I LOVE reality shows. I watch(ed) Project Runway, America’s Next Top Model, American Idol, The Hills, Laguna Beach, Real World, Orange County, The Life of Ryan, The Paper, Search of the Next Elle Woods, America’s Best Dance Crew, and a Korean reality called 우리결혼했어요, meaning we got married. Most of the times, especially for the reality shows that try to show the lives of the characters, i realize that the show is very fake and it is simply unproductive, meaningless, shallow and useless to watch the shows, but i still watch them haha. Well, since i watch so many shows i definitely caught a pattern.

Shows need to get high viewing rates, and for this the shows need to be interesting, and to be interesting the producers try to make the shows more provocative, scandalous, and sexual. As a result, many of the reality shows change their colors as the seasons progress. However, i wonder whether these methods of making the reality so rich really help. This idea suddenly hit me while i was watching Project Runway on Youtube. I was reading some comments and one comment said that her or she used to enjoy watching the desingers work the most, but now those parts became so boring, and i completely agreed. I could not read the whole comment because i had to quickly focus on the show haha but i thought about it while watching, and i found the reason for the boringness. It was because a long time ago.. or even last season, for some of the episodes, the designers actually working were shown on tv. However, now the focus was is not on the designers’ hands but on their mouths. In order to pick up the drama the edited parts only showed the parts when the designers were gossiping, back stabbing, or swearing. This peculiar editting must have been done in order to make the show more interesting, but obviously, at least for me, the show was becoming less interesting.

It must be very hard for the producers to make their shows real and intersting at the same time. I feel like these days the focus is more on interesting than on real. I really wonder whether the excessive salting and peppering helped the view rates. When looking at the apparent trend, i guess it does. If the rates really did go up, i think this can translate into – people like disturbing and scadalous stuff……Since i am one of the viewers of these shows does this mean that i do like these elements as well??? I hope that the answer for this questions is yes judging from the fact that i did not like the extra drama from Project Runway and that i stopped watching Real World Hollywood because it was just too much.

So, i think that the conclusion of my post came out to be interesting = disturbing, but i wonder if this formula always works.

credit: http://www.washfm.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=&article=3648072

I always tell my mom that this is the result of the excessive care that she gave him when he was young, because when i was young my mom would just go out for swimming everyday. Consequently, i washed, brushed, and fed myself since a very young age. But my mom tells me that my brother has different genes, and that if she did that to my brother he would not go to school… Well, my mother’s the expert but i just think that my brother should not me this independent.

Well…enough complaining i secretly or publicly hope that the managers of edublog read that!) I know that the topic of technology is very cliche. Whether technolgy helped our lives seem to be continuously debated, but i feel like cliche today hehe. Well, my personal view is that technolgy is both beneficial and harmful (oo clliche). Without techonology our lives will not be like this. We wil be living less eventful and entertaining lives. Just think of life without tvs, internet, cellphone, movies, cars and planes.. how boaring. Of course, technology might have made our lives toooo eventful to the extent that many psychological ailments are manifesting the degtee. However, when we think about it, this really depends on control. Although i love to play with my computer and gaze not so brightly into the tv, i can make myself stop and read a book or go outside and sit in the not so natural nature.

Now, the cliche argument for those who are aggainst technology will be that technology makes people impersonal…This can be a valid argumentm, but the thing is that ppl don’t always talk to their friends on msn or text message them. When people need it they simply meet their friends. Frankly, just look around the streets there are so many people meeting people!! Just go into Starbuck and it will be evident… In fact, i think that technology is helping the relationships of people because it makes communication easier and faster.

So… i guess my argument is that technology is beneficial if you know how to use it properly.

Now i want to digress and talk about how i suddenly thought of this random topic…haha. These days i started to study for the SAT and one of the passages talked about technology. Honestly i really do not like passages related to technology or any other repetitive topics, and this passage was not that different. In fact, i thought that the reasoning was very weird. The author listened to a professor’s speech about how technology is drawing people apart and the author thought that the professor was being to romantic. Later that day he was eating lunch on a bench and met two friends talking to each of their phones. The author suddenly realizes that the professor was right, because he was so shocked that the two friends were merely sitting together but not having a conversation with each other. Well, firstly, i do not think that this is a very commom thing to happen. Also, the two might have been super busy, or simply maybe the two got phone calls at the same time. Moreover, you don’t really need to TALK the whole time when you are with your friend… I am sure that the author of this passage is a very wise and accomplished individual, but i just really could not understand the sudden realization… it did not feel like Newton’s apple in any way…

