SKYRIM!!!

And as usual, cats. Because I'm original :P

I got Skyrim in the mail yesterday, and I was so excited I forgot to write about it then! It was actually a late Christmas present for my brother, but I half-got it for myself (shh) too. I was skeptical at first; I thought it was just hyped up until I actually played it. 24 hours later and I'm already addicted! It would be helpful if I actually went through the plot as opposed to going around looting everything (which is what I'm doing atm). I'm so happy; with Skyrim, BF3, and MW3, I think I am all set for a few months! Although Borderlands 2 and SWTOR wouldn't hurt ;)

Oh right, I nearly forgot my New Year's Resolutions:

1. Survive 2012
2. Don't fail school
3. Smile more!

Happy New Year (well.. not yet)! I gotta admit, I'm both nervous and excited for 2012. It's going to be a really big year for me! Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays.

The fiestas never end in Spain...

Reyes Magos in Spain!

 
One thing that I love and hate about Spain are the holidays and fiestas. Even though Christmas is over, there is still New Years and Reyes Magos (it's like Christmas again... but for the kids) to look forward to. And even after, there are just more and more days off and "puentes" ('bridge' days where, if you have one day off in a week, they connect it to the weekend). You gotta love all the days you don't have school and work, but on the other hand you have to wonder if this is a bit of a waste of time. Too much vacation actually has the opposite effect on me, and I feel like I have to do something productive before I implode.

On another topic, I started re-reading some books I read a few years back, like To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye. For some reason, I enjoy books a lot more when I'm reading them on my own time, not when it's a school assignment. A LOOOT more. Even when they're good books, they seem really boring and textbook-y when these books are based on some standardized school curriculum. Shouldn't books be read at our own pace and give us a chance to interpret it, rather than making everyone think and read it at the same rate? That just kills it for me.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Did you know that South Korea (my "home" country) is one of the countries that invest the most money into learning English, English programs, teachers, textbooks, etc.? I would know, seeing as the whole country is littered with academies for learning how to speak English (like.. 1 every 10 meters squared) and all of my Korean friends dedicate so much time to these language programs. It was kind of disappointing to find out that Korea ranks near the bottom in English proficiency... as in 136th out of 161 nations (source). Damn, I love my country and all but that's pretty disconcerting. Just goes to show that certain aspects of the Korean education system don't work.

I keep jumping from topic to topic, don't I? :P Sorry, it's just been very hectic for the past few weeks. I'll be back on track with longer, less shallow posts! And an early Happy New Year to all!

Birthday!!

Well, as the title clearly gave away, today is my birthday! :) It was very nice to wake up to have my family bring a giant cake to my bed. I don't think cake in bed the first thing in the morning is good for you, but it's my birthday: I'll worry about it tomorrow (I'm joking)! Some people say it must be inconvenient to have my birthday right before Christmas (combined presents?), but honestly it doesn't matter to me. My birthday's always the time I reflect because:

1) It's my birthday, obviously, and I'm a year older now! I think about how I can act... more mature...
2) Day right after is Christmas so I start to think about what my family and friends have done for me... and
3) In about a week or so it's going to be 2012! Gives me some time to ponder whether or not I've accomplished some things this year.

Today I'm going out with friends and family to Puerta de Sol. If any of you guys have been to Madrid, you would know it's the busiest and most hectic place (both tourists and residents) in Madrid. The amount of people there practically quadruples around Christmas time. Wish me luck! Hopefully I don't get pickpocketed (I've yet to be)or lost amidst the HUGE crowds on my birthday!

I apologize for the short post, happy holidays everyone!

Buying presents, Minecraft and... anger management??

A lot has been going on lately so I thought I would summarize some interesting things in small chunks. 





Christmas

I gotta admit, I'm horrible with buying presents. I think it's me over thinking the whole process... "what if she hates it?""what if they already have it?""will they think I'm cheap for buying that??". Most people have a skill for present buying. I don't. I guess the fact that I over-complicate a lot of things and am naturally anxious doesn't play too well into it. So you can guess how horrible I was at Christmas shopping this year. Personally, I think the whole buying-Christmas presents has gone way out of proportion. Plus, I really hate huge crowds. I really do.

No, thank you.

