Blog Post #4 Please ask me what it is!!

 After reading Mr.Holtzman's post(I did read it! Too bad that I was on my phone, trying to comment but didn't work out well), this one just popped out of my head. I never wanted to bring this up again, but this could be best and the only story for the blog topic. Before giving away the story, I swear, I've never told this to anyone else, but you will be the first one to read it.

 It's goes back to last year in Chicago, again. As it was my first year in USA, I wasn't as bright as now I am back then. It was my first time living with someone else other than my family, and of course I was even more scared because they weren't Korean, but American. There was another boy same age with me, called Logan, in my new (host)family. Having different cultures and lacking of comprehension skills held my back from getting to know him. I never get to have chance to get along with him. He sometimes offered me to play PS2 with him, but the awkwardness didn't get away.

  For the first few months, I started to adjust to school but my family was different. For me, for some reason, it was so hard for me to approach them and hang out. It wasn't that they were mean. No, they were so nice, even nicer than my real parents. I stayed in my room forever after school, and crawl out in the morning have some breakfast and leave for school. I felt so awkward with the situation that I was placed. Talking to them was hard. I don't know how Americans feel about this, but as an English learner as second language, we feel embarrassed when we talk to native speakers because of our accents and grammatical errors. After experiencing some awkward situations -like not understand what each other's saying- I believe I had a kind of phobia. At school, I could just talk to my friends and if they don't understand? I'm just like screw you, never mind. Or even when they talk to me or ask me something, I don't understand? I just smile at them and everything was okay(Well, just once case that one girl wanted to know me and I didn't speak much words, just smiled then she thought I was ignoring her).

 So, that was the build-up. I was a smart(I doubt it now) and funny Asian kid at school, but at home, I was a shy and poor Asian exchange student, who never talks nor understand what they say.

 One day, I brought a chocolate to the school. At lunch, I ate a half of it, and I wrapped up the other half, put it in my pocket. I never expected, but at the end of the day, I found out the chocolate had melted in my pocket. It was disgusting. I went back home, changed to my shorts and while doing that, I found out the chocolate smeared half of my white underwear through my jeans. I was absolutely positive that the smudge will be gone when I laundry it.

 The next day, I completely forgot about it. I was in my room, either playing games or doing my homework and there goes my embarrassment. Logan knocked on the door, delivering the folded clothes. He didn't bring my underwear and I didn't ask him about that  because I never put it in my mind. After about five minutes, he knocked on the door again. As soon as I opened the door, I saw his puzzled face. Well, he was barely not holding my underwear. The dark chocolate never went away, and it even made it look more like a real poop. I tried to say something, I mean I couldn't have let it go. I was 15 and I had to prove that I don't poop in my pants at least not in my underwear! I was panicked. Thousands of different thoughts crossed my mind in a mere second but the only word came through my lips was "What the..." I slowly picked it up from his hand, pinky out. Referring to the tone and my reaction, he would've thought something like, he probably(definitely) pooped in the underwear and expected it to be gone and but was wrong, being shocked and embarrassed in front of me. I didn't have chance to explain it. I was hoping really bad, 'Goddammit! You HAVE TO ask me what is wrong with my underwear with a laughing face, RIGHT NOW! I will explain it, I will!'


 He did not.


 He just walked out to wherever he was. My head was blank and face was burning. He might have forgotten about that but for me, I had to try my best to forget that. Then, I never had chance to get along with him, just because I was still embarrassed and it made me nervous.

 Just in case you might be reading it, Logan, it wasn't poop, I swear.

Blog Post#3 Things might happen in Chicago.

 I usually took the bus to go to school and comeback home, but on that day, I found myself having no money on my possession and ended up waiting for Chris, who was my host dad from last year in Chicago, at the bus-stop to pick me up at 8 o'clock, when it only was about 6 and a half. "Look, Chris! I DO have my wallet! It was deep in my book bag!" I shouted out loud in the car, as holding up my wallet. The biggest laughter ever.

 It was the day before that he picked me up from the bus-stop. I and my friends were heading to the bus-stop together after the tennis practice. On the street that was close to the school, one kid-seemed like our school student and later found out, yes, he was- came up to one of my friends, John, and asked for a change of $10. John stopped and pulled out his wallet and tried to get 2 $5s while three of us(me and my friends) were keep walking. We had to turn around to see what was going on when John shouted 'Ow!'. What we saw next was that the kid, now becoming a mugger, snatching the wallet from John's hand and slowly walking towards us. Well, everything was so slow, but the slowest thing was my brain. Because John looked so calm and was saying "Hey, can I have it back, I mean, my wallet, dude." as slowly following him, I thought they were just kidding and know each other. But the thing just got real when he passed by me and whispered, "Fuck off". Then my brain briefed, 'Hey! John just got robbed!'. I see. I tried to chase the at least 6-foot-tall black guy, but ended up stopping myself when I saw him turning into a corner and there goes about 5~6 guys smoking something.

