Learning Profile: A

Last, Humanities class, out class, 3A, had a chance to be with Mr Whiting. He told us about Learning Profile no.2, which we have experienced before in grade 6. Technically, we had to find our dominant parts of ear, eye, hand and foot and follow the guide to discover which kind of person we are. My dominant parts were same as last year when I unearthed that right parts of eye, ear, hand and foot were dominant. Moreover, each of us had to decide or take a test to see whether each one was logical(user of left hemisphere of brain) or gestalt(user of right hemisphere of brain) learner. After all this courses, my learning profile was type A. On the sheet of paper for profile A, there was ways of how profiles like me had to learn.

First of all, I learn best when I concentrate on the details. I believe that is true, because it simple to learn about the details first. The whole picture makes me confused, no where to start. Therefore, I find it easier when I learn a small topic under a huge topic. For example, when we are learning about a country, such as Egypt, I have no idea where to look at first. History? Modern life in Egypt? Inventions? This kinds of thoughts disturbs me. Additionally, focusing on details make me feel comfortable. If I surely know the small parts, it is a piece of cake to understand the main topic. It becomes like a jigsaw as I put my small knowledge of details together. Therefore, I learn best by observing details rather than the big picture.

Next, I need to have properly ordered information. Unorganized facts make me confused. However, sometimes it doesn’t make confusing but irritating. For example, if the facts are all over the place, not in forms of lines, it gets me puzzled, because I have to remember what I have read and what I haven’t. This is the situation when I do not get irritated but confounded. However, when the facts are in line form, but the facts are not organized in order, (time, spatial or in any other way) the sentences gets me crazy, creating chaos in my head, which affects headache. That is why I need informations in sequence.

The one strategy that would help me in my learning are having more enjoyable sensory-motor experiences. Firstly, I believe having more enjoyable sensory-motor experiences will help me to be much more efficient learner. The one reason I think it will support incredibly much is because it disuades me from having more stress, which makes me sensitive and negative. It can also affect my emotion greatly, resulting me to want to be alone, or have a headache. Additionally, when I have a headache, it disturbs me from concentrating harder. Therefore, it will be effective to me to have an positive sensory-motor memories.

Lastly, I would like my teachers to know that if I could not see something that is important clearly, I get easily stressed out. For example, when I could not receive the instructions clear in visual, auditory systems, I feel very nervous and annoyed. It is because when I can not get instructions clearly, I would not know what to do and waste my time and I will have less time to complete. As a result, I want my teachers to know that I care a lot about visual system.

10 memories of my earliest days

Last Humanities class, we had a chance to be in Taylor Mali’s performance show in the library. Taylor Mali was a poet and a teacher. He told us poem was a honest lies. He read his poems he wrote and suggested us to write down 3 earliest memories of each of us. Few went out to the stage and performed. While performing, Taylor Mali advised the performers to have moment for themselves before saying in order to have no non-meaning words, such like ummm.., uhhhh, like... When his meaningful speech was over, he gave us homework to write seven more memories. And they are:

1. I remember drowning like an ant when I was six. Stretching my tiny hand over the surface of water, lifeguard reading his dumb magazine yawning like a hippopotamus. I dashed in the water, which was much slower than in the air, to the ladder and arrogant lifeguard pulled me out as if he had saved my life.

2. I remember having a new shiny bike. How gorgeously and gracefully it went through the woods. How quickly it was stolen!

3. I remember flying a toy plane at the age of 8. A senior boy smashed it and promised getting me a new one. In the cold winter, waiting someone who won’t comeback, I was standing in the middle of the playground.

4. I remember reading Percy Jackson for the first time in my life. It was hard but as much as it was hard, it was fantastic sensation sparking into my eyes.

5. I remember when I was 9, starting school year in Malaysia.

6. I remember planning and preparing to be a cat when I was 3 by wearing cat mask for days.

7. I remember when my aunt got married with a friendly, cheerful man as old as her when I was 9.

8. I remember having first Internet account in my whole life which was fascinating to me.

9. I remember my seventh birthday with a banana cake, which I could never find again and never forget.

10. I remember having nightmares of spies after watching cartoon about spies when I was five.

My Name

My name is Jong Hyun Park. It is based on a Chinese character, and it means “a bell that rings across the world in the morning”. It an also mean bright, glory and similar meanings. As it is based on Chinese, my name can be written in both Korean and Chinese. Usually, most Korean names are based on Chinese characters. Those Chinese names were often created by name specialists, fortunetellers. Therefore, when I was born, my parents took me to a place where a name specialist worked and asked what my name should be. I believe it was a good choice, because I feel very blessed, peaceful when I imagine the meaning of it and when I hear it being called.

