Why Coffee Prince is my ultimate comfort food, why I should allow myself to care, and that I am sucker to a certain kind of songs

Coffee Prince.. is my catharsis. I watch it when I can’t sort myself out. I watch it when I have too many questions, too little answers. I watch when I need advice.

It’s a character drama more than a plot driven one, and the strength lies is in its four main characters. They are smart, thoughtful, comfortable in their own skins and care for what they stood for. They talk, they communicate, they say things I wished I have said. I see myself in Eun Chan, I get frustrated at Eun Chan. I see myself in Han Gyul, I get frustrated at Han Gyul.

Eun Chan and her relationship with her sister. Eun Chan heading the household because her dad is no longer around. Eun Chan’s can-do spirit. It hits me, hard.

My favourite scene changes, and for now, maybe this is my favourite

Go Eun Chan, I need someone who trusts me. Even if everyone else curses at me for being useless, I needed someone who’d believe: ‘Choi Han Gyul just didn’t have the opportunity to show himself. He’s a guy who does what he puts his mind to. He’s just someone who hasn’t yet found what he wants to do in life, but he truly can accomplish what he sets out to do.’ I needed someone to have that kind of faith in me.

—

It started from watching Tom Hiddleston at Nerd HQ. Maybe because I’ve been spending too much time on tumblr, and people have been gif-ing the good moments from this session. I don’t think he said anything groundbreaking, reminders, many, and the one that stood out for me

“Basically I gave myself permission to care. Because there are a lot of people in this world, who are afraid of caring. Or are afraid of showing they care because it’s uncool, it’s uncool to have passion. It’s so much easier to lose when you’ve shown everyone how much you don’t care if you win or lose. It’s much harder to lose when you show that you care. But you’ll never win unless you also stand to lose.”

Hiddleston, I actually think about what you said when I am in the savasana pose. Allowing myself to care. Allowing myself to get hurt, because only when you stand to lose, you get to win. Allow myself to feel, allow myself to get angry, allow myself to feel sad.

But too bad, you know that you’re good looking. And I can’t bring myself to care more about you knowing that.

—

I
cannot
stop
listening
to
this

To think that only yesterday I was cheerful, bright and gay

Why am I trying so hard to defend myself?

Was talking to friend a while back on how we might just fall into the danger of not getting taken seriously because of our cheerful demeanour. It’s as if our positive outlook hints at insensitivity, unlike perhaps a Lin Daiyu.

Nah, I don’t think I am on the side of the angels

You’re not trying hard enough to understand people, if I am ever a ‘happy-go-lucky’.

I would say I am broken enough, but the healthy dose of self-esteem I’ve built from a fulfilling childhood is preventing me from tipping over to cynicism.

So I say,

Laugh because it is painful. Laugh because this world is ridiculous.

We just do not take ourselves that seriously.

You know I don’t even swear usually

If there is a healthy thing to do now, is to get this out of my system.

So recently I’ve started helping out in a project, outside of work. I don’t exactly see it as a freelance job, but more of like helping out with stuff here there in it. But it’s so bizarrely fucked up; the timeline is ludicrous, a person who works on it day night, getting up only to pee and eat, is not going to be able to finish it.

What I hate it even more, is that the sole motivation for me to put time into it, is because other people on this project are sacrificing more than me. It’s like the peer pressure of work, my life is fucked up because of this project, you better be too, because you know misery loves company. I don’t even think shaming you into commitment is healthy.

And this feeling is screwing up with me that I am doing petty things to cheat some time off, like taking longer dinner breaks and taking longer transportation options. Technically, I can put in more effort into the project, but it’s so repulsive. For a brief moment I thought yeah right now only death validates time off this project.

So I’m here writing, pretending that I am working, and counting down to an appropriate time for me to say “I guess it’s time for me to catch some sleep” will come soon.

So fucked up

Dad, Where are We Going?

