#138. 아이엠그루트 -- I am Groot (???)

When the quarantine started, I had such big plans for it. With all the extra time I was going to save by not commuting, I was going to write more blog posts, read more books, do more work... But in reality, I was in a lot more useless Zoom meetings, I was writing more emails, and my energy level was just kind of low. I guess I just stressed out about not doing nearly as much as I hoped.Nonetheless, I managed one thing on my to-do list. I watched...

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#137. 방구석 여포 -- Pick on someone your own size!

I spent my early childhood in Korea, when StarCraft and e-sports were on the rise. While I was more interested in K-pop idols such as H.O.T. and Fin.K.L. along with the other girls in my class, most of the boys spent their free time talking about StarCraft strategies. After school, they would go to internet cafes (PC방 in Korea, literally "computer room") and play against each other, and they worshipped pro gamers -- I have never played StarCraft...

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#136. 총공 -- Why the Koreans have united to wage a cyber war this week

Call me vulgar, but I love drama and juicy gossip. I don't even make an effort of trying to look uninterested when people start fighting, and I shamelessly collect all the rumours and construct the entire story (God forbid should I miss even the tiniest detail!) in my head. That's probably why I got into K-Pop in the first place, and this is definitely why I started spending way too much of my time on the Korean internet. The Korean internet...

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#135. 공사치다 -- Blindsided by love (feat. Ellin of Crayon Pop)

How time flies! 2019 marks the seventh-year anniversary of the debut of the K-pop girl group Crayon Pop, well-known by its one mega-hit song "Bar Bar Bar." This unfortunate group must have felt incredible pressure to continue to entertain with their gimmicks after the amazing success of "Bar Bar Bar," but never overcame it. All things considered, it wasn't just the creative barrier that got them; the group's promotional activities were hindered...

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#133. 내로남불 -- Romance for me, infidelity for you

One of the things that always impress me when I meet a foreigner trying to learn Korean is when they use a 사자성어 (four-letter proverbs) in their sentences. Korean has an abundance of four-letter proverbs in its vocabulary, and even among native Koreans, knowing a lot of 사자성어 is a mark of your intellect, as these often come with a back story, or you simply need to know a lot of hanja to decipher its meanings. Only a well-read person could casually...

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#129. 손절 -- no longer friends

A few months ago, I had a huge fight with a close friend of mine named Anna. Anna and I have known each other since we were about 15 years old, and we knew everything about each other. As the Koreans say: "우리는 서로의 집에 숟가락이 몇개인지까지 아는 사이였다." (Our relationship was such that we even knew how many spoons were in each others' houses.) We were always aware that we were polar opposites, and we were always amazed that we somehow made our friendship work for...

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