AiriZel: Thoughts

So I’m absolutely exhausted. Both mentally and physically. I definitely need a break at some point. <-- Me almost 2+ weeks ago. This second installment to the NSLI-Y series is hella overdue. So without further ado...

Korea – The Homestay – First impressions

Well today is the morning after the first night at the homestay. Man, not what I expected. From what I undestood, the homestay program was supposed to put us with a traditional korean nuclear family. That is to say a mother, father, and kids. Instead I and Nicolas Pang (a very bright kid from Hawaii) ended up with a god-fearing grandmother, similar in style to that you would see in a western movie in regards to an old grandmother figure.

So what does that mean? It means near unlimited freedoms equivalent to what I have not only in the home, but also what I’ll have when I’m in college. Simply put, the grandmother of this small apartment lives by herself. If you put it into the perspective of a grandmother living alone, the apartment is not that bad at all. I could definitely live in something like this by myself (which brings me to the funny point that I may not have a suite room year 1 at Yale. But rather a very big room. I don’t know how that’s going to go). That said, for the three of us, it’s a bit smaller than anticipated (but not overtly uncomfortable by any means).

In addition, the son, IE the hypothetical father figure of this house seems to work all the time, living away from this apartment. In addition, the grandmother is a god-fearing woman who attends church everyday until 6PM. So what does that afford Nick nad myself? Well we get keys to this apartment and the freedom to come and go as we please whenever. That’s a lot more freedom than I thought I’d have, but also we lose out on the immersion into Korean families. I feel worse for Nicholas than I do for my own situation, having grown up in in fact a Korean nuclear family, knowing that my father sits at the head of the table, knowing that the respect I show to my parents is infinite. Nick will never have that experience at this rate.

That all said, the family is still very supportive as if we were college students. The grandmother graciously took us to the nearby YMCA equivalent so that we could spend 31000 won to open membership. I’ll probably be heading there every morning from 6-6:30 or around that time (with the exception of maybe wednesdays when the program takes us away). She also took us into town, which is about 1 km away I think from this apartment complex, where we bought bread, power adapters (since the prongs on american adapters differ), and ice cream. Lots of ice cream.

So moving on to talking about last night. Man I could not sleep well. I constantly felt like I was waking up, and my back couldn’t seem to realign itself with the bed. Meh, hopefully tonight will be better. Also, my eyes seem to be failing me lately. I don’t know if it’s because I’m tired, but I can’t seem to focus my eyes on people. Words and letters no problem. People… they seem to be blurry at a not that far distance. I’m thinking it’s just a lingering effect of my jetlag, but if it continues when I return to the States, I’ll get a contact in my right eye or something.

Back to the living of Korean life!
-Sebastian

So things to take away from me last year… I was considering my living arrangements in L-Dub (yeah I should be worried haha), I expressed my initial doubts about the current situation (ooo! a developing plot point), and I went to the gym.. Again, typos and stuff weren’t fixed to save the authencity of a computerized post haha…

-Sebastian

So a brief forward would include that the theme for this week in the life of Sebastian Park is lots of work. Be it packing/moving boxes or programming late into the night, it’s been a long week in terms of hours worked. Thankfully, as a result of all this, I’m back in the black after paying off my internet and plane ticket bill. I’m also taking off to New York this weekend to have some fun and go karaoke. I can finally put my ability to rap Eminem’s portion in Forever to use .

So this was last modified 7/5/2009 at 5:41PM (not sure what time zone).

NSLI Korea Part 1

It’s currently 8:30 PM EDT or rather since I’m somewhere over Russia on my way to Incheon, I’d say it’s about 9:30AM at the start of this post. Delta’s moving flight map says that’s about 4 hours and 15 minutes off landing.

so basically, I’ve been sleeping, eating, listening to music, watching movies, and talking to Alan (more on him in a bit) for the past 10 hours.

So what is this part 1? Well, this series of posts will probably take the remaining duration of my summer. I’ll be studying Korean throughout the summer and enjoying my time in my parent’s home country.

