Gui Hwan Kim/ First Draft / Tuesday 3 4

"Five, four, three, two, one, bungee," the instructor shouted as he gave a slight push off the jumping board. My father and I were on vacation with a family friend, and I couldn't miss out on a precious chance to bungee jump.

           Since I was young I enjoyed extreme sports. I loved the thrill of going to high places or any sport with speed. The tickling feeling you get when you fall from a high places is the best feeling I can ever have. The excitement you get from finishing the experience or the leg-shaking nervousness you get before you jump is an emotion that drives me to challenge extreme sports.

           During my summer break me and my father and a family friend of ours were on vacation in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. The weather was humid and we were all exhausted from baking in the sun on a beautiful beach. We were heading back home when a road sign caught my eye. "Nanaimo Bungee" it said. I ordered my father to head towards that exit and to the bungee sight. It was always a dream for me to try bungee jump. I once had a chance in elementary school, but I was too young to bungee. The road towards the bungee sight was off road. Our vehicle blew up a lot of dust and our tires got muddy from the wet mud.

           After sign up and taking a short safety class I walked up to the bungee bridge. The bungee sight was in between a canyon. There was a steel bridge linking the two sides of the canyon and the jumping platform was dead center. After tying the bungee cord to my feet I stood on the platform. The cord hanging below me was very heavy and was dragging my feet closer and closer to the edge. It felt like I had to jump the plank off a pirate ship. For a split second, I thought to myself that this was a bad idea. I looked down to where my father was. He was waving in hat and shouting for me to jump. I could not look down. The river below was fast with white water crashing against the rocks. My legs were trembling and I could hear my heartbeat loud very fast.

           "I will countdown from five and you will jump. There is long line up and a no-jump will cost you extra," the instructor said. I had no choice but to jump. "Five, four, three, two, one bungee!" I closed my eyes and leaped the jump of faith. For about half a second I felt like I was flying. For that split second I understood how a bird would feel like when it is flying. The fall was short and then the bungee cord pulled me up and down a several time and then the experience came to an end

           To be honest, the feeling of falling was very short and I was a little bit disappointed. But I was happy that I finally got bungee jumping off my bucket list. I haven't had the chance to bungee anywhere else, but if I ever see a bungee road sign, I will not hesitate to bungee again.

Suhan Lee/The first draft/Tues 3-4

"Baaaaaw. Baaaw." The sound of crying echoed around the village in 5 a.m. in one severely cold winter day.   It was in 1994 when my father's business collapsed. The harsh winter wind invaded our family and deprived us of happiness. In that time, I was four-year old and my younger brother was a five-month old baby. My parents had to endure all hardships to protect us in a safe fortress. In that painful situation, the only medicine they could depend on was religion. They used to attend morning prayer meetings. The meeting took for about one hour which was not much long, so my parents left me and my younger brother in our home.   He usually slept well until parents came back, but sometimes he woke up and cried a lot. Whenever he cried, I also woke and tried to stop him from crying. This is my vividest and earliest memory I can remember because it was too hard time for such a young girl. I copied what my mother had done when my brother cried. I mixed some powdered milk with warm water, spilling it all around. But, I could not measure the quantity, so it was always too watery. Also, I took off his diaper like my mother, but I didn't know how to put a new one on. After that, I played children's songs to calm himself. Despite these great efforts, hushing him to sleep always ended in failure. Once the parents came back, I cried more loudly than my brother in my sorrow.   Looking back then, I think it was the first time when I felt responsibility toward my brother. These experiences made me stronger than any other girls of the same age. Furthermore, it formed a strong sister-brother bonding. For now, the baby grew to a man and entered the army. However, because of these memories, I sometimes treat him like a child though he is a respectable man now. Anyway, our relationship is still intimate and he is always thankful to me.

Han Gyul Kim/The first draft/Tues 3-4

Summer vacation

201200909 Han Gyul Kim

 In hot summer, many people enjoy going to a water park, a swimming pool or a beach. It's such a pleasure to play in the cool water while it is hot outside. But I couldn't enjoy it because I had had a terrible experience from my childhood.

