['v'] jan Awa li kama sona

what and how i learned / improved during the entirety of my school years (wip)

i did not care about language while writing this. it's mainly in english but also i'm assuming you speak korean and you share a brain with me. also this is not yet written but i'll publish it cuz it's gonna take forever anyways.

ok so today, someone triggered me!!! so there's this one person who i used to be in the same class with at english hagwon and they quit before entering seventh grade. and today they texted me, they told me they weren't able to go to hagwon cuz school, i joked 'bro did you get into a 국제중 or smth' and they fucking did. they're in 청심, like isnt that 개간지. and i'm like 'how the fuck did you do that and hows it like there' and they say that the school is great, they do classes in english and their friends are great tho it's hard to get up early every day (they wake up at 6am). and they also tell me i should 편입 because the school 편입s humans every 1월 and 8월 (a quick duckduckgo search tells me it's actually february and not january?), so i'm like 'no way am i getting 편입, the 신입학 경쟁률 is fucking 20:1 and the 편입학 경쟁률 must be even harsher, isn't it like 80:1 idk i just heard that in a 카더라' but then that sounds like a fun thing to do, that will totally motivate me so maybe i'll convince my mom to try writing 자소서 and doing interviews so i can do better at 고입? but also like how the fuck do you write a 자소서 based on your choding days, fuck i can't even write a 자소서 based on my seventh grade days! but maybe trying to write a 자소서 based on my choding and 7th grade days will help me realise what i have done so far and make plans to do more. so in terms of ideas, here i go! also wow this apragraph is prolly the one with the most 'fuck's in it

독후감

like i used to write a lot of book reports back in fifth grade, once i was in a 시대회 as a school representative and got 금상. and then it kinda felt like a burden in 6th and 7th grade so i started writing less and then now i decided i should write them lighter. uhh anyways starting from the start,

the first time i heard of a thing called a book report was in third grade, apparently everyone except me knew how to do book reports??? and i never wrote a proper book report from third to fourth grade. and then fifth grade came, the first time i got a book report asssignment in fifth grade i was too lazy but then i wanted to give a okayish impression to my teacher so i started lazily writing a book repport and suddenly i write ten lines??? and that is the longest book report i've ever written. and then my teacher fucking compliments me???? oh wow this is a revelation!!!! and that is how i starting trying to be a good student, i checked over my answers in tests and i took notes for social studies and ok actrually it's my teacher inspiring me every day and i miss that teacher, why dont they let us into the elementary school, uhh anyways, so i start spending more time on book reports. our teacher had told us to write two paragraphs by default: the first is a summary and the second is our thoughts. and some days i was feeling lazy and wrote whatever, but some days i was like 'wow i actually read this book and i have FUCKING THOUGTHS like how can i apply this to my behavior? can i connect this to other people or society?' ok lemme just bring one of my book reports from fifth grade, i havent looked at it cuz i was ashamed of not being able to write smth with the same quality two years later, but ppl gotta admit their faults and learn. looks for book reports ok here's a good one.

책을 읽으면서 기억에 남았던 말이 하나 있었다. 자신이 친일파가 된 기억을 삭제하고 나서 또다시 친일파가 된 선생님, 그리고 김수현 아저씨를 밀고한 기억을 없애고 또다시 아저씨를 밀고하려는 영식이를 보며 덕구는 기억을 없애면 똑같은 실수를 반복한다고 하며 기억의 중요성을 깨닫는다. 실제로 기억은 우리의 길잡이 역할을 하는 것 같다. 나에게도 기억극장에 당장 달려가 없애고 싶은 흑역사가 많다. 하지만 이런 기억으로 우리는 배워가고, 똑같은 실수를 반복하지 않으려 한다. 덕구도 이것을 깨닫고 한 번 기억을 삭제한 이후로 다시는 기억을 건드리지 않는다. 일제에 지배당한 우리의 부끄러운 역사여도 당당히 기록하는 이유가 있는 것 같다. 하지만 제2차 세계대전을 일으키고 우리나라를 지배하다 항복한 일본은 기억을 삭제한 듯 패배를 인정하지 않고 있다. 이 작가는 짧은 책에도 깊은 의미를 잘 담은 것 같다.

