Reading Journal #3- The Body

     죽음. Death. I think it sounds more horrifying in Korean than in English. When I was about 6 years old, I lost my materal grandmother. From then, I'd seen my materal grandfather passed away, and about a year ago, my paternal grandfather left us. As I grow up, I know that I'll face a lot more deaths of belovings, and gradually I would get used to it, but it is still harsh for me to face beloving one's death. And it was most dreadful when I saw my grandmother passing away; that was the first death I saw. I remember myself pulling the coverlet up to my head and hid myself from the world at that night. Emotions within that action were complicated, but mostly consisted of sadness, fear, and spiritless doubt about living a life.
But from then, as I grew older, I became somewhat curious about life, death, and afterlife. I faced them in school and tend to think about them rationally.
I think this process is common in most cases when we face mysterious things. We first fear them, get away from them, but some time after, we feel curious and try to contact them. That's how you get used to the things.
     This novella "The Body" and movie "Stand By Me" are excelllent pieces that portrays those processes. The story is basically of four young boys having a one-night journey to see the dead body. If this was all, I might not recommend this pieces to others, but there are more than this. Both of them tend to focus on the relationship and conversation of the boys rather than the journey itself. For instance, Gordie and Chris having a talk at the night reveals prejudiced and ruthless society for a kid in poor-white family. In the conversation, Chris says "what if other guys like ~~~ stole milk money?" and this tells that different attitude of adults have discriminated him and made him to 'act that way'.
     In addition, the movie carries about messages about children problems. The four main characters all carry problems within their family. For instance, Gordie, the narrator, is described as an unwanted child from his family and nobody tend to pay attention to him under the shadow of Gordie's brother Dennis's death. Teddy is a son of ex-soldier who fought at Normandy, who now became insane and burns Teddy's one ear. Vern is a kid having his brother bullying him. Since this novella is analized as the piece inspired by Stephen King the writer's childhood, it is actually interesting that he had put those maltreated kids. Also the narrator in the story Gordie resembles Stephen King much since he is the one who dreams of becoming a writer and who actually does.
     'Stud City', a metafiction inserted in the novella is quite interesting since it is actually a small work of Stephen when he was at college. Him as a collegeman, still the theme and the main character's description are pretty much same: aboutmaltreated child. This fact also ensured my opinion that this theme is closely related and based on the writer's childhood.
     The ending (I'm not going to tell this specifically because it can be a spoiler) of this story is quite odd. It's not happy ending, and it's not tragedy at all. Although some sad situations happen to him, the story is not describing those with sadness. It just lists. And from this ending, I remembered what the movie said while having another metaficion "Lard Ass Hogan". "What do you expect?" Because it was not sad nor happy, it seemed realistic. For our real life, what we say to be sad to us sometimes are not sad incidents to others and when time erodes memories, it became just one of dull incidents and you become sympathetic. When the main character Gordie described these sad incidents, I felt similarly. Yes, you cannot expect things to be in certain manner in our life. And this story really became realistic because of this aspect.


     Overall, this story was very touching. It's not that it is sad, but it's like you have something in your heart after you read it. Some lessons? Our sympathy from realistic features? I don't know how to describe this appropriately, so just watch! :P

Imagining myself 40 years later…

(For this writing I tried the autobiography format)

Though 5 years passed, still I can clearly remember the shivering I had when I went up to the stage in front of every Korean and have my inaugural ceremony as the President of Korea. Thinking of that day, I feel little ashamed about my tears, but in some parts I’m proud of them. Some have criticized me for sharing tears in front of everyone because these could lead other countries to underestimate Korea, but would it be wrong to share some tears since citizens of Korea had given me such acceptance and recognition towards me? Thus I decided to not to be shameful about my tears since this could, in some extent, mean that I’m shameful to be accepted by Koreans.

     Recalling the past, there’s another moment that I couldn’t resist to think; the day that I ordered coup over my country. Some who hadn’t lived for recent 10 years may ask me “why did you order coup over your country since you are the president?” To those foreigners I’d say that the ability as the President of Korea was very limited to fix the corruptions that were spoiling the whole country. Whenever I tried to fix those, they were blocked by the Congress. It was not the problem only within the Congress, but also the problem related to all establishments. Thus, I felt necessity for a hero within this country’s politics, and if there were no one to dream of, I decided to be that ‘hero’ who could sacrifice all of his possessions to fix this corruption.

     Considering the past, it wasn’t possible for anyone to grow up in Korea to an influential person without having some corruptions such as illegal lobbying. So I decided to go abroad and strengthen the power with money. I went to America and there I established a company working on statistics. For most graphs and statistics, they lacked the reliability: they were dangerous to trust. This was because most of statistics on people were made up with only few people participating who could be argued about their representativeness about the whole group. Thus, I thought, “what if there is an online statistic website that allows people to have poll? This system will make more people to participate in the poll than offline and make the graph more reliable.” This idea penetrated people’s demand of 100% accurate statistic and I came up with a lot of money. With this money, I came to Korea and made my allies who would devote their lives to fix corruptions. The money was used to protect me and my allies from economical hardship that Korean establishments ordered. Successfully, citizens of Korea gradually came up to believe me and won in prudential election. I am very thankful of those people who believed my sincerity and voted for me. Seeing them face to face in the inaugural ceremony, my resolution became firm and promised myself I will kill myself if the day comes for me to betray those people.

