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