Stage! Nervous? Thrill!

Everyone might have at least one experience that you stand in front of some crowds and perform or talk for them. It doesn't matter how big audiences are. They are here to listen to you and watch you. You practiced a lot and already did a rehearsal on the empty spot. You go up to the stage and people's attention focus on you. Now, there is a problem. Your whole body is trembling and your head go on blank. You act in front of them without knowing what you are doing. Or you can feel it when there is a big test ahead of you. That is called nervous.

Most teens in Korea love to watch live K-pop TV programs such as "Music Center" (음악중심). Famous groups come up to the stage and do their performance. Well, some people can ask here, "How can they do that well? Are they not nervous?" Then, I will say, "Of course they are nervous!" They are practiced people and be on the stage a lot of times. That will help to resolve some tension, but there is more important thing that they do. They are enjoying that nervous! They want to feel more tension and they like the feeling that tickle your stomach. If you overcome the nervous, then it becomes thrill.

"People who are nervous will lose, but people who are thrill will win." This is the saying of Kim Tae Won who is the living legend guitarist of Korea. He said this on the MBC program called “Great Birth” (위대한 탄생) when his students were going to perform their last stage and test. I sympathized with this deeply because I also had same experience. When I was going to take the first US history test on school, I was very nervous. The result turned out to be terrible. However, on the final biology exam, I was more thrill than nervous. The score was very good. After this experience, I started to enjoy and overcome the feeling of nervous. Now, I don’t fail the test and keep a good grade.

Great Disaster-Japan

Japan suffers a lot of earthquakes from the past, so it has a better system about defending the earthquake effectively than other countries. Japan experienced big one and small one frequently, but there were always minimum damages. However, it was very different this time. Nearly 900 times to Haiti earthquake hit Japan. I thought we can only see that on a part of the movies or books. It was totally horrible!

On the afternoon of March 11^th, the magnitude of 9.0 earthquakes was occurred on Sendai, the Northeastern area of Japan. It was one of the most powerful earthquakes for recent 100 years. However, this was not the end. After approximately ten minutes, the mighty tsunami which contained the power of atomic bomb slammed Japan. The houses were swept by the wave, cars were floating around, and people didn’t know where to run. To make things worse, the nuclear power plant on Fukushima was exploded by the effect of the tsunami. The cooling device that surrounded the power plant got damage and it couldn’t function properly. Japanese government said the casualties were not found yet, but they think it might be a million. One Korean found dead, too. It is certain that Japan will struggle hard to recover the damage.

Despite of this great disaster, Japanese didn’t lose their calmness and handle the problem step by step. People didn’t fight each other for the lack of supplies, always seem optimistic, and said that they will restore soon. About 60 countries in the world took action to help Japan. For example of Korea, 102 rescuers and 12 trained dogs were sent to aid. In personal, I don’t like Japan very much because it is the country that conquered Korea and colonized it. However, I feel sorry for my neighboring country to hear such terrible news. I hope people in Japan to get hope and stand up again soon.

Mr. Cornman Statement

Mr. Cornman made the statement about the mess in the cafeteria today. He said that the condition of cafeteria after lunch was awful yesterday. There were empty drinking cans, snack wrappers, banana peels, and even part eaten bananas on everywhere. Some red sticky stuff was covering the table, so students' papers stick to it. Mr. Cornman lived in Korea for 25 years and he said it was the worst condition that he had ever seen.

Obviously, this is a serious problem. "I am not the only one who makes garbage." "Maybe other people will clean it if I don't do it" This is what the most people think. I don't blame this because it is a basic instinct. However, I blame people's selfish mind and weak will. People should think about other people more than themselves. This looks easy, but it is extremely difficult to do. People can't live without other people such as friends and family. Maybe people know it in head, but they just don't know it in heart. Mother kills her son to get the insurance money, son abandons his old father because of just laziness, and people betray friends after borrow big money. I used the examples of huge and cruel ones, but small ones mustn’t occur also. Pick the garbage and throw it in the garbage can in 10 seconds. Then, you will see the clean desk and happy faces.

