Movie Review: What I didn't like about Ben X

     From the very beginning until the end, Ben X wasn’t as impressive to me as it was praised by many of its audience. Watching it, I was never able to fully understand the message it tried to deliver but was distracted by its overly complicated structure and unclear description of the events. At the end, even worse, I was so confused about the story of the movie that I had to revisit Wikipedia to figure out what really happened. This certainly means that there’s something wrong with movie, unless the director intended to put such riddle inside-this movie simply lacks clarification. Hence, in this review, I would like to talk about what I didn’t like about the movie, Ben X.

    The first problem I would like to criticize is that the movie never lets its audience to understand Ben. What you know about Ben after watching the movie is that he has autism, sees visions, hears voices, plays game, and commits fake suicide. What else? You simply know his actions but cannot understand his emotional struggle which he must have felt while fighting against the world. The movie, though continuously trying to highlight Ben’s emotional insecurity and the desire to suicide, simply does not allow its viewers to take time to sympathize with him. Most of the time, the movie only shows what Ben does, not how he feels. That certainly isn’t what the audience would want; rather they would want to understand Ben and be like him at least during the movie. Because of this problem, Ben X couldn’t achieve its goal. 

     Also, the movie tries to deal with too many issues such as, autism, bullying, games, etc. only to fail to elaborate in any of them. Ben X tries to show how ill an autism patient can be, how he or she is socially discriminated by others, why he or she has to turn to online role-playing games to feel free and proud at least in a cyber space, and the like. If it succeeded in achieving all its aims, I think it should be awarded with all the grand prizes of major international film festivals; however, it didn’t-no couldn't. The movie certainly needed to concentrate on one of the issues if it really wanted its audience to at least feel something from it. 

Why should you care about the rings of Saturn?

         One day, I asked myself: Do I really exist?

I answered: “Of course, I eat, see, listen, and speak, doing things that only living - thus existing - creatures can do.”

But then, doubt set in: what if my perception is a demon’s evil attempt to deceive me?

After deliberation, I replied: even if there is a demon, its attempt ironically proves my existence, because it deceived me, the existent ME. By the way, why you ask these questions?

I answered: why not interested in myself?

This universal yet seemingly meaningless inquiry that came to great philosopher Rene Descartes transformed modern philosophy. From this inquiry sprouted fundamental philosophical basis of modern philosophy and psychology: the object of inquiry should be us human beings.  

Rings of Saturn are also a seemingly impractical and meaningless object to care about. What would change if they didn’t exist? However, just like Rene Descartes, Galileo Galilei, the greatest mind of his time cared to examine them, and from his curiosity came the most groundbreaking finding: Earth circles the Sun.

Why not care?  

Outliers Journal for ch.7: the question of why

Malcolm Gladwell did miss something in this chapter. What is it? Before explaining his fallacy, I should first describe how Malcolm Gladwell explained an interestingly high rate of plane crash Korean Air, the largest airline of Korea, had in 1990s despite its well-trained pilots and its so-called “classic” planes. The gist of his explanation is very simple yet very convincing: Koreans’ tendency to give into authority made it highly difficult for first or second pilots, who are in charge of flight information, to directly express to the captain their opinions about problems of the plane and such “mitigated” attitude let the captain ignore pivotal warnings and results in plane crash. As seen in many of the examples Gladwell comes up with, the less direct such messages were, the more likely the accidents were to happen. That is to say, if Koreans had a more “Americanness” in them-actually now Korean pilots are taught to be more self-assertive-the accidents could be prevented. However, throughout his explanations he seems to have forgotten to ask why. Why are Koreans or why did they become less self-assertive than Americans? And the answer to this inquiry must give the solution to the problem in question.

