Thoughts of the Day.

 One of my major reason to start a blog was to write down my thoughts and organize them, so that I could figure out the priorities or if there's anything that I'm missing out. This series of the 'Thoughts of the Day' (or any potential title) is going to be the place for that. There will be no specific format or topic but only the things that I'm thinking of at the moment. Each post will always have a vertical picture with the date on it and writings of several paragraphs or sentences for each topics that matter to me.

 I got selected from the #Ottawa-Carleton District School Board All-Star Band (just using the full term for an exaggeration hehe) as a second clarinet. The first rehearsal was quiet hard challenging and found myself on a thin ice. I definitely need serious work on sight reading skill. The good thing is that it's at least something I enjoy doing. There will be regular rehearsals in the Brookfield High School and final concert at the beginning of the May. The director is Captain Peter Archibald, whose also the Commanding Officer / Director of Music of The Central Band of the Canadian Forces.

Thinking about the #university application is always making me nervous 24/7. Some already received an early admission but the rest is just waiting for something to happen. The rests, including myself, don't know where they will be by the end of the summer. The regular admission will be issued from the end of the April to May. The ongoing semester's mid-term is around mid-April, so the admission people will be looking at our both first and second semester mid term marks. The second semester... ahh English, Chemistry, and Calculus are not going so great as I expected and that's what I'm worry about the most.

Last Saturday, I met #Phil Castro who contacted me through this blog for my photographic works. He was a real friendly+active guy and gave me many positive feedback on my photos (who knew someone would like my photo!). It was also great to hear about his experience in the professional field, which I'm also hoping to go (urban planning). He gave me tour to his infill, which was one of the most interesting house I've ever been to. The inside was pretty amazing and had more space than what appeaers on the outside. There are several ideas and photography project that we've talked about and I'm looking forward to work with him.

I'm thinking about changing the #Blog template that I've been using since the last summer (Start of the blog). The current grey-basic one was chosen really quick without thinking for the temporary look and it has been remained unchanged since then. Although the problem I'm facing is whether to choose a gallery-like photoblog template or remain as an one column diary style. Maybe it would be better to make a visual portfolio later on instead of turning this personal blog (more of personal log, in fact) into an ambiguous one.

From Dawn till Sunset.

Shadow of the Day.

'Shadow of the Day' by Linkin Park

Visual+Music = Atmosphere

"And the sun will set for you

The sun will set for you

And the shadow of the day

Will embrace the world in grey

And the sun will set for you"

The Spirit of Haida Gwaii.

As featured on the Canadian 20$ Bill.

Plaster sculpture by British Columbia Haida artist Bill Reid.

 According to the direct quotation from Wikipedia, "The sculputre is representing the Aboriginal heritage of the Haida Gwaii region in Canada's Queen Charlotte Islands. The variety and interdependence of the canoe's occupants represents the natural environment on which the ancient Haida relied for their very survival: the passengers are diverse, and not always in harmony, yet they must depend on one another to live. The fact that the cunning trickster, Raven, holds the steering oar is likely symbolic of nature's unpredictability." I personally think this sculpture makes a good representation of the culturally-diverse Canada. The society sometimes suffer from direct impact of global conflicts and issues but it's amazing that people with different ethnicity and religions can share the same identity as 'Canadians'. Multiculturalism, it's perhaps one of the best thing I learned  while staying in Canada. (South Korea is among the world's most ethnically homogeneous nations.)

Escalation.

Muse.

v. Be absorbed in thought

동. 생각에 잠기다

Watching Sunset.

I desire nothing more than to get accepted from the university that I want and study what I want.

When the admission officials are reading my essays and seeing my academic records,

I hope they could also see my potential, beyond the numbers and words.

At this moment, I have absolutely no clue where I'm going to be after the summer.

This uncertainness of future will be pending until May or possibly June. lawl.

However, I shall prevail at the end.

Geometric Organization.

Geometric organization of the each city was formed by the types of mobility.

Pedestrian, horse wagons, automobile, and public transportation.

Some cities have significant boundaries of working and living areas. Some cities don't.

Some cities are located close to water. Some cities are located on a desert.

Can the 'geography of city' shape our life style and even personality?

Post-Canadian Winter.

Post Apocalyptic Canadian winter scene.

It was a lot worse in the previous days and these picture only show some of it.

However, don't be too depressed because this means the spring is coming.

By the way, my march break has been officially started.

* 'Terran' is supposed to be spelled 'Terrain'

Piet Mondrian.

My doodle version of the Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow

Winter Blues.

G20 Summit Time Line.

