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. 

My Childhood Trauma revised (Junior Writing)

     You wake up by a warm morning sunshine shining your bedroom curtain. You get ready to go to Kindergarten as usual, preparing some lollipops and snacks for your friends. As the fickle weather of early spring chills the ground, you get out your thick jacket from the top of the wardrobe, barely by stepping on the tall chair. You call your daddy who drives you to the Kindergarten everyday.

     The kindergarten is in the 2nd floor of a gray colored building.

     2nd floor.

     NO it isn’t.

     It feels as if there were 10 floors between the lobby of the building and the entrance of your cozy kindergarten. The overwhelming number of stairs that connected the first floor with the second one is like a pit of frightful hell you must pass in order to reach a heaven.

     After dozing off for couple ten minutes, you arrive at the building. You are quite scared, thinking how awful it is to climb up each stair that made you so nervous.

     “Daddy…” you said in a shrinking voice

“Again? What makes you feel so uneasy that you cannot go up by yourself?” Dad replied

“uhmm…just…it’s so scary….” You answered

     Holding your dad’s hand firmly, you take a deep breath, and start going up the stairs one by one. The scariest thing was that the stairs were right aside by a huge glass window; as you glance at the outside view, your heart beats faster and your hand becomes more filled with sweat.

     ‘I might just fall! I can’t take my step’ you shuddered with fear

     After passing such obstacle you see your friends playing and chatting happily in the snug little room. You can then finally say goodbye to your daddy who might-or has to-come to the second floor again to escort you down.

     Back then, you were a small 7-year-old boy who feared climbing up stairs by yourself, especially those in your kindergarten building. Every moment of going up made you feel insecure, as every electron gets unstable when it goes to the upper electron shell. Maybe you were just a boy who had a light acrophobia, considering how you got especially terrified when you looked the outside view through the window glass during your ‘climbing’. Anyway, when you were young kindergarten kid you always needed someone-your daddy, brother or even a stranger-to safely usher you to the heavenly playground. It was also the same when returning back to home, now having to descend the stairs.

     Going down the stairs was even more fearful than going up. The interval of each stair seemed so huge to merely a 1-meter-tall boy. Sometimes you succeeded in climbing up by yourself, but never did so when descending. Your legs literally quivered out of such apprehension about tumbling down or twisting your ankles. When the needle of the clock hanged on the pastel colored wall of a cozy kindergarten room headed number ‘3’, you suddenly became anxious, imagining how terrible your return-to-home would be today.

     How poignant this trauma is? Well…you, now grown up as a 17-year-old teenager, can even remember exactly how the outside view through that window glass looked like. Though it might look quite silly to others, memories of going up and down the stairs are definitely unforgettable in your life. In fact, whenever you go through stairs with banisters, you do remember this threatening childhood experience. Don’t you?

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Park Sang Eon’s comment: It was a good essay and I especially liked your expressions. For instance, you described how insecure and unstable you were by making an analogy to an excited electron. Also, the grammar was almost perfect.

The Martian Chronicles quotation (Junior Writing)

"Suddenly it was not a theory."

-The Third Expedition-

     After he lands on ordinary ‘American village’ and meets his parents and brother, Captain John Black lays down to go to sleep. He suddenly starts to suspect that all his family members and surrounding people might actually be Martians, who have lured the crew of 16 men. Black then becomes very frightened, thinking all these village people might reveal their real figures and kill 16 men from Earth. Suddenly it was not a theory.

           I really liked this quote because of the strong tension it brought to the plot. Captain Black was very suspicious about his brother who was laying right next to him and other village people. I was in fact curious about whether these people are actually Martians or just families and neighbors of Black. Especially, I just couldn't take my eyes off from the book when Black got off from the bed and tried to go out of the room. His thought was not a theory. It was a truth. All 16 innocent men from Earth including the Captain were killed by cruel Martians that night. It felt as if I was watching a well-made horror movie especially when Black ran away and died in scream. Captain’s ominous presentiment was indeed more than a theory; it was eventually proven true by his horrible death.

My Childhood Trauma (Junior Writing)

You wake up by the warm morning sunshine shining your bedroom curtain. You get ready to go to Kindergarten as usual, preparing some lollipops and snacks for your friends. As the fickle weather of early spring chills the ground, you get out your thick jacket from the top of the wardrobe, barely by stepping on the tall chair. You call your daddy who drives you to the Kindergarten everyday.

The kindergarten is in the 2^nd floor of a gray colored building.

2^nd floor.

NO it isn’t.

It feels as if there were 10 floors between the lobby of the building and the entrance of your cozy kindergarten. The overwhelming numbers of stairs that connected the first floor with the second one is like a pit of frightful hell you must pass in order to reach a heaven.

After dozing off for couple ten minutes, you arrive at the building. You are quite scarred, thinking how awful it is to climb up each stair that made you so nervous.

“Daddy…” you said in a shrinking voice

“Again? What makes you feel so uneasy that you cannot go up by yourself?” Dad replied

“uhmm…just…it’s so scary….” You answered

Holding your dad’s hand firmly, you take a deep breath, and start going up the stairs one by one. The scariest thing was that the stairs were right aside by a huge glass window; as you glance at the outside view, your heart beats faster and your hand becomes more filled with sweat.

‘I might just fall! I can’t take my step’ you shuddered with fear

After passing such obstacle you see your friends playing and chatting happily in the snug little room. You can then finally say goodbye to your daddy who might-or has to-come to the second floor again to escort you down.

Back then, you were a small 7-year-old boy who feared climbing up stairs by yourself, especially those in your kindergarten building. Every moment of going up made you feel insecure, as every electron gets unstable when they go to the upper electron shell. Maybe you were just a boy who had a light acrophobia, considering how you got especially terrified when you looked the outside view through the window glass during your ‘climbing’. Anyway, when you were young kindergarten kid you always needed someone-your daddy, brother or even a stranger-to safely usher you to the heavenly playground. It was also the same when returning back to home, now having to descend the stairs.

Going down the stairs was even more fearful than going up. The interval of each stair seemed so huge to merely a 1-meter-tall boy. Sometimes you succeeded in climbing up by yourself, but never did so when descending. Your legs literally quivered out of such apprehension about tumbling down or twisting your ankles. When the needle of the clock hanged on the pastel colored wall of a cozy kindergarten room headed number ‘3’, you suddenly became anxious, imagining how terrible your return-to-home would be today.

How poignant this trauma is? Well…you, now grown up as a 17-year-old teenager, can even remember exactly how the outside view through that window glass looked like. Though it might look quite silly to others, going up and down the stairs are definitely unforgettable in your life. In fact, whenever you go through stairs with banisters, you do remember this threatening childhood experience. Don’t you?