Final Reflection

1. Do you feel like your writing has improved this semester? Why or why not? In what ways has it improved? In what ways do you want to continue improving your writing?

A : I learned writing an essay a lot thanks to this course. I think my writing skills has improved. This is because I read many articles in the textbook and wrote essays under the instructions of the professor, Kyle. Also, getting feedbacks from Kyle and peers help me to improve my writing. In the future, I want to coutinue improving my writing by reading many English journals and keeping my diary in English.

2. Do you feel like your reading comprehension skills have improved this semester? Why or why not? In what ways have they improved? In what ways do you want to continue improving your reading skills?

A : I feel like my reading comprehension skills have improved by reading interesting stories and discussing the topics with Kyle and the classmates. Also, I learned how to organize the contents of the articles through solving the problems in the textbook and making notes myself. When this semester ends, I want to keep reading English journals and newspaper to continue improving my reading.

3. In what other areas do you think you have improved during the semester (grammar, speaking, vocabulary, confidence, etc.)? In what areas do you still need to continue improving? What will you do in order to improve in those areas?

A : Through this class, I have improved speaking and confidence than before, as well. However, I still need to improve my speaking to be more fluent. To achieve this, I am planning to study abroad.

4. Was this the first time you kept a blog? Did you enjoy blogging? Was blogging a helpful way to practice writing? Did you enjoy reading your classmates' blogs? Do you think you will continue blogging in the future?

A : Actually it was not the first time I kept a blog, but I enjoyed it. Since I could read peers' writings and share their thoughts through the blogs, blogging was a helpful way to communicate and practice writing.  I wish I could continue keeping my blog.

5. What did you learn this semester? What do you want to learn in future semesters?

A : I learned how to read articles or journals effectively, organize my thoughts, and write an essay.
In future semesters, I want to learn more about speaking and translating.

6. What were some of the best and/or worst aspects of this course? Would you recommend this course to others? Why or why not?

A : The best aspect of this course was I could get knowledge about various topics. On the contrary, the worst aspect was that I had to prepare a lot for this course such as vocabulary, writing, reading, blogging, and finally the two tests, midterm and final exam! However, I think all of these eventually help me to improve English skills.

Rewriting Formal Essay #2 : Unconstitutionality of Rejecting Conscientious Objection

Ui jin Jeong

Prof. Kyle Brebner

IERW (04)

29 November 2015

Unconstitutionality of Rejecting Conscientious Objection

             In 2004, the Constitutional Court of Korea reached a verdict that allowing conscientious objection was wrong for the current military service law. Why did they make such a judgement? The main reason is that Korea has been facing with special confrontational situation against North Korea so that the court judged conscientious objection, rejecting to enlist due to religious belief, could hinder national defense and social unification. For example, once rejecting to serve military duty is permitted, most of the people do not want to enlist for the country, which is seriously connected to the safety of the country. However, the reason why a nation could ultimately exist resides in citizens. In other words, the citizens always come before the nation. Therefore, the citizens should not be obligated military service since every people have a freedom of conscience and obligatory military service is replaceable with substitute military service.

             The public has a right to keep and realize their own conscience depending on their religion or faith. This liberty of conscience is specified in nineteenth article of Constitution as a basic human right. Conscientious objection is included in this kind of freedom as well because the people who insisted conscientious objection are trying to maintain appropriateness of action based on their own ethical values. Though the Constitutional Court judged that national interests like special situation of the nation and social unification had priority over an individual’s freedom of conscience, as a basic human right about human dignity and value, the liberty of conscience should have priority. Thus, not accepting conscientious objection is against for the root idea of Constitutional law. Furthermore, in 1997, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights resolved that conscientious objectors should not be discriminated for any reason. This is because the right to be a conscientious objector is directly related to one’s liberty of religion and conscience which are very important to live like a human being.  