* I really wanted to go further talking about what I will really do after becoming the president of Korea, but time doesn't let me to write more now........:( I will try to write those after the exam. Even though I know they will not be graded, I really want to write them!)

TED Review:The line between life and not-life

from: http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_hanczyc_the_line_between_life_and_not_life.html

For many years, I have lucidly denounced the evolution theory. It was not because I was being pious and thought this theory was blasphemy. It was rather because I thought this theory was not logical.

To prove the evolution theory, I thought there has to be an explanation for evolution from non-living things to living things, and I saw no explanation. It was left like enigma more than the Bible. For me to trust the evolution theory it was inevitable for someone to teach me this link.

And here I found this TED video. It was from Martin Hanczyc. I found this video very laudable since it came to prove the evolution link from non-living things to living things. This video started from telling that the boundary between non-living things and living things became very obscure by illustrating virus as an example. Then he gave the requirements for living things: body, metabolism, and inheritable information. Then with only few (non living) chemicals, he makes "protocells" which behave like a living organism. These "protocells" meet 2 of 3 requirements for a living thing: body and metabolism. Although these  "protocells" he illustrates cannot reproduce itself, they use environmental energy and move around. Some merged itself with another and some tend to exclude itself from others. What was most fascinating was that they tend to move to the area where they could absorb more energy and tended to stay there. Although there were no brains within them and they were just a chunk of few chemicals, it was flagrant for me that they acted in the way they could live more.

This video engendered my perspective toward the evolution theory. The content was very innovative and its presentation style was very relevant considering that it contained a lot of visual effects that satisfied me as a viewer. At the end, Martin left this video with levity in thinking of evolution theory and tried to put much gravity on how this foundation can be used in searching for another living things in the space, but I felt big gravity of this video on the evolution theory. The abstract explanation about the evolution stage was now authentic. Hypothetical explanation of the theory was now came to the ground in my sight. Although the terms in the video were very esoteric to understand, I acclaim this video to be very exemplary.

Podcast Review- Let's not be intimidated!

If you know the podcast, and if you have downloaded any of podcast and saw the ranking, I guess that this podcast I'm going to review about isn't totally new. It is "I Am a Ggomsu(나는 꼼수다)", which is no.1 podcast in the whole world.

For people who don't know the podcast, I feel necessity of telling what a podcast is. According to the definition of Wikipedia, a podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication. So, basically it's homemade video or sound file that is uploaded and downloaded on the Internet.

To understand the boom of "I Am a Ggomsu", you have to understand what is going on Korea and what this podcast is about. "I Am a Ggomsu" is a podcast made by four lampooning leaders who want to praise the highness of Mr. President of Korea. They say that this podcast is dedicated to President Lee of Korea. Of course, all of these are sarcastically said. "Ggomsu" in their title means a trick in Korea, so its name can be translated as "I Am a Trick".  What they do in their podcast is that they reveal tricks and allegations President Lee Myung Bak had committed for his well-being. The four members of this podcast is composed of Kim Ou-Joon, a journalist, Chung Bong-ju, an ex-member of the Congress, Choo Chin-woo, a muckraking reporter who is often called "Satan's reporter" (He got this name after muckraking the corrupted churches), and Kim Yong-min, a critic and a formal radio commentator. Other than criticizing Mr. President, they criticize corruptions happening in Korean politics. So beneath the boom of "I Am a Ggomsu", there lies people's anger in nowadays' politics.

For the past few years, citizens of Korea had suffered from economic and social problems. And people now realized that all of those problems had came from the corruption of politics. But President Lee had controlled mass-media including major TV stations(KBS, SBS, MBC) and major newspapers(Chosun, Joongang, Donga) in order to hide his commitments and to cool down critical voices towards him. When people posted or uploaded a writing that criticized about certain people or certain issue (usually related to them), they were accused of spreading rumors. So people slowly became intimidated about the government and hid their voices and angers inside. 

To those people, "I Am a Ggomsu" was a revolutionary voice speaking for them.  "I Am a Ggomsu" revealed Mr. Lee's commitments which allowed people who only had general hatred without specific reasons to be enlightened. By watching them speaking imprecations of politics, people relieved stress. Many young citizens are now turning their eyes towards politics and feeling anger about the corruptions of the politics. It now became the symbol of bravery and truth. 

<"Shut Up and Do Politics"  published by  Kim Ou-Joon: one of the bestsellers in Korea right now>


They use phrases such as It is possible to conjecture ... ,” “There is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest ... ” and their favorite: “Of course, we don’t believe that His Highness would have committed such a nefarious deed.” People laugh at those phrases but at the same time feel sad since those phrases are one of their techniques to avoid accusations. It seems that their phrases are saying "Yes, Korea is rotten like this. When it's not an assumption, they get accused."


For this podcast, I will give my scores like below:

Even this podcast contains very heavy issue to talk, four members of   "I Am a Ggomsu" explains about problems well and make fun of those problems well. They sublimate even the very deepest and most bitter parts of Korea with a bunch of big laughter. Their format is just banal, four member talking to each other. However, they sometimes invites politicians to have debates or light talks about issues, and they seem to carry well  considering the fact that there aren't any professional PDs or MCs.


