This Is Who I Am: 30 Things About Me

This Is Who I Am: 30 Things About Yein

1.     Eating

No, I am not a glutton – I don’t eat a lot at once – but I really enjoy and love eating delicious food. I always say, “I’m hungry”, craving some snacks and desserts. I always search the Internet for new gourmet restaurants to go and food to eat. I also enjoy watching tutorials and vlogs about cooking, baking, and eating. I’m trying to refrain from the snacks in order not to gain too much weight, but it is true that I feel nervous when my drawer for snacks is empty.

2.     Music

I love music – I love listening to various genres of music, playing many instruments, and, especially, improvising, arranging, or composing songs. I have an absolute pitch and innate musical sense, which, I believe, positively affected my love and passion for music. I started taking piano and violin lessons, because I asked my parents, when I was 3 and 6, respectively. I also taught myself to play marimba, vibraphone, accordion, drum, bass, and some other instruments. I started the very first ensemble in my elementary school, and I played piano as an accompanist in the church and middle school. In KMLA, I was a captain of NAB, the ballad band, and a vice-concertmaster and a violinist of Minjok Orchestra. I want to be involved in many music-related clubs in my college life as well.

3.     Archery club

I have feelings of love and hatred toward the archery club. I hated the archery club, for I had to leave the swimming club because of the archery club. After giving up the swimming club, I decided to become the captain of the archery club so that I can reduce my regretful feeling. After becoming the captain, however, my hatred for the archery club even grew bigger, dealing with some members who made me so hurt and upset. Nevertheless, I still love the archery club because of the nice feeling of shooting an arrow, terrific spectacle of an arrow flying to the target, and the members of the archery club, most of whom are so brilliant and kind.

4.     Learning Foreign Language

I like learning new languages, but I easily get bored as well. When I was young, I started teaching myself Chinese through memorizing Chinese letters, reading books about basic phrases and grammar, and watching Youtube tutorials about the proper pronunciation. In the middle school, I learned ancient Chinese writings and Japanese. I enjoyed learning them, even studying further by additional materials by myself. I also taught myself to read and write Spanish. Since entering KMLA, however, I have not kept studying these languages, and I forgot almost all of them. Rather, I took French class for 3 semesters. I liked learning French itself, but I was so stressed out by the atmosphere of the class. Thus, I decided to quit taking French class since the second semester of my junior year, and, frankly speaking, I am regretting my choice. I started forgetting French while I am planning to learn French again after graduation. I hope I am taking French class now.

5.     Youtube

My life is incomplete without Youtube. I have more than 70 channels that I subscribe and regularly watch. Using my free time, I usually spend at least 2 hours for watching Youtube videos. I usually watch vlogs, music videos and performance videos, make-up tutorial videos, dance videos, etc. I am thinking of being a Youtube creator when I go to college.

6.     Shopping

I enjoy going shopping. Before I entered KMLA, I would go shopping every 2 weeks. Now, I possess my own credit card, while I am living in the dormitory, I enjoy Internet shopping. Even though I do not buy all products in my cart, viewing and selecting various products and buying some of them make me so happy. These days, however, I have been trying to live a frugal life.

7.     Singing

I love singing songs, thereby resorting to karaoke. I usually sing either a calm but high-pitched song or a fast rap.

8.     Violin

I started playing the violin when I was 7, in Korean age and quitted when I was 12. After that, I just played violin on a few occasions, most of which were the school events. However, I started playing the violin again when I decided to get into Minjok Orchestra. The sad thing is that I lost my violin which costs 5000000 won (equivalent to approximately $5000) – I think someone took it during the summer vacation. I was so upset that my parents, rather than being angry at me, tried so hard to console me.

9.     Gwangju

My hometown, Gwangju, is a fabulous city. It is not too rural and remoted like Hoengseong, but it is not too crowded like Seoul. My neighborhood was an unexploited district, but it started developing at a very fast rate a few years ago. Thus, the places that I used to play when I was very young are now gone. I am ambivalent about the development of my hometown because it does make people’s life more convenient, but the backgrounds of my good memories are disappearing.

10.  Boyfriend

I have a boyfriend whose characteristics are akin to those of my mom. He positively affects me by encouraging and consoling me. He helps me not collapse nor stressed out. Even my friends say that I positively grew a lot after I met him.

11.  Instagram

I started Instagram in the 2017 October. I love taking pictures because I think it is important to take the record of my memories, though I also try to capture the beautiful memories with my eyes.

12.  Minjok Orchestra

Minjok Orchestra is one of the clubs that I am like and am enthusiastic about, so I wanted to be a conductor of the orchestra. Some peers and sunbaes also suggested me to apply for the conductor, saying that I will do a nice job thanks to my musical talents and charismatic leadership. However, the being a conductor of Minjok Orchestra entails an activity and participation of his or her mom, so I needed to get permission from my mom. Unfortunately, my mom said she cannot do that because of her health problem, despite my ardent appeal. Thus, I had to give up becoming a conductor of Minjok Orchestra but chose to support the conductor as much as I can. I still love Minjok Orchestra so much.

13.  Christian

I am a Christian. After coming to KMLA, I had to confront many of the criticism about Christianity, and I thought a lot about my religion. I admit that sometimes my faith was swayed, and I admit that even myself questioned about certain doctrines. Religion is something that cannot be explained by logic, so it is hard to know absolute values, but I will keep my religion with endless thinking.

