It Started with a Journal

I am on a kitchen goddess ROLL. I've gotten pretty good at making jajangmyeon, if I say so myself (and I DO, okay). I've made it four or five times now, and I've got it down to a science. So delicious! The only negative is that I can't seem to find the right noodles to use. I'm using fresh Korean noodles, but I've tried various kinds and they're all a little too thick. Besides, jajangmyeon is a Korean take on a Chinese dish, so the noodles should actually be more Chinese-style. There's apparently "jajangmyeon noodles" labeled as such out there, but I've never been able to find them. :( (In related news, jade_okelani ate jajangmyeon for the first time and now understands what all the hype is about.) The other day I also made chicken tamale pie, and that was reallllllllly good also.

Never let it be said that I neglect dessert! I've also made two kinds of ice cream: vanilla with chocolate stracciatella (basically, chocolate chip ice cream) and chocolate almond walnut. Sooooooooo good. I recently had a disappointing experience with a store-bought ice cream, and decided to make my own. There was one summer when I was making ice cream constantly, but it's been awhile, so I was a little rusty. The custard for the vanilla one seemed a little dicey initially, but after straining it, it turned out great. Next up: I'm going to try and make my favorite sea salt with caramel ribbons ice cream from Salt & Straw. ( My experimentation so far. )

jade_okelani and I are sooooooooo **HEARTEYES** over Park Hyungsik it's not even funny. We just LOVE HIM in Strong Woman Do Bong Soon, and love the show, period. Yes, it has its flaws. But they're easy to overlook when there's so much else we enjoy! I'm both happy and sad that we started watching while it's airing. It's such a great show to look forward to, but it's sooooooooo disappointing when there's no new episode for another week. The problem is, when we decided to watch SWDBS in real time, we had expected to like Goblin a lot more (or I did, at least), and not expected to like SWDBS quite so much. Sigh.

Isn't this an awesome shot of Park Bo-young and Park Hyung-sik? She looks so much better with her normal dark hair like she has it in everything else I've ever seen her in. I'm not sure why Bong-soon has to have the light brown/orange hair, even though PBY is so attractive she can pull it off anyway.



( SWDBS spoilers through ep 8. )

The main theme song from SWDBS is sung by Jung Eun-ji! <3!! I love her voice.

I'm giving Reply 1994 another shot. jade_okelani and I started Reply 1988, but we got to talking, and it seemed to make sense for her to see at least the pilot of Reply 1994. If she could take it, then I could probably get through it with someone else to watch with me, and then we'd be watching things in chronological order. The interesting thing is, on rewatch, I actually do like 1994 better than I did before! Maybe it's watching with Jade, or maybe it's just having the distance from 1997, which I loved sooooooooooooooooo much. I'm not as bothered about the parents being the same actors, and even Go Ara doesn't annoy me as much. I'm still not a fan, but I don't dislike her as much as I did the first time around. This also bodes well for my plan to watch Hwarang (for Park Hyungsik). ( Spoilery comment. )

One of the shows that's on our watchlist, that must now be bumped up, is She Was Pretty. Why? Because in episode 9, there are cameos from Seo In-guk AND Park Hyungsik!!!!!!!!! If they are on screen at the same time, I might actually not survive.

I was forced to buy a new iPod because my old iPod, the discontinued 120GB one that I got yeeeeeaaars ago, stopped working after the latest iTunes update. It was super annoying, but I've had issues with it over the years, I don't actually need 120GB of space on my portable music player, and I figured this might be Apple's way of stopping support for it once and for all. And by "stopped working" I don't mean that it literally stopped working. I can plug it into my car or any speakers, and it will play fine. However, iTunes and my PC can't read it, so I can't update it. In fact, I thought I might have to wipe the whole thing and re-input all my music, which I've had to do several times before, but I can't even do that. It's basically a time capsule at this point, with only the music I've put into it before March 2017. :P Part of me wondered if I should just be patient, and with the next update of iTunes, it'll fix itself. But like I said, I just figured it was time to get a new iPod, so I did. Only days after I got it, however, I learned from adelagia that she only got her new iPod last year, and the same thing happened to her! So... WTF!

