If you were to write a book, on what theme or subject matter would it be based and Why? (Stanford/93)

There are lots of different types of book. Each type of books has certain theme. Fiction has a made up story, or can be a real story. Also, there are books that are written based on the experiences of authors. Personally, I like those books that are written by authors’ experiences, especially when I am depressed, stressed and I do not what to do. Those books indicate what I should do to overcome these depressions. It is because the authors who wrote those had been in the same situation and they overcame that. In my opinion, this type of books can help teenagers a lot as they struggle and choose their ways for their future.

For this reason, if I were to write a book, I want to write a book about emotions or life when I grow and become old enough to talk about life. Recently, I read a book named Tuesday With Morrie, this book talks about life. While I was reading this book, I felt that I do neglect some really important things in my life such as regrets, family, culture, forgiveness and many other things. I always thought about myself so I felt I should get all the good things, and I realized that my thought was wrong. Because of this book, I looked back my short life and found lots of flaws that I had in my mind. This helped to make myself more grateful with I have.

 With my book, I want to make a good connection with teenagers who are lost or need advice. Since I went through that time, I needed a lot of help and advices, and people who were around me helped me lots and gave me helpful advices. Especially, my father bought me a book to read to overcome the confusion or depression. At first, I really did not want to read because I thought I would not feel anything from it except getting annoyed. However, I slowly liked the book and eventually it was a big tool to know what I was struggling with. After this, I started believing that book can be a great thing to people.  

I want to experience heaps of things in my life so that I can help them with my book. Also, I believe as I write a book I will learn more about life and keep it as I look back my life.

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Describe a risk that you have taken and discuss its impact on your life. (Kalamazoo College/93)

I go to Woodstock school in India. When I was in 6^th grade, I wanted to study at there desperately. As a normal young Korean student, I wanted to study outside of Korea. I applied and rejected. I was like okay, it was unlucky. Next year, I applied again hoping that I would get in. However, I got rejected again. Then, I concluded that this is not my school. After a year I went to Australia to study abroad.

Forgetting about Woodstock, I had studied in Australia. I was having quite nice life there. However, I slowly realized that I do not like the Australian curriculum. It was way too free for me. It was way too free for me. After realizing, I spent some hard times with that problem plus, I was confused with finding myself as all adolescents do. I came back to Korea with worries about my future school and all. One day, I met a friend, she was from Woodstock, and while we were having dinner together, she asked me “Why don’t you try once more? There is no harm to try.” I was encouraged, I felt like I can make it this time. After deciding to try for another chance, I went back to Australia. Dealing with my unpleasant work from my school, I slowly started preparing for my application to Woodstock. It was getting hard to make good balance of work between school works and preparing for the application. 

Although application might not be a big of deal, but for me I thought that I  should do my best to get what I want. I was preparing for my appellation alone and it was the first time to deal with a formal form of document. There were lots of things to prepare such as translating my reports past reports cards,  and other documents that are in Korean. I had to take some exams that the school required me to. Also, I had to keep good grades in my school because in case of another rejection, I should have good grade for my college. However, as the time went by, those are overloaded so i decided to focus on Woodstock. I was not sure that I can get and I was applying to 10th grade which is little hard. I was little worried about the grade. Still, I really wanted to go to Woodstock.I relay worked hard for it and finally I got in. If I think about it again, it might a dumb thing to do, just giving up on school work to get in better school. On the other hand, I learned something from this.

I've never done this thing before or I did not have to. I learned sometimes I have to make decisions and try my best to make my decision right. Also,I can do what I want only when I try.

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Effects of Laws and Orders

Select any issue that is of importance to you and discuss and your views (New College of University of South Florida)

Have you thought about that if law and order is disappeared? It will be big problem in society as homicide, theft and crime would happen, because the nature of humankind is sinful. If we do not have rules, our natural character is revealed as evil. We cannot do right thing by our selves, so rules are necessary for us. The play ‘Lord of flies’ proves this through the boy’s behavior on the island. Also hurricane Katrina is good example that why we need for law. 

