Polycyclic Kidney Disease-AP Biology assignment

Polycyclic Kidney Disease is commonly called as PKD or PCKD and caused by a mistake in the DNA, the basic code of genetics in the body. Basic symptoms of PKD include multiple cysts growing in the kidneys which resemble a small circular ball filled with watery fluid. The cysts in kidney vary in size from pinhead to a radius of 2cm. As disease gets more progressed, each cyst gets bigger and bigger, making kidneys very large. The phenotype appearance of Polycyclic Kidney Disease is Kidneys looking like as if they have numerous small balls stuck together in it. Patients can have dangerously high blood pressure (hypertension), pain in the back or sides, blood in the urine (hematuria), continuous infections in urinary tract, kidney stones and heart valve abnormalities. They also have a high possibility of abnormal bulging (aneurysm) in a large blood vessel called the aorta or in ones at the base of the brain. In short words, PKD is a life-threatening disease. There are generally two types of this disease: Autosomal Dominant Polycyclic Kidney Disease (ADPKD) and Autosomal Recessive Polycyclic Kidney Disease (ARPKD). As it can be inferred from the names of these diseases, individuals with one mutant copy of the gene (PKD1 or PKD2) develop ADPKD and individuals with both copies of the mutated gene develop ARPKD. The occurrence of ADPKD is 1 to 2:1,000 live births and the occurrence of ARPKD is 1:20,000 live births. In fact, Polycyclic Kidney Disease is the most widespread life-threatening genetic disease, affecting about 12.5 million people in the world.

Mutations in the PKD1, PKD2, and PKHD1 genes cause polycystic kidney disease. Mutations in either the PKD1 or PKD2 gene can cause Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD). These genes provide instructions for making proteins, but their   functions are not yet fully understood. Researchers believe that they are involved in transmitting chemical signals from outside the cell to the cell's nucleus. In normal circumstances, proteins work together to promote normal kidney development, organization, and function. Mutations in the PKD1 or PKD2 gene lead to the formation of thousands of cysts, which disturbs proper functions of the kidneys. People with mutations in the PKD2 gene, especially women, typically have a less severe form of the disease than people with PKD1 mutations. The signs and symptoms including a malfunction of kidney tend to appear later in people having a PKD2 mutation.

Mutations in the PKHD1 gene cause Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease (ARPKD). Same as the genes mentioned above, PKHD1 gene provides instructions for generating proteins whose exact function is also not known. Scientists have not found how mutations in the PKHD1 gene lead to the symptoms of polycystic kidney disease.

In the website http://pkdb.mayo.edu/cgi-bin/mutations.cgi, there is a mutation database for Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD). Here, we can find mutation types of each gene causing ADPKD: PKD1 and PKD2. In the case of PKD1, the most common mutation types are frameshift, IVS silent and synonymous. It is also shown that in all cases of frameshift, the clinical significance is ‘definitely pathogenic’; whereas in all cases of IVS silent and synonymous, the clinical significance is ‘likely neutral’. For PKD2, the most common mutation types are frameshift and nonsense. Both types of mutation lead to ‘definitely pathogenic’ clinical significance. It can be concluded that frameshift is the most common type of mutation causing Autosomal Dominant Polycyclic Kidney Disease and it leads to detrimental result.

From the basic concepts that I learned from AP Biology class, insertions and deletions, which are additions or losses of nucleotides in a gene, cause frameshift mutation that generate a serious malfunction. Nonsense is also one of the examples in which serious abnormalities occur. Regarding this in mind, we can easily understand that frameshift and nonsense, which is the most common mutation types of PKD2, lead to ‘definitely pathogenic’ result. On the other hand, we can find out that IVS silent, which is a lower category of silent, generates ‘likely neutral’ result. Considering that silent has no effect on amino acid sequence, the ‘likely neutral’ result of IVS silent is also understandable.

<References>

http://www.kidney.org.uk/Medical-Info/kidney-disease/pckd.html

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/nephrology/pkd.html

http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/polycystic-kidney-disease

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/polycystic-kidney-disease/DS00245

http://pkdb.mayo.edu/cgi-bin/mutations.cgi

Owl CIty-Assignment for my art class

     Among different courses I take in this school, art class, which is taught by Mr. Ahn (Sangjun Ahn) is definitely one of the most awaited classes. In previous semester, we learned some basic Photoshop skills that we can utilize for editing our pictures. Students acquired how to use several Photoshop features by actually applying them to photos we took individually. Although our art class can be seen as somewhat floopy and loose without any feelings of burden, it is really wasting our time if we do not pay attention or just do other things by laptop in the class.

     During this 2nd semester, Mr. Ahn gave us two assignments; the first one was to create parody piece on Rene Magritte’s ‘The Human Condition’ (La Condition Humaine) and the second one, whose deadline was actually yesterday, was to create an album cover of a music artist. So…when Mr. Ahn announced this in the class, I started to think…’whose album cover should I make?? MIKA, Simple Plan, Owl City…all my favourite artists or groups slided through my brain. Hmm…Who should I choose??? During this moment, I was listening to music in my iPhone MP3’s ‘Pop’ list. Suddenly, one of my favorite music, Owl City’s ‘Hot Air Balloon’ turned on, and I was decided. I decided to make an album cover of Owl City, one of my favourite American Pop artists.

