Good Bye to Everybody

I cannot believe we spent 4 months together and only one week is ahead of us.... Going to education building in the morning and seeing you guys have become my daily life, and I would feel weird to stop the habit of going to ELI and seeing you guys. I believe most of you are heading back to your own country and I am not attending the next section. I always liked Tuesdays because we are in lap, and I felt somewhat special every Tuesdays. And Lap days are over now, I won't have another lap with you guys... haha this makes me very emotional. T_T It was very, really, tremendously nice to meet you guys.. Your English skills are all awesome, and you will have a brighter future thanks to the skills you have learned in Vancouver. I was lucky to have you guys as a classmate.. :)... Hope to contact with you guys in any form; skype, facebook, e-mail, or even hand-written letter. Best wishes for all of you !!!<3

Nathan, I will always miss your not-funny-at-all-jokes (LOL) you always made and your mustache. You helped me greatly in learning English, and not only the skills of English, you also taught about such good  topics and my sight has been broadened by your class. Yet, I don't think the end of this class means the end of our seeing each other because I will keep coming to ELI to meet my friends and CAs, and you! :) Best wishes for you and your beloved wife and cute little kid :D See you around <3

London Riot and Destructors

They both show how cruel the inner heart of human could be. In destructors, they do not have any personal feelings for Mr.Tomas, but they focus on destroying his house completely. No rational human being would understand such behaviors since it is hard to do such hard-labor-taking work even when someone has a deep hatred for the owner of the house. There are lots of photos that make us shocked regarding the London Riot. London is one of the oldest and respected cities in the world. English people are usually considered as "gentlemen". However, the London Riot showed the exact opposite aspect of them. Many  faultless people got hurt, and the old buildings they were proud of got burnt.

In high school, I learnt about the theory that human nature is fundamentally evil persisted by Hobbes. I was not quite the support of this theory, but having read about the Destructors and seeing the photos of London, his theory seems like it gained support. Even the so-called-gentlemen of London could behave like monsters when chance shows up. However, I still wish that the theory of Hobbes is not correct, and that human being has much more decent aspect than evil aspect.

Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory

There are many cognitive traps that obstruct us to think right about happiness. The first trap is that the word happiness is used to refer too many notions; the second is the confusion between experience and memory, and these are both lumped in the notion of happiness; (and I don't understand what the third one meant.)

He focuses on explaining the notions we think are the same, but actually they are very different. Exeperience and memory are indeed two different entities, but we tend to consider them as the same thing. To clarify the difference between experience and memory, the division between the experiencing self and the remembering self is necessary. The experiencing self is the one that lives in present, the very moment we are doing something; on the other hand, the remembering self is the one that remains and maintains, and it is the one that plays much more vital role among two. Lots of things differ in terms of which point of view (self) you use to explain. The purpose of his lecture was to give people some kind of sense how much it is difficult to think straight about well being.

2001 : A Space Odyssey interpretation

This movie is one of the most difficult movies I have ever watched. I believe most of us would agree on this. If I did not watch this movie with my classmates and Nathan, I am pretty positive that I would never have finished the movie, and plus, I would be much more confused than I am now. I was somewhat confused when the movie started, not only because I had to wait for a long time for the title and the theme music to go away, but when the movie did start, the main characters were apes, not human. The title of the movie includes the word 'space', so I expected something about technology, or at least the setting would be in modern days. However, instead, the apes, which I would rather call monkeys, but due to the subtitle 'The Dawn of Man', I should call them apes, appears.(I am not sure if this sentence makes sense) Now I believe that 'The Dawn of Man' part is skillfully made and is absolutely needed for the whole story, but I have to sat that I was quite bewildered that time. I was thrilled to see the scene of the ape throwing the bone, and a space shuttle showing up suddenly. This scene is referred to as one of the most well edited scene, so I have heard about it even though I I had no idea which movie it was. After the apes touched that monolith, they became to know how to use bone as a tool, and after billions of years later, human were able to go to the moon to find another monolith. I am still bit shocked how Stanley Kubrick would come up with this idea that the start of us being scientific was a single use of a bone, and also how he succeed in showing it with a single scene (a bone turns into a space shuttle).

