Chapter 2, Final draft, Park. Kyeongmin

I am sorry I should have posted it as a comment, but somehow my comment box seems that it doesn't want to work.

 

 

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First murder

According to the Chinese Zodiac, the year of 2013 becomes the year of the Snake, which means it's better for me to keep my nose clean until the year is over, seriously.

In 2010, having finished military duty, I was very excited and confident enough to see a bit more of the world by myself, so I went to Australia with only small amount of cash and a working visa. It was not easy at first, but it was great. During the first two weeks in Sydney, everything was new to me. I took hundreds of photos, visited every single corner of the city, and made a number of friends from all over the world. Although it struck me as a culture shock to share a room with girls at backpackers' hostel, but even that was quite an experience at that time.

 And then, magically, Sydney, one of the world's most famous and beautiful cities turned to be just another city, and my life became boring. I was tired of the same buildings, once-is-enough botanic gardens, Subway sandwiches, McDonald's hamburgers, and most of all, the fact that I was still a tourist. What I wanted was a real Australian life. That's why I looked for a way to share life with natives and luckily found a memo on the Sydney tourist center webpage that Mr. Thompson, a management consultant who was at that moment looking for someone to help him with his new building project.

 For next eight solid months, as a mentor, he taught me all he knew about Australia and I enjoyed a lot of interesting stories of the Thompsons. Among many, I particularly liked the one that he worked for MI7, the British Military Intelligence Section 7, listening to radio transmission from Russia during the Cold War. Above all, what made me more proud of myself was that I did such a wonderful job in building a Queenslander-style house in which they have been living so far.

  One day, I had to take care of the house on my own, because one of their friends was ill in New Zealand. Within a radius of a mile, there was no one but me, a cat named Bing, and four chickens left behind for ten days. I was a complete free man and it was the most extraordinary time that I had ever had in all my life. I would sit in a long comfortable chair watching Bing chasing birds and the chickens with a glass of beer always in a hand. At night, when I turned all the lights off in the house, I could see thousands of stars and even the Milky Way. It was a spectacular view.

 However, that moment didn't last long. I noticed that Bing behaved in a strange way. He was extremely cautious, crawling on the floor, looking in every direction as if being afraid of something. But I didn't give him much attention, because I thought that he was playing. Next day, it was about noon, I was having brunch watching TV, and Bing was also enjoying his cat food on the floor beside me. Then suddenly, Bing jumped right up through the air, made a weird scream, and dashed to the back door like a flash. I was totally surprised with my mouth half open. I was just about to say something to him, then, I saw.

"Holy shit!!" I gave a cry.

It was a dark, enormous, and horrifying creature that I never encounter that close. I hastily climbed up the kitchen table, and what I saw was a python slithering in from the front door. As soon as I saw it, I just knew that it could kill a man. My heart was beating so hard that I could even hear it. I grabbed an iron bar which I had been using as a dumbbell, tried to chase it away to the front door again. The snake was unbelievably heavy; I could feel that from the tip of the iron bar. After a struggle, I got the python out of the house. I thought it was over. Through the glass of the front door, I could watch it sitting on the stair case. I took photos and even short videos as a proof of my triumph. Ah, to my stupidity, a thought struck me that if the giant snake freely hanged around the house, I couldn't go out! I didn't want that situation, which means either of one could live unless the other died.

I ran like a wind through the back door and went to a shed where all the tools were stored. I chose a shovel and got close to the front door again from the outside. The snake was not there. A Queenslander-style house was about a meter high above the ground, because of possible floods or humidity. I searched thoroughly under the house. The free-ranged chickens helped me. After a while I found the monster and it seemed that it was heading back to bush. In an open place, I could see its whole body. It was approximately 4 meters long, and I was not sure, but it looked like the python had already eaten something because its abdomen was swollen.

This was the moment that I still don't understand. Certainly, I could let it go, but somehow I killed it. I chopped it several times with the shovel, and it was a hard job for its skin was really tough. I might have thought that I could easily cut it into half. Then suddenly, a strange feeling came into, and I could describe it as nothing but guilt. The snake was not an ant or any kind of small insects that we kill often. It was a being. And it was first time for me to take a life. Although I can give me an excuse that I had no choice to save my own life, but somehow, after the incident I had a series of nightmares for days. And I made up my mind not to kill anything even roaches. The extremely unpleasant strong feeling is the last one that I want to have again.  

