the news

Mandy bought the News by Alain de Botton in Seoul and recommended it to me. 

So I bought mine from Book Culture and started it with a cup of New Orleans Blue Bottle Coffee. 

The book is an attempt to "make this ubiquitous and familiar habit" of checking the news "seem a lot weirder and rather more hazardous than it does at present."

few real joys

that old feeling 

Today is more of a picture-and-phrase day, especially since my MacBook is in a time machine mode. 

Last Saturday, 10th graders (18th wave!!!) and teachers from high school came on a field trip. (I bet there's a batch heading your way Mandy ^____^) This group was even more dear to me, since our French teacher Mme Florence, and game over advisor Mr. Han came as supervisors. The weather wasn't as pretty as today's blue skies, but it didn't rain as forecasted! On Friday night, I had prayed that it wouldn't rain while we give a tour of the campus and have Q&A sessions with the college student alums and working alums. Rain poured down after they left. 

Whenever these kids come, I go through a set of emotions. The school that kindled faith in Jesus Christ, the school where I met lifetime friends, the school where I learned that you can become friends with teachers, the school where I learned how to study by myself, the school where I learned to appreciate nature. Some of the same teachers are still giving all their efforts to guide young ones to follow through in that same school, and the young ones are still choosing to go to that same school that I can't muster up the courage to go visit. It's been four years since I last visited. 

If I visit, I think I will be overwhelmed by sadness to see the school in a bit dilapidated state (considering that I don't think buildings are regularly renovated, or are they?), and my inability to help out. When I mentioned this to Mr. Woo, the English teacher who used to sing us pop songs whenever it rained on a Wednesday class, he told me that only when we are in our 40s, would we be even able to donate to school. He quietly told me that now is the time to focus on our careers. Mme Florence and Mr. Han told me that the vision trip is worth the effort and care, because they get to see us. Maybe this is why reunions are great, to remind ourselves of the dreams we had, people we invited into our lives, and why we chose to be where we are now. 

I'm helping out with the student production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. The play is going to take place on a beautiful lake in Worcester College in early June. I am in charge of making the 'behind the scenes production diaries, short videos released every week to stir up some pre-performance excitement. 

Yesterday, we shot the trailer for the play. Actors dressed up in colorful Tudor costumes to reenact one of scenes of the actual play. Although it was physically exhausting (shooting from 7AM to 5PM non-stop) I felt energized and strangely at home. Nick Lory, our DOP did an amazing job capturing and blending in the gorgeous scenery with the ambience of the Venice. 

It's a lovely feeling, to be part of something bigger, something that matters to a lot of people, something that makes them happy. I'm very fortunate to work alongside passionate students who care and give the play their all; Oxford will become more dear to me because of this experience. 

This morning, I realized with utter dismay that it is Parents' Day tomorrow and thought shit, too late to send a basket of flowers to Mom and Dad -- not that I didn't try, but for some reason the credit card service was not cooperative and the website stated that they could not promise to deliver the flowers in time if ordered post-Tuesday work hours (Korea time). So binned that idea. On to Plan B.

Instead, I went to florist and bought these white carnations, took a bunch of staged photos of the flowers and myself, and basically made a customized card (inserted text: Happy Mother/Father's Day, etc) and sent them to my parents via kakao talk. Daughterly duty executed in fashionable manner I would say. 

In Korea, during this time of the year, you see flower baskets carpeting the streets of Shinchon and Gangnam and florist shops teeming with daughters/sons/students seeking out fresh carnations in various hues of red, pink, yellow, and white for our parents and teachers. The whole floral tradition does seem a bit forced and contrived at times, but it seems like a nice way for all of us to appreciate the sentiment certain flowers on certain days of the year. 

The carnations sit near my window, with wine bottles as vases. 

I crawled into bed very early last night, slept through flatmates knocking on my door, sirens outside my open window, and turned over in my navy sheets dreaming of some unpretty situation that I can't remember anymore. When I woke up and groggily checked the time, it was 5:30 AM and there was this marvelous dawn scene seeping through my room. I was numbed by the beauty of the gradation in the sky, a mixture of desaturated pastel colors that reminded me of the safari. To the wonder. 

In elementary school, sometimes the teacher told us to draw about how you'd live in the future. I remember imagining flip-through books (iPAD), living underwater (I think there are some hotels that are trying this out?) and flying cars (not yet?). And now this google glass. 

