Thursday, June 30, 2011

Thundering Ends

Good afternoon my dear readers!! Once again I fail at updating at a more regular pace, but at least I've been making the "at least two posts a month" goal...lately! Well, as I sit here writing this, listening to the sound of thunder (and Super Junior XD), with the smell of rain wafting in, I feel really good! I love the smell of rain and when it's gray and cloudy outside!! But anyways, I have quite a bit to update on since my last post, so I'll get started!


First off, I'll do a small fangirl thing. I know it's usually at the end, but this is something recent and more urgent (in my mind). One of my favorite Arashi members Aiba Masaki has been hospitalized due to a spontaneous pneumothorax. T_T It has happened before, right after I became an Arashian. It's scary, but there has been reports that everything is okay and he's going to rest at the hospital for a week to recover! My cute little energetic Aiba-chan, get better soon and really let your body recuperate this week!! がんばれ~~!We'll be waiting for the album release on the 6th, as well as your release from the hospital! My thoughts and wishes are with you!


Okay, so I wanted to touch basis a little bit about the last post. I had posted about doing a giveaway and posted a  poll. So, the results are in! Since there was only one vote on the poll and no comments about it, I'm just going to put it on hold for now! I have a few ideas and things to save for giveaways! I'll probably do it in a while. It might have to wait until I have more readers (that I know of)! So, keep your eyes open for when I start doing giveaways!! As for other things I mentioned in my last post, my new place! I'm really enjoying it here. The cats are adorable, the roommies awesome (I finally met my last roommie), and I love being so close to campus. One of my roommates and I have been watching a lot of movies lately, but a little over a week ago we found something amazing on Netflix instant play! The original series of Power Rangers!! Yes, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers!! I'm talking five members and before they brought in Tommy the green and later white ranger. We watched the first few episodes that night and it's so good. Especially for an early 90's show!! I'm going to try to find it on DVD or something! I would love having the show that pretty much was my life growing up! If any of you have Netflix and enjoyed the Power Rangers, definitely check it out!


Well, speaking of TV Shows, I'll do a little rant about those. First off, NBC's The Voice. I really enjoyed The Voice (it's over now). Beverly was my favorite, but I really enjoyed most of the contestants they had. I look forward to season 2!! Also, I just found out they are doing a concert tour (what TV show isn't now a days), so I might see if they're coming to Denver or somewhere close!! It might be too expensive, but I would love to attend it! As for other TV Shows, my friend Derek has gotten me back into Fox's So You Think You Can Dance! HOLY MOLEY!! I haven't watched it since they moved into the new stage (a few seasons ago), but this season is amazing!! There have been some absolutely amazing routines, and it's only been the first couple of weeks. I think Travis' statue routine from the first episode should be nominated for an Emmy, but we'll see what else he pulls out this season! Another thing, I enjoy all of the dancers this year. Usually there's a couple underdogs, but this year it's really hard to spot them. Nigel always talks about raising the bar (at least he used too), and this year I think they really did that! The B-boys are even great and picking up the other styles quicker than B-boys in the past!




My last TV Show to rant about, and recently became addicted to thanks to Netflix and too much time on my hands, is Glee. I wasn't really too interested in it before even though I love some of the Actors from it, but I gave in. I also didn't really want to watch it because soooo many people watch it and it's become somewhat mainstream, but the lack of Harry Shum Jr. in my life became too much! Excuse my fangirlisms, but Harry Shum Jr. is such an amazing dancer. I was little disappointed with the lack of Mike in the first season (Harry Shum's character), but he's already more apparent in the second season and I've only seen the first three episodes! But anyways, I'm enjoying the show a lot more than I thought I would. I have to say though, that I loved the Britney Spears episode. It made me want to do a Britney medley/marathon at karaoke really, really bad. Actually, I still want to do one. Yeah, but honestly, watching Glee just makes me more excited to see BoA's movie Cobu 3D even more!! I can't wait until it comes out! Anyways here's a video interview of Harry Shum Jr.!!