   (All out of 5)
What I have discontent in length is that it is too long. Of course, political issues are not the issues that can be said quickly, but I want this podcast to be shorter. It is about 2-3hours per one episode now, and my opinion is that it is too long for common man like me to listen to.


However, because of long length, it contains quite profound information. Some issues like BBK are really hard to understand for people since it is quite complicated, but  "I Am a Ggomsu" carries those issues well since it has enough hours to talk about it very deeply.


I gave the lowest grade to manner. This is because this podcast contains a lot of slangs and imprecations. In the aspect of manner in the speech, this podcast has very low quality. However, those imprecations and tough expressions make listeners to feel sympathy well and grasp the gravity of the case. It also relieves people's stress since people's anger was accumulated inside their heart because of harsh conditions. Educational value was degrade with same reason as manner.


For social value, I couldn't grade the value of this podcast, so I gave as many as I could. This podcast contains a lot of meanings: symbol of light in the dark, bravery, righteousness, freedom of speech, etc. When people were scared and freedom of speech was limited by government, this podcast came out like a light in the dark. People were enlightened, not afraid of the government anymore to speak out loud his/her own voice, and showed the power of common man. It led a political enlightenment for Koreans. It showed by the by-election of the mayor of Seoul in 2011 that it was citizens that politicians should be afraid of, not the opposite. Considering the boom of  "I Am a Ggomsu", I'd say I couldn't grade this with limited maximum; its social value in my opinion is infinite.

 "I Am a Ggomsu" has now became itself a myth, a symbol, and a power of common man. It raised people's spirit and enlightened people to act in politics. The result of the  "I Am a Ggomsu" boom will occur next year, in general election of the Congress and presidential election.  I'd like to end this review with Kim Ou-Joon's favorite phrase: "Let's not be intimidated!"

 <From the left, Chung Bong-ju, Choo Chin-woo, Kim Ou-Joon. Hugging each other after the by-election of the mayor of Seoul>

Describing my self within 3 words. [Mr.Moon's]

I see my self as a hungry man. I suffered from hunger long enough. At first, I longed for food. When starvation got long enough, I had heartburn that ached so much. When it got worse, I forgot what it would taste like to eat food. Finally, you become a person who doesn't know what do eat, how to eat, how to taste. Insufficiency at first made me a fool at last who doesn't know what to claim, what to desire. Portraying my self as a sky, I color it with grey blue. Polluted by people, grey blue is not blue anymore. It always wants to get recognized as blue, but once grey blue cannot get redeemed. In social issues, I respond rather like the ocean than the land to the change in temperature. I get steamed gradually and release the heat to others continuously. Once my philosophy establishes, no one can easily break with sword nor with pen. It only breaks with wave of truthfulness.

Reading Journal #2 -

After reading 30pages of "The Body" by Stephen King

First thing that I noticed while reading "The Body" is that there are lots of descriptions about child's problems. For instance, Teddy in the story gets child abuse from his dad, almost losing the hearing of both ears by his father who push him still to the hot stove. The narrator, Gordie, is also the one who thinks that he himself is an unwanted son of his parents. Vern is the child who is relative dumb compared to other kids in his age; there even comes out the description that Vern has failed in his class. All of those descriptions immediately made me ask how the childhood of Stephen King was.
In about 30pages from the start, there comes out a story made by Gordie. It is a story within the story. It talks about a narrator who has trouble within his family and who feels that he is being alone, separate from his dad and his new stepmother, Virginia. It is actually quite similar to Gordie's own story. So this story within the story works as the reflection of Gordie's life and how he thinks about himself and his surroundings. (Being elaborate, it is quite interesting that his new stepmother's name is chosen to be Virginia(having its origin from virgin), when she is a character who is described to be a whore who attracts both his father and his older brother.)
The story is getting warmed up as it reveals boys' goals to go adventure to see the dead body. More elaborate journal will come out as I get deep into the story! (I hope!)

After watching "Spring" by Kim Ki Duk.

Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth

Code of Hammurabi: which contains the law related to "Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth."