 It was the summer of 2003, when I was 10 years old, second grade student. My parents decided to go to the beach in Gangwon-do like any other families because going to beach was very common way to enjoy summer vacation. We went there by car, leaving home early in the morning. I was sleepy but at the same time so excited on the way to the beach because of my new tube. My mom bought it for me because the old one became small to me. I was really happy that even the tasteless noodles of the rest area on our way felt tasty.

 Finally we arrived after few hours of driving. A lot of people were there, and I wanted to jump into the water right away. So I changed my clothes into swim suit, asking my father to fill up my tube with air. Then I played with my cousin in the water, and everything was fun there. We swam, dabbled in the water and made a sand castle until mom called me to eat something. My parents were staying under the parasol because they didn't like to go into the water, and they had to care my young brother, who was like four years old then. After eating, I was bit tired then, but went to the water alone this time with my tube. I was sitting on the tube, the water was cool and sunlight was warm. So I started to doze off. I was between being asleep and awake because I wanted to play but also tired.

 Twenty minutes or so passed, and I woke up in the middle of the water. There were no people near me, and I saw the safety line is between them and me. I was so scared and tried to swim to the beach but end up getting farther from there. I just started to cry at that moment, and saw my mom screaming on the beach. I was finding my father if he was coming to me, but couldn't find him. Then I saw a safety guard coming toward me. He swam very fast, came to me and grabbed me with my tube, then took me to my parents. I figured out later that father had been finding for the guard when I couldn't find him. He said that because he couldn't swim, he thought that he couldn't save me by himself, so tried to found the guard. I'm very thankful to him of making right decision because I'm not sure what would have happened if he tried to save me. May be both of us could have been in danger.

 Until now, I hate and afraid of going in to water, especially deep water. But I think I had a good experience because it made me a cautious man. Also I learned from my father that I have to handle the situation calmly, even if the danger is close.

 

So-Eun Yoon/A memorable experience/ Tuesdays 34

A High School Love Affair   So-Eun Yoon                    Life in high school was very stressful. In order to provide me with the best opportunities of higher education, my parents suggested that I try out for a foreign language high school. These specialized schools were originally created to nurture talented students in foreign languages, but honestly, they were just full of students yearning for the easiest ways to get into a high-ranking college. My initial impression of a foreign language high school was a collection of nerds who did nothing but study, but just like any ordinary high school, it was full of gossips and drama. Out of all the hilarious events that happened in high school, I have one episode I will probably never forget.              It all started on a hot summer day four years ago. My friends and I had just finished eating our lunch and were heading out of the school cafeteria. I had four close friends in high school who were all in the same class, but I had one friend who was especially close to me. Hae-Kyung was an extraordinary girl with peculiar interests. She was obsessed with hardcore metal music and had piercings all over her face, but surprisingly had the best grades in our school. Nobody could say anything about her distinctive looks that drew attention everywhere because her grades left no room for criticism. What I especially loved about her was her confidence. She was never afraid of expressing her thoughts and feelings and was always open and honest. That day after lunch, she announced to our friends that she had a big crush on a boy who was playing for our school's basketball team. She took us out to the basketball court where several guys were practicing shooting and pointed her finger at him. To my surprise, he was someone I already knew well, a guy from my Chinese class whom I always used to sit with. Although I was good friends with him, I pretended not to know him because I didn't want to set him up with Hae-Kyung. I was interested in the guy myself. Later on, I went to watch movies with him and secretly started dating him, but Hae-Kyung found out about this and got furious. She called me a traitor and avoided talking to me for the rest of the year. She eventually forgave me and we became friends again, but I did not end up so well with my boyfriend. I guess it was a price I had to pay for breaking my best friend's heart.              Even though high school was full of drama and had always given me a hard time, it was also full of good memories I will never forget. I am now good friends with Hae-Kyung and we laugh about this episode every time we reminisce about the old days. It remains one of the most humiliating memories of my life but is also remembered as one of the funniest episodes from my teenage years.

Lee Jong-ho / The first draft / Tues 11am

What a life will be like without a smartphone? Nowadays we are so used to having and using smartphones. We do not realize how much of our lives smartphones take. I, not so willingly, had to live without a smartphone for about two months. This is a shame, but I occassionally throw and break things when I get really mad. My iPhone had been the last victim. So I spent my whole vacation without a smartphone, and here is what I felt.