Although I like my name and want to use it as often as possible, there is no exact pronunciation for my name in most other languages. Therefore, I use an English nickname, Samuel. My nickname, Samuel, has a interesting behind it, too. When I was seven, my mom was thinking of my English name. She wanted me to have an English name as soon as possible. One day, she bought a baby spoon. On it there was a little bear, and under the bear, there was its name, Sam. After saying it few times, she thought it was a great name and from that moment, I was Sam. I started using Samuel as I got older, when I began to think that Samuel sounded cooler.

Before I was born, my father wanted to name me similar to my mother’s name, Hyun Mi. He wanted to name me Hyun Gi, by only changing the middle name. However, my mother was thinking about my English name. The first name she thought of was Tony, but thanks to the baby spoon, I was named Sam. When I first heard that I was named Tony, it sounded very wild and athletic to me, which is opposite of my real personality. From the time I started to read, I always thought it was cool to have the same name as the ones in books. However, both of my names rarely appeared on any books. I guess I saw my name only in three books, a math book, one story book and another book I was reading lately called Alfred Kropp And the Seal of Solomon. The one that had the same name as me was a man who was trained tough as an agent and who was also a serious person. He didn’t use my name from the very beginning. He was called Operation Nine, but realizes that his name was Samuel when the story gets to climax. I wish I could find more books that have my name in it. In conclusion, I don’t regret having my names, and instead, I find my name really reflects myself.

Me in 3

I believe the objects that represent me well are a coin case, a bamboo sword and a

pencil case. Their connections very from slight to very much. I believe they are all connected in

some ways. For example, they describe my characteristics that are similar, or their purpose and

uses. They are all important to me. Items sometimes go missing or are damaged. A few of my

favorites did. These three are the current top 3 that describe me well.

First is my coin case. It was actually my iPod case, but I started gathering coins inside.

This was because I hated to see coins lying down everywhere in my room. Although I had coins

widely spread in my room for months, suddenly I hated it and I desperately wanted to organize

them into one place. Now, I bring my coin case almost everywhere. Although it is heavy, it does

not matter to me unless I can keep coins wandering in my locker, room, drawer or any other

places. In conclusion, my coin case illustrates my unstable organization.

Secondly, bamboo sword that i use for my Kumdo (Korean sword fighting sports)

lessons shows the amount of efforts I had put into. For example, the handle of the bamboo stick

was originally white and it was spiky. Now, the handle has been worn out a lot; it has become

black, and it has been softened. It is as worn out as senior players. Not only the handle, but the

whole sword is shabby. Burn marks from striking dummies are all over the sword, and the color

of the sword is darkened. This represents how much I had attended and how hard I played.

Next, my pencil case informs that I am really unbalanced, but organized. As you see my

pencil case, you will notice that it is really fat. The actual size of the pencil case is not really big,

but as I forced stationery inside, it looks like it is going to explode. For this reason, I have almost

everything in my pencil case, but sometimes I forget to bring other stationery, thinking that I

already have it in my pencil case. I try to keep everything with me and this confuses me.

Sometimes, I check my pencil case and see what is inside, but I can’t find it when I need it. It

shows that I tried to organize myself but not very effectively.

My pencil case also represents my personality. A pencil case is where you put the most

essential tools for studying. Like a pencil case, I try to put most essential ideas or plans in my

head, in order to make no mistakes. Therefore, the only time when I forget is when I did not

inform myself or I just can not remember. That happens when I am busy or I have too many

ideas or plans in my head. My head also has limit for short memories.

In the end, I think they do reflect my character well. Reading my reasons again made me

think about my three objects and it helped me to understand my personality better. In the end, I

suppose they fit me the best and explain my personality better than any other items.

Samuel Bio Poem

Jong Hyun

Unpredictable, Calm, Levelheaded, Justice

Son of Jung Ho and Hyun Mi

Who enjoys playing basketball, reading novels and being in comfortable place

Who feels nervous when he forgot something, refreshed after working or training hard, and happy when he accomplished a goal.

Who fears climbing waterfall, drowning in the water and the sea that is filled with creatures

Who was able to explain in front of the whole class without falling down

Who would like to see peaceful world and better preserved nature in the very near future

Who stays in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Books: Twilight

Title: Twilight
Author Stephanie Meyer

I began reading this book few months ago after finishing Hunger games series and King Arthur and his Knights. I was searching for a book in the airport bookstore to read for six hours long flight to Korea in Spring break. This book is about a romance between vampire and a human. Which made occurred me goosebumps sometimes.

This book made me think about the relation between different kinds of people. There was always dangers ahead of them, but they helped each other to overcome their problems. The one problem they faced was hunted down by other vampires, which was because of the human. However, they overcame the problem by the cooperation of the friendly vampires, who refused to eat human blood and relied on animal blood.