Humans do not like it when someone becomes better than them. They crave to be greater than each other even if it means hurt other. In Lord of Flies, Ralph was nominated as leader by the boys on the island, but Jack was jealous because he wanted to be captain. He did not accept Ralph as the chief and would do his own thing.  Later, he brings his chorus and leads the hunt as they kill the pig to eat. After killing the pig, they suspend the pig’s head on a spear and paint the blood of it on their skin joyfully. They enjoy it. This could be because Jack wants to be the head, but in his inner heart, there was that did not want Ralph to become the leader as he would get being more favor than him. Jack displays a mental state of humans that does not accept being loser. This is innate of humans.

Lord of the Flies shows that humankind is evil. The boys on the island made rules to keep a fire burning so it would be seen by a passing ship, but Jack and his hunters broke their promise and hunted for pigs. Instead while they were hunting, the fire went out and then, an airplane flew over the island, so they missed the opportunity of being rescued. Ralph was very angry. He fights with jack and they become enemies. If the fire was kept, alight the airplane would have seen it, and they would have been rescued. This event shows us that human act as they wish and disobey the rules. Also people are violent. Through this event, we can know see the selfish nature of humankind and now we do not like to listen to other people’s opinions.

When law and order is not enforced, nature human is revealed. Hurricane Katrina is good example of this. This event occurred in September, 2005. It caused much chaos as so many people lost their families, houses, property, food, and they had nothing. Thousands of people helped to rescue them, but even then some shot at the rescue helicopter. The crime in the city increased as policemen in the city were not able to do their job. They were too busy trying to survive. Human have to be controlled by law and order, because if laws do not guide us, we will be insane like this event. When people collide with affliction, they became worried about themselves, do not feel uneasy about others. It displays that we have to be regulated by society. Law occupies a lot of rate that we do right thing. If we do not have the motivation of law compulsion, we cannot do the correct things naturally. So, we have a duty to obey the law.

As I mention before, I think that laws and orders do help us to do right things as people, and when they are banished, we tend not to care about right things

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Music as a media

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

-Berthold Auerbach

Every day, everywhere, music is around us. No matter we want it or not, it is there. When we walk on the street, when we exercise, when we eat, when we are sad or when we are happy, music stays with us, but we will not be fed up with it. It becomes the essential part of our lives. As it is a vital part of our lives, it affects us tremendously.

Music comes to people more emotionally and it reflects our culture along with its lyrics and melodies. Music helps people when they are exhausted emotionally. Throughout certain songs, people found relief. Also, sometimes, people get inspired because of the content of the song, well written piece of music or just because fascinating musicians. Lastly, music can reflect the culture and the people who belong to the culture. 

Music has a great effect on stimulating people’s emotion. An exciting song can make people excited with its fast beats. A dark song can make people depressed with its gloomy melody. A sad song can make people even sadder.  Also a calm song can make people calm down and relaxed.  Music makes people more alive by stimulating the emotions of people. Various genres of music let people have diverse emotions that allow the world to have many different people with countless emotions. Those emotions create active interaction among individuals as they understand and embrace other’s feeling. Moreover, as the quote in the beginning says, “Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life,” and this is true as we let our concerns and fatigue go along with music. Thus, music does stimulate our emotion.

Secondly, we get inspired from music. Music can give us ideas as the contents of songs are delivered to us as we listen to us. Some songs talk about the social issues, conflicts and things to be heard and fixed by people. This makes people to take action and try to solve the issues and conflicts. Also, when a music piece is well written by a maestro, people are captivated by it that inspires musicians to try to become one.  Furthermore, there are many famous musicians who have overcome their unpleased conditions, such as a female pianist who has only 4 fingers, another female pianist who does not have fingers on her right hand, also one of the best saxophonist Kenny G has asthma. Despite their unfortunate conditions, they overcame their weakness and inspire others with their passion and love towards music as behalf of music. 

Lastly, music is a way of reflect the culture and people of the culture. Some music contains current social issues and things that people want to change such as inequalities. For example, many black musicians especially rappers talk about inequalities. Also some musicians convey their messages about misunderstandings about themselves.

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Why does Music Make Us feel?

 Why does Music Make Us feel?

This article talks about how music affects emotions of people. It says speech does not make us cry even though we can understand what it says, but music can make us cry even though it is in different language that we cannot understand. Also, it talks about how happy music makes people happier and how sad music can exaggerate melancholy frown. 

It also talks about “Why music is nice to listen to?”. The reasons is, because we listen to music as we watching something for example the author listening to French instructional programs and he found it pleasure because people were shown with their expressions and behaviors. This is what he thinks and tells in the article about how music can stimulate our emotions.

