Back to the future

Jeong Ju Hyun

02 Jun 2030 (aged 35)

A violent storm hit this Dae-Jeon city in a quack during seven days. Today at last I can see the sun. We had 2,400 millimeters of rain for seven days, it's more half of the average annual rainfall in this region. What a wonderful downpour!

There are subtropical trees along the street. The presentation of the results of my research at the two-day WCUC(World Class University Conference) is expected three days later. I check the email of Doctor M. Doyle at Maryland University first thing in this morning. Doyle will read at WCUC his paper about a new bio drug based on the structural building blocks of proteins. And I call Doctor Moon Dae-Won in National Institute of Standards and Technology(NIST) to check the schedule of the conference. Because he is the panelist on Doyle's paper. All this keeps my mind and body busy.

WCU(World Class University) is the project to develop nanotechnology. The size of the South Korean government's contribution for this project will be three trillion won. Nanotechnology is the high technology which will be universally applicable to electronics, communications technology, medical science, environmental science, energy, aerospace engineering etc. In short, It is useful technology in all areas of our life.

I'm Professor of KAIST graduate school for Nanotechnology. I have completed the courses from a master's degree to a doctor's at MIT. There, I was studying deep into the structural building blocks of proteins and into the cause of certain diseases. Korean government invited me to build up a small hard-core group of research scientists specialized in Nanotechnology and in Nano-Biotechnology.

I check today's schedule. I send the research draft of Doctor Doyle to be in the press. At 10 o'clock in a meeting of new drug research teem, the official name of nanocapsule for Parkinsons Disease will be decided. From 7 to 9 pm, I will talk together with Doctor Park Hyun Tae during dinner time. Having promised an experiment in chemistry with my RA(research assistant)

from 10 pm, there is no chance of return today.

< English quiz competition among schools>

Jeong Ju Hyun

22nd November 2008, I was chosen as one of four to play for my Sang gye middle school. It was the 3rd English quiz competition designed by Banbae local government.

The participants were middle or high schoolers in Seoul City. They were all fluent English speakers. Each team was composed of one runner who carries English questions or answers, and three solvers. My three teammates seem to comprehend English better than me. As a member, I concentrated my attention and tried to have fine teamwork. Our team went into the final.

The result of competition was not that we hoped. We lost by only one question and placed second as a team. It was worth attempting though, even our team failed to win the championship.

We were losing in the early part of the competition by a large margin, 30 points from the leading team. But soon after we started to chase them as fast as we could. Our team was more than more in hot pursuit of rival : the runner and the solvers ran and got the answers faster and faster. We were approaching very closely to the leading team. A neck and neck game continued for more than 10 minutes.

Metafiction Not finished!

Metafiction

 A boy is writing a novel for his homework just the same way I am doing this. He types several times but soon stops writing. He seems to have a hard time figuring out what to write… Hmm but I don’t know what to write about him as well. What shall I write? Well, let’s say that he went out of the room for some water. I feel a bit thirsty as well. Let me continue writing after I return…………………………………… I’m back! Sorry for making you wait so much. Next, he finds out that his room is not a good place to come up with fresh ideas! He feels like going out… Come to think of it, this is a good idea! No wonder I couldn’t write any longer! I’d better go out as well. Sorry I should stop writing for a while again I guess.ㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ

