Tonight, the park is full of people. Concerned volunteers, police searchers, and worried family members convened together, all with the same purpose.
A child has gone missing.
A brown-haired little girl, wearing a blue checkered dress and a cheap bracelet with heart-shaped charms.
It has been twelve hours.
The police have little hope for her survival.
The volunteers are serving soup to the weary searchers who have been looking for her nonstop since she was first reported missing. There is a big campfire in the park, courtesy of a kind stranger. The searchers sit around the fire, savouring the warmth of the blaze and the soup. They talk in hushed tones, of how distraught the mother of the missing child seems. They talk of how lax parents these days could be, and the married ones pondered about how they would feel if their own children were to go missing. They quickly finish their soup, eager to continue their search, the weariness in their bones slightly alleviated by the warmth, their bellies filled.
And as they prepared to search the night, no one noticed the charred hand with the bracelet with the heart-shaped charms around its wrist, deep at the heart of the fire.
She’s gone. You took your eyes off her for one second, the harsh trill of a bird in a far off tree startling you, your attention wandering for the briefest of moments and she’s disappeared from your sight. She had always been so tiny, so frail, so easily missed and unseen, and you swore that you would never leave her behind. You swore that you would be by her side for as long as you could, swore that this child was yours to protect and cherish. You swore that you would be her guardian, but now she’s gone and you can’t find her anywhere.
Your voice has turned hoarse from screaming. Police stations turn you away when you come, begging them to look for your little girl. The world, initially so taken by your plight, starts to slowly forget, the cogs of life oiled by apathy and disinterest. Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to months, months turn to years, and still you seek her missing form.
But you still see her sometimes. You see her in those hazy hours between sleeping and waking, that line bordering oblivion. You don’t sleep all that much nowadays, because the less you sleep the clearer her image becomes. You can almost touch her now, her braided pigtails bouncing as she runs, her checkered dress fluttering in the wind, the little bracelet on her wrist glittering in the light of the sun. You can hear her laughter, high and merry as she beckons you to play with her, and you laugh along. You laugh because she’s alright and safe and right in front of your eyes and you reach out to take her outstretched hand, but suddenly you hear a bird shriek in a nearby tree and then–
I’ve been rambling a lot these past few days about the new album BTS is coming out with next month, but I haven’t actually explained anything about it. The new album is an extension to their last release WINGS, titled You Never Walk Alone. There’ll probably a few new songs, maybe one or two remixes if we’re lucky, but mostly nobody has any fucking clue what the new album’s going to entail – so far there’s been no concept photos, no teasers, no nothing. Just a general information post about the album.
Stylistically it’s a huge departure from WINGS:
The pastel colours and rustic imagery is more Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa than WINGS, almost reminiscent even of HYYH‘s prologue with the sea motifs. While WINGS focused more on the darker themes of temptation and introspection, influenced heavily by Hermann Hesse’s Demian, You Never Walk Alone has been speculated to (maybe) touch upon the themes of loss and support. Much of the speculation comes from the news that BTS and their company BigHit Entertainment had donated a total of ￦100 million to the families of the victims of the 2014 Sewol ferry accident.
Knowing how the South Korean government under Park Geun-hye deals with the aftermath of the Sewol ferry accident (read: callously unsympathetic and tries to sweep the whole issue under the carpet), it makes one respect BTS even more considering how some celebrities have been blacklisted for showing support for the victims’ families. This was also the source of the aforementioned speculation – some have wondered if the album might not be an unofficial tribute of some sort, or a message of support for the victims’ families. The sea motifs certainly do nothing do offset that idea.
Having said that, there are still no concept photos or teasers for You Never Walk Alone. There’s a leaked concept photo making the rounds, apparently, but I’m not going to disgrace this blog with that. Literally no one has any ideas about what’ll be on this album, but fan response has been so overwhelming music sites crashed the moment they opened for pre-orders. Multiple music sites, both Korean and international. It’s nothing short of amazing, honestly.
I ordered both versions of the album.
My bank account is definitely weeping, so that’s a bad decision on my part. Do I need both versions of the same album? Probably not, but the temptation (ha!) of two different sets of photobooks and posters is too much for me to refuse. I’m hoping I can get the first press albums because the posters are first-press limited editions, but with how crazy the fan response has been… Hopefully BigHit’s learned their lesson and are putting out bigger numbers for the first press.
The album itself will be released online on the 13th of February, with the offline release the next day. I’ll be reviewing the album once it’s released online and then the actual albums once I’ve received them, and also any tracks/MVs they release before that. It seems a lot of my favourite groups are making a comeback next month and I’m really looking forward to it. There’ll be lots of stuff for me to talk about and review, so it’s definitely a good thing for the blog!
