Assignment1_1st draft / 200702094 Chong rim Yoo

200702094

Chong rim Yoo

My Dream

How many times did you change your dream? I guess more than once will be a fine answer for everyone. But in my case, at least three times every moment I grew up mentally. However, through these changes I have found my exact dream, the dream I will live with it forever in my life.

During my childhood, I loved babies more than I like today. I never went out to play with my friends but would rather play with kids who were younger than

me. I always bought them snack and feed them like they were my baby birds. Or sometimes I will call them to sit around me and I read them books really dramatically I could see them having fun. So, till I went to elementary school I always told my parents that I want to and will be a kindergarten teacher. In christmas I never hoped for a present but rather painted a drawing of me being a teacher and prayed for Santa to make me dreams come true.

As I got older, I found myself having talent in singing and dancing. But this is not the only reason I changed my dream as a singer. The biggest event was, I experienced earning money by just signing in front of people. It was the day when my father's relative invited our family to his house. We were having a great time and adults were drinking beer and I thought that they will get more fun if I sing and dance in front of them. So, I stood up and sang which was all my ownself will. I did my best because I could see everyone watching at me with joy and suddenly, the relative just gave me a five thousand won which was a huge amount of money for me in that age. I was shocked, 'money? by only singing and dancing? Awesome!' and there I go, changing my dream being a singer because the taste of five thousand won was so sweet to me.

From the age of 20, I started to loose my dream. I became to realistic I knew being a singer is just not possible for me. So, I thought I could find another dream as I study and learn variety of fields. However until the age of 24, nothing came into my mind. I guess just learning words were just not enough for me. Then one day I've graped a chance to work as an intern in one of the foreign banks in Korea for three months. I never had an interest in financial market and never thought of myself having a job related to it. But as I am a person who thinks experiencing is better than studying, I now found my real dream, the dream I could achieve and will achieve. I learned what financial is and how it affect economy be having direct experience and I just loved it. As my majors; Japanese and EIT are not related with financial I am now studying it by myself to be a better banker.

What I want to say is find a dream. Find a dream that you really like and enjoy. But you don't have to be anxious finding it to late because one day it will just come to you with now notice. Try to experience anything, things that you are really interested in or things you really hate because it will lead you to the dream that is really right for you.

200903863 Kyu Jin 1st Draft

In 2003, I graduated from George Walton High School. Yet, I did not feel the need of going to university just yet. My oldest brother graduated from Cornell and Columbia, my second brother from Cal-Tech and Columbia as well. Now both are lawyers. I was playing cute, adorable: third son who causes troubles which my parents actually adored. It seemed like that they were treating me as an extra card in their deck of cards at times. With strong desire to do something different, fun, exciting and even a little bit bizarre, I began to think about my near future. That is when I made my big decision to come to Korea and be a comedian.

         People say that you have to be funny to be a comedian. A dog licking himself would be funny. To make other people laugh was a whole different game and I was not expecting that at all. I was smoking two packs of Marlboro Reds in a day to gain decent ideas. I was not funny; instead, I came up bitter and a bit nutty. In 2004, I auditioned for the first time for KBS and I failed. When I started packing my "not-so-funny" gear up to drag myself home, I was called up by producer Seo-Su-Min. "upgrade ideas by next week. We'll see how it goes." This had to be one of my greatest moments.

         I thought of three main acts for my next audition. I had a comedic concept which compares U.S.A. to Korea. It would be funny to make fun of Korea in U.S., but it was vice versa taking into account that I was in Korea. Also, it was pretty ironic, considering the fact that I hate being compared to. With a grin on my face, I thought to myself. 'Wow, now you have to compare for living stupid.' The show was at 9 PM but producers wanted me to arrive at KBS by 9 AM. For 12 hours my suffering lasted. Before the show, I vomited three times. I was not even hired yet and they wanted me on the show. I was calming myself thinking about the movie 8mile, and told myself that Eminem went through the same thing when he first starting rapping. It was a ridiculous way to control my insides but it worked. After practicing the out of the ordinary self-calming method, the clock finished its race to 9 PM.

 I was actually a comedian for two whole years. How did I end up in HUFS? Apparently, comedians do not make a lot of money. Well, not enough for my needs. After being on a T.V. show for so long, I was fluent in both languages. I took my newly achieved skill as an opportunity to attend here in HUFS.