So I suppose I should start with some preliminary goals. I REALLY want to be able to fluently read and write Korean (both on the keyboard and by hand). My current level of Korean is very deceptive as while I’m able to understand the majority of Korean I encounter, I lack the distinctive knowledge of being able to read anything with a good amount of speed. Or write anything error-free.

On top of that I want to eliminate the majority of the American acent in my Korean. Sure, it’ll always remain (similar to how my english will probably have a unique flare to it as my accent different syllables), I want to take advantage of the total immersion experience I’ll be experiencing.

Oh, and of course like any adventure, I’m going to have fun! And probably study hard. It’s so strange, I never realized how driven I am to learn and do well in things until very recently. I mean, in the back of my head I had thought it might have been in search of the grade I want, but it isn’t. I just really want to do well in anything I do!

Now for my experience so far. I had a terrible flight from Salt Lake City to Washington DC. I don’t know why, but my head was hurting a great deal at the end of it. It was all fine when I got off though. I joked with a tourist in the area for the 4th of July that I had showed up 5 1/2 months late and was sad that I missed Obama’s inauguration. That said, I only got to see the Congress building and the Washington Memorial from a distance (as the opportunity to visit the sites was cut short on the virtue of the flight in which I’m typing up this blog post).

The first two days were a lot of fun as it presented a non-korea environment to meet with the summer, fall, and year students studying in Korea as well. Man these guys are bright (and by guys, I really mean like 75% girls and 25% guys as that’s the composition of the people in the exchange). First of all… THEY ALL KNOW JAPANESE >> What the heck! I want to learn japanese T_T. I’ve been running by my rudimentary japanese by them and they’ve helped with a few things. Really cool guys. Take Alan (since I said I’ll get to him at the top of the post). He’s headed to Harvard next year and on top of that, he has this extremely diligent vibe about him that is compounded by his knowledge of other exchanges which is really cool).

So beyond the sleeping and meeting of people, the first two days were a preparation and getting to know people before boarding this 14 hour flight. The unknowns coming up? I have NO idea what level korean I should/will be placed in. It’s becoming clear that I’ve blessed to have had a background in Korean, but at the same time I also suffer from the bad life-long habits that new speakers are not plagued with. It’ll all be very interesting.

I’d go into details, but I have two months to talk about the people. Points of interest include Dina and her husband who have been absolutely amazing ^^. Also include in that mix Ed who is a Korean History scholar.

So far on this plane trip, I’ve realized that there is no wifi (sad), unlimited movies (WIN!), and a J-pop station (complete with BoA, Sasuke, GreeeeN, Utada Hikaru and others. I’ve watched Watchmen and Push so far. With now 3 hours and 45 minutes left,

Props: Dina, iEarn, the US Gov’t, Delta Airlines
Flops: Sorry, but a bright green T-shirt wasn’t my idea of something I’d wear on an airplane to South Korea ~_~

-Sebastian (watching a comedy next!)

I’m not editing my posts so I apologize for the grammar.
-Sebastian

Woo Work break!

So this one actually doesn’t count as a blog post, but rather it was the first thing I saved on my plane trip.

Delta has an awesome interface where you can listen to a bunch of music stations. I opted to listen to Asia Pop and I heard two really good songs that I wrote down the lyrics to.

So I just googl’d them both and here’s what I scribbled and what the songs actually turned out to be!

Song #1: Baby come back to me one in a million, I’ll be everything you need photoshop

Song #2: I never want to fight this feeling I’m thinking of you tell me what to do I want to show you the love in my heart I want to say I love you Whenever I say you it’s anniversary

And it came out to be

One thing I remember about these two songs is that I had a chance to hear them at least 3 times. Apparently the radio on the trip had like a 2 or 3 hour loop and since I listened to music in-between the movies I watched, I got to enjoy these two songs over and over

The first installment on the way!
-Sebastian

So I’ve been putting in a lot of hours lately to get my work stuff in time…

That said, this post isn’t about me at work (it wouldn’t be all that interesting. At least not yet). Instead, it’s actually about something that started just about a year ago.