Okay, so there was this hug paragraph here explaining about me finally reading the last Harry Potter book. I don't know what happened to it, but it's gone. Anyway, the gist of it was I've been reading a lot and one of the books I read was the last Harry Potter book. Also, I'm excited for Part 2. Gomen ne~~! XD


Now onto my favorite part of my blog updates, Skip Beat! So the latest chapter was released on the 20th, and it was soooooo good (as always)!! I hated having to wait so long, but it was worth it. Actually, it always is! XD Anyway, this chapter we started to get into the meaty part of the Cain Heel arc (what I'm calling this arc)! The chapter started off with Murasame-san approaching Kyoko and pretty much hitting on her. He found out that Ren and Kyoko were portraying siblings. But, Ren appeared and threatened him. Not only did he threaten him, but he did it in Japanese! So the cat's out of the bag that he can speak Japanese, but it was also revealed that it wasn't part of the original plan. We also had a flashback section that was the meeting of Ren and Kyoko with the director. We find out that the director actually does know it's Ren, but is doing this for publicity I guess. At the end of flashback, we see the director looking forward to their performances, especially Kyoko's! Next we see Ren and Kyoko talking to each other. Kyoko is confused about Ren speaking Japanese to others and is trying to comprehend why Ren did that. Ren also yells at Kyoko about speaking too politely. He mentions that she sounds like a receptionist at a five star hotel speaking to guests. Of course when he asks her about it, she freaks out. Of course she's not going to reveal to Ren that she learned it working at Sho's parents ryokan. Then Murasame-san interrupts them and confronts Ren. He yells at him for not speaking Japanese freely and presents the challenge of forcing Ren to conform. The chapter ends with riveting panels of Murasame-san and Ren glaring at each other and the start of the confrontation and issue between these two!! The next chapter gets released on the fifth (of July), so expect an update around then with more rantings about Skip Beat! As a small side note, both Donghae and Siwon have mentioned that they have finished filming, so I'm really hoping that the drama will start airing with the Fall season!! *fingers crossed*

Murasame-san's reaction to Ren threatening him in Japanese!

Okay, so the last bit of this post is going to be fangirlisms, and more specifically ELF fangirlisms!! First off, I finally got my 美人 (BONAMANA) CD and CD/DVD!! Yay!! *Side note, because I ordered them from YesAsia and it came from Japan I got a free capsule toy. I picked the One Piece phone charms, and ended up getting Colby!! Yay!!* I watched the DVD and opened them right away! I was lucky enough to make it in time to order the first press editions of both, so I not only got the photocards that came in each, but the mini poster that came in the CD version! I ended up getting Shindong's and Eunhyuk's photocards!! I know have two Shindong photocards! Bonamana Version A and the Bijin edition! I was also excited to get Eunhyuk's since he is one of my biases. I might trade Shindong's if I can get a Leeteuk card, but I'm not really worried about it. I'm think I'm just going to leave it up to fate. It would be nice to trade, but I think I'm just going to stick with what I have! I love all the boys, so I'm just happy that I was able to get a photocard in the first place!! What also came in the order, was the Chinese movie "A Battle of Wits." Not only does it star my favorite Chinese actor Andy Lau, but Choi Siwon as well!! I haven't seen it in a little while, so once I finish my current Netflix discs, I pop that one in!


In other exciting fangirl news, I have preordered the SS3 Photobook!! It gets released in Korea tomorrow, but I've seen some tweets and reports that some people in Korea already have theirs. But anywho, I should be getting it in like a week in the mail! I can't wait to check it out! Also in photobook related news, the people who I ordered my parkjungsu.com photobook through, has also received the Spotlight Leeteuk photobook! Now I just have to wait for them to receive the Daily Vita photobook and then they'll ship all three plus some other things I've ordered to me! I can't wait. They're estimating that they'll receive the Daily Vita books mid-July, so I've got a little bit of time to wait before they come! But, to tide you other fangirls over, I'll post the twitter pics of the photobooks and goodies as well as the ad for the SS3 photobook!! XD


Okay, so Heechul is apart of a new project called M&D with Trax's handsome and talented guitarist Jungmo! They have released a Music Video and the English title is Close Ur Mouth. I'll post the one with English translation for you all to view!! I really like it, plus it's more rocky which I love, especially when it comes to Heechul! I love the video too, especially all the Chocoball appearances. Also, Hongki's face is absolutely hilarious in the first encounter with Heechul, Jonghyun and him in the video! Keep an eye out for it!! XD Check it out!




Last but not least, I'd like to leave a belated Happy Birthday Shoutout to our little Powerhouse Ryeowook! His birthday was on the 21st, but I totally forgot to post something on here. T_T But, to make up for it (a little bit), this week's customary gif will be the cute little Wookie!!


Ja Ne~~~
Stasi

Saturday, June 11, 2011

UWAH! So Many Rants!

Once again, I come to you all later than planned. I'm sorry, I don't know why this keeps happening. I was busy at first, but then time just got away from me. ごめんね~~!But anyways, first things first, my blog has reached over 1000 views!! I'm a little surprised it actually got that high, but thank you to everyone reading my blogs and other random dallies!! But, to celebrate, I was thinking of maybe doing a giveaway or present or something. I'll set up a poll in the sidebar, so please vote on if you want the chance to do a giveaway! If the votes turn up well, I'll post the giveaway at the end of this month or in early July. So, vote away!! If you have any suggestions, just leave a comment below!!


