It is super hard to simply start writing blogs again since it’s been a very long time. It’s always the hardest to start something. It is pretty late and I should go to sleep but I am still sitting here worrying about first day of school.
During the break, all I remember doing is sleeping, eating, and going out with friends. I am proud to say that I did not even touch a book because we all needed this break. One of the things that I’ve done that I am really happy about is meeting my friends from Korean high school. We had the greatest time together and it was totally awesome because I hadn’t seen them for a long time. Their high school life is basically over and they are graduating next week which I am SO jealous about. Anyways, we had a laugh and I was genuinely feeling happy at that moment. It was something I had not felt in a long time and it was the strangest feeling but probably the most pleasant one. It was the time that made me realize the value of friends. I know it sounds completely cheesy and silly but really what more could I want? Being with people you love and having a good time is probably when I am most happy.
During the lunar new year, my family went over to my great aunt’s house where my uncles and aunts all met up. I think I have the best time with my family because they are just hilarious. We laugh so much and my uncles love making fun of me incessantly. My brother hadn’t seen them for a year because my mom and I visited them more often so they were freaked out by how tall he had grown. It’s always great seeing and I love it more especially because it’s something I didn’t get to experience whenever I was living abroad. I guess I could say it’s a small happiness that I’ve found recently.
Then, I slept over at my friends house on Friday. I’ve known for 10 years now since we met when we were in second grade. I only went to elementary school in Korea for two years so she’s basically one of the two friends that I still keep in touch with. Even though I came back here 4 years ago, we were both busy living our lives that we didn’t get to see each other that much. We talked for hours and we ended up going to bed at three in the morning. Her dog was still alive which may sound funny but she bought that dog before I knew her so he’s really old for a dog….
On Saturday, my friends offered me to go to Daehakro (it’s a place where all the small theaters are and most plays are shown there) and see a musical. It was crowded and there were so many people but the musical was awesome. I’ve never seen a musical or a play at Daehakro and it was so great because the stage is so small that you can see the actors up close and see every details of their facial expressions.
To come to think of it, I guess I did a lot of things during the break. I may have not spent it on reading and “studying” but I spent time on catching up with friends and it feels nice to know that. Starting from tomorrow my nightmare begins but I should try to look on the bright side… hoping there is one.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Whenever Mr. Blog buys a diary, he always writes birthdays of his closest people. What do you write in your diary?
I also mark birthdays of my family and closest friends! Another thing is I mark the days when I don’t have school and when there are holidays! Someone once said that writing diaries and making notes of one’s plan is the key to success. I guess it would never hurt to organize my thoughts and plan out what I need to do for the day. I should so get in the habbit of doing that. Right now, I only have one agenda that I got from school where I only put in homework, projects, test, quizzes date. I’ve saved one each year and sometimes when I look through them again, I am amazed that I got through them. Every single day is filled with schedules that seem endless… But I feel like I have done something great and feel proud to have endured through all the STRESS (although it isn’t quite over yet….)
If you go back to my November 23rd blog, you’ll notice that I answered a question on Naver blog (a famous Korean website). Since I didn’t write for 2~3 weeks, I just decided to answer another question that came up today. So today’s question was,,,
Mr. Blog (this is the name of the character that asks question every day) realized he was ‘happy’ whenever he has a laugh while eating together with his friends. When do you feel happy?
I just decided to make a list
When my friends and I giggle and laugh
Whenever I go over to my great aunt’s and spend time with my cousins, uncles, and aunts who I love dearly
When I am eating chocolate
When I come home from school and see some left over cake
When I meet my older cousins and I can be the immature younger sibling around them
Whenever I get an e-mail from my friends, wherever whoever they are
Whenever I see my room clean
When I get a new pair of jeans
When my teddy bear smells nice from being in the washing machine
When the sound of my flute is clear and nice
When it’s cold outside and I come home and it is super warm
When I find out new episode of Criminal Minds and Grey’s Anatomy is out
When I see 2PM (Korean boyband) on TV 
Whenever I see babies because I love babies!
When I am going to the movies with someone
When I threw away old SAT prep books and ALL the papers (I mean everything) I’d saved from 10th grade
When I receive a letter or a card
When I go over to my mom’s friends house and their dog is not smelly
When I have no acne and I think my complexion is in good condition
Whenever my family goes out for dinner
When I am eating Pocachips!
When I am eating Mint Chocolate ice cream!
