7.Creative Essayabout where you’ll be in life in either 10, 15, or 20 years from now. Must be written in First Person narrative as if you are experiencing a particular day at that time.
12.06.2026 (SUN)
It was a cold day today. As always, I just got back home from curing South and North Korean citizens who are mentally disturbed, but not mentally sick. They are suffering from the aftereffect of the Korean Unification War that happened in 2023, when I was 29 and just back to Korea after getting the Ph.D. Degrees for political psychology at Stanford.
At the time when I was getting into Swarthmore as a freshman, double majoring in politics and psychology, I could never expect this kind of situation at all. I dreamed of myself at UN, working as a diplomat. I have spent my young ages just for studying, for almost ten years. It was inevitable for me- excuse me- to be a bit indifferent about what was going on in my own country. Thus it was such a shock for me to learn there was a war going on. Perhaps it was because I left Korea because I felt certainly unpatriotic toward the country where the riches literally ruled the whole society. Well, still I am a professor now, at Korea University. But I spend majority of time to counsel and cure those mentally affected people. It’s a volunteer work, just to let you know.
The one that I met today was a North Korean woman in my age, perhaps a little older than me. Compared to other people that I have met for three years, she was quite close to normal. It was just that she couldn’t really look into people’s eyes when having a conversation. She told me that she keeps remembering her sister’s eyes, who died while coming down to Seoul from Pyeongyang. For this kind of case, I cannot really do anything except for soothing her grief and praying for her to get better soon. She left as soon as we made our next appointment at my office.
Since that was the only meeting scheduled for this morning, I left my office to have lunch together with my husband Kyle. Kyle’s office is right next to mine, so we can see each other whenever we can. If I say I want to see his face even right after seeing him, that’s a lie. We had lunch at Panera’s, talking about my patient in the morning. Again just to let you know, he doesn’t do any volunteer work; he is a hard working professor unlike me.
After the lunch, I had to run as fast as possible because I had a lecture at 1:00 p.m. Although I am not concentrating just onto my job as a professor, giving lectures to my students is always fun. I try to be as “just” as possible, and to “awake” the students, since I remember how helpful my chemistry teacher was for me to realize the need to reform the rotten society long time ago. It feels so good when they ask me such radical questions. Even though Korea is already unified, there are more serious problems left here.
I had some time to read books after the lecture. It is the most pleasant time when I am reading a book alone in my office. The most recent book that I read was “The Body” by Stephen King. I still remember I had to read that novella for my English class when I was a freshman at KMLA. Though I have read it for over ten times, whenever I read this story, I feel calm and pleased, trying to get a stream of memory on my highschool friendship.
The peaceful reading time is always short. I had to meet two more patients in order. But it doesn’t really matter since I love this work too. Those two were friends, and had the same phobia. They were both afraid of something sharp because their parents were killed by knives that South Korean soldiers used, accusing them for being “Reds”. My patients said they get to think of those knives whenever seeing a sharp material. I cried, thinking how cruel a human being could be.
Every day after the meetings, I try not to get too angry at the cruelty and wickedness of human beings. I don’t think I have changed at all. I have thought the same and felt the same, at least in my mind, since I was a teenager. I am happy that I didn’t change. And I hope I don’t change even when I get older and richer. Please god.
5. Review a TED video of your choice (not Ken Robinson), and include aminimum of 20 SAT words within your writing. Underline them in bold. If you want to use more without sounding ridiculous, you are welcome to try. Select them carefully before you write.
Required
Whenever Granny tells me how much she is confused of the high digital technology, I have been having this obsession that I should not be like that since I am a young adult who is living through the 21st century. To be candid, I have felt the same way as Granny does. All I can do is to use my laptop to do my homework and get on Facebook, and my Android phone to text message my friends and play with game applications. Though people call my generation as the one that will lead the future world with enhanced science and technology, I have been indifferent and ignores about anything related to digital technology. That’s why I got really interested when I saw this laudable sixth-sense-technology idea by Pranav Mistry on Ted.com.
The main idea of Mistry was to combine the digital world and the real world by taking some objects from the real world into the digital world. This might seem quite obscureto understand by words, but it’s actually a very simple idea. For example, when you have a piece of paper, you get to put anything on there just by moving your fingers in the air. If you want to put a picture of your friend on it, you can just click the face and drag it superficially into the paper, in reality! What is even cooler is that you can even augment your friend’s face, using Photoshop, again with your fingers, on the paper itself. In the video, Mistry showed his own experience in decomposing his mouse(as a computer device) and made that into a cool device in which he put it on his hand, and when he did that, the motions of his hand was shown on the monitor as 3D motions. Actually, this kind of technology is used in action-movie film making process, such as the movie called Avatar.
While watching this video, I could remember my own example of digital-and-real-combined machine. I first thought of this idea when I was in fourth grade. I was doing my tedious math homework at the library and was very frustrated with some complicated questions. The answer sheet was too ambiguous for me to understand; I called my mom, whom I believed to be an innately perfect mathematician. However, I could not get any point through a phone call. I wanted someone next me to teach me whenever I wanted to.
At that time, I thought of a machine, which not only has a function of scanner and fax, but something that we can also write on it. What I mean by “writing” on it is different from just writing on a sheet of paper or typing on a laptop; it is a combination of both! If I put my math textbook on the machine, someone on the other side, such as my mom, can get the image of it and write on it through the machine. And when she does that, the things that she writes on the machine, is shown on my textbook automatically. Although I consider it to be one step lower than the idea of Mistry in a sense that I still thought of “machine”, where he thought of just combining the digital world and the real world directly with the objects themselves, the basic idea is quite similar. I was happy to hear Mistry being resolute about developing this kind of technology very soon, thinking I might be able to make my own machine that I have imagined long time ago, someday in a near future.
