Lyrics of Illumination

I look around at all the sophomores planning out their summer vacations. Not with trips and fun activities, but with HAGWONS.

Does no one else find this terribly disturbing?

For around nine out of twelve months a year, we spend every day cramming our much-too-small brains with streams of information here and there. We go to school and “learn” for about 6-7 hours, we then participate in after school activities for another couple of hours, come home to fatigue our brains even more, and we sleep for about 4-5 hours every night. We count down the days until these days of agony pass by and the 3 months of sunshine come our way.

But no. Korean parents want to lock their children up in academies throughout their entire summer. I believe that, in a way, high school deprives students of the time to pursue their dreams and their hobbies. Therefore, summer, at least for me, has always been extremely enjoyable; it was a time for me to explore and just do what pulls at my curiosity and interest. I’ve attended a summer camp at Stanford to learn about hyperbolic geometry. I’ve had a part-time job before. I’ve read books. I’ve played basketball in summer leagues. I’ve even traveled to Europe. I’ve volunteered more with the Youth American Red Cross. I went to a leadership camp. I’ve taught young children. I’ve done so much during my high school summers. And I’ve enjoyed so much of it. I’ve been able to do all that without the pressures of schoolwork the heavy load of deadlines upon my shoulders. And I had time to spare with my family and friends here and there. I loved it.

But I can’t believe how many Korea students are stuffed into hagwons during summers. Do we not learn enough in school? Isn’t that what school is for? Isn’t it also important to learn about yourself and life? There’s more to life than cold, hard “Facts.”

A lot of students I know are planning on spending Monday through Saturday, morning to night, in hagwons for SAT’s and the AP classes that they are going to take next year. Does no one else find this ridiculous? We pay an unbelievably expensive tuition to go to school and “learn,” but is that not good enough? Is it really necessary to spend even more money, a quite large sum at that, to go to hagwon and throw away a limitless number of opportunities? It’s just not right.

There are societal pressures, of course. I understand. If all the other kids go to hagwon, I would feel insecure as a parent to raise the only child not going to one. But I’m living evidence of how “success,” as it is defined in the Korean culture (a good GPA and good AP scores), can be achieved without killing oneself with hagwons.

Throughout my entire high school career, I’ve never attended an academy. The last time I remember going to one was during elementary. (That sounds ridiculous too, doesn’t it? Hagwons before first grade and all throughout elementary.) With a lot of self-discipline and hard work, I trained myself to study by myself when it was necessary. But it’s ludicrous how Korean parents have so much faith in hagwons. I admit, hagwons can prove to be helpful in raising those SAT scores, but is it really worth it? It wastes not only money, but with the time going to and fro, time spent sitting and zoning out, and the time spent doing homework, it slowly wastes away our precious lives, as the sand slowly slides down the hourglass.

There’s an infinite number of possibilities and things to discover. Hagwons limit students with “work.” These young adults need the freedom to see the world and the room to breathe. I believe that students will be able to “learn” more outside the walls of vocabulary words and hagwon homework. If one chooses to, he/she can use that time and money so much more effectively, being productive without really “working,” but rather, enjoying.

Photo Credit: Lida Rose, tonochujo

Technorati Tags: kisaplit, kisaplit07, korea, hagwon, academy

Long time no write? I’ve been a lazy high school student with a moderate case of the infamous senioritis.

But recently, as I was getting ready to move, I’ve had the opportunity to look over my path of growth as a writer, as I was deciding what to throw away and what to pack up.

Ironically, I had to learn English as a “second” language. I was born and raised in Korea and finished first grade here before I moved to the United States. When I did, I repeated part of first grade and took “English as a Second Language(ESL).” I couldn’t speak a word of English, except maybe “good” and “morning,” when I stepped on American soil, but as I returned to Korean soil, the limited number of Korean words I knew were slurred into an American accent.

So my quest as a writer began around second grade, when I began to be able to actually communicate in English. One journal entry I found literally said:

If I were a cheetah, I would ran fast as I could to Los Robles to see my friend again, or I sould go to zoo and zookeeper will put me in and all the peoples are going to watch me.

And it had a lovely picture of a cheetah in a cage with a boy(? possibly a girl?) pointing at the cheetah with a speech bubble that read “WOW! that cheetah is child like me.”