     As we all know, an album cover of artists should portray them inside, showing some characteristics of their music. So, what about Owl City? One of the biggest characteristics of his songs is his unique voice and poetic lyrics. His voice is quite soft, and it is well harmonized with such a wonderful lyrics. For example, in the song ‘Hot Air Balloon’ there is a part where it says ‘We wrote a prelude to our own fairy tale/ and bout a parachute/ at a church rummage sale/ and with a mean sewing machine and miles of thread/ we sewed the day above L.A. in navy and red’. Actually, all other songs of Owl City have just these kinds of great lyrics. One should definitely listen to them since it’s a bit indescribable. Also, in most songs, Owl City uses autotune, which is commonly used to give a special vocal effect. Especially in K-POPs, a lot of artists use autotune to snap their voice in the middle of the song; it is quite annoying when autotunes are used too much for this purpose. However, Owl City’s music is completely different. He uses autotune in a way that does not disturb the flow of his voice. Again, it is harmonized well with his own voice, creating a sentimental or ‘dreamlike’ effect. So you can basically get how Owl City’s music are like…but don’t forget to listen to them!

     In order to convey these styles of Owl City, I started to wonder. First, I choosed to use a photo of sky with some clouds as a background image. I actually took some new pictures, but one that I found most adequate was one that I took during last summer vacation. I cut my photos to make it into a square shape and changed its overall tone by using basic features of Photoshop. Then, as you can see from my piece, I inserted a word ‘OWL CITY’. This was actually where I spent most of the time with. Especially, I was struggling with which font to use, but no single fonts in Photoshop pleased me, so I decided to download some nice fonts from internet sites. (If you go to some sites such as www.fontspace.com, you can find tons of fabulous fonts!). After finishing my work with letters, I wanted to decorate my pictures with airplanes (specifically paper airplanes haha), so guess what I’ve done! I’ve just put three paper-airplanes-looking shape. Then, I decorated my cover with a star-shaped brush tools by dotting them on the piece. I guess this assignment is the best among what I’ve done during a year of my art class. How do you think? Well, I am quite satisfied about having completed my album cover successfully! 

20 years later...

Date: 18 July 2031
Weather: very sunny, mild and charming

     After several days of rain, sunshine is finally here! This morning, I woke up in a pleasant summer breeze of Geneva with my 7’o clock alarm. Summer days are so wonderful here. Crystal-blue lake, soft sunshine and vibrant streets…All these make my life in Geneva so magnificent! Well, compared to hot and humid summer days of Baltimore which I had to bear with during my university days in Johns Hopkins, living in Geneva is always delightful!

Today was such a busy day. I had to give an important presentation about new kinds of rare diseases raging in West Africa in front of other staffs in our WHO committee. Since I entered WHO headquarters in Geneva, I have worked in the committee researching rare diseases in the 3^rd world. Last year, several staffs of our committee went to African countries such as Guinea and Nigeria in order to carry out important project. Today, I had to present the progress of our project, so I was quite a bit nervous in the morning.

After arriving at my workplace, WHO headquarter, I prepared and got ready for 2 hours of presentation. At 10 in the morning, as it was all planned, all other people came and I started my presentation with coworkers. I indeed was a bit nervous, worrying what would happen if I do not successfully present my valuable results. After presentation, there was a Q&A session. It was such a hard job to manage answering to all the sharp questions…phew! Thinking of last past days that I stayed up all night, I felt somewhat relieved when this huge task was over. In fact, our presentation turned out to be very successful! During lunch, the chair of our committee praised me for such a sincere work. How great!

Preparing for the presentation made me remind about past years I had spent in Johns Hopkins University. For my public health course, monthly presentation and term papers got me just CRAZY…but from a different standpoint, this course really helped me to deal with such works in my fields. These days, it is such a normal task to contact with regional headquarters of WHO around the world, make a report or carry out research. My tough university life at Johns Hopkins actually trained me to become a great staff in one of the world’s biggest international organization.

By the way, I’m now packing up for my business trip to Montréal. Tomorrow morning, I will depart for Montréal to visit Health Canada(Santé Canada) offices in Montréal and Ottawa. I also have to conduct some interview with local. In Montréal, I guess I have to carry out interviews in French…it might be hard but I’ve continued studying French and  currently living in a francophone city, Genève, I believe my French would be of no problem! Anyway, since it’s already 11pm and I have to wake up at 6 in the morning for the flight schedule, I have to go to bed. Hope my business trip to Canada works successfully!

TED-Lauren Zalaznick: The conscience of television

     We all acknowledge that human beings are highly social animals, even to the extent of making this statement somewhat banal. In other words, communication takes a huge role in people’s daily lives; we talk together, scan through internet news, get curious about other’s lives and go to facebook. Regardless of how we communicate, we interact with people everyday, whether consciously or unconsciously. Among all different means of communication, television is such an pivotal medium considering how much time ordinary people spend on watching television. This is probably why Lauren Zalaznick, a chairman of NBC Universal Media, decided to talk about its surprising and influencing characteristic: being consciousness.