Lying in my bed with all sorts of pain (muscle pain, sore throat, etc), I found this youtube video and started chuckling. Only a few have the privilege of trying these glasses on, but it must be kind of funny to be the only one with these glasses on and talking to it to say the commands. Each pair now costs $1500, but ebay up to $15000. 

If I had these glasses on, I'd take a picture of the pink flowers that are blooming outside the window and post it here and also google "how to enjoy the sun and not become more sick." Better stay healthy!!

I attended a 'Body Image Workshop' yesterday, thinking that it would be pertinent to my dissertation. The session took time to define what the term body image meant, walked through the history (take a look at the timeline!) of what society deemed a beautiful body  from the ancient greeks till now, and explored how society toys with the concept of the body image via sexualization of young girls. 

At the beginning of the workshop, the participants were asked to write three things we loved about our body, a task I found more difficult than I thought it would be; the natural instinct was to compare myself to others and try to figure out what components of my body out-excelled in an objective sense. I realized that my perception and judgment of my own body depended wholly on placing myself on a spectrum of the girls around me as well as the heavily digitally-altered images of celebrities I see in the media. 

Seventeen Magazine did good when it agreed not to photoshop images of girls in  their contents in response to an online petition initiated by a 14 year-old girl. Some people argue that when ads/magazines do photoshop images of bodies and faces, the images should be marked with a 'photoshopped' symbol, perhaps with a rate of how much they have been tweaked. 

With the rave surrounding the before-and-afters of Miss Koreas of 2013, the discussion on body image and digital alteration is very unsettling and difficult to dismiss because we the girls are the victims as well as culprits of it all.

I watched a film yesterday (I know, what a surprise, since I am studying Film Aesthetics) called Metropolitan (1990), by an American director by the name of Whit Stillman. Stillman is well known for his tongue-in-cheek depiction of the 'urban haute bourgeoisie (UHB)' in 1980s New York City, a world he knew well being a Fly Club member at Harvard and coming from a well-off family. The film is hilarious in its portrayal of the cluelessness of preppy rich youngsters in their debutante season; the shamelessly pseudo-intellectual banter and contrived philosophical/principles that do not match up to the characters' actual actions are charmingly desperate and endearing. Stillman's dialogue is wordy and empty precisely because of its wordiness, a common feature his conversation scenes share with Woody Allen's. His deadpan humor is remarkable. This is his latest film, Damsels in Distress (2011), a contemporary piece on teenage salvation and girly sane-hood. A great film is all you need to make your day. 

Monday noon. I'm spending the early hours of the week with this guy here reading about phenomenology and the body. Merleau-Ponty will be the philosophical pillar of my dissertation (due in 5 weeks, yikes) which will be about the treatment of the 'body-character' in the two films Dogtooth(2009) and Innocence(2004). The body has been an overdone topic in film, especially the bodies of young girls but usually in this context, the body is discussed in a Lolita syndrome / psychoanalytical / objectification of women / male gaze / feminist framework, which I will attempt to stay away from. Merleau-Ponty has a fluid way of writing, a beautiful but extraordinarily complex manner of approaching his topic. Many dislike him precisely because of his wound-up and overly-intellectualized stylistic, but I find him brilliant. I hope I do him justice. 

I love going to a favorite cafe and discovering new things about it. Today my flatmates and I went for a late brunch to Oxfork, the sweetest brunch place near home. We were seated in the far cozy corner, right beneath this vintage floral lamp and mirror that looked like a whirling skirt. I loved how they complemented each other, one with light and the other with self-reflexivity. Oxfork has the most amazing brunch menus, my favorite being the Little Veggie American which is fluffy pancakes served with an egg, halloumi, and maple syrup. I have it with Girlie Grey tea and it is difficult not to be happy.