Washington D.C. 2008 - London 2009 - Pittsburgh 2009 - Toronto 2010 - Seoul 2010 - Cannes 2011

[June 22, 2010] Front and Yonge Street. Toronto

 I planned one day trip to the Rogers centre to watch a major league game with my friend on the day after the last exam. When we got there, the downtown was full of police officers with a riot helmet and temporary installed security fences, even though the summit was 4 days away. The fences were barricading every blocks and intersections, leaving only small door open for people to pass.  The scenery was so eerie and gave me the feeling of watching a fictional apocalyptic city where they isolate certain area because of contamination or outlaw. It was also surprise to see a group of anarchy activists marching down the street and many undercover police officers were silently watching them in a black Cheverlot Tahoe. The typical SUV is almost like the symbol  of undercover law enforcement in North America along with the Ford Crown Victoria. On that evening, the Blue Jays lost to St.Louis Cardinals by 9-4.

[June 27, 2010] Toronto Pearson International Airport.

 This was the big day for me because I was on the flight heading (back) to Seoul, which was also the last day of the two-day world summit. While transferring to the international line at the Pearson airport, I was able to see the fleet of presidential aircrafts parked in a space. Lined as if they were cars. It was very cool to see the each plane representing their country by colours and logos. Of course, there was the famous 'Air Force One' too.

[July 14, 2010] Seoul Plaza. South Korea

 Right after my arrival, I saw the news headlines and pictures regarding the protests that went on the other side of the world, Toronto. In the picture, there was a burned patrol car in the middle of a street and anarchists standing on it. I could feel the atmosphere of terror and chaos from the picture. In the description, It was very ironic for me to see the word, Canada, with such an image, because it wasn't the usual image to describe this country with peace, order, and good government. As I was following the Canadian news during the stay, I was even more sadden to read about the the Toronto Police chief's ignorant reaction and attitude of justifying the violent force that was used against the protesters. On the other side of the world, the Korean media was doing a case study on the Canadian's summit for their Seoul summit in November. Just like Canada did, there was a lot of concerns with possible protests and security threat, but it turned out to be no violent collision. However, Korea did face different kind of issue, such as an interrogation of internet based activists.

 The reason I'm bringing this memory back is because of the recently aired Fifth Estate report on CBC network. It contained very shocking stories, testimonies, and amateur footages that weren't broadcasted at the time. While watching it, I was very upset to find out about the police brutality and their over used power, and mistreatment of the detainee. I received very contrast feeling, because long ago when I saw the videos of extreme anarchists breaking windows and burning patrol car, I just found them ridiculous and believe the police should use force to arrest them and bring order. However more important things were going on behind the headline, such as the officers striking people down with their riot shields, using rubber guns and sound cannons, and arresting in very aggressive and insulting manner. It was very hard for me to believe this all happened in Canada, since it was not the Canadian value I felt through living here. Although most people probably forgot this issue long ago, I hope they could look this issue again in various aspects and become aware of the importance of civil liberty.

83rd Academy Awards.

Even though I watch movies a lot, I only wrote about the two impressive films on this blog

and the two exact films both received the most number of awards last Sunday. Coincidence? Yes :)

The King's Speech won the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Original Screen play.

Inception won the Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Visual Effects.

I enjoyed both of the movies more than a few times and believe that they truly deserve the awards.

Cloudy Building.

taken at the NYC during the last Christmas break

It's been already 3 months since then.

Cold-Hearted.

Every cold-hearted comment that I left to my family and friends.

Regardless of the matter, I should've been the one who stand by you, not the one who criticize you.

It took such a long time to learn the lesson and hope that it's not too late to change myself.

Standing.

Où sont les hommes ?' reprit enfin le petit prince. 'On est un peu seul dans le désert.'
'On est seul aussi chez les hommes', dit le serpent.

"Where are the people?" resumed the little prince at last. "It's a little lonely in the desert..."
"It is lonely when you're among people, too," said the snake.

Welcome Home.

'Welcome Home, Son' by Radical Face
Visual + Music = Atmosphere

Last Semester.

Grade 12. Second Semester

The last 5 months of high school

ENG4U - English

MCV4U - Calculus and Vectors

SCH4U - Chemistry

+

AMR4M, Senior Band

LWKDU, Korean

Textbook.

I sometimes wonder what these people might be doing in these days.

Class of '03. Around mid-20s by now, graduated from an university a long while ago.

Would they still remember the time they were writing their name on this book? 

Will someone think of the same thing while looking at my name on the Class of '11?

Beginner's Luck.

 "My timetable was always full with mathematics and science so I never had a chance to take other things like economics, visual art, or technical design." Sorry, I think I just lied. In fact I had chances, but I didn't take them because I thought engineering is the right one for me and was too obsessed to think high school as a university entry process rather than opportunity to learn about different things through taking different courses. Now that I'm on the senior year second semester, I realized I should've been more open to gaining wide range of knowledge. 

