April 2, 2020

Hello!  Ready to delight in a new WOO Delight?  Go HERE!

 

March 27, 2020

Good Morning!   Jung Il woo recreated Anne of Green Gables in his 2020 calendar…

So… I am sharing the WOOnderful creation of Anne of Green Gables under the genious pen of Lucy Maud Montgomery!   To see more photos of Ilwoo in the style of Anne… go HERE. You will also get to see photos of the picture perfect Prince Edward Island, the setting for this book and the birthplace of its author.

March 23, 2020

I am so excited to present this section to all Ilwoo fans:  Chef Ilwoo’s Cooking section!  I’ve added it to the main menu. Go HERE to check it out!

March 16, 2020

I had kept this post (posts) in my pending list but when Ilwoo posted his latest story about “Little Women” I decided it was time.

This post is made up partly of Jung Il woo images that I thought related to actors and writer’s characters.  Also images of trips that I have taken to learn more about the writers or their lives.  And because it is March, Woman’s Highlight Month here in the USA, I will focus on women writers. For this post I will write about Little Women and Pride and Prejudice.

I’ll start with Louisa Alcott May’s Little Women or Mujercitas (Spanish) as it is the one Ilwoo posted about.  Growing up in a Low Middle Class family in Caracas Venezuela, meant that there were no libraries so my sister and I were bought about one leisure book a month and our school books.  I treasured every book I owned and re-read them many times and Little Women was among my favorites.  I entertained the idea of becoming a writer when I was around 8, so I always fantasized about being the spirited and creative soul Jo was.  (Jo is one of the four March sisters in the book in case you have not read or seen a movie adaptation.)

Here is the image of Ilwoo that I think that looks like Laurie… from little women…

Laurie was one of the first male characters I fantasized about… he was the boy that became Jo’s best friend though he always loved her, and who she rejects when he proposes.  Though I liked the new version of 2019, I find that my favorite is still the one from 1994. I don’t think anyone will aver play Jo as good as Winona Rider… and I liked that she had brown hair like the written character does.  Christian Bale as Laurie was more playful and funny, so to me he is my favorite in that role too!

Here are the two latest Lauries or Teddys (that’s how Jo called him).

I never thought I’d end up living so close to the hometown of the writer of Little Women, but by fate I am in Boston, around 45 minutes and even less by car from Concord, Massachusetts where she lived.

Back in December they held a special “Little Women Week 2019” in anticipation of the movie that would premiere on Christmas Day, so I booked a tour and went!  I learned so much about the novel and its writer. About Concord too.

These are my photos for the most part, photos were not allowed at The Orchard House (The Alcott’s residence) so I took those from various sites in the internet.

Her desk by the window was built by her father.  Mr. Amos Alcott was:

“An American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a vegan diet before the term was coined. He was also an abolitionist and an advocate for women’s rights.”  Cr. Wikipedia

He encouraged all his daughters to keep diaries and built that desk you see by the window for Louisa, in a time when it was rare for a young lady to have a desk as they were not expected to have time to write.

These are some of the props Louisa and her sisters made.  Her story is semi-biographical and she wrote her sisters just like her sisters in real life.  And one of them dies just like in the book of scarlet fever, contracted from a sick child in a family they tried to help just like in the book.  The only part that is very different was that Louisa never married, so Laurie is made up of two men she knew and admired.  One had the playfulness and the other the looks.

This was Abigail May Alcott’s room, the youngest of the sisters.  Unlike her sister wrote her in the book, in real life she became an accomplished artist. She was known in the Paris circle of painters.  She was particularly good a copying Turner’s paintings so she had a lot of commissions doing this type of work when museums did not want to use the real Turners in abroad exhibits.  Below you’ll see some of her work.  It was all over the Alcott’s home, in the walls even…

Isn’t she good?  And these are images of the rest of the house.  One feels transported to the 1800’s in these rooms…

And these are some photos of the Town of Concord.

This was a really cute town bookstore that served our tour tea!  I can’t imagine a more magical combination than a book and tea… well maybe if you added a Woo!

This is Louisa’s grave at Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Graveyard.

One thing I found out is that one of her teachers was Henry David Thoreau. She had a huge crush on him when she was young, but eventually they became good friends. More about Henry further down. Henry’s family was very close to the Alcott’s, to the point that they decided to spend eternity together by buying their plots in the cemetery next to each others. So Louisa’s grave is about two meters from Henry. I’d love to be that close in the afterlife to my crush!

This is the cemetery where they are buried.  It was really beautifully laid out:

These are the graves of the Alcott sisters and I forgot who’s the fifth grave is from.  Louisa was a nurse during the American Civil War and sadly contacted Typhoid Fever.  Some experts believe that the mercury used to treat her sickness contributed to an early death, as she was never the same and suffered or a very weak immune system.  She died at 55 years of age.

This is the plot of the Thoreau Family:

And this is Henry’s grave:

Henry was an American writer, a poet, a philosopher known for his love of nature and his free spirit.  He decided to live in a cabin by a pond very close to Concord called Walden Pond and leave all possessions behind. There he would write one of his famous books “Walden” and his writing continues to inspire Americans to be free thinkers and to connect to nature.  The following comes from Wikipedia:

Henry David Thoreau (see name pronunciation; July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay “Civil Disobedience” (originally published as “Resistance to Civil Government”), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.

Thoreau’s books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and Yankee attention to practical detail. He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life’s true essential needs.