At first, I agreed with his idea about music is more powerful than speech in stimulating people’s emotions. From my experiences, I do not like speech that is really long and it does not really make me feel anything but boredom. However, I love music that I listen to for a long time and actually feeling something from songs that I listen to. Happy song have made me feel better and encouraged, and sad song have made me think a lot, and driven me to a deep emotion. At least for me, music is influential enough to stimulate my feeling. 

As I read the article, there was a thing that I do not agree with the author that is music is effective because there is visible image with music. Visible images do have effect in making music more effective; however, without visible images music is effective enough to make people feel many emotions. Also, sometimes visible images are effective because there is music that helps to explain and make people focus on the images.

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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-does-music-make-us-fe

Due to advances in medical science, situations of excruciating pain with no hope for recovery brought new ideas and debates about a peaceful death – called euthanasia. Euthanasia is an act that results in the earlier death of the patient than would otherwise occur. It is generally an alternative to reduce pain, but in regards to ethical considerations, euthanasia is just an extenuating circumstance for murder. Therefore, the question of its acceptability should be approached with caution.

Debate about euthanasia has been popular since 1975, with the issue of Quinlan. Karen Ann Quinlan was a 21 year old woman, who was in coma for 3 years because of the addiction to alcohol and drug. Quinlan’s father tried his best to save her and did not refused to pay for expensive medicine. However, as the doctor declared her as “practically dead” person, her father wanted to give her an opportunity to die peacefully. Against the demands of her father, doctor refused to disconnect the life support and legal conflict ensued. The courts decided in favor of Quinlan’s father and allowed to take off life support. Against all expectations, however, Quinlan did not die but sustained 9 years longer, as if trying to prove that she is not “practically dead.”

In another case in October 2005, Salvatore Crisafulli emerged from a 2 year coma, claiming that he had retained consciousness throughout his illness and could hear conversation around him. He said that he cried in desperation and darkness when his doctor sentenced him to death. Crisafulli’s situation exemplifies the ultimate loneliness and frustration of comatose patients who cries in darkness.

Today, decisions regarding euthanasia are left in the power of families and hospitals. Unconscious patients are suffering from the cruelty of caregivers while future patients with incurable diseases will be euthanized instead of searching for a cure. Now euthanasia is not about the right to die honorably; rather it is a reluctant burden for the unconscious patient.

An analysis of the issue of euthanasia requires a reexamination of the roles doctors and families play in making such a serious decision. First of all, one must consider whether it is proper for doctors to assist suicide, since their mission is to cure and help patients. Regardless of the patients’ will, doctors are directly or indirectly helping patients commit suicide. They should not be coerced into disconnecting life support and letting a patient die in absolute loneliness. As for patient’s family, they have no right to disregard the patient’s will. In the past, euthanasia was necessarily decided by the will of families, however, families are not equal to patients themselves. It may be easy for a family to let a patient go because of the immense financial burden and uncertainty as to the patient’s possible recovery. But on the other hand, it is not easy or acceptable for a patient to die simply to alleviate monetary problem.

Morally speaking, there is no difference between murder and euthanasia. Whether the self-destruction is committed individually or aided by others, the result is same: death. Although euthanasia is, by definition, “mercy killing”, it is still murder if the patient has no will to die and suicide if the patient shows the desire to die. Therefore, even if there is very little possibility to survival, we should not compromise with the evil desire for an easy exit.

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Community service can be a valuable part of the college experience. If you were to devote one of year of services to a volunteer project, what would it be, and what would you hope t accomplish? (Goucher)

I think volunteer work or project is good as its purpose is helping others. To be honest, I have not done volunteer work a lot. I really do not have huge and fancy plan because I do not know what to do and how to do first. However, if I have to plan and do volunteer work, I know I will do something that could help the community that I belong to. It is because I know about my community more than I do about other area of the world. 

Community service does not really have to be done in a big way such as going to Africa to help people. Rather than that, knowing and helping people and environment around us. Helping should be consistent, because helping once is easy but being consistent is tough. Also, people who need aids should be helped for a long term. It is because I think helping should make them to live independently eventually. However, spending so much money to go to other country and do some work is not idealistic at least for the point of my view. Moreover, there are heaps of organizations and people who know a lot better than us about those other areas.  Also, if we cannot know and help people around us, we will not be able to know and help what people need who are in other areas. Rather than trying to do something that is unrealistic or hard to start, we should start and do more realistic and easy to start. 