Last summer, I embarked on a trip to South Korea with NSLI-Y. While there, I was often too busy to be able to get on a blog (there isn’t wifi on a train or a subway), but I did manage to write over 7000 words (in addition to a 500ish words end statement for NSLI).

It’s definitely a bit late, but starting with my ticket from last year, I’ll be putting up all 14 or so posts on my blog. They’ll be tagged under NSLI-Y and Korea and will have the blog post title: “NSLI-Y Korea #” as part of the post.

So here’s the preamble to my approximately 14 part series… My plane ticket haha.

Saved in the text files I have is my itinerary information.

Flight – Delta Air Lines Sunday, July 5, 2009

Flight Number: DL0403 Confirmation Number: C7ZIP8

Class: COACH

Depart: Washington Ronald Reagan Natl Arpt 07:00 AM

Washington, DC USA Sunday, July 5

Terminal B

Arrive: Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Int’l Arpt 08:57 AM

Atlanta, GA USA Sunday, July 5

Terminal S

Seat: 38-B Stopovers: 0

Meal: None Mileage: 541

Aircraft: Boeing 757-200/300 Travel Time: 1:57

Flight – Delta Air Lines Sunday, July 5, 2009

Flight Number: DL0091 Confirmation Number: C7ZIP8

Class: COACH

Depart: Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Int’l Arpt 10:35 AM

Atlanta, GA USA Sunday, July 5

Terminal S

Arrive: Seoul Incheon Int’l 02:30 PM

Seoul KR Monday, July 6

Seat: 35-A Stopovers: 0

Meal: Lunch Mileage: 7135

Aircraft: Boeing 777-200/300 Travel Time: 14:55

The first actual post will come soon! (Although I said that last year…)
-Sebastian

Hey everyone.  It’s been over a month since my last post and I’ll explain why.

Because I’ve been away and out and about this past month, I haven’t had the opportunity to actually log in to the admin panel and type up a blog post (mostly since I like to blog in the train or other form of transportation I’ve been in). As a result, I have approximately 14-20 blog posts that are just saved on my computer haha…. What will I do? Well I don’t want to talk about things out of order so I guess I’ll continue to accumulate them and them post them all at once in a massive expanse talking about Korea (maybe in 5 parts).

Also, I’ll talk about the program holistically and give a more detailed analysis of the program as I enter college haha.

Anyway I’m off to figure out my powerpoint for the final project.

-Sebastian Park

Well today is the morning after the first night at the homestay. Man, not what I expected. From what I undestood, the homestay program was supposed to put us with a traditional korean nuclear family. That is to say a mother, father, and kids. Instead I and Nicolas Pang (a very bright kid from Hawaii) ended up with a god-fearing grandmother, similar in style to that you would see in a western movie in regards to an old grandmother figure.

So what does that mean? It means near unlimited freedoms equivalent to what I have not only in the home, but also what I’ll have when I’m in college. Simply put, the grandmother of this small apartment lives by herself. If you put it into the perspective of a grandmother living alone, the apartment is not that bad at all. I could definitely live in something like this by myself (which brings me to the funny point that I may not have a suite room year 1 at Yale. But rather a very big room. I don’t know how that’s going to go). That said, for the three of us, it’s a bit smaller than anticipated (but not overtly uncomfortable by any means).

In addition, the son, IE the hypothetical father figure of this house seems to work all the time, living away from this apartment. In addition, the grandmother is a god-fearing woman who attends church everyday until 6PM. So what does that afford Nick nad myself? Well we get keys to this apartment and the freedom to come and go as we please whenever. That’s a lot more freedom than I thought I’d have, but also we lose out on the immersion into Korean families. I feel worse for Nicholas than I do for my own situation, having grown up in in fact a Korean nuclear family, knowing that my father sits at the head of the table, knowing that the respect I show to my parents is infinite. Nick will never have that experience at this rate.