Brunch talk involved everything from a friend's potential break-up, her lack of emotional courage, visa issues and 'bought' marriages, problems with illegal immigration (did you know that in Italy, it is against the law to kick people out of a house if they have a child? So technically, if your tenants were not paying rent but were raising a child, you as the landlord/owner would not be able to oust them from your property. Insane law in my opinion), my dissertation topic, child actors and what becomes of them, the redundant plot of Mad Men, the stupidity of making the 2p coin, the even more astonishing inaneness of the administrative bureaucracy in Oxford, how the English love to play with letters and documents, and a range of other equally arbitrary yet delightful topics. The best way to spend a grey Sunday afternoon. 

super sunny weather continues this week, but i've been a little weary this morning.

for the past ten days, i fully immersed myself in the Vietnamese light up research. perhaps too much. pacing yourself, whether it is work, relationships, running, reading, who-knows-what, is essential for the long-run. when something is in the beginning stages, I'm bound to get excited and eager and give too much in it.

excited for something, which I haven't yet figured out, I've been sleeping less and staying awake, even though my body signaled that I better rest.

so today, I enjoyed the serenity of a Thursday morning with my favorite flower t-shirt on. to be still

now I'm off to read/review a soon-to-be published economics article on incentives for low-income American children to study math and read more.

I love feet. I love my feet. That's why I asked the caricature guy at the ball last weekend to draw my feet instead of my face. 

"Can you do a caricature of my feet?" 

"Hmm I'm not sure if I can draw a caricature. 

But I can try to sketch you a likeness." 

So I stood on the modeling chair for five minutes as the pencil went whisk whisk on the surface of the paper. I also asked the guy to draw my new court heels. My shoes were pretty but hurt like hell, like all the nice things in life. 

My toes are generally disfigured. But my pinky toe looks hideous, resembles a pyramid than a ball. It even has a sharp edge. I don't think a toe is meant to have an edge. 

I read somewhere that Quentin Tarantino has a foot fetish. I'm happy we share one thing in common. 

As you can imagine, Oxford goes big on balls. Formal balls aren't my cup of tea, but I decided to go to one because I thought it would add flavor to the life-in-Oxford chapter of life. Yesterday was the 'Exeter College: The Orient Express Ball' which my friends and I attended. Typical of me to leave things up till the last moment; I spent yesterday afternoon fishing the shops in city center for a dress and a pair of decent heels. It was a highly stressful and intellectually stimulating task. 

Dress codes are a matter of life and death here in Oxford, a trait I deem properly English.  (For more info, please have a look at Downton Abbey) Last night's code was 'black tie,' which in itself is lucidly straightforward for the lads but perplexing for the girls. Rumor had it that girls would be expected to wear floor-length gowns or cocktail dresses at the least; dresses that went over the knees would be frowned upon; no flat shoes; etc. I pondered for a good while whether I should buy a long gown I would never again wear in my life. But no, I ended up purchasing a casual dress I would make practical use of.
Clever me : )

M, Lotti, Plebwood, Moi, P, Bartini, JMS, Smithers, Spicy

There are so many things in life one does for the sake of being able to say one has done it. Much of Oxford is like that: the Oxonian experience. And it sells so well. Many international students brave the dreary weather and unhealthy food of the UK for this precise experience: studying in the oldest university in the English-speaking world, living in pleasantly antiquated housings, dining in formal hall and high table, wearing sub fusc on matriculation and exam days, and all the items on the true Oxonian/English life track list. Charming, indeed, but what about inefficiency, elitism, and backwardness? Because these words are the negative flip sides of propriety, privilege, and tradition. 

Oxford was ranked no 5 in World's Best Universities with its rival and counterpart Cambridge at no 2. These days I often wonder what is at the core of the Oxbridge magic, what makes the spell so enticing. Being an Oxford-phile myself, I am in no position to assess this matter with an objective eye but one cannot help but ask: if all the buildings in Oxford were burnt down, would the university still hold the same academic prestige? 

I say no. And oh yes, the ball was fun. 

The past week just flew by.

These trees with white flowers in front of my apartment greet me every morning as I step out to go to campus. Monday morning was a bit gloomy but appeared to be like any other ordinary morning. Then ended with the happening in Boston. It could've been any city. Events like this remind you that normal everyday life is not boring nor meaningless. I used to make plans for five, ten, fifteen years ahead, but not anymore. Living every day to the fullest and choosing to live every moment became more important, after realizing I can't foresee what will happen in the future, except what's been promised. 

What are some things you will never let go? I wondered what led them to pursue such act. How some people here reacted have also dismayed me. 