When I was 3rd grader in middle school, I used to be the chief of my class. In the summer of that year, we had a school festival which we all had to join and open a section. We were all enthusiastic about opening a section and make profit out of it. However, everyone had a different idea about what the section will be and how we will manage and make money. And choosing what to do in the section was the most difficult part of that year.
Ideas came out like a flood, but not all are welcomed. No, it would be more correct to say that every plan was rejected by few people in the class. Those few people were the trouble-makers in the school who were always silly. They didn’t give any plan for the section but still they criticized others’ ideas. It took me more than two hours just to choose what to do on the festival mainly because of them. Finding it hard to endure any more, I tried something different rather than negotiating people’s idea alone. I came back to my seat from the front of the classroom and called them out to the front. Then, I asked them for ideas. They of course couldn’t answer me. Being silent for few minutes, I smiled coldly and again asked them for my favor; I asked them to be a chief of the class, lead the discussion and come up with a result. If they succeed, I told them that I will resign my position right away and give it to them. Being steamed up, they accepted my words and tried to lead the discussion. But no one gave ideas to them. They shouted at the class to come up with some ideas. But no one responded. One of them finally came with an idea and presented to the class. What I did was the same thing that they’ve done before. I criticized their ideas. Criticizing them about the hardship we will face, the idea was rejected. They, who had little smiles on their face at first when they gave their first idea, now were stunned. Few more minutes passed, and they came up with red face and insulting words on me. But I, who was also angry, shouted at them and to see what happened. What happened to them was exactly same to what they had done. We had a tough fight of the tongues and that was the end of the situation since teacher came right after hearing loud voices. She only interrupted our voice and didn’t punish us. And the day after that, we had the same discussion but they didn’t criticized ideas like before. I don’t know whether their silent behavior was an action of denying me and my position or an action that comes from self-observation, but I’m sure that they learned how I felt.
The young priest in the movie gets to bother animals by tying them up with stones. A frog, a fish, and a snake are tied by the young priest. The old priest observes this behavior of young priest and the next day, he does the same to him. The old priest tells him that he should go to the animals and let them free. If they die, the old priest tells that he will have to carry that stone forever. The young priest goes to the animals and let them free. However, only the frog had survived and others were found out to be dead. Then he shows his tears towards animals.
I’m not fully convinced that the young priest is perfectly aware of his crime and really knows what he has done. However, he at least feels the pain that he gave from the old priest.
This method in the movie, reminded me of the story above. The method is quite simple: Doing the same thing to the people who committed. This method in my opinion is very effective since it at least gives them the feeling of what they have done. Sometimes there are people who show no possibility of being rehabilitated. For those who show no possibility of rehabilitation, I recommend this method, since it at least makes them feel of what they have done.


Image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prologue_Hammurabi_Code_Louvre_AO10237.jpg