14.  Travel

I love traveling. Thankfully, I have traveled so many times thanks to my dad who loves travel. The only continent that I have not been to yet is Africa, so I am planning to go there when I graduate KMLA. I usually prefer traveling with a few people (3-4 at most) to large-scale travel such as a package tour or vision trip. I also like campervan traveling. I traveled New Zealand with my family via campervan, and it is one of my best journeys in my life ever.

15.  Best friends

My best friends, whom I met in the second year of the middle school, are in Gwangju. Though I cannot meet them as often as I did, I always feel comfortable when I am with them. They know me well and they understand me well – they easily fathom my countenance. I am looking forward to the trip that I will go with these friends in 2019 January.

16.  Aunt and Uncle

My aunt and uncle are like my mom and dad. Whenever I have to stay in Seoul, I stay in their house. They sincerely care about me and offer me earnest advice. They are both programmers, so they also help me a lot with the problems with my electronic devices.

17.  Gwangju

I am from Gwangju, located in the south west part of the peninsula. The name “Gwangju” means the ‘town of light’ since the city has the highest quantity of incoming solar radiation in South Korea. I love my hometown, where the 5.18 Gwangju Uprising occurred. Gwangju has much warmer weather than that of Hoengseong, and there are so many places that I can go and play with my family or friends.

18.  Pilot

I wanted to be a fighter pilot. After watching a movie “R2B: Return to Base”, I decided to become a fighter pilot – I was very serious and earnest about this dream. I searched a lot about various combat planes and ROK Air Force Academy. Unfortunately, I had to give up my dream because of the height limitations: the height should be 162.5cm at the minimum. I was – and still am – 154cm, and I learned that my growth plates are closed. I still feel the palpitation of my heart whenever I see the jets, fighter pilots, and even the pilots of civil aviation.

19.  Computer Science

I am not a CS student. Frankly speaking, I wanted to become a CS kid because I heard from so many alumni that most of them ultimately change their majors into CS in order to get jobs. However, I learned that I hate the language and system of the computer.

20.  Climate Change

As many of my friends know, I am an environmentalist – I am especially interested in climate change and global warming. I strongly believe that every member of the humanity is responsible for the climate change and should – at least – try to do something green. I want to study about geoengineering, or climate engineering, which aims to mitigate climate change by technologies such as carbon capture storage and solar radiation management, and sustainable energy development, which is necessary to maintain the humanity in a greener way.

21.  Medicine

My father is a doctor, so he brought some pills when any of my family members was sick. Every time he brought some pills, I asked him the name, ingredients, efficacy, and mechanism of that pills. Whenever I get to use some new pills, I want to learn about them. I am interested in medicine. (However, I don’t want to be a doctor.)

22.  FFT

FFT is one of the clubs that I love, and I have been to FFT summer volunteering twice. In the first year, I felt great happiness thanks to the kind, cute kids of Laos who communicated with me via body language and facial expressions. In the second year, I had an opportunity to think a lot about myself and listen to a wide variety of valuable perspectives, which significantly influenced me. I feel grateful to FFT for the great people – friends, juniors, alumni, and people of Laos – I could meet in FFT.

23.  Stars and Astrophysics

I love stars. When I was in middle school, I wanted to become an astrophysicist working in NASA, studying about the black holes and pulsars. Though I do not wish to become an astrophysicist any longer, I still enjoy looking up at night skies filled with sparkling stars.

24.  Dancing

One of my favorite movie series is “Step Up” series. After watching the first movie of this series, during the plane heading to Australia for a family trip, I fell in love with dancing. Since that day, I started watching so many dance videos and started to dance. I taught my self to dance by watching some Youtube tutorials and mostly by merely following the dancing videos. I love dancing. When music comes out, I cannot help myself but move my body with the rhythm.

25.  Coffee shop

I love going coffee shops. I love delicious drinks and desserts of diverse coffee shops, and I love the atmosphere of the coffee shops formed by many people there along with the melodious music. Before I came to KMLA, I would go coffee shop every day – literally EVERY day. In the coffee shops, I met friends, studied and did some research alone, drank various beverages, ate diverse desserts, and talked with my family members. For me at least, one of the biggest disadvantages of attending KMLA is that I cannot go to coffee shops as often as I did.

26.  English

When I first came to KMLA, my English was so poor. I had difficulties understanding the reading passages and TV shows, while most of the other students easily understood them. What’s more, my English teacher misunderstood me, seriously impairing my impression, due to my broken English. I thought I should go to the domestic field because of my poor English. Rather than giving up, however, I tried to read at least one article every day, watch talk shows or movies in English, and speak in English as much as I can. Though I am not confident about my English, I strongly believe that my English has improved so much and will improve a lot.

27.  Elon Musk

Elon Musk is one of my role models. I respect him for entrepreneurship along with innovation and dynamic spirit. I also look up to him because he donates a lot of money for dealing with what he believes are threatening the humanity – climate change and artificial intelligence. I want to be someone like him – with brave entrepreneurship, passion to learn and apply, and firm determination. 

28.  Rumors

I suffered from a lot of rumors around me at the very beginning of my KMLA life. I had quite tough time, and I thought of dropping out of school where students, and even teachers, judge me on the malicious gossips.

29.  Movies and Dramas

I love watching movies and dramas. I love every genre except for horror. I once wanted to become an actress, thinking that I will be able to experience various jobs and learn new things.

30.  Cooking

Since my both parents worked when I was in elementary school, I usually prepared my own meals. It was not depressing nor daunting because I love cooking so much. I made my own recipes tailored to my own taste. However, I hate doing the dishes.