by Megan Knight | May 27, 2017 | Megan Knight's Journal |
Naps have a reputation of being useless; they suck up time and leave you disorientated and confused instead of refreshed. But I strongly disagree for the most part. Naps are the best. They’re fun, satisfying, and an all-around quality activity. Of course, naps are great in bed, on a couch, or somewhere comfortable in general, but they are truly a time vacuum. They take up 2-3 hours that I could use for editing, writing, or thinking about what to post on social media without actually posting.
So I nap in class instead.
Please don’t get the wrong idea from this statement, I am a decent student. I have a 4.0 GPA and I have a good grasp on the concepts we learn at school. But sometimes we review something in class that I’ve been learning for the past five years and I just…zzz. For the most part, my teachers don’t seem to mind and I’ve only been caught once. And by doing it in class, I only nap for ten minutes to half an hour, so wasting time isn’t an issue. I carry a small pillow in my backpack (I’m surprised my parents haven’t noticed) just in case and it definitely comes in handy. Plus, they haven’t done any harm to my grades…for now.
I’m sorry, mom and dad.
by Megan Knight | May 6, 2017 | Megan Knight's Journal |
I’m a wimp; I’m scared of a lot of things. I’m scared of the dark, blood, sudden movement, little things like that. But I have two fears that stick out to me. They’re not scary per se, but they control me the most.
Fear #1: Saying hi
If you thought this was some super artistic metaphor for saying that I don’t like meeting new people…you’re wrong. When I say that I’m scared of saying hi, I mean I’m scared of saying hi. Like, if I see a person I know walking in the hall, I will actually stop and think whether or not I should say hi. It’s like those games where you have to choose an answer before the timer runs out. Except I can’t decide before the timer runs out and it always automatically chooses, “Don’t say hi.” It sounds weird, because it is, but I honestly don’t know why I have so much trouble saying hi, I just do.
The only times I say hi are:
- The person is facing me/they’re walking in my direction
- The person has said hi first
If these two circumstances aren’t met, then I most likely won’t say hi. If someone’s back is facing towards me, I’ll stare at them as I’m walking past them, maybe lift my hand and open my mouth, or maybe even make eye contact with them. But if they don’t say hi first, then I look forward and walk past. Even when people do say hi to me, I usually don’t open my mouth. Just a smile and a wave.
When it started, I always thought that other people were like this, too, but that idea was very quickly refuted when I was walking to my next class and I heard someone shouting my name from far away. They were saying hi to me. Why is it so easy for people to say hi from so far away when I can’t do it when a person is so close?
Fear #2: Forgetting people
This next sentence is going to sound really sad and maybe that’s because it is(?). I’m one of those people that everyone forgets. It used to bug me a lot. I would see a person that was one of my old schoolmates and watch them talk to my friends, because they seemed to remember them but never me. One time, I asked an old classmate if they remembered me. I even described the moments we talked: where we were, when it happened, what we were talking about. She didn’t remember me.
It doesn’t bother me anymore, but I was always scared that I would forget someone that I knew. To me, forgetting someone is silently telling them that no matter how much we talked, whatever our relationship was, their existence wasn’t important enough for me to keep in my long-term memory. It’s quite dramatic, but it’s enough to scare me into trying my best to not forget anyone. I like to think that I haven’t forgotten anyone. Sometimes I’ll see someone and mentally recall where I saw them, what we talked about, and when it was. Sometimes, that person and I have never talked and I just remember their face and name. But I wonder if I’ve ever forgotten anyone. If I have, I would like to see them again and have them tell me how we know each other so that I can remember again.
But recently, something happened. It’s what made me realize that these two things scare me. At school, we have a leadership group made of students. One day, they sent out nice notes to a few people with a lollipop attached. Some leadership students came into our classroom, dumped them on the table and left. I kept working because I assumed that I hadn’t received one, when one of my classmates said, “Hey, Megan! Can I have your lollipop?” Turns out, someone wrote to me after all. I read it and I remember that my heart began to beat faster than normal, my eyes widened, and it was hard to breathe.
The note read:
“Dear Megan,
I don’t know if you remember me from last year but I know that you love K-pop. Be happy and smile. Have a great day. – FPT”
FPT are the initials for the leadership team, meaning that the note was good as anonymous. I remember panicking. Not a full panic attack or anything, but enough to effectively distract me from my classwork. What if I really had forgotten this person? I forgot them and they remembered me to the point where they knew my interests. I’m a horrible person. I told my friend about my worries and they just furrowed their brows and said, “That doesn’t really matter. It was just a compliment, you shouldn’t over think it.”
