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Welcome to Mixtape Heart’s
Introduction Post!
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What's your name/nickname? What do you think of it?
I’m Mixtape Heart! Kat works, too. But Mixtape Heart is more my chosen me - I’m old school, hip hop, nostalgia. I communicate better through song than I do through speech. I know - that’s saying something, for someone who wants to write.
How old are you? How mature do you think you are?
I’m as mature as my age but feel much younger than I am. Heh. My knees often disagree with me, though.
What's your physical appearance? What do you like about it and what not?
Short. Brown eyes and brown hair, usually curly. Femininesque. Hispanic, though I’m not actually. I’m told I look like a very latte caramel latte; that works, I guess. The thing I like most about myself are my feet. They’re too long for my little 5”4’ frame - my big toe is actually the same length as my pinky - but they look quite graceful in a pair of socks, like I imagine a dancer’s feet would look in her ballet slippers.
What are your interests, and what are your hobbies?
Perhaps obviously, books (and music). I enjoy a wide range of both, but I’d call myself an actual fangirl where only a few things are concerned: Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Dr. Who, K Pop, indie (including not-American) hip hop, and classical (especially the Romantics, and Mozart and Schubert). Outside my fandoms I only watch a bit of television and movies, mostly historical dramas (Versailles, Harlots) or Marvel movies, and Korean dramas because they are both super wholesome and good practice.
I’m teaching myself Korean, I collect tiny plushies and bar glassware, I make hip hop beats on my iPhone, I cook a good deal of mostly French cuisine, I tried to learn photography but have decided to just wing it, my graduate thesis is a feminist reading of selected works of Hermann Hesse and Jane Austen.
Describe your usual day for us. What do you like about your every day routine and what not?
I get up and laze in bed for at least half an hour usually doing maintenance of my Harry Potter game, and just to get the lazing out of the way. Then I get up, cook a bit of breakfast, and settle down to read. And read. Maybe do a bit of writing or note taking for my thesis… but yeah, still mostly read. I might to get lunch, but generally not. And on a day here or there, at some point my phone calendar dings a reminder to prepare and head out to class, or into the city to meet friends for dinner, or some other evening event. If it doesn’t, then I may to get dinner - this, I usually do because by this time I’m often starved. So, dinner is ordered or cooked and then back to reading. Then, when I’m sleepy, head for a shower and then to bed - unless I’m in the middle of a good writing spell, because those can’t be wasted when you know your thesis it gonna have to be a good hundred and fifty pages after edits. Ah, the life of a graduate student. Over all, I like it the whole thing - it’s quite flexible, even with having classes or study sessions to attend.
What type(s) of writing are you interested in? Do you have a story you're working on right now? If so, what is it about?
I’m mostly novels and shorts (and fan fic, my guilty pleasure). I’m a bit interested in screenwriting, but I don’t feel like I know enough about them to really do it. My genres are the same thing that I read and watch - sci fi, fantasy, historical fiction, alternate versions of history.
I’m working primarily on my thesis, but I’m also world building for a novel about a giant pillar that can bring people back to life but no one knows exactly how or why. I’m also considering writing the story of the character Eva, from Herman Hesse’s novel Demian.
What do you think about your future? What's your ideal career choice and are you going with it, or settling for something safer?
My future is a future, which at one point in my life was more than I thought I might get. I’m on track to teaching at the college level, which is my goal and my ideal career choice (mostly because of the schedule flexibility), though I may also derail more school and look for one of the many writer/editor positions available in the nearby NYC market. I don’t necessarily call that safer, rather than more immediately providing of a salary. Heh. In truth, either are ideal.
What's your family like? What do you think of them?
My father is the best thing in the known universe. My family on his side is nice - if somewhat dissimilar to me. They are all from a European country with pretty socialist tendencies, which I ire and agree with in a multitude of ways, but I could never live with them. The one American thing that is a big part of my personal philosophy is privacy and personal space, and they’re really not fussed about that at all. They basically live like a little commune with great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, and kids in two houses sharing a middle garden (and effectively everything else) - I could never.
My mother’s family … let us suffice to say that it’s been about 15 years since I last spoke to anyone on that side. There is a lot complex, growing up as a mixed girl in the South with only one side of that mix to … sadly not really understand how different your life is to theirs and all the reasons why.
My father is, indeed, the best thing in the known universe. All of the wisdom and and guidance cometh from his equanimous European self. Even when he’s being particularly Dad-like, I indeed thank Heaven for him. It’s not only that I wouldn’t have been born without him, but I would not have survived this long, either.
What's your best friend(s) like? Do you have many friends?
I do not have many friends - or at least not many people that I myself would call friends. I have a number of acquaintances, a larger number of associates, and then a few friends, and two absolute best friends. Both of them have been my friend (and each other’s friends) for over a decade - actually two, in one case. Between the three of us, we represent the poles and the middle; I am the middle between the two, while Neeks is the extremely chill, logical, cautious type and Rae Rae is the balls-to-the-wall, here for the drama, I Am In My Feelings type. I love them both and when we are all three together, it is indeed the best.
What music do you listen to, and why would you recommend it?
Yoooooooo, we’re not gonna be here all day (as you may have guessed from question 4) so I’m not going to tell you ALL the music I listen to. We’ll just … summarize the main points.
First - Korean pop music. If you are the type of person who just NEEDS to understand the words at the moment you are hearing them, and you can’t bear to Google some lyric translations, then this genre is not for you. Also, if you don’t like pop OR soul/r&b OR EDM OR Dance/electro pop OR hip hop OR fusion … well, kpop may not be for you either. But frankly, if you have any experience with writing or producing music, you will find it amazing. Also if you like pop music but don’t really love the lyrics.
Two groups, mainly, are my focus - BTS (yes, that group that was at the Grammys the other day, and on the AMAs and GMA and Jimmy Fallon and played CitiField last October and … etc), and SHINee. I recommend BTS for a multitude of reasons, especially as a musician, but also as someone who loves literature - a lot of their music is inspired by literature, and most of their music videos follow a storyline developed by the group and its management. Definitely worth delving into. SHINee I recommend for anyone who likes jazz, soul, and funk, because there’s a lot of that in their work and their vocals are amazeballs.
Next, (mostly) indie hip hop. I love K. Flay, Dessa, Astronatalis, Year of the Ox, Jean Grae, Reason, Common, Lupe Fiasco, Doomtree, Floetry, Dumbfounded, and Lady Leshurr for English speakers. I recommend them because lyrically these are artists who write poetry and then lay it over music (in my opinion). Non-English speakers: Stromae, Heize, Zico, Dynamic Duo, Tiger JK, Epik High, NOSH, Zion T., JOY, Primary, Cherrie, Nolay. I may not always know what they’re saying, but they got flow.
Other Artists discerning humans deserve to hear: Alabama Shakes, Lake Street Dive, Smokey Joe, Gallant, Skunk Anansie, Hozier, Sam Kim, Ailee.
And to finish, my list of recommended classical composers, excluding the ones that prolly everyone has heard of already: Dimitri Shostakovich, Gabriel Faure, Samuel Barber, Camille Saint-Saens, Gustav Holst.
You guys, I really, really held back on this question.
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