Weirdly, I do not have much impression to the second story. Maybe the first and the last stories were indeed shocking, so relatively the second one was not that memorable. It is somewhat funny because I did not notice that the second story was over when the third story started. I was confused why there became two characters, and a machine called HAL9000. I wonder why Kubrick did not insert subtitles between second and third story.  HAL is considered as the most evolutive machine ever. Dave and Frank, and three scientist who are hibernating are leaving for Jupiter. HAL9000 is considered as the 6th crew of the journey since it is highly intellectual so could possibly be considered as a human being. I think it is quite ironic that in the bible we read in our class, shows that human beings were made on the 6th day of the creation, and in this movie, HAL9000, the creation that human made is considered as the 6th crew of the ship. I think the sequence when Dave turns off the operation of HAL was very memorable. HAL keep talks to Dave to stop doing it, and its voice is very calm and slow as usual. If it were a real human, it should be sound very nervous and shouting to Dave, but instead, it keeps saying "I am dying Dave"  in very calm voice without showing any feeling. I think that this means a machine can never become just like human no matter how much it is developed. 

The movie is very consistent, meaning that the ending of the movie is not easy to understand either. I was baffled when I watched the man grew older on Jupiter. It was not until later that I found out that the man was Dave. It feels like there are two people in the room, but actually it is not. It is just Kubrick's outstanding way of revealing the story in a very extraordinary way. I believe that it is almost impossible to understand what the huge fetus at the ending scene means if we did not know that the movie is inspired by Nietzsche's book 'Thus Spake Zarathustra'. The baby refers to Uebermensch, the new man kind after the present human being. Maybe this was the reason why 'they' sent the monolith to earth in the first place, to create a new man kind. 

I found very interesting and very agreeable statement while I was searching for the video clips. It said : 

The 99.9% of the people who watched this movie in 1968 said "wtf was that?!", 

the 99.8% of people who watched it in 2011 said "wtf was that?!"

Sorry for the language, but I could not agree more! It is definitely true that this movie is difficult to interpret, and even if some do succeed in understanding it, the interpretation differs from person to person! 

2001 : A Space Odyssey

As the title is really odd enough, I thought the first part I watched today was as idiosyncratic as the title. I did not recognize that the movie file actually contained subtitle because..... there was no line until the creepy apes ,that I would rather deny me [should this be I?]being their descendant, made this loud noise to scare off other apes. It was not until I saw one of the ape using a bone as a tool that I realized I have heard of this movie before. I remember it quite accurately; it was when I was in prom school to study for korean university entrance, and there was a short cartoon that referred to this movie in a practice test. I recall that the answer to that problem was that thanks to the ability we could use a tool, we evolved since then and came this far- to space shuttle. I do not know where on earth this story is going, but I have to say that I am very interested.

The Painted Door

I am now doing a short story project in my reading class, and I chose to present about this interesting story written by Sinclair Ross, a fairly-known Canadian writer. It is not a very short story since it is seven pages long with little space between the lines and its letters are very small too. However, the length couldn't deter me from choosing it; it was that intriguing story for me. I wanted to share this story with my writing class as well. (Guys who are in my reading class don't need to worry because we are in different group so that Momoko and Cheiu also don't have opportunity to get to know this story!)

The story probably takes place in Saskatchewan, famously known as Canadian prairies. A married couple Ann and John live there as farmers, where the nearest neighboring is 5 miles away. It is one day when there are some signs of snow storm coming up, and John insists to go see his father and help him with chores despite the objection of Ann. He leaves house promising that he will drop by Steven's house and ask him to come over since Ann will be lonely, and also to come back that day however severe the storm would be. Ann feels very lonely and bored about her marriage life because of the lack of communication; John works twenty four seven, and thinks that sacrificing himself to buy Ann pretty clothes is his duty, while Ann needs a husband to talk and love with. She keeps herself busy by painting their bedroom door trying not to think about her rebellious feeling of the marriage. Then, when the horrific blizzard started, Steven arrived. She kept saying that John will be back even during this terrifying storm, but she could not help sleeping with  John. However, she discerns that John is the one she loves after committing adultery. Next day, John's frozen-to-death body is found less than a mile away from his house. She gasps when she founds a smear of paint in his palms. (Remember she painted the bed room door? John succeeded in coming back to home in the deadly storm, and finds about her adultery so chooses to die than to confront her.)

