Sunday 21 April 2019

Absolute Boyfriend

So I’ve just found out that SBS is releasing a Korean remake of Zettai Kareshi, and I am very confused. I am simultaneously excited and heartbroken.

The Japanese version was one of the first dramas that I really loved, and certainly the first to have a lasting impact on me. Even just looking it up on Instagram threw up an absolutely devastating screen cap and I wasn’t prepared for. My heart dropped and my eyes started to prick with tears. This blog tells me that the manga had a similar effect. I had forgotten how sad it was - or maybe I’d blocked it from my memory. Poor Night ...

However, it was also 8 years ago, and  Zettai Kareshi was only the second drama that I watched. I have watched 100-odd other dramas since then. Yes it made me cry, but I never even considered it for a spot in my top 5 Asian dramas. I never considered any Japanese drama to be honest, and that’s probably because, with the exception of Buzzer Beat, the barbie kisses were just too lame.

I’m definitely going to check out the new Korean version though. I just hope they do it justice.

In other news, while trying to find if I wrote about the original Japanese version in this blog, or whether it predates my reviews (it does), I found a post called How To Find Love (According to Asian Drama), which I think totally deserves a part two. The 2012 version basically requires you to be an antisocial and scary cross-dressing high schooler. Cool. That’ll be why I’m still single then.

Thursday 11 April 2019

BOA Day 11

I am B A D at blogging every day in April.

Therefore, I hereby rename BEDA BOA, Blog Occasionally in April, which amuses me because of the korean singer, and we all know how SM biased I am.

I was just about to go to sleep, but suddenly remembered that I hadn’t posted for like a whole week, so thought I should probably put something up. Here follows a load of random things that I have been thinking about.

I want to rewatch Healer. Having recently rewatched DOTS, I feel a little inspired to rewatch all my other old favourites. Top of the list are definitely Healer and W Two Worlds, but also Secret Garden and Chicago Typewriter. I think this is mostly because I am so not bothered about Mr Sunshine. I’ll finish it, but it is just not inspiring me to power through.

Despite my earlier claim of being so SM biased, I have been playing Mino’s Fiancé A LOT lately. I wasn’t bothered by it at all the first time I heard it, but somehow, months later I heard it again and now it’s got to the point that I’ll just listen to it on repeat. I don’t even know how, I’ve never really paid any attention to Winner before, let alone their solo acts.



I kind of feel like this post has a korean favourites feel that I should continue with. I’ve covered music, and drama, so I guess now it’s beauty?

I don’t really have a Korean Beauty favourite at the moment, but my current YesStyle order is at like £150 and I honestly feel like I need all of it. I’ve been using the Banila Co Clean it Zero, and while it is FINE, I much prefer the Heimish All Clean Balm, purely for the scent. The Clean it Zero smells so sweet, and while it’s not unpleasant, I like the slightly medicinal freshness of the All Clean Balm. The rest of my skincare is much the same, and my make up is ok, but I’ve yet to find anything that I really love enough to talk about. I’ve got some Pony Effect in my current YesStyle order, which I have very high hopes for.

Finally, korean language. I’m still sticking with my 1 hour a day, and feeling pretty proud of myself. I’m about a quarter of my way through level 2 of TTMIK. I wish I had a language partner but I’m scared and have nowhere near enough knowledge to even try attempting a conversation. It’s ok, I have a year to practice!

That’s enough now, I’m going to watch the video I embedded above and then go to bed myself.

Friday 5 April 2019

BEDA Day 5

What do you mean, where’s BEDA days 3 and 4?

It’s not exactly surprising, although I was hoping to remember for a little longer than just two days. I’m doing well on my other resolutions though, apart from the cleaning schedule, where I’ve just kept to my old routine rather than implementing the new one.

There’s another new thing I decided to implement this month that I didn’t mention before, and that’s playing the lottery. I decided that I really want to win it, and while I recognise the likelihood of winning is slim, the chances are much higher than if you don’t play it at all. So I’m playing just one line on Saturdays and Wednesdays for the month, with a lucky dip set of numbers. My team at work have been talking about a syndicate too, so maybe that will start up after easter as well.  I might try to talk them into going for the euromillions, as it would be more to share. A couple of million between like 8 people wouldn’t really feel like hitting the jackpot as much as a share of £50 million would.

