2/14 Debate

MOTION: THB Korea should allow presidential re-election.
Date: 2/14		GOVERNMENT		OPPOSITION
Introduction	Pts	Name: Youngil Jung		Name: Inseong Joe
Delivery	9 /10	Well spoken, but little monotonic	6 /10	Nervous, need more confidence
Arguments	9 /10	Effectiveness, regulation of the president,	7 /10	Lame duck, populism: irrational behavior to gain popularity
Notes	Tot 18 /20	1 POI	Tot 13 /20	1 POI: not answered completely 1 POI rejected
Rebuttal One	Pts	Name: Juwon Park	Pts	Name: Changwoo Lee
Delivery	9 /10	Clearly presented	10 /10	Strongly, clearly spoken
Arguments	8 /10	Example of US, major trend: nation-wide survey showed	9 /10	Checks and balances: too much power given to the president, populism contradicts efficiency, wording problem existed in the survey, example of 전두환: done by law, but it’s still a dictatorship
Notes	Tot 17 /20	2 POIs rejected 2 POIs taken	Tot 19 /20	10 POIs rejected 1 POI taken: well answered
Conclusion	Pts	Name: Byungwoo, Jung	Pts	Name: Seohyeon, Lee
Delivery	9 /10	well done (did not finish)	9 /10	Clearly presented, a bit fast (not finished)
Arguments	9 /10	The opposition side just criticizes everything-just critics, in politics there is only a better answer not the right answer	10 /10	Fundamental reasons: failed to do so, the opposition should criticize, clashes: good or harmful, going to work or not
Notes	Tot 18 /20	4 POIs rejected 1 POI taken	Tot 19 /20	1 POI rejected

Highrise Brainstorming

     I wandered around the Highrise for some time and decide to compare my life with the life of Benoit who is from the city of Montreal in Canada. Before seeing the video clips, I briefly searched about the city of Montreal. Montreal is the largest city in the province of Quebec which is the center of the French culture in Canada. It was somewhat similar to my situation, because I lived in a big city in Korea for almost all my life.

     First, I want to compare his job choosing and mine. When I watched the video clip that shows his life as a pastry chef, he just liked cooking since he was young. He liked and wanted to do cooking, thus he found a job as a pastry chef. This is also what I want to do and trying to do. In the future, I want to do something for my job that I like and enjoy doing. I want to follow his way of choosing a job. If I choose a job that I don’t want to do, then regardless of how much money that I can earn, my life will not be happy. Instead, I would live a happy life by doing what I really like.

     Next, I want to compare with his neighborhood with mine. He introduces that he usually uses public transportation in order to meet his neighborhood much more often. Also, he describes his environment around him in a very impressive way. He uses the highway between his house and the formerly best apartment across the highway. The apartment across the highway was regarded as the best, but for some reason it was deteriorated and finally demolished. He says that there’s a highway that separates him from it. This is very similar to my environment in my hometown, Bundang. Bundang was originally a planned city and I am living in one of the apartments. Then, there’s a highway and a small river that separates us from the newer planned city Pangyo which is still developing. However, people are not gathering in Pangyo as expected. It is very low that Pangyo will deteriorate as the apartment across from Benoit’s apartment, because the city is planned and controlled by the government. Still, not many people are living in that area, and if it continues this way, nobody knows for sure.

     Last thing is that there is a very different culture in the same city. Benoit introduces the Arabic culture around him. He sometimes can’t communicate that well, because of the language difference. However, it seems that he is doing a pretty good job going along with the people from a different culture. In contrast, I am living in a rather simple society. In my hometown, Bundang, it is not easy to find a major different culture. In Montreal, Arabic culture and the French culture is pretty major, thought they are foreign cultures. However, in my town and the whole country Korea, is still somewhat reluctant to accept foreign cultures. We imported certain cultures, but the foreign cultures can’t develop more in our society. Therefore, there is very little variety in our society and also it rarely occurs that we can’t communicate because of the language difference as Benoit and the Arabic.

     This Highrise thing was pretty impressive. It was interesting to look inside some aspects of a person that I don’t know. In my essay, I will compare and contrast myself with Benoit from Montreal adding some of my experiences.

About Satire...

1. What is satire??

     - Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. A common feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing.

2. Satire

     - People usually use satire to ridicule and make fun of somebody or something done to encourage amendments. Satire is usually used as a form of criticism to reprimand something and urge somebody to make changes on a certain subject. When satire is used appropriately, it can be a very effective way of expressing ideas.