While tension accumulated in MA, the rest of the week was sunshine here in NYC. And I finally started enjoying researching full-time, now that I'm almost done with SDDS responsibilities. I'm quite enjoying this research phase, working in my favorite spots on campus. For some reason, I don't remember spring twenty-twelve. This spring is full of hope, energy, and initiative. I'm trying to hand in my MA paper by May 1st, so must go do some more research!

When I was young, I loved to play with my stack of "100 Greatest Men in History" cards. (*Note that being pc was not in fashion when I was young. 'Men' had more impact than 'People' is my conjecture. Nonetheless, women were not absent from the collection) The cards, a little larger than than the Samsung Galaxy phone, had an iconic portrait of the person on the front and a short biography on the back. I had two separate versions, one marked East and the other West. 

The game I played with myself was simple. First, I would peer into the portrait and try to infer the profession/field of the person in question. The hints would come from the expression, hairstyle, outfit, often the most critical cues from an item the person was holding. Beethoven was a dead giveaway because he held a music composition notebook.  And come one, who else but an impassioned composer would nurse such a tousled look. Religious figures such as Jesus, Buddha, and Mother Theresa were the easiest as they were either shown praying/meditating or had bursts of light emanating from their torsos. The trickier ones were male politicians, scientists, and writers; they all wore the standard suit and tie. Bo-ring. 

Next, I would turn over the card and read the biography. When I had gone through the whole two stacks, I would shuffle them vigorously. The game now morphed into a memory task: the exercise of matching the face with the correct name and profession. The Greeks always duped me; Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle all looked the same in marble. I also cultivated favorites: I loved Einstein because he looked funny with his spazzy hair, respected Helen Keller because she was the prettiest, admired Yu Gwan-sun for her spunk, and had a fondness for honest Abe Lincoln because he looked like the type of man who would die doing good for the world. Hitler was a dubious one because I realized that being great did not necessarily equate to being good, Eureka.  

- 48 portraits, by gerhard richter, macba

In  the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, I came across this installation work by the celebrated Gerhard Richter. The wall hosted a series of portraits of famous men (men, as in the male. No women here). I went through all 48 of them, racking my head and prodding my memory to recall faces I had seen in AP World History cram books, books in general, newspapers, satiric images I had witnessed on the internet, etc. To my absolute mortification, I could only put the name to face for only 5 of them: Albert Einstein, Oscar Wilde, Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, and Tchaikovsky (what was his first name?). Most of their visages seemed painfully familiar but not quite. Sorry William James, Thomas Mann, Igor Stravinsky, Max Planck, Graham Greene-I should have remembered what you looked like - and profuse apologies to the other great men on the wall, I'm sure you're all very important. I'm most certain that I've encountered you before but didn't bother to retain the snapshot of your face in my brain. Really, my bad. 

My point being (if I dared to have one): we live in an era of faces; it's all about remembering what someone looks like. And about being remembered. I see people on TV, in films and interviews in magazines, on ad campaigns and think, I know that face from somewhere; I may not know his/her name but I definitely recognize the face. Even people with non-camera related professions such as cooks, writers, designers, CEOs, professors, and what not, all sell their faces to a certain extent. To remember faces, or not to remember them, that is the question. If accumulating a directory of faces works on a zero-sum game, my childhood pastime of portrait-guessing has been a futile exercise, for there is no possible way that I would be able to retain the visual info of irrelevant-to-life people in my brain; there are more important faces to store, more catching visages to pay attention to. 

Honestly, who gives a damn about dead faces, right? 

Catch-up. 

1. Apologies; the wifi in our room in Barcelona malfunctioned for the majority of our stay. We slept in a traditional Spanish house right next to La Rambla. This is the view from my window. The building is fashioned in a way that all rooms face one another across a vacant square area in the center. The ceiling is sealed so there is no actual ventilation. What a peculiar use of space, I thought to myself. 

2. The friend I travelled with is my best friend from elementary school. There was a time when I called her Zzang and she addressed me as Cap. She is currently doing her master's at Courtauld with focus on modern art. Funny, how life springs pleasant surprises on you. Zzang and I were cut apart in our adolescence when she left middle school to be home-schooled by her parents. Who knew we would reunite in London after a good decade apart and explore Barcelona together! Over paellas, tapas, and sweet sangria we reminisced about how we used to make prank calls to the boys in our 6th grade class.

