may/june 2023

[mistydream]

💿 listening

artists	albums	tracks
lesserafim: 278 scrobbles seventeen: 224 scrobbles shinee: 191 scrobbles agust d: 129 scrobbles bss: 124 scrobbles	unforgiven (lesserafim): 250 scrobbles fml (seventeen): 164 scrobbles I’ve ive (ive): 119 scrobbles my world (aespa): 101 scrobbles d-day (agustd): 70 scrobbles	fml (svt): 81 scrobbles fighting (bss feat lee youngji): 64 scrobbles eve, psyche and the bluebeard’s wife (lesserafim): 63 scrobbles just do it (bss): 54 scrobbles thirsty (aespa): 49 scrobbles

• watching lesserafim live (if you count watching the livestream from right outside the venue as live) solidified the fact that i am actually a fearnot. their discography is solid and i realised how badly i would want to see eve, psyche and the bluebeard’s wife live, with my own eyeballs, inside the venue.
• on the topic of wives, i thought i was a yunjin stan but it turns i become the dog and cabbage gif when chaewon enters my line of sight. i am only a little sorry, because you have to understand she looks like a forest nymph in person…
• still, i really enjoyed yunjin’s set at weverse con. love you twice felt the most ~chill~ ~summer~ festival appropriate, but i also came around to i ≠ doll because of the live band
• speaking of live bands, i am begging txt to release the band version of thursday’s child they performed at weverse stage. it’s off-brand for me to prefer a band version to a more polished pop production, but know that i am still thinking about her till today…

📼 watching

going for a 1.5 week trip really messed up my content consumption habits. we hate watched xo kitty on the trip - a show i never would’ve got through if not for the fact that everything in gangneung seems to close by 8pm. the dialogue and plot points were hard to stomach and plucky gworl kitty did not do it for me, but i surprised myself by really liking the ensemble cast (including yuri and Q). i also lived for minho’s pettiness - drop the skincare routine, king.

i did manage to keep up with gose (i booked a slot in our travel itinerary to make sure we would come back and watch it) and earth arcade 2 (because it was the only interesting show airing whenever we turned on the tv). i CANNOT wait for svt youth before flowers - sorry that the kids will be hauling haversacks across schedules until the day they get kidnapped by na pd.

📚 reading

i finished idol, burning before we left for korea. I actually skimmed through the book kino a while back but ended up putting it on the backburner, because i wasn’t sure if i was going to like based on the first chapter. I’m glad i gave it a chance though - it reminded me a lot of how it feels to float, where the narrator’s voice made it feel like all of the things happening were completely outside of her body. as i was reading, i wondered if the author was building up to a big reveal of what actually happened with masaki, but i’m glad it didn’t go that way because in some ways... he wasn’t the point of the story? stanning a celebrity often says less about the celebrity and more about you and your values. akari’s unwavering devotion says less about masaki and his star power as an idol, and instead reveals more about akari’s desire to surrender herself to something larger. I don’t know if i fully understand akari’s experience, but i think i understand the impulse to yield yourself (your emotions, your energy) to something or someone, even if you’ll never get to know that person.

meanwhile, my hand got itchy and i dropped money on 밀리의 서재. i’m skimming through like 3 different books at the moment, but i’m most likely to finish 금요일엔 시골집으로 퇴사합니다, since it’s light read that indulges the part of my brain that stores my cottage core dreams.

on the other hand, figuring out books that match my chinese standard is actually harder than i thought. It doesn’t help that the hyread library isn’t as comprehensive, and my brain refuses to parse traditional chinese. I’m midway through a self-help book (给不小心就会太焦虑得你) but i’m hoping to find something that i actually want to read in chinese, rather than something i can read.

💬 and other things

•  the trip to korea was such a good break. I forgot how good it felt to unplug from work and stuff at home, to the point where i 1) started tearing on the bus back to the airport 2) immediately started doing the math and brainwork to figure out how i could come back again on my own 🤡I know people say i should travel to different places, but i realised i don’t travel because i want to explore - i travel because i want to relax and get distance from problems at home, and i just have too much anxiety to do new places on my own. 

• my therapist thinks i’m ready to graduate from therapy?? i was caught off guard when he asked if i still wanted to come back, but i think i’ve mentally prepared myself to make my next session my last. I’d be happy to save money, and it’s true that my situation has stabilised. I also can’t change my family, but i have learnt useful ways to cope (mainly just getting out of the house lol), so it might be a good time to put what i’ve learnt to the test.