it's not over until it's over.

Towards the end of 2013, I watched a lovely little Korean drama called Answer Me 1994. It was a throwback series to when Korea was wrapped up in a booming new movement in gayo (가요 - a term used to describe Korean pop music starting from the trot era) in the form of Seo Taiji and the Boys, as well as the crazy fashions, the hair, and the beeper pager. It was also a show about a group of college students and their passionate youths, and how they lived and loved and became friends and chased their dreams despite the setbacks that inevitably came with age.

In retrospect, the drama was riddled with flaws. It was too long, too fluffed, and too fixated on its main love triangle. But I loved it because of how overwhelmingly nostalgic it made me - even though 1994 was still three years before my birth. 

In the show, Chilbongie (one of the leads) says something about his unrequited love for Na Jung. Taking a famous quote from a baseball player, he cocks his head back and recites, "It's not over until it's over." 

So, there you have it. My new slogan for the new year. It's not over until it's over. I told you it was going to be a whirlstorm of cliches. 

With 2015, I have to face another year of new challenges - but it's also another year of overcoming those challenges. I'm going to lug this tired old machine out to the races again, with a heart bent on winning until the races close for the night.

I still have a lengthy to-do list to complete.

new year

It's the second day of the New Year! Sorry for the late posting - it has been quite a year, hasn't it?

To be frank, there's a lot of posts that I missed after 2014 sort of spiraled into one of the busiest periods of my life. I missed Halloween, Thanksgiving, the glorious period known as finals, and Christmas. But hey, I'm here for the New Year!

For a quick list of updates...

Halloween was fun - I didn't go trick-or-treating (because I am seventeen, believe it or not), but I always enjoy coming to school when everyone's in costume. Teachers are also a lot more lenient, so we spend more time discussing candy and horror movies than calculus. I hung out with a few good friends - for the life of me, I cannot watch horror films, but they convinced me with Hitchcock's The Birds. I enjoyed it on a cinematic level, but still scary.

October and November sort of swept by in a blurry of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (the book I read in Lit) and economics. I've found a certain appreciation for economics, actually. It's fascinating to see markets and relate it to human predictability. It is certainly an important subject, and I feel like many people have a limited respect for it.

All I remember for Thanksgiving was turkey. Yum.

And then it was December, and finals came upon me like an angel of terror. I have to admit that I've never been so stressed - I literally broke out in a rash the last week of school. Because I'm taking three college courses on top of my regular school schedule, I was forever shuttling between campuses and trying to keep my material straight. I was also working through my college applications at the time (fingers crossed!) so the burden was very, very heavy.

I pulled through, thankfully, and then it was break! My family and I spent a short three-day vacation in San Diego during Christmas, which is why I missed marking it on this blog. San Diego during December is a bit surreal - instead of hot chocolate and snow, I got (really good) Mexican food and sandy beaches that glittered like gold. Quite literally. The sand was gold.

My camera is currently out of commission, unfortunately, so I wasn't able to take proper pictures. Take my work for it though - it was fantastic to actually go somewhere and relax after a long, LONG, semester.

And now, I'm back and looking forward to 2015. I don't really enjoy making resolutions, but I do have one long-term goal for this year: to regain my energy. I want to become invigorated and curious, I want to reach out and DO things. I have so many things planned, from getting back to piano to beginning French and outlining a possible novel (!). Let's say that this is my year.