Han sang deok - chapter 1 final draft

Meaningless Effort

 
          Memorable experience… Lots of memories pass in my head. Good memories,

 

bad memories, etc. Age 22, third and fourth semester in Korea, is the time to start and

 

do 'something'. People decide something big and huge at this time. They find hard

 

examinations and challenge to them, go to serve in the military, or study abroad to find

 

the big picture. I set my big picture to Police officer. For this I needed to have the

 

dedication and commitment to the society. So I decided to do some volunteer work.

 

I did volunteer work with all my heart at that time. While doing the volunteer

 

work 2 ~ 3 months, everything was good and happy but the most meaningful

 

experience was the activity at the Aram Teenager Mentoring Center.

 

Aram Teenager Mentoring Center is the center for the economically poor and

 

emotionally ill teenager, which provides various programs to support them. One of those

 

various programs is one-to-one mentoring program. This program matches teenagers

 

with college students. After matching up, they do lots of activities to have familiar with

 

each other. Its purpose is to give those teenagers high–quality education and emotional

 

stability. 

 

Participating, I was matched with a girl named Park Si Un. She was very hard to

 

be friends with. She didn't want to talk about herself. She seemed to have many scars on

 

her mind. I couldn't and shouldn't ask her about the concrete story but I could feel that.

 

The more I tried to have emotional bond with her, the less intimate we became. Maybe

 

it was because we had nothing in common. Our backgrounds were contrary to each

 

other.

 
So I totally gave up the intimacy. I focused only on the matter of STUDY. It

 

means I decided to concentrate on the high-quality education and give up the emotional

 

thing. From that time, I don't know why but our relationship turned far better. In fact

 

after setting joint goal, we had no time to think the trivial thing. We had things to

 

achieve. 'Grades'

 
 I taught math. Math is the study of number. In order to do math well,

 

there are minimum conditions. You need to be close with numbers. Also, you need to

 

have 'normal' memory. When I teach, I usually get bunch of empty papers on the desk.

 

With writing basic notions like set and sequence, I explain every inch of them. Finishing,

 

satisfied, I smile at the paper dense with my writings. 

 
However, Si Un was totally different. Neither could I smile at her nor at my

 

'notion paper'. First, this poor little girl disliked numbers. She got lots of calculation

 

mistakes and she could not remember whether she did plus or minus even a second ago.

 

Second, she had poor memory. She kept asking me same notions I taught in the paper. I

 

got upset. I didn't know what to do with this girl. I used to get angry and yelled at her.

 

Friends and seniors thought me strange and said to me on the bus "Why do you

 

do that to Si Un? She already gave up math. She can't calculate well, you know that." "It

 

is just volunteer work. Volunteer thing. You know what it means. Seriously, do you like

 

her?(of course not)" Even in the manager of that center said to me that I need to be

 

calm down and face the reality. To sum up they kept reminding me that my effort was

 

meaningless thing.

 
I think I was a harsh and pushing teacher. I scolded Si Un about the mistakes she made. I was

 

irritable and short-tempered. Also I didn't praise not a single time. To think of it, I was a

 

crazy teaching monster. However, she didn't seem to feel bad or scared. In fact she gave

 

me the impression 'Bring it on'. She had never complained about my teaching style. She

 

kept studying, I yelled, and on and on.  

 

Time flew like an arrow. It was the 9th meeting. Si Un gave me a piece of paper.

 

It was a report card which was marked '1'(A+) on the math.

 

Few months passed. She gave me another paper. It was a certificate for the

 

university. In fact she was 'choosing' the universities. She asked me "Where do I have to

 

choose? Deok teacher"

 

There is no endeavor in the world which is meaningless.