Was I just young or was I just one strange child? It’s impossible to tell. But I had a good laugh seeing this.

From this, here I am now, able to not only make sense, but able to express myself freely and to communicate with the audience. In the process of looking over my past works, I read some of the writing I did last year as well, and I can’t believe at how steep the mountain was that I climbed. The short story, “Clarity,” surprised me even though I wrote it just last year. It didn’t seem like the writing of a high school student just trying to get by, but the work of an amateur writer. I was pretty surprised by my own abilities.
It’s sometimes quite exposing to turn towards the past and to remember the course you have traveled. It’s easy to get lost.

Technorati Tags: kisaplit, kisaplit07, writing, past, journey

Photo credit: marirs

The first two chapters of Hard Times really caught me by surprise. I thought it was such a queer book because of the stark setting and incident that it begins with. The world of Facts seemed so foreign and bizarre that I became instantly interested in it.

But continuing to read, I felt as if I, as the reader, was also bombarded with so many Facts just as Louisa and all the students under Mr Gradgrind’s teaching, so many allusions here and there, expressing Charles Dickens’ opinions about political, societal, and even religious institutions. The constant reference to the notes I had to make in a way distracted me.

In addition, I simply didn’t like the bleak society and many of its characters that Dickens wrote about – Bounderby, Gradgrind (at first), Blitzer, Mrs Sparsit –and wasn’t too interested from around the beginning of the book to the middle. But as story developed, its setting became more familiar and was attracted to some of the characters like Louisa, Sissy, and Stephen (I love how his last name is Blackpool and how he’s always in a muddle). The dialect was sometimes very irritating and difficult, especially with Mr Sleary and Stephen. But the story became much more interesting to me as I continued to read and the story progressed with unexpected events.

I didn’t like the Fact that the story didn’t end as happily as I would have liked it to, but I believe it was an appropriate conclusion.

Some of the ideas presented in the book, I think, were left ambiguous, as they were presented in contradicting ways, because they were left for readers to “fancy” and “wonder.” For example, the color white seems a mystery to me. In describing people or emotions, Dickens used to colors mainly: red and white, but I think white was used the most within the entire book. He mentioned that Blitzer could “bleed white,” Mrs Gradgrind was “a little, thin, white, pink-eyed bundle of shawls,” Rachel was “white and tired,” Mr Gradgrind was “ashy white” as Louisa confessed her unhappiness. There is something about being white and colorless, as if there are no thoughts and no feelings, pure and clean of all happiness and emotions. And at the same time, a ghostly and lifeless imagery created by the color white.

Another interesting motif throughout the novel was the constant allusions to the Bible. Although religion is not truly Fact and is supposed to be based upon faith, the teeming references to religious characters and stories imply that religion, as portrayed in Hard Times, is accepted as Fact under the power of the Church.

I just thought this was ridiculously hilarious.

When I woke up this morning, my mom told me that my grandparents tried to call several times yesterday, when I wasn’t home, to congratulate me on my acceptance to UCL. Out of courtesy, she said I should call back, and I did.

When she realized it was me, my grandmother began screaming on the phone (imagine a stout, healthy grandma, that normally yells because she’s half-deaf, screaming so loud on the other side of the phone that you start hearing the static sizzle and you have to move the phone away from your ear… my poor ears…). She was so excited and happy for me, too excited and overly happy. And just last summer, she gave me an hour lecture on why I should go to college in Korea. What a big difference the number 9 can make.

I have no clue what my dad really told her but I’m pretty sure that that number made all the difference. It’s absurd. Translated, she said words like

“I knew you were going to succeed. You studied just like your father (she’s my father’s mother). All our family depends on you. I am so happy for you. I just knew you would succeed; you were doing so well! [Blah Blah…]”

Then later, my grandfather asks,

“What’s the name of your school again?”

And after I repeated it to him 3 times, he still didn’t understand.

How does an acceptance from a highly “ranked” college exactly determine my success? They think I’ve hit the jackpot; they think that the college name secures my future. But I disagree. Entirely. The opportunities I receive do certainly make a difference, but what I choose to do with those chances are what determines my success or my failure.

When will this world start breaking out of it’s shell? Life isn’t numbered.

