I absolutely need me a stylish system camera.
I hate to be travelling (from my house to school /cough) and not being able to take pictures of everything. Everything is beautiful! /threatens you with pink rose petals and air kisses
I can't drag my DSLR with me everywhere, plus it would look stupid.

Right now I'm driving through foggy forests and I just love the plain, austere rawness of the landscape and how the fog makes it appear so sinister. Apart from that, forests are cool, at least since hipster. No make that romanticism - basically the same by the way.

Anyway I'm as broke as a person without money can be. I have spent my last money on Christmas presents (cf this post) - oh and Black Friday - and now I'm free.
I got my younger brother a calendar with pictures from the Hubble telescope, which are pretty amazing and will add a NASA tee (ok you got me, not as broke as broke as in broke but on my way). He's the universe-nerd, so I think the present is quite good.
For my parents I got one hell of a Japanese rice cooker, the Zojirushi Micom Rice Cooker & Warmer NS-TSC18 . My mother wanted one forever, which I only remembered recently, when I went shopping for Japanese tea mugs and the rice cookers had me at 'hullo'.
My father will additionally get a book on his birthday shortly after the new year.
Then I need one for my older brother as well, I'm thinking a scarf, but need to consult with my mother.
Apart from that it's my cousin's birthday next week. What to get? I'd get him tickets for Sam Smith if I'd know his schedule.
Then got my friends but since they might read this I cannot share. Except for one who wanted a water bottle, and boy! she's lucky I dug water bottles some time ago, so I can ensure a tasteful choice (everything is beautiful - not).

So anyway I don't have any money to buy a new camera. I can only hope my mother will get one. Then I will be a very good girl and beg to lend it from her ㅠ

Topic change: I don't really know how to wrap my presents this year. Last year I had white paper with parcel twine and fir branches. And tiny chocolate santas stuck to them.
This year I have already wrapped the huge calendar (mind you, it was only the 4th) in the brown stuffing paper Amazon uses to fill their card boxes. Admittedly, the paper is absolutely rumbled, but everything is - wait for it - beautiful. And may I add, hipster.
I also brilliantly upcycled my file cards to fancy 'deck the halls'- name tags/ greeting cards.
Heck I only need a concept name for this and it's official.
No but I don't want to do the white thing again, am not ready for the black chalkboard style and don't know how to properly do the parcel style. I might add black name tags to my parcels though. Plus I have some gold, glitter paper left. Can I mash all that up to a something?

Anyway, I'm still very sad I don't have a small pro-ish camera (and a scarf and gloves), so now I will feel very sad and miserable reading the kinfolk (full of pretty images).
Blame the kinfolk for everything. Everything is beautiful.

Chu, Ailing

VOICE - P.T.P×Taka from ONE OK ROCK

That one time I mentioned I don't have a real clothing style.
Well, guess what, I don't have a specific taste in music, too.

I like nearly everything from classical music (especially romantic or contemporary pieces), good pop, good rock, K-pop, C-pop, J-trance, folk music (Indian, Chinese, South American, Celtic, etc), house, (Korean) hip hop, I don't know,...


Recently (not soo recent actually) I came to like Japanese band One Ok Rock very much (thanks to FT Island).
The pictures are from a concert of them I went to with my friend. That's very surprising, because I haven't ventured too much into the fields of rock and this band does everything from Alternative rock, to emo, pop punk, post-grunge, etc etc.
I like nearly every song of the recent album, even the one with screams in their more hardcore-ish songs!!!