I made myself promise that I wouldn't go out of control this year and just buy what I really wanted to give to each person. I thought I was doing well until I came home and realized I spent about 40 euros on a wallet for the homeless guy in front of the grocery store... oops. Better luck next year! :P

Minecraft
Lately I've become extremely addicted to Minecraft. I mean, I've always played this game once or twice a weekend for fun with my friends. But it's just become crazy recently! I literally started seeing everything in mine-able blocks after about three days of playing it endlessly. One word of advice: as addicting as this game is, it's very important to take a break (this goes for all video games)! I'm serious. It can take over your whole life, pretty much. And I thought I had pretty good self-control until I realized I was up at 3 AM trying to build a train station.

Anger Management 
Well, not really anger management. But I couldn't think of a better word for it. What I advice you guys is to not bottle things up a lot. I'm the type of person that doesn't do that whole "talking about feelings" thing much, so I just keep a cool head whenever I'm mad or just ignore it. It doesn't go away, trust me. If you're mad or upset or stressed or whatever, you should definitely talk to someone (friend, sibling, etc.) about it. Or else one day the littlest thing will make you break and you will go craaazyyy!! (I am speaking from personal experience over something that happened yesterday). It's not healthy for you!! So come on, talk about your feelings! :) 

To: Future Me

Today, what I thought would be a normal day turned out be quite a funny one (this happened about half an hour ago). I had just gotten home from frantic Christmas shopping, did some chores around the house, then I sat down in front of my computer and checked my e-mails. I was surprised to find an e-mail from "Emailcapsules.com" titled "To: Future me"! At first I thought it was spam mail; my cursor hovered over the Spam button until curiosity got the best of me.

Once I opened it, I found a long e-mail from my ten year old self. In fact, I distinctly remember 5th grade me excitedly typing out this e-mail years back. It was impressively long, detailing the many "life problems" I had at the time and wishing myself a Happy Birthday (which is in a week) and a Merry Christmas. I then asked future me if I still liked [crush's name from elementary school]. It was quite amusing to read the younger version of me talk about how cuuuuuteee he was and how I should never give up on him because we were obviously going to get married later (unfortunately, I completely forgot about my crush back then until now).

I then proceeded to remind myself never to do drugs and alcohol. And then I ordered myself to go and hit my brother ("right now!!") because he had apparently hogged the PS2 the night before. "And then tell him that past Hannah finally got her revenge!". I also talked about a lot of other things, such as how much I wanted a puppy and a lot of childish things like that. At the bottom of the e-mail, I wrote, "AND REMEMBER! I love you future meee!"... which is kind of lame if you look at it but cute at the same time. :P All in all, this whole e-mail from the past really cheered me up. It also made me think of what a dork I must have been back then. Anyways, If any of you guys want to send an e-mail to your future self...here you go!

Happy holidays to everyone!

P.S. I apologize for the excessive use of parentheses and quotation marks in today's post.

How My Parents Stole Christmas... Kind of

So the holidays are obviously coming closer and everyone is talking about Christmas. My friends, teachers, tv adverts, shopping malls etc. I always found myself being overly excited for Christmas ever since I can remember. Even when nearing the end of November, I was already thinking about Christmas, my favorite holiday. It might be because my birthday is just the day before that, so a lot of fun things are happening at the time. Besides, who doesn't love sparkly Christmas trees and cookies??

But this year, something was different! I didn't feel it anymore. Whatever you call it... Christmas cheer... spirit... you know what I mean. I didn't even know my birthday was in less than two weeks until a friend pointed it out a few days back. So I pondered on why such a horrible thing would happen. How could I lose the love I had for my favorite time of the year?

And then it hit me. You see, no one in my family celebrates Christmas. My brother thinks it's stupid and my parents think it's overrated and a waste of time. Even growing up as a kid, I would always want a Christmas tree (I offered to pay for it myself) and they would always say no, you have better things to do than waste your money on presents and a tree. Now I can see what they meant, but when I was six years old I was just sorely disappointed that our house was the only one that didn't light up at night. But it didn't matter. Each year, I brought it up to my parents again. "Can we pleaseeeee have Christmas this year? I'll make all the presents and prepare everything!" But I always got a no. Sadly.

Our house on Christmas Eve

If you put it in perspective, I guess it does seem pretty childish and spoiled of me to have complained about such a trivial thing when, on the other side of the world, there are kids who don't even have families to celebrate any holiday with. That occurred to me too back then and I, a tiny little 4th grader at the time, organized a bunch of food/clothing/toy drives for underprivileged kids who lived near us. It was a blast.

