Mid Term

1. Where do you belong?

    I belong in a constantly shifting maze. One step, I see green mountains and transparent rivers. I see rainbow birds chirping, with a smell of strawberries stinging in my nose. Another step, I see a empty desert. Harsh sandstorms throw sand at me, piercing my skin. Everything changes in a second. One thing, however, does not change. A path still remains below my foot. Whether I am in a melting-hot volcano or a freezing ice land, I will still navigate through the maze. Same in life. Whether I am in Seoul, KMLA, or even in college at US, nothing changes. I will struggle to find my way and navigate through my visions. Belonging to a place is a temporary concept. I belong to the path of my dreams. I belong to myself.

2. Sympatico?

    That day was a pretty hot summer. Because my mom wouldn't let me turn on the air conditioner, I decided to go to a cafe to study. There I started coding one of the problems of a computing olympiad. After a few minutes of intense typing, I turned to the right to stretch, and I couldn't believe what I saw. A boy sitting next to me was solving the same problem as me. Dumbfounded, I stared at him - and his screen - until our eyes locked. This time, he glimpsed at my screen and seemed to have noticed the surprising coincidence. After a few seconds, both of us were back to coding, but with a spark of competitiveness surrounding the atmosphere. Now, some wouldn't understand, but for coders, especially algorithm challengers, the match of who-solves-the-problem-first is a life or death duel. Every once in a while, we glanced at each other's screen, taking account of how much the opponent has gotten closer to the finishing line. When I got stuck in the problem of coding a way to track the path of search, I frantically looked at the competitor's screen, and calmed myself when I saw him struggling on the same step. Even though there was no dialogue, I could feel the passionate air. And their it was. "Sympatico!" Though there was no direct interaction, I could vividly see the thick connection: the bond as a fellow coder. The competition and the sympathy of struggle transformed a stranger into a spiritual partner. 

3. "Treat others as you would have them treat you." How do you want to be treated?

    In movies, we see top stars like Tom Cruz or Song Gang Ho telling their stories, their lives, and their visions. No sub-characters nor extras ever tell their stories. But now, the question arises. What is the criteria for choosing who gets the spotlight? In real life too, there are main characters: people who have exceptional abilities or who are active and talkative (like me). But being treated like a main character is not what I want. The few selected writing the story of the world is simply unacceptable. How I want to be treated is as one of the infinite characters in life. Nobody should be the main character and be responsible for others. I will treat others, and want to be treated as a character who is responsible to write out our own stories as the main character of my life.

4. Choosing a family member, tell an experience where you saw them in another way.

    A top class cooker, a best-driver, and a perfect academic counselor, my mother always seemed to be a perfect being. But everything changed that day I found a box under my bed. Opening it, 20-year dust exploded all over my face. Coughing like crazy, I saw a portfolio with my mother's name. Flipping from page to page, I was overwhelmed by the precisely designed ads and logos. It was my mother's work. Now, I had heard about my mother's past career, but seeming it was a totally different thing. Examining each note carefully, I ended up with the last and oldest note with a book cover that is trying to pull itself from the other pages. Opening it I smiled. My mother's freshman work were cute, but not the best quality. That moment, I realized something. My mother's designs, food, driving were not perfect at one time. There is a beginning to everything, and the beginning is where I am. Imagining my work after 20 years, I went back to my coding project, which was only at the beginning.

5. Random Question

    I see the world being rule by clothes. Nobody goes around naked. Everybody wears some clothes, and these clothes identify ourselves, our state, or our purpose of travel. To show that you are hip , you wear ripped jeans. In midterms, I wear white shirts and Adidas shorts because I don't care a thing about my looks at that time. Underwear, we wear everywhere, and I bet we all have one outfit that we love the best and at least have ten identical pieces of those. We think we are all choosing clothes, but the thing is, the clothes are actually choosing us. The formal tuxedo chooses you to be a classic person. Your polka-dots underwear chooses you to be a mischief person. Clothes define us, secretly ruling us from the depth of our mind.