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!