30 things about me!

30 things about me (updated June 6th)

1. Streamer

In the recent decade, personal media, also known as streaming became the one part of the teenager's culture. I wasn't truly interested in that culture since I didn't have enough chance to access that culture and also I was more concentrated on having relationships with friends. After graduating the middle school, like other students in KMLA, I had more chances to experience the enjoyment of Youtube. Throughout Youtube, I knew some streamer who broadcast on Twitch, which is one of the most well-known streaming websites. That is my first moment with the personal media. Yet the society evaluated the personal media in the negative view, personal media gave me positive influences. I often watched the broadcast for the enjoyment but, sometimes, I learned lessons that affected my lifestyle. Currently, my primary goal during the gap year is to become a streamer and, in fact, I'm broadcasting a radio on Facebook.

2, 3. Cúig Rejon, Bloodmoon

Hmmm... Could you guess what are those? The answer is! Both two words are my pseudonym. 

Actually, Cúig Rejon is the name for the Facebook sub-account where I wrote numerous personal stories for my few close friends. The origin of the name is quite simple. Cúig Rejon is an anagram of my English name, Eric Joung. There were two major reasons I chose anagram for my pseudonym. First, once I saw the name, Bayle Toro, on Facebook. At the first moment, I think that account is just a funny and childish trick of certain KMLA students. Later on, I knew that Bayle Toro is an anagram of Albert Yoo, KMLA graduate in 18th wave. Inspired by his name, I spent almost one day to make an ideal combination of my alphabets. It seemed easy at the first moment, but making a new name with limited letters was complicated work. I should pronounce numerous acquired names to check whether they are able to pronounce like a real name or not. 

I used the second name more publicly. As you can surmise, the origin of the name is from the blood moon. Since KMLA students have to stay in the dormitory after 7 p.m., I had only a few chances to stay outside the dorm in the night during GLPS. One night during GLPS, while I was walking the road between Dasan and Chungmu building, I saw the blood moon. And I didn't know why I felt like that but, in my eyes, that blood moon was so large that I could compare the size of it with the dorm. In addition, that moon was beyond the expression of words. That must be the most attractive thing that I've ever seen in my life. 

 

4. A mechanic
The term "Engineering" seems far away from me because of my main interest, history. And, actually, I have never learned physics in the school nor interested in engineering. But, precisely, I have a talent for repairing or utilizing machinery. Even though I can't understand the structure of the particular machine, I easily fixed the problem. Not only repairing types of machinery but also collecting and utilizing various kinds of devices is one of my favorites. As you can see in the picture (that is my room), I used several electronic devices such as computer monitor (a rare item in KMLA) and HDMI cable.

5. Riding a bike
Like a personal media that I mentioned before, there was a teenager's culture for riding a bike. Irrelevant from it, I used to ride a bike since I was young. But, I had never considered the bike as a hobby or sports. Rather I considered it as a transportation. That mindset was intensified when I had to ride a bike more than 20 minutes to go to school after the move. It was sudden that I felt the enjoyment of riding a bike. While passing the same road for about 6 months, I realized that I could climb the sharp slope without falling down the bike. Soon, I got used to riding a bike without grasping the handle. Those personal improvements inspired my passion for the bike. Along with the bike culture in school, I discussed a lot of things related to a bike with my friends and often had a trip to near city for bike during the weekend. After I have stayed in KMLA, I couldn't continue riding a bike regularly. But, still, I loved the unique feelings from riding a bike.

6. A stranger
My mom said that I was a timorous child like others. I was afraid of eating new types of food and approaching new things.

MY PERFECT Funeral

Topic: Plan your own funeral according to the 5'Ws. What's the mood? What's the music playlist? Who will recite the eulogy? Buried or burned? Kept in an urn or scattered? Where? Balloons? Pizza? Include a few excerpts of the eulogy.

Few days ago, on Tuesday, I went to the one of my uncle’s funeral. Unfortunately, gloomy atmosphere at ordinary style of funeral in Korea made me more depressed. All the black colors around me drove my emotion negatively. 

