Emitting Inspiration

Normally, we are inspired by beauty. A beautiful story, song, art, scenery...etc. Sometimes, personalities inspire us. Bravery, endurance, patience, and you name it. However, rarely, we get inspired from unknown sources. This particular kind of impression does not take a long time to form and often comes unexpectedly from strangers.  I guess we could call it as random inspiration.

I have encountered yet another person with unusual impression. I only saw him for seventy five minutes. He was a lecturer whose objective was to deliver a clear lesson on a certain subject in math. An ordinary-looking man. There was no witty joke. No charisma and no crash were involved. Yet, at the end of the lecture, I was amazed simply by the person, who he was.

Something from him was breaking into my mental world. And I just felt very strange, as if I came to a foreign country for the first time. This phenomenon was fascinating, since these strange inspirational feelings were absolutely sudden and strong.

As I am writing this post, I am having a great hard time to put my thoughts together. Here is what lasts from the process of rethinking of rethinking of paragraphs that are now erased.

The essence of him, hisness, may have caused this random inspiration.

The way he spoke, the way his handwriting was, the way he treated his audience, the way he stood, and just the way he lived in that seventy five minutes was purely just himself. He the person as a whole vibrated and emitted lights, his own lights. Very consistent to his own essence. I wish to emit my own inspirational lights to others.

What are your random experiences?

Ph.D.

When I was nine, I took an extracurricular class in computer. A dozen kids, from the third grade to the sixth grade, were in that class. I vaguely remember learning about control panel, Microsoft Words, and some html codes. Creating blinking or moving phrases on a white webpage was impressive. The materials were interesting in general, but I was not in love with this whole computer class.



One day, my computer teacher told the class about a Microsoft Word Processor certificate prep class. When I heard the announcement, there was this image popped up in my mind, and it allured me to recklessly sign up for the prep class. In the image, there was a college student walking on a peaceful campus, with heavy books on her arms. Her silky hair was being blown by a wind, and sunshine, scattered through the leaves, danced upon her smiling face. It was so beautiful.



I knew that if I took that Microsoft Words prep class, I would be like that college student, exploring the exciting world of unknown knowledge. Of course, the prep class was nothing like the image from my mind. There were strange people from different ages—from “old” middle school students to “really old” adults (probably in their 30s.) The lecturer was creepy. He scared me each time, because he always looked at me and smiled! Now, I understand why. I was the only elementary student in his class! A nine-year-old girl paying attention to his lecture on creating charts on Words. How cute it must have been.



I got the certificate at the end of the program with the “creepy” teacher and disappointing learning experience. Nevertheless, my desire and admiration for knowledge in depth is still present. From time to time, I would record questions, which no one (or no book) had answers to, in my notebooks. Thinking of my future ahead, I wonder if these questions and desires indicate that I should pursue Ph.D.



Ph.D. sounds a distant future, yet I’ve got to remember no future is not too far away.




Here is a link to an informative and fun webpage on Ph.D. Check it out.

http://public.randomnotes.org/richard/PhDtalk.html    

Things to spend my earned money on

In order to be entirely faithful to my foremost duty, being a good student, I don't have a job at the moment. Once I recover my pace, I would like to get a part time job in teaching computer science/math or paid internship at energy/green companies. I am still searching.

Meanwhile, I indulge in what-if-I-get-that-job imagination. Oh, it's sweet.

1. A headset. (can you believe that I'v never owned a headset or an earphone in my entire life?! and I do enjoy listening to music.)

2. Paying for my parent's a full-day date course and hiring someone to white glove my house from the tiniest corner to the deepest corner. Basically, I want to buy some time for my parents. They do not seem to get relaxed enough to dust out mundane part of their life. ever.

3. A pair of grey sneakers. I like shoes like all the other women. But for some reason, my shoes do not last more than a year--especially, sneakers. I end up buying a new pair of sneakers every year. How about you? How many shoes do you buy yearly? Well, for this season, I have seven pairs out on the shoe rack. 1) Running shoes 2) Casual sneakers 3) brown heels 4) mustard heels 5) casual grey heels 6) leather boots 7) slippers..??! they're shoes, right. According to an article, an average American woman owns 19 pairs and only wears 5. Even if I add my spring/summer set, I don't think I have 19 pairs! Usually, I do not feel great about being below average, but this one I am proud to be below average.

4. An artist tablet (graphic drawing tablet). I do not know how to call it? This is a completely different kind than what you would normally think of tablet. This tablet is hooked up to a computer and typically used with Adobe software. At any rate, I'd love to start some webtoons (comics on the web). Webtoon is a huge hit in South Korea now. This is the perfect genre in entertainment among Koreans, who use high-speed, in fact the highest in the world, internet 247. Quite a few Korean movies and TV shows originate from the webtoons. From a 9 year old to 50-year-old moms, webtoon is making everyone laugh with its short weekly episodes. These online comics are mainly supported by two giant Korean portal sites--Naver and Daum. You can read an article about it here (http://weekly.donga.com/docs/magazine/weekly/2012/03/05/201203050500020/201203050500020_1.html) Well, it's in Korean, so try to learn the language or run the Chrome's extension Google Translate. It should translate the entire webpage for you.

My wish to do list continues to a few more items. It will be great if I get to post about the list becoming true. I feel like this is my first pay ever. What did you do with your first pay? There is a custom in Korea that you must buy your family their underwear with your first ever earned money. Did anyone, not from Korea, shop for family underwear? Lol. I don't know how that tradition has evolved, but it's a fun one (though I didn't keep it. I took my students to a very nice dinner with my very first paycheck).

It's exciting that there are people that I care about, that I sincerely wish their well-being, and that I'd love to willingly spend all of my first-earned money for.

Feeling much love in closing today. (A perfect song is just now playing from my Grooveshark playlist, "Dance with My Father" by Luther Van Dross. A great song.)

Good night.

The Martian Chronicles

One of the 2012 resolutions is to read a book a week. Since this is the seventh week of 2012, I should be on my seventh book. Unfortunately, I am running behind. I am only reading my third book.

Book 1: 하나님의 대사 2, 김하중 (I read the second one of the Christian series written by the former ambassador to China, Ha Jung Kim.)

Book 2: The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury

Last fall, I read one of Bradbury's short stories, 'The Veldt,' on the subway. The story was so intriguing that my usual one-hour-long train trip seemed to end only in ten minutes. In the book, Bradbury depicts threats from advanced science in hyperbole. Bradbury really got me. His extreme imaginations on danger in technology did not stop questioning me about potential horrors in the future or even in the current generation. After 'The Veldt,' I wanted to read Bradbury's other works, expecting another surge of questions on science today.

The Martian Chronicles is now sitting on my desk. Again, science and technology play bad roles in the book. They provide humans not only with a mean to destroy the Earth but also with a way to land on Mars and destroy that neighbor planet as well. It is rather absurd. As a result of advancing technology, humans end up destroying two planets. Maybe Bradbury uses even absurdity to get attention on the coming danger in developing technology.

Another observation from the story is the unchanging human tendency to be discontent. In other words, the problematic nature of humans cannot be defeated by external changes such as moving to Mars. I do not think a single character finds genuine happiness in Mars.  

Honestly, I do not recall too many remarkable thoughts from the book. Sporadic reading makes it hard to digest a book; however, the rather discontinuous story line does not help me dig into the book either.



 

Beginning

At this playground,

Aria paints, discovers, takes pictures, tells secrets, runs, explores, reads, ..., does many of her own things, and she meets you.

Have fun at Aria's Playground.