When We Graduate KMLA...

Today, the seniors took their graduating photos around the school. They all looked somewhat happy, by the fact that they will graduate, overcoming all the hardships they had to go through for about two and a half years in KMLA. From this, I sort of had myself think about what would be an idealistic living in KMLA so that when I take photos, or graduate, I would be content.

Yesterday, I heard that a 3rd grader, Lee Seayoung, is going to take rest for about 1year, and then come back to school. He is quite famous among 18th waver, because he has never lost the top score in almost every exams. However, he is taking his time of because of health issues.

In KMLA, their are lots of important things that we have to be cautious of, such as studying, health, club activities, and social relationships. I heard that to go to good universities abroad, we have to at least keep our GPA above 4.9, and have SAT scores over 2300. These, are of course, arduous tasks that cannot be achieved without significant amount of effort. Moreover, I do want to spend more time in club activities, because highschool is the last three years of my teen life. Therefore, I am eager to spend more time in music, in volunteering, and in sports.

In February, many seniors told me that it is important to maintain balance between studying and playing. Until now, I think I am fulfilling it well. However, after I took my midterm, my life has become sort of unorganized. I started to not clean my room as much, and started to sleep more in self-stuydying time, and started to get more penalty points. I did not realize the seriousness of these, because I was too excited about 'vision-trip', but through seeing the seniors, and imagining what I would become after 2 years, I would have to refresh my mind, and live the way I used to before mid-term.

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When I was Cutting My Hair

Last Sunday, which was april 28th, I went to a hairshop in downtown. I was doing magic ferm, which took about approximately 2 hours. It was enough time to have some chat with my hair designer, and through the talk, I thought about the social role and the image of one in a society.

The Hair designer said
'"Is your father a professor? His hair and overall atmosphere seemes to be like it"
"Did he cut his hair here?" I asked.
"Yes" she replied.
"Then yes, he is a professor."

Then, I had something that went past through my mind.
'How does the hair design and atmosphere relate to the fact that my dad is a professor?'

In a society, everyone is given certain role, and are expected to fulfill their roles. Perhaps, through fulfilling their roles, the groups of people may form similar images that suit their roles. However, I felt that maybe such roles could stir prejudice among people, and about their job. For instance, if a person is unshaved, and wearing wagged clothes, most people would think that that person is not dedicating to high-profitable job such as lawyer or doctor. Meanwhile, if a person is wearing a suit, that is neatly designed, we would generally think that the person is committing to a rather high- profitable job.

There comes the question. Is one's job superior to others? We all know the answer, which is 'no', but does it really? We, cognitively, feel that being a doctor is better than working as a janitor. It is definately wrong to feel such emotion, but social image of one's job affects the overal 'superiorness' of jobs. Social image is not ignorable, but when I was cutting my hair, I felt there were something wrong with this...

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Right now, Madlamites is the main power of Gangneung Hiphop. Madlamites is consisted of my best friend in Middle school, and other members.

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https://soundcloud.com/madlamites/madlamites

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The Age of Stupid- 'Media's role'

     Play this song... while you read...

 

According to the film, we are indeed living in the age of stupid. There are increasing numbers of environmental problems, yet countries like China and the United States are consuming more fossil fuel, accelerating the problems related to the dearth of energy sources. The Brazilian government is investing more on developing the Amazon rainforest, which poses significant impact on the ecosystem of South America, and the desertification process is deteriorating the living conditions in Northern Africa. Nevertheless, at least for now, such situations don’t seem to improve.

In this film, age of stupid, an unnamed archivist, living in 2055, shows several incidents in the past that is related with Earth’s environment. This archivist mentions his archive footage as ‘when we could have saved ourselves’. He tells his story with mainly 6 groups of people: Al Duvernay-a resident of New Orleans, Jehangir Wadia-an Indian businessman, Jamila and Adnan- two Iraqi children, Fernand Pareau-an eighty two years old man who works as a guide on the Mont Blanc glacier in France, Piers and Lisa Guy- a British couple who is interested in wind power, and Layefa Malemi, a Nigerian woman who struggles with poverty despite the wealth of oil in her country.

From these characters, I could figure out a common problem: lack of proper information was the common factor for the environmental problems we could see in the clip. According to the Nigerian women, media reports its country as prosperous due to oil industry, but in reality, she is in destitute condition. Though the U.S. government commented Iraq war as an act for world peace, it was actually an act of oil savaging. The family, who were with the Mont-Blanc guide, seemed surprised by the fact that lots of snow melted in Alps, indicating that general people might not have realized the condition of Alps. Furthermore, if people had realized the importance and the process of wind energy, the British couple could have won the court. Moreover, Al Duvernay and Jehangir Wadia do not seem to have proper knowledge about the impacts their companies pose on environment, even though they know it is important to protect Earth.

