Currently: Feeling Headachy

Listening: At this very moment, I'm listening to my Super Junior ballads Spotify playlist. Love. So much love. But this week, I've mostly been listening to Not Today, the latest pump it up jam from BTS. Which I'll never get enough of. The dancing. Sheesh. They kill me.



Watching: Only a few episodes left in the latest drama: Goblin. Guys. I can't even begin to tell you how awesome this one is. I'm starting to run out of words to describe these shows. I finished up another drama this week which I'd love to review here. So be ready. As far as American TV, I'm keeping up with the latest Walking Dead episodes. They've been pretty good so far this new round, but I know today what's-his-awful-face will be on again. Ugh.

A scene from Goblin

Oh, I watched some movies this week. Arrival, which made my head spin at the end, and La La Land, which made my head sad at the end. Anyway, at least I'll know a couple of the movies up for awards!

Reading: Um. I think I forgot to read this week.

Writing: I totally enjoyed the writing conference last weekend. So glad I went even if I'm not really writing right now. It want to get started on something again, and all week it weighed on me, thinking about how to fit it in, which I never managed to do.

Blogging: I haven't fit this in this week either. I keep thinking I have nothing to say, but I guess I could do a more thorough report on the writing conference and review that most awesome drama I finished, and the movies. Maybe? Sigh. I don't know what to do here anymore!

YouTubing: Going strong over on this medium. We've been posting tons, but then had a bit of dry couple of days there too, which was weird.  Our latest most popular video is a compilation of one of our favorite groups volunteering at a day care center. It's unbearably cute.




Misc:

• I've walked on the treadmill every day this week while watching a drama episode. This motivations works so perfect for me. I feel good knowing I'm actually fitting in the walking, but so far, nothing else has changed. But, you know, oh well. I'm used to the no results thing. I'll go with just the good feeling of managing to fit it in for now.
• So, we got tickets to go to another kpop concert in LA... only six days before the other one we are going to. Yesterday was a flurry of excitement as we managed to snag the tickets and then going ahead with planning that weekend by booking airline tickets and a night in the hotel too. Seriously. We've gone crazy around here. I think I'll do a post about this other group we'll be seeing. Cause, you know, I know you want to know....
• And yeah, I guess that's about it. 

Kdrama Review: Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo

Drama: Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo
Genre: Romantic comedy
Starring: Nam Joo Hyuk, Lee Sung Kyung
Rating:  ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤


I needed a light and funny drama and this one looked like it would do the trick and I was right! It did! Oh my gosh I loved this one just for its cuteness. Sigh. Such  fun happy heart warming stuff.

So this one is about a girl who is on a weightlifting team. She is good, she is winning medals and stuff. She wants to go further. But she second guesses the whole thing when she falls for a random dude she meets and then starts lying to him about what she does. Because who wants to date a weightlifter, you know?

Meanwhile, she bumps into (well, he runs over her and her friends with his bike) a dude from her elementary school days and he starts tormenting her, in a good way. In fact, he falls for her instantly and she is all... leave me alone dude! Oh, and by the way, he is on the swim team. Yes....

But then, they become friends and he has so much patience while he waits for her to figure things out and he is just so sweet and cute and fun and silly with her. It's the best. Really.

And of course, she finally figures things out and then bam! Sigh... I loved it. Can I just go watch it all again?

No, because ON TO THE NEXT DRAMA!!!!

Here's a little trailer. Doesn't it look fun?

Currently: Feeling Good

Well. It seems I forgot about my habit of posting a "currently" post now and then. I'm going to try and start them back up again, even though I think most readers (do I still have any except for my IRL friends? Not sure anyone is still out there. But blogger says I still have page views, which is really baffling) ... as I was saying... most readers will find my current life boring, but who cares, I guess.

Here goes....

Listening: We celebrated our kpop one year anniversary last month. Let's just say the obsession has not died down after a year. In fact, it's probably bigger and more obsessive than ever. I don't think this is just a phase, in case you wondered. Currently, this very moment, I'm listening to this song:



I don't think you can help but fall in love them, right?

What American songs are popular on the radio and such right now? You'll need to help keep me in touch. I listened to the radio the other day and pretty much gagged at the song that was playing. Something about I'm in love with your body. And that's what they sang over and over and over again.

Watching: Looking forward to The Walking Dead starting up again today. I wasn't sure I'd last through the first shows from this season, but somehow I did. And so it appears I'm sticking with it. Also looking forward to a new Survivor. Still hanging on with that show! They are doing the thing where they bring back old players, and there's a bunch I look forward to seeing again, so that should be fun.

