Where is Waldo, really? (Junior Writing)

     Lots of young kids have probably seen this young, skinny, French character with a striped shirt on. In storybooks, this character named Waldo frequently appears inside the massive crowd, making kids find where he is. This case of finding where Waldo really is, in fact, is not just for kids to have fun. Depending on what Waldo represents, we can expand it to a lifelong and philosophical question.

     We first need to examine the type of situation Waldo is in. As mentioned above, he is in such a crowded environment that it is hard to easily identify him without any careful observation. This circumstance is actually very similar with what modern people encounter within everyday life. Waking up at 6:30 am, office workers head to their workplaces go through crowded subway stations and encounter so many people. If we were able to look down at our lives from the sky, what we see would probably resemble a storybook of Waldo.

     For this open-ended question, Waldo can represent so many things, depending on how people interpret the prompt. Regarding the situation above, however, it seems likely that Waldo is someone with some values we consider precious. People are trying to find something that is valuable from a mass crowd, which, in this case, is regarded as useless background. In any case, the way of finding Waldo will strongly depend on what it represents. If, for example, Waldo is ourselves, then we don’t have to look at our inner being and try to find where we really are or what kind of person we are. It’s not saying “I’m at school” or “I’m on my way home”; rather, having retrospection means thinking about our mental state or relationship with other people.

     If Waldo, in contrast, is not ourselves, then we need to have our focus on the outer world. But do we really need to know exactly where he is? Or is it that as we constantly put our efforts towards finding ‘Waldo’, we naturally succeed in finding him? I believe in the latter. Well, for a kid reading a Waldo storybook, he can just physically match him with the people appearing in the crowd. However, in real life, things are not so simple; we have to experience, do our endeavor, and sometimes make blunders in order to really find out ‘Waldo’ that we have ardently and continuously looked for. To exemplify, for finding a lifelong partner, we cannot simply look passively but have to go through real-sometimes poignant and cruel-experiences. Rather than spending time trying to answer the question “Where is Waldo, really?” passively and abstractly, it is often better to dive in and start the journey of finding him. Life indeed does not have a specific destination. Rather, it is more of an undecided path, so we rather have to live like a floating boat and will somehow be able to reach Waldo.

Take Home Essay (Junior Writing)

Topic: Should uniforms be made compulsory in schools?

My original opinion: No

Many students complain about their school making them wear uniforms every morning. They claim that school uniforms are inconvenient and nothing more than a mere pretense. However, after careful consideration, those students will learn that they have been futilely muttering against a rule that is in fact very beneficial and helpful.

Wearing uniforms definitely provide adequate school environment. Students, especially when they are in middle or high school, can be overly interested in appearances. Adolescents are indeed very sensitive to peers and they pay careful attention to how others look like. Such obsession toward appearances can make students not concentrate on their academics, but rather put tremendous effort on fashions even when they go to school. By making students wear uniform, school can prevent such problem because they would not think about what to wear before going to school. Plus, they would not compare what they wore with what others wore since uniforms are all the same.

Film Review: Ben X (Junior Writing)

A nice reversal

Bullying has definitely become a significant social issue for the past several decades. Especially in recent years, news about students who committed suicide due to the stress of getting bullied frequently fill the front page of a newspaper. Great concerns have risen all around the world in order to cope with this social problem that is related not only with the bullied himself but also with the parents and the surrounding environment.

Regarding the strong social impact, it is of no surprise that bullying is commonly used as topics for various films, literatures and even pop musics. Ben X, a Belgian movie directed by Nic Balthazar, is also one of the films that set its main character as a boy who is seriously bullied by his classmates. This outcast named Ben is actually an autistic boy who has a problem of communicating with others in daily life. In the movie, there is one scene where Ben has his pants pulled down by other boys and becomes naked in front of the video camera. This scene vividly illustrates how severe the situation of Ben is, indicating that he must have been highly stressed by other students who attacks him both verbally and physically. 

