so not worth it

i watched this only because there's young jae of got7 in it. this is the first time he's acting in a drama, so i was curious how his acting would be compared to his fellow idol member, jin young who has been doing acting for awhile. looking at the trailer, it would be funny and light so it's perfect to fill in after two crime thriller dramas in a row. 

title: so not worth it

cast: park se wan, shin hyeon seung, choi young jae, minnie, han hyun min, carson allen, joakim sorensen, terris brown

genre: sitcom

well, as this is a sitcom, there's no big plot. only a bunch of foreign students in a korean university dormitory. the only korean/korean in this drama are se wan (park se wan), that's been acting as the the student advisor and was in charge of the dormitory management and hyun min (han hyun min), whose mother is korean and father is african and he has 6 other siblings from different dads thanks to his adventurous mom. since he's korean, he's not allowed to live in the dorm, but things happen and he managed to live in the dorm for awhile.

jamie (shin hyeon seung) is a newcomer from the US and apparently the son of famous US actress, barbara houston (thus hyun min's mom mistakenly thinking she was whitney houston) and later will fall in love with se wan. se wan herself has a troubled life thanks to her swindler's dad and her in-debt-forever mom. she has to work part time in various places to pay back her mother's debt.

while sam (choi young jae) was supposed to be the son of australian businessman (ain't this funny because in real life young jae's english is terrible and he didn't speak anything in english in this sitcom). he's a free spirit guy but tends to be very sulky. his flaw is he lies all the time even though people could recognize his lying to them since his ears would get burning red every time he lies. later he would be in relationship with minnie and even kissed her! if you're an ahgase, then you'd seen his fellow members tease him about the kissing scene, especially bambam. however, at the end of the drama, there's a possibility they would break up again since minnie probably cheated on him.

minnie (minnie of g-idle) is a thai student and loves korean drama, especially DOTS and is easily falling in love. she's bright and cute, but she cheats on her boyfriend numerous times. probably will do the same on sam as well. carson (carson allen) is another american student but she loves korean food and has korean boyfriend at first. she was pretty dedicated to her boyfriend but later she found out her boyfriend cheated on her. while hans (joakim sorensen) is a swedish graduate student that's pretty weird. he sticks to his principle in a weird way. and there's terris (terris brown), a trinidad/tribago student. he's close with hyun min but apparently he stole hyun min's ex-girlfriend but later broke up. near the end of the drama we saw that they make terris as an LGBTQ representation as he was seen in a date with another boy. 

what i like:

- the story is refreshing and light. quite entertaining. it would totally bright up your days.

- you'd see crumbles of got7 in the drama. young jae specifically said that he intentionally put green birds doll in sam's room as representation of ahgase. in the drama there's a "mark's meal" as well. 

what i don't like:

- why make the background story as "foreign students living in korean dormitory" when everyone is speaking korean? if you're telling the story as foreign students, ain't it not surprising that they would speak multiple languages? having them to speak only korean is a bit ridiculous. but i do applaud all foreign actors/actresses for speaking korean fluently.

- they try to insert the mystery of drug dealer in the dorm, but i don't see they reveal it in this season. the same thing with se wan's parents. perhaps this is a sign of second season? as so many mysteries keep being mystery even until the end of the drama.

- they insert another LGBTQ story. even though in real life, LGBTQ is not widely accepted in korea. 

rating: 8/10

binge worthy: so-so

recommended for: someone who wants a good laugh in this gloomy situation, fans of got7 and g-idle.

so i married an anti-fans

after two rounds of thriller drama series, i think it's time to take a break and watch something lighter. i have seen news about this drama being on hold but interestingly, it aired just when i decided to watch a simple rom com. they already shoot the drama long before the pandemic, even before the main actor went into the military. but they just aired it after he finished his military. anyway, i think it's a good choice to lighten up my days for a bit.

title: so i married an anti-fan

cast: choi tae joon, choi soo young, hwang chan sung

genre: romantic comedy

hoo joon (choi tae joon) is a rising idol star. from the outside, he looks cool but inside he was troubled because he managed to make his debut and became popular while leaving his old friends behind. while lee geun young (choi soo young) is just a contract worker as a reporter. she was told to attend a party that hoo joon attended as well. but later she saw hoo joon talking with oh in young (han ji an), his former trainee friends that was not supposed to be seen together with hoo joon. hoo joon was talking harshly to in young and geun young thought he was abusing in young. hoo joon caught her looking at him, so he chased and confronted her. didn't want to listen to her defense, hoo joon broke geun young's camera. that got geun young angry and threw her shoes at hoo joon and made herself at front page. hoo joon demanded her to be fired from her news company in turn for keeping the photoshoot contract between hoo joon's agency and the news company. angry for being fired because of hoo joon's situation, geun young decided to become hoo joon's anti fan and wanted to let the world know that hoo joon was not the good guy that everybody thought.