Keeping up with two kdramas at the same time right now... both of them I'm loving so so much. And there's a list a mile long of more to watch waiting in the wings.

Haven't been to the theater much lately. Nothing at the movies seems very fun these days.

Reading:  I actually finished two books this past week. Did you read my reviews? :)  I'm hoping to skim through this week's book club book, one that I've read already. And I have a huge stack of books I hope I have the focus to read soon!

Writing: So I signed up to go to the conferences I usually go to each year. I think I'm going to feel like a poser there, even more than I did before I actually attempted writing. But I'm truly hoping it will be the push I need to figure out how to fit writing in my life again. I want to so bad. Someone wrote a post on the conference facebook page about how to suck it up and deal with one's anxiety and shyness while at the conference, and how everyone, even the popular people with tons of friends around them are dealing with the same thing. The post hit home so hard that I was in tears by the end. I still don't believe that even the popular ones deal with this, but yeah. I don't know how to connect at these things, and yet, I still keep going.


Blogging: This has dropped big time on my priority list. Not feeling the same rewards I used to have with it. At the same time, I don't want to drop it entirely. So.. still plugging along. I won't be going from this space yet. Sheesh, it's almost my ten year anniversary here! What should I do to celebrate?


YouTubing: I spend a lot of time editing videos for the channel. And I love it. Things are still going well over there, with subscribers growing by a hundred every few days. Viewers continue to love seeing us make nonkpop loving people watch and react to kpop music videos. And they love seeing us react to new music videos. But our love for the channel is making compilations, or doing field trips or vlog-like style videos. We are counting the days for seeing BTS. It still seems unbelievable that we really get to seem them live and in person.



There's a little idea of what the concert will be like... sharing a slower song with you that highlights the vocalists of this group. (Rappers are taking a break during this song.) They give me chills.


Planning on going to a YouTuber conference this summer too. Hopefully we'll learn tons about how to keep a channel going strong!

MISC:

• The grand baby turns a year old this week. Can you even believe that? I'm dying.
• We attempted to clean out the room I call my hoarder room. I made a very small dent. 
• We saw Kinky Boots and I actually quite loved it! Matilda is up for our next musical adventure.
• Sangi has gotten us addicted to Korean style raman. We'll never eat the American kind again!
• I've walked on the treadmill consistently for over a week now. Is it a habit yet?
• After the BTS concert, we have our spring break week and we'll be doing Monterrey/San Francisco.. any thing we should put in our plans that's not the normal? 

Me and the grandbaby during her visit last month,
in case you missed it on Instagram!
With our matching kpop shirts. :)

Well, I guess that's it for this time. Hopefully you enjoyed the comeback of Currently!

Movie Review: Train to Busan

Movie: Train to Busan
Genre: Horror (zombies)
Starring: Gong Yoo, Jung YoMi
Rating: 15+ (Korean rating), probably PG-13 here
My Rating: Two thumbs up

"The Walking Dead starring only Glenns. Cool."

(Lol, that was a comment on YouTube on the trailer that's embedded down below. I had to include it here!)

It was the husband that suggested we watch this movie, since he'd heard about from his friend who watches a scary movie a day during October, and so they discovered this movie then and reported that... dang.. it was pretty good!

We'd heard about it other places too and so I was intrigued and since the husband was interested in actually watching a Korean thing with us.. we watched the minute he said let's watch!

So, yeah, it's a zombie outbreak, and our main characters (a dad and his little girl) are on their way, on a train, to Busan (Busan is south of Seoul and about a five hour drive.. on a train probably a bit faster, yes?) to visit the mom, when someone who is infected gets on and starts killing people.

Man, things disintegrate fast! And as these movies usually go, we get attached to several of the characters as the story goes on and couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not. Like, did that mean they would be safe? Or did it mean they were doomed?

Intense times.

Besides our dad and his little girl, we had a blunt but funny guy and his pregnant wife, two older lady sisters, an entire high school baseball team, a homeless dude who had taken shelter on the train, some ornery business man, the conductor, the driver.. and I can't remember who else.

So half the train ends up zombies and other half barricades themselves from them. Every time they think they are going to get help, things just get worse. And worse. AND WORSE! Oh my gosh! We were on the edge of the couch screaming throughout! Biting our fingers and hiding our eyes!