After suffering 36 years of colonial rule of Japanese empire and a devastating Korean civil war, Koreans simply lost their last power to improve their situations. Lands for agriculture were impoverished, manufacturing industries collapsed, government unorganized and powerless. Nobody, even the most optimistic person, could expect Korea becoming economically successful. Can you believe that Koreans admired Myanmar for its successful economy and that South Korean economy was even worse than North Korean? Of course you can’t; however that was the status quo: Korean economy just couldn’t get worse. Even governmental plan for economic development was stymied because of political instability. Under such circumstances came Park Jung Hee: a successful dictator who came into his power as a military leader, stabilized political turmoil, and launched a series of economic development plan that transformed Korea. His goal as a pious patriot was as straightforward as a laser light: Economic development of Korea. His 5-year economic development plans were implemented so strictly and were miraculously successful. He did make something out of nothing by leading Korean people to do whatever work they could do and should do. Koreans worked in even the most hazardous environment such as desert of Middle East. Plus, he nurtured Korean industry with every government support, for instance tariff barrier or government aid, and established basic infrastructure for the cheapest price. Dissidents were suppressed and even tiny interference was not tolerated. People worked as their bosses ordered, bosses ordered as government ordered, government ordered as the president planned. This process, philosophically backed up by Korean legacy of Confucianism, an ideology which requires people to pursue the value of loyalty and respect, required strict hierarchy and unquestioning obedience to achieve the necessary efficiency.

This legacy must be present at Korean Air, too. They must have thought that, if other pilots work as the captain orders, then there should be no problem. But the reality wasn’t as what they expected. Rather it was an accident rate 17 times larger than that of United Airline! It was a national catastrophe. People were dying out of plane crash so often that Korean Air was losing its credentials in worldwide aviation industry. But Korean Air, when it initially met with such difficulty, no major change was made. Here rises another question on why didn’t they try to solve the problem even though they knew that something was wrong. My answer to this question is that Koreans didn’t want to and therefore simply couldn’t deny their own belief in their reason of success.

The the baby-boom generation of Korea, so-called 486 generation, which means that they were at the age of 40s, went to college at 80s, and were born in 60s, was taught in school to follow order and authority of seniors, teachers, and parents, or to be true, of any one who is superior to them. The basic concept of hierarchy started there. They were also trained in their workplace to follow order, official procedure, authority of seniors, and rules of the business. The magic there was that all they did and all they achieved were at first so successful that there was no place for doubt or question. The concept of hierarchy and its successfulness became virtually indelible. So the 90s, when this generation was socially active and led Korean society, the system of hierarchy was everything this society knew about success. Koreans were ignorant, or maybe they desired to be ignorant, about how doubts, questions, opposing ideas can make a good system better. Therefore, when crisis was emerging and its signs even had been sighted before, nobody could attribute the crisis to the system itself. If they did so, it was to castigate their own glorious history in which Korean economy outwitted that of North Korea or Myanmar.   

With this answer, I would now give a very important advice to Malcolm Gladwell, which he might need when he wants to improve his book, Outliers. If he really wishes to add the solution part-how to improve situation and solve the problem-I recommend him to say that as far as the Korean culture of high-power distance is concerned, the very simple solution is to teach them how to doubt, how to question, how to make opposing arguments, and, last but not least, how to respond to them ‘properly.’ Once given the idea that having doubts, questions, and opposing ideas can help solve such problems, Koreans will transform, not matter how difficult it is to do so, and prove to the world that they are not going to turn back into their previous state of poverty and hopelessness.

