Blog Reflection

     This is my second time taking a reading and writing class in the university. I think my reading comprehension skills have improved since I first took the class last year. I think it is mainly because I took 8 English literature classes this year and read a few novels, which were made into films or dramas that I like. I liked Maze Runner series the best among others. Thanks to those lectures and novels, I was able to get a better grade in TOEIC. I have not studied TOEIC, so my grades were always the same, but last month, I got the best grade in TOEIC. It made me study English more than before. Also, taking many English literature classes made me improve my confidence. I used to be afraid of speaking in English before, but now, I can speak English more actively than before. I think it is because teachers and professors would know that I am not good at English. So it is okay to be wrong because they would correct me if I am wrong. Also, the idea that it is not a shame that I am not good at English made me talk more actively than before and I think it worked. I realized that being not ashamed of one's language skill is really important when learning languages. However, I am still not good at English, so I am thinking about reading more novels and watching more movies in this winter vacation.

     This is my third time keeping a blog. I really liked my first blog. I started doing blog with my friends when I was in junior high. I posted a lot of posts for three years and then I stopped doing blog as soon as my friends and I graduated from junior high and went to different high school. We started to contact each other by SNS because at that time, smart phone become popular. However, a blog was a good way to post information and my thoughts on films, so I used another blog occasionally. I think blogging is a really good way to practice writing, because it is easy to post an essay and people can exchange opinion with each other easily. I still post some of my thoughts on movies on my blog and I am planning to post some more in this vacation.

     Also, by taking this course, I was able to make friends with few people. I think that is the best aspect of this course. By having some time to talk about some issues, students could make some friends and share their opinions and experiences on each topic. Besides, I got to know about a lot of things and the part about language was very interesting. I always thought that there should be one world language because it is so hard to learn foreign languages. However, I did some research and think more deeply when I was writing an essay on that topic and I realized that there are so many risks of setting one world language. That was the most impressive topic above all. I guess other students had learned a lot through reading the book and researching information for essays, too. It was fun to share each other's experiences and know about the things that I had never cared about before.

Essay #2

Please click the link to see the Essay #2 - rewritten one.

Blog Post #7: Should there be one world language that everyone speaks?

     Learning a different language is becoming more and more important these days. Some people think that having an official language would be really useful and effective. However, it has a few negative effects of setting a world language. It is because it could cause disappearing cultures, falling behind between people who can speak the official language and people who cannot, and political fights among countries.

     Having a world language may bring about disappearing languages and cultures. Some people say that an official language might help disappearing cultures because they could use the language for translating disappearing cultures. However, if there are an official language, people whose native language is not an official one might have a wrong impression on their own languages and traditions that they are inferior to the official one, especially younger people who are easily swept by. For example, in Korea, there are many stores with English names because many people think that they are much more classy than Korean names and that korean names are somewhat old-fashioned. People also try to imitate American culture while they ignore Korean culture. Like this, language dominance is really powerful that it might lead to cultural dominance and disappearing cultures.

     On top of that, having an official language would be dangerous because it may cause social selection between who have the ability to speak the official language and people who do not. This phenomenon is expected to happen much more between the elders and the youngers because most of the time, the youngers show better absorbing power in learning a new language. Also, the youngers are able to learn a new language in the school and they have to study it hard to get a good grade but elders have less opportunities and motives to learn a language.

For instance, even though English plays an important role in many part of our lives in Korea these days, a lot of elder Koreans are having a hard time learning English and most of them are not as good as younger ones. If there are a world language, this phenomenon would be worse than now and it would cause social selection.

     Last but not least, it is hard to set an official language because making only one language a dominant and official one would cause political fights among powerful countries. Some people say that world language would make our lives much more easier because we only need to learn one language, not two or three, to communicate with foreigners. However, if people have to set a world language, then they would pick among powerful countries' languages because they are already used through out the world. Then it is unavoidable that powerful countries having conflict in the process of choosing the one. Even if one country wins and the country's language become an official one, after few decades later and another country becomes the most powerful one in the world, then the country's language would be used as much as the official one, which makes no point in making an official language.

     In conclusion, having a world-wide official language would be risky because of culture disappearing, social selection between people who are able to speak the language and people who are not and dispute among powerful countries. Although people tend to see the bright side of a world language, it has too many risky effects to pick an official world language and to carry out. 

11/11 Essay #1 - Rewrites

Please click the link to see the Rewritten one.