I'll start with where the last blog ended, and that would be my little sister's graduation. I think it was shorter than my graduation, and we only had 99 people versus her 424. O_O It was kind of nice how quick it was. At the same time, it was a little odd and unorganized. But, the main point is that my sister is now a High School Graduate!! I'm so happy for her!! The next day we had a graduation party up at my Dad's house. It was really nice! My Favorite Grandpa (my nickname for my Grandfather) and his girlfriend, both my step-brothers and one of their girlfriends, and myself came up for it! We didn't too much, but it was really nice to just relax and hang with family! We did play like a 5 hour game of Apples to Apples. That game is really fun, but it started to get a little boring once the noun cards started to recycle. That was also the first time I lost at that game. I ended up in last place by at least 5 cards, and Shawn's girlfriend was first with 20 or something like that. I had 6. Yeah, I guess I just wasn't good at reading people. Well, that and I kind of had some horrible cards most of the game. Three of them I got in my original hand and ended up not using them until the very end they were so odd. ~_~

My sister & I before the ceremony!

Now onto June! Well, June 1st was such an amazing day for me. It was probably the best day I've had this year. On June 1st I signed the lease and moved into my new apartment, picked up 13 hours at work, and just had a wonderful day overall. It was over a week ago so I can't remember everything that was going well, but it was just one of those days (in a good way)! Which leads me into my next update, I moved into a new place! I have to say, I love living there! The roommates are awesome (I haven't met one yet), there are two very cute cats, and it takes me less than ten minutes to walk anywhere on campus! It's so nice. Don't get me wrong, living alone and having my own bedroom and apartment was really nice, but I really like where I'm living now. The past few days my roommate Katie and I will start talking, and then next thing we know it's hours later! It's kind of how the talks I had with Naruto and Yeon Joo in Japan were! The sad part is the other roommate I met (Kayla) left yesterday for Basic Training. She's in the Army ROTC, so I won't get to hang out with her again until late August. :( Anyways, I have everything set up in my room, and did so just a few days after I moved in. I'm talking all my wall things and little decoration things and everything! They were a little surprised how fast it took me to unpack all my crap and settle in. I guess that's just what I do. I was thinking about it, and I had everything set up and settled pretty quick when I was in Japan. I guess I'm just a quick nestle and can be adaptable easily. XD

 The walls of my new room! XD

So last Tuesday was my 22nd Birthday! It was a rather uneventful day. I worked then came home and had leftovers and watched some dramas. My family is going to have a BBQ or get together sometime to celebrate it (maybe) in a couple weeks. We'll see. I did get a lot of birthday wishes and I would like to thank everyone again for you thoughts! There was only one thing disappointing that day. Nobody sang me the Birthday Song. I realized it as I was going to bed, and it was sad. Usually my Favorite Grandpa calls and sings it to me, but this year he texted me. It's weird. I actually convinced myself it was supposed to be. Last year I was in Japan for my birthday, so when everyone sang, I had never had that many people at one time sing to me. It was such a fun and touching experience for me. So, since I had so many people sing to me last year, it's only right that this year there was nobody. Oh...I just realized this is kind of depressing. I guess I'm just making excuses, but I honestly think that because I was able to gain that special memory last year, it's okay that nothing incredible happens this year. Anyway, I think sometime this week I'm going to treat myself to see Pirates of the Caribbean 4 in 3D in like a mini celebration! 


Well, before I get onto my next update, I just wanted to mention to those of you whom didn't know/see the link, I have a tumblrtumblr to look at others), please do. I will warn you though, it's mostly fandom things, centering around Super Junior with a few Arashi and a couple other band posts when it's a funny gif or something. I also post random things that don't have to deal with Asian fandoms! Anyways, there's a link on the right of my blog, or you can just click here!

 
Okay, well now that my tumblr commercial is over (sorry about that to those that don't really care), lets continue on to the new happening in my life: Learning Korean! So instead of waiting until I go there or until I go to a school that offers Korean, I decided to start trying to learn it on my own. I (thankfully) picked up Hangul pretty fast. I can read most of what I see in Korean now, but I have no idea what it means. Yeah, so my rant about learning Korean, is the conjugation. Oh my gosh was my brain turned to liquid when I was reading the conjugation chapter out of my book. It's so confusing (as it was when I first started learning Japanese) and I was sitting in the living room for like five hours reading five pages on conjugation. And that was just the patterns, not all the different endings that you can conjugate with. *sigh* Well, I'll just keep practicing. I noticed yesterday when I was going through the honorifics chapter, that it was slowly starting to sink in. I think though now my main problem will be with knowing enough vocabulary (I have that issue with Japanese still too). Although, I am grateful that there's only one form of Hangul. I would like to eventually be efficient in Kanji, but that is so hard, especially being in an area where it's hard to reinforce everything that I've learned and learn more. *Side note, I feel like I've lost a lot of my Japanese, so maybe when I finish with this textbook I'll start reading through my Japanese texts and notes and try to keep both of them current. I'm also happy that Korean and Japanese have a similar grammar structure, so some of what I've learned isn't as hard as it was when I was learning Japanese. Yeah, but anyways, I'll this rant here. If you have any links to practice sheets or online flashcards or learning aids (for both Korean and Japanese), please send me a message or post a link in the comments below!