Haha, I wouldn’t be Megan if I didn’t over think things.
I eventually found out who wrote the note. She was an old friend of a friend. We were barely acquaintances, but I still remember her. It doesn’t really matter anymore, though. She thought I forgot her because I was too scared to lift up my hand or open my mouth to say hi when I saw her.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so selfish.
-Megan Knight
PS: In this blog entry, I might come off bit…social dysfunctional. I just wanted to clarify that my social skills are fine. I’m just a bit awkward and I’ve become a bit more closed off, especially in the past year. But none to worry, I have friends and I know how to socialize. I’d just rather not sometimes 🙂
by Megan Knight | Apr 2, 2017 | Megan Knight's Journal |
After Day 1:
Before the concert, I was very worried. We drove to the venue 1-2 hours before the show started and it was taking us forever to get inside. What if they start before we get to our seats? What if they run out of lightsticks? What if I miss the entire show? It was stressful. Thankfully none of those happened. My dad and I successfully acquired our seats before the show and two lightsticks at a price I’d rather not think about. Seriously, though, you don’t know love until you get your first lightstick.
The concert was, as expected, amazing. It was so surreal. Although BTS wasn’t right in front of me, they were close enough. BTS was a lot better at singing and rapping live than I expected. Of course, they had some backing vocals in the track, but the performance was still great. Their dancing was so perfectly synchronized it was almost creepy…in a good way. And let’s not forget V’s high notes. Notes. With an ‘s’. And when Suga does the thing…oh my goodness. You know, the thing where he takes out his earpiece just to hear the crowd scream for him. That man was made for the stage, you hear me?! Don’t argue. Let’s also not forget the backup dancers and the musicians that played the instruments. You all did very well, too.
Turns out, BTS did perform a number of their older songs. It was like they were paying tribute to themselves. It was awesome. I don’t know why, but I thought that BTS would somehow forget about their songs like No More Dream (their debut song), War of Hormone, N.O., and Boy in Luv. That’s ridiculous, I know, but I was surprised when they started singing and dancing to a medley of their songs from 2013-2015. They didn’t forget, they just grew up and matured from those songs. (But Jungkook rapping. I need to breathe, okay?)
And oH MY GOODNESS THE CYPHER. They performed Cypher Pt.4. It was…I hate to use this disgusting word, but it was lit. I love the Cyphers so much. I love Cyphers more than I love my gigantic slippers. I love Cyphers more than I love food. I love Cyphers more than I love people…I mean, that’s not saying much but I’ll put that in for good measure. If I thought the screaming was loud, then the screaming when Cypher Pt. 4 came on was ten times louder. But that’s all expected for a Cypher.
Also…J-Hope cried. He was performing his solo song, “Mama,” and he was walking up to the mic stand to sing a few lines. The lights dimmed and the screens showing his face was completely dark. And like the angel he is, the screens brightened and displayed his sweaty face and teary eyes. He passionately sang the few lines that, although I don’t understand what they were, I assume were very emotional.
That paragraph was very poetic and sappy, but don’t touch me I’m soft.
Although the entire concert was very extraordinary, I think the most memorable part of the entire thing was watching the other fans. There was so much love in the room, you could taste it. It tastes like oxygen. The cheers and the chants were deafening and the only thing that indicated that I was cheering along was the vibration in my throat. Each country had a different fan project. In Brazil, they made a special fan chant to go along with Rap Monster’s solo song, “Reflection”. In America, we had the rainbow ocean project. If you didn’t already know, the light in BTS’s lightsticks is white. The lightsticks in each section of the audience shined a different color. For example, one section was red, one was orange, one was yellow, etc. The fans passed out different colored bags to the audience members and the bags were used to cover the light so that it shined a color instead of white. I sat in the red section. I couldn’t help but look away from the stage and just stare at the crowd. Sure, it was just a bunch of organized and colorful lights, but the fact that the fans thought to do something like that for BTS was very heartwarming and made it all more beautiful.
Throughout the duration of the concert, I couldn’t stop thinking about how worth it it was. Seeing BTS performing with so much passion and seeing the fans reciprocate it all was indescribable. My throat is sore and my arm hurts like hell and my ears are ringing, but all this amounts to nothing in comparison to the experience. I can’t wait to go again tomorrow.
Day 2:
HOBI (J-Hope) CRIED AGAIN. MY BABY. RAP MONSTER THANKED HIS MOTHER.
RAP MONSTER THANKED HIS MOTHER. MY BABY.