     In her provocative speech, Lauren Zalaznick states that television has a conscience, the complex of ethical and moral principles that controls or inhibits the actions or thoughts of an individual. The underlying, and tenacious reason for this is that television directly reflects the moral, political, social and emotional need states of a nation, being used in the process of disseminating people’s entire value system (In this case the word ‘nation’ would refer to the United States). With tangible statistics and graphs that facilitate the understanding of her speech, she shows how TV had such a strong connection with its society for the past 50 years. For relevant example, in the graph showing a relationship between the employment rate of United States and the number of fantasy-related TV programs, the lines of two variables were shown to be parallel, implying people want more take-me-out-of-reality shows as their everyday life gets harsher.

     The significance of her presentation is that it elaborates TV is not just a stationary, indifferent, gray-colored and square-shaped box that people watch with potato chips grabbed in their hand; rather, it is alive, being a medium which plays a great role in helping interactions between actual society and people’s value system. TV program schedules do change in accordance with what people desire to watch; social-commentary shows were popular during 1970s where Vietnam wars and Nixon administration took place. People wanted more news and judgment-related programs than comedies after 2001 fall. These evidences clearly elaborate how TV maintains strong connections and shares interaction with society. 

     However, during the speech, I was curious and quite skeptical about one thing: Is conscience a characteristic which only television possesses among all different form of media? Aren’t all kinds of media have consciousness? In my opinion, other media such as internet or newspapers are all uniformly consciousness too; conscience is not something that only television has. There are tons of innumerable examples, but to exemplify very lucidly, we can take a look at newspapers during election period. Several pages are dedicated to deliver different information about candidates, voting results and people’s reaction. These are what people exactly want to know about during election period. Scrutinizing through the example, ‘conscience’ is a universal characteristic of all different kinds of media.

     Personally, I was profoundly impressed by the research study that Lauren Zalaznick carried out which prevented her concise speech from being abstract and tedious. She said “We went back 50 years to the 1960 television season. We surveyed the top-20 Neilson shows every year for 50 years, a thousand shows. We talked to over 3000 individuals aged 18 to 70 and we asked them how they felt emotionally.” What a nice research done! I appreciate the effort she had to put in order to complete this huge research. To sum up, all media, including television, is a conscious and animated passage which connects the whole society and its members.

Direction

This is a photo I took 1 year ago, when preparing for KMLA
It was took by my old, non-DSLR camera

Sometimes, I feel like I don't know where I'm heading for

It feels like my direction is lost...

but looking at this photo, I remember how I tried hard in order to come here

with such a straight objective

just like these rails in the photo above

A year has already passed

and during KMLA life, 

I had several moments where I got discouraged and lost my direction 

but from now on,

 I hope I can always have my direction straight and forward

1st reading journal on 'The Body'

     “So anyway, you want to go see it?”

      “We can find the body and report it! We’ll be on the news!”

     The excitement surrounds the boys. They gather together, and decide to begin a journey to search a dead body. This is what the beginning of the story ‘The Body’ is about, with some basic information about main characters, which are boys in this story. In fact, Teddie, Gordie and Chris all have different characteristics that individualize each of them. Teddie is depicted as somewhat weak and intellectually deficient in the story. During his childhood, he gets hit by his father several times, which eventually leads him to become deaf. Gordie is born in a ‘fucked-up family’, from very old parents who experience several miscarried pregnancies. He had a brother, but his brother eventually dies. Chris, a boy who had previously been suspended from school, also gets hit by his dad; he came from a bad family. All these three boys gather together and head for a site where Ray Browser was hit by a train.

     Reading this ‘intro’ part stimulated my innocence of childhood and evoked my memory. When I was in elementary school, I hanged out with my close friends almost everyday after school. We just laughed, forgot about returning to home, and searched for a place where we could play and have lots of fun. At first, I thought ‘Apt Pupil’ is more of a fun, but I believe this adventure story is also interesting enough. Adventures are always fun, and it will be great to follow how the story continues.

Review-Pentax k-r, a nice DSLR

     

     As being a member of “Through The Lens”, one and only photo club in our school, I always enjoyed taking pictures and doing Photoshop to make them look nice. But during couple months of the first semester, I had only used non-DSLR camera, since I did not have any DSLRs. I was wondering when I could buy that fancy, nice-looking DSLR, and in July, I finally bought one after careful consideration. It is “Pentax K-r”, and I want to show my opinion and review on this DSLR, also with how others think about this camera. Well, I’m neither a professional photographer nor a digital camera critic. This review is just based on my personal feelings, as an ordinary high school student who is interested in taking photos. So ENJOY!

