30 things about me!

30 things, just an outline for now.

1. Short

Yes, I am short, one of the shortest amongst the 16^th wave boys, probably in the top ten short boys of the school, and will be one of the shortest when I go to U.S.

Although shortness has been a perpetual agony for me- from not being able to take rides in the amusement park to being the ‘loser’, I’ve made my peace with it. It has propelled me in many cases to speak up because unlike the others who are more apparent just from their height, I have a tendency to be not seen unless I speak up. I actually, thinking of it, benefited much from this aspect- no one fears me, and I am able to approach everyone, both men and women, more easily.

2. Spanish

It is in a prolonged love-hate relationship with me. In fact, it is sore of a one-way relationship. I love it, I hate it, but it stays the same. It never seems to love me back.

3. Name

My father like stars, so I was originally named Seongun, the nebula. My sister was originally Seongdan, as in star cluster. My relatives came to their senses when my sister was born, and rebelled against my father’s rather not-too-great naming sense. Thus, my sister’s name was changed to Myeongun, as in bright destiny. Along with her, my name’s meaning was changed to the destiny to achieve. I like my name. I believe in it, and strive to live up to it.

4. Coming of Age 1

I was a very naïve person until I became the captain of Mock Trial. Arranging the teams for the tournament, I came to realize that my belief that accommodating everyone’s opinion is possible was in fact quite erroneous. To all my possible arrangements of teams, there were always people who were dissatisfied. There were kids that everyone wanted on his or her team, there were kids that no one wanted on his or her team. In the end, a student even refused to go to the tournament at all. I came to realize that I was mistaken, and came to learn the importance of communications. 

5. LID

I hated it: the waking up early in the morning, the repetition of the same scene over and over and over. You, the people who go see a play, have no idea how much time and effort is put into completing a single scene. But when the lights go out and stage starts to shine, when you go out to there, stare into people in the darkness, watching you, with sparks in their eyes, when they laugh at your jokes and actions, when they cry from your tears, you just can’t stop but love it all.

6. Music

There is something about music that affects me more than it does others. The feeling of some cold breeze tickles up my nerves when I am touched by a certain music. It happens when I hear 사무침 play, it happens when I just happen to hear a good song. That is what drives me to keep looking on and on for new music that can give me the same feeling.

7. On selling drugs

The common Korean term, 약을팔다, is used to describe an act of misleading sophistry. I am, perhaps not as good as many before me, but still consider myself a valid medicine dealer. Good speech, I believe, is a seminal part of communication, often more important than the content itself. I believe that the 약팔이 people have established a great role model in that aspect. I shall try to follow their fluency, just with a bit of more honesty.

8. My tics 1

I have a habit of collecting caps from places that I have gone to. I now have a Canada cap, Brazil cap, and a Guam cap, which was made of leaf and soon crumbled. Just this vision trip I bought a P cap, which I still wear fervently to this day. These caps function as something more than just a cap. They are a sort of a reminder for me of the time that I had spent in that place. They are part of who I have been, who I am, and who I will be.

9. Open Book

Much of my life is ‘open book’, so to speak. I don’t think there is an aspect of my life that absolutely no one knows about. In fact, I think I don’t really have any secrets left for me. It’s not that I don’t treasure a secret. I love keeping something to myself. However, on lonely nights with 21 things left to write about, I just have to tell about stuff that is on my mind to someone.

10. My toll with LOL

Addictive as I never thought possible, LOL made it impossible for me to carry on with my life. It was at first crazy how much time it took up, but now I have managed to restrain myself whenever I need to get things done. In fact, I’ve just deleted the file this weekend.

11. My venturing soul

I have since very young age loved the venturing. Looking for new ways around the neighborhood, I ventured the spiderweb-like alleys. In KMLA, Namdo and I went through the mountain behind our dormitory, finding ourselves in somewhat exotic views. Although I may not have gone far, I always find ways to seek things in the vicinity.

12. Story

I love TV series and novels, the most similarity of which are that they have a story. I have a great affinity to story- I just can’t stop it mid-way. I just have to find the answer to the ending. I can’t help myself. But this aspect have helped me in many ways. Through searching for the answers, I have often found new endings for the stories. This life has sort of made the stories much better for me in many aspects.

