Hello! My name is Hyeji and I'm 18 years old. I currently study writing and literature and will be a university junior in the fall.
I mostly write poetry, but I enjoy the occasional personal essays and narratives. My posts are often in the style of diary entries or book reviews (I'm always open to book recommendations and suggestions for writing), but I may post some of the art I create if I feel like it.
Besides reading and writing, I love fashion (dressing up), going on walks, painting, and talking to people.
what perfumes have you liked from BORNTOSTANDOUT slash what do you like about the brand? I’ve sampled Dirty Rice and Naked Laundry and both of them were a little too powdery for my taste!
(I don't know why this question ended up in my main blog inbox, sorry if that wasn't what you meant to do.. still learning how to manage my secondary blog)
Great question! I feel like it's partially marketing/loyalty (because I am Korean so there's an urge to rep my country haha) but also because I feel drawn to how they display their perfumes. Just like the name suggests, the brand makes its fragrance stand out from the design and color-way of the bottles to the names of the perfumes themselves. They're all very bold, intentionally made choices especially for a country like ours.
For the powdery part, a lot of Koreans tend to lean towards powdery or soapy scents-- it's a very popular choice of fragrance here, from hand creams to car fresheners, you can't really escape it. I feel that Indecent Cherry is a little less on the powdery side or if you want something warm and spicy, Drunk Saffron might also be an option.
If you're looking to get into the general Korean niche perfume scene though, I like Bibiang (Walnut Creek Green and Ritchae21 are my picks-- super refreshing and green!) or SW19's 6am (meant to mimic the Wimbledon Forest at 6 A.M.)!
what perfumes have you liked from BORNTOSTANDOUT slash what do you like about the brand? I’ve sampled Dirty Rice and Naked Laundry and both of them were a little too powdery for my taste!
(I don't know why this question ended up in my main blog inbox, sorry if that wasn't what you meant to do.. still learning how to manage my secondary blog)
Great question! I feel like it's partially marketing/loyalty (because I am Korean so there's an urge to rep my country haha) but also because I feel drawn to how they display their perfumes. Just like the name suggests, the brand makes its fragrance stand out from the design and color-way of the bottles to the names of the perfumes themselves. They're all very bold, intentionally made choices especially for a country like ours.
For the powdery part, a lot of Koreans tend to lean towards powdery or soapy scents-- it's a very popular choice of fragrance here, from hand creams to car fresheners, you can't really escape it. I feel that Indecent Cherry is a little less on the powdery side or if you want something warm and spicy, Drunk Saffron might also be an option.
If you're looking to get into the general Korean niche perfume scene though, I like Bibiang (Walnut Creek Green and Ritchae21 are my picks-- super refreshing and green!) or SW19's 6am (meant to mimic the Wimbledon Forest at 6 A.M.)!
Tangerine season is from late November to early February and my patience is all year-round.
Or at least it's supposed to be.
When you eat the first tangerines of the season, there are always mixed reactions. Sometimes they're too sour and at other times so sweet and gritty; however, there's one thing I always think of when eating my tangerines-- remember the farmers who painstakingly grew them. Growing up, my parents scolded me for leaving a couple of grains of rice in my bowl after dinner. They'd say the same thing, as if it was on cue: "Each grain of rice was grown by a farmer who planted the rice under the windy spring and harvested it during the dry autumn moon." It was dramatic surely, but invoked enough guilt for me to start pouring water into my bowl to drink up the last few rice grains.
This strange logic of gratitude also applied to tangerines when they were available. I would wash and boil the peels in water to make tea to open my sinuses and I would eat the weird sinew of the tangerines too, no matter how gross I thought it was. In my own way, I was showing that I was grateful for the hard work of the farmers. Tangerines are still a luxury to me today. My American boyfriend finds it strange and I simply tell him that's just the way it was for me.
People forget themselves. There's such a large disconnect on how the fruit in your hand gets there in the first place. Just like how we forget how we came to be where we are today and how many people gave us their hands to build what we call "home" today.