Now, I am happy about where I am in my timeline and my actual location as well. I hope to graduate and go corporate in mid-thirties. I wish to maintain myself from trying to be too different from my brothers whom doesn't know, nor care about my life, and do what I am good at. Even though I do not take the event as my most proud moments but this was really important in my life. This odd adventure helped me shape who I am today. 

Junseok Kang/the 1st writing

1. What are your strengths as a writer: for example, creativity, ability to organize ideas, ability to express ideas clearly? List three of your strengths below, starting with the most important one. Explain these strengths by giving examples, if possible.

           My strength as a writer is, at first, ability to organize my idea. I use my organizing skills for many times at school. I arranged the important words about the subject I want to write or study about. Then I group and make a basic structure with the vocabularies. I think it gives a good basic frame for writing.

           Another strength I have is that I have experience of writing. Through four years of school, I went through many writing assignments and class. For an example, most of the class I took requires me to write about any subject from my personal life story to business idea. And I guess those course have made my writing skills strong.

           The other one is that I don't waste time with hesitation or shyness when I write. I think this quality is good for not wasting time and easy to get a desirable result of writing. For an example, when I decide to write or finish organizing the ideas, I get into the writing process right away. For me, it brings the focused time and an ability to put out my all idea in short time.

 

2. What do you find most difficult about writing: for example, getting ideas, organizing ideas, not knowing enough about the topic? List three problem you face in your writing, starting with the most serious. Explain these problems by giving examples, if possible.

           If I have to pick my three weaknesses about writing, the first thing is the lack of experience. Without enough personal experience and idea, even the very beginning process of writing starts to become hard and stressful. If I get an extra time to gather some information, it would be fine to deal with information shortage. But when I don't have experience about an certain subject, it is hard, because experience is not a thing I am able to have right off.

           Second weakness is limited vocabularies. In my writings, I found I have a certain tendency to use same words and phrasal verbs repeatedly. In my mother tongue, repetition of words and verbs doesn't matter. But when it comes to English writing, I see the possibility that my writing might seem unsophisticated or boring.

           Third weakness is that I have high expectation from my writing. It motivates me to be a better writer, however the most time high expectation brings high disappointment to me. Sometimes this anticipation makes me keep putting things off, just hoping the best moment to be ready and a good idea happens to me which never comes.

 

3. Describe your writing process by answering the following questions: How do you usually approach an out of class writing assignment? Do you start early or put it off until last minute? Do you write only one draft or revise your easy one or more times? Where do you go for help if you find a writing assignment difficult?

 

           I usually pick up a relaxing day for a writing assignment. Then I start. I may have the tendency to put things off till last minutes. But I think many students also have. So I don't consider it as a big problem. I revise a couple of times. First I search the grammar and spell mistakes, then after I try to look for the flaw of logic and the wrong structure. Even I have the problem with writing assignment, I don't discuss it with anybody. I personally think using an internet is a great tool for self-taught and found that most of times I don't really need a person to ask about.

 

4. In what ways do you hope your writing will improve by the end of this course: for example, more confidence in writing, more idea for writing, better organization, ability to write more quickly? List three ways in which you hope your writing will improve, and explain why these things are important to you as a writer.

 

           My goal of this course is that acquiring a skill to write a basic leveled newspaper article. To achieve this aim, at first I need to improve formal writing skill. I often find a difficult with formal and courtesy English expressions. Also distinguishing which language is appropriate or suitable for a formal writing is extremely difficult, because I can't tell the nuance.

           The second quality I want to learn is that the positive attitude for writing. I understand the writing is stressful and hard work. But I think the positive approach would be helpful to get a better result from writing process.

           The last one I want is reading more books throughout this course. For me, reading is the most helpful resource and teacher for writing. Also it motivates me to become a better writer.

 

5. What do you think will help you most to improve as a writer: for example, free writing, getting feedback and advice from other student, revising your essays, conferences with your teacher? List three things that you think will help you to improve, and explain why you think these things will be helpful.

 

           The best way to help me to improve is reading. Reading can't make me a perfect writer for instance. However, in long term, it leads a stable and easy way to become a good writer. Through reading, I picked up the good vocabularies and expressions. Even I can't remember all of them at the moment, it naturally nurtures my language.

           Another way is that revising my work. I think revising is like a self-taught. At first it might be not easy to find my own problems and mistakes. However when I found them, it wouldn't happen again for next time.

           The other way helpful way I think is writing more. I think it is the best way and don't need to explain.

