Freeze (얼음)

Taken straight out of Squid Game Season 2, "Eoreum" is the directive Gi Heun gives to his fellow contestants in the squid game for them to "Freeze" every time Yeongmi, the large mannequin in the Red Light, Green Light game, turns around and "sees" if any of the players are moving, shooting anyone moving dead instantly. It's fitting that Squid Game was released in the dead of winter here in America because in many places, we're definitely feeling that "freeze." Despite it being a Monday, many offices and buildings in the Baltimore/ DC area were shut down due to "inclement weather" and the trains didn't run at all, and even the library was closed! Basically a day to forget with minimal economic activity...except snowboarders got a workout! The fresh snow allowed anyone within distance of a tall hill to get a board, snowobard, really any flat surface (some people used pieces of cardboard) to go down the hill along the smooth white slopes, not worrying about breaking their fall because the snow is a nice powdery pillow to collapse in. 

The other idea of "freeze" is to tell someone to stop immediately in an emergency situation. I found at an early age that my parents do NOT respond well in crisis situations, usually when it comes to being lost on a road trip or picking me up from the airport, they get tense and frustarted easily. I tried to learn from that and take an "ice-in-the-viens" attitude of not cracking under pressure, as tha's the time that's actually most important to be calm and have all your wits about you. I think that's probably what separates the best performers in teh world from the rest of us: they have adated well to the idea of being in the limelight and actually thrive in it, they bask in the glory of it and want to do well, even when they know one small mistake can be amplified into something huge in front of billions of people. That's the impression I got from watching "Bohemian Rhapsody" for the first time all the way through yesterday with Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury and some other members of Queen I didn't know but should have, astrophysicist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. I was reminded how big of an influence Queen has to my musical experience, as "We are the Champions" was an even bigger song than "Bohemian Rhapsody" during my youth of watching sports movies like Mighty Ducks, it was everywhere. "We Will Rock You" was one of the first band songs I played (I played clarinet.......which I later abandoned to play violin), "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and "Another one Bites the Dust" was everywhere in my youth even though I didn't attribute them to Queen, and we wouldn't have gotten the artist known as "Lady GaGa" without the song "Radio Gaga." (Stephanie Germonatta still would have likely made it big, just with a different moniker). Freddie Mercury, though, was apparently one of those stage alphas who was at his best when onstage, everyone was watching, and had that "eoreum" attitude of being the calmest and most liberated, probably why his performance at LiveAid in 1985 was so memorable. him bouncing all over the place, playing piano, dancing, and flexing in his white T-shirt the whole time. It was the "show stopper" ( a technical term for the piece in a performance that get a lot of applause and briefly pauses the show). I think we all want to be the show stopper on some level, but I think that's what I yearn to be, to finally have my talents displayed and in a positive light; I was born with a Freddie Mercury attitude but with a "average Chinese man's face" so have never made it into the spotlight to allow my inner Freddie Mercury to let loose on the world. But when I do....maybe I'll go gaga like Queen did at LiveAid. (hopefully without the dying a few years later part due to AIDS, I'm not that big into going out in a blaze of glory, I'd rather skip that part).