I still love my grandparents. They crack me up like an egg. (:

Technorati Tags: success, ranking, college

Photo Credit: aloshbennett

Good news! I’ve been accepted into the chemistry program at University College London (UCL)!

The university wasn’t my first choice, but it still has a very good chemistry program. The college is ranked 9 in the international ranking, something very important to my parents and so many others for some reason; it received a 5* for its chemistry program; and it has a very high teacher to student ratio. UCL does hold a very prestigious reputation, but there are still doubts to whether or not I will be attending there this fall.

I’ve actually visited the campus and it was alright. It wasn’t particularly appealing, but there’s nothing to complain about. Housing might be a little uncomfortable, in the middle of London, but what an excellent opportunity to live in the center of one of such a huge and busy city! Come on, it’s LONDON! But that does also raise other questions; it was a little “too” crowded when I visited. It was war just trying to buy a subway ticket! And living costs are really expensive, much more expensive than at Manchester or Bristol.

After contemplating to myself and discussing with my parents about the program, living costs, environment, safety, and all that jazz, I will be making the decision of where I shall spend the next 3 or 4 years of my life. It’s a pretty big decision for me right now, although it may not seem like it a few years from now…

And during the e-mail/interview process for UCL, I learned something new simply by discussing chemistry with another person! If anyone is “nerdy” enough like me and interested in the pH of water at different temperatures, enjoy! (:

I have two beakers of water, one at room temperature, the other at 50oC. Do you expect their pH to be the same or different? Why?

I would expect their pH to be relatively similar. However, the pH of the water at 50ºC may be slightly higher than the one at 25ºC because there may be a slight change in the concentrations of H+ ions between the two beakers, and pH and molarity are directly related. The warmer beaker will have a slightly larger volume per molecule because the heat within the system will allow for the ions within the water to travel faster and require more room. The number of H+ ions will still be the same, but because the volume is greater, the molarity of H+ ions will decrease and the pH level of water at 50ºC will have a slightly greater pH and the solution will be slightly more basic.

Think about this a little more. Why is there a change in the amount of H+ in the beaker at 50C? I agree the concentration might change because of volume change but why has the amouint of H+ changed and why might this change the pH?

Well, my initial thought was that the concentration of H+ would increase because a higher temperature would trigger the ionization of more H2O molecules, since only a few are ionized at 25ºC, water being a weak electrolyte. This would result in a higher concentration of H+, but I was thrown off by the idea of a neutral solution. Because the ratio of H+ and OH- ions created by the reaction would be equal, the solution would still have to be neutral. But if the concentration of H+ is higher, pH would be lower because pH= -log [H+]. Initially, I was baffled by the idea because a pH lower than 7 would mean that it is acidic, and because my solution was contradictory, I tried to find a different approach to the problem, the answer I have above.

But I’ve thought about the problem once more, and realized that the pH scale where 7 is neutral is only true for solutions at room temperature. So my conclusion is that the H+ concentration would go up, the pH would be less than 7, and the neutral level for water at 50ºC would be at that pH.

Photo credit to SF buckaroo

Technorati Tags: UCL, chemistry, water, pH

Coach Ken Carter: What is your deepest fear?
Worm: Why he keep saying that? What’s your deepest fear? What’s that mean?

I’ve been so caught up with schoolwork, grades, college apps, and activities that I barely realized I was suffocating. Now, the winter break has allowed for me to take a deep breath and regain my normal rhythmical breathing rate. I am once again in control of my life.

I am playing basketball, running and working out, reading for FUN (I actually chose the book I’m reading!), tutoring and earning money, working on Student Council stuff, finishing essays for the college app process, hanging out with my friends, spending time with my family, and it’s simply great!

Sometimes, without realizing it, we live in our regrets, worries, and many times fear. The stress and workload I had during the first semester pressured my lungs to cave in, as if I was drowning deeper and deeper in the vast, dark sea. The light from above dimmed away, the only hope for air fading further and further away, darkness closing in. Every time I tried to kick upwards, the weight only carried me down further. But maybe, I had only myself to blame; maybe I was drowning in my own fear. Fear of falling deeper, fear of failure.

I recognize my faults in my inability to accept failure very well. I can still remember when I “got in trouble” for whispering during a quiz in fourth grade, or when I was scolded by the teacher for talking during a lecture in sixth grade. I can vividly remember the cross country race in which I couldn’t force my legs to move any faster. What I fear most is failing again. But fear only holds us back from being able to move forward and breathe freely.