How great a story is this? I felt some kind of shudder at the ending of the story. I love stories of great irony such as "The necklace" or "Christmas present". No wonder I chose this story despite the long length and difficult vocabularies! :) I really enjoyed searching more deep sub-meanings and skills that the author used to make the story more firmer. I recommend you to read the story since it works as a good material to study english as well.

Denis Dutton: A Darwinian theory of beauty

What is the experience of beauty? Many people say that "Beauty is in the culturally conditioned eye if the beholder". But is this true? Denis argues people all around the world consider certain scenery as beautiful, no matter what different cultures they are from. Some might argue that it works only for natural beauty, not for artificial ones. However, people find beauty in something done well. Acheulian hand axes made 1.4 million years ago, which Denis regards as the earliest art work, not as butchery, looks beautiful even for today's eyes. 

I don't quite get his logical point how he links Darwin's theory with how we define beauty.....T_T

Art Gallery

It was a quite small gallery, actually none of the student expected it to be so short field trip, and I'd love to do another filed trip if it's like this, haha.
It's too bad that I was so sleepy that day, even though I have no idea why I was so tired. I would have seen it better if I were not that sleepy... Anyway, despite the sleepiness I had, I remember the killerwhale sculpture the most. I was thinking that it looks like it will fall down to the front since it does not seem like so balanced, but it was so stable. Then Nathan took words right out of my mouth and talked about it! I thought my idea was so childish, but it was good to know that Nathan also felt interested by the same fact.
Another one that I still remember is the one that has lots of faces in a clam and a bird is sitting on it. (Is this right...? I can't quite remember because I was almost sleep walking... :( ) It was interesting how Bill had some sense of humor in his artifacts. I will always see the picture on 20$ bill and think about the real one that I saw.
The ones that he made in his late ages while he couldn't handle his body due to the disease, also looked nice. I think he did a very good job on making the wires into some kind of shape if we consider that Parkinson's disease had made him lose the sensitiveness of his own hands. I like how he made a woman's figure with her breast :D and an eagle flying straight down to his prey.

Not much time left....

I have realized that this 4-month-long course is already half way through, and actually almost only 1 month is left toward us. That means it's already been 5 months since I came to Vancouver. My first course was UBC LNC course. Unlike IEP course we are taking, it was only 1 month course; however, I became emotionally attached to friends that I met in the class. I cried a lot when I had to send them back to their countries. I still keep in touch with many of the friends, but my feelings are not as deep as I was in the past. I think that proverb "Out of sight, out of mind" cannot be more true. I always feel uncomfortable and awkward when I have to start off my new life. It was same when I started this course, but now, I cannot imagine leaving UBC with some of the friends going back to their country and some of them remaining in UBC.

I always thought that this 4-month course is so long that it felt like it will never come to the end. I was feeling okay when the mid term was over because I still had half left in front of us. Now, only having 1 month left, I feel somewhat anxious and sad. It cannot be as same as just now if this course gets to its end even if I can stay in ELI, but there is a prominent chance of me having to leave ELI and go to another school in Downtown.... This stream of thoughts make me miserable.

Change is good. A life without any change is just a boring rut. Change can make people active and aggressive. Nonetheless, nobody wants to change. They want to cling to the routine they had until now. I know that I will get used to the new school that I might go after this school, and I know that I will somehow deal with how to let go my friends back to their country, and I know I will love the casual university life I will have when I go back to Korea. But, God, How I wish I could take all the favorite parts of life in Vancouver to Korea and never let it go.

Bad Teacher -Nathan

Ah, the title is just a silly joke Nathan, I am just kidding :D!! I watched a movie named Bad Teacher, and after writing the title down, I instantly and unconsciously wrote down Nathan's name after it, haha.

