Money

Yesterday, I felt very suffocated, not because I was physically so, but mentally pressured by many different factors. One of them was about money. Before the end of last year and beginning of this year, I honestly didn't understand why people are crazed about the status of '유학생'. Since I'm from Ithaca, and all the people there were children of professors, we were living at a similar standard, upper-middle class people who aren't luxurious at all. Furthermore, all my friends were oblivious to luxury goods, and were just normal students who didn't have any extravagant tendencies.

But beginning from this summer, I slowly opened my eyes towards high end clothes, like Givenchy, Dior, Dsquared2 and everything else. It started from me having an interest towards outfits and clothing, which is sort of late compared to other peers. As I surfed the web and looked at different type of clothes, I began to identify some things on the street and purchase some myself. And even when I was in Korea, I wasn't didn't have any feeling towards people who wear them, only thinking they have lots of money, or are stylish.

But when I came here and made new friends, I discovered there are a lot of rich people than I thought they'd be. It felt like they were living different lives than 'average' people myself included, where money wasn't a restraining factor, and could afford whatever they wanted if they wished. There is a guy who has so many Givenchy clothes that I can't imagine how many more he has, and there is another guy who wears Chrome Hearts accessories, which costs at least half a grand for a simple ring. These are only a few people I know that are rich, and the thing is there are many more who live similar lives.

I sometimes compare myself to those people, and feel wretched, although it is natural to do so, and even angry at certain times. I know that studying in America is an extremely good privilege given to me by my parents, who had to study and work just to afford college education fees because his father has passed away when he was a senior. But even acknowledging I should be more than grateful towards my parents, I only feel I'm so tiny, and so poor that I feel inferior when I hang out with those people. Brands I think are not that cheap, they regard it as cheap shit that they don't want to buy, and spending certain amount of money for meals which is sometimes excessive to me, is nothing for them.

 I know nothing is going to change even I feel very envious to these people, but I can't stop feeling jealous to these people because it's a human being's instinct to act so. In the future, I want to be one of them, but it should be done by myself, from money I earn by working hard. I want to tell them that you are not superior than I am, and I want to be looked upon others with jealousy.

Fuck. I'm so fucking pissed right now. My TA wouldn't raise my grade up for the blog post I've written. She gave me fuckign 78 for a decent post, just because it didn't have coherent connection. What a fucking non sense. Because I got BC in my blog, even if I get 100s on every other thing in that class, I barely get over 92, when the cut for A in this course is 93. She fucking blew my opportunity to get an A in this class. I could drop this class, but since this is going to be my major, it's going to look very bad in my transcript. I don't want to study. asd;fokljsdfaws-eSDFKLjas;fijwsekdfapsodkfjlaskdj,faosidf Fuck you.

Recent thoughts

The feeling when you finally lost trust on somebody is quite bewildering and depressing to some extent. I think I had this moment just recently, when I fit in different pieces of tiny puzzles and finally saw a big picture of how everything went for somebody and how I was so nearsighted, unaware of what was going on. Although I'm happy I at least realized that, the fact that I couldn't see it until now is kind of pathetic. After so many hours of conversation and chatting, I had gained enough information to get some insight of how that person is, and how she maintains her complicated relationships. However, I was just one ignorant who didn't even understand what situation I was in. Thankfully, my friend provided a missing piece of puzzle and I saw that I was one of the 'fishes' she was carrying (this is a korean term, so there's no proper translation of it). I maybe a little bit upset because of this, but still, I could think it as an opportunity to put down a burden and time to take a step forward, since I had been very unorganized and undisciplined for awhile.

Well, finally all my exams are over, and the summer has come!

I'm at my place right now, it's kinda muggy compared to Madison, but I'm glad everything is over.
I got to check my grade for Comm Arts 250, and I was super excited to find out that I have scored 96.4 on the final, which I was really nervous because I thought I missed lots of questions. But it turned out that I did a great job on the test, unlike my bad expectations. However, I was soon dismayed to discover I got an AB, because I was short for about 0.7 points. I didn't do as well on the first midterm and the first paper, which I definitely should have put much more effort on. It really felt bad to get my first AB, meaning that my dream of maintaining 4.0 GPA is obsolete now.

