SeungYoung Yu / A embarrassing incident / Wed 11AM

My first class as a teacher    I can still remember a small incident that helped me relax on my first day of teaching in a academy a few years ago. I was twenty-four years old at the time, and I had not graduated from university. The practice teaching that I had done for 3 years was very different from teaching my own class. When I walked into the room, I was very nervous. I carefully put my books down on the dest. Then I heard a girl say something in Korean to another classmate. I speak Korean, so I understood her perfectly when she told her friend to look at my hands. She said "Look how his hands are trembling," and she was right. Neither of the two girls knew that I could hear that. When I smiled a little, the first girl started to laugh because she realized at that mement that I heard that. It seems like such a silly thing now, but the humor of the incident really helped me relax on the first day of my career.

Jung Min / Meeting Family Matters / Introduction to English Writing(1), Wednesday 11a.m.

Meeting Family Matters

 

When I think about my childhood, I could only think up about playing with my friends or throwing tantrums at my parents to buying me a shiny new toy. Although a bit embarrasing, those thoughts consisted of 90 percent of my childhood memories, except for one incident which was the time I met the cast of my favorite TV show, Family Matters. This TV show was a popular family sitcom and to be honest, if you were a 90's kid and living in America, there was no chance that you could have not heard about this show. The show was consisted of mainly African-American characters with having simple plots, but had it's own unique comedy routine which was a huge hit for children at my age back then. The show was mainly filmed in Chicago which was a long way from the state I lived in, but for a new scene, they filmed an episode right near my house. I can still remember the excitement I felt when I got to see them in person for the first time in my life. One of their main characters Jaleel White, or in the show mainly known as "Steve Urkel", was my favorite character and he actually waved to me as he walked down the streets to the filming crew. That was the most exciting moment I ever had when I was a kid, but it wasn't over. After they had shooted the whole film in three days, they had some spare time left to stay at my neighborhood, so the filming crew decided to let the casts interview some people on how they thought about the show. I prayed the whole time hoping that they would pick me, and to my surprise, Jaleel White actually looked at me and said, "I remember you, do you want to take an interview?" This moment nerver left my head since I was overwhelmed with excitement and almost cried  because I was able to talk with my favorite TV show character in person. Although I had some other good memories as a kid, the time I met the characters of my favorite TV show outweighs any other moments from my childhood.

Kang Dong Hoon / The best city to live in / 11A.M.

201100014 Kang Dong Hoon

The Best City: Singapore

 

 One of the cities that I want to live in is definitely Singapore. Singapore is situated in Southeast Asia, beneath Malaysia. It is a small country a little bit bigger than Seoul. Its capital Singapore can boast one of the best scenery in the world. It is situated next to a sea and there a lot of famous tall skyscrapers. Because Singapore is in Southeast Asia, it has tropical climate. It is always hot and it rains often. But this climate really suits to me because summer is the season that I like the most, and summer in Korea is humid and hot too. We can also enjoy various kinds of culture in Singapore since it was a vibrant base city for trade from the past and it was once a colony of England. So we can find out a lot of cultures mixed in a city. There is Arab Street famous for Arabic culture, Little India known for Indian culture, Hindu temple, mosque, China town, and Marina Bay which boasts modern architectures. And since it was a colony of England we can live without having linguistic problems if fluent in English. The price is not that different to Korea, but Singapore's is a bit expensive. Singapore is also known for its tidiness. We can't smoke in the city and can't spit on the road. If violated, huge fine would be charged. In these reasons, I picked Singapore the best city to live in.

Kang Dong Hoon / A special memory from childhood / 11A.M.

201100014 Kang Dong Hoon

My missing dog

 

 I keep a dog for more than 10 years. Her name is Amelie and she's a precious family to me. Her breed is Cocker Spaniel, famous for ducking, so she always yearns for walk. One day, when I was about 15 years or so, my dog Amelie disappeared. I came back home from school, and unusually, my dog was not welcoming me. At first I had no regard. I thought she was having a nap under a bed or something else. But when my sister came back she said Amelie was missing. She said she came home and she forgot to close the door. She found out a few minutes later that Amelie was missing. My sister thought Amelie went out so she ran out home quickly to find the dog. But Ameile was nowhere. My sister guessed the way she would go and asked passersby if they saw a dog. Some people said that they did see a dog walking alone. So my sister hurried up to find the dog to the way people told her. However she could not find Amelie. She was embarrassed because the road before my home was always crowed with cars and my dog could easily hit by a car. Then she asked at security office situated at the gate of my neighbor apartment. Surprisingly the officer told that he did see a dog walking alone and according to him a car stopped and took my dog. He considered it strange so he took a memo of the car's license plate. So my sister took the memo and called the police to get the driver's telephone number. My sister and I got the number from the police and we called him. Fortunately the driver said he did take a dog because it seemed missing and he said it was Cocker Spaniel. So my parents went to take back Amelie. The first moment I knew my dog was missing I was really sad but thanks to the officer and the driver I could see my dog again safely.