Unit 8: Innovations - Smart Phones

       Have you ever lived a day without your smart phone not feeling boredom or the need to use it? These days, smart phone takes a large part in our lives. People realize how much they rely on smart phone when they are not able to use it. Some people say as smart phone technology improves, people's intelligence gets worse. However, it is an undeniable fact that it helps us to live better and easier life. It improves people's lives by making it easier to handle information and to prevent some crimes.
One reason why smart phone makes our lives better is that it helps us to find and exchange information easily and quickly. In former days, we had to turn on a computer to find information. However, these days, all we have to do is type some letters and touch few clicks on a phone to get information. Also, we can exchange information or e-mails with attachments easily by using a smart phone. Since office workers were originally main smart phone targets, most of the smart phones provide a service to make documents like slides for a presentation or Excel.
It is widely used by not only office workers but also students and they use these technologies very usefully.
On top of that, GPS helps us to find ways much easier and to prevent crime. GPS stands for global positioning system. Every smart phone have the system so when you turn on GPS and enter your destination, a satellite tracks your position and the destination and then it shows you a few ways to get there. Also, it is used to prevent kidnapping. Few years ago, when GPS was first added in phones, it was usually used for kids or the old and weak as a prevention of crime. When they press a button on a phone, then it signals an SOS to their parents or guardians. In this way, many people were able to relax than before.
To sum up, smart phone is one of the greatest invention these days because it improves people's lives in terms of technology and safety. Also, the best part of a smart phone is that it is handy despite the fact that it provides not only those services listed above but also many other services such as medical applications for physical examination and academic applications for learning foreign languages. However, as the old saying goes, too much water drowned the miller. Smart phone provides many technologies that makes our lives much easier, but we also need to be aware of smart phone addiction and to be able to know when to use it efficiently to live healthy lives.

Unit 7: (Ensuring a Sustainable Future): Corporate Social Responsibility.

     Sometimes, few eco-friendly actions are quite hard to practice individually. Fortunately, since corporations are responsible for environment pollution, they try to compensate for it. There is a CSR(Corporate Social Responsibility) program for those actions which need to be done by big groups. The great advantage of CSR is that the effect of it is huge since it comes into an action on a large scale. Also, it has a several good effect to a company, because CSR improve‘s the corporation‘s image. A rental car company's tree-planting program and a semiconductor parts company are two good examples.

     Ten years ago, a rental car company noticed the danger of air pollution caused by the pollution emitted from some vehicles and they started a tree-planting program. A foundation established by the corporation plants one million trees a year in USA, Canada and Europe. However, unlike other years, they are working on planting 50 million trees this year to ceremony it’s 10th anniversary and to thank customers for their loyalty. According a study, 10 million trees can absorb more than 10 million pounds of carbon and provide an estimated $27 billion worth of environmental benefits in only ten years. Biodiversity is also one of the great achievement of this project, with over 50 different species of trees planted in over 15 states in USA. Also, as the tree planting program takes air, people started to have a better image on the company. So the program is like killing two birds with one stone.

     In addition, there is another company that started to care about how horrible water pollution is to the local people and to the nature years ago. So it went into constructing wastewater purifying facilities for the local environment. Recently, water shortage has been a huge problem since the water supply will not catch up to the water consumption. So manufacturing wastewater reclamation as a source of ultra pure water will help not only the local people but also industries to get out from that trouble. Besides, the corporation started to use and make environmentally friendly materials, which made the profits of the company increased.

     To sum up, as the environment pollution is getting worse and worse, people need to find ways to make it better. However, since there are few things that government or individual cannot practice, corporations try to live down what they had done to the nature and actively participating in eco-friendly business. A car rental company's tree planting program and an electronic company's water purification program are the examples. Through such activities, companies are making progress in making a eco-friendly world.

Unit 6: Explanatory essay, Martian.

     Some movies could happen in any places. However, in other films, the location of a movie could be a severe ordeal itself to a leading character. Martian is a most-representative among those movies. In Martian, Mars is where every hardships that the protagonist suffers happens. Being left in Mars alone without enough food supplies and solid facilities which can protect him from the harsh environment means death. In order to avoid death and being rescued alive, the main character tries to do everything he can.

     Every event of the movie happens in space, especially Mars. Mark Watney, an astronaut who was given the task of Mars exploration, is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. However, Mark was not dead and since he was left alone in Mars, he has to find some ways to survive until the next Mars exploration team comes. Since it takes four years for the exploration team to come, he is running out of the provisions. Fortunately, he is a botanist and he tries to grow potatoes with the soil of Mars and water from burning hydrogen and oxygen. Also, he has to be at Schiaparelli, the next exploration team's destination, so he struggles to make a vehicle and to get there in time overcoming many difficulties. Those events could not happen in any other places in Earth, because if it was not happened in outer space but in Earth, being left alone would not be regarded as death.

     Also, the highlight of the movie is when Mark being rescued by his colleagues in space. At the end of the movie, NASA and Mark's colleagues try to save him from Mars. According to a plan, the crews and Mark were to meet at a proper location but there is something wrong with the Mark's spaceship so he has to get out of it and make it to the crews' spaceship. However, he had no electric power to help him get there, so he makes a hole in the palms of his space-suit, which will make him like the Iron Man. This peculiar idea is viable because he is in outer space, not in Earth.

     Those events in Martian cannot happen in Earth, but only in Mars. Due to the martian environment, Mark has to overcome few hardships only to cultivate potatoes and to get to Schiaparelli alive. Also, thanks to one useful feature of space, he is able to fly like the Iron Man by only cutting a hole in his gloves and be rescued alive. As the pollutions of the earth is growing worse and the population expands, many people would have thought about living in other planets at least once. However, have you ever thought about being left alone in other planets with no hope?

