Bonus essay

     A little girl is ensconced in a huge, comfortable couch with a thick book on her lap. She is so thoroughly absorbed in the book that even the sound of a thousand horses thumping on the ground would fail to draw her attention. Finally, she breaks out of her world of fantasies by flipping the last page with a sigh.

     An ordinary girl who reads and dreams in her own small eggshell world has long been the image that I have of myself. I would read and read until the end, and would always sigh out of reluctance to end the magic. It is almost religious, the way I take in and savor each word. Deep inside my heart are ideas carefully selected from the books and sprinkled with my views of the world. These ideas guide me through important decisions in life. These valuable second hand life experiences offered by authors gained me, as some of my friends put it, 'an aura of maturity'. However, at times I am quite childish, filled with lighthearted imaginations fit for a six-year-old.

     Daydreaming is a huge part of my life. It offers a temporary hideout from the real world, although it may not last forever. Whenever I feel that I cannot stand the reality, I creep behind some thick curtains of imagination with a good book, two if I'm especially depressed. It gives me the courage to form some hope about the unexpected future, and lift my head up high with a smile. I never hide the fact that I hide, because I hide to prepare myself for a better shot at life.

     I love everything around me. Some great books start from paying attention to small things, and the habit of reading such books has made me look at each tiny insect, each blade of grass, each little child and each pebble with attention and care. I love to look for tiny flowers between roadblocks or ladybugs behind leaves. Such discoveries offer pieces of happiness that I have learned to treasure. Recently I have been fascinated in photography, in which knowledge about cameras, a little bit of luck and reverie are combined to create an effective scene that precisely catches the point. My interest, however, is not limited in photography. I adore all forms of art that depict the world around us, such as paintings, movies, songs, literature and many more. Among them I am especially intrigued by the use of language.

     I am around 150centimeters, less than enough to impress anyone in reality. However, with words I can express everything that my body cannot. I can peel off the image of the 'short kid' or of 'the boring bookworm' and introduce my interesting, humorous, original self without any limits. Also, I love the process of putting my imagination into words. Every time I write something I create a new world which is in itself truly wonderful. I can even love the writer's block, because choosing words that would best describe my feelings, though painful, is an enjoyable task. It is a pain that I would take with pleasure.

     I am a dreamer, and after this comma I can write anything, anything that describes myself. I love the smell of ancient books. I love to spend an entire afternoon just staring at the sky. I always wish to ride over clouds, although I repeatedly learn at school that they are made out of small droplets of water. I love to write. I adore every single process of writing, even the most painful ones.

     The little girl has now come to the middle of her wonderful fantasies. There has been difficulties. There have been some moments when giving up seemed to be the best choice to make. However, she will go on, because she is a dreamer. She will someday end her book, but not as she ended other books; not with a sigh of reluctance but with a smile of satisfaction.

wow

Amazing

30 things

1. MUN
2. relationship with SooYeon center for disabled children
3. French - Le pere Goriot
4. English speaking, writing
5. poems (English)
6. short story (Korean)
7. drawing pictures
8. after school classes for middle school students
9. innocent lies
10. animals
11. fall down often
12. 11month stay in Canada
13. books
14. Global Leaders And Dreams(Yonsei University)
15. Tina
16. Pen pal
17. insects
18. astronomy
19. fist speech contest (7 yrs old)
20. imaginary friends
21. spiritual experience
22. grandfather
23. lost my way(4 yrs old)
24. near death experience in shallow water
25. broke leg (4 yrs old)
26. relationship with little brother
27. life stories from my parents and grandparents - how I was born
28. don't watch TV, don't like anything digital
29. girl's middle school
30. school play

Two cats playing patty cake

cute:)

Synthesis essay on education

     What is education for? This is a simple question that can easily be answered. We need education because in order to become full fledged members of society, humans require a little more than just food. Through education we learn to adapt to the society that we were born into, and find the possibility of moving into a higher economic class. In this perspective, Korean education system has long been accused of failing to serve its original purpose. Among many of its defects are three major problems  that should be addressed immediately; the current education system in Korea requires too much competition between students, takes an entirely wrong approach on moral values, and leads to the polarization of wealth. All of these problems of education will reappear as social problems when the misled students become old enough to form a society of their own. We should find a new model of education system that lets our students lead a stress-free life and eliminates the need for private education.