For the solution of this problem, the most perfect way is to get rid of the vending machine. Certainly, some students will not like it. Then, we can make the promise with them to not mess up the cafeteria again if they want to use vending machine. If the things happen again, we can remove the machine.

Niagara Fall

Have you seen any waterfall in your life? What was your biggest waterfall? Well, I assume that it will not bigger than Niagara Fall in Canada! It is certainly the one of great sculptures of nature in the world. I will introduce about the facts of Niagara Fall to you.

It is the huge waterfall on Niagara River and it locates on the border of United States and Canada. Actually, there are two Niagara Falls and they are each on Ontario, Canada and New York, United States. The fall in New York is 17 miles (27 km) and the fall in Ontario is 75 miles (121 km). That is significantly huge! There is the Rainbow Bridge which connects the land of America and Canada on Niagara River. People can see each other across the river.

This is me in front of the fall!

 

This is New York Niagara Fall!



I went to Niagara Fall with two friends when it was summer vacation in Canada last year. I was living in Toronto, so it took about one and a half hour to get to the destination. The first thing that I can feel was the moisture when I got out from the car. It was the wet fog. The fall was so forceful that water drops could reach about one kilometer from its base. The sound was also great, of course. We watched the document and animation related to Niagara Fall, and rode the ferry that went close toward the fall. It was very cool to see the fall that close. I couldn’t take a picture because the water vapor covered the lens. People all wear the vinyl rain cloth to block the water drops. There is no need to say about how amazing and great the fall was. If I have a chance, I really want to go to Niagara Fall once more.

I picture this on the ferry.



This is the real Niagara Fall!!!



KBL Playoff!!!

I am fan in basketball although I am not that good at playing basketball. My grandmother is friend with the coach of Seoul Samsung Thunders, one of basketball teams, so I enjoy watching the games. AND...the playoff is not far from now! It starts on March 25th and Samsung is participating on the game.

I will explain about the Korean Basketball Playoff games for people who may don't know what it is. It is the game between top 6 teams among all teams on that season. In round 1, there are two groups. Group A includes 3rd place and 6th place, and Group B includes 4th place and 5th place. In round 2, the winner in Group A matches with 2nd place, and the winner in Group B fights with 1st place. All games before championship determine winners by taking three games out of five first. In championship, the champion has to win five games out of seven first.

Seoul Samsung Thunders is 5th place now and it seems certain that Samsung can do playoff. The problem is that Samsung have to fight with Dongbu which is 4th place and strong team. Dongbu is the team that won the basketball league several times with many veteran players. It will be hard if Samsung meets Dongbu on round 1. I will cheer for Samsung to win.

This is Lee Seng Joon who is one of the best players in Samsung.

The most impact memory in SPPA

I came to Saint Paul Preparatory Academy as a sophomore last year. I was in Canada before and I didn't study enough because I was alone in Canada. So, I was little nervous due to people's saying that SPPA makes students to study hard. Anyway, I enrolled to SPPA and started the semester hopefully. There are two most memorable experiences that I had in SPPA. One is horrible and one is interesting.

I will explain about the horrible one, first. For me, US History subject was not bad until I took the first test. However, my score for the first test turned out to be the worst grade among in Canada and SPPA. The grade was F(48%) if my memory is correct. I was panicked and my parents were panicked. I thought there was no way to recover my grade. I studied really hard and fortunately, I could get A-(93%) in final grade. Therefore my horrible experiment in SPPA was when I got F on the US History.

Next one is a delight one and I am sure that most students in SPPA would be familiar with it. It is the 2010 Fall Semester SPPA Performance day. Almost all students in SPPA came and saw our performances. It included orchestra, clarinets, flutes, guitars, drama and other things. I was participated in playing guitar. We played the music called Canon and I think it was quite successful. It was the first time for me to play instrument on the stage. So, I choose Performance day for my delightful experience.