 Whoa just like what I thought. People need fresh air from time to time. Back to the novel, the boy sits on a bench, he decides to write about people’s every aspect in their daily lives. This is still early morning so there are not so many people here. The boy finds an old man feeding pigeons sitting on a bench across the road. Boy goes to the man and asks what he’s doing. He says he is feeding those pigeons enough before winter comes so that they would not starve. I see an old man feeding pigeons as well. I went to him and asked why he was feeding the pigeons. He said, “Winter’s coming closer, boy. I’m feeding them enough so that they wouldn’t starve during the winter.” WHAT A COINCIDENCE! He says just the same thing. Anyway then the boy came back to his bench and looked around for awhile. About an hour was still left before people would come out for their works. It was really boring to just wait but looking at the autumn colors was so calming. Soon the boy saw a bunch of people running to catch their bus, all of them with suitcase in their hands. The boy approached to them to ask some questions but they resisted, only saying, ”Stay aside, I’m late for work dammit!” Uh wait! Can I ask some questions, sir? “No and if you are not going to get on that bus, just stay aside, I’m late for work dammit!” The man pushed me into a pile of autumn foliage. It is quite strange that everything I write in the novel comes true in my real life, only severer. The boy felt bad about his situation. He became lethargic about writing, I’m sure everybody will feel the same way in a pile of autumn foliage. He felt calming and lethargic at the same time. Also waking up early made him drowsy and sleepy but he had to wake up because sleeping on a street could make his mouth turn.

Chain Writing

   September in last year would have been best without Mark, but it turned out to be the worst days in my life. Just after the summer vacation, I joined an English camp where there were a lot of pretty girls. In fact, me and Mark were the only boys in the camp. Because we were the only boys, we hung out together whole day. He was a very outgoing boy and loved to make fun of girls, unlike me. I think the fact that he was so different from em was the main reason why I got so interested in him at first, beside the fact that he was a boy. For first two days, in the camp, I tried to break the ice with but he was the one who came to talk to me anyway. His first question was if I had a girlfriend. Wow, VERY impressive, well, I told him NO, and he said he didn't have one too. After that, we talked about many other things. I was surpriced that we actually had something in common other than gender. We both liked basketball. Actually that was the only thing, but enough. It was already dark outside, the orientation day ended.

   Next day, the camp started, and we went to the class together. When we moved we noticed this beautiful girl sitting in front of the class. Impeticiously, we both ran to grab the seat next to her. In a split of a second, I was in the seat next to her, all proud and satisfied by the fact that I've won.
It was until I got to know that my seat was next to "him", not "her". Frankly it didn't really matter whether he was a girl or a boy. What was important was that I met my first love. You are granted to quit reading if you are allergic to some "true love" stories between two boys. His name was Joshua.

   I have to admit, I panicked at first. Running to grab seats next to a boy. I was humilitated Mark was smirkingat me, apparantly for having forgotten that had been sulking at the fact that I was faster than him.

Education Will be Creative by Education Anyway

     Creativity is a word that I would like to avoid if possible. Parents tell me to live creatively, teachers tell me to study creatively, even mass media tells me, "You should be creative." Let me ask them back. Is it as easy as you say? Before I write this, the first thing I did was finding what 'creative' really means, and I noticed that there is no evident definition to it. I mean most people know what creative things are like, but they do not know what creativity really is. If so, Ken Robinson's opinion that education should be a tool to nurture their creativity seems quite odd to me, because his opinion is basically saying we should achieve something but even himself does not know what something is. Ironically, I agree with Ken's idea anyway, but my idea is still different from Robinson's.

     To start with, I do believe that creativity should be treated as one of the most important factors in education. Creativity, although I can't make a clear definition as well, is an ability to make something different or original. I mean creativity is one's ability that differentiates him or her from other people. In that case, I thought creativity can be interpreted as a key for everyone to find their inborn talents and truly become who they are, which I thought was a reason why education exists. Ken Robinson mentioned that people today are losing the ability as they grow older and older because modern education was formed in a strict system and hierarchy. Sadly, it is true and it is against the goal of true education. Therefore, I believe creativity is the only option for modern education to rely to find its true meaning.