Reason why I applied to Harvard

     It was a shocking and disastrous reality. The very moment of truth came to me like a nightmare, unwanted yet inevitable. Inside my hands was the transcript for my mid terms and I had to doubt my eyes that they saw a score of 86 in Chemistry. It was a capital punishment to have to confront such low a score. never in my life had I ever received a score less than 96 - and yet there was me, looking at a score 10 lower than my previous lowest. I felt dizzy and ill. Feeling faint, I staggered and clutched the railing to keep myself from collapsing. Soon after a stronger wave of vertigo hit me, a vertigo of embarrassment, shame and a multitude of feelings so complex to be explained in words, and I fell on my knees. In that kneeling position, I swore to myself and to God to strive harder than I had ever done. That day, a legend was born.
     From that moment, I've decided that. I had to study chemistry much harder than ever. To make up the score I've got in the midterm, I decided to memorize all the namings of ionic compound and the formulas of acid-base reaction. I was confident that I could get much higher score in the final exam. I took the exam. but you know what? The final score was 56. I got C.
     I decided to abndon any hope or expectation about my socres; I was already far superior to others with my efforts. Then I wanted to find what I wanted to do. Piano, or any other musical instruments that lived 19 years beside me could not interest me anymore. In the middle of serious boredom, I saw her. Naan, utter beauty. I knew she had to be mine. I disguised my personality and acted as if I was the most naive innocent boy in the world. And who wouldn't fall for my charms. She beame the first member of FC Sunwwo. But one girl wasn't enough for me. To make a soccer, teahm, I was still running ten short. So that is how my journey began, to search for the other ten members.
     I see Celine Jeonghyun Moon there. She's short, I know, but because she's pretty, she's the right person so I started to initiate my own fantastic, so seductive business of habing text messages with her. my patience and ability are often maximized whenever I start to have text messages with girls. Celine didn't really respond to me quickly and thoroughly, but I know that this is just the sign of more affection from her. 
     I began to build confidence in recruiting members. Yes, THIS IS MY JOB. The next girl on my list was Chaerim. She was unlike anybody else - one of the most unique girls I have ever encountered. From the tone of her voice, I knew she was different. when I approached to ask her to join the FC Sunwoo, she first rejected. I was shocked. 
     Oh shat. There was rival. I wasn't thinking about that. His name was Doo nuyong, He even sang Chareim's beautiful song in the worst voice that I had ever heard. REEEEEEEL~~~. I envy him so much. It was the first time I had ever envied someone that much. I had to come up with a solution to overwhelm him. What would it be? I thought for days and nights. Then I ended up deciding that if I become a Harvard guy - Harvard Hottie, I mean- I would be superior than anybody else. That was my story, and I really wish to be a Harvard alumni and beat Doo. 
 

After Reading from Outliers

     Why do juniors bow to their seniors in KMLA? Why has the culture of bowing to seniors been accepted without any question? The answer for the questions is "Cultural legacies." By the long-lasting tradition of KMLA, which gave moral obligation to the juniors that they have to bow to their seniors, KMLA students maintained such policy without apparent problem. Though some students argued that the application of the tradition, when it took most radical form of making it obligatory for students to bend 90 degrees and shout out loud "안녕하세요" to seniors, is beyond cultural standard, virtually all the students agreed that the tradition of bowing is important and worthy enough to preserve. Moreover, many visitors to the schools find such tradition quite interesting and desirable, for it gives the image that KMLA students are polite and respectful to the people they see. The tradition of bowing has defined KMLA and will define it in the future as well. 
     In this Chapter, the author, Malcolm Gladwell, shows how strong the cultural legacies are. The example of a town called Harlan, located in Kentucky, points out that tradition has tacitly shaped the moral standard and mentality of a particular group of people who lived in the same cultural region. Residents of Harlan, in the early period of U.S, mostly came from Scot-Irish region, where its culture put strong emphasis on honor of individual. People were forced to fight for their honor; when someone felt his reputation insulted by another, he challenged the assaulter and fought for the restoration of his honor by means of chivalry, most notably gun fight. This tradition, after moving into U.S., made many of immigrants society to promote the spirit of chivalry and let opposing families inside a single town to brutally kill the other side for insignificant incidents. Yet the violence was overtly performed, many of the survivors, or killers, were acquitted, for the jury thought that they employed the most appropriate, if not best, method to protect their honor. Such rulings, which are illogical in today's point of view, were accepted by the majority of the society. The tradition, or "Cultural legacies," made it all possible. 
     We all know that humans are social beings; humans cannot exist outside of society, apart from any social interaction. Forming an identity as a social being inside a community is crucial to one's maturity. It establishes moral standards, basic communication skills, and cooperative ability inside an individual, which are indispensable. As KMLA students learn how to cope with teachers, seniors, friends, and juniors by living inside the community and interacting with others, you do virtually the same thing inside a broader and more complex society. That's why you and your cultural identity are inseparable, and due to such inseparability, preserving desirable cultural legacies and eliminating or amending problematic ones are crucial to human progress. 