I understand how sad it is to lose loved one and I felt expressless grief over my uncle's death. But, I hope my funeral would conceptualize the term “small family party with full of happiness”. The reason why I choose "small family party" and "full of happiness" is I hope lots of mourner can remember Eric with good feelings, but not magnificently or gloomy. Surrounded with grieved black color and dark atmosphere, people are easily seized with the negative emotions like sadness, blaming oneself. That is not the funeral what I planned! Like a birthday party, with few balloons of various bright colors, family members and old friends who are smiling and laughing while remembering and sharing the memory with me… That scene would be the perfect first impression for the funeral plan.

   
I hope the mourners in the funeral can smile like the below picture. I would rather be live longer if the upper picture is my funeral.   

Since the concept of funeral is “small family party with full of happiness” and personally I'm a huge fan of EDM (Electronic Dance Music), my favorite music list of EDM would be the most adequate music. Rhythmical sound and the beat of the music will help people to overcome the loss. And, on that list, another song must be included in it. 
I always want to imagine “Welcome to the Black Parade” for the 1st funeral music playlist. Especially, I love the lyrics, “Would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned?”, which inspired me a lot and also brought my personal inner growth. 

Let's talk about the top event in the funeral, the eulogy, I hope my wife, if she is alive until my death, write and read it herself in front of the people. I’m not sure what will be the first statement of the eulogy, but the eulogy will remember the memory with her and me. “Sometimes, we are happy together, we fight together, we cry together, but we are always the one. And I knew him more than 50 years so, I will speak this last sentence instead of him. “Enjoy my funeral and don’t be too sad. Death is not the end. It is the gunshot of another race!”” With this phrase, my wife's voice will be stopped.
Burned would be the best last moment than buried. Since I was a child, I abhorred the tradition of burying. Also, I wondered the process of cremation, too. After the cremation process, scattering in the nature with the gorgeous landscape would be the next step. Among lots of nature, I choose the peaceful sea with an emerald wave in Maldive! How amazing place it is!
My uncle is no more than 52. He was too youthful to die. Death may be stay near you. But, death isn't the end. And the funeral is the start of the death, and the gateway for new life.

My Chemical Romance - Welcome to the Black Parade

KMLA and I. Disharmony.

During the summer vacation in 2017, I spent most of the time to consider taking a year time off from school. I wasn't satisfied with my life in KMLA anymore. Honestly, at the end of the last semester, I just wanted to escape the school which gave me endless anxiety and extreme disharmony only. There were too many events I started and too many complicated stories I related to. I met too many friends and I had too many unnecessary relations for last one and half years. 

That was the moment I recalled numerous decisions I made after entering KMLA.

Let's imagine. What if I failed to enter KMLA? I must enter the high school near by my hometown. My life must be happier than my life in KMLA since I had a close relationship with the lots of students. But, my academic growth must be slower and I couldn't dream to study abroad too. So, my first decision, entering KMLA, wasn't the start of my problem.

What if I dropped out few meaningless clubs in freshmen year? Numerous club activities also were one of the factors that made me unhappy. At the first moment, my passionate mind tried to participate every project in every club. However, my academic life and club life couldn't exist at once. The more time I spent my time in club, the less time I had on my study. But, club activities were part of my KMLA life and even though I gave up my academic life a little, I got few closet friends. That fact makes me satisfy today.

Then, what if I didn't participate GLPS in the summer and winter vacation in 2016 and had a free time to recharge myself? Sadly, participating GLPS gave huge pressure on my academic school life. That is undeniable truth. I was in the school while my friends studied in their hometown. But, both GLPS camps were unforgettable experience to me. I experienced unique and unbelievable three weeks with great graduated students from KMLA and the camp students. In particular, after having the last winter camp, I became friend with one graduated student who still helps me whenever I need her and wherever she lived. Obviously, two GLPS camps were harsh experiences but not painful periods. 

At last, what if I wasn't the member of student council or didn't try to impeach the head of executive council? In last semester, I had to endure all critics and complains from students about my behavior as a member of student council. Whether my behavior was right or not, my attempt to impeach the head of executive council was purely for the advance in KMLA. But, it was the most daunting challenge I faced with. I tried to leave the school several times and until now, my life in last semester gave a huge pressure on me.