     Anyone who has experienced learning or teaching in the current Korean education system would agree that the students in this system are put under extreme pressure. Like Haechan, a ten year old boy chosen by BBC as the average Korean schoolboy, they live in constant fear of failure the minute they enter first grade. "The harder you work, and the earlier you begin, the better university you get into, and a better university means a better job," Haechan tells the reporter with a grave face.
 (video from Seewan's blog)
Most Korean students have heard their parents or teachers say that without good grades they will fail to get into a decent university, and will be obliged to live the rest of their lives as stragglers of the society. Their fate is usually decided by a mere difference in score or by some award certificates, which obviously cannot indicate which student is better fit for which university. Therefore, Korean students tend to be obsessed with minor influences to their scores or their ranks among peers. Sometimes this heavy load of stress leads students to commit suicide, and sometimes it creates hostility between classmates who would otherwise form comfortable relationships. While it is well known that the most frequent cause of death of  Koreans between ages 15 and 24 is suicide, many say that it is a problem of the individual whose mindset was too weak to endure competition, not of the education system. However, those who manage to refrain from choices as sad and as wrong as commiting suicide are not entirely free from a mental chaos. I myself have witnessed many arguments or fights caused by grades; some sly students would trick their friends into reading cartoons or watching soap operas by pretending to ignore their studies, and would secretly study at night to keep up. Sometimes they would borrow notes from the highest scoring student in class and never return them. What we have to remember is that although these students were indeed wrong, they had a reason to be mean; they were quite desperate to get a higher rank, and to escape from being a loser.

    

    As we can see from students who are pushed to the point of taking advantage of friendships to rank higher, the system of relative evaluation requires decent education on morals. Nevertheless, not only does the Korean education system neglect moral education, but it also employs a wrong approach. Few schools schedule regular classes to enhance the morality of students, so building students' character is usually a task left to individual teachers. While some teachers succeed in getting voluntary respect from students, others simply bark orders at students and expect them to be obeyed. Below is a video clip that effectively portrays how many Korean teachers approach moral education. They tell students to respect their elders but fail to tell them why. When students ask why they should listen to their teachers they receive a rather hysterical response that such questions are rude and absurd. Aside from scoldings, many other penalties such as corporal punishment are used to stop students from raising their voice against what the school requires.
 
(Video from Dongkyung's blog)
Picture these students ten years later, working at some company. Submissive members of society who never question their superiors or the government; my, what a healthy society they would form-- without the ability to ask why, or to find any reason for themselves. However, this is not the worst a teacher can do to students. What's yet worse, is discrimination.

     Many Korean teachers discriminate their students by standards relating to their future social status such as grades or wealth. In a 2011 survey, aproximately 46% of middle school students and high school students answered that they have experienced discrimination from teachers by grades, appearance or wealth in the form of physical or verbal abuse. I have witnessed a case of discrimination last year. When I went to a public boy's middle school to teach after school classes, I saw a man in a suit, probably a teacher, push the boys around with a wooden switch -- swinging, tapping, hitting and poking as he marched about. When he noticed me, he beamed so kindly that I was surprised. He treated me, a decent student from a prestigious high school, like a respectable adult, and the boys, backward students waiting for supplementary lessons, like animals. I noticed later that some of the boys showed considerably low self respect. Although they were angry at teachers who mistreated them, they actually believed the cruel, foolish nonsense, feeling that they must be of less value to the world than higher scoring students. These teachers eliminate the wonderful possibilities of young students with easily uttered words.