Metafiction- Memory

     "Ah, rum always lets me to throw all concerns." The man with red shirts murmured with his tongue loosed.
     "Well, that's what all alcoholics say to justify themselves." I, washing the glasses, replied him without thinking.
     "Ha, ha! Jimmie, you're such a jerk! How are you gonna keep this tavern going with those offensive words to clients?" He yelled at me with silly voice.
     "It's because a man like you gets to forget what they've heard while drunken and come over to my tavern again." Again, I replied with hilarious smile on my face.
     "Hahahahaha!" He then burst out his eerie laughter. He laughed nearly a minute, continuously trying to not laugh, then giggling, which turned out as a big laughter, again and again.
     I, as a bartender and the owner of this tavern, loved this mood. Despite some intemperate men, there were always various kinds of laughter all over the place. People didn't get hurt much and they just passed it with a laughter. All seemed to be very happy at my tavern.
     There was very weird thing about my tavern and me. I, who runs the tavern, couldn't drink any kinds of alcoholic beverages; rums, wines, beers, etc. Some may come to my tavern, get amiable with me, offer me an alcohol, and get surprised hearing that I couldn't drink even a cup of beer. I guess there aren't many tavern owners like me. But just because I can't drink alcohol doesn't mean that I can't feel the joy of drinking one. Because I feel it when I saw people drinking alcohol. Maybe me being unable to drink well have made some kind of yearning for alcohol. Maybe that is why I run tavern.
     What I do in the daytime is writing. I am actually a writer at day and a bartender at night. It's hard to argue what my main job is. I'll just say both of them are my main jobs. Let's put it that way. As a writer, I get inspiration from drunken people at night. Some people tell me their story, and some people just shows their 'real' face while they are drunken. The latter one is more motivating for me. They do not say a word to me, but their facial expression from true feelings tickles my imagination so much. Well, but I do not think of those while I'm working as a bartender. I just recall them at daytime. I only concern what I'm doing when I'm working on something. In that way, I felt some kind of proud at my outcomes.
     But I don't know I can really call myself 'writer' still in these days. About 6 months, I couldn't write any. I just can't write. Maybe I'm not being creative any more. Maybe I'm running out of inspiration. Maybe I'm sick of this ordinary life. I desperately tried to find something else to work on, but it was in vain. Ah, I just don't know what to do at day now.
     Then one day, when I was reading "Shawshank Redemption" leaning on the sofa at my house, I got few knocks on the door. I, having strange feeling, went out to the door but no one was there. Just about to close the door again, I found out a letter on the ground. I cautiously took it and came back to my sofa. The letter had no names or address but just the paragraphs.
 It was a stormy night. James William and I were drinking buckets of beer at Jimmie's house. I recognize that we had a tough chat about the rock concert that we attended yesterday. It was about five minutes before the midnight. Yes, that's exactly when 'he' came and knocked the door. Shivering for somewhat reason, Jimmie went to the door and twisted his palm to open the door. Just when the door was opened about half, that's when we saw his silhouette, we all fell to the ground.
 That's exactly what happened. Magically, we all fell to the ground. I think it's too much coincidence for all of us to just fall asleep because of drinking. It was some eerie force that knocked all three of us.
 Conscious came back with headache, but I thought I was still dreaming because I couldn't believe my sight. Willy hanged above the desk, and Jimmie with his blood on his back.
     What on earth is this? It looked like a detective story. I wondered more than a hour to think about who could possibly have left this at my house, but I couldn't get the answer. I looked at the letter again. It must be someone that knows my name. Jimmie was in the story and it must be a great coincidence for the man to just leave the letter which contains a story that has its character which perfectly matches the name of the owner of the house. But again, who? More importantly, why?
     Same number of knocks were heard again next day. There again, I found out a letter which seemed to be the next of the yesterday's letter. I read it.
 Damn! the house was full of Jimmie's blood, and a nasty smell of his corpse. I was definitely frightened for a moment. I looked around myself, finding for some weapons for protection. I found Benelli M1 Super 90, a shot gun I used when hunting for animals. However, it was such a surprise because Jimmie have never kept those kinds of shotguns at his home.
 With the shotgun, I decided to look for "him". Half angered, half curious, I really wanted to find who he was.
 Then the door knocked again. So, I went to the door, and shot my shotgun toward door. After I used all bullets, I found that I killed Jimmie. Jimmie's blood was everywhere and I carried him inside the house. William was the only person who saw my crime.
 I wasn't myself after I saw blood gushing out of Jimmie's wounds. The shotgun pellets ripped his limbs apart and left huge holes on his body. Not knowing what I was doing, I blankly aimed of William and pulled the trigger.
     Now it became kind of scary to me. Getting a letter containing a man killing me. But I couldn't understand the story. Jimmie in the last letter was described to be dead. But in here he was out of the house and gets to be shot by the narrator. It must be a psychotic who writes this down. But I didn't called police because I was one of the person who dislikes to be involved with cops.
     And the next day I again got the knocks on my door. I, this time, went quick to my door and looked for the one who drops me a letter. There was a man with a brown trench coat running away. But I knew that it was too far and he is too fast to catch. So I went back to my house and opened the letter.
 Shotgun, a monstrous weapon. It never shoots; It busts. So that's what Benelli M1 Super 90 exactly did. It busted William. It burst him and pulled him all the way to the porch stairs. I maybe wanted to make things clearer. I took the shot gun, ran down the porch steps and stepped on William. William was breathing with a great difficulty. So I sent him close to God. Nice fella. He belongs there. That's where I'll never going to be in. I'll never reach heaven, but he won't as well if I don't finish him up. I shoved the muzzle in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
 "Click."
A sharp clicking sound was heard.
     Now I got totally puzzled up. This time Willy, who was hanged above the desk, got up from somewhere else and 'I' killed him. I brought up all three letters to my desk and read it once, but there was no difference in my understanding. The only slight difference that I've noticed this time was that narrator was speaking formal English at first but gets to speak inofficial and black's language at the end. He sure is a psychotic.
     Few days passed later. the letters were almost out of my concern now and I was being bartender at my tavern. Washing the glasses like always, I glanced at my tavern. I was quite proud of it. Hope that this tavern gets to exist until I die. Maybe I can inherit this to my son if I marry and have a baby. But those happy thoughts met their end when I saw the brown trench coat. It was same with the one that I saw from the man running away from my house. The owner of this coat seemed to left my tavern. He will come back, I believe. He won't go far with his coat left at my tavern. Then, being suddenly curious, I put my hand to the pocket of that coat and reached something. It was a full A4 size paper. There was the story same to what I've got along 3 letters. I remembered it right away. Then I read the story again. It was like a magic forcing me to read it.
     Having finished reading the story. I got thirst. I automatically grabbed the glass which was always on the desk of mine at my seat. I drank it and that right then I realized that it was not water. It was alcohol.
     The world was spinning centered at me, and I couldn't hold myself standing up. And everyone just looked like me. Some people were the men having a name-tag saying "James William". Wind was keep knocking the door. I hardly made my way to my seat and saw the clock. It was 5 minutes before midnight.
     It was a stormy night.


Image from: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tavern_Scene-1658-David_Teniers_II.jpg

Memory - Chain Writing

It was a stormy night. James William and I were drinking buckets of beer at Jimmie's house. I recognize that we had a tough chat about the rock concert that we attended yesterday. It was about five minutes before the midnight. Yes, that's exactly when 'he' came and knocked the door. Shivering for somewhat reason, Jimmie went to the door and twisted his palm to open the door. Just when the door was opened about half, that's when we saw his silhouette, we all fell to the ground.
 That's exactly what happened. Magically, we all fell to the ground. I think it's too much coincidence for all of us to just fall asleep because of drinking. It was some eerie force that knocked all three of us.
 Conscious came back with headache, but I thought I was still dreaming because I couldn't believe my sight. Willy hanged above the desk, and Jimmie with his blood on his back.
 Damn! the house was full of Jimmie's blood, and a nasty smell of his corpse. I was definitely frightened for a moment. I looked around myself, finding for some weapons for protection. I found Benelli M1 Super 90, a shot gun I used when hunting for animals. However, it was such a surprise because Jimmie have never kept those kinds of shotguns at his home.
 With the shotgun, I decided to look for "him". Half angered, half curious, I really wanted to find who he was.
 Then the door knocked again. So, I went to the door, and shot my shotgun toward door. After I used all bullets, I found that I killed Jimmie. Jimmie's blood was everywhere and I carried him inside the house. William was the only person who saw my crime.
 I wasn't myself after I saw blood gushing out of Jimmie's wounds. The shotgun pellets ripped his limbs apart and left huge holes on his body. Not knowing what I was doing, I blankly aimed of William and pulled the trigger.
 Shotgun, a monstrous weapon. It never shoots; It busts. So that's what Benelli M1 Super 90 exactly did. It busted William. It burst him and pulled him all the way to the porch stairs. I maybe wanted to make things clearer. I took the shot gun, ran down the porch steps and stepped on William. William was breathing with a great difficulty. So I sent him close to God. Nice fella. He belongs there. That's where I'll never going to be in. I'll never reach heaven, but he won't as well if I don't finish him up. I shoved the muzzle in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
 "Click."
A sharp clicking sound was heard.