Another reason the public should not be obligated military service by the nation is that they can serve a substitute military service system that enables conscientious objectors to serve other kinds of duties for national defense. It is a compromise resulting from principle harmonizing two contrasting values, national interests and the liberty of conscience. According to a dissertation from a website Riss, named a Study on the Conscientious Objection and Alternative Service, about half of the 80 nations that adopt selective service in the world have enforced various kinds of alternative military service system for conscientious objectors. Germany, one of these countries, has allowed a substitute system since it was West Germany in the 20^th century. It has a lot of options for conscientious objectors in the fields of service about civil case and environment like serving for rehabilitation facility, nursing assistants, management of public buildings and so on. As a result, this contributes to help expand social welfare. In fact, Korea has already enforced substitute military service system since the 1970s as well, but whether a man can serve the substitute service has been decided not by one’s free will but by the decision of physical examination for conscription. To keep an individual’s conscience and help reduce the proportion of desertion, the government should give diverse options to helpful substitute military services for national defense and interests, and let the conscientious objectors choose one of the options voluntarily.

             On the contrary, some people might think that evasion of military service would be prevalent if the Constitutional Court entirely admitted to conscience objection. However, this problem can be prevented by legitimate and fair judgement of the judges. They can judge people’s qualifications for conscientious objection through reasonable evidence such as a certificate that shows how much a conscientious objector devout his religions, and their statements. In addition, if the difficulty of substitute military service is just as hard as original military service, it can help to prevent the evasion of military service. Finally, the evasion of military service is a problem which can be resolved not by just prohibiting conscientious objection but by making an increase to social ethical values. Thus, permission to conscientious objection would not cause evasion of military service to be prevalent.

Given that the nation’s reason for being is ultimately vested in the members of the nation, all of citizens have prior rights to exert the liberty of conscience which is a fundamental human right. Of course, people who reject to serve military service deserve to have the rights to choose and serve substitute military service system according to the principle of harmony. Therefore, the nation should not force to serve only military service for the duty of national defense and should offer diverse options about alternative military service in a way of achieving national interests or welfare, and guaranteeing the freedom of conscience and choice. In conclusion, the current law does not accept conscientious objectors and gives them punishment, but when a day of allowing them comes someday, this will be an indicator which presents that the level of consciousness of our nation has a lot improved than before.

Unit 9 Writing : There shouldn't be one world language.

                    In the world, there are more than 200 countries. However, there are more than 7000 kinds of ethnic groups. Considering that language is the window that shows everything, every culture and every knowledge of the world, this diversity is resulted from a number of languages. In recent decades, globalization has been coming to fore, but its appearance was also caused by the diversity of languages. In this point of view, globalization and the world's official language is a kind of way that enables people to understand and learn about other various cultures. Therefore, the world should not be unified with only one language due to preservance of  a lot of knowledge and culture that are included in languages, difficulty of designating the world's one official language, and the risk of domination by the powerful.

                  First, we should preserve the diversity of languages since they include a plenty of knowledge and culture of the world. While it might be more helpful that carrying knowledge with one language, protecting and conserving variouseness on the earth is more valuable. For example, the tribe of Seri have hundreds of terms for desert plants and local animals. This has been contributing to scientific field. Also, researches about various details of languages help to find and learn innate part of human cognition. For these reasons, using one world language necessarily deprives us of priceless knowledge.

                   Another reason why there shouldn't be one world language is that there is a difficulty of designating one official language. While some people may think that English is eligible for world's official language since it has been already playing a role as an official language, there are many things to consider when designating one language for the world.  For instance, we have to consider elements such as language's wide popualrity, practicality, aesthetics, and so on to set one official language. However, evaluating which language meets these needs is difficult and ambiguous because there is no criteria to specify those elements. Thus this difficulty makes an objective assessment impossible. Furthermore, there can be disputes or conflicts among many countries when deciding world's language.

                  Finally, if the world is unified with one language, the powerful that used to use the language will tend to dominate the other countries. Even though one of unified language could promote unification of the world, original users of that language can dominate the whole world. In fact, since the United States is one of the most powerful countries, the language, English has been adopted as an official language. Up to now, the United States is the powerful and it is doing tacit domination over the world even if English is not only one world language. In this point, we should be careful about the risk of unfair control by using one world language of the powerful.

                     Designating one world language is might be beneficial for the world of globalization, but there is an obvious reason why the world should maintain the diversity by using a number of languages. This is because there is a need to preserve variouse knowledge and culture, difficulty of deciding one official language, and the risk of being dominated by the powerful that have been originally using the language. As a result, there should not be one world language keeping a lot of languages and ethnic groups. Without them, varied and diverse world of present would not exist.