      Another major problem of Korean education is, of course, the invasion of private education. Now that private education is widespread, most teachers in public schools lose their drive to teach. When they walk into a classroom, they often face a class that does not pay any attention at all. Some students have already learned the material beforehand in private education centers, and others do not understand a thing because their parents cannot afford those extra studies. This situation leaves the teacher with two choices; first, to focus on the low-achieving students and make the class as easy as possible. Second, to assume that all of the students attend a private education center and teach something more difficult. Neither of the two choices satisfy the students and their parents, because easy classes are a waste of time for bright students as difficult classes are for backward students. So either way the students end up getting even more private education.

     Private education is not actually as bad as people say it is-- it provides students with high quality education. Nevertheless, everything becomes a problem when it is excessive. In 2001, Korea's private education expenses covered 3.4% of the nation's GDP, while average OECD member countries spent only 2% of their GDP on public and private education. Zealous Korean parents sign up for class after class, obliging their children to have their meals in cars while moving from one Hagwon to the next. Students have to undergo even more stress and pressure than before, hating people who tell them that it is a process that everyone has to go through in order to lead a successful life. Fees for private education skyrocket, breaking the hearts of economically challenged parents who are forced to make their children give up opportunities of education. Because it is difficult for students to learn enough to get into prestigious universities without private education, children who had to give up private education grow to repeat the tragedy of their heartbroken parents, while children of the 'upper class' parents become the same rich parents who spend up to 4 million wons a month on private education alone. In 2006, top 10% families have spent an average of 316,000 wons per month on private education while bottom 10% families have spent only 31,000 wons, about ten times as less. Moreover, considering that the stat includes families without children and families with children younger than 7 years old, we can imagine the gap between economic classes to be much bigger, because usually private education fees increase in geometrical progression as children get older. Here we witness one of the major purposes of education lost; equality and opportunity to move into a higher economic class. This leads to the polarization of wealth, a sign of a closed society. We no longer can hope for 'dragons from a small stream', an expression that refers to those who achieve success despite their poor backgrounds.

      There is no doubt that the education system in Korea must undergo a reform in order to stop its faults from influencing the structure of the Korean society. How should it be done? The devastating mental health of students who have to endure up to ten years of intense competition, combined with the lowest level of happiness among students of other OECD member countries, could only be addressed by changing the fundamental structure of Korean education. In order to lessen competition among students and to improve their mental health, it would be a good idea to turn our attention to Finland, where schools emphasize harmony and cooperation rather than competition. The video clip below explains that Finnish education starts from a question, "If winning over others is all students learn at school, what kind of society will they make when they grow up?". Their ultimate goal is to leave no student behind, and so they concentrate on slow students and help them follow their high achieving counterparts.

(Video from Seewan's blog)
Keeping such values as cooperation in mind will not only facilitate our students to become more stable and morally correct, but will also help our future members of society to save dropouts rather than considering them as social failures. Then, we may hope for a society where you live your own life rather than your parents', and we may be able to find many dragons who come from little streams and creeks.

     In conclusion, as a Greek philosopher Diogenes once said, "The foundation of every state is the education of its youth". Korea's foundation lies in its education system, which has been quite unstable for a long period of time. Students are not happy being told to defeat their friends to lead a successful life, and the overheated enthusiasm for private education is contributing to the ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor. While Obama seems to be interested in the high achievements of Korean students in math and science, he does not know that it came at a cost of our students' mental health. In order to solve some serious problems at hand and to improve the foundation of Korean society, we should adopt a cooperation-oriented education system that does not leave anyone behind. Only then will Korean education rightly serve its purpose as a breakthrough for those who have been locked in a vicious cycle of poverty, and as a home to many full fledged members of society with healthy minds.

In class exercise ; synthesis essay

     We see ads everywhere; on televisions, radios, and streets, in subways, local libraries built by some company, restaurants, and hair salons, and even at school. They all urge us to buy some product, to call a counselor, to donate money, to finish what's on your plate, or to recycle properly. Such advertisements greatly influence the way people think, both positively and negatively. Either way, advertisements block people's ability to resist the conveyed beliefs that may or may not be true, subjecting them to manipulation. Such influence is most effective for those who are not aware of the claims made in advertisements.