GMO, Savior or Killer? [Mr.Moon's]

What first comes into your mind when you hear the word ‘GMO? ‘GMO’ is an abbreviation for ‘genetically modified organism’. It is in the branch of biotechnology which its goal is to increase crop production. In order to do so, GMO is a crop that is made to have fewer requirements. In order for a crop to grow, there must be adequate climates, no insects and no weeds. GMO can be divided into major three branches based on how they can manage to live with fewer requirements; climate-resisting GMO, insect-resisting GMO and herbicide-resisting GMO. Because of those advantages that GMO crop has, optimists say GMO can solve food crisis in Africa. However, reality is far different from ideal world. There are complicated benefit-loss relationships of people with one another within GMO business. Primarily because of what happens in reality is different from what we imagine, I disapprove of GMO usages in reality.

 First, there is a problem within the herbicide-resisting GMO due to its advantage. The herbicide-resisting GMO was at first made to reduce the weeds that grow around the crop. People use the herbicide to kill weeds, but because it can also kill the crop, people were passive and put little herbicide on the ground. However, the herbicide-resisting GMO enabled the crop itself to endure more with more herbicide. Therefore, this brought people to use more herbicide. Those herbicide components as a result accumulated in GMO and those components go through humans and livestock which ate those GMO crops. The potential possibility of harms that the herbicide components in human body can make is uncertain for now.

 Second, the insect-resisting GMO leads humans to accumulate insect killing genes. The insect-resisting GMO has the modified gene which is made to kill insects when it is swallowed by insects. There are a lot of controversies about these insect-killing genes. Based on simple logic that insect killing GMO might function similarly in human bodies, critics and experts say that those GMO can be dangerous to humans. Even though there are some GMO crops that have passed regulation and safety tests, critics say there will be abundant kinds of GMO made out from laboratory and simple mistakes or unrevealed side-effects may come out that could lead human race to extinction.

     Third, patent seeds of GMO limit the access of African farmers and thus cannot solve the food crisis in Africa. Nowadays, GMO is largely made by companies such as Monsanto Company. Because their primary goal is to make a profit, they claim patent in those GMO seeds. For farmers who grew natural seeds, they have to buy those GMO seeds in order to compete with others. To make more profit, companies like Monsanto made terminator seeds. Those seeds are designed to grow for only once, having no ability in reproduction. These seeds made it possible for companies to have annual profit and gave burden for farmers who now have to buy seeds every year. Because of the expensive price of GMO and patent rights that companies claim, it makes hard for African farmers to buy those seeds. The food crisis in Africa cannot be solved with a plan that has no possible access for farmers.

     Fourth, GMO crops destroy the consumer rights to buy the one that he or she prefers. Every man and woman deserves to choose the product by preference. In order to do so, there must be coexistence possible among products. However, the GMO crop harms the consumer rights by eliminating other non-GMO crop to withstand. Once GMO is planted in the land, the land carries out GMO genes. And these GMO genes pollinate non-GMO crops that are planted near that land. Once GMO genes are swallowed into non-GMO crops, it is no longer non-GMO crop. Thus when GMO crops come out to the market, this in the other side means that it eliminated non-GMO crops available in the market. Without solving consumer right problems, GMO crops should not be sold in the market.

     Fifth, the weak regulations among GMO crops make us hard to believe safety of GMO crops. Recently there was the bill passed in US Congress called Fast Track Bill. This in a nutshell means that there is no need for companies to tell their consumers whether their products have GMO included or not. Furthermore, there was another bill passed in the Congress called GMO amendment bill. In a nutshell again this allowed GMO companies to have their own regulation program. In other words, GMO is self regulated by the industry. These, by some critics, are perceived as a result of lobbies of GMO companies. If GMO is considered really safe by the CEO of GMO companies, why would they help politicians to make a bill that lowers the transparency of GMO safety? Those bills in the other hands can be the sign that GMO companies itself don’t trust their products’ safety.

     Even things that seemed good enough in our minds causes bad effects when it comes to the ground. Ideal logic cannot be the same as we hope them to be in the reality. And GMO is one of them. Even though it was at first expected to increase crop productions and bring salvation to Africa about food crisis, it is proven to be no longer a solution for such situations because of problems within the herbicide-resisting GMO and the insect-resisting GMO, patent in GMO seeds, consumer rights, and the weak regulations causing doubts on the safety of GMO. Thus GMO should no longer be treated as a savior for our world, but as a potential killer which we should manage to control well. 