So how come I'm not feeling it this year? I think as much as I love my parents, they killed Christmas for me. They really did. Yeah, it's not the worst thing in the world (obviously), but it was and still is a very special time of the year for me. It came to me that we never celebrate birthdays or holidays... I was the one who would diligently try to make a birthday cake for my parents (with my horrible baking abilities) and have it be dismissed for being a waste of ingredients and time.

My parents when I even say the word "Christmas"

I know they both had tough childhoods and they never really had a chance to do these things. Maybe that's why. But I find it unfair that their children (me and my brother) have to go through the same thing too. I'm just going to say it now. When I have kids, I am definitely going to celebrate Christmas to the best of my ability, even though I'm not feeling it now. Because it's not just about whether I like it, but it's more for everyone around you (family and friends... and yes, that was possibly the most cliche line ever).


Can anyone help me get back into holiday spirits? This is beginning to upset me.

Hope everyone has a good day! And let us all pray that it snows in Spain soon :)

Back!

Hello everyone. I know I've been gone for days, but hear me out! I've been away, visiting the US for personal reasons. It's been a few long days and I'm glad to be back, save the jet lag that continues to increase my tiredness. I must say, the US is a pretty cool place. Very different from Spain. Soooo hopefully you guys accept my apology! I will get right back onto my blog after I get some rest. More later.


Here is a video that will either cheer you up or annoy you very much:

Overcoming Stage Fright: my take on it!

Happy December everyone! I am so glad my favorite month is already here. Shame to say good-bye to 2011 already, though.

So for the past few weeks me and my jazz band mates have been working really hard for the December concert and another gig at Hard Rock Cafe. Needless to say, we were all nervous and excited at the same time! But I'm sure we all know that feeling (not only for playing an instrument, but for singing, acting, giving speeches, etc.) when we walk onto stage, the stage lights nearly blind you, and you can distinctly hear the murmurs of the anticipating audience travel around the room. And then those paranoid thoughts enter your head... "what if I forget my lines/music?", "what if I trip on stage?" "what if I completely mess up the whole thing?!".

I am no master of stage confidence, but over the years of performing on stage I've managed to accumulate a few tips on overcoming it. Not to say I still don't have those moments where I feel like the whole audience can hear me breathing, but I do hope these help you out!

Before the performance

1. Be prepared: A day or two before the big performance, make a list of everything you need to take or have ready so that you don't end up running around, trying to find something ten minutes before show time.
2. Sleep and food: This one's quite obvious. Get some sleep and make sure to have a nice, full breakfast. No use trying to rock it on stage when you are sleep/food deprived.
3. Dress properly: By that, I mean wear something you're comfortable wearing and that you know looks good on you. It doesn't help if you're constantly feeling self-conscious, wondering if people think you look stupid in that new shirt your friend bought for you. 
4.  Rehearse and practice! Work out the kinks, fix some last-minute things, make sure it sounds/looks good. Obviously, it doesn't have to be flawless, but try and practice until you know it's up to a standard you think is good.

During the performance

1. People are cheering for you: The audience is not on the edge of their seats, eagerly waiting for you to forget your lines and stumble. They all want you to do well and even if you do make a mistake, they will still root for you! Don't forget that!
2. If you make a mistake, don't show it! Nobody will notice that you made a mistake if you don't make a big deal out of it. No flinching or face cringing; just move on and don't choke up because of that one moment. 
3. Smile and stand/sit up straight (unless it's a play/musical and it's not part of your character): This shows a lot of confidence and that can go a long way. Besides, better posture makes you sing/play an instrument much better. 
4. Don't be intimidated by the spotlight: If it helps, just pretend you're in one of your normal rehearsals and the "wall" that faces the audience is just a solid wall and that you're performing by yourself or only to a small group of friends. 
5. Know why you're on stage: By that, I mean that you are where you are because you are good at a certain thing (playing an instrument, singing, etc.). Know that you have what it takes and that ultimately, you are awesome at whatever you are doing. Remind yourself that you'll do a great job, because that's what all those rehearsals and auditions were for! 
6. Keep happy thoughts in your head! Whether they're of your band members, your parents or a loved one, they will keep you positive and give you something/someone to perform for. 

 It's also incredibly important to know that it's all about you (I do not mean it in a conceited manner) and it's your moment, not the audience's. Keep these tips to heart when you perform next time; hopefully these were helpful! Good luck to everyone!