 The next day, I walked to the bus-stop alone after practice. I was so sensitive and nervous from the yesterday's fresh real situation. I safely got to the bus-stop, I still had about 10 minutes till the next bus comes. Therefore, I went into the nearby Walgreens and tried to get some snacks. When I walked in and saw three kids from my school, -I guess they were coming back from their football practice- keep glancing at me while whispering each other. I felt it. They were going to do something to me. I just kept walking around till they get out, just in case I misunderstood and they were not going to do anything, but hopefully just making fun of me or something. No, things were getting real. They kept following me for 15 minutes and all of a sudden, I found them gone. I felt so alive and walked to the cashier to pay for my M&M's. Well, then I was freaked out when I tried to get out my wallet from my bag, and saw them waiting for me by the door. 'Oh, God! Why me?' My heart was racing, my face got all red, my hands and stomach, even my jaw cramped. I thought to myself. 'If I take out my wallet right here, they will try to get me when I get out.' So what was the safest way? My brain worked pretty quickly. Quicker than any other time in my life. The point was not to let them know that I know what they will do. Therefore, I needed a safe way to get out of the building. Staying in the building and asking for help might have helped but that would've drawn too much attention and I couldn't assume that I might be safe at school. Here comes my Hollywood action. As I started crazily digging my bag to pretend finding my wallet, I exaggerated to make them notice me having no wallet. Well, I did it for pretty long time-or maybe I felt each second as hours and hours- but they still were waiting but looked a bit concerned. Then my last punchline burst out of my mouth. I said it as loud as I could. "Well! I'm sorry, sir! I DON'T THINK I HAVE MONEY RIGHT NOW, I might have left it at school." I was right. I secretly glanced at them over my shoulder and saw them going, "Well," "Shit," "……." as leaving the building. I slowly packed my bag again, and walked out like a boss.

 The problem was that, I seriously couldn't find my wallet even after that. I really might'd left it at school. I didn't feel like going back to school. Not only were  the streets too dangerous at night but also I was sure the security guards won't let me in. I called Chris, asked if he could pick me up. He told me that I had to wait till 8 P.M, since he was not home yet. That moment, waiting for the ride, was the time having the most mingled feelings of joy and sorrow ever. However, I found myself being the real winner when I eventually grabbed the wallet deep inside the bag in the car.

Well, I'm still confused. May I consider it as the luckiest day or a mere bad day?

Blog Post#2 What Color Is The Flower?

 Even before you start to read this post, think what color you think of when it says 'colorless'? Not like a person is colorless, but the literal meaning of it; having no color.

 It was the summer, about a month before I came to USA for the first time. The break was long, and I had nothing to do at home. I had to stay in my old house in Korea, and the saddest thing was that the house was even located in a mountain, so it would take 40 minutes to go down the mountain, and 30 minutes to get to the nearest town. The bus time wasn't even often, I usually just decide to stay at home rather than to take two hours to enjoy an hour. The bellybutton can't be bigger than its stomach. What I did was to snack on some food and watch some random shows on TV at the couch, or sit in front of the world slowest computer you can ever imagine, and test my patience. Still 24-hour-long day was long for me to waste like that. As having a lot of time, there comes a lot of thought about everything. I sometimes sat in the office room, where many books were stored, and read old stories I used to read years ago. Then, one story that I read on one day, just came to my mind. The story was about a flower having beautiful colors. She was so generous that she gave all the colors to the other flowers and finally, ended up having nothing left. The God watched the flower shivering in the snow, feeling sympathy and told the snow to give her a color of its. So I thought, 'what color was the flower then?' What color do you think it was?

 I'd never thought that colorless and invisible can be different. It was just that month that made me so sensitive about everything, and enlightened me. After having few days of thinking and research on the super-duper slow internet (Yes, that's the reason why it took even 'few days!'), I still could find some people had thought same thing as I did. I determined the word 'invisible' is the color that lets the light go through, so it reflects the color whatever behind the color. BUT, being colorless is way different. colorless is dark and lightless. To let you know easier, it is similar to the color black (at this point, I found that black, and dark is different), but a little not completely. I didn't know if people around me would accept my idea about it, but my friend told me to shut up and to play starcraft with them. Well, no one really cared (or some of them were strongly against me, being so conservative that they won't listen to me!), but I'll try to describe it here, on this post, again.