Once again stream of conciousness post i really need to fix this habit

I bought this book a long long long time ago. I have a strange greediness when it comes to books, so I try to buy as many books possible whether or not I can read them all. One of the books that were selected was One Hundred Years of Solitude. I did not know what the book was about. I just chose the book because the cover was bedazzling (yes, I do judge the book by its cover…sometimes…) and because i knew that it was famous. However, perhaps because it was too famous, or because the title was just too duanting, i never picked it up. For some reason this made me really guilty. I felt like i was committing a crime of making a legendary book just idly stand on the shelf, so when i had to read a book for ap lit i almost immediately thought of this book. Honeslty, even though this book was my first choice i tried to avoid it because it seemed to be too thick, and i knew that i migt not have enough time to read it, but still i came to a decision to read the book. I can really say that i do not regret my decision. Yes, it was a pretty bulky (not too much) book but it was worth it. Peopel say that this book made people view literature differently. Since i am a baby lit student, i do not exaclty know what my views are towards literature, but it indeed is a magnificent book.

This book was completely different from what i expected it to be. I expected this book to be very philosophical (i am not saying that this book is not!) and …just one of those wonderful but boring books, but it really wasn’t like that. In stead, it was a very eventful (maybe too much) book that really captivated my mind. Although it got kind of boring in towards the end, the book thoroughly entertained me. I think i read quite a lot, but i don’t think that i am a good…deep reader, so i must have failed to grasp the whole value of this book. Yet, this book made me speechless. As a i told ms. porter almost the only thing that i could think of that Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a GENIOUS. Really, nobel prize winners are different… FIrst of all, who can think of a imagernary place that is so ordinary and original at the same time? The writing is so imaginative and the writing is so juicy (and i applaud the translator for the beautiful work as well!) Moreover, the story is so complicated, and the author just must be a genious to keep track of al the names, not be confused, and have their individual stories. Whiel i was reading the book i thought that the story got a bit too chaotic. There were too many characters with similar or IDENTICAL names, but then i realized the order in the chaos. The author actually planned out the story, which can be hinted from lines like “as you will see later”

However, more than anything, i loved the ending. I really wondered how the book will end because everything was turning out just so miserably. Usually, i peek and see the ending of the books because i am really bad at supressing my curiousity, but this time i succesfully restraiend myself because i knew that soemthing beautiful would happen. Since i do not want to spoil the ending i will not say it outright but the ending was perfect!!!!!!!! it gave me goosebumps. Also, i felt the evident political satire. I forgot much of my history, but i could sense the twists. 

Gosh, my wriitng is like… stream of conciousness…well

now i am going to start Love in the Time of Cholera and i can’t wait for it!! 

what should i doooooooooooooooooooo

nooooooooooooo

ahhhhhhhhhhhhrghhhhh

sb help me..

Now, i no longer suffer greatly from these symptoms as the panic of SAT 2s really hit me and all the final projects are making me sick… I realized, although i knew it all along, that i am not graduating, and that i have so much left to even think about the end.

When i was suffering from my abnormal disease it was really hard for me because i dreaded, and am still dreading, the end of the year. Mr. Aitken said that it was rather strange for me to not want summer vacation but i’ve got things to do before the end of this year.

i have true respect and veneration toward the seniors and all those who graduated. I now understand what they went through and am about to meet the final hills of high school. (by the way i met Rhee Soo!)

I know that i have been saying extremely depressing stuff throughout the past few weeks and repeatedly told myself and through the blog that i needed to get a grip and rise from the very unpleasantly crumpled thoughts and swirling force of depression and loss of motivation, but i think i don’t need to be all depressed anymore. What i need to do is to NOT think but just do whatever i need to do because i have things to do, dreams to grasp, goals to reach, ego to recover, life to pursue, and me to be.

credit: http://search.boston.com/local/Search.do?s.sm.query=housing%20market&new=n&s.si(simplesearchinput).offset=10

it was depressing at best and i was (perhaps am) about to have a melt down

i get easily stressed and the stress that i am feeling is on the verge of becoming dangerous

as a result i spent the most unproductive weekend ever

it is easy for me to just let go of things but before i let go of things

i go through painful processes

i may be a girl who gets stressed well and obsesses with petty things

but i believe that my obsessions are imporatan at least at this moment

what i am obsessing over can be directly connected to my future……..

i do not want my dream to be ruined

i am scared

i am really scared

i had a similar experience about 3 years ago but i understand that my current circumstances are worse

i do not know how to recover in a snap

i do not know what to do when why dreams are jeopardized

i know how to give up dreams

but that is the last thing i want to do

i need to snap out of this pathetic me

wake up

wake up

and face it

do whatever you can do to fix this

there are ups and downs in life and since i hit the bottom

it’s time to soar

yes, i am incredibly miserable but

no, i will not make my life itself miserable

and yes, i will make my life incredible from now on

photo credit:http://www.the-reel-mccoy.com/movies/2004/TheIncredibles.html

i regret for not being able to be well prepared and i regret that i made a HUGE mistake while taking the world history exam. I do not want to blame everything on external forces but i really think that i am out of luck these days. From the SATs….and now my AP.

