As much as I've tried to turn this LiveJournal into a repository of deep thought (with the occasional fangirl interruption for levity), most of the times I blog just as a way to release some of the anxiety built up in me ( Read more... )

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I'm enjoying this; you can hear an audible improvement in their Japanese pronunciation. It's mellifluous and Shin Dong makes a surprisingly smooth transition. It sounds like a Johnny's song with better vocals and more discrete production.

When 2ne1 first debuted, I was quick to dismiss them. They purported to be cutting-edge, but to me, they felt contrived. Their "concept" might have differed--street and urban for a change--but they seemed just as manufactured as the already available array of frou frou female idols. A 25 year-old and a 15 year-old in the same idol group? That ( Read more... )

I've been feeling despondent today. I didn't get a second interview for a job I was really pining for. Before today's phone call, I mentally prepared myself not to expect too much. It's a terrible economic climate we're living in and me being a non-business/non-engineering major hardly makes me a hot commodity--even in good times. But when the ( Read more... )

I love it when mainstream media acknowledge subcultures in an honest way, earnestly evaluating their popularity and why they resonate with so many people. That's why my content-with-society meter went up a natch when I saw this:


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I was reading an article on NYTimes.com that made me gasp in horror. The article is about osteobiography, which is the process of examining people's bones to discertain what happened to them in their lifetimes. No longer just for archaeologists trying to uncover our biological roots, forensics scientists are also using osteobiography as evidence to ( Read more... )

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love this guy's voice

There are a lot of reasons you can point to when you try to explain how girls and boys get so engrossed in fandoms. Some  are really in it for the music, some are enthralled by the looks, and some relish the hodgepodge of personalities banded together in a group, but most are in it for a combination of the aforementioned ( Read more... )

A string of Arashi songs came on shuffle on my iPod. Does this warrant its own post? Not really. Does it make me a little happier inside? You bet it does.

I just read about the re-vamped South Korean legislation on rape of minors and people with disabilities. I don't know much about Korean law, but from what I've read, this law has been overripe in its coming. Rapist were getting away with sentences far too light, and victims were afraid to come forth because of that entrenched culture of self-blame ( Read more... )