just wanna think about

[arisha]

Last night I learned of the K-pop group Kara through a random comment someone made in a MoMusu forum, and today I have had their song "Wanna" on REPEAT. I have no idea why I love this song so much, but omg, I kinda do. (Even if the video uses that "hey let's go destroy my ex's stuff" trope that leaves such a bad taste in my mouth.)

Anyway, I am only letting myself get into K-pop if I can put on hold my desire to study Korean. (That writing system just seems like the coolest thing to me!) I'm supposed to be passing the JLPT in two months!!! And somehow keeping up with my Spanish as well, somehow ... Studying multiple languages was so much easier when I had classes in both of them. I was looking at the list of language tutors on the UVic web site today, but before I get a tutor I should probably decide what I'd want from them, haha. Because I mean, it's not like I have specific homework they could help me with or anything. :/ Or maybe I should just start making use of all those language-learning sites I've signed up for in the past, hahaha, oh man I'm so disorganized.

I did study some JLPT grammar yesterday, though! So. There's that. :) Oddly enough I've been doing better on this workbook's kanji pages than on its grammar pages, something I definitely did not expect! I am a grammar fangirl, hahaha.

In other news, I find this fandom!secret kind of sad but also amusing, because it's so different from my life! Pretty sure when the_wykydtron and I go see a play, as soon as intermission hits we're already discussing gender. Especially when we went to see "The Fantasticks," which was ... interesting. D:

Comments

[shounenarisu.livejournal.com]

- Oh, man, I want to learn Korean too. I can already read and write Hangul, and I have some knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, but yeah, I'm trying to put it on hold too until I can put more energy into it. I'd love to learn Spanish better too. Oh, man. But I know it won't work, taking on too much. I have to slow down tito. Right now I'm mainly focussing on reading Japanese novels.

But I was thinking of buying ペ・ヨンジュンと学ぶ韓国語DS. Tempted.

- Yeah, I always note the messages on gender, race, etc. in media too, lol. Although, I think it might be a little awkward if I were in the situation the secret described. I can see how saying, 'Oh btw the play you were part of is incredibly sexist' could potentially lead to some friction, depending on the situation/person.

[arisha.livejournal.com]

haha, good to know I am not the only one in this situation! xD Although my knowledge of Korean so far basically amounts to a poor pronounciation of the word for "hello," which I ... don't even know how to type, lol. That's awesome that you can read and write Hangul! So far I've just been admiring it from afar. x)

And I kind of love that that DS game exists. I looked up some screencaps from it and it definitely looks more useful than the "Learn Chinese with Morning Musume" phrasebook I have, haha. If you do end up getting it, let me know what you think! I'm pretty interested in how the DS can be used for language learning. (I have a couple kanji practice games for it which I love.)

also!

[arisha.livejournal.com]

slow down tito

I love this joke to the point of having to stop myself from using it offline (I change tactics halfway through and pretend I was going for the "slooooow doooooown" joke from the Powerthirst commercials, hahaha oh my life), but I think this is the first time it's made its way into my LJ! xD xD xD

[the-wykydtron.livejournal.com]

You have more than once brought to my mind the Pratchett saying, "If you want something done, give it to a busy person."

Your best ideas for nano come when you should be working on your novel; your enthusiasm about learning Korean rises when you should be studying for the JLPT - I think I have discovered the key to your productivity! You should always be doing *something else*.

Actually, did we talk that much about gender in "The Fantasticks"? I think I was too overwhelmed by the play's other problems to think much about gender. One of its central ironies was how it was a play about the deconstruction of a typically problematic romantic narrative - and yet that deconstruction relied on highly gendered tropes. It challenged the boy meets girl formula by having the girl think she's in love with someone else, and having the boy think his girlfriend is shallow (I think?). So, it challenged "boy meets girl" but it relied on REALLY problematic notions of "boy" and "girl" to do so.

Also, it had a male narrator who doubled as the secondary love interest, thus precluding any possibility of an aesthetically balanced relationship between him and the girl due to their differing distances from the audience - and therefore reinforcing the initial romance, which was balanced in terms of the characters' youth, beauty, naivete and objective distance from the audience. This in turn reinforces the idea that the two young people were meant to be together, since it is the girl's infatuation with the narrator / her captor that disrupts their relationship. The boy's issue with the relationship ("girl is shallow and doesn't appreciate me") is held up as valid, whereas the girl's issue with the relationship ("boy is boring, pirate is exciting!" is seen as problematic. Her crush isn't the source of their problems, but it is roundly condemned.

Furthermore, the boy has to go out into the world to gain life experience, whereas the girl gains her experience through an older man. The list of problems with this dynamic:

1) Girls are vapid, shallow, and concerned with only romantic thoughts (which are of course androcentric)*

2) Women are only important in terms of their relationships with men

3) Women's goals and characters are contingent upon their sexuality

4) Men are the primary citizens of the world; women can only gain value through men as their adjuncts, not as independent agents

5) Women's relationships with men must be sexual in some sense; she could not have, for example, gained experience via a tutor or a professor but through a potential lover

*Holy shit I think another piece of the puzzle just snapped into place for me! The stereotype that women care / should care primarily about love and relationships is ENTIRELY a way of maintaining androcentricity! By positioning love, marriage, children and relationships as the apex of womanhood, a woman's self becomes subsumed by the interests of her male partner; her personal goals cannot be as important as a MAN. Women's interests are therefore less valuable because they're necessarily secondary: their interests can only feed back into men's interests, because all women care about is men / relationships / etc. LATHER RINSE REPEAT.

Also, a sexualized wall. I liked the wall, but seriously, if it had been played by a male character, it wouldn't have been a sexy wall.

... Phew. Were there any more?

[aurora-lime.livejournal.com]

Re: Kara- Wanna.


I can't watch these videos. They're adorable, but they murder my selfesteem with their innate cute. I want my hair to be that shiny and skin to be so creamy!

wow. Wasn't that like, the shallowest thing you've heard all day? </3

[arisha.livejournal.com]

hahaha! Lucky for me, my appearance is farther down on my list of priorities than is socially acceptable, so ... I don't have that problem. >xD

[athena-crikey.livejournal.com]

Man, stay away from K-pop! Stay awaaaaaaaaaay! We'll never hear from you again

[arisha.livejournal.com]

hahaha, why? Do you speak from experience? Does K-pop suck people in? Or would my obsessiveness be to blame for this disappearance? SO MANY QUESTIONS