One of my friends loves to watch movie, and he goes to movies at least twice a week. He also likes watching the movies he liked again and again. I wanted to watch the bad teacher movie ever since they showed the trailer of it, and the friend I mentioned above recommended me that it is a quite good movie, so I went to watch the movie! The reason I craved for this movie was, first, because the casting was interesting. I am not that interested in celebrities, so I don't know many of Hollywood actors. However, there were 4 actors that I knew who came out in this movie! Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel, Justin Timberlake, and Erik Streetstone! Second reason I wanted to watch this movie is just because I like romantic comedy movies. :)

The movie was great i think. Assuming that the 15 minutes of the movie in the middle that I missed because I remembered that I left my jacket in washroom so had to run out of the theater to look for it, didn't totally changed or destroyed the movie. I wouldn't write the story or consequence here in order not to become a spoiler for those who want to watch it. The main plot is that Cameron Diaz does everything that make herself a bad teacher, and she is eager to have a brand new tips in order to seduce a rich man and get married. What I felt strong, and not only me but all my friends as well is that..... Cameron Diaz is very old now T_T. She has all these wrinkles under her eyes and that made me feel bad...

I am planning to download the movie in my laptop and watch it again with subtitle because I couldn't get the funny jokes in the movie perfectly. I felt stupid when everyone in the theater laughed so hard but I couldn't laugh since I didn't understand, so it would be good for my english! :)

Comparison between Genesis 3 and Prometheus Bound

Although The 3rd section of Genesis and the Prometheus Bound look like they have nothing in common, they actually have some similarities. God in Genesis, plays a very similar role with Zeus in Prometheus Bound. They are both masterful and authoritative male figure, who are somewhat cruel and know no mercy. They punished the figures who tried to help and give a knowledge or technology to human. Also, both stories have the figures who try to awaken people; the serpent plays the role in former story, and Prometheus does the role in latter story. Serpent is described as very sly animal that tries to seduce Eve to eat the fruit, while Prometheus is depicted as a hero who risked himself to help people. In spite of the difference in how they are described, it is true that they both helped human get out ignorance and help them have fire so that they could evolve. In addition, the people whom they help are also something in common. In Genesis, Adam and Eve are the people, and they are almost like protagonists, however, in Prometheus Bound, people do not appear clearly in the story, but they are just told that they exist.

Canada Day :D

I had lots of plans for the Canada day, three things on the list. First of all, I was planning to go to Stevenston, Richmond, to enjoy the salmon festival, but not so early in the morning. I wanted to go there after having a sound, and long enough sleep since i didn't want to miss the opportunity to wake up late on non-school-day. So, I woke up in 10 o'clock, and prepared to enjoy the holiday. This was my first time to go Richmond by public transportation, and it was quite far away then I expected. We needed to take a bus to sky train station, and then take sky train to the very last station, and then take another bus to Steveston. Since I am very dark at finding the ways and directions out, I just followed my trustful friends who led me to the festival well enough. There were lots of things going on, for example, some games people could play with coupons which was kind of expensive so we didn't use any of our money to play it although it seemed quite fun. Despite the name Salmon festival, there was only one shop that sold salmon barbecue. We had our lunch before we found the salmon shop, so we didn't try it, haha. Instead, we did have cotton candies,which was so pretty pastel colored, and we all felt like we went back to our childhood. We carried ourselves to the sea afterwards. I have seeing  sea on everyday basis since I live on UBC, but the sea in Steveston was bit different from the one in Vancouver, it had many small boats floating on the sea, and it wasn't a beach that we could jump in and have fun.

After coming back to Vancouver, I had a concert of Britney Spears! Also, Nicki Minaj came and gave us a show before Britney. I haven't heard of her, but she was indeed a good singer and performer. I have never been to a concert before, so it was very fascinating. One thing that I didn't like was that Britney performed many new songs, but I only know her famous old songs, so it kind of made me hard to follow the songs. I first knew her when I was 10 years old, while me and my family were in England, and she was the best at that moment. She was young, charming, beautiful, and no dirty scandal was made at that time. I had some chances to look at her rather closely, because my seat was somewhat close to the side of the stage. One thing I felt was she is quite old now. She wasn't the pretty girl that I always recalled when I thought of her anymore. However, her performance was very showy, a lot to amuse my eyes with. Her dancers were also very skilled, especially the guy dancers; they had such a great body and were dashing *o*!! 