 

  

Jaemin Park/chapter 2/final draft

I am the hero! When I was 15 years old, I decided to go USA to study. I didn't realize that I should live alone without my family until I got the airport in USA. As soon as I got airport, I faced the reality. I couldn't say English not a word but people kept saying something to me in English, which made me more embarrassed. I only wanted to avoid the situation and all I did for a month was crying and calling my friends and family in Korea again and again. Sometimes I didn't go to school and stayed alone in the dorm. As I always cried and talked with nobody, I became more alone. I felt lonely but I didn't have any mood to get along with friends. I missed Korea so bad. In this way, I was living in USA.   One day, I went on a school field trip. I didn't want to go but I should. "Oh my god" Having lunch at the river alone, suddenly all friends screamed staring at the river. Someone was floundering in the river. Now I come to think of it, I don't know how I was that brave but I jumped in the river. I couldn't even swim well. As soon as I barely got her in the back, we realized that it was so shallow river that we could even stand up in the river. Every one breathed a sigh of relief. That night, the last time I cried in the USA, not because of the sorrow but because of the delight.   From the day on, I became like a hero not only in my school but also in Ohio state. Walking the road, people who I didn't know came to ask me about the day and praised me. Of course I made many friends in the school.   Looking back, It was really frightening but unforgettable memory. Now, the moment I write this essay, I miss the days in USA and my friends and teachers all.

Facebook에서 규진님의 최근 사진을 확인해보세요!

facebook Facebook에서 규진님의 최근 사진을 확인해보세요! Facebook에서 규진님과 만나기 Facebook에 가입하시면 전세계의 친구들과 다양한 이야기와 사진, 동영상을 공유하고 메시지를 주고 받을 수 있답니다. 이 메시지가 profjbh.snow@blogger.com에 전송되었습니다. 앞으로 Facebook으로부터 이같은 이메일을 받고 싶지 않거나 회원님의 이메일 주소가 친구 추천에 사용되지 않기를 원할 경우 수신 거부. Facebook, Inc., Attention: Department 415, PO Box 10005, Palo Alto, CA 94303

Bora Hong. Chapter 2, final draft

I tried to post my final draft on my comment of my first one. But it didn't allow me ( i mean didn't work out)
So i am posting new.
 
 
 
<Five minutes in nowhere>- final draft

  Once in a life time, something that we might have heard only from the news occurs in our lives unexpectedly. Like a birth of 6 twins, immortal man after several severe accidents and so on. The story what I am going to tell you is also something that will surprise you and make you doubt and wonder how I can actually be here. I mean, how I am alive now.
   It happened about two years ago in Germany while I was studying as an exchange program student. Every day was series of happiness and joy that I haven't experienced before when I was in Korea. But that day was an exception. I want delete it from my memory, if it's possible. I am shocked of the bare idea of the five minute of that day.
   Actually I had been waiting for that day from a long time ago. It was my first party in Germany as a host. I planned it for a long time for the party. 'How will it be awesome if I make Korean food and invite all my friends?  Spending the whole night, drinking and eating and dancing and talking. Wow.' I thought. So I rent a party room near my dormitory with 150 euro and decorated it for hours. And the D-day finally came. It was an ordinary day like usual. Everything was fine and good, except that I was too excited. But something went wrong all of sudden. And it began from the loss of my house key. After the class, on my way home, I found out that I lost my house key, so I had to stay outside for about two hours waiting for the dormitory charger. The party was supposed to be started at 8 P.M but I could finally open the door at 7:30 P.M. Too late for preparing many kinds of foods. So I was decided to fry the chicken. I was in a hurry frying the chicken and dressing up at the same time. Usually something what I do too quickly at once, was ruined easily. And so was that day. The chicken was all burned and I spilled the oil on my new party dress. I was more sad to know that I can't wear that dress that day, rather than I can't provide the Korean foods to my  party guests. "Nooooooooooooooo" I screamed out loud.  But I had to be on time at the party because I was hosing the party. So I had to dress up again and throw the food away. No time for complaining and sweeping. As I think everything positive, I decided to enjoy the party and forget about the bad day. I had good time dancing, drinking, and talking with my friends. I felt great. Everything went fine. But suddenly something happened to me. Something unbelievable. It happened in the middle of the dance floor next to the DJ. I was standing next to DJ booth and grabbed a metallic pillar next to me with my hands. And then ' Boom'.
I don't remember anything from then. I was knocked out. What I remember now and what I felt that moment was that I thought I was dying. All my body was tumbling and I felt my body paralyzing. I saw my friends and tried to ask for a help. But at that moment, what I saw was moving slowly like a scene of movie and I couldn't say anything .Yes, because I got an electric shock. It was so real and a great shock that I still remember the feeling. I was unconscious about for 5 minutes. "Bora. Do you hear me? " " Bora, Open your eyes." The voice could be heard dimly. My two Italian friends who were doctors started to talk to me. to find out whether I was conscious or not. If not, they should bring me to the hospital. As I opened my eyes the music stopped and tens of people were surrounding me. I bursted into tears, and noticed that I came back to real world. For about 5 minutes I was in nowhere. I really thought that I was dead. All of sudden, that party became disaster to me. I couldn't walk for few days and had to go to doctor every day.
    After that day I was so scared even to plug my laptop into an outlet. At first, whenever I held electronic devices, I used to wear gloves. It sounds funny now to hear it but yes, that's how I started to overcome this fear. But still I feel terrible whenever that day comes to my mind. But I also learned a good lesson from that day. I started to thank everything from little and ordinary things to the big ones. How happy it is now to breathe and have dinner with family or friends and talk about my terrible day with a big laugh.