Surprisingly, I’m still KMLA students in 21^st Wave, not 22^nd Wave. You might guess the reason I’m still in this disharmonized place. Yes, my life still exists in eternal pain and if I can, I definitely wants to escape the school. But, what if I leave the school? It could be the solution?

NO. Once in my high school time, I should spend three years in KMLA whether I like it or not. Then, I must choose to get through the harshness rather than running away. So, I return this place and I will accomplish something I want. 

Metafiction writing: Lost Child

I'm Christine Mirror and this is the story that I recently experience. I'm writing this short diary somewhere in London. I don't know the exact location where I am but what I only realize is that 38-caliber revolver with some live shells is in my right hand and I'm completely ready to revenge them who create and manipulate my entire life. 

Where should I start to say? Hmm, let's start with my teenage life in Miami, Florida, my lovely hometown.

"Ding Ding Ding" The school bell charms and I finally scream with the enjoyment. It's time to enjoy the freedom after my harsh day life.  

At school, I am a bright kid, friendly to everyone, an extrovert – but in the inside, my soul festers more and more each day. I cannot break down into tears, because I know that I won’t be able to stand up again, gather the scattered pieces up and go back to the mundane life. 

Honestly, my life wasn't that peaceful. My fate starts to mess up when I was a little creature, before I was born. My father had a car crash before I was born and he leave my mom and me in this harsh society. What I had to hear from the adults was always "poor kid, posthumous child, young girl who needs help desperately". What I heard from my friend was "Where is your father Christine?, I emphasize your sadness, be a proud daughter". When I was really young, I seriously couldn't understand what they are saying. However, I wasn't that stupid. I should be an active person, be a proud daughter for my mom, and be a self-reliant teenage girl. All the biased perspective in our society increased my responsibility and restricted the type of person what I should be. 

The responsibilities became a burden, a chain that strangled me from being free. Yet, I had no one, not even one to discuss. There, I stood alone, in front of the whole city, in front of thousands of people. Nobody had time to care about me.  They were so busy to catch up with their lives. Meaningless. No goal. No vision. Nothing they need to approach to.

Despite of this stressful lifetime, my mom is the only place where I can recharge myself. The day before yesterday was same as an ordinary weekday. After escaping from hell, my high school, I arrived at my house and played fps game what I truly interested in before the dinner. Sharing little chat with my mom while eating dinner and we sat side by side to see my dad's pictures.

“Ma, I miss him.”

“I do, too, darling. I see a lot of him in you. The only thing is that I smell an earth from him, but I smell an ocean from you.”

“What do you mean, ma?”

“From your father, the bravery in his eyes has the wild dust wind. From you, the bravery in your eyes has the stilled moment of the wild ocean.”

My eyes were blurred by the deep and pure blue. It was not easy, facing yourself for so long. The moment was held with my exhalation. The water bubbles tickled my body. The air was all gone from my lungs, but I have never felt such comfort, the liberty that I finally found in me.

After I realized my unusual environment, I have always considered the thought of others, the view of others. I never tried to understand deeply myself. Christine Mirror is Christine Mirror. She is not the one who is created by the evaluation from others. What I have to do is to be honest on my heart. So, I will do it.

I will keep paving my road on the ocean for the vision that I keep in my heart - the vision to give a positive influence to the world. So, Hi. Expect me.

How dramatic story it is! If the story ended like this, you would be satisfied. Unfortunately, I'm a princess in Disney movie. This can't be an ending. Just read the next passage carefully. 

After the conversation with mom, I went back to my room normally. Soon, my room starts to twist and becomes smaller than before. For the next few seconds, my room completely disappear and my eye view goes black like a screen in television. What I remember after the short coma is the noisy sound of ambulance in everywhere and white bright light that usually placed in the hospital when the doctor operates the surgery.

"Ah, Where am I? Ah...." I woke up in this morning with painful feeling on the operating table. Where I am isn't Miami. It isn't even U.S. Actually, I could easily find out that I am in Britain when I watch the emergency number "999" on the wall. What makes me more surprise was the name tag attached on the operating table. "Test subject No. 245? What kind of test are you talking about! I'm Christine Mirror." I intuitively make my mind to change my clothes into norm wearings and escape from this building. I opened the door slightly and no one is on the hallway. I simply believed that it might be a lunch time or another emergency situation might happen. But, when I step forward on the hallway, entire alarms in the building started to make tremendous noise. "Just Run, Christine. Just RUN!!" I ran and ran and ran again to escape but finally I had to enter the random office on the hallway.