Their singer Taka has a very interesting high pitched voice. I like high pitched voices when they are very controlled with precise technique.
Taka is a very good singer in that aspect (he used to be with Johnny & Associates, Inc.). But instead of talking about their music today, I want to write about another thing that really won me over: their lyrics

...THE SAME AS

さり気なくもらうその愛情はとてもふかかいで 素直には受け入れられす 何かをまだ閉ざしたまま Gone to far for so long Got to find You've been right here all along The shape of love is the same as your heart is It doesn't matter who you are So tell me my heart is the same as yours is たとえ儚くとも 悲しい時寂しい時 いつもそばにあるから and we hold every moment cause that's what family is for この世界中で何があると 仆を愛してくれて いつでもそっと優しくそっと 見守り続けてる 強く弱く時に厳しく 暖かな温もり and we hold every moment cause that's what family is for The shape of love is the same as your heart is Tell me my heart is the same as yours is The shape of love is the same as your heart is Tell me my heart is the same as yours is

That love that I casually received was very incomprehensible and I couldn’t honestly accept it while I still shut something up Gone to far for so long Got to find You've been right here all along The shape of love is the same as your heart is It doesn’t matter who you are So tell me my heart is the same as yours is Even if it’s short-lived when you’re sad, when you’re lonely I’ll always be by your side And we hold every moment ‘cause that’s what family is for Whatever happens in this world I will always love you I will always be gently watching over you Strongly, weakly and sometimes sternly with warmth And we hold every moment ‘cause that’s what family is for The shape of love is the same as your heart is Tell me my heart is the same as yours is The shape of love is the same as your heart is Tell me my heart is the same as yours is

I think there exist some (Indian or Japanese saying) that goes something like A child will never understand the parents' heart.

I don't really know what Taka or the band (I believe the lyrics are self-written) is trying to say, my Japanese (and their English) is limited and for all I know, he could speaks about his bandmates or a group of friends, but for me I am interpreting the lyrics as directed to one's family.

I feel like it's about a rebellious child who is unable to accept its parents' love, because the love seems so wrong and maybe dumb in the child's eyes.
Because of that the family broke apart and the child ventured to seek love and a family elsewhere, maybe by following its dreams.
But it later came to realize that love is not always something we have defined for ourselves or imagine to be like and then seek for it.
Love is also something that exists as it is and is just given to us, or in better words love is the same as your heart is, so whatever the love of parents may look like, feel like it is always love. I like the idea of realizing that whatever the heart of parents is like - hard, soft, unable - it is the one thing that defines love and not the children, who tend to ask for this or that kind of love.
We could hate it, we could deny it, we could think it is wrong, but it is them who give this love and not the children who pull love out of the parents and received the 'wrong one'.
Eventually the speaker wishes to understand his parents more. By saying 'tell me my heart is the same as yours is' he voices the desire of having the same opinions about love as his parents, i.e. he is placing the parents views and wishes over his own.
And that is true enlightenment (in Asia).

VOICE

Through all of this noise
Chasing a shadow
Why looking for answers, just leaves a question?
Behind the notes
And outside the lines
What you left behind
What I feel inside
I hear your voice...

We are your voice
We are still with you
When you can't speak, with so much to say
More than a word
More than a melody
What you left behind
What I feel inside
I hear your voice...

We're not alone

Those of you who have dealt with suicide before might have the same feelings as I have.
Taka wrote these lyrics in memoriam of the singer of Pay Money To My Pain who had been fighting with drug abuse and mental illness for some time and was found dead one day.
Though I don't think there exist an official statement that his death was not natural (be it suicide or an overdose) I find the lyrics seem to be directed to a person who has ended his life very abruptly and tragically.

And I find it very very admirable from Taka to have the strength to look at such a thing with so much love and positive feelings.
Because suicide or death due to an overdose are things which leave family and friends not only in great pain, but also with a feeling of being betrayed and punked.
Just take a look at the background story, in the case of a suicide, the people around the suicide might know or not know about an existing depression.
Let's say they didn't know at all and just overnight a person out of their circle commits suicide. Of course there is a great sadness, but also the questions, 'Why didn't he tell us that he was so sad?' And the answer that we give ourselves would most likely be 'he didn't trust us'. And no trust is betraying the love and good feelings that everyone around you gave you so happily and unknowingly.
What if everyone knew about the depression? The suicide then told someone about his problems, they talked things through, he could have gone to a psychiatrist and everything would have seemed 'clarified'. Then all of a sudden... I don't know what kind of scenario would mean a greater betrayal.
You can do the same thing with drug abuse. Only that you have more anger in there, because the person might not have even wanted to die, but just was dumb enough to take to much.