A college essay that I like

     Written by Deanna E. Barkett

     When I was younger, I used to silently pray that I was nothing but like my father. He was so serious. His brow was always knit. My grandmother could not remember a time when my father had done anything wrong. He was too perfect. I felt timid and self-conscious around him.
     My father was always offering advice by which he swore. Although they may have been ancient proverbs or old adages, they were always "Daddy originals" to me.
     "When you're prepared, you'll never be scared," he would tell me when I was up late studying for an evil chemistry test.
     "Haste makes waste," was his rejoinder when I would bring home a math exam littered with careless mistakes.
     "When you lose an hour in the morning, you search for it the rest of the day," is the Chinese proverb I learned on more than one Saturday morning of a weekend filled with homework.
     "Live by foresight, learn from hindsight," he would say when I was younger and only old enough to relate "fore" and "hind" to the legs of a horse These saying interminably buzzed in my ear at times when, as I got older, I wanted to scream: "I know, Dad! You've only been telling me these things since I was two years old!"
     I never elevated my father to sage status. I always recognized that he wanted me to do my best, but his advice lacked a loving tone. Indeed, at times his became a voice of nagging monotony.
     As I have grown older, however, I have realized that Dad-in his own way-has these many years been trying to guide me. The denouement of my fathers' motivational speeches occurred this summer. I was away at summer school for two months in Massachusetts. It was the longest separation I have had from my parents.
     Communication with my family consisted of more e-mails messages than telephone conversations. My father corresponded with me more than anyone else. He always returned my e-mails promptly and tried in hi sown silly way ("love ya!" which is not at all like my father) to make me laugh. So much so, I was reminded of another of his sayings, "When you lose your sense of humor, you lose your mind."
     Near the end of summer school, Mom told me that Dad had printed all of my e-mails and was planning to take them to the family reunion. "You have pleased him so much, Dee. He is so proud of you and loves you so much," she told me. I had an epiphany: In my messages, Dad was reading about preparation and patience, time management and foresight. I made him laugh a lot too. Then I remembered another of his sayings, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." And I cried.

     The reason that I chose this essay is because I like the narrative style of this essay. Using short paragraphs, the author made this essay easily readable, which will definitely help the admission officer who must be overwhelmed by thousands of other essays to read. Also, the author successfully combined enough amount of humor into the essay to make it fun and still kept enough tension to make the reader focused. With all these things  combined and with, not unique, but still effective and moving story, this essays makes you feel like meeting the writer.

Impression on the 3rd chapter of Outliers

     To the question about my intellect, I will answer that I am not smart enough to change the world but smart enough to do what I want to do, and I am content about it. 
     Christopher Langan, the major figure discussed in this chapter, is a person with extremely high IQ. His IQ is far beyond the level of simply smart. He is 'the' genius. His intellectual ability is amazing in normal view. He can learn difficult concepts without spending much time and solve extremely difficult logic questions, which normal people can't even try to solve, by just a few seconds of thinking. You must doubt your memory that you just never heard his name before in any kind of academic journals, because you unconsciously have in your mind that geniuses are able to succeed in scholastic achievement. Truth is that, unlike your belief, Langan didn't succeed in any field of natural or social science, engineering, or humanities. Wasn't he smart enough? Yes, he is smart. The problem was that what mattered to his success was not his intelligence. 
     Do you know Yu Geun Song? He is a 16 years old prodigy who has a great talent in physics and engineering. He is a famous figure in Korea because from his early age he was shown in TV as Korea's new genius who might change Korean future and, if possible, the future of the world. Skipping general Korean curriculum, he was admitted to an university and is pursuing his career. Many Korean Parents envy his intelligence and want their children to have it because they believed that such great intellect can actually guarantee their children's success.  
     To those who envy the genius, I want to give a question that is worthy of thinking. "Who, do you think, is the most successful person in the world?" There might be many answer choices to this question, but only few would answer that some of the geniuses like those mentioned above. The answers might be Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Oprah Winfrey, not Christopher Langan. Why does this happen? Why can't extremely high intellect guarantee success? Because IQ is not what decides one's success. Say you run in U.S president election. Which ability would you like to have: high IQ or nice oration skill? The answer seems so evident; you will choose a nice oration skill. But why? Because you know that high IQ will not be of help to you in election. This grand simple example tells us a valuable lesson: IQ is just a number. If you are not to figure out the complicated truth of nature, you don't need 150+ IQ. 
      So, then, what do you need instead of high IQ. I would say it's confidence. If you feel confident about yourself and have enough power to pursue your own personal goal and preference, you can actually succeed in whatever field you work in, because not your IQ, but your other talent will lead you to the top position in that field. Be satisfied with your IQ, then your life will be much happier than that of  geniuses. 