Rewriting Formal Essay #1 : Frida Kahlo, a Female Artist of Pain

Ui jin Jeong

Prof. Kyle Brebner

IERW (04)

8 November 2015

 

Frida Kahlo, a Female Artist of Pain

             With intense and vibrant colors, Frida Kahlo tried to emphasize her bold unibrow and mustache in a lot of self-portraits to express her strongness unlike other female painters. Frida was a Mexican painter who painted her painful experiences and passion on the canvas. In her works, it is easy to find naked organs in her body, a dead fetus and her hurt body. In fact, when she was 18, she got serious injuries on her whole body due to a collision with a streetcar during her traveling. Also, she was suffered from sadness and pain because of her husband, Diego Rivera’s affairs and disability for having a baby. Though she was in terrible conditions, she accepted her life and tried to face her pain by painting these experiences without hiding anything. Therefore, her paintings are intense and impressive. One of her paintings, The Two Fridas, is a good example which presents well her suffering from divorce with Diego. In this painting, Frida wanted to express the two of Frida herself by contrasting painful looking during her marriage and relaxed looking when beloved.

             When you look at The Two Fridas, you can see the two selfs of Frida grabbing each other’s hand and sitting on the chair. The bodies’ hearts and arteries of both are visible and connected. One is wearing a white wedding dress with a few stains of blood on it. Her heart has nothing in it. On her right hand, there are scissors that seem to have been used to cut her artery. Moreover, her face looks sad and gloomy. These mean that her married life was such a hard time to her because of Diego’s affairs and not being loved by him. For example, the empty heart and cut artery imply that she had an agony like death from the divorce, as if her heart had been broken and artery had been severed. In addition, the reason why she drew herself like that as the one wearing a wedding dress depicts her hard married life.

             On the contrary, the other one facing the one wearing wedding dress is wearing Mexican traditional clothes, looking strong and healthy. Also she had an intact heart and artery so that she looks comfortable and relaxed. Furthermore, given that she loved to wear traditional clothes of her nation and draw folk art of Mexican culture, she wanted to express her peaceful state when she was beloved. Since the painting was completed after the passage of document for divorce, she might have reminded of happy memory with Diego by drawing this. As a result, the two separate Fridas mean that she suffered from sorrow and a great sense of loss about parting.

             The Two Fridas, one of her works figuring well herselfs with different appearances, involves her contrasting feelings toward her stormy but passionate marriage life. This means she was not reluctant to show her pain frankly as a subject of paintings. Therefore her strong and steel-like mind is respectable for me. Furthermore, I liked her uncompromising attitude to the depiction of the female experience and form. In conclusion, including her hard and strenuous situation in her painting plainly and creatively instead of feeling afraid of facing her tragedies, her works deserve to be celebrated for the art of pain and passion.

 

Unit 8 Writing about new invention : The material of meta

           Can you believe that the transparent clothes that are frequently seen in some fantasy movies become true? For now, the imagination of transparent clothes comes to realize in a few years. What is mainly composed of it is a material called meta. It was invented by a Korean doctor, Park Sang Yoon who works for nano-bio research center. The meta material absorbs electronic and sound waves so that it enables things to be unvisible by reflecting the waves. Therefore, the meta material changes the people's points of view about things and can be used in diverse fields like military, medial and so on.

          The meta material is based on the principle that the light doesn't seem to be distracted by a thing infront of it by the material's manipulating the directions of light. For this reason, people can see over the things making an illusion that they are transparent. Also, it can divide lights into so much tiny units such as a number of nanometers. As a result, it can play a role of a kind of microscope.

          Based on these facts, the meta material can be practical uses for military or information technology. For example, when the weapons and the planes are hidden by the material, they are not exposed to enemy's radar. Thus, it is beneficial and useful to deal with confidential military works. In addition, the material can extremely minimalize the parts included in wireless communication equipment. This helps various kinds of information, medical, and security technical equipment or machines to develop.