Another thing that flashed through my mind while watching the video was a novella by Bernard Werber, which I cannot remember the name of it. It was about a man who could get all the information of a person, on that person’s body, just by looking at it. Mistry had a similar example of this idea. When we look at an object, we get to know everything about it. For instance, when we have a train ticket, we get to know the pathway, delaying time, and everything. I was astonished while imagining how wonderful it would be to learn about all the things as soon as I see them. It would deter people from squandering their time by expediting their routines. The only problem that rose up to my head was the privacy issue. But I believe it would be innocuous if that function works only on objects, not human beings.
Overall, I was very impressed to find someone who is brilliant enough to not only get the idea, but also scrutinize objects near him and try some experiments on them. I loved how he had tons of examples to make it lucid. I almost revere Mistry now in a sense that he is not really planning to make any new machines, but is just simply trying to combine the digital world and the real world. It is not just an abstract idea of a crazy scientist anymore. It is more likely to be inevitable in a near future. I am looking forward to stare at some food in the cafeteria and get all the information about it very soon!
3. A Review. You are allowed to review anything you want – a book, movie, video, album, game, restaurant, hotel…. Just about anything. You should have personal experience with that thing, and supply factual data to dress up your writing (Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon, IMDB, and Metacritic etc). React to opposing or supporting reviews that might add to your response. You must include a rating system. Stars, thumbs, out of ten or our of five, A- or C+ etc.
Required
“All rise, Kookki eh daehan gyeongrye, sit.” Starting with the phrase as always, the 26th court held in the Dasan Auditorium, however, was done quite differently in a good sense. Wise time management and some educational comments would be the main reasons why so. Though some of the students’ attitude could have made the mood of the court a bit aggressive, overall it was all managed pretty well.
Time management is one of the most important factors that decide how it felt after attending the court. The 26th court was very efficient in managing the time. It was partly because there was comparably few people accused that week and partly because Mr. Sung was more generous that day. According to the 26th Court List, there were exactly 118 people accused of violating school rules. It was not many, but not that little either. Here, the Judicial Branch was wise enough to call out as many people as possible at once, those who were accused for the same violations. Since the judge called out 10 or more students at the same time, the whole process of calling out people was finished in less than 30 minutes. Although Mr. Sung’s comments took about an hour, it was far less compared to the usual ending-at-9-whatsoever comments.
With this good time management, students’ attitude was one thing that could have improved the whole process even more, if it were a bit better. Though only few students were dozing at the court, a lot of people used their cell phones to either text message or play Smartphone racing car games. Some of them were even being noisy. They gave up whispering; now they were just saying out loud however they wanted to. For example, the one sitting near me was text messaging for the whole time, and sometimes talked to me with a high pitch voice, no matter what the judge was saying. Some students were violating even the very basic rules by wearing inappropriate jackets that were not KMLA Noobies.
Luckily for the students, there was only one final defending speech, with one petition of appeal- so actually two speeches. Whether there were one or two, it was way less than usual, considering that there used to be four or more speeches in average. The juries seemed to have made judicious decisions about what to accept and what to reject. They accepted the petition of appeal with new evidence given by the defendant, which was about violating teacher’s direction. But the final defending speech about violating self-study regulation was rejected for having too few evidence. I believe the decisions were made very wisely in a sense that the juries had strict standards. Amount of evidence and the accuracy of it are the only ways that the juries can make judgments.
For this court, Mr. Sung had a big role in forming the bright mood. For most of the courts in the past, he was always accusing students, making them stand up one by one and yelling for the whole time. When he was not yelling, he was either staring at the Court List to find whom to accuse, or talking to himself. But on that day, he left a very remarkable comment that I would remember for my life, probably. I still remember the whole phrase: “You might feel very annoyed about the teachers scolding you for now, but in the future, by the time when you get to my age, it will be very lonely and depressing to have no one in your life yelling at you for doing something wrong”. It was the best comment that Mr. Sung had ever made at the court, I believe. I bet most of the students, not only me, thought it was valuable enough to think about the comment for a while.
Overall, the mood of the court was comfortable and fun with some jokes. How much was it? As much as I would not want to go to the court in the future, not because it is boring, but because I don’t want to get disappointed at another court, while comparing it to the 26th one. I would not recommend you to try to go to the court for a time, but I can definitely say that those who were accused for the 26th court was lucky to be called on that day. (Almost) FIVE STAR COURT!
While following the stream of justicein my life, I sometimes get too angry or hot tempered. Though I naturally don’t like to get too stressed out of anything, and would not want that anger to stay long in my mind, I keep the rage in my burning heart at unjustness, because of the desire to pursue something right. Rooted from this kind of anger, people sometimes call me radical and I feel so proud of it. I believe everyone in my age should earn the braveness enough to make at least a frowning face at this rotten government and the society of Korea. Although I might seem a little different from other high school students in a sense of seeking a different goal, I bet I would not feel ashamed in describing myself as a lovely girl. My loveliness comes out from the fact that my heart beats so fast in from of “the boy”, the fact that I brush my hair in the morning thinking of him, and the fact that I try to sleep at night with him in my dream. I, as a person, can be expressed in words from the far ends of very different sides.