Thus, if I plan to devote one of year of services to a volunteer project, I would plan that benefits people and the environment where I live. At this moment, I live in India. It is my first country that that showed me the real world. I have always seen and lived in decent or great qualities of standard of living. Yet, I have complained so much, but after I came to India and saw so many people suffering from poverty. I have never seen people live on the street. I have never seen people drinking muddy water. I have never seen people begging because they have not eaten for a few days. Most of them were children and they should be studying but sadly they cannot afford education and they do not have time to be loved. Then I realized that I was such an unappreciative person and I felt I should work for kids who need love. For this reason, I would plan to help the kids wherever I will be. There are a lot of kids who are loved but there are also a lot of kids who need to be loved. In my old day, I used be happy when older people spent time with me doing various things. Thus, I will work in the orphanage for my volunteer work. There are orphanages almost everywhere, and the kids in orphanages need love. Also, educating them is another important thing for my project. It is because they have to go out of the orphanages when they become certain ages. In order to work or do something to survive, they need to be educated.

My goal for my project is letting children feel that they are loved and have ability to stand alone eventually. I believe if this happens, they can help others as they were helped and this will make consistent aids from more number of people with more organized way.         

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 Music is used for many reasons, because it is one of the most powerful ways to tell people about something. People know that conveying their message with music is more effective than delivering a message only by words. Also music can be spread a lot easier than most of other Medias. Music is easier to be heard and to access. That is why people use music to make their points or trying to make changes in the world. 

There are so many songs that talks about conflicts in the world such as war, poverty, unfairness, inequalities, etc. Music cannot stop these completely, but why people keep on using music as a way of solutions? It is because it is powerful tool that can make these things to be better. We do not realize how negatively those things affect on us. However, by telling us the information and letting us know the problem which may reduce the negative expected results from the conflicts by preventing more problems. Also, the messages of the music are delivered by famous musicians; the effect will be much influential. Such as 21 guns by Green Day has made people know the seriousness of war and try to make a peaceful world. In addition, throughout music, we can help people who are suffering from poverty, or an expected natural disaster. For example, the song “We are the world” was produced to help the poverty in Africa, and it contribute greatly because of the famous musicians had participated in. Yet, the biggest reason is, this music has told, and woken people about people suffering from poverty in Africa. Moreover, a few years ago, there were dreadful earthquakes in Haiti. Again many famous musicians have gathered to help Haiti. They told people in the world about how much Haitians were suffering and how miserably the earthquake ruined their lives throughout their music. It was a great success in helping Haitians. 

Also, music can make people more united. For example, there are national anthems for every single country in the world. Why is that? It is because that the national anthems can encourage the patriotism of the people of the nations. Also, it gives a feeling of similarity with people who sing it together. Additionally, in Korea farmers sing a labor song while they are working, because that makes people feel less tiring and encourage them to work with its hopeful lyrics and dynamical rhythm.         

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Andrew Love, Tenor Saxophonist for the Memphis Horns, dies at 70 

Andrew Love, a tenor saxophonist who as half of the Memphis sound died on 12^th of April 15, 2012 at his home in Memphis because of complication of Alzheimer’s disease.

Memphis Sound has introduced 83 gold and platinum records with instrumental buoyancy. Love, was tall black guy and his partner, the trumpeter Wayne Jackson was short white guy. They met at Stax Records in the mid 1960s and they became a singular musical force. The Memphis helped form classic records like Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds,” and etc. Also, Memphis Horns received a lifetime achievement Grammy.

One thing that I felt after reading the article was that Love was so blessed because he did something that that he loves till he died and that was music. He started playing the saxophone since he was in ninth grade till 70 years when he died. That is a lot of time and also he was famous and acknowledged by his ability. Even I want to be a musician as a singer. Singing is one of my favorite things to do and I want to improve it. I thought about becoming a singer, and I concluded that it would be really nice because singing is what I like and it can be my profession.  It is hard to be famous as a musician as there are so many other talented musicians. Even Love must have practiced and tried to develop his ability in order to achieve his goal. Now, he is one of the excellent musicians that people know and will be remembered. I know I am not good enough, but still I try to improve hoping I will become better so that I might have a chance. 