Difference between 1st and 2nd accounts of the Genesis

There are some differences between the first and second accounts of the Genesis, even though they are talking about basically the same story, how the world became to be like present form.

First of all, the designation of God is different. In 1st account, simply the term 'God' is used ; on the contrary, specific God's name, 'Yahweh God' is used to refer to God in 2nd account. This can be a important clue to identify the writers of the stories.

As their designations differ, so do their ability. In 1st account, God simply creates everything by speaking. For example, there comes the light right after the God says "Let there be light". His ability seems to be more able than 2nd account's God comparing that he actually does things himself to build up the world. He breathes, forms, plants, and builds the world up instead of just speaking the words to make it done. 

Also, 1st account is more carefully and deeply planned and were wrote than 2nd account. In  other words, forethought is revealed in 1st one, while rather improvization is found in 2in one. If you examine the 1st account carefully, you can find some details that makes the story look more neat. 

Lastly, there are differences in evil points of each account. First account gives a false conception that human can have a power to dominate the nature. Due to this story, human have been destroying the earth nature for their own good. On the other hand, 2nd account makes a woman out of the rib of a man; she misunderstands the saying of God; she is the one that makes Adam and herself to eat the forbidden fruit and therefore get punished by the God. This whole thing makes woman look inferior to man, and due to this,  women had been treated unequal to man in many cultures.

Kia loves drinking :)

After having a two-day mid term, I had a long time to rest from Wednesday to Sunday. Wednesday was ELI club night, so I went to club with all my friends, and I drank a huge amount that day. I had various kinds of alcohols as well, from vodka and tequila to rum and whiskey! I totally drank more than my limit, and I suffered from hang over the next day. One of my friends video recorded me being so loud and non-stop-talking while I was drunk, and it was really fun to watch drunk Kia that I couldn't remember. To be honest, I like being drunk very much. I don't like drinking alcohol itself because it tastes very bitter, but after I get certain amount of alcohol, I feel so happy and joyful. This is quite different from my father, since he enjoys drinking on daily basis, not to be high like me, but just enjoys drinking itself. It's very usual that he drinks some alcohol with his supper. Maybe I inherited his fond of drinking in a different way. :)

I am very lucky to have some friends that can take care of me here. I have two best girl friends here, one from Korea and another from Japan. They are not very heavy drinkers, so they don't get crazy like me, and take care of me while I do crazy things along the street! Also, they live near my house, not so near but at least we can take the same bus, so I could go home safely even I am drunk.

In Korea, if I went out to have some alcohol, it was 90% so-ju (Korean alcohol). It's about 20% alcohol, and it only costs 2 or 3 $ for one bottle. In Korea universities, freshmen really have a lot of parties in their first year led by seniors. I remember paying about 10$ to drink out in a pub with my friends. However, in Canada, it costs much more to drink in pub, and you get less drunk! Everything is much more expensive in Vancouver, so it would be natural that the price of alcohol is high too. It has one good side though, I don't drink as much as I drank in Korea here, and it's good for my health!

Women are a Christmas cake.

There's a notorious saying about women's value that I've heard from my friend; Women are like a Christmas cake. They both are precious until 25. Christmas cake becomes more valuable up to December 25th when it is needed, but after the Christmas is passed, it's value becomes nothing and it is needed from nowhere. Women, also gets prettier and prettier until 25 and men are eager to chase after them, but after their age of 25, they start to get older and to have new wrinkles. It really is an awful metaphor to make women's value as nothing after their age of 25. Now, I have reached my age to 22 in Korea. I am 21 in Vancouver age, but next year when I go back to Korea, I have to become 23! I believe that metaphor is just a piece of rubbish and the first person to have said that statement must have said it as just a joke. However, it already has came into my brain and it occupies a small part of the brain, and whenever I think about my age, I remind of the metaphor as well. The Sunlight in Vancouver is so strong, as strong as 7 times compared to that of Korea, I got some extra freckles, and I feel that my skin isn't as good as it was in my teenage! 