When you're like me and live in the half-world of unbelonging, you're exposed to what I call "cultural decollage"-- an act of pasting and stripping stickers or glued on "materials" or in this case, experiences, to layer on new ones. I've lived in five cities in two countries for eighteen years and whenever I moved to a new one, I would strip off the "stickers" of the previous life and prepare a base for a new one. Yet as in true decollage manner, the glue never came off all the way; that tends to leave traces of what came before it. In effect. I am my own map of the world, proof of my lived experience.
My personal convictions of being a cultural decollage often bind me to anxiety; I feel as if I don't know what it means to be loyal or to hold love for a country, state, or city. In a way, I convince myself that I need to remember everything in my life. A bad day is only three pages and a good day is a whole chapter when you think of it the way I do.
One thing good to come out of my Dada-like identity was the stories I had to tell. I can't help but get excited about it. There are so many things that I am responsible for as an author, as a person. In reaction, I let so many things possess me during my writing fits. The stories I tell make it seem like I was "in situations" in the words of my own friends and even family; though, I never really thought of them as situations that caused me problems. I just liked being able to talk about them after.
I've lived eighteen-hundred lives over eighteen years, still consistently dying and living in infinity signs. There's nothing wrong in being curious; there's nothing wrong with wanting to document everything.
Now, I think more than a writer, I'm a journalist-- an archivist of experience. I feel that my greatest joy comes from knowing I can write and that I can tell stories, at least in this moment. I've gathered my curiosity and courage to bring words into existence.
Yet, no matter how many ideas I have about my work, I have one main goal: I want people to learn from my work. I don't write unless I know people will come out with one new fact or a realization they've never had. I tell my stories, write new ones, and incorporate lessons as a way to feed myself and others. I think what I want to do in the future is write until I drop dead, to leave as much behind as possible so that others can widen their perspectives.
In my own way, my writing is like the first box of winter tangerines. Sometimes it's a little too sweet and mushy or it's sour and firm or maybe it just tastes like water. That first tangerine is an experience in-and-of-itself. Every year is different and every tangerine has a unique taste. In that sense, I want people to laugh when they read my work; I want them to cry; I want them to feel so empty that they never pick up my work again. Conversely, I also want people to be excited to read and talk about my writing, just like how we anticipate that small orange fruit during the colder months of the year.
Now, here in my new city, I can have tangerines whenever I want and it's chilly all-year round, even as the sun peaks out. It makes me feel out of place in a way even though I've never truly felt at home. I convinced myself that when I change, the scent of the peels and my convictions change too. Yet it still bothers me that they're not the ones I like though-- often a little smaller and a tad bit more sour than I like them. I'd kill for sweet tangerines-- sweet tangerines and stories to write about.
No one thinks of you as much as I do, but you don't need to know that. Even if you did, nothing would change.
l imagine us by the sea, a weathered wooden fence separating us from unreason. I watch your hair blow around in the wind and dip into the blue sky; you'll smile at me and I'll ask for you to grin with your teeth. You'll refuse to because you notice the camera. All while I start to focus on the sundrops on the water behind you.
How much longer will I have to beg you to let me know you?
When you finally let me snap the photo with sweaty palms and prints on my fingers from holding the lens too long, I'll look at it for a while.
In an attempt to burn the image of you into my head, I'll forget that you were even standing in front of me in the first place.
You'll wonder why I'm not looking at you. That's because you'll never know how much I think of
I recently started dating someone. He's my first boyfriend; I didn't expect much at first-- he had never been in a proper relationship and I had been out of a toxic relationship with my ex-girlfriend for four months by then. I couldn't help but feel like there was an imbalance where I was only going to think of what went wrong and where he was only going to see the thrill of dating.
It wasn't like that. He was gentle; he reminded me of a newborn calf with how tender he was with approaching the idea of "us". I was afraid actually, at how well things were going. He really liked me and I liked him too. I just didn't want to make the mistakes that were made to me. I nearly started crying to him because I felt like a terrible person. He spent those ten minutes holding my hands and talking me through it.