He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau’s philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Thoreau is sometimes referred to as an anarchist. Though “Civil Disobedience” seems to call for improving rather than abolishing government—”I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government” —the direction of this improvement contrarily points toward anarchism: “‘That government is best which governs not at all;’ and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.”

I think he would have a lot issues with our current government!  One of his quotes was read in the movie “The Dead Poets Society”:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…”

I have swan many times in Walden Pond.  It is my favorite place to swim around Boston because unlike the beaches in New England which are usually freezing even in the summer, Walden is warm as it is a pond and not the ocean!  There are small fish in it… love sitting in the shallow end and watch them go by.   This what the pond looks like:

This is a replica of Henry’s cabin:

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Well now let’s leave Louisa and Henry and move onto another great of great: Jane Austen.  I feel I will do no justice to her in this post, as have not visited her hometown or the the places her characters were written except for London. So her part will seem small.  But do not pay attention to the amount.  She is my favorite female writer… and her books especially “Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and Sensibility” came later in my life, but have never left it sense.  I have seen every version of these stories and my favorite is the BBC series of Pride and Prejudice.  I never get tired of watching it.

So I will include Ilwoo in another bow outfit and then Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy.  The best ever! If you have not seen this series, you have missed the best of the best of the best of the best in a love story!

Yeah… Colin definitely wins that one!  The way that may looks… mercy!!!  And if that doesn’t make your heart beat faster… here is the killer part:  For a long time this was my favorite “boy looks at girl” part ever!  … but… Ilwoo came and stole the show!  Let me show you!   So the scene that I am talking about starts at minute 5:07 of this video:

Yeah…But Ilwoo with this look beat Colin Firth for me:

 

When it happened I knew that I had really fallen for Ilwoo!  Now you may ask why… why do I think it’s the best boy looks at girl ever… very simple… his sweetness!  Ilwoo has such sweetness in the way he looks… it is strong but also kind, there is always so much love in his eyes.  Like he is never judging… he is supportive.  Some fans call it “smiling eyes”, to me they are “sweet loving” eyes!   Here is the video:

And my screen captures:

And just like that I’m toast…!  Ilwoo toast!!!

 

March 15, 2020

This episode aired on March 13th.  It was so fun to see all of Jung Il woo’s reactions!  I am in awe of the use of raw eggs in Asian food… it’s not something I’m used to eating.  I like it slightly cooked like a sunny side up!  I love it on bibimbap!

Here are the videos from YouTube:

These are my screen captures:

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WITAT

And what a 13th it was for me… it aired at the same time as my student’s presentations for Spanish week.  It was so bitter sweet… as it was also the last day of school for a while. Everyone I saw, and everything I did at school was in this emotional augmented reality.  I kept thinking how precious all my students and my colleagues are to me.

We as many countries, are using “social distancing” as a means to control the spread of the coronavirus.  My family in Madrid is about a week ahead of us… this means we are with our closest family unit and we must keep at least two meters of contact from anyone outside.  It feels so surreal… the uncertainty is what gives it a sad tint… fortunately I will have to send parents lesson plans, and I am excited to explore the remote possibilities of teaching!

I am also delighted to work on the many projects I never have time to work on!  I will do a bit of this and that, including posts and pages on this website of course!

Even though I find the situation we are living scary at times and surreal, I remain optimistic.  I trust that what is happening as something that will bring humanity a step forward.  I believe in the universal energy of love that holds our bodies and our planet Earth together and the galaxies and everything that happens in them.

I wish you all the best wherever you are in this world!  Stay safe and keep healthy in body, mind and spirit.  Enjoy every bit of your nows!

With you,

Fan 13

March 11, 2020

Hello!  How are you?  Here is something I found I had not been able to post about… it includes an interview and two videos… and some less seen photos of our dear Jung Il woo… ready for some Jung Il woo delights?

Go HERE.

March 8, 2020

Happy Woman’s Everyday!

And who are the women who are in Jung Il woo’s everyday?  Well there is his mom and sister and other female family members…

Female friends like Na Moon-hee and Dara:

But most of the time the women surrounding him are actresses and female make up/wardrobe artists and filming crew. Go Ara and Jin Se-yeon are two actresses that have had the delight of working with Ilwoo at different times in his life.

Models and female photographers:

And of course!  His fans…

 

And last but not least the woman he dreams of:

“Ilwoo said about his ideal type, “I want her to be someone I can learn from. I want her to have something I can be respectful of. I don’t care how old she is. I don’t care if she’s 10 years older, and he said “I don’t think it will be someone who works in the same field as me. Actors and actresses are people who are cared by others, so I think I want to take care of her with everything.”

(From his comments in Park Myung-soo’s Radio Show on January 20, 2020.)

You know this woman already exists in time and space.  When will you allow yourself to love her? I hope you will treat her as your equal Ilwoo SSi!

Here are some graphics taken from an issue of National Geographic dedicated to women in November 2019.  They describe various situations and how women are affected all over the world.  

Cr. National Geographic

May GOD bless all the women in this world, and in this moment specially all the doctors and nurses who are working hard taking care of the people affected by the Coronavirus.

 

March 6, 2019

For me the best one so far… seeing Jung Il woo interact with this child, Kim Kang-hoon was such a treat!  Here, see for yourself:

My Screen Captures. Cr. KBS2 (and Fan 13)

Have a safe WOOnderful day!