For the next hour, men with black suit regularly walk around the hallway. During the hour in the office, I reached at some conclusions like "I'm important person for the group of people called X". At that moment, two scientists slowly walked on the hallway and stopped in front of the door where I am standing. They kept continuing the conversation. However, what makes me frustrated was one of the voice that I heard is exactly the same with the voice of my mom.   

"Did you heard the story of Christine? She ran out from the surgery room but no one knows where she is."
"Of course, yes. I can't believe that our test subject escapes the virtual society. She have to stay there for us."
"Yes, she should. Our research must be finished and it will be the most fabulous essay in the history of psychology. How people think about the idea to do experiment through virtual technique?"

"Virtual society...What the hell they are talking? I'm Christine from Miami and I'm still existed in here. How dare they denied the existence of human being." With full of curiosity and little anger, I changed my position to see the disgusting face that defines me as an imaginary person. When I saw their face, every single curiosity that I had changed into the anger. Two scientists on the hallway was my mom and dad.

"But, I miss the chat with her. That was quite interesting."
"Never mind. Christine is just a program to help us research. What's the difference between Christine and the monster in Frankenstein? Haha!"

My hand shivered and my head was up to explode. Then, I saw the 38-caliber pistol on the desk in the office. Without hesitation, I went out of the office and said them. "Sorry, I'm not your monster anymore, Victor." Two bullet sounds were enough to break the silence.  

Once upon a time

Writing sample started by: (use third person narrative)
Once upon a time, there was a small and intelligent boy in the tiny village. He was a special kids actually. His behaviors were basically different compared to other normal kids. He acted like a great explorer, scientist, historian, and even president. One day, when he became the middle school students, he decided to travels somewhere since the small village was too familiar and boring. He put some stuffs in his large bag and say goodbye to his parent. Since he didn't have a map, the continuous road was his only friend. At first, he visited the capital of the nation.
However, what had been awaiting him was not what he had been awaiting. As if a dramatic turn of a Greek tragedy had shocked an audience of five-year-olds with the boy being on of them, the boy's eyes were filled with immortal glare of sudden dizziness by facing the very first world of different color compositions. Never in his life he saw a man dying cringed at the corner of the street. never in his life he saw a mad man screaming "The apocalypse in near!" running around like a drunken ax. never in his life he heard such an uncomforting harmony of people talking with all the words spitted out with anger and dullness. Gray skyscrapers, gray steaming cars, gray pavements, gray breeze, and gray wild flowers spontaneously bloomed in the crevice of the pavements, He took his first deep breath in that world and the shade of gray drowned his everything. Into the deepest part of the ocean. Hard to breathe. It wasn't only the (acmplexions) at the people. The lights! God damn them! Lights at all colors and brightness that he wasn't need to. Everyone (two words) carry little flashlights except they kept touching the bulbs and the colors would shift and change. Everyone seemed to have a flashlight tethered to their head. And whenever touching their lights, they would stare in stand almost  (one word) They would (one word) good (scarecraws), he thought. They boy didn't stop, not even once. He kept on walking, passing through all the shades of grey and light. Liveliness in his face started to fade away.

P.S. Sorry, Mr.Garriock. There are some words that I couldn't read at all, so I marked them as blanks.

Revisionist History Ep.4 - Carlos doesn't remember

Carlos, who is the main character in the podcast episode “Carlos doesn’t remember” represents poor but highly intelligent students in advanced countries. In the entire lecture, Malcolm Gladwell points out a few things to help the students like Carlos by exemplifying the man named Eric. This episode described the educational inequality (or inequality of chance to have education) in U.S.A. very well. However, this unbalanced situation in not limited on the boundary of U.S.A. As I mentioned in the above, students like Carlos keep suffering and waste their superficial ability due to a harsh educational system in South Korea.