First of all, I could not prove myself to be a proper Korean citizen. All the Internet things and self-identification required an access to the SMS. I had to create a self-identifying document at the bank. When I lost my passwords, I had to wait until the service hours and had to call directly to the customer services. The worst was that in most cases all the self-identification methods required the use of a mobile phone in some way.

Secondly, I lost contacts to many things. I could not call my family, friends, or check KakaoTalk. I did not get the SMS from schools (which I realized later to be rather good). I had to use the phone booths which I used for the last time in the military. I could check KakaoTalk with my PC, but what made me sad was that after the long lost of connections while I was out, I did not have much to check. It came to my understanding that loss of connections was not a big deal to me. I barely had connections in the first place. A pity for me.

Since I used my smartphone mainly as an MP3 player, the loss of the smartphone meant I had to find the long-forgotten YEPP, the last remaining and working MP3 player I had. The capacity was much smaller that the phone, and I had difficulties picking the songs. Also I could not watch YouTube or news broadcasts, could not use the Internet browser, and could not do many things.

One thing I liked about being without a smartphone was the serenity. Since I had nothing ringing and vibrating inside my pocket, I could care about other things. I read books, I focused on the music, I watched people, or I just sat there doing nothing. Though I cannot tell I liked the period without a smartphone, it surely is worth trying. But don't break your stuff.

Na Shil Hwang/ My Attitudes Toward Writing/ Tues 11 am

I faintly remember the first time when I have considered writing as to expressing my feelings. It might be a very common thing probably in many countries and my first writing experience was when I started writing short sentences in my given small diary at school. Although the entries could have been quite small and simple, I was free to write about whatever I wanted and because of that, I was able to write, although short, about myself and my feelings. It was always my favorite thing to do in school when I had class. Eventually this had continued on and I did not stop writing a diary until I moved on to High School.

 

Every time I wrote a paper for class, I tended to please myself and not consider the teacher. Whenever I elaborate on some issue that has been understood and emphasized, I do not stop to consider other people however only focus on my ideas. However, because of this I probably did not receive much good grades since writing a paper is mostly for a grade and evaluation. If a lot of my writing was evaluated by better writers, they might consider my writing quite self-orientated and boring. It would be surprising since myself, I would enjoy what I have wrote about and did not hesitate to give myself a good grade. Although in other people's eyes, my writing would have sounded a bit poor on their standards, I have always thought my writing was good. Eventually, I would please myself in writing what I considered most important and did not consider much to please my teachers. However, as I grew older, I had understood that pleasing myself was not the real purpose of writing, since the readers also have to be considered. Just as how famous and popular books are loved, you could see that many people enjoy them since they are the readers who understood and enjoyed what the writer had to write about. One of my future goals is to make this happen and have people who enjoy my writing and have readers.

 

One writing assignment, which was freewriting and it was a time when we had to write a short story. When I had finished this story, I had thought that it was a good story with a good beginning, middle, and end. However, my teacher did not give a very good grade on this, so I was quite shocked. I had thought it to be a good story since when I read it, I was able to feel and know how the story was headed to. I still did not understand why that I did not receive an excellent grade on this particular story even after couple years when I read it again. I was surprised that I was able to write this kind of story only a couple years ago. If I look at it now though, it might come different to me and I would realize my errors and reasons for my receiving a satisfying grade on this paper. But after this writing assignment my love to write stories actually had decreased since I had always thought that I was a somewhat okay writer who could somewhat write okay writing and stories. One of my dreams was also to become a writer of any field, and this result, had actually led it to shatter. After that experience, it made me wonder if I was fit for a writer and fit for a good author.

Soohee Oh / My Attitudes towards Writing / Tues 11-1

I have mixed feelings about writing. I like to write for myself. For letters or personal journals, my writing would not be evaluated or criticized by other people. Also, they are more about delivering my feelings rather than persuading other people with my logical arguments. Therefore, I feel less pressure and more confidence and freedom. However, if I were to write for schools, especially within a limited time, I usually get nervous and lose confidence due to the time pressure. Not only the time pressure but also the judges for my writing such as my teacher will put more pressure on the content and logics in my writing. Then it gets harder for me to come up with creative ideas and organize them before I actually start writing. In the end, I would just go with general, boring ideas that everyone can write about. If writing at school could be more fun, I would have positive attitudes towards writing.