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!”