1. Design (10/10)

     Many people would question whether design plays an important role in choosing a camera. Well, for me, design really is what I consider very important in choosing products such as cell phones or laptops, and there is no such exception for cameras. In fact, one of the biggest reason that I choosed this model is its stylish and noticeable colors and designs. Almost all DSLR cameras are in black. Nikon, Canon, Sony and etc… DSLR cameras of these brands are all black, offering no other color choice for customers. However, after taking a glance at the advertisement of ‘Pentax K-r’, I was just captivated by its white-colored body and compact design. In Korea, ‘Pentax k-r’ is offered in three colors; Black, white and pink. For me, a great fan of white-colored products, it seemed as a great decision to purchase this model. Plus, the body itself is much smaller to other DSLR models, being so attractive to those who are reluctant to use DSLR cameras due to their big body sizes. Overall, the design of ‘Pentax k-r’ is quite a bit revolutionary, and I definitely recommend this camera to customers who not only care about the features but also pay a close attention to the product’s design.

2. Basic Features-Hardware (8/10)

     Now, here comes the most fundamental and important criteria in deciding which camera to buy for most of the people. The biggest resolution of the image is 4288 x 2848, which is not outstanding but normal, compared to other models in the market. Also, it is possible to take videos by ‘Pentax K-r’, a function that some DSLR does not provide. One great advantage of this camera is its function to prevent ‘shaking hands’ (In Korean, it is ‘손떨림방지’, but I don’t get how to put it accurately in English haha) When taking photos, it is easy to have your hands shaking which makes the resulting photo blurry. Especially in the dark environment where the shutter speed is really slow, ‘shaking hands’ problem is quite annoying. However, the body of ‘Pentax K-r’ has a function of preventing ‘shaking hands’, helping photos to not become too blurry. Compared to other brands in which this function is not included in the body itself but need special lens, this is a great advantage! Above all, I would say that the overall functions are definitely above expectation, regarding its reasonable price!

3. Basic Features-photos (9/10)

     Here, I would like to talk more about the pictures. What I really notice about this camera is that the resulting pictures give a strong, full-of-color and vivid feeling that we do not necessarily need Photoshop processing after taking photos. The colors are definitely well-expressed, but I guess people who do not prefer strong colors could be unhappy with this. Beyond that, ‘Pentax k-r’ has a unique function called ‘Cross Processor’, which gives a change to image’s overall color tone. (Searching on Internet, this function is only provided by the brand ‘Pentax’) I think this function is quite useful to amateur users who want to give some special effect to the photo. Also for people who do not enjoy using Photoshop, these unique characteristics of ‘Pentax K-r’ can remove some burden of photo revision process.

(Can you get how the 'Cross Processor' works?)

4. Overall...

     I do like my DSLR, which has all these nice features...but in all cases drawbacks exist. For example, I sometimes feel that 'Pentax K-r' has too loud shutter sound. Still, If I were to give a score out of 10, I would give 9 to this DSLR model. Well, I hope you guys all have enjoyed my review and this can help you actually decide what DSLR to buy...haha

Belief

We have always held to the hope,

 the belief,

the conviction that there is a better life,

a better world,

beyond the horizon.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt-

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Homeworks, quizzes and all other workloads are demanding these days...

But let's not lose our belief that our life will be full of happiness one day!

Description on myself...

     I resemble a mangosteen, having a soft, sweet skin under the thick peel. Although opening myself to others is not so easy, I become friendly and gentle when I open my mind. Also, I act like a pond, acting sensitive to stimulus. Sometimes, I get too stressed by trivial matters. However, always connected with my surroundings, I continuously have interactions with them. Moreover, I daydream like a poet, imagining my dreamworld whenever I get bored with my reality. My imagination colors this gray world, just like how poet colors a sheet of paper with a pen. 

Cidade (Metafiction)

“WHAT?

My eyes opened. My eardrum vibrates from the sharp voice

“There’s no such guarantee”

“There’s nothing to gain here! You wanna live like this forever?”

The fight started again. Damn…Can’t I just sleep….???Mom and dad???

     Well, for me also, there is no such hope. A boy with a dad working as a part-timer in a Factory nearby Lisbon and a mom working as an odd-jobber in a restaurant is exposed in the harsh reality too much.

“What do you want! Ya think it will change if we go there?”

“Stop giving such a fuckin’ damn shit@#%#@@$!$!!$!@

“Aah!!”

My heart starts to shake from my mom’s scream. Wanna get out of this dirty room and do somethin’ but there’s nothing I can actually do. I KNOW that. My eyes are now foggy. Something hot comes out, and wets my blanket.

Feeling so lethargic.Lying like a paralyzed patient waiting for the death.…

I hear nothing. I hope someone takes me to somewhere.

SOMEWHERE

Somewhere peaceful

The last paradise of the Pacific? Great

Being Santiago of ‘The Alchemist’ and hitting the road? Sure. Why not

I hope to get out of this place, this situation.

I hope to live elsewhere, in any places

I hope to make new friends

I hope to sleep well

I hope
.
.
.
.
.

My family is actually from Portugal. My sister and I was born in Lisbon and lived in that dirty, old city for a long time. I don’t wannna give a damn shit to my birthplace. But it was so hard to have such positive thoughts about Portugal.

A dready winter days, a narrow road filled with gray-colored buildings, a loud horn of old cars, a never-ending decline of economy.

My mom and dad were not so happy about this declining country. So that’s why we finally, finally, after such a long conflict, decided to move to Brazil. Actually, I can’t believe how our damn family did that. We just barely made our ends meet. And how the hell we crossed that vast Atlantic and came here? I dunno. The complicated process is definitely not my interest.