So I’ll end with a quote I took from the movie Coach Carter:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Technorati Tags: kisaplit, kisaplit07, fear, life, failure

Photo credit to cjb22

A little something I like to have fun with is fine arts.

About 3 or 4 years ago, I used to go to an art studio during the summers, when I was in middle school. At that time, I was still considering possibly pursuing a career in that area. But as I entered high school, I attended less and less, and my dream morphed from becoming an art major to an art minor to, finally, not studying art at all. I realized that I would rather do things like play basketball and MUN than sit around in a chair all day long and paint. I decided that it probably wasn’t something that I would really like to do every day of my life, but I knew that I would continue fine arts as a hobby.

So as a senior, I decided to take Art I, a semester course for beginning art students because 1) I wanted to take fine arts more than drama or orchestra; 2) I’m not allowed to take any other art class without this beginning class; and 3) I needed some sort of an art credit to graduate. And it worked out really well for me. Even though I was the only senior in the class, with mostly just freshman, I had fun and I enjoyed spending a few hours each week working on art. So here are some of the projects I did throughout the first semester. (Sorry I couldn’t get bigger pictures. I lost my camera so I took pictures with the webcam.)

Technorati Tags: kisaplit, kisaplit07, art, drawing, painting, collage

I’ve just read Christina’s post, My STUDENT Baller, and it made me have some second thoughts.

So I’ll blurt the truth out here. I’ve made one bad decision about a month and half ago, partially due to peer pressure, and I was punished a couple of weeks ago by the school for it. I’ve been a “goodie-goodie” all my life: I’ve never cheated on a test, I’ve never “broke the rules,” and I’ve always received straight A’s simply due to intrinsic motivation. And for the first time in my life, I’ve made a significant “boo-boo.”

For that mistake, I received a day of suspension, a week off athletics, a semester off other activities, and no out-of-the-country trips, which includes the Far East Tournament for basketball and BEIMUN for Model United Nations. After the day of suspension, I missed the very first game of season and I had to forfit in the speech and debate tournament. The research I’ve already done for the tournament was a waste of time, and my dream of starting in every single game my senior year was shattered. Junior year, I missed a game due to a math competition. Although I was awarded a second place trophy, I regretted it, so I didn’t sign up for the same tournament this year, even if it meant I had a better chance of receiving first place or if it meant math extra credit. That’s how much I wanted it. I’ve been training hard since freshman year for this, to play through my final season gloriously, because I know that I’m not going to play college ball. Not only did I miss the first game, but I had to sit through the practices along the sidelines, just wishing to be running those champions at that time, regretting my previous complaints about running.

On top of all this, I was and am the basketball captain. I let not only myself down, but my entire team. I missed the first game, starting the season off on a low note, missed practices (what a good example I set as the captain…), and most importantly, I have to miss the Far East Tournament, where we get to play the most competitive teams throughout Eastern Asia.

Not to mention, I was selected by the MUN officers and advisers in Beijing to be a student officer for the BEIMUN conference. I had to shamefully give up my position and let others down again, after working four hard years for this position.

The entire incident had a huge impact on my life. My life had completely turned upside down, and I had finally reached ground zero. I thought senior year was bad enough, but it had finally crashed. It broke me down mentally; it diminished my will to work hard or even try. All my hard work for four years was just blown away with the wind, because of one nod of the head. I was punished for telling the truth and hit extra severely for being active in school, and I just couldn’t get anything straight. The day after my suspension, I took a physics test, where I received the first F in my life. I completely broke down, and I still haven’t completely recovered yet. I feel like I’m being dragged around by time. I admit I made a mistake, but is this what punishments are really supposed to do?

I thought punishments were enforced to keep you from doing the same bad thing twice, to teach you a lesson, or to compensate for the consequences the action had. But no one was hurt; no big event took place. I already knew that I made a mistake that night and regretted it the whole night. Yet, not only did I have to suffer through that night, but now I have to suffer for the rest of the year, possibly the rest of my life.