Another thing I learned from this article is I have to be good at and try best for something that I want to do as an occupation. The reason that I felt in this way was everyone wants to be acknowledged in their area of profession and Love was good enough to be acknowledged by Grammy Awards, and working with famous musicians like Elvis Presley. In fact, this applies to everything, I should try my best for the things I want to achieve because if try there are higher possibilities of achieving it and if I do not, it is almost impossible to achieve my goal.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/arts/music/andrew-love-saxophonist-with-the-memphis-horns-dies-at-70.html?_r=1&ref=music

Music

Music exists all around us. It is an essential part of almost everyone’s life.

People are affected by music all the time, though they do not notice the effect. For instance, music can arouse a lot of emotions in people such as: sadness, happiness etc. Also, there are many different genres of music. People have their own favorite genres according to their preferences.

 My favorite genre is soul music. Soul music was originally sung and performed by black people. I had never heard of soul music until 2008. I was surfing the web and I found a group called Brown Eyed Soul. There are four Korean men in the group, and as the name of the group indicates, their genre is soul. I was sitting in front of my laptop staring at those people singing in the screen. I was so fascinated by their songs that I only listened to them for the next two months. I did not know it was soul music, but as I was more curious about the group I searched internet and found that it was soul music. After that I searched for the soul singers who had influenced this group. There are various artists and I did not like all of them. However, some of them grabbed my attention and broke my stereotype of black artists’ music. I used to think that only Black people but realized later that this is not true. I felt that Black people have had a major impact on soul music

Generally speaking, Soul music sounds deep but at same time, it sounds ample as well. Personally, I think soul is one of those music genres which can affect people’s emotion the most. It is because most of soul songs are powerful and soft, simultaneously. This change in dynamics makes people feel something more as compared to a type of music that has the same dynamics throughout the whole song. People listen to music for many different purposes. Some people listen to music when they need energy or encouragements and I think especially soul music, due to its inspirational wordings, helps people fell encouraged. I feel good when I listen to soul music because some soul songs, powerful sound blows away the thoughts of things that I am stressed about. 

Soul music has another great effect on me. I did not really like singing before I knew soul music. Yet, since I got to know about the soul music I slowly got interested in singing and I love it now. Singing became one of my favorite things to do and it helps me to get rid of my stress. Also, it made me to like music general. Liking music has provided me lots of things. Music is one of the things that helps me to get rid of stresses, to calm myself, to socialize with people. Sometimes, it motivates me in many ways with its lyrics or by the musicians just like those soul singers who make me feel better with their music and motivates with their skills and passion.

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Kinds of love

Almost everyone in the world have thought about love once in their lives. It is too vague to say what is love. However people love others and loved by other people.
The Greeks divide love into several categories such as Agape, Eros, Philia and Storge. These kinds of love have their own features and people can think differently about which love is the greatest out of these kinds of love. This is true that there are many different types of love and they have different features. 


 I think that the storge is the greatest love, compared to other loves, which is the instinctual love between parents and children because; in my point of view, the love between men and women there are limitations due to hard situation, such as financial problem and sometimes their love finishes like divorces. Also, love between friends may fades away as we grow up and have family that we should take care of.


 However, nothing cannot tear apart the love between parents and children. Although there are some problems between the parents and the children time to time, it will soon recovered and the love will be hardened. From my experience, the love of my parents toward me is indescribable. Being away from my family, often makes me depressed and lonely. However, just talking to them over the phone makes me feel better and they always take care about me and my sisters. We often forget that having parents is really blessed and we should be thankful. Eversince, I left my parents, I realize how much they mean to me. Whenever, I go back home, I try my best to spend more time with my family and make good memories.

Other kind of love that is less important than Storge is Eros according to my own opinion. I am not talking about the sexual love but romantic love between man and woman. In loving someone, there must be something that make people hard to love. As it is mentioned before, like financial problem etc. However, I think without worrying about those issues, love can be build up between a man and woman. It is extended interaction with others. It is about understanding each others. Yet, whoever likes more has to understand more and care about the person more. It cannot always work as we wish but to love someone, we need to persevere and try our best. In fact, we have to persevere and try our best to get and achieve what we desire. We better not frustrated even if we did out best, the love seems not good enough, but as long as you are happy or just good, that is enough.


