After a snooze

 Actually I could not remember my password for this page.  Until now, I still have not figured it out. I was really quiet in Instagram but I posted a story maybe two months ago or more or less.  Nothing has changed,  I rest after work.  My husband watches a lot of football.  

For Year 6, my daughter gave up her spot in the Choir for Girl’s Football.  Initially, it made me tearful. Her voice needs training.  But she is amazing.  She could kick with her left foot, commit to headers and just run.  She won an Individual Trophy for Football at the end of the Year.  She became a Spelling Bee Champion. She is starting Secondary School on Tuesday.  We still have to trial how to  manoeuvre traffic from her school to a weekday Violin Lessons.  While Ballet on a different weekday starts way after school and is walking distance from our house, so there is leeway to prepare.  Then for her Piano and Musical Theory, Saturday is a no-conflict day, unless I have to work. At this point, she is under the covers, seeking comfort in Calpol. We were in Seville last week with 42 degree temperatures under the intense heat of the sun and still 42 degrees even after sunset.  Coming back to 12 degrees in England, playing with Kiu and Breckin in the garden has taken a toll on her body. 

At 11, some even younger in Primary School, a few kids have their mobile phones. Phones are great for communication. Hope my daughter uses it responsbly and not text too much about a whole load of nothing. 

Wow, a year!

Being so overwhelmed the past year with all the errands, mandatory training, my daughter’s challenges in music and academics plus trying to live with the pandemic? I find the daily manoeuvres daunting.  To think, we work less days now for those of us who do shifts. 

During the past year, Park Shin-hye got married and gave birth.  She could have accepted acting projects in 2021 but she opted to do nothing except a few adverts ( golf and real estate in Busan) and planned her pregnancy and wedding.  We all need our personal space, really.  After giving birth and staying in post partum center which is a place for mothers to go after giving birth. Are post-partum facilities only a Korean concept? I don’t see her endorsing any brands any more such as Swarovski or the likes. She totally just rested, not doing any work. Well, hope she enjoys this kind of life, this break from the spotlight. Would still find the passion to go back to acting or being in a set? 

I know my voyeuristic attention to a few celebrities may be a bit vacuous. As fans we are their meal tickets and we are fascinated by the images they project.   Same as my friends in social media, in my eyes they are in the same level as the celebrities these days.  As we only hear from them through their social media pages, could they still be called friends?  They have such well-curated pages I could never live up to their aesthetic. 

Like I could never live up to the prolific posts of any of my friends, I tend to shy away from social media.  Even in writing, I could not keep up with the updates.  Maybe it’s all due to the easy access to viewing shows and videos on the hoof. But it keeps the sanity in such humdrum existence. 

From my end

Park Shin-hye has not done any acting since her last series Sisyphus the Myth (I’ve written this prior to her wedding and pregnancy announcement) wrapped up production in early December 2020.  With Squid Game lighting up Netflix in the US, the UK and the world and so many dramas being shown, made and announced, her absence from any K-production is heartbreaking to her fans. I don’t watch Kdramas anymore. Even before I’ve heard of the racist incident involving the only Filipino actor in Squid Game but I reckon it was my rewatch of that episode in Hello Counselor  where Jung Yong-hwa was a guest and one of the stories was a guy who was being treated so lowly by his fellow Koreans for looking like a Filipino. Anyway, I only watch Korean shows these days if Park Shin-hye is a cast member.  I don’t follow Kpop but I enjoy dancing to the tunes. 

Korean works such as #Alive and Space Sweepers made it to the Top Ten in the UK but none made it to number one on the streaming service like Squid Game.  My husband likes watching it again and again.  I’m not really fond of this type of genre.  Its very essence doesn’t strike a chord with my free time.  But that is me.  All others enjoy this kind of pursuit.  Sometimes I wonder if it is popular amongst my husband’s friends because they like watching East Asians engaged in this killing competition?  Are they like those men in suits in the series looking through the games via a monitor ?  Or was it through a window?  I couldn’t really decipher, I just passed by during the penultimate episode. 

The series catapulted its stars to the sky, the female lead is now the hype of social media, amassing followers to rival Ariana Grande.  Let’s see her next pursuits, would she continue to be hot for the years to come? 

Hiatus

It has been almost a year since I have been writing that I have forgotten how it feels to write in a blog. Well, the scourge of the Pandemic is an ever -pressing concern in our lives. As an introvert, I like the staying home bit but as a front liner, I was never given a chance to stay home. I’m right in the middle of “saving lives, trying to stay alive” crew. There was and there is no reprieve, you try to be sick for feeling symptoms of the virus and you get derision and a lengthy interrogation process by the powers that be in my work universe.  

I don’t think I will ever get away with taking time off for Stress. Or working from home when there are call bells to answer at the actual site. Despite the vaccines, there are variants out there lurking and ready to claim thousands of human lives. People should be wary of huge gatherings. 

Lockdown gives space. There is far less traffic in the busiest roads and it saves me from confrontation with highly-paid class acts in the Tube on day shifts. Sir, whatever you say, it’s still not prudent to take that seat beside me. I’ve wrapped up dead bodies in full PPE due to Covid.  

Should we still social distance? It’s such a double standard since people love gatherings. There is no social distance in parties. December was lockdown month, yet people were dressed to the nines for parties.  Cases ballooned in January, cold weather and viruses, eh?  It’s summer now, but there it seems the most dreadful of times. 

Pandemic or no pandemic, we are still busy at work, just made more complicated by the ever threat of this health emergency.  At least there was a vaccine to at least minimise symptoms or prevent us from succumbing to the virus’ worst effects.  For now, let’s pray there are no more waves and there is a cure for the deadliest of variants.

