Mpop Lay’s full Album LIT

          In a previous post, I talked a little about Lay’s album LIT, but that was only about the first part of the album. Well now the full album has been released and if the first part was “lit” this second part is fire!

LIT:

Part One:

1. Lit

2. Jade

3. Eagle

4. H2O

5. Fly

6. Soul

*see my previous post above

Part Two:

7. Changsha

8. Mama

9. Boom

10. Call My Name

11. Late Night

12. Wish

This part is more western than the first part and is a whole mood. You can really hear just how beautiful Lay’s voice is and how pure. I honestly can’t tell you which of these songs is my favorite because each one has its own mood and sound and each is unique. I love the way he mixes English lyrics with Chinese lyrics in this part. 

It seems like the first part of the album was about mixing Chinese music with western music with mostly Chinese music but in this part, it is western sounds with English and Chinese lyrics and it works so well. How can I explain it....you just have to go take a listen to the creative musical genius that our healing unicorn has turned out to be!

Before I go let me leave you with this song from Part Two:

BOOM

WISH

CALL MY NAME

Honestly, I could probably put the whole album here but please go take a listen to his beautiful voice and judge for yourself. 

Chinese Language Study

          So I wanted to update you on my Chinese language studies. After careful consideration, I have decided to also get a Chinese teacher alongside my Udemy classes, if you don’t know what I am talking about please check my previous post about My Language Study Plans, and so far I have taken 3 classes with the teacher. 

          Each of these classes included a pinyin portion and then a dialogue portion. In case you don’t know what pinyin is it is the system used to teach you how to speak the characters in Chinese. Each syllable is made up of an initial (a consonant) and a final (vowels) and a tone. Tones, if read wrong can turn a harmless word into a curse 😬. So a Chinese pinyin syllable would look like this mā while its character would look like this 妈 in simplified Chinese.

  Where the dialogue portion is concerned, so far I can greet you, tell you my name, where I am from, what my occupation is, what my hobby is and what my dream is and why. 

     I’ve also started learning to write some Chinese characters too. 

 Not exactly pretty but definitely a challenge I loved doing. 

         So far I’m enjoying my classes with my teacher and he works well with me. I found him on Preply.com which is also where I found my Korean teacher. I was lucky with both.   

  

Kpop Comeback EXO-SC

          I have to admit, even though I have Baekhyun’s albums I’ve been waiting on unboxing them until I have the full set but I couldn’t wait to talk about EXO-SC’s full album comeback. There are three different versions of the album and I got them all but of course, they have not arrived yet. So I’m going to talk about the MVs and the digital version which I do have.

          The album has 8 songs, 4 of them feature different artists alongside Chanyeol and Sehun. The songs are as follows:

1. 1 Billion Views (featuring MOON) 

2. Say it (featuring PENOMECO) 

3. Rodeo Station

4. Telephone (featuring 10cm)

5. Jet Lag

6. Fly Away (featuring Gaeko)

7. Nothin’

8. On Me

The digital album also has an instrumental version of 1 Billion Views and a Digital Booklet. 

         Of these eight songs, Nothin’ is a Chanyeol Solo and On Me is a Sehun Solo. We have MVs for 1 Billion Views, Telephone, Nothin’, and On Me. 

          What I love most about this album is that When it comes to lyrics Sehun and Chanyeol are credited on every song, except on Chanyeol’s solo where Sehun was not. Music-wise Studio 519 (Chanyeol’s studio) is credited on 3 songs: Telephone, Fly Away, and Sehun’s solo On Me. The whole album’s length is around 31 minutes. 

          Most of the songs are hip hop, trap hip hop, R&B hip hop, and R&B. The whole album Is no skip. Every song has an amazing beat and the lyrics are just...I have no words. I always knew that Chanyeol is a multitalented king but the surprise in this album is Sehun. Their debut album already showed just how much talent Sehun has vocal wise but this album REALLY showcased it so well. Our baby is all grown up y’all!!! His vocals are on point! Plus from the interviews, we know that both of them had put their foot down when SM tried to mess with their choices for the album. So our boys also flexed some muscles to give us this masterpiece. Now let me end this with the MVs. Watch these beauties and STREAM STREAM STREAM people!!!!

Telephone

On Me (Sehun Solo)

Nothin’ (Chanyeol Solo)

1 Billion Views (Title Songs)

Monthly Journal Update

          It is a new month and so a journal update is in order. Last month was an abject failure in journalling but a sort of success when it comes to figuring out a bit more about myself and power sheets. I learned after adding some smaller goals to my power sheets that I needed more concrete bite-sized goals that go towards the big goal and luckily this month is when the power sheets give you the chance to look over your old goals and revamp them. So today I’m going to start with that. 

I didn’t actually take pictures of everything I did but I used to have more goes than this. I’ve streamlined a few and added more chunks to some. I have targets now, mini-steps that I take for the bigger picture. 

I filled out the other pages too which helped me mentally. 

So let me show you last month’s tending sheet. 

As you can see lots of days where things went to the dogs when it came to my language studies and I also felt like my tasks were not specific enough. 

Here is this month’s tending sheet.

Not many tasks but specific enough to let me have a more detailed approach. 

Now the power sheets calendar is where I keep track of my bills and when they need to be paid when to take my Humeira medication when to post my blogs and I record when I finished a set goal. So I did not want to clutter it with anything more and I hated that sheet they have at the back of the calendar to list mini-goals so what I did was add separate calendars for three different things I wanted to keep track of my Islamic studies, my Korean studies, and my Mandarin studies. 

As you can see...clutter! But organized clutter.

I'm also using Google Calendar to organize my lecture times as just writing them in my journal is not enough of a reminder. I have it set up to remind me of the classes 15 minutes before the lessons.