As I'll get more grades, my GPA might go lower than that. I really hope I did really fine on speech class which I really hated so that it doesn't bomb my grades.....!

Time shift

Especially during the finals term, I feel my time becomes somewhat elastic. It's such a weird feeling because I know time is a constant thing no matter where I am. A second when I'm asleep in America is same as a second spend awake in Korea, and it's all the same even when I'm in universe. However, exceptions to this absolute truth arises when I go to College Library and start studying. So today, I went there at about 1:45 ish, and I began to study for Sociology final. As I was concentrating hard, like an orange juice, I felt like the clock wouldn't tick for a bit. It felt like the time has stopped, everything is void and the state of my mind frozen. It would continue for sometime, until it became 5'o clock when we head out for dinner.

By the ways, when we were strolling down the State street to get some food, there was this guy in front of Chipotle, laid face down the street and trying to throw up. But the guy seemed so static, that the first I saw him I thought the guy was sleeping there because there was no motion. He was like a corpse. But a close look at him revealed that he was painfully trying to throw up, and there was a good size of crowd watching him. Today, there was a traditional Mifflin st party in Maidson, so I assumed that the guy passed out, because otherwise all his behaviors didn't make sense if he were a rational being at that moment.

Anyways, after we had dinner at Fugu and tasted mediocre food that's covered with a huge dose of MSG, we went to Coldstone and had an ice cream. It was really delicious, and I thought I skip a dinner sometime to taste that icecream again someday. It was that good. Once we devoured huge amount of food, we went back to library and studied little. But at that time, I couldn't really focus, and I'm guessing it's probably due to MSG we had consumed from the restaurant. So we decided to play some ball at Serf, I came back then did laundary, and now it's 11:43. Basically, my time has just flied away from 5... What the heck.

It's really weird how time just flies by and freezes at random occasion. Now it's the finals term, and there's no more time to waste. But still, it's always impossible to study at home, because every single thing could be a distraction to me. 'Oh, there's three empty bottles sitting on my desk. They seem to occupy a lot of space. I guess I wouldn't be able to spread my book out and study. Well, I might as well go to bed now and wake up early tomorrow'. This is how my logic goes. Fail!

At last, the end of the semester is quickly approaching. Today is the last day of April, and after 20 days or so, I'll be all done with school work and will be enjoying summer at my house, grilling with my family, sipping beers, and grazing on chewy steaks! But those dreamy days only come after countless hours of hard work. I have a test beginning in 11 days, and paper that's due this week, another huge paper that is due on 17th and so on.

So I decided to step off from playing basketball every night, in order to earn some time to get extra load of work. This seems like a pretty bad idea since I wouldn't be able to play basketball that I love so much, and the lack of exercise means that I'd have to eat less calories everyday in order to say fit without doing any workouts.   But here's the dilemma: I feel like I'm starting to go through the last period of growth spurt, but at the same time, I have finals coming up. I guess finals take over my priority this time, since many of my classes grades depend on what I get on the final. I wish I could ace everything to seek another chance next year.

Here I go. Let's do some work!

Bad news? I didn't get into UVA. After months of waiting, staying nervous and checking the website literally once in every 5 seconds, it turns out that my effort was in vain. But one good thing is that I'm not as shocked as I was when I got a rejection from Cornell for the first time. It doesn't feel as shitty like that time. My chance of getting into Cornell this year as a transfer is slim, in fact so slim that I'm not even looking forward to it. I already assumed that I didn't get in, which means that UVA was the only school that I was actually expecting to get good news from. Well, that's bummer, isn't it?