Would my value drop after age of 25? I hope, and believe not. I mean, there are tons of beautiful, successful, and stunning women who are over 25! I would like to just change the metaphor that women are a Christmas present. Their value do not drop just because it is the day after the Christmas. They get more valuable and more precious as time goes by because the present is something you receive from someone who cares about you. Women might lose their youth as well as beauty because that's what is called 'natural'. However, they get wiser and more elegant, which women didn't have in their younger lives. I will not be afraid of getting old and loosing my attractiveness because I am a Christmas present. :)

Things I do to help me studying.

It's been long since I studied seriously... (Even though I call that I am studying english right now while I am typing this blog, I'll think of studying as the one I had to do back in university tests since it was more of harsh work and less fun than blogging a post.:) ) I don't really have a very good concentration and I always get interested in other things that are on my table. For example, not to mention my laptop, a book that I would never read if I weren't studying can easily attract my attention. Even a graduation year book of junior high school that I would never open because of the lousy photo of me wearing outdated glassed and having too straight hair, could make me interested when I am studying. This is why I never study at my house at my desk, instead I usually go to library or somewhere else that I can see only what I brought, and therefore no more distraction is happened to me!

In addition, I try not to listen to music while I study. I do use them when I am fed up with studying after 5 hours of cramming, just for 30 minutes while continuing studying. It makes me bit more energetic and refreshed. I normally wear ear plugs in order to prevent me from distracted by the sound of door opening or whispering sound of other students around me.

My tips for studying are basically the methods not to get distracted since I am diverted easily. I believe studying is a matter of concentration, and therefore not to be distracted is  a key point of studying!!

CREPE!!

Haha It looks so great, is it?? (Like talking to children as we learned when watching "Being there" :) )

Yesterday was hockey day, which we won, and therefore only one win left to the cup, me and my friends went to "Cafe Crepe" on Robson st to celebrate the game by having something pretty and awesome to eat! The main food there is crepe, but they have variety of foods including salads, burgers, pizzas, and all kinds of drinks from coffee to cocktail.

Have you ever tried crepe before? For me, it was the first time to try it, and I loved it so much. (For some of you guys who know that I'm on diet - I only had a bite for each different kind of crepes...! .....yeah I know I shouldn't have eaten it . T^T) There are so many different kinds of crepes, literally like 100 kinds, because you can choose whatever ingredient to put inside your own crepe. I tried three kinds of them, one with only egg(not good, don't try this one), one with maple syrup and vanilla ice cream (my favorite >_<!!) and one with dark chocolate and strawberries. All of us had such a great time, but we had to leave because there was a huge line in front of the store with people in Canucks uniform, even though it seemed like they wouldn't mind waiting since they were so happy that the Canucks won!

I looked up the internet about crepe since it caught my attention with it's great taste, and I found out that crepe is very popular and common in France. The meaning of crepe is "like silk", since the pancake that wraps the ingredients is so thin! Some claim that the origin of the food is from China because crepe looks similar to Chinese pancake, but the prevailing opinion is that it is from ancient Egypt. In France, crepe is often thought as a good meal with ham and some other heavy ingredients, and this is quite far from our conception of crepe which we consider them as a nice dessert! The concept of crepe as dessert started from Harajuku, Japan, in 1977. They started to put things that are sweet such as syrup and whipped cream, and it happened to catch people's attention as a great dessert!

Whooo I got hungry looking up for the photos of crepe and talking about it!! If you have never tried it, I highly recommend that you try it someday. It costs about $4 for the very basic with only an egg inside or just the butter, and it goes higher and higher as you put many other things inside.. I think about $6 or 7 will be adequate enough to enjoy the well-harmonized crepe :).

Personal Response to Being There

I really much enjoyed the movie, and it actually made me laugh out loud! I wouldn't have laughed much if it were not for Nathan, who kept paused the movie and explained the implying meaning. It was delightful to see this innocent guy becoming so famous and people starting to admire him, but on the other hand, it seemed to be nonsense that his status being surged without getting caught. He even talked with the Russian embassy and was considered that he could speak Russian, which he obviously can't, and he didn't get caught either. 