For many viewers, the movie can seem quite boring with such a cliché of having Ben, a bullied boy, to commit suicide; but the last 9 minutes of the film changes everything. Everyone in his “funeral” thinks Ben has committed suicide and cries over on the bullying scene. At that moment, Ben suddenly stands in front of the projector, surprising people who previously thought he was dead. The last scene shows Ben and his mother having a good time in countryside, letting the film end happily and preventing it from being too typical. At first, when I only watched one-third of the whole movie, what came up in my mind as a possible ending was Ben killing everyone in his classroom, just like what Seung-Hee Cho did in Virginia Tech; I expected the film to be a tragedy since a lot of bullied kids live such a desperate life. The ending was definitely novel and even works very well as Ben gets healed in a peaceful, calm countryside. By this way, Ben is a hero, though bit unconventional, in that he becomes happy after going through all these struggles.

What I also liked about this film is its use of real Game in the plot. The director Nic Balthazar used the actual scene of the online game called ArchLord. This strategy emphasizes how strong Ben relies on virtual world in order to cope with the stress from the real life. In fact, he is so addicted to games that he does nothing except playing game at his home. As he walk into the school, he considers himself as a game character meandering in a stage. The actual scene and the game scene take turns to show the similarity between two of them. Among what I have watched, this is the first movie with actual game scene inserted, although there are definitely many films about playing games. 

Overall, Ben X, I would say, is a film that well-incorporated the significant social issue of bullying with some creative tactics such as a twist and a use of game scene. I was a bit bored in the middle because I easily predicted what would happen at the end. However, my prediction was proven wrong, and I was surprised but delighted at the same time to see such reversal.

10 Flash Fiction (Junior Writing)

1. Playing LOL in the dorm room. Feeling somebody’s presence behind the seat. Turning back and seeing the smiling face of Kim Dae-Gi.

2. The printer says: “not enough ink”......"Oh no! I've spent all night and even skipped morning exercise for Ms. Choi's homework!!!!!"

3. Sandra was chit-chatting loudly in Korean with her friends on the way back to dormitory from Dasan Building. Suddenly, she saw one boy smiling and texting something in his phone. A day later, Sandra found her name posted on the court list.

4. I decided to take a 10 minute short nap in the bed before having lunch, but woke up after 25 minutes. I ran to the cafeteria to get some pork slices, but they ran out just before me.

5. “OMG I never closed my eyes!” said Peter when the ball rang after the class ended

6. Left my dorm room at 8:01 but soon found out that I left my AP Calculus BC take-home assignment at the room

7. Me and my roommate brought some chickens to dorm room and was eating them delightfully. Soon we heard Kim Dae-Gi’s voice resounding in the corridor and recalled that we have not closed our door.

8. My final grade on AP US History: 89.43

9. Seeing Danny, my best friend, sleeping in the cafeteria, I slapped his head to wake him up. But he was not Danny; he was a senior student.

10. “Wake me up at 7:45”. “Wake me up at 7: 50”. “Wake me up at 7:53”…”Wake me after 3 minutes”…… Then the roommate shouts “Hey! It is already 7:57! I’m going out!”

2nd Assignment (Creative Writing)

Teaching is useless unless you can learn from your students.

by Martin Dansky

           There stands a shabby, gray one-story building next to the abandoned landfill. The star-spangled banner in the schoolyard flaps lonelily in the breeze. The weather is so gray that it is just about to become drizzly. Then a group of students, wearing worn clothes and dribbling basketballs, enters a school building. This is how DeAndre High School, located right beside the slum neighborhood of Los Angeles, normally looks like.

           Katelyn, a 26-year-old young women who have recently become a teacher of Los Angeles Unified School District, are newly appointed to this public school where 60% of students are Hispanic and the rest Black.

“Guys! Watch out!” Katelyn shouted to boys who were standing in front of the main gate.

It is her first day at the school; this young and inexperienced teacher, looking contemptuously at scampish-looking students, tried best to hide her discontent. But it wasn’t easy at all. With such a drawn face, Katelyn entered a freshman classroom B-101.