however, geun young didn't get far with her revenge plan. but a producer and a screen writer became interested in her story and wanted to shoot a "reality show" with hoo joon and geun young as the main casts. they wanted to portray their life as "husband and wife" and thus the title "i married my anti fan". the idea of the reality show was to put hoo joon and geun young in the same house, acting like they were living together so both could know each other better. however, at the same time, geun young was kicked out of her old apartment and got nowhere to stay. she decided to squat at the penthouse where they were filming the reality show as she remembered hoo joon's manager told everyone that it was empty. unfortunately, hoo joon found out about it when he was going to the penthouse to visit the room on the second floor that he has been keeping from everyone else. he let geun young to stay until she could find her own place. 

long story short, their relationship started to get closer thanks to the reality show and geun young staying at the penthouse. she even got to know better about hoo joon's past. how his current CEO faked hoo joon's life and betrayed JJ and in young. JJ tried to protect in young but at the same time hurt in young in process. that led in young devastated as she wanted to get the fame hoo joon's been getting. as we can predicted, hoo joon started to fall for geun young and vice versa. but problem started to arise after that. after the reality show ended, geun young's laptop, which contained her previous angry notes about hoo joon, fell into the hand of her current cunning CEO and made news, telling everyone that hoo joon was a fake. hoo joon's CEO tried to put the blame on geun young and stopped her from meeting hoo joon while hoo joon believed geun young was innocent. at the end, we saw hoo joon severed his contract with his previous CEO, but still paid his debt because he felt grateful that he got the fame thanks to his CEO.  JJ and in young realized that hoo joon was suffered as well and both decided to slow down before deciding whether they would come back to the entertainment world or not. while geun young tried to fix the situation while hoo joon was away, maybe back to his mother in alaska. as we can predicted, at the end hoo joon came back for geun young and he proposed to her romantically.

what i like:

- light and heartwarming story perfect for buffer after getting my brains boiled because of mouse and beyond evil. 

- the chemistry between choi tae joon and choi soo young is really good here. though we're not supposed to ship them as both of them has girlfriend/boyfriend already. but they do look cute together here.

what i don't like:

- there's no explanation about JJ and in young. i do get that JJ wanted to protect in young and somehow it could hurt in young but why he was so against in young getting famous?

- what's the purpose of hoo joon getting away for awhile? and then when he came back, he's still as famous as before. like people completely forgot about his scandal. and there's no clear explanation about geun young's effort to clear hoo joon's name. is it working? or isn't it?

- geun young has too many clothes and too pretty clothes for someone who's squatting at someone else's place. 

rating: 7/10

binge worthy: just so-so

recommended for: someone who likes light romantic comedy story, fans of choi tae joon and wanted to see him after his military finished.

brain dump: how the pandemic affects me

this might be the first time i wrote anything about this pandemic. bahkan seblm pandemi ini mulai di indo, temen2 udh pada pesimis pemerintah bisa mengatasi pandemi ini secpt mungkin. dg jumlah penduduk banyak, lokasi yg tersebar ga merata, terpisah lautan, dan juga tingkat pendidikan yg ga sama rata. belum lg dg banyaknya berita hoax di sana sini yg malah lbh santer dan cpt tersebar luas dibanding kebenaran ilmiah. setahun berjalan somehow pandemi spt tertahan. aku sdh bilang berulang kali, kemgknan kenyataannya lbh parah, tp tidak diungkap di media. banyak temen sejawat sdh melihat beda angka yg dipajang di medsos dg kenyataan di tempat kerja masing2. tidak meratanya fasilitas kesehatan, bahkan ada bbrp tmp di pedalaman yg ga punya PCR. cuma mengandalkan rapid antibodi. tdk ada rumah sakit besar, atau pun kalo ada harus menempuh perjalanan sekian lama utk mencapai rumah sakit. blm lagi opsi lockdown yg berkali-kali hanya omong doang, tdk dilaksanakan atau cuma ala kadarnya, tdk ada gunanya sama sekali. 

bakalan panjang kalo ngmg soal birokrasi. blm lagi carut marut pegawai pemerintahan. ga akan ada selesainya. setahun awal nakes sdh sempat merasakan dampak pasca libur panjang lebaran dan akhir tahun. peningkatan pesat jumlah kasus membuat rumah sakit penuh. membludak. susah cari obat. tapi dengan vaksinasi membuat nakes kembali semangat melawan. tapi tidak ada kesadaran dr masyarakat hingga sekarang muncul varian delta yang lbh virulen. otomatis penyebaran lbh gampang. ditambah dg motto bangsa "mangan ra mangan asal kumpul" plus masker yg hobi diplorotkan. sudahlah, kebohongan sdh tdk bisa ditutupi lagi. kasus meningkat pesat. rumah sakit semua penuh. bahkan nomor antrian sekian panjang sampai tdk terpikir lagi kok bisa spt itu. blm lagi krisis oksigen. obat. 