Another good decision to come out from this whole thing is I’ve finally decided to buck up and start taking commissions for proofreading and translating theses. I’ve been meaning to do it since last semester but I never got round to making the advertisement posters for it, so before the next semester starts, I’ll get the ads printed out and I’ll put them up across campus. I’m going to be using a lot of money to pay for new textbooks and the albums and shipping costs for merch and all sorts of stuff, so I really need to get those commissions. Here’s hoping I’ll actually get customers.
My group order manager’s finally shipping out my photobook next Tuesday, but I won’t be able to retrive it until I come back to university on the weekend after the 10th of February. I’m excited to go back – especially to finally get my hands on that damn photobook – but I’m sort of dreading it a little. A month’s holiday saps out a lot of your enthusiasm for school, no matter how enthusiastic you were for it in the first place, and I am super enthusiastic about school, let me tell you.
Ah well. Time will pass and things will come as they do. I just have to go along with the flow. Definitely excited about that photobook, and another fanmerch I’d ordered last year is arriving in the country at the end of February, so with that and the albums I’m most probably going to preorder (my bank account is weeping as I type this) I’ll be receiving a lot of packages this semester. Honestly looking forward to that.
Right now I’m having a late night snack of KFC because I woke up starving. Good job, me. Everyone’s watching football, there’s shitty fastfood to be had, and it feels good for now. Things are alright, and for now I’m good. Tomorrow will be a different matter – I’ll be irritated just remembering that I haven’t gone anywhere during these holidays and lowkey jealous of a friend of mine who’s travelling round Europe right now (but I asked her to get me something from Primark in London and she said she will, so that’s something to look forward to!), and I’ll be worried about all my bad financial decisions and my grades and lack of enthusiasm in living life, but for now – for now, it’s good.
I’m heading out to my old high school – which also happens to be where I did my foundations – on the 10th of February, to give some sort of presentation to prospecting students from one of the premiere girls’ school in Malaysia. My general dislike of premiere single-sex schools aside, I’m primarily aiming to meet some of my old friends and possibly get a free lunch or something out of the deal. Seeing as my classes start on the 13th of February, I figured I might as well head back to the dorms early to clean up and stuff. No point going back and forth between the university and my house, right?
Having said that, it makes me realise I’ve got about two weeks left of my holidays. I like being busy with classes and assignments, but whenever there’s a holiday I always feel extremely reluctant to leave home and go back to school. This is coming from someone who actually likes school, even! Thinking about it, I decided to make full use of what time I have left by tackling the most important thing that’s plagued me throughout last semester – watching stuff without the judging eyes of my roommate.
Don’t laugh, it’s a big deal to me. I always feel so awkward when my roommate’s in the room and I’m watching the 2015 Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa on Stage DVD. I’m very vocal in my reactions – I tend to scream whenever the vocal line is singing because goddamn they sound so beautiful I’m tearing up – and doing it with company around is embarrassing, to say the least, so I’m rewatching every BTS video I have while I can. Right now I’m taking a break from BTS (because there’s only so much my heart can take) and rewatching Acchi Kocchi – hands down the best slice-of-life anime to exist ever – and I’m barely past the first episode but I’ve already split my sides laughing.
Acchi Kocchi is a pretty sentimental anime for me. I’m very old-fashioned so the stupid gags in this anime get me every single damn time, but apart from that Acchi Kocchi helped a lot when I was out of my mind with depression. It cheered me up a lot during those dark times, so I’m constantly glad it exists. It’s my go-to cheer up material, honestly.
What’s not to love about Acchi Kocchi? The main cast are cute and even the side characters have personality. It’s slice-of-life, so there’re no drama or tragic backstories – just a bunch of idiots who are friends going through life and love. No angst, no tragedy, just unadulterated comedy and fluff.
I love it.
Still debating whether or not I should get the new BTS album that’s coming out next month hmmm
My regular group order manager is taking orders for the new BTS album that’s coming out next month. The deadline for the pre-orders is the end of this month so hopefully they’ll release some concept photos so I can make up my goddamn mind. The good news is if I order two albums I’m guaranteed to get both versions, hopefully including the first press posters as well.
BTS is releasing an extended version of their WINGS album in February and I am sorely tempted to pre-order it. I have to constantly remind myself that I am a broke college student with no money to spare pre-ordering two albums just so I can have both posters – and that’s not even considering the fact that I might not even get the two different versions in the first place, considering it’s so random! Plus, there hasn’t been any concept photos or teasers out, so I don’t know if they’ll be worth getting or not.
