before the crisis, AC was everywhere in Spain because of obvious reasons; now, most places won't turn it on unless it's like 35 ºC or more here where I live. I

Aha. That makes a lot of sense! I don't think Austria's been as impacted by the crisis, so I wonder if they are the same way or if they rarely use it at all? I don't remember when I was there before, but it was a tiny bit later in the year, so that could explain it.