     My opinion above may seem to be agreeing with Ken's idea one hundred percent but it is quite different. Not that Ken made a wrong statement but he made mistake when choosing his words. For example, I think education can never nurture children's creativity by itself, but only serves as a guide for finding the children's talents or creativity. Robinson's example of Gillian Lynne(A girl who once was hopeless at her school but at the same time, who became one of the most brilliant dancer in the Royal Ballet) is a good example of this. Gillian was able to be such a wonderful dancer, thanks to the psychiatrist who saw her talent and gave her advice. His insight surely did help her but I have to say that it was herself who developed her talent and practiced so hard to achieve her career. Education is like the psychiatrist above. Its purpose is to give a variety of choice for students and motivate them, nothing more, nothing less. Students' success is completely business that has to be dependant on students themselves.

     Also Ken mentioned about social trends that hampers people to be creative and I still agree. What I felt lacking about his lecture though, was that he never provided us with any specific methods to solve the situation. Maybe he did not have one but just said education system should be changed because it should, and I understand. It is a very tough work to come up with solutions to such a complicated issue. To give you my opinion, people's perception of seeing what is different as what is wrong is the biggest enemy to fight against and our solution also lies there. People today can not sustain their lives without social interactions. That's why people strives so hard to belong in some social groups that have common interests or characteristics. If this goes further, however, people begin to treat other people who does not share common values with them as they are the ones who are wrong because they think existence of other opinions can break their own groups. That's why sometimes those who really enjoys their distinct lives are forced to live like others. Changing people's notion is a difficult work so it is nearly impossible to see changes in a short-term. Therefore, the solution should be employed for a long period of time.

     There may be more effective solutions to the problem but the best way I could think of is education. Starting from young children to old people we can teach them that difference is not something wrong but something that has to be promoted. Although some may argue that current social trends will have to be shifted as well, that is a second problem yet. Moreover, if people's minds be ready to accept different ideas, those social problems are likely to be changed automatically. Education should be repaired by education.

     Creativity is still a word that I would like to avoid if possible but that does not mean that we are hopeless. Many things will be sacrificed to achieve such an ideal education but it is still true that we have to look forward to it. We here this every time but once again, "Let's be creative."

     ※Oh my! I'm sorry for being late Mr. Garrioch but it's not like that I forgot the duedate or something. I posted the same thing on the other blogspot blog made with naver e-mail. I did not notice until now so I am posting again at here right away. Good bye.

1st Assignment : As a writer myself

         I'm embarrased to say this, but I still have hard time writing essays because I'm very weak at writing in all aspects. This is due to the fact that I started writing in earnest since I was fifteen and stopped writing exactly after two years. One thing that my previous writing teacher(not from KMLA) praised me about is that I have a pretty good sense in using a new word or phrase in right situations. So in order to raise my writing skill, the teacher trained me by giving tons of great and widely used phrases. After that he made me use the phrase in real by giving a topic and made me write about the topic using the phrases he gave. Thanks to his wise decision I was able to write pretty logical writings but his method of teaching never gave me a chance to freely express my opinion because I wrote essays to use those phrases properly but never used the phrases to write myself. So one of the major difficulties that I need to overcome is to come with my own and fresh ideas in order to write an essay of my own.


         My style in writing can be described in one word, excessive. I tend to write a long and descriptive sentence because I kind of feel somewhat responsible to include every thing that I saw and every thing that I try to explain as specifically as possible. No words could describe my feeling exactly so sometimes I have to spend hours just to find a word. Writing becomes a very bothersome work if you try to do the same with me. Even now I spend more than two hours just to come here. Furthermore such long sentences make my readers become bored and uninterested, so I admit that this method is very inefficient one. By writing like this however, some tells me that my works are very easy to understand and, with a bit of an exaggeration, they say that they get the feeling that they are actually watching a picture or a movie not reading a writing.


         Tools become rusty if you don't use them for a long time or they become sharper as you use them more and more. I think my writing is my tool and now the tool has become dull and rusty. Therefore my immediate goal is to raise my writing skill, to minimize my weak points, and nurture my strong points. To do so, practicing writing over and over again is the most important thing to do. I expect that he 2nd semester's English class will help me get used to writing and make my tool as sharp as before and even sharper than ever.