3. Topic

     - I want to write about a satire on the issue of our governors who take care of our educational policies. They always say that education is very important, because it teaches the generation which will lead our society in the future. There is also a saying that education is a plan that should be done for a long time and will take effect for more than a hundred years. However, our governors are actually not really interested in making a really good education policy. They just concentrates on their own benefits. When the governor changes to another person, that person always modifies the policy that the previous governor had made. This makes our education policies very unstable and inconsistent. This is very bad for students and bad for the country in the long run.  

Chain writing: Story within a Story.

Thirty years ago, I was in a prison for killing a person during an accidental fight. It was totally a mistake, but the judge thought differently. Therefore, I had to be in a prison for 10 years. I felt terrible and I just wanted to die when I had to enter the prison for my first day of imprisonment. Guys in the prison were better than I had thought they would be. However, they were all impulsive as I did during the fight. That impulsiveness made us endure painful days of listening to only one music for all day long and led to a shocking performance.
The music should be stopped. Everyone was reached their limit of their patience. 'Halo' by Beyonce has been playing for at the very least a week in the cell. Nobody couldn't have endured it. The new prison guard who is obviously a Beyonce fan had announced some time ago that he was going to play us some decent music if we behaved ourselves. However, a ridiculous thing that I mentioned before happened. One of the prisoners attacked his cell mate because of an argument they had over what the music was, which was 'Halo'. The new prison guard got mad because of their fight, so he made them locked in the separate jail cells where no light can come in. The punishment for them was that they both have to prepare a performance for the music of Michael Jackson, one of the world's greatest pop artists, and compete against each other. If one loses, he will be hanged to death.
Everybody was shocked when they heard the news. It was way too unreasonable. Still, there was no way to escape. The two finally started practicing. To everyone's surprise, they were actually very good at singing and dancing. Both of them prepared for the performance day and night. Soon the day of the performance came. All the prisoners and guards gathered.

On the day of performance, worldly-known broadcasts such as CNN and BBC came to report it. To everyone's surprise, one of the prisoners who had to perform was revealed to be the son of Michael Jackson. And more surprisingly, he was a psychic: he could fly. He refused to compete and fly away. "Fly" like the man from "Heroes". Everyone was confused. 'What is happening?' they thought.

Obviously the dance competition was canceled. The prison guard got very mad about the situation. He wanted something fun happening in the jail. He thought for days and nights but nothing good came into his mind. It seemed like everything was going back to normal. The music 'Halo' was played all day long and the prisoners had nothing to do. It was boring.

It was a very normal weekend when all the prison guards gathered at the soccer field where all the prisoners were playing football. All the prisoners were surprised at the peculiar behavior of them who used to be strict and cold. As all the guards gathered, the guard who got mad clapped three times and started dancing at the song, "Beat it" by Michael Jackson. All the guards soon started dancing as they have practiced, and the prisoners were flustered at the scene, but the prisoners figured out that the guards of the prison prepared this show in order to have fun with them, so they soon particiapted in the show and they felt that prison guards were also humans like they are. After the day of entertainment, the prisoners and the guards became able to understand who the others are and how they should behave. The prison became a place of humanity, sympathy and love.

After this incident, I and other prisoneres all behaved in a very good manner. We were selected as good prisoners and fortunately our term of imprisonment was reduced. Instead of staying in the prison for 10 years, I came out of the prison after only 7 years. As I am reminiscing about the past, music, especially "Halo", was a lucky song to me. Actually, music enabled me and the prisoners to change our behaviors. That is what music was and music will be in the future. Music should never be stopped.

SHOT! 2nd Draft

Shoot, pass, rebound and shoot again. The same process was going on and on. My father and I were going through this same routine on a sandy school basketball court. I kept shooting to get the littlest feelings of the ball when it goes through the basket clean without touching the rim. After an hour of ceaseless running and shooting, the sound of my breath became much harsher and my sweat was trickling down my body everywhere, wetting my whole T-shirt. However, I frowned, because I was dissatisfied with my shooting. I made many successful shots, but it was not enough for me. The sun was disappearing into the horizon, but my dad silently kept throwing the ball saying “Keep shooting until you are satisfied.” When I made the 1000^th successful shot, I was finally done and headed home with my dad. And the next day, I made the winning shot in a very important game.

