who in the world is ava?

last edited 1 month, 3 weeks ago

so, who in the world is ava, the human writing these words on a keyboard? as that ava, that is a very hard question. where do i start. uhh

i, or ava, am a being occupying the body of a human living in a ball of land called earth, more specifically on a piece of the surface of earth that is called south korea. i have been a human since 2012, which makes me 14¹, 14², and 15³ years old depending on the age system you use, and a 7th grader or first year student of middle school. well i will soon be an 8th grader or second year student of middle school. i kinda consider march to be the real new year, that's when school starts and my birthday has passed so i've officially aged internationally.

that gives me some anxiety cuz that's when i heard the real middle school starts. like exams get harder and go into your opportunities for high school. this is especially important for me cuz i want to get into a specialized high school⁴. it's also when most ppl preparing for specialized high school (except for the science high school people, idk what they are doing at this point) start doing activities for their personal statement and interview⁵ so i want to be ambitious this year and do stuff, which should go in a blogpost and not an about me page.

so what am i interested in? the word 'interest' has been ruined for me cuz i have the weird thought of 'if you are interested in something, you have to be really into it and actively look for it, or know a lot about it' so i guess i will be writing about what i want to learn and how, and what i have learned and how. oh wait 'things i wanna learn' is exactly what 'interest' is.

things i wanna learn

• linguistics
  • have been telling ppl i've been into linguistics for a long time, but i've never gotten into it
  • i have looked at a lot of memes about linguistics and watched pop yt vids, i have also read two books related to linguistics: because internet by gretchen mcculloch and the language instinct by steven pinker (still reading), and i have been listening to lingthusiasm for a year. my fav episode is the one on politeness
  • i know how to read IPA and that phonemes are different from sounds. and that syntax trees exist. yeah that's it. as well as what korean grammar class has taught me so far on morphemes.
  • i wanna finish reading the language instinct and take notes on it, read essentials of linguistics 2nd edition and take notes on it too, and question everything during korean & english grammar class at school. i have a wiki-like notebook with all the language & linguistics resources and knowledge i have. it isn't a lot but it exists.
  • there's actually pretty much no reason why i am obsessed with linguistics, but stating that i am going to look into one thing gives me a direction to self-study while stating that i am into nothing gives me none. also i know that linguistics is one of the things that is interesting by itself. i have tried conlanging to motivate myself to study linguistics, but just studying linguistics itself feels like a better way to make myself study more linguistics.
• history
  • i was into korean history in 2022~2023, when i read a bunch of historical fiction and historical nonfiction(?) books (my fav is 설민석의 조선왕조실록) and youtube abt korean history (my fav channel is 역주행-한국사, 세계사⁶).
  • i was particularly obsessed with collecting 설민석의 한국사 대모험, which later expanded into 설민석의 세계사 대모험, 설민석의 삼국지 대모험, and 설민석의 그리스 로마 신화 대모험. now my brother only collects 설민석의 한국사 대모험.
  • i have forgotten a lot of things i learned from 역주행, but one thing i know is:
    태혜정광경성목현 덕정문순선헌숙예 인의명신희강고원 렬선숙혜목정공우창공⁷ / 태정태세문단세 예성연중인명선 광인효현숙경영 정순헌철고순⁸
• math
  • it's that thing i've always loved / wanted to love. i used to like math when i was younger, and then hakwon actually did a good job in teaching me math better, just to destroy the good teaching and my interest in math. and then after 2 attempts to quit hakwon, here i am trying to self study math.
  • the second most common thing i hear from korean students (the first being 'i want to go home') is 'i hate math'. what i would say is 'i do not hate math, i just hate the pressure from society for me to either be good at math or give it up'.

things i wanna learn but have not learned before and don't even know what it is

• philosophy of science
• how to analyze social issues without blindly trusting one side

things i have learned

• asian parliamentary debate, for like uhh 3 weeks
• piano (almost forgotten now)