Thanks to this weird situation, I think I'm going to stay here for another year, wouldn't be able to go to Korea and spend the whole summer in U.S. I'd also have to look for housing here for next academic year and pretty much I have to go through a whole bunch of shit that I really didn't look forward to...

Maybe I lacked preparation this year as well. Maybe my stats weren't good enough, or simply it's not my destiny (If there really is destiny anyways). But at the same time, this painful experience could mean another chance to me, and another opportunity to strengthen myself.

From today, there is only like 3 weeks left before the school is over. It's never late to soak into grief once I take care of these businesses. This is a good alert to tidy up myself and move on to the next level. I need to realize that this is not the end of the world, but maybe another change to take a great leap forward.

Busy bee!

3 exams in 2 days. Lets beat the shit out of each and enjoy the weekend!

Ugh, I have totally forgotten about all this blog stuff recently.

Returning to school after break, my life has been really undisciplined.

I guess there weren't really that much personal time dedicated to me. It's probably because I spend most of my day in College Library, where I study, chill and eat almost everyday. Actually today might be a good time to talk about how the place is. 

So in the beginning of the year, I was trying to find a perfect place to study. First, I tried out Steenbock Memorial library, which is a block across from my dorm. Despite the convenience that was attainable from the close distance, I ditched that option because of the sound of clocks ticking was so vociferous. Every minute, there was huge locking sound that occurred twice for some strange reason which drove me crazy. And the thing is, once you start hearing it just one time, you feel like you can hear it from a thousand miles away. So I moved on to a next option. Ebling library which is close to UW-Hospitals. It's a library that is made for med students, and it was the newest built one in our campus. Because of these attributes, it was the cleanest and the quietest library. However, there was one obstacle to it: Transportation. Biking there was not a problem when the weather was okay. But Madison is notorious for long and snowy weather which makes biking not a viable option. Which means that I have to take a bus every time. However, number 80 operates sort of infrequently after certain time (I guess somewhere around 8'o clock), which makes commuting to library a hard task. So that came off from my list.

The final, and the wisest move was relocating myself to College Library. There were a few merits that accompanied choosing it. First, it was 24 hours open from Sunday to Thursday, which is a huge advantage if I ever tried to pull of an all-nighter, which luckily I didn't. Furthermore, the library is close to Rheta's, the dining hall I used a lot over the winter, and the state street, home of various restaurants with reasonable price and okay taste. That's not the end of it. This library had a cafe and some vending machines that I could use if I needed. But the best thing is that College Library rented out textbooks for 3 hour terms, so I didn't have to carry Campbell Biology which weighs like 5 tons every day! Also, the quiet room was pretty quite (strange, ha?), the seat cozy and the lamp 'moody'. It provided me the perfect place to study year round and was close to different classrooms. Had it not been College Library, I would have been living a wholly different life, which I'm guessing would have been bad.

So, if I transfer to another college after this year, my main task would be finding a place that best resembles College Library. There might not be one, but still, College Library would forever be in my mind, as a part of precious memory that occupies a huge portion of my freshman year.

Last day!

Welp! Spring break is almost over now. At this moment, 2'o clock in the morning, it's Friday. The break ends on sunday, and I head back to madison tomorrow, early in the morning. I should have spent more time doing some work, but lots of time has been spend on doing things that are not really important -- playing games, web surfing without reason and stuff.  But it has been a good time for re-invigoration. After I get back, there's only about a month left before I visit Korea over the summer. My dad told me how one month goes so fast, saying he could hold on his breath for a month. I hope I can dominate all the upcoming exams and go to my home country with joy, pride and confidence!

What do I want to do when I grow up? Ever since I've watched TV show suits, I wanted to be like Harvey Specter. He's a prominent, young partner at a law firm in NYC, who has never lost in a trial. He sort of became my role model, and I'm going to strive as hard as I could to emulate and eventually surpass him.

