Everytime I get so stressed out with school and other stuffs, I don't know how but there are two things that make me forget all of those for a while. They're my drugs.

There were times when I was so depressed/lonely when I was in undergrad. I chose to study in the city instead of getting my premed course in the province. For a change, I said. But it was hard. It's not that I felt homesick. It's more of a... culture shock. Life in the province was simple. I grew up playing on the streets, watching local evening dramas and barely knows the value of 'living in luxury.' And then when I got into college, heck! I asked myself, "What am I doing here?" These people have a lot of the material world.

When I tried to find an escape, I was scolded. My grandfather said, "You're there in school to study, not to play soccer. You just have to focus on your studies. That is just a distraction and it won't help you in any ways." Since I was just in my first year then, I stopped going to the try outs and gave myself a break... A time to adjust to a new studying environment. I remember that thick and heavy book in Bio. That's our textbook. All of us has that book, but not all of us read it. Even I was too lazy to read it. But then again, I love that book. I learned a lot of things just by reading it. Just not much on the part of genetics and microbio and technical stuffs. And you know what kept my mood up and what I do in between study breaks? kekeke... I was watching DBSK videos. I kept listening to their songs on loop while studying for an exam. The catchy songs of kpop enlightened me. I started listening to BigBang too. And no, there's no SNSD yet that time. :P It's the era when kpop is still on the rise.

At first, it's just me being a fan inside of my room.. until Wondergirls' Nobody hit the US Top charts. Kpop caught the attention of the Western market, the US market to be specific. And there came the comments, "Why listen to that? You can't even understand what they were saying," "Dude, that was so gay!" At the back of my mind I thought, since when did gay become a genre of music? And I was listening to it because the music is catchy, the beat is lively... and the lyrics isn't full of cuss words. They were even love songs or inspirational songs! It's not like that catchy song that has the lyrics of " you... you very very much." LOL And I only remember that song because of the lyrics.

When I was in second year, I tried out once again for our college's team and met our future team captain (she became our team captain two years after). We were walking on the street going to practice when she started humming RingDingDong (we were both 3rd year then) and started dancing it and I was like, "I know that song." I think we became even closer because we're both DBSK fans. And yes, she likes SHINee and f(x) too. But she stopped listening to kpop later on :( But then again, I just made a really good friend because of kpop.

And then here came med school... and the gazillions of kpop groups debuting and songs being released every month. I listen to kpop on my way to school, in between breaks, even during lectures when I don't like the lecturer... my jogging playlist for an hour has 90% DBSK songs, 10% other kpop artists.

And I just realized that coffee + spazzing over a new song/single/album released by your bias/stan group will surely keep you awake while studying for your test the next day.

And then I realized... meh. Without soccer and kpop, I don't know what could've happened to me... might be suffering from major depression disorder already. I used to be a loner... but those two things made a better version of me.