At the beginning of an episode, Gladwell temporarily mentions the policy in university for the poor. The system wasn’t actually effective to save students like Carlos, but the importance of having those systems was attested. However, that basic system for the poor but smart students doesn’t work well in modern South Korea. In fact, only a few universities offer the policy to help the poor but intelligent students to enter their school. Even the condition of the system is worse than the system in U.S.A.

Let’s look at the simple example. Seoul National University is the highest school in the world university ranking among the universities in South Korea. However, according to the 2017 administration policy in SNU, only 160 students can be the one who enter SNU by applying the policy for poor. Unfortunately, entire freshmen in the year 2017 was over 2500. It means that students like Carlos are the minority, even this amount refers to 0.6% of all freshmen students. Because of the limitation in the educational system of South Korea, students like Carlos must compete each other to become beneficiaries of that policy.

The next point is about the overall educational system in South Korea. According to the episode, 80% of the students like Carlos in U.S.A lose their academic potential at the age of teenagers. Despite that horrible rate, over 35000 students are selected as a potential one after becoming teenagers. Throughout this analysis, figuring out students in early ages, providing suitable education to students and leading them in the right direction is more important than other matters. Surprisingly, these two subjects aren’t existence in modern Korean educational system. Today, Korea’s educational system composed with the elementary, middle and high school. Most of the children get the same quality of education and they grew up similarly. During the period of elementary, students like Carlos should be treated differently. However, the education system in Korea strongly focused on the unification of all students. The problems are the lack of private institutions and wrong common beliefs of Korea: “Special isn’t special, normal is the best thing in your life.” Uniqueness and differentiation is regarded as useless and social maladaptive.

Unbalanced opportunity and limited freedom to be a special makes South Korea weaker than past few decades. To be a real advanced country and to enhance the aspect of civic awareness, South Korea must fix the overall modern education system.

Revisionist History Ep.3 - Peer Pressure

Sudden development of technology in last decade has been affected to the importance of peer pressure. Social networking service applications like Facebook or Twitter, forced their users to know the daily life of their friends, teachers and even the celebrities. Comments, likes, and reactions from the posts reflected the common reaction in the society. Not to be a stranger, not to be an outsider, each member of the society has started to consider the “Peer Pressure”, the social eye. 

This situation frequently happened in South Korea related with the students in teenager. In fact, few days ago, I read quite interesting article from the “TIME”. The link of the article is in the below. Amid of the article, the term “peer pressure” appeared to explain the harsh reality of Korean students. The phrase “All we do is study, except when we sleep” in the article surprised me and helped me to decide the topic of this reflection. Academic peer pressure in Korean society; competing each other, not helping.

Academic peer pressure caused the problem not only in the society of children but also in the entire economic circumstance in South Korea. Another link in the below and the chart showed terrible situations happening nowadays. Overheated competition between students forced themselves to go to private academy to beat and survive in the harsh school environment. Surprisingly, the term “prerequisite learning” is normally used by the person who learned pedagogy. But, in South Korea, most of the parents loved to use this word and even the students talked each other whether having a prerequisite learning or not.

Unfortunately, KMLA always suffered from these problems, the academic peer pressure and the private learning. At first, balanced academic peer pressure in elite school always regarded as a requirement. However, the most important point in premise is it should be “balanced”. In KMLA, few domestic students often have nickname started with “GyeonJae” (Translated to check in English). As you can guess, those nicknames came from their inhumane behavior. For those students, the test scores and overall reputation as competent students were considered for the first priority in their life. Every students in South Korea should keep in mind the dual-aspect of the academic peer pressure.

The next point is the private learning. Even though school policy tried to prohibit private learning of the students, most of the domestic students and even international students preferred to have private learning rather than unsupervised learning. Yet the writer of the following essay have refused to have AP or SAT private learning after entering the KMLA. For the case of international students, they normally decided to have private learning since SAT or AP tests are quite unfamiliar type of studying for them. However, to survive and to compete with other domestic students, private learning is more than recommended things to the students in domestic field. IT IS THE EASIEST WAY TO SURVIVE IN KMLA.

This is the story of my friends. Not the students lived in Gangnam, not the students who perfectly controlled by their parents. This is the student’s reality in South Korea.


http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2094427-2,00.html

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21665029-korean-kids-pushy-parents-use-crammers-get-crammers-cr-me-de-la-cram