That all said, the family is still very supportive as if we were college students. The grandmother graciously took us to the nearby YMCA equivalent so that we could spend 31000 won to open membership. I’ll probably be heading there every morning from 6-6:30 or around that time (with the exception of maybe wednesdays when the program takes us away). She also took us into town, which is about 1 km away I think from this apartment complex, where we bought bread, power adapters (since the prongs on american adapters differ), and ice cream. Lots of ice cream.

So moving on to talking about last night. Man I could not sleep well. I costantly felt like I was waking up, and my back couldn’t seem to realign itself with the bed. Meh, hopefully tonight will be better. Also, my eyes seem to be failing me lately. I don’t know if it’s becuase I’m tired, but I can’t seem to focus my eyes on people. Words and letters no problem. People… they seem to be blurry at a not that far distance. I’m thinking it’s just a lingering effect of my jetlag, but if it continues when I return to the States, I’ll get a contact in my right eye or something.

Back to the living of Korean life!
-Sebastian

I turned in every book.
Presented the teachers who aided my college applications gifts.
Finished every final and project of high school.

Now all that’s left is graduation.

Heh it’s over. But that just means it’s time to begin the next stage.

Anyway, in school ending news, Interact Banquet and the now traditional after banquet karaoke was a blast! Nathan sang his heart out, Kim is a good singer, and the rest of us just went crazy! Now all I have left is the Speech and Debate banquet, the pre-swim banquet banquet, and the actual swim banquet. Hehe.

Oh in terms of laptop news, my hunt is over! Yesterday, before leaving my house for the banquet, I purchased a Lenovo T400, with a very strong set of specifications off of the Yale Student Purchasing Lenovo website. It’s set to ship 6/17, which is pretty late, but makes me really relieved that I purchased my laptop this early, since I definitely need it before NSLI-Y Korea.  Here are the specifications:

	Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P9500 (2.53GHz 1066MHz 6MBL2) 25W
	Genuine Windows XP Professional (preinstalled via downgrade rights in Windows Vista Business)
	Genuine Windows Vista Business with Windows XP Professional Downgrade and Vista Recovery media US English
	14.1 WXGA+ TFT, w/ LED Backlight, Camera
	ATI Mobility Radeon 3470 with 256MB
	3 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1067MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
	Keyboard US English
	UltraNav (TrackPoint and TouchPad) with Fingerprint Reader
	320 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
	DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim (Serial ATA)
	Express Card Slot & 7-1 Media Card Reader
	Integrated Bluetooth PAN
	Intel WiMAX/WiFi Link 5350 (AGN) with My WiFi Technology
	Integrated Mobile Broadband upgradable
	6 cell Li-Ion Battery
	Country Pack North America with Line cord & 90W AC adapter
	Language Pack US English
Services and software
	4 Year Depot Upgrade with 4 Year ThinkPad Protection
	Computrace LoJack for Laptops 4 Yr lic.

A few notes about the specs: The P9500 is the highest processing 25W processor. I’ve heard a good deal about how amazing 25W processors are, so I opted for that one. I bought Vista Business, downgraded to XP. I really prefer XP over Vista. The downgrade will also possibly allow me to upgrade to Windows 7 eventually. the 14.1 WXGA+ TFT with LED backlight was bought instead of the High Nite (extremely bright) screen. The reason? I felt that with a 14.1 inch screen, the increased resolution capacity of the monitor would help a lot. Lastly, I opted for the most expensive Intel WiFi link because I’ve had problems with wireless cards on laptops in the past and didn’t want to take the chance.

Alright! Time to get ready to have another fun day.

-Sebastian

In approximately 7 6 hours, my flight will leave for Chicago (which is the stopover before I land at Bradley International to visit Yale). On Wednesday, I go from New Haven, CT to the airport to Chicago again and finally landing at SFO to get picked up by my buddy Minh Dan to visit Stanford. I fly from Stanford at 12:11PM to arrive at Burbank at 1:15 PM.

Prom is at 7PM.

This is going to be a fun week.

Also, it’s my birthday this Friday.

Oh, and I got into NSLI-Y for South Korea! Have to respond by Friday…

It’s going to be a great week! Probably the most memorable week in high school!