My parents knew that I had no bad intention and never really scolded me; they told me that I built up “credit” for the previous 17 years of my life. They trusted me and tried to make me feel better, but school literally killed me. Everything I’ve worked for was flushed down the drain, and the extra time I had out of school activities in addition with my negative mentality summed up to a whole chunk of wasted valuable time and unproductivity. My grades in all my classes drastically dropped a week before the end of the semester.

So I began thinking about the school’s punishment system. What is it really worth? In psychology class, I learned that we can be conditioned to do things and behave in a certain way and that rewards and positive reinforcements provide us with more motivation, but what is school really doing to us? This type of negative punishment doesn’t encourage us in any way to succeed.

On the front page of our school Edline page it says:

The mission… is to inspire students with a passion for learning, and to cultivate the competence, self-assurance, initiative, and creativity necessary for success in the global community.

Some teachers have been very supportive and inspiring, and I admire them in every way. But sometimes we are continuously discouraged, from even pushing ourselves and trying, only distinguished by our negative aspects. And I’ve run into extreme punishments like this that defeat the purpose of a punishment. I couldn’t help but feel the irony of not just our school’s mission statement, but the mission statement of schools in general.

Photo credit to vinzolo

Technorati Tags: kisaplit, kisaplit07, school, punishment

45 minutes of sleep.

Go to school by 7:15 to work on Computer Graphics Final Project.

1st block: AP Lit (I didn’t finish my homework.)

2nd block: AP Calc BC (Hopefully, I won’t fall asleep.)

Skip homeroom. Go work on Computer Graphics.

Skip lunch. Go work on Art Final Project.

3rd block: Art I (Sketchbook due! Not entirely finished yet…)

4th block: AP Physics (Review for Finals.)

After school: Basketball game against OSAN (Hopefully I won’t faint)

After the game: Go see if I can do art. If not, go to AP Physics study session. Then watch boys’ game so I can ride the bus home.

Arrive at home: Take a shower, finish blogging.

Finally, flop dead.

Just another average day of my lovely senior year.
Does anyone else see something wrong with this?

Photo credit (left to right): Dave-F, programwitch

Technorati Tags: kisaplit, kisaplit07, senioryear, stress, overworked

I just read a very interesting post by Carolyn Foote, an Edublogger, titled Shifting Views. She begins with the factory-style school system where students are nearly slaves, deprived of their right to learn about what they are interested in, but instead forced to produce SAT scores, AP scores, and a high GPA. To escape this, Carolyn Foote proposes a possible new model for education, a library:

The emphasis on this assembly line model can cause schools or state governments to think of programs like libraries, technology programs, or arts and career programs as frills, to be cut away to provide time for testing, or to be relegated to being considered “add-ons.”

Libraries are an academic part of the curriculum, but in many schools they are relegated to being thought of as a luxury–a place to drop students off for some leisure time, or as something required though no one quite knows why. Library journal articles talk about librarians learning to make themselves useful in the 21st century economy so they’ll still have jobs, as though reading enjoyment, enriching students lives, supporting their thinking and investigation is a “frill” that won’t be needed in the 21st century school.The library and arts programs and creative writing programs particularly support something that few other programs on campus do–we encourage students to explore what they are interested in. Our programs exist to scaffold their thinking, make the world of ideas available to students, and let them follow the serendipity of their own interests and thoughts. We try to inspire them with the works of others, connect them with ideas that will push their thinking, and show them the history of what has come before. And we allow them simply to explore the world of ideas.

Where else in a school do students(or for that matter staff) come of their own free will to just explore, look around, read, investigate the internet, or talk about books or ideas with someone? It is their personal learning space on the campus, their own space for “research and development,” learning at its essence. (and libraries that have 24/7 capabilities with websites, open online catalogs, etc. can provide this at all times of the day or night).

I’d love to see a campus grow out of the concept of the library, building a campus around learning as investigation and exploration, rather than “attach” the library’s mission to the campus as an add-on. That would be a paradigm shift.

I thought the idea was very interesting and the thought to be quite beautiful. But with the internet being students’ number one source of information and resources, many of today’s students hardly visit the library anymore. It would be beautiful to see this actually take place, to revive the library as the main source of learning and fill it with self-directed learning. My only concern is whether or not it is a little too idealistic. What do you think?

Photo credit: fakeitforme

Technorati Tags: kisaplit, kisaplit07, library, education, school