It’s 2 minutes until tomorrow, I should probably post this.

Tuesday 2 April 2019

BEDA Day 2

I finished Level 1 of Talk To Me In Korean today. This is very exciting to me, especially when I could follow the dialogue in the review sample that was in 100% korean. Sure, there were certain words I didn’t know, and I couldn’t have said most of it myself, but I could understand it, and that is definitely progress.

Learning a new language is hard, especially when you are trying to self teach. I skipped around a lot of different methods, and I honestly don’t think any of them are really particularly great.

App wise, I preferred Memrise over LingoDeer, but both only really focus on memorising vocabulary or phrases. Memrise was great for helping me to get to grips with Hangul, but from that point on, especially into level 2, there was a lot of guess work. It also mixed up the honorifics quite a lot, which is confusing to a new learner. I did like how much it made you review though, as I think that really helps you to remember information. If I opened Memrise now, I’m sure that it’s been long enough that I would have to review absolutely everything. LingoDeer I found I flew through, but when it came to testing that knowledge, I had retained very little and struggled to move on. I have heard that it’s no longer free so I doubt I will be returning to LingoDeer any time soon.

In terms of books, I have the whole collection of Go! Billy -  Korean Made Simple, which I will work through. I’m about half way through the first book, but have taken a little break to try and work on what I have already learned rather than starting anything new. This book was perfect for helping me to learn to write Hangul, especially the importance of the stroke order, and I found it worked well in conjunction with Memrise for the pronunciation. He also has a YouTube channel, which is helpful too. Billy focuses more on the 니다 form and explains his choice, as it is better to be too formal than not enough, which does make sense.

More recently, I’ve been going down the TTMIK route, and while I really want all of the books, they have plenty of information online for free. Level 1 consisted of some 25 lessons, each taking around 20 mins to half an hour long to complete. There is a podcast and PDF for each lesson, and each lesson is easy to follow and understand. They also have a very popular YouTube channel, although there is nothing very obvious to match up with the lessons. So far, TTMIK has used 요, but I don’t think they have really touched on the differences in honorific forms, but I do think that learning with TTMIK is much slower and more simple.

I don’t quite know how this has happened, but apparently this post is a review of how to learn korean. Obviously my favourite way is by watching korean drama. I like to think of it as listening practice. Viki has a learn mode, maybe I need to try that out next!

Monday 1 April 2019

BEDA 2019

Today is the First of the Month. It is also a Monday. It is the perfect day to start new habits, as everyone knows that you can only start new things on a Monday or the First of the Month, and when the First of the Month is a Monday, you will have a 100% success rate. Therefore, naturally, I’m starting a load of new habits today.

The first is that I am going to try and do 30 minutes of exercise every day. Hang on, screw that, I AM going to do 30 minutes of exercise each day. Luckily my workplace has a mini gym now so I figure I can just sneak in and use that for the most part, or else go for a walk or whatever, and the fact that it’s only half an hour won’t put me off too much. I had a shitty end of the day today, and then I did 10km on the bike with Kpop blasting and then I wasn’t so pissed off anymore. Success!

Secondly, I want to do 1 hour of Korean study a day. I don’t think I am very good at self motivation when it comes to my language learning, and have looked into courses, but the only place that seems to do it is Leicester Uni, and not only are they far away, but it’s also a little expensive. So back to TTMIK and Go! Billy it is. I did two lessons over an hour and a bit today, so so far so good.

Lastly, I want to get back into blogging. I thought really hard about whether I wanted to commit to BEDA again, but thought, why the hell not, it’s not like anyone expects me to succeed anyway. I don’t know what I’ll post about, as my life is very boring and I haven’t even posted reviews on the last three dramas I have watched (My Secret Hero, My ID is Gangnam Beauty, rewatched Decendants of the Sun and currently am watching Mr Sunshine) but we shall see. I suspect this one is the one I’m mostly likely to fail, as already I’m leaving it until the last minute when I’m in bed and sleepy.

I have a few other little day to day aims, like being 90-95% vegan, not spending unnecessary money, following my cleaning rota and trying to be a better person, but these are just your bog standard ones, not important enough to warrant the magic of the First of the Month being a Monday.

See you tomorrow, hopefully.