I had never played basketball before I entered this high school, KMLA. I had only played soccer with my friends for my entire school life. However, when I came here, one of my friends took me to the gym and introduced the new sport. At the time, it was kind of amazing to me that a person could make a big basketball go through a small basket which was only a little bigger than the ball itself. Since then, I started to practice every day. My dad, who is good at almost every sport, also helped me practice on the weekends. Unfortunately, compared to my dad’s outstanding talents in sports, I didn’t have that much talent. I was depressed at first, because I was not improving that fast compared to my incessant practices. At that time, my dad reminded me of a very important fact which kindled my fervor once again. It might be easier at the beginning if I had the talent, but I didn’t have it. The only way left for me was to practice harder and harder.

I practiced for a period a little bit longer than a month, and finally it was the day of the tryout for Crossover, the basketball club in KMLA. Only three were selected in this first tryout. I did my best, but it was maybe not enough for the senior to pick me as one of the member of Crossover. This time, I was not depressed at all. Rather, I started to practice much harder out of spite. Along with my heavy academic workloads, I never skipped practicing basketball. It was exciting and I was thrilled to see myself becoming better and better at a slow pace as I practiced.

After a few months, there was the second tryout which might be the last tryout. This time, the seniors picked 4 more members and I was one of them. I was so happy and I was able to confirm the universal truth that everything can be done with hard work and practice. This also gave me a huge confidence that if I try hard, then I can do anything.

Recently, we had a friendly match against the basketball club from Chung Shim High School. It was 15th wavers' first official match against other school's club. Every member was nervous for the first five minutes of the game. It made me and my teammates to  miss easy shots leading to a score of 0-9. Our seniors called for a timeout and they just told us to believe in ourselves and have confidence. I began to think that I can make a shot and by thinking in this way, it eased my nerves a lot. Finally, my teammates and I started to score and we won the game by a big gap. 

With this positive attitude embedded deeply in my mind, I started to do better in every project I had to complete. I worked harder and more enthusiastically in everything that I had to do. The slightest change in my thinking led to a much more successful life.

It seems nearly impossible and is actually very difficult to shoot well at the first try. Some people think that the basket is too small for the basketball to go through. When I try something new like solving very difficult math problems, writing a report on a physics’ experiment, or being a successful person in society, it seems too difficult to achieve at the first try. Many people think that a way to success is too narrow and small to go through. However, with hard work and incessant practices, it becomes larger. The basket becomes large enough for the basketball to go through-sometimes not even touching the net.

I still practice shooting very hard. Plus, I started to practice dribbling and other things to improve my weak points. I will keep challenging and practicing with all my might to improve. I changed a lot during one year that I spent here in KMLA, but the only change that I made myself was maybe erasing the word ‘give up’ and highlighting ‘practice’ in my own dictionary. I will keep throwing the ball of my life and I firmly believe that it will go through the basket clean making the 'swish' sound that I like the most. And me shouting a single word, “SHOT!”

Chain Writing

     The music must be stopped. 'Halo' by Beyonce has been playing for at the very least a week in the cell. The new prison guard who is obviously a Beyonce fan announced some time ago that he was going to play us some decent music if we behaved ourselves. However, a ridiculous thing happened a week ago. One of the prisoners attacked his cell mate because of an argument they had over what the music was, which was 'Halo'. The new prison guard got mad because of their fight, so he made them locked in the separate jail cells where no light can come in. The punishment for them was that they both have to prepare a performance for the music of Michael Jackson, one of the world's greatest pop artists, and compete against each other. If one loses, he will be hanged to death.
     Everybody was shocked when they heard the news. It was way too unreasonable. Still, there was no way to escape. The two finally started practicing. To everyone's surprise, they were actually very good at singing and dancing. Both of them prepared for the performance day and night. Soon the day of the performance came. All the prisoners and guards gathered.

     On the day of performance, worldly-known broadcasts such as CNN and BBC came to report it. To everyone's surprise, one of the prisoners who had to perform was revealed to be the son of Michael Jackson. And more surprisingly, he was a psychic: he could fly. He refused to copete and fly away. "Fly" like the man from "Heroes". Everyone was confused. 'What is happening?' they thought.

     Obviously the dance competition was canceled. The prison guard got very mad about the situation. He wanted something fun happening in the jail. He thought for days and nights but nothing good came into his mind. It seemed like everything was going back to normal. The music 'Halo' was played all day long and the prisoners had nothing to do. It was boring.