           “Oh it smells yucky here” she quietly whispered right after seeing a boy with tattoos. Katelyn tried her best to look confident although fierce-looking faces of students were enough to scare this callow teacher.  

--------->so I would like to have a white teacher assigned to a public school in black neighborhood of Los Angeles...so the atmosphere of that school is kind of gloomy and the white teacher is prejudiced about these Hispanic and black students. Then she later learns from one of her students how strongly prejudiced she was.

--------->she assigns a writing homework to students

Flash Fiction (Junior Writing)

     I decided to write metafictions with KMLA setting because I can use my own-or probably lot's of KMLAnian's-experiences. It was such a fun to actually write them haha. So here they are...

While playing LOL in his dorm room, Nicky felt somebody’s presence behind his seat. What caught this stunned boy’s two eyes after a moment was the smiling face of Kim Dae-Gi.

Jane spent all night and even skipped morning exercise in order to complete tremendous amount of homework for Ms. Choi’s English class in 1^st period. Unfortunately, when she connected the printer with her laptop at 7:55, the printer did not seem to work properly.

Sandra was chit-chatting loudly in Korean with her friends on the way back to dormitory from Dasan Building. Suddenly, she saw one boy smiling and texting something in his phone. A day later, Sandra found her name posted on the court list.

Michael was extremely sleepy on the day with such a fabulous lunch menu. He decided to take a 10 minute short nap in his bed before having lunch, but woke up after 25 minutes. He ran to the cafeteria to get some pork slices, but they ran out just before him.

Peter was feeling so sleepy during AP Biology class that his head banging wouldn’t stop. He never thought he closed his eyes, but when the bell rang after the class ended, Peter was so shocked to find himself opening his eyes.

Ben X 1st Review (Junior Writing)

The movie “Ben X” is about an autistic boy who suffers from bulling at school. This boy named Ben tries to escape from the cruel everyday reality by playing online games. Actually, he is so addicted to games that in the movie, he does nothing but playing games at his home.

It is known that autistic people have a problem communicating and keeping eye contact with others. Also, a lot of them have prodigious ability in memorizing information or learning different subject matters, which is quite contradictory to their lack of social skills. These characteristics of autistic child are well portrayed in the movie; Ben has difficulty interacting with other students and seems to be anxious whenever he is in the classroom. At the same time however, he has excellent grades and plays game very well.

As autistic children are frequently bullied at school, the bullying scene was quite predictable. Yet I was shocked, or even disturbed by the part where some kids were trying to take off his cloths and videotaping what was happening in the classroom. I wonder what this boy, who is stressed from all these other students, would do at the end. Maybe he would get extremely mad and kill those who bullied him…

Topic for 2nd Assignment (Creative Writing)

18. Teacher

     In a 500-word scene, have one character teach another character something that changes the teacher.  But this exercise asks you to go another step beyond the first layer of reality.  It should teach you how to play with more than one level in your fiction.  The teacher learning something from her student is surprising, though not so unusual as you may think.  The audience is moved by Rose’s tragic learning curve in the movie Titanic.  Imagine how much more interesting the film might have been had Jack learned something from what he taught Rose, rather than simply dying handsomely.
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some ideas...
-a prejudiced white teacher in a school of a black neighborhood
-a math teacher and a young math prodigy

Academic Film Review: Earthling (Junior Writing)

Decent but not 5 star…

           In a plain-designed one story building, hundreds of cows are stuck in a limited space. Some of them cry ardently, while others stumble as if they have not received enough feeds recently. At the corner, a group of men are moving cows to somewhere else, probably to the place where cows are killed and processed to become a nice cutted meat. This is just one of the numerous scenes that appear on the documentary “Earthlings”, written and directed by Shaun Monson. This 90 minute clip eagerly highlights the need to change people’s attitude toward living creatures by showing undercover videos that were filmed in places where cameras would normally never be allowed. Images are truly graphic, strongly affecting viewers on how our society treats animals in such an inhumane way. The documentary’s effort to raise public concern on the issue of animal rights, which always received much attention, is very clear. With some further improvements, however, the documentary would be able to more effectively contribute to the protection of animal rights.