Lastly, Although, loving is hard, either love someone or loved by someone is really great. Loving out loved one is piece of cake. However, we have to love everyone even our enemies. Once we love someone or try to love someone we will be loved eventually. Love brings so many nice things.  


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justice

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress,

- Martin Luther King. Jr.

In anywhere, justice is needed. Justice is an invisible thing, but that is essential for everyone in anyhow. Law and order are required to create justice within a society, and if these do not work, there will not be justice. A society without justice will be a chaos and the chaos causes the flow of social progresses as the quote says.

People follow the law and order because they are asked to do so, if they do not, there would be some punishments for them. The laws and orders ensure that there will be no such things which should not be occurred such as murder. It is true that there still are murdering and severe crimes. However, if there were no laws and orders, there would be more crimes and the society would be more chaos. When the society is in chaos, it is unstable socially which prevents the social progress.

Martin Luther King. Jr. has said this, he was the one who wanted better society and dedicated his life for it. Also he was one of the people who represents symbol of justice. He actually believed in what he said, so he did what he supposed to do like following laws and orders. It does not make big difference alone, but everyone together, it will make the change and that is why he said so and was trying to bring justice.

The most important thing to maintain laws and orders for our society is participation and dedication of people of the society. Even though the governments or communities set the rule and tell people to follow them, it will be hard without people’s willingness of following it. However, if people try to help and cooperate with the laws and orders, we will have better society to live in.

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government

A corporation’s primary goal is to make money. Government’s primary role is to take a big chunk of that money and give it to others.-Larry Ellison

This quote basically says that what governments do is take money away from people and distribute that money to others. This is not true. Governments have to make sure safety and protection for its people rather than take properties from their people. That is their job and what they are supposed to do.

Everyone belongs to certain government. They follow the rules what their governments have set. It is because, if they do not, they would get punished. However, as long as they follow the rule, they are protected and ensured from unfairness by the government that they belong to. People pay tax because there are costs in making sure their secured lives. They earn money depending on how hard they worked. Even though some people have great amount of money with paying proper amount of taxation, the government must not charge them more than those people should pay stabilize the economic status with other people.

Governments should not overrule their people economically, politically, in any way. They have to be something which helps us rather than makes us uncomfortable. Also People should follow what governments are trying to do and help them for the better nations. If the government is not doing something that they should have to do, people have to ask government to do the right thing. The interaction between the government and its people is much more important than the government taking a big chunk of money from corporation’s money to give it to other. If we do so, there will be fewer problems that the government should take care of. Therefore taking money from some people for other people is not the government’s role, rather taking care of its people and interacting with its people is their main role.  

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Tell us about the most embarrassing moment of your life. (Santa Clara University)

A few years ago, when I was about 15 years old, I and some of my friends walked to the beach of Cold Coast. We left a friend who did not show up on time, feeling sorry but we could not just wait without knowing nothing if he is coming or not. Yet as soon as reached the beach, blue Ocean was welcoming us. We left a friend who did not show up on time, feeling sorry but we could not just wait without knowing nothing if he is coming or not.  There were heaps of people. Surfers were decorating the clear ocean along with huge waves. Many people were filming these beautiful moments with their cameras. The sound of waves washed the worries of ours. We could not wait to jump into it. The water was cold enough to cool down burning weather. The wave was huge enough to wrap all of us. Everyone looked very relaxed. Even the life guards were not seemed like they were working; rather, they were just enjoying being there. Even though the waves were huge and the sun was burning upon us, it was very peaceful.

I just left my body on the water feeling coolness of water. I often jumped into the gigantic waves and I felt as if I was flying. Looking at the horizontal line was awesome. I was so thankful that I could spend my time there and enjoy it. I thought that it could be one of the best moments of my life. As the time went by, sun was slowly coming down and the waves were getting wilder. Yet, I did not realize.