Today, I hopped around different law firms. Well actually I found number one law firm in Korea (Kim & Chang, LLC) and one in America which I can't remember the name on top of my head. So I went to the website, looked at the profiles of bunch of partners there and there was one common thing I was able to observe. No matter how old they are, where they are from, most of the partners had graduated from whats so called 'good schools.' Like my dad told me a while ago, I guess graduating from a prestigious school is really an important thing. Maybe it functions as a filter that screens certain people. Maybe its an invisible measurement that gauges people's abilities. But regardless of its function, I guess it really means something to them. And at the same time, since it is required to all the high paying positions, it seemed like it was a definite key to the success. So, I hope I get into both schools I've applied to, because it's more likely that it will guarantee my success in the future!

Spring break has been going alright so far!

I went to a huge mall complex where it had a bunch of outlets and some 'real' shops, with a ginormous IKEA and costco right next to the group of buildings. Surprisingly, there weren't that many people around in the mall, probably because UW-Madison's spring break is so late that I was able to enjoy the time when most people have gotten back on track, going to work or school. Also, it was my first time at IKEA which was really interesting. I've gotten some insights about the store in the movie called "500 days of Summer" when they went to the shop and did a short musical in the shop. It was pretty much like that where different parts of a home -- bathroom, bedroom and sorts were displayed in a space with different themes which was really cool and fascinating. I thought to myself 'Oh, I'm definitely coming to this place again to purchase stuff when I get my own apartment in the future!'

Besides that , today, there was the final match of March Madness between Kansas and Kentucky which Kentucky won. To be honest, it was one of the most boring and loose game I've seen because there were not many upsets during the game, only a few 3 pointers (which is a crucial component of upsets) and just overall not really a dynamic team play. But anyways, it reminded me a brutal memory when I put Duke as the winner, and now my bracket is completely obsolete. Whatever. Let's just say I'm going to put Kentucky from now on. Congrats to Kentucky for winning this year's tournament. Shout outs to Alex Davis who only score 2 points but played the full time, with nearly 20 rebounds, about 8 blocks and a few stills!

P.S You didn't know he was a year younger than me with 2.08m height!

Came back to home sweet home!
Now the spring break has officially begun! Oh wait...
Did I just forget that I had 3 (possibly 4) papers to write and all these materials I have to regurgitate? Certainly it seems like it won't be a happy, happy, joy, joy spring break that every naive high school students have envisioned. It will be a week of intensive work, lots of reading and huge amount of writing...
Anyways, people, wish me a good luck!

Clubbing sucks in America.

I went to this tiny club in Madison because it was my friend's birthday. I didn't expect much in the first place, but today was pretty bad just like my prediction. I'm not sure if my friend liked it or not, but I just left the club early at like 1 in the morning. Tonight I didn't feel like grinding with some girls I don't even know, although that's the point of going to club. Maybe I didn't like it today because I wasn't drunk, but at the same time, I just felt like I don't have to do that. I mean, I thought I could not do those and have fun with girls or, I'd rather make a girl friend and have fun with her.

Some people might that college life, aka enjoying 20's is by making out randomly and sleeping with girls, but I guess that's not how I want to play the game.

First of all, sorry to all the avid readers (if there's any) for being lazy. I promised to write every post a day, but as you could see I've been slacking off for a while. It's mostly because I don't bring my laptop to library anymore but we all know that's an excuse. I have had so much more other time to jot down even a few words. Today I'll have to take a bio test, which hopefully I can ace, or even get a hundred. I've been studying quite a lot for it, but the practice exam I took last night wasn't as satisfactory as I wished. So I have to study some more today after Sociology class and we'll see how it goes.

After taking this test, I'll lay down some heavy burdens, and I assume I'll have more time to myself although I have 3 papers coming up at the same time (WTF). So please don't turn your back on me and keep readin`!

Yesterday and today, I felt like as if I had a beggar inside, or the guy in 'Man vs Food' (Adam Richman). It's because I've been eating a huge amount of food. Well, I'd say it was fine yesterdays because I spent around three hours playing basketball and shooting around. I ended up eating half of Ritz snack I bought, which was of a considerable size. It's more like I engulfed snakcs because I really didn't know I ate more than half of it until I opened the bag and actually saw it.