I’m sorry. As I’m writing this, it’s pretty late and it’s also the day after the second night after the concert. I should’ve written yesterday, but I was really sleepy and I just crashed. I promise to make the future blog entries more authentic.
Both nights of the concert were fairly equivalent to each other. I would like to say that my arms, ears, and throat have survived. This night, I had better seats so I was determined to get better footage of the concert. The first concert did quite a bit of damage to my right arm and I actually had trouble sleeping because of it. So at this concert, I had to wave the lightstick with my left hand and film with my right. As a person who can’t do ten correct pushups in a row, doing this for three hours straight was kinda (very) difficult. The concert was still very much worth it though.
During our stay in LA, we didn’t just go to attend the concerts; we also wanted to see attractions like Koreatown (mentioned in my previous blog entry) and Venice Beach. I wanted to go to Downtown Disney, but we didn’t really get around to doing that. I still had a lot of fun!
I liked Koreatown a lot. It mostly consisted of restaurants and cafes, clothing stores, and beauty and makeup shops. My uncle, dad, and I made the mistake of eating a bunch of food at first, so we didn’t really get to experience the other foods in Koreatown. And no, I didn’t try samgyeopsal. And no, the waiter was not there. The experience was still really fun, though! There were two little shops with Kpop merchandise, both which were flooded with Kpop fans that wanted to buy merch for the upcoming concert. Ah, I forgot to mention, the shops in Koreatown are really cute. There was this little cafe in a mall with this exterior that made it look like it was its own little building. I didn’t go inside because I already drank tea twice that day and I wanted to sleep that night. I did take a peek inside and it looked like a little cafe from Paris. My mom, who had to stay home to watch my sister, asked my dad to bring back an eyeliner for her. When we went into the makeup store and my dad started asking for the eyeliner, the clerks were shocked at first but tried to help him. When he purchased the eyeliner, they were still bug-eyed and plastered awkward smiles on their faces. It was really hard to keep a straight face.
When we exited the store, he asked me, “Did they think I was buying this for myself?”
I’m very sure they did.
The next day, we went to Venice Beach. The beach is…it’s very the opposite of what I like. To give you something to go off of, I’m the type of person who probably wouldn’t go outside if I didn’t have to. There’s a lot of people, it’s bright, it’s hot, everyone tried to approach you and sell stuff, and everyone is super athletic and fit and loves to exercise. There was even a section called Muscle Beach where showing off your huge abs and muscles is not only acceptable, but encouraged. The weather was also strange, it was hot and very very bright, but it wasn’t sunny. I’m lucky that my sunscreen lasted long enough for me to not get a tan. If you’re wondering why I don’t want a tan, I’ll just say that being a Kpop fan skews your beauty standards quite a bit.
Something I realized during this trip is that…vlogging outside is hard. Really hard. There’s only one chance to take a shot of something and it’s hard to talk because there’s so much background noise and other people talking (especially somewhere like LA) and I don’t like projecting my voice in a public space. I actually thought that filming outside would be a lot easier because I had this idea that it would be less awkward than talking to a camera in a room by myself. I was wrong. I’m also the type that would rather relax and enjoy an experience than capture it on video. I should really work on that. I have so much footage to look through (when I saw it all I was so overwhelmed I almost cried…don’t judge) but it still doesn’t feel like enough. It’s most likely because I had so much footage of the concert and not much else. I should also work on staying consistent with my video orientation. I was recording with my phone, so there were times where I forgot to film vertically instead of horizontally. I’m also extremely uncomfortable talking on camera, much more so than I thought I would be. That’s why my blog entries are way longer than my dad’s.
I have a lot of stuff to work on.
~Megan Knight
Edit: I was wrong. I have enough footage…so much that I’ll have to split it into two videos. I’ll also be making a LA Experiences video, so look out for it!
BTS Concert YouTube video
by Megan Knight | Mar 30, 2017 | Megan Knight's Journal |
Hello, this is Megan Knight and this is my first official blog entry on the site!
I haven’t been counting down days. I really should have been counting down days. The concert is in less than a week. That means:
- Less than a week to plan the vlog that I will be filming
- Less than a week to mentally prepare myself for everything that will go down
- Less than a week to write my will because the excitement will be so much that I could potentially…let’s not talk about that
There will be screaming, maybe even sobbing, teenage girls such as myself. My ears will never be the same. Ears don’t matter that much, right? My friends and multiple fans online have mentioned that people tend to look uglier on camera. Basically what they’re saying is that BTS, who already look ethereal on camera (they look ethereal don’t argue), will look even better in person. As embarrassing as it is, I’ve come close to crying just by looking at photos…there is a (large) possibility that I may cry at this concert. My mental vow to never cry on camera will be broken by my second video. Here’s the part where I think of a witty sentence to defend myself and my pride, but I can’t seem to come up with anything so I’ll write this instead.