"Just come back to me," he said.
Relationships with people are difficult for me. I feel love so differently from what's considered the standard and I certainly act upon it differently too.
When you never have nice things, it's hard to know when you have them. It's a mistake I've made many times living with people that love me. I sabotage myself by being the worst of me in front of the people that care because I know that they're just waiting for an excuse. They want something to justify themselves inflicting cruelty or winning their ticket to sainthood-- but that's what I think. It's wrong. It should be wrong. I can't handle unconditional love and so I think I don't deserve it at all. Whether it be friends or family or lovers, I rationalize the "how" instead of accepting the "why". I think I'm not ready to understand and accept that everything I knew about me was wrong. I was shut into my box and grew in it, not knowing what my actual worth was.
I'm very grateful for everyone now though, at least to most people. I think I could have been a little more angrier and a little less loud. I hope my friends know I love them just as much, if not more than as they love me.
I notice I'm more of a child now than I was at 10. I'm a very smart child in proportion, but my emotions are not so much. I cry as much I read and I nap as much as I converse. It's nice sometimes, but I wish I had it when it was more appropriate.
I want to be heard. I want to be heard without being big or making space for myself. I don't want to be tired anymore. It's so hard trying to say anything that sometimes I don't feel like being with people that I know can help me. Sorry, it's just how I've been.
For now, I enjoy my time with my boyfriend. I don't fear the future-- I want him in mine. I am not afraid of that idea of "us", but rather I'm excited about it. Whenever I'm with him, it's almost like nothing hurt me at all. He's part of the healing, a remedy for the last 10 years. The love of my life, my laughter. I'm still reading those books you bought for me :)
My fingernails are so chewed up from thinking about where you might be and what you might be doing. I want to believe that there's still hope for us and that I can say "it's for you" so we don't need to fight anymore.
I can't spit it out-- I want you to love me more. I can't help that you're so distant; the way you try to close the gap between us is with objects and things that you think that'll make me forgive you. All I wanted was words-- words you're too scared to say because you don't know how to talk to anyone but yourself. Can't I be treated like I am actually precious? I really want to mean something, especially to you.
I lost 10 pounds in two weeks after coming back to South Korea. It wasn't a surprise to me-- it was bound to happen with another sudden change in lifestyle. It's so terribly hot and humid that you can't step outside and stay out for logner than an hour, and not to mention the wet season that takes up a majority of the summer. So that's why I lie in bed and contemplate ever waking up the next day. I don't even feel like eating most of the time-- I prayed that I just wouldn't have to wake up the next day. Besides, by the three-day mark, you don't feel hunger anymore-- your body accepts that it's just how it is.
I was angry. I still am. There's something so frustrating about being in a country you know doesn't care for you and yet being so far away from those whom you actually love. There's a strange irritation that won't go away and it's only when I'm back here that I can feel it. I feel like I'm getting bullied again; I can feel the hands down my back, pushing me down the stairs to see if I'll live or not. It's a sick and twisted joke that keeps on repeating itself. It makes me mad. The madness makes me spiteful. The spite makes me defiant. The defiance makes me vengeful. The vengance makes me who I am. I am living on a chalkboard to prove my endurance, albeit volatile.
My life was never meant to be lived by others. Yet I let it be that way.
You can do everything to try and change me into what you want-- place me in a new city, a new country-- fuck it-- a new continent-- I'll figure it out; I'll know how to be myself because you can't do anything about it. Especially here. You can take away what matters to me the most, but I won't let you indulge in my hardship. No, those are still mine. They're still me. I like that.
Why don’t people like sharing their Tumblr? Sometimes when I ask if they have one and if I can follow they react as if I asked for nudes. Anyways hello -æ
good question!!! i feel like it's about the social connotations of having a tumblr-- it's seen as like a "cringe" fandom cesspool thing for millennials but honestly it's not that and i remember using tumblr religiously back in middle school and high school. and hiiiiiiii :3
Personal Conviction @thirteenth-door - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