- Hello? Is this Semi's house?

- No it isn't. But who is this?

- You mean Semi isn't there? We're looking for soosemi! (sponge)

(Hang up in burst of giggles)

Classic prank call repertoire. A great deal of fun. 

3. I was completely shellshocked when I went into the Sagrada Familia, as it is without a doubt the most beautiful church I have set foot in. Antoni Gaudi was clearly an eager disciple and avid observer of nature and his reverence for it is telling throughout every inch, curve, carving, angle of his architecture. I found myself squinting at the rays of light streaming through the stained-glass windows, trying to absorb the benediction of warmth.

4. Barcelona wouldn't and couldn't be what it is without the rich art culture. Zzang being a proper art history student and I a pseudo-one, we made our way around the various art stops. Although Picasso and Miro were highly inspirational, my favorite exhibitions were the ones in MACBA, the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art. Probably the equivalent to MOMA in New York or Tate Modern in London.  

5. This is is Lawrence Weiner's piece. His conceptual works are poignantly philosophical and equally humorous that they linger with you for a long time. I love his play with language and space. 

Another inspiring collection was "I Have Never Painted Golden Angels-" by Eulàlia Grau, a Catalan artist whose montages and collages are uncanny in their social critique. There was so much artistic energy to digest that we often caught ourselves zoning out afterwards. 

Other notable wisps of the trip:

6. pestering a lazy cat lying under the sun; she turned over on her back to express annoyance 

7. tapas-bar hopping around back alleys of Barri Gotic

8. eavesdropping on conversations drifting from other tables (usually loud Americans gushing OMG about some depraved love affair) 

9. escaping from senile man who masturbated under his coat next to me on the transport to Montjuic Park (... kindly showed me his private parts and gave me a toothy smile)

10. meeting cute scrawny boy at the reception desk of the Joan Miro Foundation

11. licking grapefruit & jasmine gelato cone on the walk to the beach

12. lying on the beach watching hot locals show off soccer tricks

13. lying on the beach listening to some guy declare that the "two things in life I never thrift on are drugs and booze" and snorting inevitably in response

14. spotting delightful and colorful laundry sashaying outside windows

15. drinking coffee at the 4 Cats, a favorite venue of Picasso's at the height of modernism

16. hiding a postcard behind one of the paintings in the cafe for Zzang's friend to find 

17. befriending a 4-year old Chinese boy at the airport who suggested (in perfect London English) that we go on a treasure hunt to find a golden pan with which he could make tomato pancakes

18. realizing at the end of our journey, that we hadn't taken a decent photograph together

19. laughing it off ... and saying "next time!" 

On Sundays, I like waking up to read the S magazine that comes along with our Joongang Sunday newspaper. It's my weekly dose of culture. In particular, I like the commentary on the last page and the three excerpts that are bundled under the "들숨날숨" section. Here are the three excerpts from this week's edition:

Ever since 2004, my birthday has never solely been my own but always ours together. Mijung's (13th) and Mandy's (14th). There were times during our almost decade-long friendship when we would be celebrating our birthdays at literally the same moment due to the time difference between Canada and Korea. It was a surreal feeling, to be able wish happy birthday to her in her time whilst the clock had ticked over to my birthday in my time. 

I received this from the recently-wedded KMLA couple JH & SY. The card from Nice, the gift from Monaco, the package sent from Paris presumably. Apparently they have just returned from their honeymoon to their little love nest in Seoul. I cannot fathom how that must feel. Unbelievable, how we have aged. 

We had a "team bonding" dinner the other day. I had my first try at "molecular gastronomy". Amazing how science is now affecting not only the arts and sports, but also what we eat. I was particularly amused by the air cakes that melt in your fingers if you take too long to deliver them to your mouth.

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We also talked about the three different types of people: the brains (mu-ree-hyung), the hearts (ga-seum-hyung) and the guts (jang-hyung). Most people said I looked like a mu-ree-hyung, with hints of jang-hyung. We are probably a mix of all of these and also act differently depending on the setting (at home vs. at work) and depending on the kind of people we're with (friends vs. lover). After all, everything is relative. Which type are you?

You can take the Enneagram test here: http://www.anylover.com/
Based on this test, 5,6,7 are the brains, 2,3,4 are the hearts and 8,9,1 are the guts.

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