org2 yg panik dengan mudahnya memborong semua yg diblg dapat membantu mencegah covid, tanpa ingat dr awal sudah diingatkan, masker. jaga jarak. tapi semua milih mengabaikan dua hal utama. memilih menimbun obat, oksigen, dan mencoba segala terapi yg katanya berguna. lupa mencegah lbh baik drpd mengobati. skrg tdk cuma yg sakit covid yg kena dampaknya. org yg perlu cuci darah. org yg mau melahirkan. vaksinasi anak. org yg kecelakaan. semua terdampak. mau ke rumah sakit semua penuh. semua terisi pasien covid. rumah sakit jd tmp penularan. 

satu persatu tenaga di rumah sakit dan fasilitas kesehatan tumbang. pemerintah dg enaknya sesumbar menambah jumlah kamar, jumlah rumah sakit darurat, jumlah peralatan untuk isolasi mandiri. tanpa ingat bahwa nakesnya ini manusia yg ga bisa dicopy paste. muncullah komplain pasien tdk tertangani, ditelantarkan. nakes lagi jadi sasaran, katanya mengcovidkan pasien tp tdk mau menangani. apa yg mau ditangani? tangan kami hanya dua. kaki kami hanya dua. nafas kami juga bisa ada habisnya. vaksinasi yg kmrn didapat bagai tameng yg skrg sdh compang camping diserbu hantaman pasien yg datang bertubi tiada habisnya. 

yg tidak di rumah sakit berusaha menahan bendungan pasien. menawarkan konsultasi virtual untuk pasien isoman. agar kondisi mereka tdk memburuk. agar mrk tdk sampai ke rumah sakit. untuk mengurangi beban teman sejawat di faskes rujukan. tapi apa daya juga? yg di rumah tidak selalu punya fasilitas untuk monitoring. sekedar termometer dan oksimeter tdk ada. jgn bilang obat. obat saja hrs berebut dan antri, entah brp hari lagi baru dapat. blm lagi saat saturasi sdh turun. cari kamar susah. kami pun tdk pny kuasa untuk memaksa teman sejawat menyediakan tempat untuk semua pasien isoman. satu persatu berita pasien isoman meninggal bermunculan. geram rasanya tdk bisa berbuat lebih untuk mereka. tp apa daya kami? tangan kami tdk bisa ke mana2. kami tdk bisa menciptakan obat untuk mereka minum hari itu. tdk bisa menyediakan oksigen yg mereka butuhkan. 

blm lagi saat istirahat. bukannya mendapat ketenangan, isi medsos kami penuh dengan berita teman sejawat, senior kami sakit. butuh donor plasma. satu persatu meninggal. mungkin tdk semuanya aku kenal. bahkan mgkn dulu aku juga tdk dekat dg mereka. jengkel dg mereka karena mereka mendapat priviledge sebagai keluarga dokter sedangkan aku di sini hanya rakyat jelata. tapi sedih hancur skrg melihat, mendengar informasi mereka sakit. dirawat. butuh donor menandakan kondisi mereka tdk baik.

saat ini sampai aku tdk tahu hrs menyebut nama siapa saat ditanya lebih baik konsul ke siapa? aku sdh tdk tau lagi siapa yg masih selamat. siapa yg masih praktek. siapa yg isoman. siapa yg sdh meninggal. masih banyak dokter. iya mgkn masih banyak. tp yg pny pengalaman dan ilmu setinggi mereka tdk sama jumlahnya. biar bagaimanapun mereka senior kami. kakak kls kami. jam terbangnya lbh banyak. pasien mereka lbh banyak. kalo mereka tdk ada, ke mana kami bertanya? menunggu pengalaman kami sebanyak mereka tdk secepat mata berkedip. 

at this moment, i feel helpless. i might not be their family, but i feel the despair. i feel the sadness. biarpun status kami tdk sama, biar gimana juga mereka jg melewati hal yang sama. sekolah 6 tahun. praktek di rumah sakit. jaga malam. makan makanan jatah. sama2 kena damprat senior. sama2 tidur geletakan saat jaga. we took the same oath. we promised we would call them our family. and now my family is hurt. one by one i lost my family member. kami yg notabene dokter, kami bahkan tdk bisa menyelamatkan nyawa sejawat kami. senior kami. i just hope we could get through this. at the end, i hope i can see some familiar faces. i can still hear some familiar names.