The last time I cried

     Tear is salvation. It cleanses your soul from deep inside. Shedding tear is the most truthful form of expressing sympathy, so it doesn’t happen when you aren’t truly moved. In today’s romance movies, tears are used to manipulate the emotion of audience because they can effectively emphasize the emotional appeal of a particular scene. Due to the excessive usage of tears, however, I found myself worn out of sympathy to the tears in movies; they no longer moved me. The most powerful emotional expression of all became the most prosaic one. This is why I never imagined I could cry while watching a romance movie.

     However, this movie, I love you-그대를 사랑합니다, was far different from any other movies I’ve ever watched. The explicit difference was the content of the movie. It was about love between two old couples who find their true meaning of life from their lovers. However, the more important difference was the way it delivered the emotion of love. The romance of this movie was neither powerful nor passionate. Expressions of love were reserved and not sensational. However, their love was true. The 4 characters in the movie loved their partner truly, and even the irreversible age, incurable disease, and irremovable history weren’t of any problem to them. They embraced everything within their love.

      At the end of the movie, when the letter of a husband whose wife has cancer along with Alzheimer’s disease is read by the protagonist, I couldn’t stop shedding tears. The truthfulness of his statements about his emotion penetrated directly into my mind and my sympathy to him grew rapidly. “I chose to be with my wife until the end.” This simple phrase can tell everything about him. He decided to die with her wife in his house because he couldn’t dare to live alone, because of his guilt that he didn’t know that a malignant disease was growing in the body of his wife, his lifelong partner. They were holding their hands tight when they were dying, not to be separated. Watching this whole scene, I found that love, no matter how passionate and beautiful, is as itself worth everything. It was no longer a commonplace sympathy to a tragic story that moved me. I was inside the characters and feeling what they were feeling. Their tears were mine, their anger was mine, and their happiness became mine. The tear that I shed at the end of the movie was the most truthful tear, the tear of salvation, the cleansing tear that made me again sympathetic toward love. 

Not see, but feel (New Edition)

Essay #1

 “I’m sorry teacher, but I think I need to take some rest. There’s a problem in my eyes; I feel dizzy.”

Every single time I took the violin lessons during the middle school life, I had to stop playing in the middle of a piece of music and ask permission from my violin teacher to let my eyes rest, since sudden yet long lasting pain came from my eyes, which was otherwise irremovable. As I concentrated more into my violin and the music that came out of it-the process of presenting myself through the music, my eyes resisted to my brain’s control more fiercely and gave me an unbearable nausea by randomly overlapping the entire image I saw through my eyes. Upon the scores of the right side suddenly appeared the scores of left side, even upside down or twisted 50 degrees, making what I saw totally mixed up. My brain, so surprisingly, came up with a strong talent in making surreal and messy images even better than artists such as Rene Magritte could. This bizarre phenomenon of 3D image converting always interrupted the practice. The recurrent symptom of incurable lightheadedness broke into the gradual progression of falling into innermost part of my true ego. 

That I had to quit practicing playing violin every single time because of the unceasing pain made me consider giving up playing violin. Even the medicine and treatments prescribed by the doctor, which were the only hope I could look for, virtually had no effect; it appeared that at the dead end of my effort was the only choice of giving up-until I kept opening my eyes

“May I ask you a single question?”

“Yes, you may.”

“Can you tell us the reason why you close your eyes when you play the violin? It’s quite unique.”

“Hmm…. It’s because I don’t have to see what I do; I can just feel it.”