Geotourism

     Seoul has more tourist attractions and tourists than any of other places in Korea. Most of the visitors are highly concentrated in Seoul, especially in North of Seoul, where Myung-dong, Insa-dong and Itaewon is at. However, it is hard to say that traveling Seoul is a great chance to see the geographical diversity and distinctiveness of the place. On the other hand, Jeonju can be a good example of geotourism. The environment and cultural properties are quite well-preserved and also, tourists are able to see how local people lives at the same time. As Jeonju is an emerging tourist attraction, there are a few possible effects of geotourism in Jeonju.

     One possible effect of geotourisom in Jeonju is that it is good for informing Korean traditional culture. Hanok maeul, which is consisted of many beautiful korean-style houses, is the most famous place in Jeonju. Most of koreans are shy about wearing hanbok, but in here, there are a bunch of people wearing hanbok wandering and eating traditional foods. It would be a good chance for foreign visitors to see cultural relics, try on hanbok and enjoy delicious traditional foods at the same time. So if they visit Jeonju, there are a lot of advantages for them to know about Korean culture without wasting time seeing each thing. Also, 

     Another possible effect of geotourism in Jeonju is that it helps Jeonju to preserve traditional heritage more and more. As tourists in Jeonju are increasing in numbers, the government is looking for ways to preserve and inform hanok and all the other local environment. For example, they recently hold a Gamaek festival, which is a specialty of the city, to promote that the city has much more thing to enjoy than just one thing, Hanok maeul. Since it was a festival about beer, a lot of people came to take part of the festival and enjoyed delicious foods and beer. The increase in tourism also benefits Jeonju in economic point of views. So if the government keeps working on ways to preserve and promote Jeonju, the numbers of visitors would increase gradually and the government and the local people would benefit from that. They could go for the effect of killing two birds with one stone.

     To sum up, geotourism in Jeonju benefits both tourists and local people. Tourists are able to watch and experience a variety of traditional culture at the same time and local people are able to create economic profit and receive help from the government to preserve their local environment.

Unit 1, Lesson B: "Gender in the Wild: Three Studies Reveal New Findings"

Those three studies show how gender impacts animals' societies.

     Elephants live in large matriarchal society which is composed of mothers, grandmothers and female relatives and friends. Female elephants build strong relationships with each other, which makes their society more stable. They take care of not only their biological child but also every young elephants in their communities including orphan elephants. However, a recent study revealed that few male elephants form a group and create strong bonds between them, They also have a similar hierarchy to that of female extended families. A behavioral psychologist noted that such strict hierarchy is beneficial for them to survive in dry years.

     Gelada family units are another example of matriarchal society. They are usually composed of few female geladas, their children and a primary male. In this society, female geladas play a important role in decision-making. They also decide which male they want to have as a primary male. After making a decision, they invites a bachelor gelada to the family. However, the previous male does not leave the family. Instead, he take a role as a kind of grandfather.

     A study young chimps revealed that some young chimps in captivity show gender-role-related behaviors. According to the research, young female chimps played with sticks just like they were making nests and taking care of babies, while young male chimps played with toys like trucks and preferred active play to playing with objects like sticks.

   It's a little bit surprising for me that how young chimps play shows their gender roles because I have never thought that there would be gender roles even in their society. These studies are quite interesting because I'm interested in gender-related issues. My biggest curiosity is this; Is there a set gender role? Regarding this question, I think it is wrong. Some people think that there are stereotypes of the roles of men and women but these are usually negative and incorrect. Gender roles are different throughout the world and there are some counterexamples. However, I am still curious about this question because most of the stereotypes are formed throughout centuries. I think I should read more researches and history books to get a more precise answer for this.

Welcome to my blog!

     Hello,everyone! My name is Yoon won Kang. You can call me Lily if that's convenient for you. I'm from Seoul. I have been living here since I was born. 

     I'm majoring in history and English literature. I prefer the latter to the former. Last spring, I took a modern British novel class. I studied two British novels written by female writers; Northanger Abbey and Wuthering Heights. I was so fascinated by how the writers express and criticize the suppression of women and gender inequality of the 18th century. Thanks to those novels, I was able to broaden my perspective.

     Also, I really love movies. My CGV VIP card proves it. I watch more than 80 movies a year. I'm a member of a campus film club. I really love talking about movies so please feel free to talk to me if you love movies. I like all genres except horror. My favorite movie is 'The Great Gatsby', directed by Baz Luhrmann. When I first watched the movie, the visual splendor of the movie caught my eyes. I literally could not take my eyes off of it. I also like soap operas. I'm watching Miranda recently. It is my favorite television comedy series. I would strongly recommend it to you if you love slapstick humor. I recommended it to my friends and all of them loved it very much.

     I also like learning languages. I think that each languages have their own charm and that they shows a lot about their countries. I am learning French since the summer vacation. My goal is to watch French film without any subtitles. 

     I would like to study more about English literature or film after graduation and then I want to work for a film distributor. It would be really hard to enter the company so I should prepare for it from now on. Fluent English is required for this job so I would like to improve my English language skills through this class.

Thank you!