13. Frugality

I have a tendency to be stingy in some aspects. It is rather absurd, because when it comes to eating something, I am the most prodigious person the restaurant has ever seen. However, when it comes to material spending, on something like cloth and academy, I can be obdurately stingy. This vacation, I didn’t want to pay for the academy so I just studied by myself. 

14. Friends.

I love my friends, they are so lovely.

15. Cello

16. Daegu
I am in total agreement with Mr. Johnson- it is one of the best places in Korea. There is something about Daegu that just feels like home. That even when I am alone, everyone seems like a friend.

17. Communications

I want to talk to you. Do you?
I learned that communications are necessary in all aspects, especially in a place where there are so many great ideas on the table. I want to coordinate different ideas into creating the greatest resolutions

18. My failed Romances

I loved, I failed. 더이상의 자세한 설명은 생략한다.

19. Photography

Before KMLA, I had no idea what f-stop value or ISO was. Camera was just a tool to take pictures of my family when visiting some place. It was in fact out of the most extemporaneous and venturous mind that I suddenly decided to take the digital photography class. I had a hard time figuring out how the machine that I thought I knew so well-the camera-actually worked. But the whole process was as fun as it was difficult. In the end, I, along with others, took over the first floor of Dasan building and had a demonstration of our pictures.

20. Writing a story

When I was young, I wanted to be an author. Ever since I read Harry Potter, I was fascinated by the amount of joy that simply a story could give me. I read it and read it and read it, but then I realized that I could think of other endings that happened in the stories. Once I started challenging the story, I could think of so many things to change. Then I realized that perhaps I could write a story of my own. Since then, I became friends with an author called Edward Lee Fodi. With his help, I attended a writer's camp where I finished a short novella. I've never written a story since, but I still enjoy reading the book that I wrote at the age of 9- it reveals bits of my younger self that I had no idea about at that time.

21. Volleyball

22. On my Sleeping pattern

I love sleeping in the lunch time. When you have the curtains all closed and the lights turned off, the room glooms in an eerie green light- seductive and soothing. When I go up to the bed and throw myself on the soft sheet, I can almost feel my body creaking in a cry of joy. Then 20 minutes passes by in a whim.
But then, my siesta boomerangs back and deters me from going to sleep at night. Not that I mind. I love being awake in the middle of the night when all you can hear is the sound of your roommates' breathing. It is the only time in this school when one can feel some solitude.

23. Fun!

24. My diet

25. Finishing others' sentence

For me, sometimes life is like a sentence completion section. People often have a hard time coming up with the right words for the certain sentences. When they, mid sentence, stop and start thinking about the right word, I just can't help but blurt out the word for it.
I am sorry if it bothered anyone, but I just wanted to help. Plus, this allows me to listen more carefully to the others.

26. Believe in jinx

27. One KMLA weekend
-the power of silence

28. My failures

29. Canada

I used to be quite timid- and hated myself for it. When I moved to Vancouver, I decided that this time would be different. This time, I would not sit quietly and wait for someone to come and talk to me. I decided that I would be the one to take the first step. From the first recess, I joined the football game they were playing. I didn’t know the rules at all, and ended up doing nothing but chasing the ball around, but I never stopped being a part of it. I walked up to the classmates and tried to make conversation out of almost nothing with my poor English. Results? Terrible. Kids didn’t even say hi back when I said hi. But such reaction only infuriated me. I just didn’t want to yield to their indifference. When they ignored my greetings, I kept following them and repeated the same thing until they answered me. I found out the lack of knowledge that kids had in the country of Korea. So I asked my homeroom teacher, Mr. Rickard, to let me teach my classmates about Korea. He accepted, and I prepared a whole presentation about Korea, starting from the letter, the traditional clothes and to its place in the globe. The kids listened in awe and delight, (at least that’s what I thought), and they never mistook Korea with China or Japan again. By the time I had to go back to Korea, I had become an expert player of football, made many friends, and nobody ignored me when I said hi. 

30. Guam with 6 wives