Spazzing over BoA + SMTown World Tour 3 in Singapore

With BoA releasing her 8th album to celebrate her 15th anniversary since debut this week, it seems apt to dedicate a post to one of my favourite female soloists. (She'll be THE favourite if Kahi didn't leave After School to become a soloist too.)

I first heard of BoA when I was a kid. She debuted at a tender age of 13 in 2000, and gained massive popularity in Japan, Korea and even Asia when she was still in her teens. I clearly remember in 2006, when she released her Made In Twenty album, I was exclaiming to my brother 'What?! She's only 20 years old?! But she's been around FOREVER!!' Because of her insane success in the early 00s, she remains a household name here.

January 2015 - Tasmania

I have always wanted to go to Tasmania after seeing an article on it in 8days, and the desire tripled when Rui En went there to film Sudden.
Unfortunately, due to my pathetic amount of holidays, I could only spare 4.5 days in this lovely place. But it was a good break away from studies and everything in real life.

We booked this really last minute, about a month before we flew, so everything was really expensive. I couldn't find any direct flights to Hobart or Launceston so we had to transit at Sydney while going there and Melbourne while coming back. It is advisable to arrive at Hobart and depart from Launceston or vice versa to save time travelling back and forth the 2 cities. But it was cheaper to fly in and out of Hobart so that's what we did. We paid about $1600 per person on Qantas.

Drama Views: Kill Me, Heal Me (2015)

This will probably be my last drama review in a few months since my exams are coming up :(

Kill Me, Heal Me is about a chaebol named Cha Do Hyun (Ji Sung) who has 7 personalities due to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), and the female psychiatrist, Oh Ri Jin (Hwang Jung Eum), who helps him overcome the problem.
I had pretty high expectations for the show from the rave reviews, and it met some while it faltered at others. But overall, I really enjoyed it, especially Ji Sung's fantastic performance. A lot of people were highly annoyed by Hwang Jung Eum's admittedly excessive screaming in the first few episodes but I personally was fine with it. Don't let that minor point deter you from watching this show!

Korean Music Recommendations - Non-idols

People always judge me when I tell them I like Korean music because they always associate it with typical K-Pop - mindless noise and repetitive hooks. But there is a side to Korean music that not many people know about. K-Pop also has some really good hidden gems, but I will cover these in another post.

So here's a post about some of my favourite songs and artists recently, with a focus on non-idols.
I usually don't intentionally go finding these songs, but happen to chance upon them while reading forums or blogs.

Spazzing over Rui En

 

Rui En is a Singaporean actress cum singer. She has also been my idol since I was 13 years old.

I first started watching her in dramas in 2004 (I was 9, but somehow I can still remember) in a show called My Mighty-in-laws where she was still young, inexperienced, and honestly not very good at acting. Her Chinese pronunciation was terrible despite debuting in Taiwan as a singer. But I thought that she was quite pretty.
In 2005, she acted in a few more Channel 8 dramas, and gained her first leading role in A Promise for Tomorrow. At that time, she had already become my favourite Channel 8 actress...because she was pretty hah. What does a 10 year old know about acting?

Med School + May/June 2014 - Seoul & Tokyo (Part 3) + Bonnie & Clyde Musical starring Kahi

My posts are getting more and more sparse because exams are coming up in 1.5 months time! We are the uni course the ends the latest in Singapore....or maybe the world. I'm also quite sure we study for the longest period of time. The academic year starts in August and only ends in late June for us :( Our holidays are pretty pathetic too. 2 weeks in December, 1 week each in September and March, and 1 month in July. So we study for a total of 10 months, while those in London study for 5 months? We only go to school for about 3 times a week on average though, due to our unique system of Team Based Learning (TBL), where we study at home though video lectures and come to school for 'quizzes'. I was initially quite apprehensive about this system but have come to love it a lot. No more worries about not catching what the lecturer said! Literally study at your own pace!
Med school has been pretty great for me so far but the pressure is only going to increase from now with our first finals coming up and the eventual progression into clinical years. But I love what I study and cannot wait to use my knowledge to benefit others so all the hard work is worthwhile.

It's Labour Day today + weekends + no school on Monday so it's technically a long and relaxing weekend...but nope. I've got a summative reflections due on 11th May and Anatomy Spots test on the same day. Plus continuous, never ending preparation for TBLs.

But I have some time to write my final post about the Seoul & Tokyo trip in 2014.