Kwang-Jin Lee / Chapter2.(p50) Final Draft

 

Car Accident in Heavy Snow

 

201102327 Kwang-Jin Lee

 

Have you ever experienced a car accident? It always occurs in the twinkling of an eye. And all the result of the accident is decided in such a short time. It can be a total disaster, or such a miracle.

 

When I was 5^th grade in the elementary school, my family lived in Boulder, Colorado. And when the winter vacation started, my family went on a vacation to the south-west region of the US by car. We toured lots of cities and attractions for about two weeks and soon the day to return came.

 

My parents woke me and my younger sister up very early in the morning. "Wake up," dad said. "We have to leave here early so that we can reach Boulder tonight. It will be a long journey from here." So my family ate breakfast really fast and hurried our way back home on the highway. When the evening came, we were on the left side of the Rocky Mountains but still had to cross such a high mountains. And while going across the mountains, it started to snow and became very heavy as the night came. Soon, our visions were limited to nearly 3~4 meters and the entire world seem to be just white. Also, the highway was very steep and slippery. So mom seemed to be worried. "It's snowing too much," mom said. "Let's find an inn and return home tomorrow. It's too dangerous." But my dad said, "But our kid's second semester starts tomorrow. They have to go to school." Mom tried to persuade dad that safety is more important, but dad didn't agree.

 

Dad drove the car up to the top of the mountains. And after we reached the continental divide, we started to go downhill. But it was more dangerous to go down than to go up because the car could easily slip forward. "I've got to step on the brake pedal carefully," dad said. There were no guardrails beside the highways but just dangerous cliffs. So I broke out into a cold sweat. The outside of the car was full of darkness with heavy snowing. Snow on the road piled heavily that I couldn't even recognize the boundary of the highway and cliff.

 

"Be careful!" All of a sudden, our car slipped and became out of control. We were all stunned worrying that we might fall down to cliff, but fortunately, there was some space where we slipped to, similar space like the shoulder of the road. Anyway, we could avoid falling down the cliff, but became stuck in snow on the right side of the road.

"Ah, the wheels can't get traction in such a deep snowbound," dad said. But until then, although he seemed a little disappointed about this situation, nothing seemed dangerous. "Don't worry, kids," dad said. "I'll go out for a short time to see our situation more in detail." And he went out of the car and wondered around to know exactly about our situation. After that, he opened the door and tried to come in. "Hey, th……"

"Clunk!" In an instant, a car which was passing by slipped and crashed into the side of our car. "Ah!" my sister cried out. I was so horrified that I couldn't even scream. The door beside the driver's seat was torn off and Dad was bleeding in his left hand. "Are you alright?" my sister cried. But though he was bleeding, what he tried to do was to relieve us. "I'm OK. I'm OK," he said.

 

Fortunately, no one was seriously injured. Because the car crashed toward side of the front wheel, dad wasn't directly hit by the car. He was bleeding just because he got a cut in his finger when the door was tearing off. And other people including me were totally safe. It was just a miracle to be completely safe even if our car were hit so hard!

After dad calmed us down, he patiently called the 911 and tow truck. "I'll go to the hospital alone," dad said to mom. "You take our kids home and take some rest." "OK. Take care," mom said. "I'll go to you after I take our kids home." We took a seat in the tow truck and our broken car was pulled behind.

 

It was sudden and terrible accident, but I think we were quite lucky. Right side of our car located such an endless cliff and if the other car crashed other part of our car, we might have been pushed to the cliff. Then, I would not be able to write about this experience.