‘Twas a Hot Day

I don’t know anything about the new normal. Everyday there are changes to routines and policies at work that we do not know anything anymore. Masks are mandatory in all corners of the workplace. The general public should be wearing masks really, anywhere they go, social distancing or not. During the lockdown, only joggers and dog walkers plus those who work with the police headquarters walks around our residential street (minus social distancing). But these days with everybody back to work (Is everybody back to work?) and with school about to start, we have to ask, why do a few believe everything is back to normal? 

However the threat is still there. There is no vaccine, no treatment yet for Covid-19. There is spike here and there, in South Korea, in Spain and just anywhere. We shouldn’t be attending large gatherings including family reunions and the likes, or even go to pubs. But humans are social creatures. They like having their interactions. They cherish being with other humans. They like the gossip and noise. In the solemnity of calm and quiet, they get bored. 

Perhaps I should be grateful that there is still no live audience for sports events. Sports losing money means our household saves a bit. Stadium sports can only be enjoyed through the magic of television. Tottenham Hotspur’s new ground is the best I have ever experienced, dwarfing Wembley Stadium and North Greenwich Arena when they were completely new (those were the days).  But it was empty when the last season resumed and it’s going to be not even near capacity when the new season commences. I mean let’s see, how is the new lifestyle going to work out. But I would love to watch Spurs live again. 

I just hope none of us becomes sick, not even a little fever nor a little cough this winter. Let’s not get out much, except for essential travel? School would be a nightmare for me, all those mothers and their Yakkity yaks. Plus just based on social media photos of my friends and colleagues, do people actually think there is still a Pandemic? 

to watch or not to watch

There are a few K-dramas I have viewed that were quite chill.  I was into Kong Hyo-jin (she prefers it spelled with a K) for a while after I watched  and re-watched It’s Ok, That’s Love.  So I went through the gamut of her work, Don’t Dare to Dream, Producers, Master’s Sun and Greatest Love.  She does a lot of romcoms, they’re quite light. Something to wallow into in times when you want to de-stress.  KHJ was quite stylish when she dropped by London as seen in her instagram two years ago.  Then she unfollowed Park Shin-hye on her insta (while Memories of the Alhambra was still on air or right after?)  and I lost interest in her dramas including my constant rewatch of It’s Ok, That’s Love (some good writing therer from Noh Hee Kyung).  But I still follow her on that social media platform, I just do not take a peek at her account anymore nor watch her latest series on Netflix. 

Then there is  the hardworking Jang Nara in the remake of Fated to Love You/You are my Destiny and One More Happy Ending, they are very enjoyable dramas.  She has a series every single year, so there are loads of choices, it depends on the genre and story. I’ve seen Seo Hyun-jin in Temperature of Love.  It’s  good, although I haven’t done any rewatch in full It’s all about gourmet cooking and scriptwriting but the break- up in the middle ( or is it near the end?) to keep the story going, is a breaking ball. 

As you can see, I’m from the school of si Nura, si Velma; Maricel, Sharon, etc., who doesn’t care much  or swoon after male leads.  Stan is the operative word these days (I didn’t hear this word when I was  writing for the school paper).  So I stan the nominees for the Best Actress award, as in the Filipino penchant for their movie aueens — from Amalia to Judy Ann.  I’m into that fandom. In celluloid, smart tv or smartphone, I want to watch empowered women as central characters or characters portrayed by actresses with a whole lot of charisma. 

But in Kdrama or in life, men usually gets the top-billing.  Women are just there for decoration.  I couldn’t say It shouldn’t be like that because for some, drooling over Lee Min-ho or Lee Jong Suk is their alternate reality.  Their escape from the dreariness of life. Or these days, their escape from the dreariness and hardship of a pandemic. 

Lockdown for Now

This is the time of war. Lockdown is a cruel phase in the battle against Covid-19. But thank goodness, my small nuclear family have no symptoms. I might have one cough when talking on the phone or writing on the bed board and I would get called out by a consultant doctor or a well-meaning friend. “Is that a cough?” they would query. But we all have these crazy paranoia and sometimes fear take over. There is no vaccine. There is no cure for Covid-19. Words such as desaturation and low blood pressure bring such trepidation. It’s a nasty pestilence, fatal to the weak leading to a shortage of body bags. I know I’m being morbid but it’s not like measles nor chicken pox where there is an inherent natural immunity once afflicted. It is oh so cruel to the lungs. It might have hit you already, you recovered and it will hit you again. 

We are terribly exposed at work. The battle for safe Personal Effective Equipment is real. The deaths of front liners; of doctors, nurses, health care assistants, porters, bus drivers particularly hurt not only because they are colleagues but the powers that be ignore the high-viral load associated with any positive and suspected patients. Please, protect people and front liners from death. 

South Korea has these massive and rampant testing and contact tracing that is  keeping the figures down whether infection or death rates. Or so the reports say. Germany as well have the capacity to test more people. Here in London, as I observe so far, you only get tested once you are admitted to a hospital and on the brink. Even if you self-isolate, you don’t get tested unless you are top of the pyramid in the hierarchy of humans. 

Social distancing, as in not seeing people, is bad for business and bad for mental health. Imagine not seeing friends and family and not going to McDonalds or a theme park? Well, there are no McDonald’s, theme parks and restaurants or clothes shops as they are now closed. Entertainment is staying home. The world works at home. School is all a series of computer exercises and homework. My husband is correct, I won’t have the time and energy for home school as we both work on the battlefield. I’m grateful for the key worker incentive. Because unlike those who work at home, us from the lower tier, have to go to work (and take the tube at my end) and face this cruel infection face to face with flimsy protection. So I couldn’t do much in terms of homework and learning from home bits for my seven-year old. No energy on day offs. None at all. I’m so tired. This would be my classic refrain.