Anyway I’m here

Here

Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Cidade de deus, no street address

Rio de Janeiro. Not too short, not too long. Dunno why, but it just sounds good. It’s called a place with a pleasant breeze. That is how tourists call here. ...They call here one of the three best harbors in the world, but I just don’t get the shit out of it. Here, a place jammed with millions of people, is just an ordinary cidade for our family. By the way, people here call cidade in such a strange way. I’ve never heard of that stupid accent in Lisbon. Sometimes I don’t even get what these people are saying…We are using the same language…Right??haha…Damn

I sometimes do miss my home country, especially when I see the gray statue of Jesus. When that statue is covered with a grating for a repair work, it looks just hideous. VERY HIDEOUS. But I dunno how that actually looks like, because I’ve never seen that. No no…I couldn’t see that…this is more correct. That Jesus statue stands with its back toward our town. What I can only see through the dirty window of my room is the back of the statue. 


I hope to see the face of the Jesus statue one day.
I hope to go to the top of the statue
I hope to see how this city looks like
I hope

Today was really chilly and gloomy. I mean it. The yucky sandwich made me feel even gloomier. But my feeling is not important. Anyway I have to wake up at 7 and do some works to have our family ends meet. That is, giving out some papers with advertisement to some random passerby. 

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To mention first, this story is not finished completely and will further be modified and added until it is completed.

This fiction is about a boy living in a favela of Brazilian city, Rio De Janeiro. Favela is a similar concept with Slum. Plus, the word 'cidade' means city in Portuguese. Basically, the main theme of this story is a miserable life of people living in favela. I will try in order to finish this story as soon as possible, but won't rush.

A reading journal on Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

     ‘Tout s’en va, tout passe, l’eau coule, et le coeur oublie.’ This is one of the short sentences written in the page right before the one where ‘Hope Springs Eternal’ starts. Written by Flaubert, one of the greatest French writers, it means everything goes away, everything passes by, water flows and the heart forgets. After translating the meaning of this sentence in my head, I started to wonder. “Does this sentence have any relation with the novella ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’?” I considered the flow of the whole story, which is basically about innocent Andy jailbraking from Shawshank, a prison notorious for its rigorousness. Then, I found out that the clause ‘Tout s’en va, tout passe’ has a thread of connection with the story; since a liberal translation means everything passes and goes well in the end, it makes sense regarding how Andy successfully managed to jailbreak in the story. ‘L’eau coule’, which means water flows, is a poetic clause which also has a same meaning. Then what about ‘Le coeur oublie’? I guess after something goes well, it is later forgotten by people, even though it seemed so important at such moment.

     Solving such a puzzle was quite interesting, but more than that, we need to think what made Andy’s jailbreaking successful and eventually made everything go well. I definitely believe that the answer lies on 'hope'. As it can be noticed from the title ‘hope springs eternal’, the main theme emphasized in this story is having hope. Although it somewhat seemed impossible to escape from such a notorious jail filled with criminals who have previously committed heinous crimes, Andy never lose hope of jailbreaking. If Andy did not have any hope, he would do nothing to escape from Shawshank. Especially from the scene where Andy digged the prison wall by a hammer in order to make an exit, we can definitely feel that Andy had a strong conviction that he would, one day, get out of the prison and rest peacefully under the sunshine of the Pacific ocean.

     The importance of hope is also reflected well in the Movie ‘Shawshank Redemption’. However, several differences exist, which I think emphasised the importance of hope and dramatised the whole story. First of all, there were three wardens in the book, whereas in the movie, Norton is the only warden. Norton, in the movie, becomes much more devil-like, even killing Tommy. While Norton is depicted as an evil character, Tommy is more naïve and hard-working compared to how he is depicted in the original story. He studies hard and finally passed the test, but gets assassinated by Norton. These changes-making Norton more evil and changing Tommy into more innocent character-make story more dramatic, thereby making the plot more emotionally moving. In fact the main theme about the importance of not losing hope is indeed emphasised, regarding that Norton’s more devil-likeness means harsher prison environment. Plus there were some events that books cannot easily deliver; one of them is Andy turning off the music ‘Figarro’s Marriage’ without getting any permission. In the book, it would be hard to deliver such event effectively.

     Personally, I prefer watching movie, since it moved my emotion a lot, compared to what I felt after reading the original novella. Especially, watching Andy meeting Red in the coast of the Pacific Ocean gave me such a strong emotional feeling. However, I still believe the book and the movie has its own advantages, so both of them are great!

A response to Kim Ki Duk's movie (In-Class assignment)

     There are a monk and a boy living in a temple surrounded by pristine and clean nature. Animals, streams, lakes are what they always encounter in their normal days. In this setting, the monk and the boy have to know how to be in accordance with their surroundings, which is mainly nature in this film. Ass it is widely known, one of the important principles that Buddhism emphasizes is the harmony of human beings and nature. Following this notion, in this film, where the settings and the characters are somewhat Buddhism-related, several clues let us know that Buddhist philosophy is reflected in the movie.