You can tell how much I was into the movie by this, I got so nervous when the rich man's wife started to love him and started to seduce him. If he gets involved with her in that way and gets caught, he should be kicked out of the house and the plot line of his life would start to decline! Also, I felt a pity to the woman since she desperately wants Chance, but he knows nothing about those kind of field and she must have felt so confused and a bit ashamed! 

The CLOD and the PEBBLE & Hills like White Elephant

The poem shows how love has two opposite features at the same time. According to it, love can "build a Heaven in Hell's despair", while love can also "build Hell in Heaven's despite". In the short story, the theme is more likely about the evil side of love that the poem talks about in last stanza. The man and the girl are having heated discussion about choosing between having an operation or not. The man, who seems to be much older then the girl, doesn't want to have a baby, but the girl does. The baby can be thought as fruit of sweet love. Instead of having a right discussion that leads to fair decision, the man uses no pressure pressure to manipulate the girl. This is absolutely a wrong side of love, which builds Hell in Heaven't despite, and the girl decides to leave the men realizing this fact. Also, the man struggles to move the baggages at the end, which symbolize a burden in his mind. At first, this couple would had only great pleasure with each other like the first stanza of the poem. However, one of them ended up in a situation where he has to use no pressure pressure, and the other ended up where she is manipulated, which refers to last stanza of the poem.

Hills like White Elephants

I wish Nathan hadn't told us that this whole conversation is about abortion. I wonder if I could have got it by myself!! Usually, I am slow witted, so when I read, I notice facts that we have to read between the lines very slowly. I had no idea that the operation meant abortion until Nathan told me!
I liked the story because it didn't have much of difficult vocabularies or complexed sentence structures that hinder me from understanding the context. I could enjoy the story as much as I wanted! Also, the story was almost described with conversations, so it was more interesting.
I am not sure what choice I would have chosen if I were the girl. I think that the real world we live in isn't that easygoing and it has many dirty, disgusting obstacles that make people discouraged. So, I can understand why the man wanted an abortion. However, I can't really understand the feelings of the girl because I haven't had a chance to carry a baby, and I heard that it feels quite sacred. But, I think the girl's choice of leaving the man (we can read between the lines) is a right decision. She shouldn't stay with the man that tries to manipulate her, using "No pressure pressure", even though the man loves her. That is a wrong way of loving somebody!

A very short story.

I really felt nervous before I got to read the last short paragraph. I expected that Luz would not end up marrying the major of battalion, and she would live the rest of life regretting the decision she made. However, I was right that Luz didn't get to marry the major, but I was totally wrong that the protagonist contracted gonorrhea and became much more miserable than Luz. Maybe I was too used to the stories that good triumphed over the evil.
I wrote Luz as an evil, but she is an evil only when compared to the protagonist. I don't think she was particularly bad woman at all. As I am now in Vancouver for one year, I am kind of out of my routine life in Korea, and therefore, my way of thinking became quite freely. I would had thought Luz is the evil woman if I read it before I came here. However, I believe I grew up to be more mutual, and I can understand some odd situations better now.

Oh I don't know what I am talking about now... I am too tired today T^T Sorry for a mess piece of writing...... See you tomorrow <3

Comparison between General Tien and Hsueh Sung

  Although both are the Generals of the same period, they rarely have similarities between them. First of all, by seeing that Tien gathered a new force to invade Hsueh Sung's land, we can tell that he is very aggressive and progressive. He knows what to do to make himself comfortable. However, even though his own land is invaded, Hsueh Sung doesn't know what to do and just worries about it. Therefore, we can tell that he is a man of passive personality. Also, approaching from the other side the fact that Tien invaded Hsueh Sung's land for his own comfort, we can see that Tien is an inconsiderate man; he cares only about himself. On the other hand, we can tell Hsueh Sung is a considerate man by the facts that he let go the wife-dead-drummer in the beginning and Red Thread Maiden at the end. Next, Tien is a rather independent man because he doesn't have any adviser to help him but himself, whereas Hsueh Sung is rather a dependent man who has Red Thread Maiden to help him all the time. Furthermore, we can assume that Tien cares about material things by the fact that he has the luxurious golden box and sword. Hsueh Sung, however, seems to be an artistic man seeing that he likes to listen to music and poem. Lastly, Tien is dynamic and round since he changes at the end whereas Hsueh Sung is flat and static because he maintains his character till the end.