     For example, although we may not call the red cross immediately after spotting a picture of crossed band-aids and a paragraph below explaining the advantages of blood donation, we would think that blood donation is desirable. We would not be able to consider that there are people who are opposed to donating blood, or that donating blood can bring any negative side effects. The ad itself may seem like, and is, a positive propaganda. However, it can be quite dangerous because we never think that this 'advertisement for a good cause' intends to manipulate our behavior, thus accepting any belief suggested by advertisements without criticism.

     A more typical example that shows the influence of advertisements would be the success of cigarettes. In the 20th century markets for cigarette continued to rise, because the advertisers knew how to attract the individual consumers to a particular brand that would suit their needs. When people saw a handsome man in suits getting out of a tall building carrying a certain brand of cigarettes between his fingers on TV, they would have associated the brand with good looks, success, working ability, and break time, not with lung cancer or death. The positive and popular image of cigarettes created by such ads stopped consumers from thinking that they should avoid smoking, or that the number of people who smoke might actually be smaller than what they know.

     Schrank claims that although people deny of this fact, such influence of advertisements are especially strong when people are not aware of the message that advertisements try to convey. In both examples stated above, people do not concentrate on what the intentions of ads might be. Instead they just take the information in their subconscious, keeping all the messages in the back of their mind. If you had picked out a random consumer of a certain brand of cigarette,

material for synthesis essay

It's a famous video clip that shows the life of an average high school student in Korea

Pink Plastic Flamingo

     In the essay Jennifer Price brings up two major reasons why the pink plastic flamingo was such a phenomenon in America. Instead of directly stating her opinion, Price weaves it into the usual facts through her careful choice of  examples and words, setting signs here and there that lead to associating the pink plastic flamingo with certain natures of the American market.

     Price starts the essay by letting the readers know that she will be discussing two major characteristics of the pink flamingo that made it so impressive. 'It was a flamingo' in lines 2 and 3 seems so obvious that it catches the reader's attention quite effectively. Giving some information on what flamingo meant in America, Price particularly uses the words 'flock' or 'wealth and pizzazz' and the example of hotels, creating a somewhat comic image of a group of 'eager' consumers ready to 'flock' to hotels, and so prepares the readers with a basic idea of what the pink flamingo may symbolize. Then she adds that this commercial popularity of plastic flamingos came after the indiscreet hunting of real flamingos, suggesting that it is 'a little ironic' which is an understatement. Now the readers would think that whatever the Americans love about pink plastic flamingos has nothing to do with the real flamingo, nature or life. The example of Las Vegas, the ultimate symbol of extravagence and entertainment in America, makes the idea quite concrete. A simile in lines 28 and 29 compares the appearance of services employing the image of flamingos with 'semiotic sprouts' which adds to the image already set with hotels, tourists, Las Vegas etc.

     Price then moves to the second point, again with a very obvious observation, that the flamingo is pink. She uses quotes from Tom Wolfe and Karal Ann Marling that effectively emphasizes on how much the generation that overcame the great depression loved to comsume bright colors. Price uses the phrase 'celebrate its new affluence' in lines 38 and 39, which suggests that the popularity of flashy colors is closely related to blind consumption of goods. Along with examples of many bright colored products that were sold at the time, she mentions a pink Cadillac that Elvis Presley, a huge icon of American culture, has bought. Reading until here, the reader would now think the pink plastic flamingo as a symbol of a commercial culture, and on the negative side, which is exactly what Jennifer Price seems to have intended. She then explains how much flamingos stand out in any environment; with a metaphor in the last few lines that flamingos were sent 'wading across an inland sea of grass', which probably is an indirect mention of American lawns decorated by plastic ornaments.

     Overall, Price appears to be analyzing the reasons for the popularity of the pink flamingos, however she is actually going much further than just giving objective information. She sees the pink plastic flamingo as a symbol of extravagant American culture, and so carefully chooses vocabularies and examples to support the idea, emphasizing on the artificial and commercial feature of the pink flamingos.

