gotcha day..

recently I'm seeing a lot of people talk about how they celebrate gotcha day, and it's just such a weird concept to me.. especially when it's celebrated like a birthday.
I haven't heard of anyone who didn't also celebrate their actual birthday, but somehow acting like gotcha day is a birthday is almost..slightly negating the Korean part?
we didn't start our lives in an airport, or the day we were handed over.

I dunno, maybe it's not negating anything, but when I think about the concept of gotcha day it just stirs something defensive in me.

I know people also do celebrate their actual birthday, I guess I just don't understand the need to make a special fuss about gotcha day.
lots of adoptees have siblings biological to their adoptive parents, should they then get a conception day or 1st sonogram day or..?
and why make that distinction between adoptive and biological children? or maybe families with both never celebrate gotcha day..

I never celebrated gotcha day, and you might be thinking I'm just regretful and jealous, but I'm really not.
I do know some Danes do it too, but as far as I can tell, hearing from adoptees around the world, this is a primarily US custom. I don't know anyone personally who celebrates it, so I've never had anyone to be jealous of.

meh. I'm ranting and probably not making much sense.
I just sometimes get a little tired of "special days" in general. every day should be special, and you should appreciate and love people every day, not just cos the calendar tells you to.

yeah, I said it...

I'm a member of several Facebook groups for Korean adoptees, and for some reason some of them have been extremely active lately.

obviously, I'm a member by my own choice, but it can be really emotionally draining to see post after post in my news feed because it obviously brings matters to my attention and triggers feelings.

이광수ㅠㅠ♥

this will probably be turn out to be some weird post, but.. I dunno, it's been on my mind all day.

for a while now I've been an avid viewer of the Korean TV show Running Man, it's my absolute favourite show!
it took me a long while to see the light, but once I did I was hooked and I've been so ever since.

my kpop collection

note: the albums are best viewed on computer due to Google's layout, and the amount of pictures in each album

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some people like to buy clothes or jewelry or go out or live in an expensive home or drive a fancy car or buy shoes.
what I apparently like to spend my money on - besides traveling to Korea - is kpop stuff. literally.  

I live an extremely spartan life (let's not get into how spartan since this is not a personal post per se), and since early 2011, pretty much the only non-essential things I've bought for myself have been kpop related.

so by now, for an international fan, I think I have a fairly big collection.
and since I am a nosy person who always like to see what other people have, I figured, maybe someone would get a kick out of seeing what I have :)

or at least what I have had cos some things I've given away to friends, and some spares/doubles have been put up for sale. 

you can either click on single pictures if you wanna see full size, or just click on the first and view as slideshow from there on out.

if you're viewing full size on a computer, there's a white "i" up in the right hand corner. click it and you can see my comments for the pictures.

feel free to ignore those if you get sick of my gushing and/or squealing, but these weren't originally meant to be public albums, so all comments are made for me to remember my packages by.
on that note, you might find the packaging pics redundant, but I like to remember the boxes, too.

do share if you find any picture good enough for that, but DO NOT crop my watermark where added, DO NOT edit, and credit would be nice.

other than that, please enjoy~ :)

my kpop collection part 1

my kpop collection part 2

my kpop collection part 3

the albums will be randomly updated whenever I buy something new. which is too often...

something about posters

so, only more than a year after we started this whole apartment renovation project, and only like 6 months after we finished painting and put up the pinboards we made, we FINALLY got the posters up!

for years it has only been Taemin and Taemin, but since my main focus isn't SHINee anymore, and hubs was getting a little tired of it, we made it more of a joined kpop experience.

we got so many free posters in Korea, and over time I've bought so many with albums, so by now our collection was pretty big and diverse.

in time I might find something to fill the space above Taemin, but for now the puzzle just didn't wanna fit.

and no, I dunno why I post about my posters, I just feel like it.

131201+02 Paris for Infinite "One Great Step"

as usual, this is a personal travel account, not an ordinary whatever that means fanaccount, so if you just wanna see my cams and pics, feel free to scroll way down past my yapping.

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if you wanna know how ticketing for Paris went, you can read the first part of this post, cos it sorta was connected to London ticketing, though not? I dunno, it was a mess, but you can check it out if you want to.

of course it wasn't by choice, but having two concerts this close together was hell. I was in the vortex that was Inpi-solo-concert-S-U-N-G-G-Y-U and then having to deal with more fucking flying and more concert jitters.
it would just have been better with at least a week or two apart. not complaining, it just didn't make the past week any easier.

131127+28 London for Infinite "One Great Step"

as usual, this is a personal travel account, not an ordinary whatever that means fanaccount, so if you just wanna see my cams and pics, feel free to scroll way down cos I like to talk a lot.

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since this world tour was announced on June 10th and it was revealed that Infinite would come to Europe, I've had a stress knot in my stomach every time I've thought about ticketing for this cos it would have killed me to finally have them this close, and not be able to go.

in the world tour teaser Woollim only mentioned London and Paris, but a tour pass from the opening concert in Seoul showed Frankfurt as a 3rd Euro date, so up until the details for the other Euro dates were released we thought we'd have to budget with three trips. but not a peep about Frankfurt were ever heard so it obviously got cancelled for whatever reason.

131019 Marie and Søren's wedding~♥

I'm a person who likes to help people. I like to feel needed and useful, and when Marie asked me to do the flowers for their wedding, I felt not only that, but also extremely honoured and touched.

especially since I've never done a flower-anything in my life. okay, not entirely true, but to be honest, I don't really consider it a big accomplishment to stick cut-off flowers and whatnot into a vase. that really doesn't require much of anything remotely skillful.
but I have watched carefully when ordering bouquets at the shop, so I felt quite confident I would be able to do it. it looked easy

130713-23 summer holiday in Hamburg, Kiel, and South Jutland

so, due to all this crap we ended up scrapping our original camping idea, that we had been planning and looking forward to for months. we'll do that in two years instead sigh
and even though we are supposed to be saving for Korea next year, I really really needed to get away, so in my I-don't-give-a-fuck state, I suggested we do a hotel vacation in Hamburg instead. it's been a while since we've been there, but it's a place we love and know and could just have a nice, relaxed time there.

lap hys post-op report

a week ago, when I was shaking in bed, wide awake, the night before the surgery, I had this silly thought.. "I wonder if I'll feel different..". 
maybe it's not silly, though, isn't that a pretty normal thought when you're facing major life-altering changes?