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[badumtiss]

Name: Kim Yoobin
Nickname: The Boss, duh
Band/Solo: Wonder Girls
Journal: badumtiss
Aim: #kimchiparadise Twitter: @thekimchininja
Age: 22 Year: Junior
Sorority: Kappa Delta
Major: Finance
Clubs/Sports: Archery
Affiliations:Boxing team manager.

Biography:
Seoul is dangerous. It's a city where strangers offer candy, and then lead you to a van. 'But what if the van is going to Lotte World?' the little girl'd have pointed out if she wasn't too busy wondering why adults were so keen to share their candy. She never does, after all. Still, Yoobin understands that Seoul is dangerous - and even more so when your mother is an investigative journalist who likes to ask a lot of questions. Questions which lead to letters, letters lead to strangers, strangers lead to danger, danger leads to police, and police leads to home. So it's all good in the end, isn't it? Except that home is now a mess, air filled with accusations and tension, and then silence, heavy and suffocating for a long, long time.

Actually, Yoobin is not sure she remembers any of this. Sometimes, it feels like she read this story or heard it somewhere long ago, rather than lived through it.

But she remembers how safe her new home felt in comparison. Her grandparents are more than happy to welcome the four-year old and her mother under their roof. Their daughter thinks the countryside is perfect for Yoobin and Yoobin agrees. There is everything a child could dream of - enough air to scream her lungs out, space to run until she gets lost and still find her way back home because everything is small enough to be familiar, dirt that sticks softly to the soles of her feet and all over her clothes and makes her halmoni cover her face in despair. So yes, she's happy with what she has.

And yet, as perfect as everything was, her mother was able to live there only for another three years before she's gone, back to Seoul, back to the adrenaline. She wants to take the little girl with her but then she doesn't. Is it because Yoobin's happy here, with her company of loud friends and stray cats? Or is it because she's afraid? The answer remains with her and once again, Yoobin tries to be happy with what she has. Her parents visit every month, sometimes in the company of strangers who are nice to her and bring her toys, and she has the love of her grandparents for the rest of the time. It's okay.

Time slowly heals bad memories and bitter feelings - time and a lot of her grandma's cooking - and just as slowly the future starts to loom ahead. "There are better schools there," her mother says ".. And it's only right if she's back with us." and her own mother agrees even if it breaks her heart a little. The future is waiting for Yoobin back in Seoul. The future and her family, because love prevails, even it takes eight long years, love prevails even if it gets confused along the way and her parents run into different people, love prevails because it leads them back to one another. It also heals Yoobin a little more and gives her courage in the city of tall buildings which hide the horizon, of background noise which seeps through every crack and fill the space around day and night, and of dirt, the kind that stabs right through the soles of her feet and leaves a wound. So Yoobin puts on her shoes, and her armor.

Because school is not easy. Not when you're chubby, know dozens of trot songs by heart but none of the ones on the radio and wear clothes without a brand. It's not easy but then again, it's just another challenge for a girl who inherited the stubbornness and blind courage of her mother, and the crazy, laid-back spirit of her father. So, the girl decides that she doesn't really care. She stays off the radar, loses her appetite, focuses on her studies more than ever before, goes through her ups and downs, and discovers a new music genre, thanks to her father - a bio-medical scientist during the day and amateur rock musician the rest of the time. In the end, she makes it to graduation.

And she goes travelling - but that's another story.

Because now it's all about Yonsei, Kappa Delta and this happy last buffer of no responsibilities before she becomes one of those stupid adults who like to share. As if..
---
As of November, 2015, her parents have separated again.

________________

The girl also:

# Loves to haggle and a good deal. Her idea of shopping is to scout the street markets and if she can't haggle for something, it's not worth it.

"Excuse me, is this the final price?" "Yes." "What if I get 5 beers, can I get one free?" "Miss, this is a grocery shop, all the prices are fixed."
In her defense, she had 5 beers in her blood stream already.

# Loves her alcohol, and handles it relatively well. Doesn't mind if it makes her do stupid things, but does mind if she can't remember them so she tries to walk the line between the two.

# Loves live music a lot. Her idea of a fun night is an outdoor live concert or festival. Live performances beat anything else in general, so theatre and musicals rank high on her list as well.

# Plays the drums and used to be in a band in senior year in high school. Now, it's a favourite pastime.

# Loves swimming and used to be in the Swimming club until summer 2015.

# Moderate health nut. Drinks vitamins, exercises, eats junk food only socially and only sometimes, avoids sugar (can't quit ice cream, won't quit).

# Still knows a lot of trot songs. It's her secret weapon when she goes to noraebang with friends.

# "She'd never bother with people she'd hate".

# Feminist and proud of it. Equality among people is one of the few things that she truly cares about.

# Comes across as selfish, arrogant, reserved, self-indulgent, shameless and is all of them to a degree. Oh well.

# Still, probably one of the most laid-back people you'll ever meet.