 

Lee Sanghoon / How I met my best friend / Wed 11am

  I met my best friend when I just entered high school. Our school had a kind of membership training before even an entrance ceremony. It was designed to let freshmen have a foggy idea on high school life in advance. We stayed 3 days in a training center, and there was a lot of time vacant as the schedule itself wasn't that tight. We didn't know each other, of course. But there was a ball, and a court, so we played basketball whenever it was available. I saw my best friend there for the first time. He was just one out of ten, players. He wore a cap, and his movement was rough, enough to associate a robot. His first impression was not that good. I didn't think he and I would make best friends as he looked too cool-headed. It's kind of ironical that we became intimate in earnest playing basketball about 6 months later, on one Sunday afternoon. We had hardly talked to each other since the very first meeting until then. Bored in a dorm room, he suggested me who was almost only one left in the dorm during the weekend to play basketball with him, and that made us the best friend. We wouldn't even know each other well without the day. And it's interesting that meeting him for the first time and being best friends both involve basketball. He doesn't still know I don't really enjoy basketball.

Joung Hwan Park / DRIVING IN SEOUL / Wed 11am

     Driving in Seoul gives me headaches. I had been driving for five years when I got the chance to take my dad's car and drive from Suwon to Seoul to meet a friend. Since I had no problem with my driving, and was good with directions and fining places, I didn't have a single bit doubt that I'd have trouble driving around Seoul for the first time. With some of the way points locked in my head, I drove off and entered the highway with confidence. The highway is one of the easiest places to drive as long as you remember and don't miss your exit, because all you need to do is just drive straight most of the time. As I passed through two toll gates and an exit, I was actually in and driving around Seoul for the first time in my life. Now, I was trying my best to focus on driving as well as looking at road signs in order to get to my friend's place. The traffic wasn't so bad at that time of the evening, so I was quite surprised to see the opposite of what I imagined Seoul to be before leaving the house. I finally arrived at my friend's place and parked the car in the parking lot of his apartment. By the time I was done having a good time at my friend's place, it was around 10 o'clock, which meant that it was time for me to drive back to Suwon. Before leaving, I checked the map again for directions on my way back home to avoid taking a detour or getting lost in the middle of Seoul. On my way back, I had to go past Dongdemun and this when it all began. I realized that I was driving among a lot of cars and especially motorcycles with men delivering clothes and fabrics to the markets surrounding nearly the whole area of Dongdemun. Another thing that I noticed was that the traffic was moving real slow and this was because the combination of cars driving everywhere and motorcycles trying to squeeze their way through those busy cars. I was so shocked at the level of traffic jam this one little area was going through, and was slowly getting sick and tired of just waiting on the road where Dongdemun was a sea of vehicles. After taking two and a half hours to get home, I promised myself that I'd never drive around Seoul, especially the central areas, at nights and weekend where there was a possibility of getting stuck in between a huge traffic jam.

Kim Seong Yeol / A special memory from my childhood / 11a.m.

Enemy to friends

 

 While I was in Romania, I lived in an apartment where only Korean people lived. It belonged to my father's workplace so my father's coworkers also lived there. They had children, and they were in the same age group with me so we were really close to each other. As a matter of fact, we Korean children were too thick with each other that we didn't try to make native friends. We thought we were different with them, and as a childish mind we thought they were poor and dirty so that we looked down on them. And finally they got mad to us. We, about 6 children, had a big fight with some of neighborhood native children. As we were all about elementary aged children, fortunately no one got seriously injured. However some cried and some got bruise on the body. Eventually the war was over, and nobody was the winner. We couldn't know the reason for the fight, and also the reason why we looked down on them. They were just the same innocent young children, and in fact they even wanted to be friends of us. We felt shameful and sorry for them. We regretted and apologized to them, asking to be friends. They also apologized to start fighting and gladly became friends of us. After the fight we became good friends and played soccer together or come over to each other's house. As I was very young, honestly I cannot remember each of them. But one thing I can confidently say is that it was a valuable experience to me, and it was one of the most painful but also happiest memories in my life.