 As most of the people in the world think, when it is invisible or colorless, you can't see the object. However, in my opinion, colorless is black, to add more detail, it is dark. (Time out! Black is a color reflected by the light, but dark is when there's NO light and performs the darkness) Here comes a little science we learned in elementary school. There is an object, light and the eyes. In order to see the object, the light comes through the eyes first, then see the object. To the sub-conclusion, LIGHT equals to COLOR. Close your eyes and now what color do you see? It's black, more likely dark. Many people say colorless is same with invisible. if you are one of them, here's one more example coming. Imagine you are in a room that has no window. You closed the door and turned the lights off. Unless you are seeing the outside of the room somehow through the wall, the room is dark. Agreed? Drawing to the conclusion;


                 SUN                         l                          SUN
                  /                             l                              ＼
                /                               l                                 ＼
              /                                 l                                    ＼     
            /       O                        l                            X         ＼       
          /                                     l                                           ＼
       ↙                                      l                                              ↘
EYESㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ>OBJECT          l             EYESㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡㅡ>OBJECT

 ∴Dark = No light
 ∴No light ≠ Invisible, No light = No color
 ∴No color = Colorless
 ∵Colorless = Dark


 This is all I wanted to write about. I assume someone can throw literary questions, but I'm sure I can give higher-leveled explanation if I could use my own language. If any of you readers have any opinions about it, please comment! I would love to talk about it.

Blog Post#1 Stranger in a Strange Land

 I experienced a lot of situations indicate 'Stranger in a Strange Land', just like any other teenagers but a little bit more, I believe. Even little tiny things but bother you more than people think when they hear about it, and I assume all of us have experienced that kind of situation. The most common 'Strange Land' is the new school. Especially when you're in high school and especially the first week, sometimes it can be the first month- of the new school year. It makes you almost cry when you get to eat lunch alone by yourself (but then when someone who you slightly remember the face, comes and sits by you, there's no way to describe how adorable he/she is at that moment).

 I've already been to five schools since I was seven. I notice, the younger you're, it's easier to get along with new friends. When I was nine, I could just walk up to the play ground and make ten friends right away without knowing each others' names.

 Ever since I was ten years old, I started to move around my place. The scale wasn't that big at first; from Korea to China. The ticket was just cheap as $70, the time up in the air didn't even take an hour but we still had to drive a couple of hours to get to the town. I somehow made good friends on the first day of the school, and what I am really proud of is that I wasn't alone when I had the first lunch. Well, to shorten it, going to school in China was still easy for me to adapt. Everything was sort of similar as life in Korea, but language. I can't deny my Chinese reading and writing skills suck. Not even exaggerating, I had a hard time learning writing and reading, and now, me being in USA proves it- Imagine learning five thousands characters and still cannot even read a book, how frustrating? I couldn't find any interest in that. However, I say my speaking and listening comprehension skills were pretty good. But, what I found really difficult being a stranger is the weight of languages. I started to feel it while I was in China, learning the second language. And the matter just got real when I got to USA. What I mean by the 'weight of languages', is even when I say same things in both languages, the true meaning, or the seriousness of how people take it, is different. It is a little bit embarrassing, but to be honest, when I first went to the American school in Chicago -to give a prior notice, my school was a little bit ghetto- I got into a fist fight with a kid called me motherfuxxer. Well, it still is a pretty bad word but, not a big deal. Would've let it go. I don't know what Americans think, however, in Korea we couldn't even think of insulting each other's parents. When you tell your friend 'your mom is fat' in USA, he gives a comeback, but in Korea, he gives a good punch in your face. This example is kind of aggressive, but in the other hand, as it is, teaches the importance of the 'weight of language' really well. You know how in English, when teacher picks a student to read the paragraph, they say "Augustin, why don't you just read the next paragraph?" This is still embarrassing, i just pissed off when my World History teacher said it. I literally felt so awful and talked back(almost shouted back). "It's the FIRST time you told me to read and why do you talk to me like I NEVER listened to you?" Being in a bad mood also helped, but the way she told me to read wasn't in a good manner of language in Korean. 'Why don't you...' indicated the phrase in Korea, used when someone's bothering, not doing the right thing that was told. I surely had a fair reason to be upset.

 I can relate the 'weight of language' to the difference between cultural thoughts. And still the most difficult thing I'm facing is the same thing. I often think the reason why it's hard to fit in for F.O.B Asian kids, is because of it, both American kids and Asian kids are not fully understood by what each other's saying. However, we believe it is fair when we get to learn new phrases used in different ways which is mostly cool and make ourselves think as fluent native speakers(It really did when I first learned 'What's up?')!