When I manage to finish a book
I realized that nowhere on my list is there something like doing well on quiz/ test/ project…
I guess that’s just momentary happiness that I don’t really find significant compared to the things above
Whenever we start a new year, many people set up their new year’s resolution. Personally I really don’t like it because it feels like I lock myself into a little cage and force myself to always think about actually achieving my resolution. And psychologists in England have recently agreed that setting up new year’s resolution actually puts more stress onto one’s mind, thus when one does not reach his/ her goal, the negative effect is enhanced and greatly influences our mind in a pessimistic way. BUT I think we need to set up very small, tiny goals. To come to think of it, I don’t even remember what happend in 2008. All I remember is work work and work. 2009 will be my last year in high school and hopefully we’ll all make some memory that we would all think about when we think year 2009. AND hopefully I’ll read some more books. Not only those penguin classic stuff but maybe some just really random silly fun ones too. Oh and I’ll start my cello again, hopefully. I guess I’ll get those bruises on my fingers again but I would like to make the most in year 2009!
Okay so I took a long break from my blog. I felt like I just needed to get away from all school related things for a while. And I must say it was like a bittersweet feeling. I figured out that it is impossible to completely forget about school and it was on the back of my mind at all times. But thank god for this winter break because I got some good sleep and just some time for relaxation with the people I love. I have to admit that I was lazy most of the time but seniors, I think we deserve it! I read a little bit of Atonement for AP lit, sent some of my college apps after a long long revision and hung out with my family and friends. Although I didn’t get to go anywhere particular during the break, it was enough for me. I got to meet two cousins who I have not seen for about 16 years. They were now grown ups and it was really awkward at first but by the time we were eating dessert, we had a great time! Also my grand parents came and stayed for couple of days which was awesome because I rarely get to see them since they live to far away… This winter vacation was just a time for family and friends which was great because when school starts things will become hectic again.
So that was just me rambling on about what I was doing for the last 2 ~3 weeks when I didn’t write anything for my blog… Hmm I better get started on it again…
Sunday, December 14, 2008
It is already one thirty but I felt like I had to write this blog. I watched a documentary program on TV about an hour ago titled <War for talent> (?). It was basically about people who have achieved success have a commonality; that they gave their best at what they love to do. It was a shock for me because to be completely honest, I always thought I wanted a job with high salary. That’s what I thought would make me happy. It’s hard to summarize the documentary since it was over an hour long and there were so many stories of different people but the jist of is that success comes from doing what you love to do. The reporter met different people around the world from a student at UC Berkely who just won an International Marketing Competition at Hong Kong to the founders of Google to Kevin Roberts (Chief executive Officer of Worldwide of the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi). It is hard to describe in words but they amazed me. I was in awe the entire time.
Larry Page and Sergey Brinn are the founders of Google, world wide search engine company that grew to its size in just 10 years. They dropped out of college and they planned to create a better search engine because they were unsatisfied with the ones they had in the past. In a way it was for their own convenience. They certainly did not think about becoming rich or becoming “successful” at all. Even now, their motto is to connect work and play. At Google headquarter which is in San Francisco, workers can bring their family and even their dog to work and spend time. 20% of their work time, they are allowed to just play. They say one of the most creative and innovative work has come from their play time. This idea is definitely out of the ordinary. But allowing the workers to enjoy their work has allowed Google to bring one of the brightest people out there.
As I mentioned before, every one of these people said the same thing in their interview. Do what you love. It is as simple as that. But it is important that you know who you are and you know what you love. Maslow (psychologist)’s Hierarchy of Needs theory suggests that humans have a hierarchy of our need like a pyramid. From the very bottom, food and water, shelter, love and belongingness, self esteem, and on the top; self actualization which includes creativity and fulfillment. It suggests that highest human needs is to actualie one’s full potential. Thus it makes sense that humans thrive and succeed when we do something we truly love.
Tonight I feel like I’ve learned an important lesson. Although it’s what people say all the time, it isn’t easy to find something you truly love. For some people it takes years until they really figure it out. End of my high school and start of my college life ahead of me, I really hope I find something I truly love. It won’t be easy and there will be challenges along the way. I will cry. I will laugh. I will succeed. I will fail. But from all those, I will learn little by little. And when I do find it, every bit of hardship would be worth it. As Kevin Roberts said, “Follow your heart, not your head.”