Stilllll…regardless of how grumpy i feel time passes  and things happen

now it is nearly the end of the year and i need to pump my energy up to raise my grades that DROPPED and i have to start being prepared to become a good senior

i don’t want to make a mess out of my senior year

i don’t wan to mess with the most important year of my high school career like i did..this year!

Still i want to make the best out of my junior year

and i want to have a wonderful senior year

no more messy days for me

just good good days should be and will be waiting for me

This was my comment on Sophia’s blog. I first will apologize for my type o. It’s supposed to be “Oh! this is the post…”

Since blogging has become included to our English curriculum many of the students’ territory of concern expanded to the world of blogs. I personally like blogging. I am a complete chatterbox so i like chattering in the form of writing as well. But I realized that there were few problems with blogging in this blog.

First of all, the cluster map. I do not necessarily think that the cluster map signifies anything, but it is sure disappointing to see ‘0′ for the number of visitors. As a result, even though i try not to pay attention to the cluster map i find myself clicking on my never changing cluster map almost everyday. Now, as I explained above, i do not have a cluster map, and i am happy…(er).

This leads to my next problem: the problem that i sometimes get conscious of the fact that this blog is watched. Although i really write freely how i feel and what i want to talk about i find myself worried when i know that my blog will be checked. Or am i supposed to be conscious?

Also, i have random periods that i get incredibly blogicious and times that i just completely forget about my blog, so when the blog checking day unfortunately coincides with my un-blogicious timing, it is very hard for me to write.

I was quite surprised after i learned that many of my friends were suffering with the issue of having a voice because i don’t think i really have a problem with this…although i don’t know if i have a distinctive voice or not. I think that this problem mostly happens because people know that they are being checked. Moreover, i thought that this can be quite an important issue because, at least for me, i thought that having a blog was to help you form your own voice and to hear others’ voices as well. I thought about the solution and i thought that maybe…really maybe…it will be better to have random, unannounced blog checks although i know that this will face great fulmination.

My brother is seven years old (he’ll be eight in June) and to me he is living such a wonderful life. Although he goes to few hakwons he still doesn’t have to worry about any of the things that suffocate me. Nevertheless, my brother thinks that life is hard. His two page English homework is just too much for him, and the fact that he cannot buy some kind of toy that he wants is unbelievably stressful. He cries and gets mad at so frivolous things that i cannot help myself from laughing when i see his grave face with tears after he realizes that he cannot play with his best friend. I envy him so much that i tell him that i envy him for being young like a habit. However, he sighs and nods his head whenever i tell him that. It turns out my brother’s life is harder than it seems to be to HIM.

But i can fully understand him because i thought that life was so complicated and hard when i was young too. Although, i would love to be just ten years younger now, at that time life was really tough for me. I couldn’t understand why i was not allowed to eat chocolate ice cream everyday, i couldn’t understand why i was not allowed to watch TV all day, and i couldn’t understand why i had to listen to my parents. As I grew older i realized how foolish i was, but then life was hard again. In about 4th grade friendship was so hard and important (of course i think it is important still) that small bickering with friends would make my life covered with a blanket of misery. I thought that elementary school was so boring and lame that i wanted to quickly become a middle school student. Gradually, i grew up, matured and once again realized how silly i was. When i was in middle school everything got really hard (as usual). I had so much work to do compared to when i was in elementary school. I also had a completely immature belief that i was mature and grown up. I had very very vague hints of thoughts, or rather day dreams of college and immense hopes for high school.

Now i am in high school, and i miss my past very much. Everything is stressful and frustrating in high school. Especially, these days, and today in specific, I am realizing the grim forecast of my immediate future, so i feel myself sinking sinking and sinking. Yet, i am telling myself that it is time to rise!!! because even though right now, at this moment i am suffering, soon i will be missing my today. So much more is waiting for me, and i know that the days in front of me will be tough. Yet, after all, life IS tough every second until the present becomes the past.

photos from: http://normaldesign.net/normal/en/show.php?product=28, http://ucdavismagazine.ucdavis.edu/issues/su07/future_power.html