Today I ate Ramen noodles with rice, which is straight up the best combination one can make out of, for lunch. Then I ate a tiny snack during my ride around the Capitol. Oh by the ways, it was St.Patrick's day to day, so the entire state street was filled up with half drunk and some obnoxious/insane people. I guess that's understandable considering today's special circumstance. For dinner, I went to five guys with my friend (YSM, he's crazy as well although he wasn't drunk nor of Irish origin). I ate a little cheese burger with regular fries and then I consumed lots of salty peanuts which made the meal that seemed like lacking a little bit a perfect one. It was like a desert that decorates the end of a pricy French 5 course dinner. 

Anyways, since I ate too much yesterday and today, I decided to wake up 8 tomorrow morning and have a ride around the town, or possibly to Target once again from last week for exercise. Then I might run to burn extra calories so I can come back to normal human being from all these extravagant food consumption!

It's time for the craziness! Finally, March Madness has begun. I love how all Americans go mad about this event, along with the super bowl. No doubt, it is one of the biggest sporting event that takes place on Earth! While it's awesome to watch 64 teams competing with each other as hard as they could, organizing a bracket and betting on the tournament with a bunch of friends makes it even better. In mine, I chose Duke as the final winner, as the school has been maintaining its prestige as a highly potential team that can capture the glory.

However, a bad thing happened today. Duke had its first match against LeHigh, which is a small school located in Philadelphia or something, and was a 15th seed team. But something unimaginable happened. An upset has occurred in that match, in which LeHigh dominated duke throughout the game. As result, my bracket became hopeless because I won't be able to win more points since you get more points for predicting the right team as it gets closer to Sweet-Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four. So, I pretty much ended up losing my $5.

I guess the moral of the story is, just go by what the experts predict, not based on your intuition. Upset almost happens every time, and you don't want to lose money because you trust your inept instincts!

Enough of gloomy, 'blizzardy' and overall shitty weather of Madison. Finally, the spring, which seemed like it wasn't going to come here forever, has appeared. Every time around this season, I get extremely active. I just feel like I have to compensate for my lazy sedentary lifestyle that was residing inside of me. Nowadays, I usually bike to classes, to the library and to my dorm. This lets me to actually eat rice because I commute to my room for meals, which saves me lots of money and at the same time makes me healthy. Asians without rice? It's nearly impossible to imagine...

Anyways, from my memory, every beginning of spring for 4 years, I started to play basketball actively. Well, I ran and biked a lot too, but it was always accompanied by numerous hours of playing b-ball out at the Cornell court (Which was also our rendezvous for a long time). It continued throughout all summer. My days was pretty routine; I played basketball at the court until I was exhausted, then headed to the bubble tea house or the Wilson Farms in collegetown with friends, bought an Arizona tea and almost chugged it. The icy cold lemonade was the panacea to heat and tiredness.

But the thing is, although I've been constantly doing that for four years of my summer, I haven't really improved much. I mean, yes, I got better a little bit, but it was nowhere closer to the amount of time I have spent. Playing basketball for four continuous summer should have made me pretty decent, but I wasn't.

Now when I think about it, I think it's because I lacked the essential skills in playing basketball. My form wasn't  correct. It was awful. Then was I able to carry out good team plays? Don't even bother to mention. Good pass then? Not really. Thinking back, I feel like I didn't make a good use of those times.

Now, I think the time for the correction has come. In college I'm still playing basketball as actively as I did back in Ithaca. And at the same time, I'm trying to rectify (The word I found today that sounds quite smart) my forms and trying to understand some essentials in team play. I spend at least hour and a half shooting balls everyday, and I'm trying to wake up early in the morning to get some extra practice in. Lets hope I can keep up with those schedules and really become better this time. I mean I've spent enough time playing this sports. I should be better than this. Lets do it! Come on Tae!!!