Well, these are the feelings that I would have and then I read Taka's lyrics 'what you left behind/ what I feel inside/ I hear your voice' and I just can't believe that if someone had done that - betray all my love, think that I am not (trust)worthy of knowing one's worries when they are so severe - I would still be able to believe that I really knew this person.
Knowing this person enough that I can feel his voice inside me. I would feel empty, like every idea, dialogue, plan that person has shared with me and left inside me had never existed in the first place, because he was never true to me to begin with.

But Taka goes even further, while it's already too much for me to 'interpret' this betrayal differently, he even speaks about 'fighting on' for that deceased person who couldn't do it anymore.
I find that incredibly strong. Most of us know that suicide victims have problems with something related to the 'system', but are too weak or the system is too strong to be broken. They have opinions about what is wrong and could be fixed. In 'we are your voice/ when you can't speak, with so much to say' Taka chooses to be the medium of his dead friend giving him a voice so that he would not be gone for good.
I think that is true love, that he sees the path of his friend and continues it for him, instead of others who would just give up. Unlike Taka, I think the natural reaction of most people would be a feeling of being left alone (cf last verse) so I respect him so so much for staying so positive and most of all loving, although of course his lyrics also mention the big perplexity which hits you first.

As you see their lyrics are kind of deep, but I like how they hide the heavy meaning behind such abstract and simple metaphors like in ...the same as.
If you want to know more about their music (especially Taka's singing) check out these: The Beginning (accoustic!), VOICE or Wherever you are (live accoustic), Decision.

But now, on to something funny! Okay, not really, but since One Ok Rock are friends my all time favourite band FT Island I will tell you a recent dream of mine involving FT Island (and a perverted foot fetishist molester!)

A, Cy and a 3rd friend and I were going to a FT Island concert. We arrived at the venue relatively early and went onto the stage to talk with the band member and organizer (like it's no big deal, you know...)
There were other women/ girls there, too. One was trying to diss my 3rd friend (who was my friend Mika at a certain point of time) and said, 'You are so young, did you start to smoke weed with 10?' (what she intend to say was kinda following the logic that everyone who goes to concerts smokes weed, but since my friend looked/ is so young, she must have even started at the age of 10) I retorted 'at least she doesn't need botox with 30' (playing on the fact the other girl was already so old, but looking even older in reality, because she already uses botox).

Anyway the concert started and we went off the stage, but there's was no place at the front row anymore, cuz all the other audience already arrived. Now the setting of the stage was very weird. It was like a ball pool for toddlers, the audience was at a high lever than the actual stage, and we were all lying flat on our bellies on those balls. The band was the same level as us. When Hongki (the singer) entered the stage he came jumping down from several meters at the back of the stage onto some sort of trampoline and bounced up again to land next to the band.
After all while I noticed that all audience was only 'queuing' in the centre of the stage, but there was plenty of space at both sides, I and the 3rd friend then moved next to the crowd and where also at the first row. I looked back at my other friends, but they somehow didn't dare to do it.

And now comes the disgusting part. We all lay on our bellies right? Suddenly I felt how someone was fondling my feet and sucking my toes!!! I looked back and it was a black guy grinning at me!!!
Somehow I didn't really react, but looked to my right to see if anyone would help me. Only another black guy turned towards me and grinned. FML I don't know if I let that guy continue with his perverted behaviour or he suddenly stop.