Walking out of the audition room, I totally forgot how I performed the notes I’d practiced for more than 2 months. My regret was no longer about the quality of music nor about the admission; it was solely about the bold, inexplicably bizarre answer that smeared out from my mouth. At the bus of returning home, I kept thinking how I could have responded better to that question. Several possible answers that could have made me look better, pondering about them made me feel even more desolate. However, it was very true that those other fancy sounding answers weren’t true. The only genuine answer to that question was to say that “I can just feel it.”

Disability in sensual organs makes people with such problem elevate their sensitivity of other organs so that they could compensate one loss. To me, the problem in my eyes, which had to be kept closed, worked just the same way. I can’t play a whole piece of music with my eyes opened. The death sentence of my visual sense was just the same as the loss of gustatory sense of a cook. The disability stood right middle in the road of my life as if it were being pretentious about its pressing magnitude. Even with passionate love toward my violin, such disability took much of my will power away. However, facing the dead end, I found a long and rough yet the only possible detour: Closing my eyes. This was the only way possible.

From the moment of enlightenment was the whole process of practice changed. The pieces of paper with millions of scores no longer showed up on my music-stand; they rather remained in the bookshelf for indirect reference only. The very first and the most essential process was no longer seeing but listening. I listened to the music I longed to play until I could totally memorize it. It took a lot of time to memorize every single note, but it was all worth it. After full memorization, then I started to practice. With my eyes firmly closed, I spent 10 seconds before starting the music so that I could feel my soul reaching my fingers. Then, my fingers, my body, my brain, and my soul, all of them united, never stopped until the music ended and I opened my eye. “I don’t have to see it; I can just feel it.” 

Commissioned essay ver.2 (yet unfinished)

“Why aren’t you being loud today? It’s so weird. You’re not like yourself.”

This awkward question-which, in many cases, should ask about the reason for loudness-comes out from my friends whenever I don’t speak anything even for a short period of time. So used to my loudness, they can’t bear the absence of chattering when my mouth is firmly closed. No matter how bad being talkative can be seen, Chatterbox is who I truly am. I am the only, the special “The Chatterbox” of this school. 

To a 17-year-old boy, integrating into a society where there is nobody you know is a difficult task, and it gets even more difficult when all the other people in that society knew each other. The very first day of KMLA, the totally new place, was full of both curiosity and fear. 500 kilometers away from my home where I lived for 16 years, I was like a baby starting to know his surroundings. Everything, every person around me was so novel and intriguing. Just as it brought up the curiosity, so it produced a serious fear, the fear about things that were new. Unable to totally trust anyone, I can’t express my true self to even my roommates.

Not courageous, I did nothing but playing mobile games while taking the lectures of pre-education period. Day after day I was losing chances to get into KMLA society of 15^th wave. It was highly expected that I just remained as quiet and shy student. However, chances came suddenly. A very small but loud girl came to the seat in front of mine to talk to the person sitting next to me, who was my roommate. The girl, whose name was Bori, introduced herself to me, about whom she knew nothing at all.

 “Hi! What’s your name?”

 “……”

 “My name is Bori Lee. What about you?”

I couldn’t answer to her question at that moment because I didn’t know how to respond. She, I viewed, was very straightforward and truthful in expressing herself. Looking at her, I regained the very important value I lost in fear.

“Hi, Bori! I’m Chanjung. It’s really nice to meet you. I’m the roommate of Changhoon(the boy who sat next to me).”

The whole chattering I had with her shifted my life in KMLA as the Chatterbox who got rid of the veil of mind surrounding his true figure disclosed himself.





It will keep going on....

Short Journal on Outliers: Chapter 1

     I was born in 12th of August. I was one of the shortest kids when I first entered elementary school. It was possible that I felt timid because of my relatively small size compared to that of others. But I felt different. Though I thought that it would be nice if I were taller and bigger, I was proud of being small. I was more fascinated by the fact that I would grow.