     Most importantly, a Buddhist thought of emphasizing the harmony with nature is deeply reflected. At the beginning of the film, the monk uses a small, wooden boat to cross the lake, this boat moves by paddle, without making any turbulence to its surroundings. Also, throughout the whole story, the characters maintain to live without giving threats to animals or plants. The monk, for example, became bit disrupted when he found out that the boy had played with fishes and frogs in somewhat brutal manners. After noticing what the boy has done, the monk penalizes and punishes him,. By looking at these evidences, we get to know that the idea of harmony with nature is reflected in this set of film.

     Not only that, the idea of thinking in others perspective and respecting them is shown in this film. We can see this through the punishment that the monk used in response to the boy’s act. What they boy has done is to bind animals such as fish and frog with white strings.

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     The writing above is what I have written in about 25minutes as IN-CLASS work. It is actually about 280 words....haha as you can see I did not manage to complete my 2nd body and conclusion. Now I  have definitely learned that  time management in my writing needs an improvement.

A mysterious dream

     There was one boy who seemed to suffer from nightmare everyday. Everytime he sleeps during night, he sees a very old building that is not inhabited or cared by people. Inside that building, there is one elevator which seems to appear in horror movies. One night, in the dream, the boy pressed a button, and the elevator started coming to the 1st floor.
     Finally, the elevator arrived. The door opened so he stepped inside. It was too late when he found the elevator was not there. Because it was only the 1st floor, he did not get hurt from falling onto the bottom of the place. Then a sudden noise came from above. He looked up and saw the dropping elevator coming at him
     Then he opened his eyes. He was sweating and felt pressure that seems to hold him. He couldn't move.
     On first thought, he thought he needed a cup of water to drink. Unfortunately he couldn't do that. He still couldn't move. Desperate, he tried to wriggle in his bed, but his body was still. "It must have been a tough night. I gotta pull myself and get up."
     As he put effort on moving, he could feel the strange pressure on him. He concentrated. He said to himself "dream is just a dream". With full effort he stood up. Finally! The boy promised to himself that he would no longer feel afraid of nightmares. Singing, he jumps out of bed.

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     The text above is a result of my chain writing, without any modification (each paragraph was written by Sunmo-me, Keeryun, Dohyun, Chonghyun and Minwoo).

Can euthanasia be justified or not?

     About couple months ago, one news article about Euthanasia controversy was published on New York Times. Mainly, it was about Ms. Nyirahabiyambere, an African living in U.S. as a foreigner, who had to rely on a plastic tube for nutrition after she became a human vegetable by a sudden stroke. Although no improvements were made by the treatment using a plastic tube, the family including Mr. Ndayishimiye strongly disagreed to remove plastic tube from Ms. Nyirahabiyambere. There were ongoing conflicts between the court and her family, on whether plastic tube should be remained or removed. After several clashes, the tube was finally removed. This case is a typical example of issue regarding euthanasia, which is the practice of ending a life in a manner which relieves pain and suffering. Regarding this, the news mentioned above can be generalized into whether euthanasia can be legalized or not. In fact, this topic has been a controversial issue for a very long period of time and ongoing clashes about euthanasia are still taking place in many countries, including Korea. In my opinion, Euthanasia should be legalized by the law, considering the fact that its benefits further outweigh its drawbacks and problems.

     First and foremost, legalizing euthanasia can remove financial burden for families who take care of patients relying on life-extending apparatus. In many cases, patients have to pay extreme amount of money on retaining such tubes and equipment. Also, it is not sure whether patients will revive from vegetation status, with a very low probability. If removing these equipment although patients are not likely to get recovered is not allowed, families have to pay tremendous amounts of finances for a long time. In other words, families have to waste their money on tasks that are almost impossible to be solved. Therefore, by legalizing euthanasia, families of these patients can get out of serious financial burdens. Some opponents might raise a question about the possibilities of abusing euthanasia in sinister purposes. They claim that the concept of human life can get severely devaluated and as a result, practicing euthanasia can be related with illegal organ trafficking, which is selling person’s organ illegally in order to make a profit. Not only that, doctors can order to operate euthanasia without careful examination, because of the nuisance process. However, this problem can be solved by strengthening the supervision of the process. Providing rigorous standards on hospital and prohibiting the access to the process of euthanasia, except doctors and medical agencies would be a plausible solution.

     In addition, euthanasia fully ensures patient’s right to die comfortably and keep out of pain. Patients are exposed to severe pains when their life is artificially extended by medical equipment. If the purpose of these medications is merely a life extension, it is very meaningless considering all the pains patients can receive. Also, patients have rights to decide whether to die or remain their life by life-extending medication, since it is their life, not doctors’ or families’. Maybe, some will argue that it is not clear whether patients want to give up their life or not, after they are in a state of vegetable. Because patients are in a state where it is impossible for them to communicate, it is obviously impossible to know their choice. Again, this statement can be rebutted by a possible solution; making it mandatory for citizens to sign up for agreements on euthanasia. When signing up for medical insurance or becoming an adult, governments can have every citizen to agree with documents stating that euthanasia would be practiced when they are in a vegetal state and have almost no possibility of revival.