         The meta, newly invented material, will go beyond limits of people's thoughts through a lot of uses in various fields such as information, medical, and security. Although some people argued that the hiding skill which is the main feature of the meta material could have bad effets, they should keep in mind that every invention or innovation brings concerns at first. Without that invention and innovation, human beings now could have not existed. In conclusion, we can use it for our high-tech life and convenience as long as we don't abuse it.

Unit 7 Essay : How to ensure a sustainable future

     Increase in population and wealth has leaded to people's appetites for more beneficial life. This makes the natural resources on earth scarce because the rate of people’s consuming the natural resources is much faster than the rate of the nature’s replenishing the sources. For instance, there is not only a plenty of deforestation over the world, but also too much CO2 gas leading climate change. However, we can ensure a sustainable future by two simple things ; using a public transportation and taking a personal tumbler.

     The first thing that we can do to save the environment is using a public transportation. We can take subway or bus when commuting. By taking a subway or a bus, it is possible to reduce CO2 gas emitted in the air. According to the Department of the Environment, a personal car usually emits 0.194kg of CO2 gas per 1km, which is seven times more than a bus does. Also, using transportation saves the resources needed to make vehicles such as private cars and motorcycles. In fact, it has the same effect of planting 159 of young pine trees per year to use public transportation once a week for a year.  Moreover, it lessens heavy traffic on the road especially in rush hours.

     The other thing that we can do is taking a personal tumbler when we are outside. If we use a tumbler, we can save the resources needed to produce disposable cups made up of paper and plastic. Therefore, using a tumbler can prevent deforestation and the environmental problems resulted from recycling and disposal of plastic. For example, when 12 persons save one of paper cup every day, this could be like the effect of planting a 20-year-old tree. In addition, you can get a little discount at cafes if you take your tumbler. Some cafes give a 10 percent discount to people taking their tumblers.

      In your daily life, you can make sustainable future easily by using a public transportation and personal tumbler. Although they don’t seem to be big changes, they can contribute to environment since they become large movements when gathered. Thus, it’s important for us to always keep those in our minds and try to do make actions.

Unit 6 Explanatory essay : The Yellow Wallpaper

   In our society, there is little discrimination against women. However, in the past, the discrimination against women was prevalent. For example, it was common that daughters were not considered equal as sons so that the girls had to do house chores instead of studying. Also, wifes should obey their husbands and mothers-in-law since they had no power at all. By criticizing this tendency, some femininsts like Virginia Woolf started write books actively in 1800s. Charlotte Gilman, the writer of  'The Yellow Wallpaper', was one of the feminists writers as well. She intended to criticize discrimination against women through the specific space in the novel. In 'The Yellow Wallpaper', an old room with a yellow wallpaper is a very important element because all processes of a woman's experiencing change are closely related to the room.

   At first, the room of yellow wallpaper reflected social tendency of discrimination against women at that moment. A woman whose husband was a doctor was moved to house like gothic castle and locked in the room by him and his mother. The reason why she was locked in the room was that her husband diagnosed her as a mental patient and imposed her to take a rest. She had no choice but to obey his words though she was normal. During her staying at the room, she was very scared of the one's eyes-like patterns of  the wallpaper. She felt as if someone had watched her every day and night. Over time, the patterns seemed like eyes of a number of women crippling with their heads upside down.

   She wanted to get out of the room, but she couldn't. Thus, she became insane, and started to cosider herself as the woman locked in the patterns of wallpaper. She tried to get out tearing the wallpaper,  ruinning the room and shouting. Frightened her husband went to the room in hurry. After looking at her crippling strangely, he fell down in a faint. As a result, she identified herself as the crippling women-like pattern of the yellow wallpaper so that she did so. The room with yellow wallpaper, at last, made her a real mental patient, which extremely well expressed the trgedy from the discrimination against women.

   In conclusion, in 'The Yellow Wallpaper', the room not only shows predominant male chauvinism to readers,but also the tragedy caused by it. In fact, the woman in the novel was treated like a patient who had a mental disease because she kept a diary and wrote a novel. Her husband and her mother in law didn't want the 'woman' to write something. If she had been a man, she could have been allowed to dream of a writer, and couldn't have been locked in. This  novel's scary and horrifying story and mood could frighten people, but it's the only thing that effectively could reveal that present's injustice.