Now to my journal. The only thing I kept up with there is my tracker page, my idea blog page and my books read...even there weren’t many books read 😂

Here Are the opening pages for this month in my journal.

Now I vowed to myself that I was going to journal more this month because last month was a total failure in that regard and so far I have kept my word to myself.....but the month is only at its beginning...so we’ll see.

I did subscribe to a new stationery box from Japan so you might be seeing reviews of that every month! 

That is it for now!

My New Plan for Language Study

          In my previous post, I talked about my struggles as someone who wasn’t exactly intermediate but definitely NOT a beginner. This month has seen my language studies stutter and kind of stop. They definitely stopped for Chinese and they sort of stuttered for Korean mostly because I have an awesome native Korean language teacher who at least is trying to drum some stuff into my brain. So today (Monday, June 29) I sat down to really look at what is going on with me. Why did I stop my Chinese studies and why is my Korean suffering and it is not JUST about the beginner/intermediate struggle. I found some points which I can take action on. Let me start with Chinese, because this one was easy. 

CHINESE:

I realized I had no specific goal that I am working towards. I don’t know what I am doing or where I am going so I set a goal for myself. This month (to be re-assess at the end of the month) I will be focusing on Pinyin and learning it to the best of my ability. The point is that I can read Pinyin so I can go on to HSK 1 books. I might throw in some character writing but Pinyin is my goal.

To this end, I went on Udemy and bought some courses that focus on that. I am also going to look at YouTube videos.

KOREAN: 

1. I like Talk to Me in Korean books so I am keeping those as-is. So for the next month, I will focus on Level 3 as well as reading Easy Korean Reading. There is also a book that I am slowly working through which is about patterns in Korean grammar.

2. I asked my teacher to give me homework. I told him I wanted a paragraph that I could look at on my own figure out what the meanings of the words were and what the sentences mean then answer questions about in Korean. In case anyone is wondering my teacher is the best, check him out on Instagram. He is just the beat and most patient teacher. 

3. I’m going to watch the Drama 날 녹여주오 (Melting Me Softly). I am currently watching it with subtitles on Vik.com. Then I am going to use their teaching mode which they have on most dramas and just focus on the phrases and the words I don’t know. 

4. Now let me talk about what didn’t work. Ehwa Korean is a great book from a great institute but...like Sogang University books just don’t work for me. So I’ve decided to put them away for now. 

5. I am substituting Korean From Zero books instead of the Ehwa Korean books. If those don’t hold my interest I will try a different set of books, God knows I have tons of them from different Universities 😬. 

This is my plan to revive my language studies. My hope is that sharing my struggles can help others with theirs.

Intermediate Language Studies - My Current Struggles

          Today I want to talk about something that I am currently struggling with where my Korean studies are concerned. I am not exactly a beginner but I'm not intermediate either...at least not exactly. I have enough grammar to be at level 3 in Talk To Me in Korean. I can make long sentences on my own if I think about them beforehand but I can't do it on the spot, although sometimes if it is everyday vocabulary I can. I can watch Superman Returns (a Korean reality show where celebrity men look after their babies) and understand everything because the dads are talking to their children so their vocabulary is geared towards their age. I have tried to watch Korean dramas and tried to understand what is going on before putting on the subtitles but I ended up understanding like 20 to 30 percent of what they are saying. So I was thinking about how to improve my vocabulary skills, my listening skills, and my on the spot answering skills.

This is what I am going to do based on my research and asking my Korean teacher. 

1. What dramas with Korean subtitles before watching it with English subtitles and see how much I can pick up with reading and listening.

2. Listen to Korean only podcasts and Youtube channels even if I don't understand anything at first to get more used to hearing the language and discerning words.

3. Read Korean books. I bought a bunch of beginner and intermediate reading books which I am going to start reading. 

4. Besides Kpop also listen to Ballads as they tend to be slower and use more common words than Kpop.

Hopefully, these things will help me advance a little more in my studies.

Kpop News: Miscellaneous

          I'm going to start by bragging a little. I've always loved Lee Sunhee's songs, but then I found out that she herself sought out Chanyeol for a Collaboration, and my respect for her increased. She was able to see just how awesomely talented Chanyeol is and went for it. The result is stunning! Their voices compliment each other so well, I am so proud of our Chanyeol. Please check out this masterpiece!

And the lyrics for the song.

          Next, I want to brag about Sehun, our baby. He has been quite busy! Season 3 of Busted is confirmed for release sometime this November 2020. He is also now confirmed to be in Pirates 2 alongside Kang Ha Neul and Lee Kwang Soo. 

        Now both he and Chanyeol are also preparing for their comeback as EXO-SC sometime in July! I can’t wait!!!

        One of my favorite groups is TVXQ, I’m a Cassiopeian on top of being an EXO-L and proud of it. I was so happy to hear the news that Changmin was getting married in September.

I’m so proud of my fellow Cassiopeians in the way they handled the news. They were pretty mature about it and I’m glad for Changmin. And extremely happy for him.

I also found it a little ironic that the same Knetizens who are calling for Chen to exit EXO despite the wishes of the EXO members themselves are the same ones that are congratulating Changmin on his upcoming nuptials. Cognitive dissonance much??!! 

          I could have sworn that I talked about Lay’s new Album Lit but apparently, I have not so let me talk about it here. Just like its name the album is awesome in every way. I love the fusion he did between Chinese music and western music without either one losing its flavor. 

The album has 6 songs. The songs are:

1. Lit

2. Jade

3. Eagle

4. H2O

5. Fly

6. Soul

Also, this is only part one of the album apparently but we still don't know much about the second half. All the songs are fire and depending on my mood my favorite will change so I’m just going to leave you with the MV.

This is the MV for Lit.

While this is not an MV, it is still an amazing song and picture from Lay. This is Jade.