On life and offspring

 For my daughter’s update, she lost her phone.  The insurance has not replaced it yet but the trauma for a young child. She needs her phone definitely.  Twelve is an age of wonder and she needs the data box of a more modern phone.   

My daughter has lost her Piano and Musical Theory teacher this year.  We did not even know she was sick.  We love Nadia. It was hard to replace Nadia on Saturdays but Natalya was kind enough to include us during a late evening class on a weekday and she goes to our house rather than us going to her place.  

My wish is for my daughter to practice more Piano and definitely more Violin.  Play more in Public or play more in Church.  Do the dances or ballet I know she is capable of performing.  Orchestra clashes with football this term. She has to give up football.  Getting into the orchestra takes precedence and it’s a challenge to join more extra-curricular activities as academics are hard enough for children.  I’m so relieved Maths is a strong subject. But it needs to be stronger.  Maths is the precursor to all the Sciences.  Science and maths are the key to life.  I love Geography and History.  I pray she would appreciate History.  She does not like it at the moment. But in time, I’m hoping.  She is studying Latin, Italian and French.   Have this belief in Latin, Chi. And study harder.  

As for me, I’m hoping to eat healthy and move more, do more exercise, dance more. Sometimes there is no motivation to do anything.  I wake up so early for work.  My daughter not needing me as much has taken its toll with the Step count.  I have not done as many Sick and mostly it’s because of the weather.  But all’s well.

It’s just a Click

 It’s the last day of the year.  I could have written this blog earlier but I thought it would be hard to sign in, compose the thoughts and construct the sentences.   But at least I made it rather than skip 2024 altogether. 

I haven’t seen much of C-dramas this year, my all time favourite is still Falling into your Smile, an idol drama about E-sports and the lives and romance of highly-talented and gorgeous gamers.  Cheng Xiao, the lead in Falling into your Smile does not do much dramas.  I could not watch her in anything except maybe Lie to Love and the premise of that series is that of  suspense and incredulity.  Like Falling into your Smile, the drama was released way back in 2021.  She mostly appears in Variety Shows. I really enjoy watching her in Dancing programs rather than Reality competitions.  I only get snippets through Twitter (now X) but you get the gist.  Xu Kai (Falling into your Smile) and Luo Yun Xi (Lie to Love), her former leading men, are so in-demand, as I gaze through their works on Viki.  I like Cheng Xiao in acting and dramas.  But other actresses act as leads a lot like Zhao Lusi and Bai Lu and I have seen their dramas prior to bingeing Falling into Your Smile.  Still they are not as charming as Cheng Xiao. 

Cheng Xiao’s strength is really dancing.  She is simply phenomenal when she moves to the music.  Dance with Ten again, Cheng Xiao.  In Fangs of Fortune, released this year,  she plays second lead.  It’s still acting but  I don’t like costume dramas. But people like it.  Anyway, I re-watch Falling into your Smile again and again.

Park Shin-hye meanwhile should have won the Daesang in SBS Drama Awards.  Jang Nara got the trophy in portraying a lawyer.  Their series had the highest ratings for the year.  You have to abide by the numbers and seniority.  The Judge from Hell though is a terrific show, the first time in history I was sat on a couch, eyes glued to the flatscreen with the hubby, not just in  Kdrama but first subtitled series.   I don’t like talk of the town Squid Game.  But we enjoyed the blood and gore of The Judge from Hell and its central character.  Hope Park Shin-hye wins more awards for this role. Really.  

I also enjoyed Doctor Slump.  I mean Park Hyung-sik kissing Park Shin-hye, playing top students then put-upon doctors?  Of course, it would work.  Ten years since The Heirs, every one moves forward although I still do not like Kim Ji won.  Queen of Tears be damned but makjang always works, with the exception of me. I can’t like an antagonist from The Heirs.  An antagonist of Cha Eun sang.   I always wonder Judy Ann Santos became friends with Gladys Reyes.  But not during the quest for the Diary, only at the tail-end of  the tearjerker.  We cannot force friendships but Park Shin hye seems like a nice person with her demeanour.  But Kim Jiwon is not within her circle.  Birthday cake surprise and all?  But she became close to Lee Sung kyung, her antagonist from Doctors. Even though the star of  Doctor Romantic 2 was not at Park Shin hye’s wedding or was not caught by paparazzi.   

Speaking of awards, Judy Ann won for Espantaho in MMFF ‘24.  Congratulations!  I don’t know how to see Espantaho.  Maybe Netflix?  Amazon Prime?  I was really lucky, I caught Ang Dalawang Mrs. Reyes in Shepherd’s Bush in rainy January in 2019.  I would not be as lucky this time. Judy Ann  gets a lot of flak from rival or younger fan groups.  But as long as the jurors like you and endorsement deals  keeps on coming,  directors want to work with you, it’s the dream. 

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 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?