obsessions of late

It's  spring, how-de-doo... 

hello wormy

I'm currently trying to make my box of an officetel a home.  What ever is an officetel you ask?    

An officetel is a  high rise with studio offices inside that are used as company offices, used as sleeping places by employees or sought out by people to live in as apartments.  

As an office, it's a great concept! There is somewhere to cook, eat, sleep, but as an apartment it's a bit on the suck side.  Made as quickly as possible and probably breaking all non-existent building codes in Korea, these "apartments" are crappy, fall apart easily and are either super hot or freezing depending on the season it shouldn't be (no heat retention in winter / no air flow in summer). 

But it's better than the all encompassing Korean housing style known as "villa".  A villa is a small walk up building with about 10 apartments inside, the shower comes on a handle beside your toilet.  So you can shit, brush your teeth AND wash your hair at the same time.    So yes, I'm happier living in my (slightly expensive) officetel, and am currently trying to make it a home (as you know if you read the first line of this diatribe!). 

How to make a space a home?  I'm guessing put some shit on the walls and buy some plants.  So this is what i've done and well hells bells, it worked.  I'm feeling so much more "homey" these days that all i've been doing is staying home and baking, maybe i should rethink this homey methodology.  

But I am obsessed (OBSESSED I SAY!) with my little plants.  Especially the tomato seedlings that are growing and that a worm came out of!  I feel like a worm in my plants is super good luck, so if they up and die, I might just jump out my window (but don't worry because i will put on the "safety harness" and attach it to the "hook" that comes with my officetel in case we ever need to jump out the window).   A cat is also a nice addition to make your space a home.  Too bad mine punches me in the face when I'm sleeping. 

Obsession #2 is good ol' Sufjan Stevens (and he better be good because he's a christian and it pains me that i love his music because of christianity) so if he turned out to be a "bad" guy that would kill me just a little bit more) and his new album.  Actually I'm not obsessed with his new album "The Age of Adz",  for some reason I'm semi NOT obsessed with the album.  But I am obsessed with the 25 minute song "Impossible soul" that comes last on the album.  It's like the bonus mini-album, and by gods (that sufjan happens to love) it's the best little mini-album EVER!  Why you ask, well I dunno, I'm not a music critic, i can't really express my feelings about it without using the adjectives - amazing, wonderful, awesome - which you don't really care about.  So musically it just has everything and it makes me tingle, so i love it.  

I am also obsessed with making cute photoshop icons for my hiking group (ninja poop image taken from cute ninja web site btw).  Said hiking group is also an ongoing obsession and every time I climb those mountain stairs I love it more and more.  You should go take a hike, because honestly it's the best feeling ever.  And maybe it will help me get rid of that too homey dont leave the home feeling. 

 

and back i come

what happens that drags me away from the world of blog and narrating in my head, what happens to me that it takes me nearly a full year before I want to actually talk about myself again (my favourite subject no less) in a blog style way, therefore what we should say the personal therapist way. well i have no idea what happened, a million and one things, but nothing really. new hopes i have, new hobbies i enjoy, new legs i have acquired after an intensive going under surgery and now i am able to wear shorts and skirts for the first time in since, well i can remember. new friends, old friends I'm still loving. vacations had, new countries visited (Malaysia i loveeeee you!), boyfriends or boys should i say passed through the Andrea version of it's not going to work out dating regement... If i hang out my window I can steal the Internet, so maybe lack of having the Internet since I've moved to Amsa Dong has led me to not posting. but that's just crap. But here I am again, hanging out my window, with nakji the garbage cat trying to catch the bugs that fly by! Maybe I'm just a lazy asshole? I just checked the stats of this blog and it seems by FAR the most popular post i ever wrote (which was an incredibly crappy post too.. ) was the one about my GREY HAIR!!! so here is a picture that is going to be labeled by me

" THIS IS WHAT PREMATURE GREY HAIR LOOKS LIKE!!"

so as the hair on my head grows and grows (which hair tends to do) it looks more yellow, more and more blonde! I don't want to be a blonde! I love being the grey headed crazy that i am! So why this yellow? Pollution, yup Korea's got a bit of that and MORE, so maybe that is the reason? Maybe the length of my hair creates an illusion of yellow? ok what the heck am I talking about. Maybe it's because i don't wash my hair too frequently, this is NOT gross you freaks who think you are the authority on clean hair and how you should shampoo it every freaking day. so I only get around to using that blue shampoo invented for grannies once a week. What else should I ramble about now? how about my current obsessions since well, it's been awhile since I wrote about them. Since FOOD is my favourite subject let's start with that.

ADZUKI BEANS!!!

here is a photo of Japanese artist Takao Sakai wearing Adzuki beans as a beard on his face. I love you bean beard face man. So being a vegetarian (well ok fine I EAT FISH i'm not actually a vegetarian am I?) we need beans! And being a person who doesn't eat certain meats (is that better for all you vegetarian police out there), korea can sometimes be a hard and expensive place for "people who choose to fill their bellies with legumes instead of pig". Adzuki beans are super cheap here and they are super versatile making everything from sweat red bean pancakes with honey to potato, squash and adzuki bean stew! I really think the cabbage phase of my life maybe over (no no cabbage i love you too, you and the precious adzuki beans can be best friends in my I'M GOING TO BE PRETTY GASSY TONIGHT diet.... current EXERCISE obsession #2

HIKING AND BOXING

who would win??

Hiking I'm thinking because I'm way better at hiking than boxing, but i love em both. love hiking so much though that I started another blog about hiking (well when I get around to making posts I will have started a new blog about hiking) how i lost my toenails so you can read all about that obsession over there.. ok this is a lot of post to digest since it's been nothing but dead air over here since last November? and I could go on to list other obsessions ( Truman Capote, gmarket.com, superstar king2, face masks you sleep in, bad kpop, bad top 40!! the list doesn't end does it) swan song