Reflections_Yoonseok

1. The Great Gatsby More than the novel itself, The Great Gatsby left me with a huge impact in its wake – it was an after-class discussion which made me stunned the most. When I was in middle-school, I discussed whether Gatsby is great after reading the novel with my peers. However, nine out of ten students evaluated that the word ‘great’ in the title is merely used as a satire – that Gatsby, is closer to ‘obssessive fool’ than a great character. Even my teacher interpreted in this way. Shockingly, some of the famous Korean critics was also in favor of this interpretation. To them, Gatsby was not truly "great" at all. Below are the comments made by famous Korean critics.  “[Gatsby’s life] is not great …. Greatness is no more than a satire of Gatsby’s foolish act and his death.” ( 강준만 , 미국은 세계를 어떻게 훔쳤는가 (How America Stole the world), translation made by writer) “This novel is not about how great Gatsby is. The irony of the word ‘great’ is merely a sarcastic ...

In-class essay * This is an essay written in class (50 min), and it was revised slightly(mostly grammar) to be posted on the blog. Prompt: "Us and Them". "Tribalism" is social phenomena that extends from small and specific social groups(schools, companies, neighborhoods) to larger more broadly generalized groups (economic, ethnic, nationhood). In a first paragraph (the "US" paragraph), identify a group you belong to on any scale, and write about something that binds that group together. In a second paragraph (a "Them" paragraph), identify a similarly scaled group you don't belong to (and may or may not have clashing ideals with), and summarize how they are different. In a third paragraph, (a "What if" paragraph) write in favor and support of something that this group stands for  - either specifically or generally - and express how that group feels (even if you don't agree). In a fourth paragraph, (the Conclusion) propose a m...

What is the most resilient parasite? A bacterium? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed, fully understood. That sticks, right in there somewhere. Well, I hope I had some creative idea that can contaminate the world, I thought. The ones who changed the world - Steve Jobs, Hitler, or Einstein - these all had an idea that changed the paradigm of the world. Maybe you had some chance to just daydream “ What if I had that mind-blowing idea?” For the ones who have thought of that even once, I would like to share my little story, which changed my view of ideas. Before starting off, I would like to throw a question: what makes a plane fly? Well, we all know that there’s a fundamental law called Newton’s law. There’s a tug of war of forces, and when these forces make a balance, the plane files. I was smart enough to know that when I first rode a plane. I ...

Before reading: I set Bach’s English Suite No.3 Allemande for background music. Listening to this music while reading help you to understand about my metafiction. Please turn on the volume, and if the music ends before you finish, simply press F5 Kornblume The train became a scene of agony. Some of us wailed sorrowfully while others already lost their hope and blanked out. I crouched down at the side of the carriage, and looked through my pocket to check want I got. A broken compass, bent metal wire, and an unopened letter. Frankly, I recognized the writer of this letter before opening it. I smelled the familiar scent of her, faintly smiling at her round but somewhat crooked hand writing of my name ‘Carol’. Softly, I spoke “Therese”, to check my own way of pronouncing her name. Then carefully, I opened the letter, and started to feel it. Dear Carol This is Therese. Therese from Leipzig , that little town with Kornblume blossoms and Bach’s music. That town where nothi...

The touch of evil disrupting you, and you never get over it. It always tickles you but you never catch it. When you woke up, you instinctively feel that this touch of evil is right behind you, it would try hard to knock you off during the whole day. Can you get a glimpse of what it is? You spill a cup of coffee on your comfy pajamas, missed the bus, and late for school. Not because you woke up late nor getting prepared late. It is because of the touch of evil : in other words, the murphy's law has been applied on you. You know, it feels really awful when you recognized yourself in an abysmal situation. The evil surrounds you, it corrupts you slowly but steadily. First the bitterness. things you love lose their appeal. People seem to repulse you. Why are these things happening to me? Your heart turns sour, and a black screen covers up life until you are but a speck of light sputtering to stay alight. The blackness starts to change. It is not the enemy, but your friend. It makes ...

"Your efforts may never betray you" Every time a student blame discrimination, they blame a lack of effort. Every time a student becomes skeptical for one's success, they boast their 'equal opportunity system' to the poors. They, the developed nations, are arguing that they have a clear system to capitalize student's ability regardless of their environment. Top universities in the world are helping freshmen by giving them scholarships and free tuition. Governments are operating various programs to help poor students. However, Gladwell throws a question that is against most of our beliefs: "Is the system really capitalizing poor student's ability?" The answer he gave, was shockingly no. Gladwell argues that there are a lot of smart students that are not recognized by universities. Most of the people believe that society gives equal chances to the wealthy and the poor, since universities are giving full tuition to poor kids. However, finding poor...

Eyes glued to the monitor, leaving comments to each and every post they see, checking new 'likes' for their brand-new profile pics. This is how Facebook changed our life. As Mark Zuckerberg ambitiously declared, he created Facebook to 'connect the world' and 'spread good ideas'. But is his creation truly doing its job? Or is it blocking good ideas to be spread reversely? We must question ourselves 'Did we actually became open-minded to good ideas?', because the answer becomes 'no' when we are dependent to its virual reality. After I listened to Revisionist History Episode 3, I contemplated about the reason why good ideas has so much of a difficulty to be spread. In the past, we believed that the development of technology will enhance the spreading of ideas by connecting various people around the globe. People believed that discrimination will be lessened, people will respect each other's ideas more. Actually, it did - only in certain a...

Good deeds reframe bad deeds. Moral Licensing - justifying actions that are immoral, unethical, or otherwise problematic by doing good deeds in the past – has been documented in various domains in our lives. Revisionist History showed that several examples of moral licensing existing in politics, and I was curious about whether moral licensing also affected supporters of Barak Obama – the first African American president in US history. America’s president – the most powerful in the entire world – is the face of America. Since Declaration of Independence, the seat was only for whites. Since Barak Obama was first to brake that ‘tacit agreement’, I thought that there must be a moral licensing in there: support for Barack Obama just before the 2008 election could license people to make ambiguously racist statements. To test this there was an experiment conducted among supporters of Obama. Supporters were then divided into two groups – group A was supporters in a baseline conditi...