More information on everything later. The flight leaves soon so I’m going to figure out some last minute prom things and go to bed

-Sebastian

So a comprehensive post may come later, but hell I want to talk about this…

I was accepted to Yale, Stanford and Cornell! That on top of my acceptances to Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, and Pomona to round out my liberal art college acceptances. I also got into a bunch of other great places such as U Chicago, UCLA, and Cal.

So what am I looking at? I’ll be completely honest when I say that Yale and Stanford were my top choices from the beginning. I never thought I’d get into both so I never thought about any scenario where I did get into both. This makes this deciding process just that much more interesting haha.

As of right now, here’s where I am at with my deciding process. I’ve narrowed it down to five schools. Yale and Stanford are at the top of the list, followed by Pomona, Amherst, and Williams (these three schools I’m going to visit in case they offer something amazing and I fall in love with the school).

I’m really happy to have this choice and now the only think I’m waiting on is the NSLI-Y thing coming out the day taxes are due.

It’s a really sad thing when you’re sick. I really haven’t been sick in a really long time, and I have to say, I don’t remember it sucking so much! In combination with swim (that is the whole waking up way early to swim in a cold outdoor pool), the healing process has been slow. On the other hand, the amount of work I have has not by any stretch of the imagination been reduced.

The first and most important thing that’s looming over my head is my application to the NSFI-Y program. When I first heard about this program a month ago, I was very excited at the prospects of going overseas to learn a language. With the application due in little under 4 days, I’m at a loss as to how I’m going to manage to perfect the essay in tiem. Not that I haven’t done it in less time (considering one of my best college essays were written in a span of one night, although to be fair, I felt that the struggles of the week prior to that moment of epiphany aided my discovery of the perfect esasy topic), but there are other things going on that put stress andp ressure on the entire process.

For example: Debate. The big Stanford Invitational Tournament is just around the corner (the corner being about 7 days) with the practice(ish) league varsity tournament starting in about 36 hours. That’s something I need to work on given the fact that my case structure has yet to crystallize fully in my head (and myself being a month or two out of practice as a result of Science Bowl practices and scrimmages). I need to work on this ASAP (meaning probably tonight and tomorrow night), but I have to study for the Government test tonight as well.

Another upcoming event that I’m preparing for is the Pauper weeekend event. With great timing, the Pauper event is on a terrible day in terms of timing (with the Super Bowl, first weekend in Feburary, and my own personal due dates in place). That said, I’m committed to taking my Gro-a-Shade deck that I’ve been testing there and hopefully pilot it to great success. The deck is a control deck, but the fixes the common problem of most pauper control decks. Pauper cotnrol decks at this point are known for their lack of pressure. They grind the opponent into the ground trying to A) counter everything or B) destroy everything or C) try to gain incremental advantage in order to slowly secure a victory on the back of 2/2s. Let’s just say my Gro-a-Shade deck maintains the controlling aspect that a control deck should have while possessing the ability to win within 3 turns as soon as board position is gained. Personally I see that as a good way to win.

Lastly, the Superbowl is the Pittsburg Steelers against the Arizona Cardinals. Kurt Warner is my all-time favorite quarterback, given his story and his extraordinary ability to play smart (although this ability doesn’t extend  to holding onto the ball). I feel that with a win, it’ll give him the strange honor of being the most underrated quarterback of all time. That said, in his way are the Steelers, who I strongly believe to be the favorites going into Sunday. Between H. Ward leading an explosive big play offense and the strength of T. Polamalu’s historically amazing defense, the Cardinals are going to have to play the best game of their lives and hope to capitalize off of Steelers mistakes to win this one.

Although it seems overwhelming at first, I really do live for these kind of situations. High pressure times when I really don’t have a spare moment. Hopefully I’ll get through it all winning the Stanford Invitational, the Pauper Weekend PE, and getting into NSLI-Y (written out in reverse alphabetical order. I would think the NSLI-Y program is #1 on the importance scale).

Well off to debate practice.

-Sebastian