My New Hobby

My drama addiction has reached another level. Ironically, I’m spending less and less time watching dramas too! First dramas helped me fall in love with Korean culture and bring it alive for me. Then, I became obsessed with studying Korean. For the past year, I’ve regularly been attending Korean school. Many evenings, I will study rather than watch the dramas. Next I started this blog about k-dramas. Now, recently I joined a fan-subbing group. For the past year and a half, I’ve been in awe of the great work that the fan-subbers do at http://www.d-addicts.com/ to allow English-speaking drama fans to watch Korean shows. Most of the dramas I watch these days are from d-addicts with fan subs. I was particularly grateful when the fan sub group D-Fansubs was formed to sub the drama Ju Mong. Ju Mong is a 60 episode historical drama, and I knew this would be a big task for any group. However, it was a drama I really wanted to see. Sure enough, D-Fansubs was up to such a large project and has now released subs through episode 20.

Wanting to help out, I contacted D-Fansubs about becoming an editor. I was hired! LOL However, with Ju Mong, they are now getting the translation from MBC, so they really didn’t need editors, only people that could "time" the subs to the video or do quality control (i.e clean up the subs if needed and double-check the timing). For these jobs, I needed to understand how to use timing software. So, I’ve spent the past week learning how to time. I started by editing some existing sub files that I had, then last night, with the hubby out of town and an evening to spare, I stripped all the timing out of an existing Ju Mong sub file and retimed episode 16 of JuMong…well 10 minutes of it anyway. It took me about 2 hours to time 10 minutes of a drama! I had always heard that timing subs is well...time consuming! Actually, it is quite addictive, especially for a Korean language fan like me. I can’t come close to translating the dialog, but I soon realized that I all my Korean study was very helpful in matching the right sub with the right dialog. There was almost always a transition word, clause, phrase, etc. that stood out when I was applying the sub. I think this new found hobby is going to really help me with my Korean listening skills, which need tons of work!

I’m signed up as QC person on 2 episodes of Ju Mong. If all goes well, I’m going to try timing next! Who knows when I’ll have time to actually watch a drama again!!

Guam Living

In so many ways, Guam is like living in a small town in the mainland US, with its quirks and quaintness. However, there are many experiences that are unique to Guam that keep life interesting. Here are some examples of life on Guam, just from the past week!

• I reset the clocks this morning. We have "dirty electricity" so all the clocks gain about 5 minutes per week. Before you realize it, your house clocks will be 15 minutes off. Never trust an electric clock in Guam. Only your watch will be right.
• For a couple of months now, we have been planning a Sunday Brunch with friends to eat and enjoy some live college football together. We held the party last weekend, but the electricity went out mid-party. It was out for a couple of hours. No football, but the food was still good.
• I went to the post-office to buy stamps. The first stamp-vending machine ate my money. The second machine was out-of-order. I had to go stand in line to buy stamps to mail one letter.
• My beloved Gold’s Gym is closing at the end of November. This summer the same family that owns its competitor purchased it and now Gold’s is closing its doors. No surprise I guess, and the other gym is ok, but Gold’s has been my fitness home for the past 3 years. I’m very sad.
• After I read the announcement of its closure, I worked out, stopped by the post office to mail a letter (see above item), then went home to find out we had no water. It was back about 24 disgusting hours later. I hate losing water more than losing electricity. No flushing toilets, no doing dishes, no showers, etc. I’ve heard the typhoon horror stories of no water for 45 days, so I know I shouldn’t complain. The worse is yet to come!
• The kids’ school bus was late today. It ran out of gas. Go figure…

With all that being said, our almost three years here has flown by, and we aren’t in a hurry to leave. I know one day we will move on, but for now, I’m really enjoying the Guam experience. Oh wait… the lights just flickered as I typed this! OOG! LOL now the internet is down too. Looks like I will have to reset the cable modem and router. Oh yeah, I get to reset the clocks again too!