Fun Weekend!

On Saturday, me and my friends gathered in front of H mart (Korean supermarket!) and shopped for ingredients for cooking! One funny fact - I met Shanida in the market!! It was so good to see her outside the campus.:) One of my friends lived by himself in downtown, so we all went to his house and cook! We made Okonomiyaki, Dduck bock ki, and Ubuchobab. These are Korean and Japanese popular food! 

The food all tasted so great and we spent wonderful time together. We had stomachache because we laughed too much lol :O

Here are some pictures that I PRETEND that I am cooking haha 

The Gold Mountain Coat

In her short story, "The Golden Mountain Coat", Judy Fong-Bates explores the tensions of immigrant life in Canada in the 1950's. There is only one Chinese family in the narrator's town in Ontario other than the narrator's. Sam Sing and his two sons, John and Ken, manages a the Chinese restaurant. Sam is a person of blunt personality, and he is very stingy about money that his two sons only have one wear and tear coat to share. Not like Ken, John is a married man and his family is in China. After few years of hard working, John manages to get a permission from the government that his family can come over to Canada. Sam permits his sons to close the restaurant to pick the family up in the airport. The problem is that they had only one coat in the cold weather. John and Ken concludes that they need one more coat and they plot to ask Sam to purchase one. They figures out that Friday is the best day to tell Sam because the business on Fridays usually went well. And on the decisive day, John asserts that they need a new coat only to find Sam's face becoming stiff. Ken blurts out that that they need one because John's son will need it when going to school after growing up, so three people can share two coats together. Sams face breaks into smile after he listens to Ken.

the relationship between writing and speaking

  Both writing and speaking are a way of delivering your thought.

  For me, speaking makes me feel more comfortable than writing does. I think it's because speaking is our daily lives' task. Especially in my case, my characteristic is rather outgoing, so I have few problems when I speak. However, when it comes to writing, it is more difficult because I don't have as much chance to write as to speak. Furthermore, I can't use either of my facial expressions or body language to convince my readers when I write!(Well for nowadays, people use lots of emoticons to show their facial expression on internet when they write. However, for formal writings, we can't benefit from using them!)

  I don't try to write the way I speak. In fact, I try not to write in the way I speak. If I record me speaking and then dictate it, it would look so bad and there would be too much mistakes to read without difficulty! Fortunately, I can look up for some words that I am not familiar with when I am writing. My sentences tend to become more complicated and sound better than I speak.

  Basically, as I wrote at the top of the page, both speaking and writing are a good way to express your thoughts and feelings. As they are both means to convey your opinions, there can't be a huge or significant difference between them. However, there exists some subtle differences, and I feel more comfortable with speaking than writing for some that subtle differences. Maybe I have some sort of fear in writing unconsciously. :(   

   

My thoughts about writing!

To tell the truth, I don't have much interest in writing things.

Well, I had to keep my diary when I was in elementary school as an everyday homework. 

So I struggled to reflect on my daily life in order to do my homework (I was fairly hardworking  student and I always tried to keep up with my class and homework).

Ever since I graduated my elementary school, no teacher would force me to write everyday diary, so I had no reason to struggle every night thinking what to write, and that made me so comfortable. 

In conclusion, I am a kind of girl who tries to avoid writing whenever possible, so I seldom write. Plus, I didn't have a blog until Nathan made me make one today so I really haven't had a place to write online. Well I do have the Facebook and the Cyworld (a kind of a social network like Facebook that you can keep in touch with others which is famous in Korea) account but I don't use it as a place to write on. I usually use them as means of uploading pictures and writing short notes to my friends. I don't think I can classify that as a writing!

Actually, I don't think I contemplate much everyday. I dislike being serious about the world and I don't consider much about the world's hot issues or problems. I think I am just too busy taking care about my own issues and problems. Maybe this might be  the reason I don't write my diary - I don't have much to write on!