Junseok Kang/the 2nd Writing

           'Hey no. 10! Do it right!' He yelled at me. I was called as a no.10 in Army training camp. The people called my name were only my friends here. We helped each other to go through hard training sessions and had special bond. Even we don't know each other very well. That didn't matter as long as we stay together. Especially I had a close friendship with number 9 whose name is Kim Jinsu. He is a good guy from same province of my hometown.

It was a dark rainy day. I was still tired from the former training sessions. I slightly hoped that our first planned armed march is postponed while packing my gear. My hands started to become sweaty with a little bit of nervousness toward the new training I never experience before.

           We gathered at the drill ground. Soon later, armed march was started. At the beginning the weight of kits was bearable. I thought that I can finish with any problem. But after one and half hour later, things changed. The weight of rifle started pressing my shoulder, and the heavy kits began squashing my back. Even my boots got soaked and heavier. My walking became slower and slower. My buddy no. 9 noticed that I was exhausted. "Hey. Are you doing alright?" "Yes, I am alright." With heavy breathing out, I answered. I kept walking. I can't think about anything but giving up.

           At the moment I thought I can't do anymore. I felt my heavy kits became a little bit lighter. My friends supported it with his hands. I was really surprised. Even he was carrying heavy weight as same as mine. He was tried to help me out. "You don't need to do this. I think I can handle my own." "Yes, I know but you look a little bit exhausted." I asked him to stop. But I was really moved and motivated enough to finish this march. Eventually I finished it. I thought I can't have done it without his help.

           This experience taught me that how hard work I do or wherever I am the thing really matters is the people around you. If there are friends or people around me to support and encourage, I can go through anything.

200901527 Paek Haegyung ch.1 24~25p

Chapter 1. 24~25p.

 

1. What are your strengths as a writer:

I think the strengths that I have in writing are structuring an essay, making an essay as easy as possible to read, and thinking deeply about the writing topic.

     First of all, structuring an essay is the most important strength that I think I have when writing an essay. Through many writing classes and lesson, I learned that one of the most important things in writing is the overall organization. That is, the reader could clearly see what the writer wants to say in a structured way because an organized essay seems logical and convincing. So, when I revise my writing, I always try to care first that it has introduction, body, and conclusion part.

     The second writing skill that I think I have is making an essay as easy as possible to read. This is more of a personal style than writing ability, but considering that there are some people who write "difficultly", I think my easy writing style is a strong point. For example, I try to use easy vocabulary that is frequently used in real life and also to make a sentence clear and well connected with each other.

     Lastly, I think thinking deeply about the topic is my third strength as a writer. When I start writing, I try to find out information as much as possible, usually through internet. The form of writing is important but its content is also crucial. If you have not enough knowledge about the topic, you cannot write well. Therefore, I believe that trying to write a structured essay, to make it easy to read, and to search for information about the topic are the good skills that I have in writing.

 

2. What do you find most difficult about writing:

     Although I have some good points in writing, I also have difficulties about writing. The first difficulty I find about writing is that I think too much before writing. It is ironical because this is kind of related to my third strength that I mentioned above. Usually, thinking about the topic and spend time organizing my ideas are helpful; yet the problem is, I spend too much time to start writing. I always feel hard to start writing because I have too many ideas that are in mind.

     My second weak point in writing is similar to the first one: I find organizing my ideas difficult. I think it is because I usually start writing without any notes. So when I am writing about one topic, I come up with other ideas that could be unrelated to the topic.

     Finally, I find it hard to select appropriate words that could express my tone and my ideas exactly both in other languages in Korean. In case of writing in other languages, as I am not a native speaker of that country, I cannot know the exact equivalent for the word that I want to say. In case of Korean, it is easier than foreign languages but still sometimes I have to find the dictionary for the exact meaning of the vocabulary.

 

 

 

3. Describe your writing process:

     I usually put off an out-of-class writing assignment until the last minute. As I have to think about the topic for a long time, I cannot just start it and go on. Before writing, I organize my ideas while thinking, not writing, and then mostly write it down at one sitting. After I finish writing, I revise one time to check grammatical errors and the coherence as a whole. When I have some problems to finish writing assignment, I usually search on the internet. There are plenty of useful information on the internet where I can get help on a condition that I can tell helpful information from useless one.