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
After having watched the We Real Cool video, I watched another video. Yina Liang, daughter of Chinese immigrant who moved to the United States when she was in elementary school. She read Emily Dickinson’s poem “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” In the video, she talks about the difficulties of being a teenager as well as being “the perfect friend, perfect daughter and perfect sister.” It was a bit funny because it was cliché and the way she said things were a bit dramatic in a way but they are actually all true. I guess everyone sometimes feel pressure to be the best and some people wish to be just nobody at one point in his/her life. I felt like I could relate to her through this poem and watching the video allowed to me to better understand the poem as well.
Here is the poem.
I’m nobody! Who are you?
By Emily Dickinson
I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know. How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
It is interesting how she says frogs are public. It is cute and clever in a way. You may be going “Huh? Why all of the sudden a frog?” It took me some times to come up with a good explanation but I am guessing because frogs croak loudly and it is like letting everyone know around them that they are there. Bog here means wet, muddy land (basically a marsh) and I am guessing it is admirable because it listens to all the others frogs and know all of them. This was just very random and short post about poems that just came to my mind because the only thing we talked about in AP Lit class was poetry!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
This is another one of my favorite paintings also by Marc Chagall. It is titled Birthday.
I remember the first time I saw this painting. I fell in love with it immediately because of the sense of warmth it seems to convey. Obviously Pierre and Amélie are a couple. The fact that Amélie has flowers in her hands seem to indicate it is her birthday. What is strange is that Pierre is floating in the air. I think he is not a ghost but in a form of a lost soul. If you look closely, his face is kind of greyish blue.
It is rare that someone would wear all black on their birthday. So I am thinking it is Amélie’s birthday but she is mourning for her dead husband. Pierre’s soul is visiting her to wish her happy birthday and maybe allow her to feel happy for just a moment on her birthday. What’s interesting is that if you see on the table, there is one cup and one plate which indicates she lives alone.
Now that I have put more thought into this painting, it is really a sad story but still the sense of warmth that it gives me whenever I look at it (even just a glance) gives comfort and coziness…
P.S In my digital photography class, Ms. Wentworth always worns us about taking pictures with THE RULE OF THIRDS which is a rule that notes that object in the picture should not be in the middle square when you divide the entire picture into 6 squares. And this completely violates THE RULE OF THIRDS!!!!!! (and I am so glad because I hate the THE RULE OF THIRDS)
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Philippe has two face. One is blue and other is greyish yellow.
The blue face looks sad. It represents the loneliness and worries that cloud his mind.
The other face looks determined. This side represents the side of Philippe that wants to solve his problems.
The cat Noël by the window has the face of a human. Noël looks sad also. Maybe this represents Noël’s wish to become like a human.
There is a man flying in the sky. This represents the man’s dream to fly one day
The flower near the corner represents the beauty of life which is sometimes forgotten.
The train that is upside down stands for our attitudes towards life sometimes. At times we are so pessimistic that instead of moving forward, we go backward.
The fact that the houses that we see through the window are different colors compared to those on the other side (white) show how we perceive the world with stereotypes or with certain rules that we force ourselves to think in (it is like thinking inside a box).
The Eiffel Tower stands tall in the middle of Paris. It is a dream that people have built out of steel and what is considered as beautiful. Maybe it is something positive about how humans are sometimes able to find some beauty in the ugliest things. Chagall used primarily used the primary colors and these are the simplest combination that creates so many other colors. This stands for the simplicity of our lives that create varieties and beauties that follow.
This is one of my favorite paintings and since Chagall is well known for his ambiguousness and just drawing vague things in his paintings, I decided to analyze it on my own. It gives a queer feeling like a stimulating tingly feeling that you can’t figure out where it comes from or why. It is just full of wonder and mysteries that it doesn’t bore your eyes. Although I analyzed this just now, usually I love the fact that Chagall doesn’t make his messages “obvious” for the viewers to think.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Mr. Izzy always told us sleep is very important for our body. What a cliché but it’s true.
According to this article, Paul McCartney said he woke with the melody for ‘Yesterday’ and Robert Louis Stevenson said the idea for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde came to him in his dream.
When our brain is awake during the day, it can’t concentrate on the “thinking” The small, petty details from what to eat during lunch to what things are due the next day always give stress to our brain. The only time our brain is resting and processing the information it has gained during the day is when we are sleeping. And this is also when we think about new things and our mind is let loose to be creative. What our brain does is connect information that does not seem to have any connection with one another and turns it into creativity. So it is logical to think that when we lack sleep, it is killing our creativity along with our ability to remember things because the brain stores information into our memory when we are sleep. PLUS one important thing. When we sleep for hours and hours during the weekend, thinking that we are making up for the deprived sleep during the day is no good.