ok some comments to make here:

wow that was a lot of comments. and then i decided to go for a in-school book report competition called 인문학독후감발표대회 and i got first place??? and suddenly there's a teacher telling me i will be in a 시대회 now and i'll be trained for the 시대회. that was prolly when i got the most feedback on my writing, and also i had to write a book report like every three days. it was like reading a book and writing a book report the first day, revising it the next day, and practicing presenting the thing. that's where i got a seoul accent btw! but honestly gyeongsang accent is cooler. anyways the funny thing is the first thing the teacher asked me after seeing my book report was 'are you not a native speaker of korean or do you have trouble speaking korean in some way' very seriously like i actually was and she was going to teach me korean as a second language. the reason was because my particles were out of the place, i think i've gotten a bit better with particles now... i hope. unfortunately that teacher's left the school now, i wonder if i still have her phone number. anyways, i go for the 시대회, i write about a book called 자체발광 오샛별, i got a 금상 which is the top four, they put out a banner in 2025 when some student got the same prize in the same competition but not when i did it. i'm an attention seeker, i wanted that too!!! anyways after that i got better at identifying themes in basically any fiction book that existed and speaking with a seoul accent. and also being able to structure my writing, which i think is the biggest earn through this competition. also i had to bring other quotes, books, or experiences to support whatever i was gonna say in this piece of writing. and i got this handy tip from my teacher, 'always try to bring up your own experience and an event in society' which is probably meant to show how the theme reflects both individuals and society. and also, i learned to plan my writing before diving into it! not too much, just a few keywords / sentences per paragraph. but i always have lost track lol. the minus was that i had too high standards for my writing and i could never write something that was not structured well or had an inconsistent claim aka my thought process, and then i couldn't write anything due to my perfectionism.

and that was why i started writing and therefore reading less in sixth grade, well also the books all felt too boring and kid like. i still got all the prizes for school writing competitions but it always felt like something was missing and i was losing my writing and reading skills. but then whenever i tried to write i was blocked by my perfectionism. oh yeah and the book report form my teacher gave me, it was too ugly and writing on it felt like hell. sorry sixth grade teacher, you were super cool tho. also sorry for using too much swear words, i know you hate swear words, but you're not gonna read this anyways, in fact you don't even know the existence of this blog, but if i were to meet you and if i did not have swear words in my blog i would show you my blog. anyways, to make me write book reports easier, i decided to bullshit them. i would write really short paragraphs as long as they had a point, and i would also use a lot of bullet points and headers. and what i couldn't write started being written with bullet points and headers. but i guess book reports always felt forced, cuz seventh grade started and my mom nagged me to write book reports all the time and book reports started mattering for 생기부 but i didn't want to write them and also i became incredibly stressed whenever book reports were mentioned which unabled me to write book reports. i wrote like three for the entire year.

and then came blogging, on my blog i write very informally but i realized that was actually good for letting my thoughts free without any standards that pressured me. sometimes when i write on my blog i end up doing a whole ramble about smth aside from the topic except it's good and it could be revised for an article for my school newspaper. so sometimes when i want to write deeply abt something, usually not for hagwon assignments or school newspapers or book reports but more for self introspection, i don't want to give myself pressure on that thing so i broaden / change the topic to trick my brain into thinking this is not the main focus of my writing, but it ends up becoming that anyways. so an example of me rambling accidentally turning into a book report draft is this week review:

다이내믹 코리아: '토론의 즐거움' aka '토즐'이란 모임이 사회이슈에 대해... 그렇다, 토론한 기록이다. 첫 장부터 직접 필기 중이다. 사실 하루 안에 한 장 필기를 끝내려 했지만 그렇지 못했다. 공부를 미루며 책을 뒤적거렸는데 정말 거의 모든 토론 주제가 나랑 관련되어 있다. 첫 장 주제가 '도파민 중심 콘텐츠 소비가 어떻게 민주주의를 위협하는가'였는데 일단 그 주제 소개를 보자마자 '도파민 중심 콘텐츠 소비가 정말 집중력 저하를 만들긴 하는데, 이게 민주주의랑 관련된 문제였구나 첨 알았다'란 생각이 들었다. 글고 이 현상에 대한 원인, 콘텐츠 제작자와 소비자로서 어떻게 대응해야 할까에 대한 얘기까지 나왔는데, 그건 내가 필기를 완료하고 함 블로그에 써보겠다. 쨌든 토론 주제 중 가장 기억에 남았던 게 첫째, '인구 문제를 과장함으로서 은폐되는 것들'. 정부가 인구를 늘리기 위해 출산한 사람을 대상으로 돈을 주고 돌봄시설을 지원해주고 하는데, 난 항상 '근데 돈만을 위해 아이를 낳는다면, 그리고 부모는 자기 일만 하고 아이를 돌봄시설에만 보낸다면, 부모는 진정으로 아이를 잘 키울 것이며, 아이는 진정으로 행복하게 자랄 수 있을까?'란 생각이 들었다. 젊은 영어학원 쌤 / 인터넷러가 많이 하는 말이 '애를 그렇게 (못) 키울거면 애를 낳지 마라'니까, 사회적으로 봤을 때도 만약 교육이 잘 이루어지지 않은 아이가 성인이 된다면 사회를 망쳐놓아서 오히려 교육이 잘 이루어진 소수의 아이만 있는 것보다 안 좋을수도 있지 않을까? 책에서도 '진정한 부모는 돈 때문에 아이를 낳지 않는다' '만약 아이를 낳기만 하고 사랑으로 돌볼 수 없다면 아무도 아이를 낳지 않을 것이다' 그리고 '아이를 낳은 사람에게 혜택을 주기보다는, 현재 사회 구성원과 미래 아이가 모두 행복할 수 있고 아이를 낳을 형편이 되는 사회를 만들어야 한다' 같은 이야기가 나왔다. 또 인구 증가를 원하면서도, 단일민족만을 원하고 가부장제와 전통적인 핵가족을 고집하는 한국 사회가 역설적이라는 말이 나왔다. 그러니까 인구를 늘리려면 외국인을 유입하고, 동성애자 커플이 아이를 입양하고 이런 걸 허용하면 되는데 외국인 혐오, 성소수자 혐오를 하니 당연히 인구가 안 늘지. (가까운 사람이 한 말이, 한국 젊은이들이 지금 힘든 일을 안 하니 점점 외국인이 우리나라를 많이 차지하고 있다. 그럼 한국인이 '외국인이 하는 일'로 알려진 힘든 일을 한다면 푸대접받을 것이고 한국인이 종사할 수 있는 직업이 적어질 것이라 안 좋다. 내 생각에는 외국인과 한국인을 다르게 보거나 둘 사이 우열을 가리지 않으면 '한국인 / 외국인이 하는 직업'이 따로 생기지 않을 것 같다.) 음 내가 좀 할 말이 많은 것 같은데 아예 따로 독후감을 써야 할듯.

the comments i wrote on other books in that post are pretty cool i think, but i think this is the coolest.

so what should i do in the future?

기록

i love how i do not have the right english vocabulary to 함축 my content in one word, or more like i am uncertain if the semantic space of a english word is really the one i am thinking about. anyways, 내가 첨에 기록을 시작한 건 when i was in fifth grade i was getting into mbti and i read the book 이토록 공부가 즐거워지는 순간.

i'm an intp, and one of the traits of intp is that they think a lot logically and they have nerd energy, but too much thoughts means too much procrastination and too much important thoughts being lost. so a lot of ppl on the internet said that i as an intp should write down my thoughts somewhere. i had been feeling that too, when i was younger i would have a lot of thoughts and i had a lot of time to think about them and come up with new ideas, like i had a worldbuilding project for five years (age 3~8) and i remember finding 합차정리? like is that what they call it in korean??? and like the concept of 보수? and you are looking at this and thinking 'wow those you think are discoveries? those are so obvious things!!!' but then i was six and two respectively in international age, plus it was like my identity. but by fifth grade i felt like i was being taken over by school and hagwon schedules and social standards, so i was afraid to experiment and make mistakes with ideas. so i decided to write a random thought note.

there was also 이토록 공부가 즐거워지는 순간 talking about writing down what you studied. at first my idea was to combine these two ideas with one and write what i used to name 하루노트, so i'd write what i learned in each period of school and hagwon, as well as random thoughts and some things to fill in like what i tried, what i was grateful for etc., i never made that kind of thing cuz it was such a big plan for someone who had barely recorded anything before. so i ended up making two separate notes for study records and random thoughts, and it'd be better to talk abt them separately.

oh yea and taking notes on specific class material or books or videos, i first started taking notes on social studies cuz my fifth grade teacher encouraged that. plus english hagwon was making me write cornell notes but i never took that seriously, i still do not take that seriously to this day lol. after all debate and essay should be prioritized over what, notetaking some random play? like debate is interesting! i get to say things and use logic and stuff! why the fuck do we need to learn about fucking shakespeare and take cornell notes on shakespeare's works??? /j i never had to do cornell notes on shakespeare.

random thought note

#english #kokosila