     The very first chapter of Outliers focuses on how the birth month, which seems to have no relationship with success, actually affected the success of many athletes and students just because the due date for the enrollment to a team or an advanced education program was set at an arbitrary time. The surprising fact was that, unlike public opinion, people who were born in the month right before the month of the due date were more likely to be admitted than others. Because they had more time to grow and study, they had this seemingly unfair advantage.


    When I first read this chapter, I was also very surprised just as others would. It even seemed so unfair that the system needs to change. However, as I contemplated more on this issue. I found the statistics misleading. Yes, it is out of question that the statistics itself is true. However, the conclusion the writer deduced from it was true but not true. The suitable month of birth actually helped some luckily born people as far as success was concerned; however, it was to be questioned whether the really talented people were hindered by the system. 


     The obvious conclusion, I found, was No. Lionel Messi of FC Barcelona, who is undoubtedly one of the best soccer players throughout the history, is not as tall or big as other players are. He is rather one of the shortest guys among soccer players. If you base your logic on Malcom Gladwell's conclusion, Lionel Messi must fall into a victim of the system. But he didn't. Even with such disadvantage, he achieved more things than any of his competitors did. From this example we can deduce that true talent is not hindered by arbitrary rules of system if the talented has enough will.




     

Assignment #1 Commissioned Essay

"The Chatterbox" of KMLA

              

“Why aren’t you being loud today? It’s so weird.”

This awkward question-which, in many cases, should ask about the reason for loudness-comes out from my friends whenever I don’t speak for even a short time. So used to my loudness, they can’t bear the absence of garrulousness when my mouth is firmly closed. This is who I am. I am “The Chatterbox” of this school. Though a little derogatory in its superficial sense, it is the best definition of my characteristics because it possesses the meaning of gregariousness and affability simultaneously.

When I first entered KMLA, I thought I was not able to make any friend. I felt that way just because I wasn’t brave enough and was simply too shy to go closer by myself to other students around me. Unlike many of 15^th wavers who knew each other before the entrance, I had no idea who others were; therefore I had to make friends from those whom I had no information or prior knowledge about, a process which required vast amount of courage and boldness. However, unlike my negative expectation, my outgoing characteristic was proven to be helpful in making friends and at least made the situation better than the worst of being an outcast. Though not able to get closer first, whenever other students came closer to me, I responded with the largest enthusiasm and gratitude that I could show. Furthermore, I tried to not possess any prejudice or doubt against them; rather, I showed my true self to them. And very fortunately, for many of other 15^th wavers liked my garrulous yet gregarious characteristic, I was able to assimilate into KMLA society and became “The chatterbox” of 15^th wavers. 

In KMLA, trouble between friends is unavoidable. From minor conflict to uncontrollable fight, small dispute between friends sometimes enlarges into a serious problem in KMLA because all the students have to live with others virtually all the time and thus cannot avoid confronting the other side of conflict. More importantly, constantly presenting proximity between people in conflict exacerbates the situation by accumulating misunderstanding. Considering the general atmosphere of the school, I am very satisfied and proud that I don’t have any social problem with any of my friends in the school. One of my primary worries I had when I entered the school was that I might face a bitter feud with other students because of my in some ways annoying vociferousness. However, my garrulous characteristic became rather a benefit to me as I acquired the title as “the Chatterbox.” People around me started to treat me as an easy person to whom they can talk about both serious and light matters. Such affability gave me many friends not because it worked as itself a charm but rather because it made them think that they could discuss whatever they want to with me, and I found it pretty nice to be an “easy” friend.

I don’t think I would get rid of my nickname “Chatterbox” in a near future, for I get fitter into the definition day by day. It doesn’t mean that I speak more or get louder; I became more open and more malleable as time passes by and as I grow up. Living as a Chatterbox, I found how important it is to love the people around me and try to show the true self to them so that they can and I can understand who I truly am and what it is to be a member in a society. 

30 words that could describe me

Chatterbox
 Many people call me Chatterbox whenever I talk a lot. Even though the nickname may have derogatory meaning, I still love it because it is the most appropriate word that could describe what kind of person I am. I talk a lot. Some people may see it as not being serious. However, I think that talking a lot to others a lot made me gregarious and outgoing, the trait which I think is one of the best qualities that I have.