 

4. In what ways do you hope your writing will improve by the end of this course:

     First, I hope I could write more quickly by the end of this course. It is because the main problem of my writing is that I spend too much time on thinking and organizing my ideas before writing it down. Second, I hope I could write more creative and interesting essay through this course. Sometimes I feel that my writing is not really impressive, though it is close to the correct answer. Lastly I hope that I could learn endurance during this course, because usually I put an effort to write introduction and then get tired to put such effort to conclude. A good writer cares about the beginning and the end at the same time. Therefore I need to practice for patience in writing as it says, "All is well that ends well"

 

5. What do you think will help you most to improve as a writer:

     The first thing that I suppose I need to practice is freewriting. I have a bad habit of writing in a one sitting. As this requires much thinking and writing at the same time, writing seems difficult and tiring for me now. Last time, I did freewriting in class, and that was far less burdensome. The second thing I should do is extensive reading. While reading books that are interesting to me, I can learn naturally the words and expressions that could be useful in writing. The last thing that I need is getting feedback from peers or teacher. Everyone has disparate opinions from each other. So, other students can give some advice that I could never think of or find out by myself.

Seongyool Myung/p.50/first 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 of my economic status, I had two opportunities to visit foreign countries. I have visited three, which are 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 that has constructing facilities and education for poor foreign villages fully sponsored by Hyundai Company in February in 2012. The targeted countries were Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nepal. All the costs were to be paid by Hyudai. I applied for this program because I wanted to go to Africa, a continent that one can hardly visit in his or her lifetime. So I thought this would be a great and right opportunity to put my foot on a new world. 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 multi-personal 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 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 am admitted, I will show you more." Then, several days after, they sent me a 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. We took the same flight after days of socializing with drinking and hanging out 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 there. 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 was not enough space to stay in, and all our members had to sleep on straw mattresses. It was cold so it was necessary for us to be careful of not catching a cold. Every time 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 liked it so much; 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 and they love 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 paving street. 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 and our shoes got worn out but we were happy that we actually were helping people.

           After ten days of staying there, our schedule there was over. As we get into the minivans again, some of the girls cried, other were holding the village people's hand. It was harsh for general people to live there under such a harsh weather, where you should breathe the air with sand and sleep under 0 degree Celsius. Physically hard, but mentally soft we were. There were no worries like I do in this urban area. So in the flight back to Korea, I thought the 10 days we can call 'underdeveloped' but not are we able to 'underestimate' the period.

Bora Hong. Chaper 2 first draft

  Five minutes in heaven

 

 

 

Once in a life time, something that we have once heard only from the news occurs in our lives unexpectedly.

 

The story what I am going to tell you is also something that will surprise you and make you 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 a exchange programme student.

 

 That day, I can hardly forget. How awful it was and how much I thank for being here now.

 

Actually I had been waiting for that day from a long time ago. It was my first party in Germany as a hostess.

 

 It was an ordinary day like usual. Everything was fine and good except that I was too excited. But something got out of order suddenly.

 

 After the class, on my way home, I found out that I lost my house key so I had to stay outside for about 2 hours waiting for the dormitory charger.

 

 The party was supposed to get started at 8 P.M but I could finally open the door at 7:30 P.M.

 

Too late for the food. I was in a hurry frying the chicken and dressing up.

 

 Usually something what I do too quickly at once, can be ruined easily. And so as that day. The food was all burned and I spilled the oil on my new party dress.

 

I screamed out loud. " Nooooooooooooooo" But I had to be on time at 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, talking with my friends.

 

I felt great. But suddenly something worse 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 pillar next to me with my hands. And then ' Boom'.

 

I don't remember anything from then. I had black 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 couldn't say anything. Not any one word.

 

  All my friends there and what I saw was moving slowly like a scene of movie. Yes, because I got an electric shock. It was so real and a great shock that I still remember the feeling. I was

 

fainted about 5 minutes, the music stopped and tens of people surrounded me. My two italian friends who were doctor came to me and started to talk to me. They needed to find out whether I was

 

conscious or not. "Bora. Do you hear me? " " Bora, Open your eyes." The voice could be heard dimly. For about 5 minutes I was in heaven. When I opened my eyes, tears bursted out. I really thought

 

that I was dead. All my friends looked also so worried and scared. That party became disaster to me. I couldn't walk for few days and had to go to doctor. After that day I was so scared even to plug

 

my laptop into an outlet. Now I of course overcame this, but still I feel terrible whenever that day comes to my mind. And 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 story with a big laugh.