The Hangul Alphabet chart!

Okay, well, to continue my thoughts on Korean and Japanese, time to get to the fandom parts of my blog. First off, I'll be starting with Skip Beat!! The newest chapter hasn't been released yet (I still have like 10 days), so that'll be in my next post (if I don't post one between now and then). But, in other Skip Beat! news, the preview trailer for the drama has been released!! I noticed parts of the manga in the preview, but then there were some parts I didn't. The only thing I'm confused about is Siwon and Donghae speaking Korean. I wonder if there's going to be dubs. I kind of hope not though, then we'll lose the sound of their voices and dubs are never quite the same as the actor/ess. We'll see. ~_~ Although, I do have to say that I am growing to like Donghae as Sho. What's nice about this role is that maybe he won't get stuck in getting the same sort of roles over and over (similar to what is unfortunately happening to Siwon). So check out the trailer below! (Hopefully it won't be deleted anytime soon.)



So to continue on with the Super Junior fandom news, I would like to start with what I mentioned in my last blog. Our Angel leader Leeteuk has released a song with JYP's Joo called "Ice Cream." Now, honestly, I downloaded it and watched the MV and all that good stuff because it had Leeteuk and I wanted to support him. Please don't kill me or go all anti on me, but I am not a fan of Joo's voice. I also thought it was odd that they paired them up together. To me, their voices didn't really seem to bled like other duets I've heard. The MV was cute, but (my bias is coming out) I though there was way too much Joo and not enough Leeteuk. But anyways, it's a cute summer song and the feel/mood of the MV is refreshing and adorable. Check it out for yourself!



Continuing on, Bijin (Bonamana), the Japanese edition, was released June 8th in Japan (the day after my birthday)! There's only three tracks on the CD, all Bijin. There's the Japanese version, Korean version, and the Karaoke version. I'm happy there's a Karaoke version so I can "practice" for when I go to Korean or go back to Japan! Other Super Junior happiness is various members mentioning and tweeting about already working on the 5th album!! I can't wait for it!! I left room on my walls for three more posters as well as starting to put aside money specifically for 5 jib!! There's been rumors going around the net saying August is when it'll be released, and I really hope so! I can't wait! This is one of my impatiently ranting about it, but in reality I'm being more patient that usual! I just hope it's Daebak!! And my last piece of Super Junior fangirlisms, is what is currently happening in Paris as I write this! That's right, SM Town Paris! I still wish I could've gone to the one in LA, but it's exciting because SM Ent is doing real time updates on their facebook page and have released some videos on their YouTube!! I'll post Super Junior's "Don't Don" for you all to enjoy, but if you go to SM Ent's YouTube page they also have videos of Shinee, F(x), TVXQ and Girl's Generation. I'm just bummed that Boa and Kangta weren't able to make it to Paris. Hopefully they'll be able to come to LA or the US again so I can try to go! I'd also love for SS4 to come to the US too! Then I'd definitely go! I'd sell organs to go!



Okay, the last thing I have to update is another fandom thing, but this time it's Arashi! Arashi has just released their latest PV!! It's for their new album "Beautiful World" which'll be released July 6th. The PV reminds me a little bit of their earlier days (plus they look like 10 years younger in the colorful set). At the same time, it's very modern and they've kicked up their choreography! It's exciting, but part of me thinks that they are feeling pressure from half of the Korean music industry lining up their debuts into Japan within the year. It's crazy how many Korean bands have announced their debut in Japan. I just hope Arashians around the world help keep Arashi getting #1 on Oricon anytime they release something!! But, anyways, enjoy their new PV "まだ見ぬ世界へ (Mada Minu Sekai e)"!! XD




Well, I think that's it for today. Sorry it was so long and that there were so many videos! I hope you enjoyed it none the less. Don't forget to vote and comments are always appreciated!! As always, I'll leave you with a gif! This week goes to the cute magnae of Super Junior-M Henry!

Such a cutie pie!! ;p

Ja Ne~~
Stasi