I’m from a Korean-American family, my father a Soldier in the US Army and my mother was Korean woman who had recently gotten her US citizenship. Actually the way they met was abit funny, it was in a tattoo parlor. My mother had gotten a job tattooing there, and my father just happened to waltz in one day and asked to get a tattoo, after he got approval to do so that is. The tattoo my dad wanted was big, on his upper arm, of an archangel, so it took a long time. During the time he was sitting in the chair, and not biting his lip until it bled because of the pain, him and my mother seemed to talk almost nonstop. One of the other employees even commented that it was the most my mother had spoken since she started working at the place a few months prior. After hours my mother was done with the tattoo and was giving him instructions on how to take care of it, and then and there he asked her out on a date.

Of course this isn’t going to be one of those strange love stories well they fell head over heels in love with eachother and got married in a year. No, that wasn’t it at all. They did the dating thing off and on for about a year before they went steady, and it was about another two before my mother became pregnant, and they weren’t even married yet! Maybe it was because my father was always moving around or had to go places for his military career, but he still managed to propose when my mother was about a month into the pregnancy. They got married, my father was there when I was born – just barely he had to rush over from the airport. 

I’m not going to comment on the first few years of my life, because come on do you really want to know how I acted like as a toddler? The only things really worth mentioning are that we moved, a lot. My father was in the military, it was to be expected. At some point me and my mother settled down in California, and if the job he had to do required him to stay less than two years then we didn’t go with him. I’m not too sure how they came to that agreement, but it seemed to work, I only moved once more out of the state before moving back when the job was done.

Things started to get interesting for me when I was hitting my preteen years, about age 10-13. I started to show more of my mother’s fashion sense even then, with mostly wanting to wear black. My parents encouraged it, just like they encouraged everything I did, so I kept going with it. I also started to find an interest for art, perhaps after seeing my mother’s many tattoos on herself and ones she had drawn up. I started drawing things with colored pencils and such that now that I look back on them are completely awful, but at the time I thought I was the best artist ever.

When I was in middle school however I found my calling, singing and dancing. Sure, middle school dances weren’t much, but I found out how much I loved the dance floor. And no matter how goofy or stupid my dancing was, I still loved it. I wanted to learn more about it, so my mother found me somewhere local that gave dancing lessons. I found a passion for it, I really loved to dance - it was like art for your body. Then my friend forced me to join choir with her one year and I found out I liked to sing. It was just another form of art and I loved it.

In highschool of course liking something like dancing and singing, even if you're a girl, can give bullies a reason to mess with you. The way I dressed didn't help either; over the years I had became a tomboy. I liked dressing in stylish yet boyish clothes, my family didn't seem to care about me being girly since my mom wasn't that much either - she even picked out most of my clothes. I had bullies, both girl and boys, comment on stuff like my dress or my passion and it hurt. Still, I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of letting them know they were hurting me. I had my first emotional breakdown however when I was in the locker room after my gym class. I was pulling out my bag from my locker and a CD that had music I had been practicing too fell out. I leaned over to pick it up but before I could someone came by and crushed it. I was left picking up the pieces and crying once everyone had left, the coach found me though and helped me clean up and calmed me down. He was a family friend and one of the people encouraging me to keep at the singing and dancing, so he was one of the few that could calm me down and make me feel better about myself.

Sometime in my junior year I was rushed to the hospital, not because I was sick or anything but because my dad was injured. He had gotten injured in an ‘accident’, I wasn’t allowed to know what happened I just knew it happened overseas and he was brought back to America on medical leave. While he was there I was allowed to take absences from school and stay with him at the hospital, my mom took leave from work too so she could be there and we could be a family in the cramped little room. One day while me and my mom were both there she gave me something in Korean – I could read it well enough to tell it was something about an audition. She started to explain that one of her friends sent her the papers through email after seeing some videos of me dancing – apparently they had been thinking I was well enough to audition for an entertainment company. 

I tried to convince them otherwise, I mean, I was good but not that good. However even my father seemed to be in on it, he wanted me to go and atleast try. What did I have to lose right? I wanted to try for my own reasons, but I wanted to try for them too. They seemed so thrilled that I was considering it; I wanted to make them happy. I practiced more and more so I could audition when I had time, and over the sessions I started to go alittle into rap aswell - once again I really liked it. It was harder than singing, and I wanted to try a challenge so I started to focus on that and my dancing more for the audition.

So during the summer of my junior-senior year I auditioned for a company, I didn’t get in but I made it rather far so I figured I just needed to work harder. I took more time practicing, I even entered a few contests here and there. I won a few surprisingly, and I made a good friend or two along the way.

I tried again just before my senior started, this time for Je T’aime entertainment, and what do you know – I actually got in! It was probably the best day of my life, they said my dancing skills were good and even my singing was atleast decent, nothing some training couldn’t help bump up. Right away my parents start helping me set everything up to go to Korea, since I couldn’t really train from San Deigo. We had to do some homeschool planning since I really did still want to graduate and get a diploma. After we had all of that set up I had to say goodbye to my friends. That was probably one of the worst moments of my life, they were the only people I could really trust and be myself around. They were happy for me, and wanted me to go, so that was just another push in the right direction.