           First of all, Shaun Monson used some effective strategies in order to raise public concerns in the film. Separating it in 5 parts, Monson shows how animals are treated and used as pets, food, clothing, entertainment and for scientific research. This division into 5 effectively illustrates how animals are used in each of these distinctive fields. Also, the clips are indeed so graphic that they are very effective, even too much, in telling viewers how specifically animals are slaughtered for food and used for various purposes. A comment on IMDB by ‘dushyant chaturvedi’ says “Many of the scenes are more disturbing than any of the movies which contain so called graphic scenes.” Vivid images shown in the documentary were definitely shocking to many viewers, who had possibly avoided knowing how exactly a cow raised in Illinois is processed to become a nicely-cooked steak in their everyday meals. For me, since I have watched many gore videos, the film was not so seriously disturbing except for a few scenes. However, it is probable that many viewers were shocked after watching this film, proving its long-lasting effect on emphasizing the cruelty of human beings in the treatment of animals.

           Aside from shocking images, there is one important question I would like to ask regarding the second part “food”. What is the exact message there (the food part)? Is it that we should refrain from eating meat products and become vegetarian? Or is it just that we should be more aware of how we treat other living beings? In fact, both of these seem to work, but a lot of people and internet websites are quoting this documentary in order to support vegetarianism. This is clearly shown in several vegetarian sites such as NoMeatAthlete or VegParadise. Actually, the Director Shaun Monson himself claimed that he is a vegan vegetarian. If the correct message of the film is the former, I can’t willingly agree with him anymore. In short, eating meat is a truly natural behavior considering that in an ecosystem, for example, species of tertiary consumer such as eagles and tigers eat species of primary consumer. According to the food chain model, human being’s behavior of eating other animals in lower parts of the ladder is very natural. To take an extreme approach, if we ought to become vegetarian, lions should not eat pronghorn and tiger should not hunt for rabbits. This is not saying vegetarianism is absurd; vegetarians would have their own reasons for their course of actions. In any case, the act of maintaining a meat diet is nothing to be criticized. What matters is how we eat animals and how we treat them in the food industry. People can possibly come up with more gentle methods of killing and transporting animals. For example, in Korea, the most widespread method for cow slaughter is using electric guns, which instantly kill cows. However, from the film, a lot of slaughterhouses in United States seem to kill livestock in brutal ways such as beating and poking by knife multiple times. Thus, in order to realistically care for animal rights, we need to think about how animals are killed, not necessarily whether we should eat them or not.

     As concerns vegetarianism, I would say that the film has not affected me very much; however, I do feel some sympathy with the fact that society frequently treats animals without any deliberation or “educated thoughts”. People enjoy animal circus for their ephemeral pleasures but rarely think how these animals are treated behind the curtain. Pierre Parisien, the head artistic director of the circus ‘Cirque du Soleil’ once claimed “We will never have animals in our shows. They are animals not performers, they should be in the jungle.” Looking at how animals are improperly treated just to fulfill human being’s need of temporary enjoyment, I believe people can at least try not to abuse them and provide adequate cares.

           Overall, I would say the documentary Earthlings was “a good try”, although there is surely a room for improvements. The film succeeded in giving a big shock to those who were previously indifferent with the issues by providing violent, but veridical images on how animals are mistreated. One step further, the documentary can be improved by also dealing with solutions, not only just problems. It covers neither how to possibly reduce the amount of whale-hunting taking place in Japanese shores nor how to effectively regulate the fur industry. By giving out some plausible solutions on these current matters, Monson would be able to not only attract people’s attention on the issue of animal rights, but also encourage them to take actions! Indeed, the most important matter is “how to solve”, because we already know “what to solve”. As a common high school student interested in studying life science, I believe Earthlings is decent but two-percent lacking at the same time.