     It was a very normal weekend when all the prison guards gathered at the soccer field where all the prisoners were playing football. All the prisoners were surprised at the peculiar behavior of them who used to be strict and cold. As all the guards gathered, the guard who got mad clapped three times and started dancing at the song, "Beat it" by Michael Jackson. All the guards soon started dancing as they have practiced, and the prisoners were flustered at the scene, but the prisoners figured out that the guards of the prison prepared this show in order to have fun with them, so they soon particiapted in the show and they felt that prison guards were also humans like they are. After the day of entertainment, the prisoners and the guards became able to understand who the others are and how they should behave. The prison became a place of humanity, sympathy and love. That's what music is and music should be. Music must not be stopped.

    

Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" 2nd Draft

Many people live in this world, and most of them are busy taking care of their own lives. However, some people go further to affect other people’s lives. They have a great influence on the crowd, actually affecting their lives. Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” chooses a person who had the greatest influence on the world each year. It doesn’t matter whether they had a positive influence or negative influence. Last year, Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, was named “Person of the Year” of 2010. The controversy starts about the appropriateness of Zuckerberg as “Person of the Year”. Some people argue that he is not the one. However, I say that there is no problem with Mark Zuckerberg being the “Person of the Year”.

First, we have to know who exactly Mark Zuckerberg is and who his best competitor is. Zuckerberg created Facebook which is a social network. This brought a sensation to the entire world. It is easy to use and very convenient to talk with friends online. Now, lots of people in the whole world use Facebook to keep in touch with their friends. Also, there is even a movie called “Social Network” which is about the creation of Facebook. With these facts, we can easily assume that Mark had a great influence on the world.

Then, who is his best competitor? Julian Assange, the spokesperson and the editor in chief of Wikileaks, was considered to be one of the candidates for the “Person of the Year”. Wikileaks is an international non-profit organization that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources and news leaks. Actually, Julian Assange received far more votes than Mark Zuckerberg. However, for some reason, Zuckerberg was named the “Person of the Year” instead of Assange who was later named as the reader’s choice of “Person of the Year”.

Because of this reason, some people argue that Julian Assange should have won the title. We have to mainly discuss two things to pick who is the best fit. First, we have to talk about how much they influenced the world. Zuckerberg influenced many people from various countries by making a social network that connects people.

For example, I didn’t use Facebook at first. However, people kept pressuring me to join, and I was surprised when I first started. There were many people I knew, and even my friends in the US who I wasn’t able to previously keep in touch with, unfortunately. Zuckerberg once said, "The thing that we are trying to do at Facebook, is just help people connect and communicate more efficiently." Moreover, Jesse Eisenberg who met Zuckerberg at Saturday Night Live said, "WHO is this guy who is really shaping a large part of the socialization of the world? It is interesting to read about him. And you know, I'm not surprised that he has become so know."

In contrast, Julian Assange was not as sensational as Facebook. In fact, many people, including myself, did not know about Assange before writing this essay. It is true that Assange had a big impact on American society, but his popularity is somewhat limited to the US.

Next, there are some other issues rather than just how much they influenced the world. There can be political features, economical features and some other features to be considered with careful attention. If we consider this matter with all these factors, it is clear that it is hard for Julian Assange to be Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year”. For example, if we consider with economical aspect, Zuckerberg was far more influential than Assange. Facebook created stronger economic effect than Wikileaks. Another example would be the political impact. Politically, Julian Assange and his Wikileaks are nuisances to the US. Wikileaks reveals private, secret, and classified media from anonymous sources and news leaks. Assagne once said, "What does censorship reveal? It reveals fear." Furthermore, Assange is considered to be a dangerous man to the US. Daniel Ellsberg, an admirer of Assange who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers, said, "I'm sure that Assange is now regarded as one of the very most dangerous men and he should be proud of that." In contrast, Facebook enables easier communication between people which helps the idea of democracy in some way. Clearly, Time Magazine, which is major media in the US, would prefer Zuckerberg to Assange.

It is true that Assange received far more votes and higher ratings than Zuckerberg. However, Time Magazine made the right choice. Wikileaks had a big influence, but Zuckerberg and his Facebook were much more influential to the entire world. Facebook was some kind of a revolution to the previously existing social networks. There have been many conflicts about who should be the “Person of the Year” and some people even doubt the award itself. However, Time Magazine made the right choice in choosing Zuckerberg as “Person of the Year”. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook which created a sensation to the world of communication, deserves this award.