Some time later I looked up and suddenly people were leaving the concert en masse, because they found the band bad. Hongki was completely absorbed in performing one moment and realizing what happened broke up the concert the next. He just stopped looking very very angry and disgruntled, and went to walk of the stage. I was in rage, but couldn't force everyone to stay nor tell the band that the four of us were good enough as an audience.
During the concert Jonghoon handed me over a present from FT Island to their fans and he randomly picked me as the fan representative. He is my no 1 prince charming so of course I was mad happy. But then the staff and other band members gave him more parcels to give to me, which Japanese fans had sent them to give to me. Because I was always travelling it was hard for my friends to mail me presents, but because they knew I was attending the FT Island concert they resorted to such a way.
I received present after present from Jonghoon and we both were smiling and saying 'here you are' and 'thank you', but both knew that it was uber embarrassing for the other.

We went to another FT Island concert shortly after that, which went better. Yeah, apart from the fact that I we also talked to them and the organizer (whom I asked if he had also organized the previous concert, which he didn't, but all Caucasians look the same to me ), I can't remember anything.

Yeah, the dreams was pretty random, except for the black foot fetishist. Don't think it is my own preferences projected into my dream like that please.
I just had bad (direct and indirect) experience with a black guy and a foot fetishist and my brain thought it was funny to mix that all up into one dream!


Chu, Ailing

I had booked a hotel room somewhere in a warm country. Surprisingly enough it was just me going.
But when I reached, the hotel was overcrowded with no rooms left. Hundreds of people were asked to wait outside until a room is free.
Thus the crowd, mostly backpacker folks, was just sitting on the floor on a big place in front of the hotel.
I joined the people lounging on some longer platform sort of construction on the left of the place. Leaning with my back against my suitcase I was prepared to wait.
Two guys sat right and left to me and we started to talk. After a while I was more engrossed in talking with the guy to my left.
Also suddenly my friend A. appeared, she had also booked a room at the same hotel.
After waiting for hours we were told a room was free and the cool thing was A and I were going to share a room.
I somehow left my luggage outside, cuz 'I could get it later' or so I think I was told, but I felt slightly uncomfortable with that.

It was a 2 bedroom suit but to my horror we had to share beds with either of the guys I just met (somehow we couldn't split differently). Somewhere at this point SC a friend of A and me popped into the dream. Somehow he was in A's company.

Anyway I started to sense that something about this whole hotel story couldn't be quite kosher. The people in our room (somehow there were several) suddenly seemed very suspicious to me. And as we sat at a round table in the living room, which with the whole room looked very weird all together - everything appeared like it was painted with a scribbling style and the colours were all in a dirty yellow, orange brown hue* - I started to realise that this was all a scheme of the stupid hotel to cheat guests of their money.
I wanted to blow their cover and expose their cheap trick so I threw the cowboy hat off the guy I was supposed to share a bed with and who was sitting at the table to my left - and was shocked to see that I could directly look at that guy's brain! He had no skullcap or better it was more like someone had sawed it off, but it was not a normal brain, more some sort of a brown mushy thing.
This agitated me even more as it proved me right. Something wasn't right and those people were surely not normal people you meet and have to share a bed with.
I turned to the other guy who wasn't wearing any sort of hat. But I somehow intuitively knew what to do. I grabbed him near his ear and started to pull. His 'head' came off like a role of paper that had been roled and draped on his neck, like hair, face and all had just been painted on. This fella had no brain whatsoever, his head was just empty!
By the way as soon as I uncovered their 'identitiy' they would just sit there lifeless as if the charm that had kept them alive had been broken.

I continued unmasking the others in the room (don't know how, but I think several were also the paper head kind) and kept yelling, 'Is this your trick?! The hotel rooms are so cheap because you let 1000s book, then you don't have enough rooms and come up with this ha?!' Plus I had a feeling they also took their guests luggage, which they usually leave behind when shown to the rooms.
When the hotel owner realised I saw through his trick he let me and my friend go and I was very happy and relieved I didn't fall for it. So I took my trolley and went away.

*similar to the art style of One Piece Movie Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island or the first part of Batman: Gotham Knight which have apparently unsettled me quite a bit.


Chu, Ailing