1.

A few minutes ago, my cousin KakaoTalked (if you don't know what this is, I'll assume that you are not Korean) whining about his busy, fully filled schedule. He's not a lawyer who works at multi-million law firm in NYC nor is he a hired worker. He just entered middle school, and is only 14 years old. Then what can he possibly be busy for? going to academia (private institution that teaches what he learns or will learn in the school) after the school is over till 10:30. As a person who had experience similar routine throughout my middle school, I understood his feelings and at the same time, felt sympathetic for him.

2.

The school system in Korea is a long living cancer. After experiencing both academic systems in Korea and U.S, I realized how irrational the entire system is, but too bad the administrative people aren't doing anything. It seems like the most retarded people are in charge of directing the education of thousands of kids. What an irony. 

How the education works in typical Korean middle school is like this. So you go to your school early in the morning and hang out, chitchat with your friends until the first period starts. Then the bell rings, now it's time for 40 minutes of imagination (or meditation, even 'hiatus' for some). Teachers don't seem to know what they are teaching in depth. Contents in textbooks are weak at best, and there isn't any detailed explanation nor plenty of problems that students can wrestle and learn from. Most textbooks are pretty short, about 200 pages maximum, and the contents are seemingly worse than the 'study guides' published from private companies. Being unable to learn much from textbooks, parents with great eager towards the education of their children send to academias (private institutions) paying at least one-fifth of their income. But does it solve the problem at all? I guess not. From my experience most students went to those private institutions regardless of their will, feeling that if they don't they will fall way behind and will be unable to catch others up. This passive attitude of students only make them better doodlers, daydreamers and socialists, instead of well educated learners. This vicious cycle continues. Parents squander away their valuable money, students become overwhelmed by their tight schedules, but the only winner here is the private institution, sucking up the money of the victims of the government's preposterous planning.

3.

So what's the answer? What can the government do to solve this unsolvable situation, so many problems intermingled together it seems like it's a twisted thread that takes forever to untie? I'm pretty sure there had been many attempts, but it only had been like mobius's strip; problems eventually come again, and this circles again and again.

Actually I'm going to continue writing this post. I need to go to bed right now because I'll be traveling Madison area with my bike since the spring has finally arrived!

Redemption

It's been forever since I've visited this blog filled with good memories. Since May of 2011, I feel like I've visited here for only a few times, to see how many visitors have been to my blog (From the creation 2 years ago, there have been only 1004 visitors so far. I know, it's not like Facebook, but hey, that's still a lot of people for me). 


Recently, there was something that motivated me start blogging again. After coming to college and encountering numerous articles by different philosophers and sociologists (and of course textbook authors),I realized that there is another hidden aspect of writing, that if you write well, you might as well sound pretty cool and actually seem intelligent. I've never conceived writing in this particular way, but it certainly was one great thing that made these people great and that can serve me for a life time. 


So this is why I decided to develop my writing skill. I thought it's a pretty darn good investment with an unimaginable stake. I have many stories to tell, but what use is that without suitable and interesting frames that can vividly represent my feelings? It would be like a foreigner trying to tell how awesome his country is to a person who does not understand his language.


But that can't happen to me. I feel like I have a right to recount my stories to other people after paying more than $23000 a year for my education in America. This huge amount of money shouldn't be wasted at all.
So, I plan to wake up at 6 everyday and spend about an hour working on my writing. I know that this seems pretty impossible. But it's what the author of 'Bird by Bird' recommended; Dedicating some portion of every day practicing writing.


I know for sure that I won't be able to wake up that early in the morning everyday. It just doesn't seem possible since I'm not in military or in a prison but a lively, sometimes lazy college student. But still, I'll try to do my best and trust my will power this time. I hope that some readers (if there is any) can track my progress and hopefully complement about my improvements later in the year. And since I'd never want to hear from readers that reading my posts was a complete waste of time, I will assure you that you will be compensated somehow in the future!