Thankfully, my mom still had family who lived in korea, so while I was there I would be staying with them. It was nice, but I didn’t want to burden them. After a few near arguments I agreed to stay with them, if only because I didn’t want to face my mother’s wrath. I went to Korea only a short time later, staying with my aunt and uncle who seemed to welcome me with open arms. I should’ve expected that, my mother’s side of the family was the artsy kind of people, they all seemed to love that I got into preforming and wanted to make a career out of it.

 Not too long after I was allowed to settle in, I was whisked away for training. Along the way I actually started to fall for a female trainee. Her name was Moon Yuri, and she was one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen. No one around the company knew that I also dated girls so I kept mum about it for the longest time. Stilll even then, I was awkward and shy around her, but unlike some of the other’s she was willing to wait it out and still talk to me and such. I confessed that I liked her after practice one day (making sure none of the employees could hear because no relationships aloud you know? And the fact it was a girl and girl confession.) and she said she liked me too – so we started to secretly date. Of course, I was too busy trying to make her happy I didn’t see the signs, the signs that she was cheating on me. She had been dating someone outside of the company for awhile, and she was just taking advantage of me because I was so nice and apparently 'she was curious'.

I caught her and this guy one day, making out right outside of the company building. My heart was torn in two, I really liked her – but it seemed she didn’t really care about me at all. Angry, I decided to get my revenge quickly and easily, I turned her over to one of our trainers. The lecture wasn’t that bad, but she did end up leaving the company, not before yelling at me infront of almost everyone in our trainee group. I didn’t care though, I took it all in and didn’t show her how hurt I was. I wanted to put it all behind me and focus on my dancing and not romance for awhile. This all happened during my first year as a trainee, and I haven’t dated since.

I've had a few more ups and downs since then, but I'm trying to work through it all. Being in a foreign country is not the easiest thing to adjust to. Thankfully I have made a few friends who are willing to stick by me and that's all I could really hope for. I talk to my parents and my best friends whenever I can considering the time difference. My dad finally retired from the army (I got to go home for the ceremony) and he's now helping my mom open her own tattoo parlor. My best friends have graduated and gone to college, but they still manage to talk to me on occasion when they're not buried in work. I have tried to do a few online classes aswell to keep up with my studies. It's hard but I manage.

I may not be was fluent, cute, or beautiful as some of these other girls but I'm going to try my hardest. I want to prove it to my family, friends, and more so myself that I can do this.

[ idol best friends ]
+ Aron Kwak | 20 – May 21, 2993 | NU’EST

Personality | Aron is a really nice guy, he’s always polite and worried about others. At the same time he’s really funny, cracking jokes and making people laugh. He likes to help people out and knows when something is wrong like he has a radar or something.The skinship is sometimes too much, but no one seems to care that much strangely enough.

How you met | Me and Aron met at a singing/rapping and dancing competition in LA, California. My mother had driven me up there for it and I met Aron while we were all waiting around for instructions. We didn’t really know anyone there, and since eachother were the first people that either of us had spoken too besides the officials, we decided to stick together. Aron ended up winning the rapping competition but there was no hard feelings and we ended up keeping in contact and even practicing together over skype or the phone. 

Interaction | We’re complete dorks around eachother honestly. I’m not afraid to be sarcastic around him and he gives it right back to me. Being two California guys, we share a lot of inside jokes and we love the confused looks people give us for them. Aron has noticed my inability to make friends, and he seems to understand that. He tries to make me feel as wanted as possible, even when he went in for his own training he always managed to text me and talk to me and I was and still am, really thankful for that. He’s like the little brother I always wanted.

+ Woo SangSoo | 23 – June 1, 1990 | AA

Personality | SangSoo is one of the coolest guys I've met here. Granted, he is abit out there – with some of his emotional swings and crazy ideas. However, he’s a loving person who cares a lot of s or generally anyone around him. He’s hardworking, always pushing himself to the limit even though he knows he should stop. He tries to make people happy and I can respect him for that.

How you met | I met sangsoo during one of my dance lessons. My teacher used to work with him apparently and when I was having trouble with some moves, he called Sangsoo in to help me since he had to take a sudden leave and wouldn't be there for my private lesson. It was a rocky start to say the least, once again I failed to make a good first impression. Still, as we worked together we started to understand eachother abit more. When he said that the day was going to be his last due to stuff with his group, we exchanged numbers. We keep intouch a lot, almost as much as me and Aron do. 

Interaction | Like Aron and myself, me and Sangsoo are dorks. He’s the only one who can get me to laugh loudly at something so little and probably stupid. He likes to poke at me to try to get me to smile and most of the time it worst. Sometimes he’s abit whiney and uses a guilt trip on me, but I know he would never take advantage of the kindness I give him or his band.