With this, I argue that the role of media is extremely crucial. Solving Earth issues is difficult since our actions do not immediately impact our daily lives. To illustrate, if we dump trash in a river, we don’t shower with the water we dumped our trash. This is the reason why media, in which we encounter almost every day in our life through television or internet, is crucial in making us realize about such problems. Associating the 6 groups of people, if media were able to spread accurate information, that Iraq war was an action for gaining oil, or Nigerians are not living in wealth in contrast with its country, more people could have realized such problems and could have prevented the disastrous catastrophes in 2055.

 

Unfortunately, media tend to conceal some crucial facts, because of governmental pressure or fear that it would arouse public anger. In fact, lots of information about the environment is distorted. For instance, there are rumors that data that support global warming is miscalculated. To add, when there was a hydrogen fluoride gas emission in Korea recently, Search Engine ‘Naver’ actually shut down all the news related to hydrogen fluoride gas emission so that it won’t become a hot issue.

 

Media, by definition, is a tool used to store or deliver information or data. It is evident that its role is to let people know the right information. Right now at this moment, in contrast with the archivist, we should consider more on how we can save ourselves, rather than when we could have saved ourselves. Media should not be the one that makes us stupid with distorted fact. Instead media should press accurate information that will help citizens realize the seriousness about the earth’s condition. With it definitely is possibility for the situations to improve.

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My personal narrative-'Still Water Runs Deep'

Almost every people account an event that brings significant impact on their lives. For instance, Helen Keller would have had a mere chance to succeed if it were not for the teaching of Ms. Sullivan, and Korean Scientist Jang, Youngshil would not have been able to invent lots of scientific gadgets if he couldn’t meet Emperor Seajong. As with these people, I also had something that entirely changed the overall attitude toward my life when I was attending middle school. That is, to say, getting to know about hip-hop music through my best friend, Kim, Namkyoung.

It was about 8months from now, when I started to listen to hip-hop. Before, I, like most of my peers, listened to K-Pop, and were fan of idol girls. One day, I had the chance to listen to a song called ‘Airbag’ by Tablo, and for no reason I was seriously addicted to it. How addicted I was? Well, in our class, I had a close friend named NamKyoung, whose dream is to be a rapper, and I asked him to teach me how I can accomplish the rap part in the song. Though I knew I was horrible at it, I sang it in front of him and asked him for revision. Uninterested, what he said was just ‘try harder.’ Regardless of my dismay, from then on I grew significant interest on hip-hop music. As time passed by, I became obsessed with hip-hop, because of exciting rhythms, and mostly because of the genuine lyrics without affectations. Furthermore, I started to admire all the rappers, as I was amused by the fact that they can produce rap music. Such passion motivated me to compose my own song and though I knew I wasn’t skilled, I felt as if I am a musician when composing a song. Feeling somewhat proud of myself, I boasted around Namkyoung though I knew my work wasn’t good. Then came the astonishing moment: after taking a glance look at it, he tore it off; he told me it is a crap. I was shocked because I never expected my close friend would do such a thing. I felt angry and humiliated at that moment, because it felt like he was belittling the effort I put on and time I spent. However, as time passed by, the anger settled down, and I thought what was wrong with my behavior. Then, I reached the conclusion that maybe I was just boasting around with hip-hop, and acted as if I was a cool dude. Then I thought that I need to be more modest, and instead focus on enhancing my ability. With this, when the rest of our family were asleep, I wrote and fixed my lyrics and practiced rap. After several months, I went to Namkyoung again. We hung out even after he tore my paper, but we never talked about hip-hop. This time though, I talked about hip-hop: instead of boasting around, I asked him for revision. He was astonished after realizing that my skills improved, and in contrast to what happened before, he encouraged me. After this moment, I still put lots of effort in rap, but unlike the past, I try to be modest as possible.

 There is a saying ‘Still water runs deep.’ This means that thoughtful and skilled people remain quiet and modest. After Namkyoung tore my lyrics, and as I became more modest about rap, I could feel this sentence by heart. This is because by keeping such attitude, there are less chance of boasting around, and having exaggerated skills. Instead, one can focus on improving their ability. This impacted me to keep modest attitude toward other parts that I excel, and focus on my work rather than focusing on what other people think about me, thanks to my best friend, Namkyoung.

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