Violinist
 My violin skills aren't good. I cannot play well enough as professional violinist can. However, I do not need those skills to enjoy playing the violin. I feel calm and content when I play it because it makes me concentrate well in the music and I can devote myself into something I love to do.

 French lover
 One of my favorite subjects that I learn in KMLA is French. I love studying French, and I try my best to use as much French as I could in my everyday life. However, at first I had much difficulty in wrestling with French because I didn't know the appropriate means by which I could learn a foreign language. Knowing that I might fall into even greater problem in the future, I spend my vacation in studying French and became much better.

 big cushion
 Big cushions can make you feel better in many ways. When you are angry, you can hit it to relieve your stress, and when you are gloomy, you can hug it and cry. When you feel happy, you can share your emotion with it as well. If you feel any of those feelings, come to me and think that I am your own big cushion.

caring

 I do care about others. I try my best to understand others problem and help them find better solutions. I would voluntarily spend a lot of my time talking with them about issues ranging from academic concern to more personal and private problems.

 Positive
 Enjoy the things that you face. This is the motto of my life. I never think that something would go worse. I rather think that, notwithstanding the current situation, everything will go fine and eventually positive result would come out. Although it may seem too romantic, such positive behavior and idea gave me power to continue my work, not giving up during it.

movie watcher

 I love movies. Whenever I have free time I try to watch some of the finest movies I've wanted to watch. At first I simply watched very sensational movies devoid of meaning; however, now I put more interest in movies which made me think about some of the aspects of our society. Movies gave me true inspiration.

 affable

 If you want to know me, then simply first come to me and talk. I do not hold much prejudice about others when I try to know somebody. I try my best to know others in easy manner.

 Vulnerable

 I get hurt easily from my friends or other people around me. Even though I appear dispassionate about what others say and think about me, even their meaningless remarks and actions come to me as sharp assault, giving me incurable wounds that would last for long time.

 Youngest son

 I am the youngest son in my family, so my parents love me a lot and want to take as much care as possible. Because of the love, I was able to grew up without feeling disconnected from my family. And my brother, one year older than I, is very kind that he doesn't get angry no matter how much I behave insolently. Such ambience in my family constituted large part of my positive and outgoing personality.

 Economics

 In the future, I want to major in Economics. To me, economics is a fascinating subject because economics can explain seemingly totally disconnected incidents. Its broad spectrum, which makes it applicable to many phenomena of the world, is its strongest appeal.

 Patent dispute

 This is the issue in which I'm most interested recently. It is quite interesting to see how does each firm react to the patent lawsuit. Some try to negotiate to avoid trial, and some prepare themselves to win the trial, and the dispute in every single lawsuit includes controversy which many professionals debate about. In the future,  I may delve into such issue in the college.

 School policy

  I participate very enthusiastically into school policy making. Some may say that it is waste of time, but I think that, as a member of KMLA, I have duty to do my best improve my own school.

 Trip alone

 I enjoy a very short trip alone to other places. During middle school, I went to some beaches near Mokpo, my hometown, when I felt tired, and in KMLA, I go to Seoul alone to enjoy city culture.

 Sleeper

 I sleep a lot. I don't know why, but whenever I try to sleep in night, I almost waste more than an hour on the bed thinking some very trivial happenings of the day, so to make up such loss, I frequently fall asleep during the day time.

 Cheese cake

 Cheese cakes are my most favorite food. I love all sorts of cheese cake, and when I feel bad, I always look for them.

 Photography
 This is one of the new interests that I found during my life in KMLA. Some of the photos of professional photographers made me interested in photography. Even though I just enjoy taking photos not, I want to study it more deeply in the future.

 Figure Skating

 I love watching figure skating. Yuna Kim, one of the best skaters in the world, introduce me the beauty and power of figure skating. I collect some of more impressive videos of figure skating performances. If I have chance, I want to go to Japan to watch the FIgure skating world Championship.

 Emotional
 I'm pretty emotional. I am susceptible to external factors that affect my emotion. I cry a lot when I watch sad movies, and when I read fun books, I become highly agreeable.