 Anyhow, my friend told me it was part of the Economics class to do virtual stock trading and compete who makes the most profit in short period of time. So just for the interest of it, I also started trading by using an iPhone app with a little hope to motivate myself to keep read the newspaper. Since the app only supports the NYSE and NASDAQ stocks, I also started to use Google Finance portfolio as a paper trading tool for the TSX, which is the market that Canadian media is obviously more focused on compare to the American one. With the virtual 100,000 USD and 1,000 CAD on my mind (not in my pocket), I  made a weekly gain as shown on the attached list, through trading between the February 7th to 11th. Even though wrong prediction on Disney and Ford went down constantly and left me bleeding through out the week, the optimistic news of the success of the Egypt revolution changed the trend in the last hour on the Friday and barely passed the basis cost. Weekly gain of West jet (+16.2%) was pure luck, but I'm proud that I made right prediction on Fedex (+4.01%) and Amazon (+7.53%). This whole stock trading thing made me spend some times on reading the business section, so it's doing its purpose.

Closed the Book.

I'll be honest. I sometimes get self-conscious while on the facebook.

Looking at the pictures of the others and relationship status on the front page.

questioning and thinking myself if I'm an unsocialized and low confident boy

but I know this is absolutely not me in the reality! :D

So I decided to close the book for a while and spend longer time on what I enjoy more.

Including this blog, where I can write possibly anything that interests me or catches me.

I do believe the Facebook is an amazing tool for connecting friends around the globe

from the childhood and so on, but it's not what I should focus on for now.

When the right time comes, I hope to open my facebook wall again and enjoy the

true benefit of the Social Network.

"You're much more interesting than your profile.

You're much more beautiful than your profile picture.

You're all beautiful people that are much more wonderful in person."

- From the Youtube video that inspired me -

Tim Hortons.

Everyone Loves Fireworks.

Opening night of the Winterlude 2011 Festival

From the Major's Hill Park. 

Barbie Advertisement.

 I like using my iPhone as an instant search machine. When I don't remember the name of the current French prime minister, I can go on to the mobile Wikipedia and find out within 20 seconds. If I'm hearing a music from the radio that I want to find out the name, I can go on to the Sound hound app and able to find out within 40 seconds. This could be looked as a bad influence of the modern technology, but I believe it's much better than forgetting things what you wanted to search and not gain that knowledge. Specially the name of the music, which could bother you for days, and that's brutal. Even though people have this good technology on their pocket, people should moderate themselves well.

 Anyway, I'm writing this post because of the experience of a TV commercial that I saw few days ago. At the beginning of the ad, I was wondering which company would be promoting such a unique and positive message, guessing myself that it's probably the NGO related to the gender equality. At the end of the 30 seconds, I was kind of shocked when I saw the logo of the advertiser, which was quiet unexpected. Mattel, the maker of the Barbie dolls. Right after watching the ad, it made me to go on to the YouTube via iPhone to watch it again with disbelief. From personal impression, Barbie has been long time negative symbol of the beauty and encouraged the bad body image/eating disorder to many people. But on the last scene of the commercial, there wasn't a slim blonde doll with a bright smile, rather there was a woman pilot with a long mountain range reflecting on her visor, looking calm and ambitious. Also through out the entire thirty seconds, there wasn't a message related to the beauty, but only message of encouraging women to pursuit their dream regardless of the social and occupational gender stereotype. I might fell into the emotional side and the part of the advertiser's intent to change the controversial public image of the doll. Anyhow, the message from the commercial was clear and made me feel that it's something our society to keep challenge upon.

(You can watch the commercial here.)

The King's Speech.

 The first time I heard about this movie was probably through the CBC news, when the Oscar nominations of the year 2010 was just released. At that time I was curious because it was nominated but the name was unheard of and the main actor had a quiet familiar look. Then I forgot about it for a while because of the exams and so on, and until yesterday, when a friend asked me if I would like to go. I knew it was the chance, so I went and watched it. What an amazing film it turned out to be. Based on the true story of the George VI, but there were so much drama that makes you sympathize into the actors and the movie as a whole. The story line of the king trying so hard to improve the speech reminded me of the scene from the My Fair Lady, when Audrey Hepburn was being taught to speak like a noble woman. The King's Speech was an unique movie that gave me the feeling of watching a classical movie, not an old movie. The combined feeling of the visual and the soundtrack was outstanding and the choice of the famous classical pieces at the various scenes magically matched as if they were written for this movie. I still can't forget the last scene, when the Beethoven's piano concerto No.5 was played after the king giving the speech, which fit perfectly even with the name of the concerto, 'Emperor'. On the night of the Oscar, February 27th, I hope to see this British film receiving the best picture award.