What freed Andy from Shawshank? - The Shawshank Redemption

     One of Stephen King's masterpiece, <The Shawshank Redemption>, was the movie and the book that I had recently. It is quite famous all over the world as one of the great prison-escaping story. Hearing that I have to read this book, I felt quite boring even before beginning to open the cover of this book because I knew the ending of such a famous story. However, there was more substances to watch besides the ending such as how Andy Dufresne makes firm decision to go out. After finishing reading this book, I had a lot of questions flowing on my mind. I also had feelings and rational thoughts carved in my heart.
     First question that came very first inside me was "Was Andy planning to escape all the time?" Red at the very beginning gives Andy the rock-hammer which is later used as a tool to escape the prison by making a hole. From the description of Red about Andy, it can be inferred that Andy had a lot of complaints and felt unfair about the judgement. However, I don't think Andy always wanted to escape. Even though at first he had problems adjusting to the prison life, such as trouble with Sisters, he endeavored so much through his years and with his specialty in giving a financial aid, he spends quite satisfying life as he helps and gets protection from the prison warden, Samuel Norton. He even becomes librarian as he wished. He was very renowned among prisoners and guards. Those days, at least to me, seemed happy for Andy. Do you think Andy was still thinking about escape in this moment? I guess not. He had innovated the prison, he had shown to many people that one idealistic man can change dirty reality, and became people's role model. Even though his physical situation may be harsh, his mental situation and relationship with others were delightful for Andy. From my prospective, Andy might have felt a lot of things at this moment and his heart would have been burdened because of his own conscience and disappointment that other prisoners get when they hear news of him. Probably Andy might have just stopped making a hole for a while.
     Then, for what reason Andy once again decided to escape at last? It might not only be a coincidence that his escaping plan has been execute not long after emergence of Tommy and greedy refusal of his retrial by Norton. One day Tommy was shown up to Andy and said that he knows the real sinner for Andy's crime. Andy then asks Norton for retrial and Norton just ignores him and put him on solitary confinement because he is afraid of Andy blowing up his secrets. He is now bare with no protection and no fame. He once again have been treated unfairly. And this might be the major reason for his redemption.
     Now, the most important question relies on our hand driven by above works. What freed Andy from Shawshank really? Was it rock-hammer? Was it his firm will? My answer is "it was prison that freed Andy from prison." Even though Andy came to prison unfairly, he tried to adjust living in prison. But it was prison that refused his will. Prison was comprised of the prisoners and the guards. The prisoners, especially Sisters, bullied Andy a lot. At the same time, the guards, especially Norton, bullied Andy, despite Andy's financial aid. Both the prisoners and guards were rotten ethically, and pulled away Andy from Shawshank. It was not Andy refusing the prison, but it was the whole prison that was refusing Andy.
      Because of this aspect, I really loved reading this book. For most escaping stories, only protagonist is who makes escaping, but <Shawshank Redemption> was somewhat special story in the aspect that the prison is refusing Andy rather than Andy refusing the prison. He certainly once tried to adjust, and it was the prison that blocked his efforts. By these flow of plots, it certainly made me to advocate the protagonist, Andy. Because I was able to deeply understand Andy's actions, I was able to be absorbed more, and this is the main reason why I would recommend this book to others.

Structural Violence in Education is Killing Everyone!

Movie <Three Idiots>. For more information, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Idiots

   In the movie <Three Idiots>, there comes out the scene where Rancho (protagonist) asks about the gender of the baby of his girlfriend's sister. He gets answer as, "the baby is an engineer." The engineer simply means that the baby is a male. On the film it says that because parents in India want their son to be an engineer and their daughter to be a doctor, people alludes their baby's gender by saying the one is "engineer" or "doctor". Throughout the running time, the movie depicts on the enforcement of parents about their sons' life. Since many Indians are poor and engineering is a job that can bring relatively big money, it hits Indians' mind and results eager desire of Indians to force their sons to get education about engineering. It happens similarly in all over the world. The school education system, which is located between parents and children, function as the assailant of structural violence and the victim of structural violence at the same time.
   Before I go on to my reasons, I feel necessity of giving a definition of structural violence. Structural violence, according to context.org by Robert Gilman, is a physical and psychological harm that results from unjust social, political and economic systems. In other words, structural violence is referred to as a harm that comes from the society. So by mean school gets structural violence and gives structural violence to students, it is saying that school is receiving a violence from the society and is giving a violence to students.
   First, the school education system receives the structural violence in the relationship with parents. In other words, the school education system becomes victim of structural violence when with parents. Parents are the representation and reflection of the society. Society requires people to have different jobs. Some jobs are more important while other jobs are less important. Depending on the job's importance on the society, people get different payments. People of course wants to get a job with higher payment. Their spirit goes down same to the education of their sons. In order to meet those desires, students have to be ranked in order to diversify the range to differentiate jobs. School education is thus forced to be the place for the competition. Need for rank and competition by parents and society drives the school education system to go far away from creativity.

    Second, the school education system, which was the victim in relationship with parents and society, now works as an assailant in relationship with students. Because school education is forced to be competitive, school has to grade the achievement of understanding of the students about subjects. School education is thus forced to be objective, having no space for creativity. To be objective about grade, school rather focuses more on the accuracy of the fact, rather than students' opinions in individuals.
    To sum up, the school education system is the assailant of structural violence and the victim of structural violence at the same time. We can't really criticize schools for doing so, since the problems about killing students' creativity relies fundamentally on the structural violence that society has harmed schools. Therefore, in order for schools to encourage students to have creativity, society itself must be changed. That is, our preference about the particular job based on high payment should be adjusted to change the school education system.