           To sum up, it is absolutely reasonable to legalize euthanasia by the law without any shadow of doubt. As it is mentioned above, euthanasia removes the financial burden for patients’ families and provides patients right to die comfortable without any pain. Although there is still an ongoing conflict, nations that have not yet legalized euthanasia should be urged to allow it, which can both help patients and the whole society.

Our education in crisis

     There is one boy in the class, who is well-rounded, gets a good score on school exams, but is so sick of the pressuring school environment. What he sees in his ordinary school life is students penalized and hit by teachers and teachers giving out offensive comments to students. He is not interested in asking questions, or giving out his opinion, since a fear of making mistakes surrounds him. His interests only lie on getting a good score on tests and not getting recognized as a troublemaker by teachers.

     This is how I was used to be when I was a middle school student, even until 1 year ago. The coercive boys-only school environment was what made me afraid of talking to teachers and presenting my opinions. I totally sympathized with my heart when Robinson said “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will not be original”. I actually was afraid to be wrong during my middle school life since I would get penalized or hit, and this really prevented me from giving out my own personal opinions which could have been creative. In fact, when I came to KMLA, where there are a lot of ongoing interactions between students and teachers, I was somewhat reluctant to share my opinions or ask questions freely.

Unfortunately, this is a reality in many ordinary Korean schools, although my middle school was more serious. There is no such environment suited for enriching student’s creativity; especially in high schools in Korea, teachers are only interested in making students enter top-level universities. When going down streets, people can easily notice big banners where high schools show off their students’ successful college admission results. This is how education is like in vast majority of Korean schools. Creativity is not required; students must succeed on admission tests, without making mistakes and fallacies. Parents are also what exacerbate this situation. They are desperately interested in what sort of universities their kids enter. In short words, nobody who is engaged in the whole system of education is interested in raising student’s creativity.

Most important reason, however, lies on Korean society as a whole, not on individuals such as parents and teachers. Korean society had experience such a great and unprecedented development in economy, during 1960s to 1990s. A skilled worker was in great need, as mass production of goods was significant to economic development. As Robinson claimed “industrial development gave an importance to subjects such as math”, Korea was of no difference. Plus, uniformity and standardization, which are concepts directly opposite to raising creativity, were highlight. Considering opinions of individuals are useless for mass production, it is obvious that creativity was shadowed by the need to implant unified knowledge to students. Some people claim that this social development is a universal phenomenon that took places all around the world. However, Korea went through this stage very rapidly and recently unlike any other countries. Therefore, our society tends to neglect the importance of creativity more seriously.

Now, what is the importance of creativity? We should bear in our mind that 21^st century is when service industry is the main industry of a whole society. Fashion, advertisement, arts and tourism, which all needs creativity is some examples of service industry. Nobody likes to wear clothes that are ordinary and banal. Nobody is attracted to such a dull advertisement. A lot of important jobs in contemporary society require one to have a creativeness, an ability to create new things that possesses value. Some people would wonder if their children is not going to enter any design schools or apply for auditions, getting a good score on mid-term exam is the most important task. However, let’s say there is a professor who teaches biology at university. If his lectures are boring and repetitious without any stimulus that interests students, he would become unpopular among them. Also, if his researches are not novel, then his papers would fail to attract any interests in the field of biology, where numerous theses are presented day by day. This just elaborates how creativity does work in most jobs of 21^st century.

Luckily, I believe KMLA’s situation is much better than any other ordinary schools of Korea. Most importantly, the ratio of teacher to students is much lower than normal Korean schools, where 40 students are sitting in single classroom. In other words, students have more chance of communicating with instructors, which can lead students to develop their creative opinion. Also, teachers in KMLA are ready to listen to students’ own opinion, whereas in many Korean schools, teachers are just busy at finishing the assigned pages. For students, they can find themselves engaged in diverse club activities, which is related to sports and arts. These activities are not just nominal, but help student learn who they are and find their own individuality. It is true that KMLA students, or KMLAnians face a wall of university entrance just like ordinary Korean students. Nevertheless, I think life in KMLA is much more suited to enhance students’ creativity.

From a young student’s view, a lot of things seemed so different when I first attended Canadian school. Entering the classroom for the first time with a bit of tension, I noticed that tables are all in different shapes and arranged in a position which makes it easier for students to have discussions and communications. It was contrary to what I had seen in Korea, where all schools are designed same with gray-colored and square-shaped classrooms which have 40 identical chairs and desks. The classroom itself isn’t yet sufficient to encourage students think creatively. These trivial things directly show how creativity is devaluated in Korean education. Without any shadow of hesitation, I strongly believe if Korean society does not seek its way to raise students’ creativity, its future is hopeless without any competitiveness.

A controversy on KMLA’s new meal time policy

     From beginning of this new semester, KMLA’s disciplinary office had changed its policy on student’s meal time. Traditionally, the 3^rd graders who are the oldest among students, had a privilege of eating lunch and dinner first, and then the younger students including the 2^nd and the 1^st graders could get their meal. This policy had taken its place solidly in KMLA until the last semester, but it is now changed. Since the 3^rd graders seem to abuse their privilege in order to get much food regardless of the amount, the head of the student disciplinary office, Mr. Sung, had claimed on reformation.