I honestly don’t know what to expect. I’ve been trying my hardest to not watch the live streams of the concert on Twitter, so I know close to nothing about what the concert will look like. I’ll be blown away, that’s for sure. BTS never fails to do that and I love it. I wonder if they’ll perform a few of their old songs, I wonder if they’ll have a super emotional speech in their (limited and slightly cringy but still adorable) English, I wonder if they’ll, this is the most important one, film another season of American Hustle Life, a show they filmed in 2014 where they learned more about hip hop and were taught by various artists like Coolio and Warren G. But, even if they did film another season, I’d probably never watch it. It would bring me flashbacks of extreme secondhand embarrassment from the first season. As much as I love BTS, never again should they themselves cast girls for a music video. Never again.
Browsing online, I have a few concerns for BTS. Soompi, a news outlet for Kpop news, recently wrote an article that Jimin has been receiving death threats. I hope Jimin isn’t too shaken by these threats and I hope that the venue will make the necessary adjustments to keep him and the other members safe. Checking BTS’s twitter, they seem to be flying in and out of destinations the night before and after concerts. I don’t want to be that fan, but I hope that they’re getting a good amount of rest and staying healthy. Sure, they’re celebrities. By choosing this lifestyle, they have to sacrifice a few things such as much needed sleep and their fear of getting shot on stage. Their fans are much more important than those insignificant details. I know, I don’t care. BTS, please just stay safe and healthy!
I realize now that I’m writing a lot without any context. I’ll try to sum this up as quickly as possible.
- BTS is a Kpop group that consists of seven members (from oldest to youngest): Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Rap Monster, Jimin, V, and Jungkook; they are currently on their Wings Tour
- Jimin is one of the vocalists in BTS and has been receiving death threats by an anti-fan
- American Hustle Life was a show where BTS traveled to LA and learned more about hip hop by various celebrities; one of their ‘projects’ was to film a hip hop version of one of their music videos in which they themselves had to street cast girls to act in the music video using their limited English
- In my opinion, this show was very hard to watch (hence why I haven’t watched the whole thing). I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s say that the BTS members weren’t treated all that well from the very start of the show. Of course, I don’t mind a little bit of teasing, but a lot of the show was hard to sit through so I just chose to not watch it
- Additionally, I couldn’t help but feel curious when rumors of a second season arose. If a second season is broadcasted, I wonder if BTS will be treated better this time around now that their status has notably risen
This blog entry is quite lengthy…but I’m not done yet so sit tight. I have a lot to say.
After the concert, we’ll most likely be going to Koreatown. Last time we went to Koreatown, we didn’t do much since we just stopped by on the way home from Legoland. A friend of mine, who has been there on multiple occasions, told me a lot about it. They supposedly have great food (mental reminder to try samgyeopsal) and a lot of Kpop merchandise. It’ll be great.
A few hours prior to writing this, I had a short conversation with my parents:
Dad: Did you want to try those cold noodles again?
Me: Ye-
Mom: No, you shouldn’t take her to that restaurant again. It wasn’t good.
To be honest, she’s pretty right. The food wasn’t good at all. I don’t know if it’s just my general distaste for Korean food (I don’t hate it, but I would probably pass if I had a choice) or if the food was genuinely bad. But this one restaurant is special. Not really, I’m exaggerating, but I really wanted to go back. Anyway, back to the conversation.
Me: But the boba there was really good!
*In a Steve Irwin voice* And here you can witness a frantic Megan Knight hopelessly searching for an excuse to return to that one mediocre restaurant.
Mom: You’ll be in Koreatown. There will be boba everywhere.
Me: Dad, can we please just go to that restaurant again?
Dad: We’ll see.
The truth is…there was a really cute waiter that was (and hopefully still is) working there. But of course, I would never say that out loud.
Sorry future husband.
~Megan Knight
by Megan Knight | Mar 26, 2017 | Megan Knight's Journal |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOxX8PiQuao
Hello! Outrageous Thoughts is back after 3-4 years…finally. I’m Megan Knight, daughter of Peter Knight, the little girl that was in some of the other videos such as Hazy, Fur Elise Piano Practice, and Megan’s Home Movie Preview (just to name a few). Talk to you soon! ~Megan Knight
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