Inevitable Game for All Human Beings: Trying to Forget Painful Memories.

“It's hard to win, easy to lose
We play a game we cannot choose
As steady as a rocking horse, as subtle as a bruise.”

- from Oi Va Voi’s song titled “Waiting”

Sometimes forgetting painful memories is as important as remembering delightful memories. It helps us to focus on the present days, and not to be gloomy and desperate. For three reasons, Forgetting painful memories can possibly be adressed as the “game” that I play.

 First of all, above lyrics says that the “game” is “hard to win, easy to lose”. Forgetting painful memories might seem easy at the first glance, but it is not. Without notice, the painful memories come to our heart and make us regret what we have done in the past. It is hard to resist those emotions once we get caught up in the painful memories. It is more painful because those regrets not only come from our brain with rational thoughts, but also come from out heart with vague emotion. Thinking rationally, one should not be bothered about what happened in past, but because regret comes from heart, it isn’t easy to get rid of.

 Second, forgetting painful memories is something we cannot choose to play. It’s not something that one can get rid of anytime since it is a life-long game. It is like a destiny that is given to all human beings. We naturally recall the past unconsciously, and to omit painful memories has to be done consciously. Natural conflict between our consciousness and unconsciousness is what forgetting painful memories really is and forgetting painful memories is inevitable game.

 Third, forgetting painful memories is “as steady as a rocking horse, as subtle as a bruise.” By the meaning “as steady as a rocking horse”, forgetting painful memories is an endless game. There are times we fail to forget, and times we succeed to forget. But as a whole, it never ends. It stands at the same place all the time. Also, forgetting painful memories can be referred to as bruise in the way it harms people. A bruise is something that gives one the pain, but it is not as serious as a wound. It is same for forgetting too. When one loses this “game” (recalling painful memories), it is usually not so harmful to ruin one’s life. However, it still mentally disturbs one’s life, like a subtle bruise. In those ways, this “game” is “as steady as a rocking horse, as subtle as a bruise.”

 Will human be able to escape from losing this game ever? As long as humans have brain to store memories, forgetting desperate memories will remain as the life-long game. To sum up, for above reasons, forgetting desperate memories can be inferred as the "game" that the above lyric says.

Assignment #1! About me as a writer!!

My life as a writer in English has not been so long. Although I have been using English for couple of years, I did not write formal English writing on purpose until soon. Starting with the life in KMLA, I began to write English essays and literal works. Through a semester with Ms. Choi and Mr. Johnson, I learned public essay writing styles, right grammar to use, a better diction for the meaning. Plus, the class “Introduction to English Literature” by Mr. Yoon helped me to get to know the basic ideas about writings and English literatures. It is confident for me to say that I have improved through those great teachers, but it is true that I’m not good enough to be called as writer.

           So far with those classes, I learned my style, weak points and strong points. To say about my style, there are only little to say about. Since my career as a writer is very short and limited, there aren’t any distinct features in my writing in my opinion. If there is one thing to say about my style, it might be creative theme. I learned a lot of stuffs in Korean such as politics, economy, philosophy, etc. Based on what I’ve learned in Korean, I try to use them as my writing’s theme. Though I feel difficulties in translating those ideas into English, the theme and the situation (which is not much related with one’s English skills) is what I have confidence in. I look forward to let my ideas in English without any problems someday, and that day will be the turning point in my life as a writer.

           As for the weak points of my writing, as mentioned in above paragraphs, I still feel my lack of skills in English. Even though good ideas came up to me, I couldn’t express them in a very good sense. This is maybe because of my lack of vocabulary. For some words I don’t know them in English and for some words I know easy dialogic words but not fancy words which would be most appropriate for the situation. My vocabulary is not the only problem, but also grammar. I still feel hard for grammars, especially about definite and indefinite articles: ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’. I always confuse their usage.

       My strong points are also said in the second paragraph, theme and plots, but I guess there are more. For instance, I think my writing has good description about surroundings. I imagine the view of the situation and try to write them in English, so there are lots of descriptions about surroundings, and I think this helps readers to focus more and to feel more realistic about the writing.

       To pick one writing piece that I’m proud of, I will pick my term paper written about determinism and indeterminism (free will). This was done in Mr. Johnson’s class. Because the topic could have been anything, I chose what I had my interest on, therefore making me to feel comfortable in writing this paper. This feeling had helped me to be enthusiastic about this work and I did a lot of researches and put great effort on it. Even though the limited amount of time made me to have no time to revise a lot (therefore it can seem little bit messy and unorganized), I’m pretty confident about this piece of writing.

           Because I have experienced a lot of teachers in last semester, I have really obtained faith in KMLA teachers and I do not doubt about their depth of knowledge. I believe all teachers have their unique strategies for teaching, and I think it is not exceptional for Mr. Garrioch also. I believe anything you do is beneficial to us, so as long as you do ‘anything’, I’m satisfied. I don’t have preference, but I hope if you have time, I want to get some advices about my writing from you. :D