I really want one though. I really, really want one. I already know I’ll most likely love the album in general, but I just really want the first-press limited edition poster to put up in my room. I’m hoping the concept will be something nicer than what they did with WINGS – the album photobook is hinting at a pastel/rustic concept, so I guess we’ll see. The photobook already seems like it’ll be of a better quality than WINGS, so I’m somewhat looking forward to finding out.
I hope they release concept photos so we’ll have an idea of what we’re gonna get.
I guess I’ll start picking up those translating and proofreading jobs next semester.
There might be a bit of a problem. My laptop, as you all know, is a much beloved machine that’s been with me for more than four years now. It’s also broken at the hinges, the wireless driver can’t detect any wifi signal other than my phone, and it can’t run admin processes. It freezes for an indeterminable amount of time before crashing and closing every Windows Explorer window open. This also means I can’t refresh or reset the laptop to factory settings the normal way, and Safe Mode doesn’t work. In other words, my laptop is well and truly fucked.
Normally it’s not a problem, because other than the wifi issue – which is rectified by using my phone as a hotspot – my laptop gets the job done. I can still use the browser, I can still watch videos and play video games, I can use Microsoft Office. It only really becomes a problem when I run out of data on my phone, which then means I can’t do anything productive like write really long posts or do research or anything of the sort.
No prizes for guessing what the problem is today.
My data quota will be replenished next month, which means it’ll be a week without internet for me. I can’t conceivably type up posts on my phone all the time because my phone is also a finicky piece of equipment, so I’ll figure out a way to queue up some posts for the remainder of my data-free month. Regular daily posting – regular as in me panicking at 10pm about what to write for the day – will resume around the 30th of January, or when I have data on my phone again. Whichever comes first.
Jessi, my babe, my best girl, has finally made her comeback! I’ve loved her ever since I heard her sing – like legit sing and not rapping – and I’ve been looking forward to a comeback for ages. She’s probably right up there with John Park in terms of Favourite Solo Artist, I figure – I’ve always had a thing for jazz singers, apparently. Heh.
She featured in Dumbfoundead’s KBB a while back and IATFB from AsianJunkie has covered that, so I won’t. This time it’s all about Don’t Make Me Cry.
Jessi, no matter how much she plays that gangsta lady persona, is more suited to jazz lounges than the streets. Thankfully Don’t Make Me Cry plays to her strengths, with its slow-tempo beats that match her soulful singing. The second chorus onwards is replete with guitar riffs reminscent of The Spine fromthe soundtrack for the game Transistor, further emphasizing the ‘jazz singer’ parallel. Jessi is no broken-hearted lady wandering the city seeking vengeance for her lover’s death, but Don’t Make Me Cry is a story of a woman who won’t let herself be hurt again, no matter how much it hurt to turn her back on the memories they once had and cherished, and it’s no less important than Red’s story.
It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, this slow jazz-lounge style, but it’s definitely mine – as you can probably tell – and Jessi’s voice is definitely not wasted here. The song is nicely paced, the instrumentals are simple but effective, and overall it’s an A+ offering from Jessi.
The MV, however, I have a few irks with.
First of all, who the hell orders red wine at a bar? A bar. Not a wine bar because we ain’t classy enough for that, just a regular old pub that probably does live shows every Saturday night – and our douchebag orders wine. It’s weird and I’m not buying it.
Second, our douchebag, well… no offense to his face, but his entire being screams douchebag. Like if I were a bouncer at that pub and I see him flirting with Jessi, I’d be warning her to stay the fuck away from him because that boy is Grade-A fuckboy material. Girl, you’re just asking to be hurt.
Other than that, it’s a clear-cut story – our douchebag meets Jessi at the pub she bartends at, they date and fall in love, he does her wrong, they break up in a symbolic gesture of smashed wine glasses, he comes to the pub weeks later to woo her back, Jessi says no, and he walks out of her life forever. But wait! In the final scene, he sets down the wineglass gently on the bar – a peaceful end to their relationship, one where hopefully they can both move on from. Yay for symbolism! It’s nothing special, but I get to see and hear Jessi’s fantastic voice again so I can sit through her (bad) acting and obvious wineglass symbolisms.
It’s a welcome return for Jessi, and here’s hoping 2017 will be a wonderful year for her musical endeavours.
Still not over the guitar riffs in this song, honestly.
Bergamot And Vanilla 