Muckraker

          Unlike what Theodore Roosevelt intended with the term 'muckraker', the name is now given to two groups of people; one in pursuit of companies or of the government to reveal underground misconducts to which the public holds rights to criticize, and the other keeping a close watch on celebrities for gossip. Either way, they dig out hidden information filthy as 'muck' to expose to the public, which, unfortunately, is often misleading, causing the public to miss out on some other major misconducts that really need attention.

          Muckrakers in any of the possible two ways have their sources of information, usually the economical or political enemies of the target. It is not uncommon for investigative journalists to be used as a tool of retaliation between rival enterprises, celebrities or politicians, as any good reputation can easily be ruined, even with groundless rumors. When suspicion of drug possession, ill treatment of workers, inappropriate relationships or bribery, already made widespread by the press, is proven by fervent muckrakers to be true, the target is severly condemned. The accusation being just, such treatment is well-deserved. Nevertheless it is questionable whether the informant here, or the muckrakers themselves, are entirely free of faults. Considering that a number of able politicians, entrepreneurs and artists have ended their careers with the exposures of trivial flaws triggered by competitors, Jessica Mitford's crown as the queen of muckrakers should be less than glorious, although her accomplishment was entirely of a different nature.

          As for a few muckrakers who are devoted in revealing muck that may actually be of use in making a cleaner world, another obstacle awaits. It is the governments' and the press' wonderful faculty to fabricate conclusions with given information. Julian Assange, the representative of Wikileaks is a perfect example of a muckraker caught in such a trap. In the last few days of November 2010, mass media including CNN, the Guardian, the New York Times etc covered how China was loosing patience with North Korea, showing specific interest in the word 'spoiled child' allegedly used by senior figures in Beijing to describe the regime in the North. The source of this information, as the press mentioned, was Wikileaks. Why this 'leak', of all other 'leaks' shocking enough to keep the public's attention for years, was so worthy of special mention remains a question to be answered. Julian Assange, accused of molesting two women, was arrested in England. Wikileaks has a banner that reads, 'keep us strong', and the battle between Wikileaks and the governments still goes on. While the results are unknown, the broadcasted information about China and North Korea was misleading enough to degrade the term 'muckraker'.

         Those who are accused of being 'Muckrakers' may believe that they are raking muck out of society, but before they become proud of themselves of the name, they must remember that what they throw to the public does not always deserve full attention, and that they have yet to win over giants with accumulated experience in dealing with unwanted exposure. As long as these tasks remain unfinished, being a 'muckraker' should not be a pleasant accusation.

A response to the 'I like turtles' boy

 
    
       Whether this video is funny or not should be a decision left to the viewers. Unfortunately, however, the common crowd is seldom the best judge especially for something as wide ranged as humor, because an individual as a part of the general public tend to follow the opinion of the general public. This tendency has become stronger since the widespread use of the Internet.
     The phrase, 'famous for being famous' not only explains Paris Hilton’s popularity but also shows a possible explanation of the fuss over this ‘I like turtles’ boy. If we were to analyze such factors as the angle of the camera, the boy’s painted facial expression, and his unexpected answer, we could find out an element within the video that would attract 27 million people. Nevertheless, such efforts would be a waste of time because his ‘well-knownness’ has undoubtedly affected his fame more critically than what the video itself displays.
           On youtube, usually the clip with the most clicks within a period of time is the most exposed. If there are few other videos posted at the time, a video needs only a little amount of attention, that is, about a few hundred views in an hour, to be exposed. People who fool around on youtube to find out what’s ‘hot’ at the moment would definitely check out the zombie boy while it stays on the main page, and are likely to think that there must be something funny about the video for it to make it up to the list. As this cycle goes on people post parodies that attracts even more viewers who may or may not like the video. After a few weeks Jonathan finds himself famous on the Internet, although no one knows how the viewers would have responded to this video had they not known that it was well-known.