 

And I've got some lesson from it. I never doubted that my parents would be with me forever. But after the accident and critical situation that might make me lose someone in family, I realized the importance of my dad, mom and my sister. Also, I learned that just living a life itself should be considered priceless. And I was very surprised that dad was so patient with the sense of responsibility for family. I became more respectful to my dad.

 

Seongyool Myung/Chapter 2/Second draft

 

Voluntary Work in China

 

 

Since I got to know how to speak a foreign language, English, I have always wanted to go abroad. Though it seemed impossible for me to go out of this country because I could not afford it, I had three opportunities to visit foreign countries. I have visited the U.S., Guatemala, and China. In the U.S., I visited my friend and stayed at his place for several days; in Guatemala I spent two and a half months studying Spanish; in China, I was a volunteer worker for 10 days.

 

There was a volunteering program in which volunteers should construct facilities and educate poor foreign village people, fully sponsored by Hyundai Company in February in 2012. The targeted countries were Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nepal. All the costs were paid by Hyudai. I applied for this program because at first I wanted to go to Africa, a continent that one can hardly visit in his or her lifetime. I thought this would be a great and right opportunity to put my foot on a new world. So I wrote a résumé, which was accepted.

 

Hyundai company was cooperating with a volunteering organization called Copion. The organization asked me to be interviewed, so I visited their office. There were a lot of people waiting for their interviews. As it was a group interview, I had to team up with four other people. The interviewers asked some questions and suddenly wanted me to dance salsa, which I wrote down on the résumé. I was embarrassed so I said "No way, I need one more person who can dance it" but as they kept asking me to do that, I did it a little bit, adding "If I get admitted, I will show you more." Then, several days after, they sent me a text message that I was accepted.

 

They said I will be sent to China. After that they set up a team of 20 people, 7 boys and 13 girls of my age, whom I had to work with for ten days there. I was disappointed that I should go to China instead of Africa, but my teammates were nice enough to get along with and the blue feeling fastly went away. We took the same flight after days of hanging out with drinks together.

 

After we arrived at Winan, a southern region of China, we had to take minivans to get to our final destination. It took us around 3 hours to get to the town. It was a really small rural village. How small was it? Only in 10 minutes you can finish touring there. The town was totally underdeveloped, so its earth's red sand was blowing all in the air. There were two small rooms for all of us to stay in, and all our members had to sleep on straw mattresses. The weather gets so hot in the daytime and cold at night, so we need to be careful of neither getting burnt nor catching a cold. Every time we went under the sun we said "The sun is blazing!" and when we went sleeping we said "It is too cold to sleep..."

 

We had set up our parts before we went there. There were two big parts: education and labor. My part was teaching origami under the education part so I practiced making four different shapes of animals and two of transportation. The animals were a frog, a penguin, a fox, a cat; the transportation included a sailboat and an airplane. Most of the village population, including seniors who seemed to be more than 60 gathered in a small room and followed my instruction. I don't speak Chinese, so an interpreter delivered what I said to the people.

 

When they finished making frogs, I had them be on a race with them; with foxes, I made them howl after me, so we together were like "Awwwwwww~" all the kids kept repeating the sound; of course, with airplanes, they went crazy flying them over the sky. Even though it was hard for me to teach them because not everybody was good at folding and unfolding for the right form, I felt a fresh feeling bursting from my heart. I actually taught people something and they loved it!

 

Another work we had to do was building a restroom for them. They had not actually had any kind of toilet anywhere in the village before a previous volunteering team made one with some bricks and a big-sized cloth. So we were working on a decent restroom, and we also paved the streets. During the labor time we kept carrying bricks, making and spreading cement, and paving roads with little stones under the blazing Sun. Our skin got burnt, our throat got sore from the gusts with the red sand and our shoes got worn out for the craggy earth, but we were happy that we actually were helping people.

 

After ten days of staying there, our schedule there was over. As we got into the minivans again, some of the girls cried, other were holding the village people's hands. People who are not from the would find it hard to live there under such a harsh weather, where you should breathe the air with sand and sleep at night under 0 degree Celsius. Physically hard, but mentally soft we were. There were no worries like I have now in this urban area. So in the flight back to Korea, I thought we can call the 10-days period 'underdeveloped', but not are we able to 'underestimate' it.