Yes, it was a pretty intense movie, with lots of zombie gore and violence (nothing compared to The Walking Dead) and many many sad moments. Many. And that's all I'm going to say about that! Oh, and these are the fast kind of zombies. You know how some are slow like the walkers in Walking Dead, and some can RUN like the ones in World War Z? These are the fast kind. Ah... that makes them so much more scary!!!

But we loved it and yeah, it was awesome for a good zombie flick! I asked the husband afterward... did you forget you were reading subtitles once it got going? And yes.. yes he did. Just like we all do... subtitles are easy people. Easy! :)

Happy times!

The star of this show is also currently starring in an extremely popular drama called Goblin. During Goblin, he goes to the movies and guess what they watch... Train to Busan. So did you catch that.. his character goes and watches his other character. I haven't seen Goblin yet (it's next on my list) but we did find this funny clip:




Oh my word, that cracks me up!!!!

Well, and here's a regular old trailer in case you are interested:




Wow... that was a great trailer! LOL! And now you know what you can watch should you be in the mood for a crazy zombie movie some day!!!

Book Review Thoughts: By Your Side by Kasie West

Book: By Your Side by Kasie West
Genre: YA Contemporary
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★


So, I pretty much read Kasie West's books the minute I realize they are available. Sadly, I just realized that I somehow missed one.. which is actually cool, because now I can order and it read it! I haven't run out of Kasie West books to read yet!!!

Anyway, I love them because they are simple YA love stories that are fast, quick and easy to read. With fun characters that have fun interactions and great dialogue. I want to write books like these. Like... this is truly what I wish my stories to be. Sigh. Maybe some day.

So I sat down with this one the other night and after a few hours, I was half way done. Later that evening, I was almost done. I woke up the next day and finished it. Now, that is something that has not happened in a long time around here! I can totally still do this reading thing!

This story was actually set right in my town, with one of our favorite libraries as the backdrop. In fact, our main characters get locked up in the library for nearly an entire MLK holiday weekend. And the guy is not the guy that our girl thinks she'll would like to be locked up in a library with, because, he's kinda scary. Aloof. Mysterious. Rumors floating around him. Not so happy rumors.

But what can she do but make the best of things. And by the time they get out (I won't tell you how that happens!) she kinda likes him. I mean... OF COURSE SHE DOES!

So when she goes back to her normal life, things aren't so normal anymore. And besides dealing with that, her anxiety attacks are getting worse and... guess what she discovers. This guy has a calming soothing affect on her. OF COURSE HE DOES!

I love it. Yes. I mean there is no earth shattering plot or crazy use of words... just simple fun writing. And.. let me just say it again.. I love it.

Now, I'm going to go figure out how I missed getting my hands on one of her books and fix that little mishap.

Book Review Thoughts: Ever The Hunted by Erin Summerill

Book: Ever The Hunted by Erin Summerill
Genre: YA Fantasy
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆


One day we were passing through Cedar City and my husband dropped us all off to do some collaboration videos with our kpop youtuber buddies, MADoverKPOP... and since he had time to kill while waiting for us, he went to the book store on Main Street, (called Main Street Books of course) which just happens to be owned by a fellow book blogger from my past life, Megan from Posey Sessions!

So he went to say hi and then said to her, "what book should I buy?" and that's how it came to be that we ended up with this book from that trip and our little stop in Cedar City.

(Here's hoping you enjoyed that story!)

So Erin is one of our local authors who I've seen hanging out in the author circles and finally (I think it's finally, I think she's been working on being published for quite awhile...) she has her own book to present to us! Yeah Erin!

It's set in fantasy world/kingdom and opens when our heroine, Britta, is just emerging after a two month long isolation/mourning time for her father's death. She is starving since she had no one to take care of her during that time. So she goes hunting. And gets caught for poaching. She bargains for her life by agreeing to find her father's murderer, which sadly it appears that her best childhood friend is being accused of.

This sets into motion the story which includes her hunt for this boy followed by the discovery of who she really is, who the murderer really is, and how they can find him and save the king who has been possessed these past months (years?).

Now, while that scenario doesn't sound all that different from many stories, I found myself sucked in and intrigued and interested... and found myself quickly turning pages and not thinking about all the other things I should be/wanted to be doing... which is what seems to happen lately when I try to read.

And so... we broke the cycle! At least with this book! And I enjoyed it a ton and became thoroughly wrapped up in this world. So seriously, you should all go read it. :)