Junsu: Haters can hate

Before I could realise, this variety show has already slipped itself into all of my conversations; I could be talking about getting easily distracted,

“Eh there’s this variety show I am watching.. and the boy just forgot what he wanted to say after his dad fed him a hard-boiled egg”

I could be talking about eating vegetables/well

“Eh the kids, they just ate whatever their parents gave them, raw fish, boiled potato, spring onion, ..”

It’s embarrassing how often I find myself talking about the show, because I never understood why my sister watched Hello Baby — it’s not your kid, I don’t care what the idols are doing and they’re probably scripted anyway. But this, this, I don’t even know how to properly explain the concept of the show to anyone who’s keen to listen and I’m already showing up late for meetings with friends to catch one more episode of “Dad, Where are we going?”.

Joo Won is not impressed.

So it’s a 1N2D crossover with Family Outing with lots of children, and probably less scripted. I like the idea of 1N2D, short trips to rural parts of South Korea, playing games to earn ingredients and then cooking for yourselves. It’s fun, spontaneous and I can be travelling vicariously through them. But no matter how adorable Joo Won gets, he can’t beat the kids.

So each week, the 5 father-child pairs (for now they are not swapping the father-kids out, so I guess they are considered permanents already) will travel to somewhere rural, stay there for 2 days 1 night, and hopefully some good bonding will occur along the way.

If there’s a conversation that I want to write down, episode 6, between Yoon Hoo and his dad Yoon Min Soo:

YMS
Do you really dislike dad?

YH
Huh? Did you say something wrong?

YMS
Previously when you can’t always play with dad, you disliked dad right?

YH
Then? Very very very very very little dislike

YMS
Very very very very very little dislike?

YH
Uh. When I was little, when I was a baby, when I was a meat bun, dad didn’t have a room

YMS
You remember the small house?

YH
Of course

YMS
You were really young then

YH
Then dad where did you sleep?

YMS
Me? Somewhere else, because I was busy then

YH
Really?

YMS
Once when you were younger, dad and mum were quarrelling, you told mum ‘Don’t shout at dad’, do you remember?

YH
Mum was wrong. When one’s home is happy, all goes well (가화만사성, 家和萬事成)

YMS
Ahh our family precept. But dad did wrong too

YH
Dad didn’t know the family precept then

YMS
Dad knew

YH
Then you did wrong

YMS
But dad is especially thankful of

YH
Who?

YMS
Yoon Hoo

YH
Why?

YMS
Because Yoon Hoo stood on dad’s side. (pause)
Dad and mum will not argue from now on

YH
Huh it’s okay to argue

YMS
HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

(…)

YMS
You must have once hated dad, for things I’ve said

YH
Because you didn’t want to play with me. Even so, it’s good now. Very very very very very

YMS
Because we are often playing together?

YH
Uh

YMS
It’s good being together with dad right?

YH
Uh that’s why it’s good

YMS
Sorry for how dad was

YH (laughing)
You don’t need to apologise. That was the past, we should talk about now

YMS
The past is just the past?

YH
I forgot about what happened in the past already

YMS (laughing)
Forgotten?

YH
Because we have a future together

It’s moments like this, when I really hope the lines are not scripted. The dad likely had it thought out, be it a good excuse to talk to his son, or to make the show more interesting, but I hope all of that came from Yoon Hoo, not some weird uncle feeding him lines.

There’s already sort of a format forming in the show, I hope it stays fresh, hopefully for another 5-10 episodes and I’ll be fine if they swap the father-kid pairs out for new ones. For now, just give me more of Lee Jong Hyuk and Lee Junsu.

(Images via Sleepyhead Jun Su, KoreanPyong, Me gusta!, Kuki’s)

And so, I decided to not censor myself

I’ve been saying how I wished I could write better, I wished I could speak better, then what is better than to just write anyway. So here, I’m reviving this place. Looked through the last 10 posts, they are quite horrible (HAH). I thought about deleting/hiding some of them, especially the more frivolous ones, but oh well, as horrendous as they are, they are (were?) still part of me. So I’m keeping them, and I want to feel proud of them.

Hopefully I’ll write, busy, or not.

In the meantime, I will still be posting on tumblr, the other tumblr and on twitter.