     A new meal time policy is that the order of getting meals will be rotated with an interval. Also, younger students will get their meal prior to older students in the first few days of the 2^nd semester. After one interval ends, students who previously ate earliest will be placed last in the order. For example, 1^st graders ate lunch and dinner first, then 2^nd graders, and then 3^rd graders were allowed to come to cafeteria for their meals until September 7^th. After September 7^th, when one interval ends, 2^nd graders can eat first and 1^st graders are the last to eat their lunch and dinner.

     As expected, the new policy has stimulated a controversy over many students. Seniors, of course, were the ones who fiercely disagreed with this modification. Since they had previously obtained priority on getting meals, they somewhat felt that they have lost one of their privileges which they should naturally receive as the oldest among all students. A senior Kim Bum-Soo has claimed that there is no such reason for changing previous meal time policy. He said “no differences are made by changing the orders of receiving meals, and for showing a respect towards older students, previous meal policy should be reinstalled”.

     There are a lot of different opinions among sophomores and freshmen. A sophomore Kim Chan-Jung said, “there seem to be a lot of complains regarding this new rule. If the purpose of this policy is to make every person get proper amount of food, school should rather make every student not take food more than the proper amount”. However, one of the 1^st graders Kim Seung-Min insisted “seniors should definitely be respected, but it is not logical that they should be exempt from the rule just because they are busy”.

     About two weeks have passed since the installment of new policy regarding meal order of students. Although a large proportion of students show disagreement, Mr. Sung seems to advocate this policy, saying it would be observed unless the 3^rd graders change their attitudes and consider other students who may have not gotten proper amount of food because of them. At this point, whether the new policy will remain solidly is quite unsure. Above all, however, it is true that all students need to think of others, and respect cafeteria etiquettes so that everyone can get proper amount of meals.

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     This is what I have submitted for applying Harbinger, an English newspaper club which is mainly organized by students of special-purpose high school (it's a kind of high school like KMLA). Since articles in newspaper have to remain objective, I excluded my personal opinions, except saying "Above all, however, it is true that all students need to think of others, and respect cafeteria etiquettes so that everyone can get proper amount of meals". Personally, I like this new policy because it feels like everyone is being equal; but as mentioned above, who knows this policy will be continued or not?

My 1st writing....about myself

Being honest, I did not have a lot of chance to take a look over my previous writings and think about what kind of writers who I am. What I mostly did was writing essays on and on especially in previous semester when I had to do tremendous amounts of writing that Ms. Choi assigned. I agree that it is still important to write a lot on different topics, whether it is about literature, social argument or even daily life. However, introspection of what I have written is as important as, or possibly more important than ‘writing’ itself. In fact, I really appreciate this chance of looking over what I have previously written and thinking about what writers I am.

     Obviously, people possess unique characteristic that differentiate them from others; it is also obvious that people have their own writing styles. For me, I usually write in a simple and concise manner, without any wordy vocabularies or complicated paragraph structures. Maybe, this is due to the fact that I do not know a lot of sophisticated words. However, I believe using fancy words all the time just does not help readers grab my intention and understand my writings. From my view, the priority on writing is to effectively deliver your opinion to readers, since writing is one of the ways of communication. This is basically why I use simple, but easy-to-comprehend styles in my piece of writing.

     As I have mentioned in previous paragraph, one of my strengths in writing is that people clearly understands what I am trying to say or deliver. I have seldom had people who asked for interpretation of sentences or clauses that I wrote in my essay. There are some students who have a philosophical thought and writes lengthy sentences in their writings, which might be hard to understand for other people. Compared to these students, I definitely have the strength which makes my essay clear and easy to comprehend.

     However, I acknowledge that my English writing is on its way of improvement and still has a lot of weakness. As shown above, I write in simple and concise manners, which is one of my strength in writing. Nevertheless, this simple style of my writing is also one of my weaknesses. Sometimes I want to express my thoughts in more eloquent and elaborated way, but it is not easy since I am very used to simple writing styles. To improve this, I have to read other’s essay more and emulate good expressions or way of writing, as there is a proverb “Imitation is the mother of creation”. Plus, I would like to write more naturally in English, since English is not my mother tongue.

     I definitely look forward to this English composition class, since I previously took your Digital Storytelling class. I would make sure that I try hard as in order to improve my English writings and my overall English skills which needs a lot of improvement. Personally, I really like writing about issues that I am interested in. For example, I wrote a term-paper for Mr. Johnson’s class in last semester about Linguistic Imperialism because I am interested in different languages in the world.(see http://rnjstnsah123.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/term-paper/) Writings related to literature such as literary journals are not my top interest. However, I do want to work on and learn about how to write a good book report during this semester by reading novel ‘Different Seasons’ and doing some writing activities on it. To be honest, I don’t want Wordsmart vocabularies to take a large proportion in this course. Although vocabularies are important, there are plenty of writing related actives that students can do. By the way, I hope this English class works out fruitful for me, all of the other students and also you, Mr. Garriorch!