Anyway, what's done is done, and I don't really regret it. I liked that I was able to personalize it with an inscription on the back (I used a song lyric, since it's an iPod!). I like that it uses a touch screen. And I LOVE that I can connect to it via Bluetooth from my car and wireless headphones. So, all in all, despite being resentful of Apple for breaking their own shit so that I can't use it, I'm not sorry I upgraded.

Subject line: Bong-soon's Mom to Min-hyuk, in order to manipulate him into joining them for breakfast.

IT'S HAPPENING. adelagia and I are taking a Korean I class at BCC in the spring. I'm super excited, but also disappointed because I have to miss at least two classes (that's 20% of the course! :() due to work travel. I really, really, REALLY hope that I don't have to miss more, but who the eff knows. I've told adelagia that she has to take good notes on my behalf so that I won't be forced to take her first-place underwear (Answer Me 1997 reference! WATCH IT!"). :)))))

You know how when you take language classes in high school, the teacher has you pick a common name in that language? In preparation, I have consulted this Korean name generator. My Korean name: Shin Yeon-Ji. (If I input Sarea Okelani, it's Kan Sung-Ra, which sounds like a medieval warrior princess! :D Well, IMHO.)

jade_okelani and I have finished watching Boys Over Flowers. The most terrible thing has happened... she DIDN'T LIKE YI-JEONG/GA-EUL. /cry I don't even know what to say about it. She and I agree on almost every ship, and I didn't imagine this would be one where we diverged, when it is the ship EVERYONE WHO EVER WATCHES THE SHOW PREFERS. Sigh. She says that she doesn't feel like YJ "wants" GE enough. Whereas the people who ship them obviously feel differently. But you can't "convince" someone about a ship; that's like making someone feel something they don't, which is impossible.

Jade and I are now watching Goblin, which we've both heard good things about. We saw the pilot last night, and I thought it was okay. I love Gong Yoo, though he looks weird... I don't know if it's that he aged, or the military made him skinny, or what, but he doesn't seem as good-looking/charismatic as he was before, lol. But maybe it'll come through more once we get his character to loosen up more; I definitely liked him most in Coffee Prince and One Fine Day when he was smiling and being goofy. The girl seems okay, though she kind of reminds me of the girl from Cinderella and Four Knights, who I was meh about. (But that might've been more the character/story than the girl herself.) What's weird is that there are two guys in Goblin who remind us of SIG, but only in a disappointing way because they're not him. :))))

On my own, I finished watching Mirror of the Witch, which was seminal for my K-drama watching because it's a period drama. It's the first Korean period drama I've ever watched more than the pilot of, and I actually finished it! It starred the girl I liked from High School: Love On, Yoon Shi-yoon from Flower Boy Next Door, the guy who hates Onew in Descendants of the Sun, the second female lead from Answer Me 1997, Kwak Si-yang from Oh My Ghostess, and the guy who plays opposite SIG in The King's Face, another period drama that's on my watch list. WHEW. I'd forgotten how much I liked Yoon Shi-yoon, and this brought it back. :) I liked the show for the most part. ( Spoilery comments. )

Bad news about Talis... it looks like he has an ACL tear. Ugh. Last week, the day after I took him to the vet to have him checked up because I suspected he needed a dental (he's been yelping randomly and has really bad breath; I know the signs as I've been through it before), my mom took him on a walk to the park. On the way back, she says, he started limping badly and she had to carry him home. She mentioned that he had been obstinate about moving with her to the trash can after he was done with his business (typical for him), so she had to pull/drag him (I've been through it myself), and I suspect that this is when the tear happened. So now I have to take him to a specialist, and either he has to have surgery (he's old, so I'm not thrilled with the idea of putting him through that), or he has to get one of those custom braces made. Ughghghghgh.