I’ve been thinking a lot about reorganizing and simplifying all aspects of my life, so my summer project is to do a rehaul of all the things I own. It really just comes down to: be a smarter shopper and buy less, but buy better.
With my library, I just simply do not have space to keep buying books. So I remedied that with a Kindle. As a reader though, I find the most interesting reading material while I’m browsing at a bookstore, and not at the Kindle store online, so I’m in a bit of a tough spot. It’s hard to let go of buying books; they exist for a reason. What I’m trying to do is to take down the titles of all the books I want to read and buy them at a later time for my Kindle. Books I have to scribble all over (social science and history books), I buy in hard format. Novels and anthologies, I buy for the Kindle.
I’m taking a super long time to come up with a game plan for simplifying my warddrobe because I’m simultaneously trying to buy high-quality pieces and wrestle with the fact that I’ve been a horrible shopper all these years. I obviously do not have an unlimited budget to buy tons of high-quality pieces all at once, so I’m doing it slowly. Now, couple this with a serious lack of clothes and I’ve got a problem. I am honestly not one of those people with ginormous closets who say “OMG I have no clothes to wear!” Because I’ve been such a bad shopper, all the clothes I’ve gotten in the past have either been in-the-moment purchases or purchases that don’t last/don’t fit well after a couple of washes. So they have all been donated to charity and now I am left with very little weather-appropriate clothing. Ditto for shoes.
My goal is to slowly curate all seasons-appropriate clothing and shoes that will last me a long time, and create a basic warddrobe that I won’t get sick of, and that can be wildly versatile.
The weather is consistently warm, sunny, and gorgeous. I’m lounging around every day basking in it. I’m cleaning, organizing, reading, and enjoying my free time before the eminent job search (and therefore, stress). I’m also spending a lot of mental energy on this blog, energy that is not very visible since most of it is just plotting and deciding.
To be honest, for the last few months, this blog has been suffering through existential crisis. Existential crisis in a blog? I know, how pretentious, right? (What shall we name it? Blogxistential crisis?)
I like to post this clip on whatever platform I can just because it’s the Queen, y’all.
I’m always really in awe of the dancers in Kpop who have a wealth of stage experience and just have it in their bodies to be that good. And ironically–or not–they’re usually not the best singers. I’m talking about the idols in Kpop who are naturally gifted with movement, those who are dancers not because it’s been forced into them through training. (Hyoyeon and Hangeng come to mind.) But in the Kpop biz, things are so confined. Why does someone like Gahee who’s so good at dancing have to sing in order to “make it” into an idol group, aka have a shot of being nationally recognized? And then conversely, why do singers like Brian or Hwanhee have to add a dance number into their songs just so that they’re not a “traditional” ballad singer, who are pretty much economically irrelevant in the business?
It’s almost like there is no place for people who are just “dancers.” They don’t get to be “famous” in the way famous rolls in Korea, with the variety shows and the shiny CF offers. And while there is a bigger market for people who are just skilled singers, compared to the wealth that idol groups get to cash in for their companies, how much do people like Park Hyo Shin or post-G.O.D. Kim Tae Woo earn?? Take Baek Ji Young. I think she’s had a fairly decent ballad-singing career, but she got a huuuuge spike in popularity (and sales) over the summer because of her collaboration with Taecyeon — not only because he’s a bankable idol, but because the dance element made the song relevant to the mainstream.
My point is that it sucks to want to be a star in Kpop. You train to sing and dance and then you debut, and inevitably there are people who slam you for not having enough skill. But why do you have to possess that skill anyway? Why isn’t there a market to sell the thing that you are good at?
The more I work and the more I come in contact with “the real world,” the more I stress myself out. I keep imposing impossible deadlines on myself that shouldn’t exist at all. Nobody is expecting these things of me and I have to allow myself a learning curve. It’s not like those I admire didn’t go through a similar learning curve before they got to be where they are today. Stop making things impossible for yourself.
Another completely unrelated thing is that I take very little pictures of myself. And very little pictures get taken of me. I just don’t hang around a lot of photo people, what can I say? I take a ton of pictures of everyone else but that’s what I am, the person behind the camera and that’s where I’m most comfortable. Some people are meant to be in front of the camera. Whether they shine in front of it, or they just happen to have friends who like to photograph them, they’re just meant to constantly be in front of the camera even if it’s not their desire to be. Funny how things work out.
