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.
2012년 5월 23일 수요일
2012년 5월 2일 수요일
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.
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.
2012년 4월 11일 수요일
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.
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.
2012년 4월 4일 수요일
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.
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.
2012년 3월 28일 수요일
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.
2012년 3월 14일 수요일
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.
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 15th 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....
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