Bonus Post – Thanks For Putting Up With Me

I’m a rounder up of most dates…like I’m at about 7 years and 8 months at my real-world job, but I always say 8 years. Or, I’ve been married for 13 and a half years, buuuuut, I say 14. Here’s another, I started on my #Klife (before Alix coined the term) 4 years and 10 months ago. You guessed it, I say five years. I’m not intentionally exaggerating, it just seems cleaner somehow, like it’s more honest to give some credit to those days above and beyond the yearly anniversary without sounding like a kid.

I knew that I had been contributing to Kchat for about a year and have been claiming it when the topic has come up. But today I got a Facebook reminder that it was my one year friendship anniversary with KpopontheDL. I have a very clear memory of the first time we connected, it was the day I published my first Musical Monday. Stephanie had trusted me (for better or worse) to put up whatever I wanted, and I posted KpopontheDL’s favorite song of 2016. She was stoked to find someone else just as excited about it as she was and got my contact information from Stephanie. We haven’t gone a single day without at least checking in with each other in the last 365. I have made one of the best friends imaginable as a direct result of Kchat Jjigae and this is only one of the reasons I am so incredibly thankful for the opportunity to be such an active part of this community.

Pentagon, Thank You

I think I came along at a very busy time in Stephanie’s life, when she was, with or without knowing it, looking for some personal support and Kchat content related help. She likes to pretend that I was solely responsible for wooing her into being friends and working my way into the fabric of her website, but you don’t become a community creator without some personal charisma and charm. She’s got some mad wooing skills of her own. It was a big risk, but she trusted me to post Musical Mondays without supervision and then continued to trust me to add a second music post to the mix. I want to acknowledge that I know that it isn’t easy for her to relinquish complete control over anything, let alone her brainchild and labor of love. I am so grateful for her willingness to include me in her inner circle. Hell, the girl moved to Denver without ever having even visited because Alix and I danced a little magical, hypnotic dance at her over text and phone calls, but somehow, letting us write for the site seems bigger.

Beast, Thanks To

I know this is all sounding very sentimental, and trust me when I say that it’s not terribly like me. I have always had the probably distasteful habit of spewing information about whatever I’m passionate about all over anybody that gives me the time of day. I am self-aware enough to know that not everyone wants to hear about it, but lack the self-control to stop. So my final thank you is to you guys, the ones reading this. I don’t keep track of the analytics for the site or who reads my posts, but the fact that I’ve gotten some great comments and made some pretty awesome connections with folks reinforces that this is an imminently better platform for my chattering than cornering people at work events or social gatherings and forcing them to love what I love.

When I started contributing twice a week, my mom asked what I was going to do when I ran out of things to say…then she looked at me again and said ‘never mind.’ She’s right, I never run out of things to talk about. So as long as they keep making Kpop and I’m still enjoying it, I’ll still be communicating about it in one way or another. So thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to me over the last year and I hope you continue to get something out of my rambling in the future!

Feedback is always welcome, comment, reach out, let me know what you wish I would do or how I can improve. Not saying I’ll do it, but you never know, I might.

Tony An and Simon D, Thank You