All of sudden one of my friend shouted at me. I looked back standing on my toes. I was so away from the coast. I started swimming as hard and fast as I could. Then, I checked where I was standing, expecting I was almost near the coast. I stood up. I was at the same place, may be little further than where I realized I was far away from the coast.  I was in panic. I thought that I might die today. I tried to walk on my toes, but whenever I hit the ground, I feet were pulled back. Then, out of nowhere a life guard sprang up from the water and saved me. While I was taken to the ground, a camera man was filming me. I wondered what on earth he is doing. I almost died and a random guy was filming me. I was really happy that I was saved. As soon as I got on the land I packed up and was about to live. A guy came to me and asked me that if they can interview me. I did not want to. However, the same camera man came to me and started filming me. I wanted to hide because almost drowned and being saved a guard was little embarrassing for me. 

On the way home, my friends were teasing me. While they were teasing me I called my friend who did not show up. When he picked up the phone he sounded so frustrated that he could not come with us. Then, I felt so sorry for him and I thought I was punished because of letting a person down. It became an opportunity to learn something in relationship. After calling him, I was more embarrassed not because of I was saved but because I was careless to my friend.

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Being Thankful

Being grateful seems very easy. When there is something good happens, you will be grateful easily. Who would not be thankful if there is something that makes them happy? We have to thank with what what we have now. We never realize the importance of things that are just given to us. Most of us have healthy bodies, houses, parents and opportunities to be educated. However, do we always be thankful for what we have? At least for me, I do not. I rather complain for not having what I want.  I am selfish. My life can be a life that some other people desire. People become grateful and realize the true value and importance of things they possess when they lose them. Those can be health, houses, car, families and so on. I have a person I really think that he is one of the person I want to become. He is Job in the bible. God blessed him so much and he was right man that even god was so proud of him. Demon told god that Job is right man because god gave him so much things so let him test Job. Then Job lost his cattle, servants, and children. What would I do if I was in that situation? I would complain, blaming on god. However, Job did not. He praises god and says "God you are the who give and who take." Even though, he blames on god later, I just want to be like him just his grateful attitude. I become thankful when I live without things I have. For example, I realize how much I was blessed when I came from activity week. During the activity week, I did not have bed, laptop,proper toilet, ipod and even lights. Is a life which has everything a best life? No it is not. I live in Korea. Many people in Korea have fairly great lives, but are they happy? No, they are not, they want to have more as they get more. They fight a lot to get other things that they do not have. For example, if a person get 2100 in SAT, it is really a good thing but some people might say that is not enough in front of people who gets 1900. That is not thankful and hurting other people. Yes, if the person tried so hard so expected higher than that, it is understandable but the person still can be more grateful with the result and try harder to get better outcome. There are some people who are making some hard decision of taking another SAT because it is quite expensive. Yet, if we have opportunities, we have to use it effectively and get the most out of it.  We should be more thankful with little things and we will be tankful with something that is not delightful. Thankfully, I study in India at one of the best international school in the world. However, there are lots of people around the school who are extremely poor. We might think their lives are worse than ours. However, it is not. They are thankful with what they have. Even though what they have are nothing to us,   they mean a lot to them. I think they might have better lives than ours even if it does not look like. Learning and knowing how to be thankful will make us to live better life.

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People are born in different and they live different lives. Most people want to be unique. Being unique can make people feel great. What makes a person special is his or her ingenuity. We can call this as “talent”. However, ingenuity is given by god. This might depress people who are doing their best but not enough to be outstanding compared to those people who are talented. It is hard to most of people finding their potential, which leads people to give up, and complaining and blaming on creator. So, is there no way to make better? Of course there is. Ingenuity is like gemstone, it is worthless by itself. Yet, when it is made into a proper product, it becomes priceless. Just like this, ingenuity is a gemstone laid inside us. We should develop that, even though it seems like nothing. When people desire something and try their best for it, the effort will pay back. Also, we should not give up trying. We may get something worse than we expected, and became depressed, but if we do not give up trying, we will get what we desire eventually. Then, the hidden ingenuity will become more vivid. For example, the 16^th USA president, Abraham Lincoln was known one of the great orators. He might be good at persuading people with his words naturally, but he also read heaps of books. He used to read lots of books about as tall as him when they are stacked up. He tries to develop himself in such way, and eventually that helped him a lot. If his speaking was his gemstone, reading books was a process for him to strengthen his talent. I think there are no such things that happen by luck. Sometimes, we might say, “It was lucky,” but we do not know what is happening beyond that. Without trying best, there will not be any great outcomes. Therefore, ingenuity becomes vivid and outstanding only when they go along with great effort.  

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