This book challenged me as a reader by it’s thickness of it. First, I was very pressured by the thickness and it hesitated me to read at first. However, when I started it, I was driven inside the story and it felt like it was thinner than it looked.

Don't read this book if you don’t like romance or if you like fairy tales or scientific fictions. It’s very realistic except for vampire stuff and there is lots of sensations inside it. Even if vampires are not your favorite subjects, try reading this book. It’s because even I, who didn’t preferred vampire books, enjoyed it. This book is a harmony of heart-beating thrill and romance.

My random Spring Break

My spring break was enjoyable and both little bit depressing. I truly enjoyed my break, missing my tuitions and other studies because of the passing of my grandpa. It made our family dispiriting except for my cousins who were too young to understand the death. However, I wasn't very sad too.

Exactly 8 days ago, while I was packing my bag for my tuition, my mom got a call from my aunt who lived near grandparents. Then, my mom bought a flight ticket to Korea straight away. She told me that my grandfather just passed away. It was the first time the death occured so near me, which didn't affected me very much eventhough the death I knew was a complicated thing. Therefore we-my mom, my cousin and me-rode on the plane at 11:30 and the six hours flight began. I spent my entire time in the plane watching 'Tron' and 'Gulliver's travels', but my cousin and my mom slept the whole flight. We arrived at around six in the morning and when I jumped out of the plane with a soft landing, the coolness of the morning flowed into every parts of my skin and my restless eyeballs and brain seemed to be refreshed by it.

We shivered from the cold, frigid temperature of Seoul. Unfortunately, our clothes were all thin and meant for warm spring, but the weather was almost like a winter that was going to end soon. After riding on a bus for an hour and train riding for 3 hours, we reached our destination, Busan. We hurried to the funeral home where my gandfather was having three days long death ritual. My uncle, aunt, grandmother and the visitors were there. Our family was inside the special room where the visitors showed their respect and bowed. They greeted people who came and provided food and beverage to the visitors who were finished bowing.

After spending next two days on the burial, we were finally finished and he was able to enjoy rest of his eternal happy life. Now the sadness that stayed in our family finally got out and went on it's way. My cousin seemed happy to see her parents back although she still did something mischievous to them. We left her with them and we left to my father's side grandmother. It was nice to see dad again and he had lot's of things to give us which he planned to bring with him when he come to Malaysia. We spent a day in grandma's house and rode on a bus that headed to Seoul. As there were not enough drinks and other edible things, they went to market as soon as we reached our house. I watched my favorite Korean tv programs that I missed for many hours until when I realized I was sleeping. It was weird that I was tired because of the bus ride. That night, I slept at 12pm when I was done with computer checking and tv watching.

Next day was a surprising and history absorbing day. The first surprise that approached to us was that the Sunday and Monday flights are full, so we can only fly on Tuesday. Therefore I had to miss school on Monday and Tuesday. As the time passed, I was being more lazy and slow because of idling everyday. Soon, my cousin family came and we went to Namsan, the mountain, where the ancient emergency fire lighter and Namsan Tower were. They seem to be enjoying very much, smelling the scent of the spring and skipping around. It was very windy and freezing, however we did enjoyed eating cotton candy. Then we headed to a place called 'Hanokmael' where they had the ancient houses, Hanok, and descriptions. The another surprising event that I was marriage between a Korean woman and American man taking place in there. It was indeed flabbergasting because I never thought they will have marriage there. At night, we had a party, until my aunt and uncle(not the first uncle that I talked about) had to go. My cousin didn't looked sad after all.

It was the day for the flight. We were ready to go. In the bus to the airport, I listened to my mp3 for the first time in Korea with my new headphone. The seat was comfortable but hot. Maybe I was adapted to that weather already. I stared at the view from the bus. Foggy. As I turned, the bus stopped and our just got-out luggages were there waiting us. We entered the airport with our excitement for going back to our home and both little bit sad because of leaving the country. After all, it was a great trip with unexpected and random happenings.

Literature Circles 4 Blog

The author Lois Lowry did described the freedom and choice between these chapters a lot. In the part where he stopped pills, expressed his freedom and choice by thinking of a choice that people had never thought of. This shows that he had gained power of choosing a right thing for his own. By this, it provided a glimpse of Jonas's change by the memories and how powerful the memories are. As a result from his change, his opinions became more effective and reasonable.

Giving the memories to Gabe was also his own choice. He didn't have to send them to Gabe who didn't knew anything. Maybe, he wanted him to have different opinion of his own life starting from the young age. Or, he just wanted to share any memories he absorbed from the giver. No one forced him to give up having the nice memories, but he gave them to Gabe. Which he felt guilty about.

He refused riding bike along the river with Fiona who wanted to comfort him because he wasn't acting like the old Jonas. Now he knew that he couldn't share or explain any memories to them by Asher's rude reply. It was his choice riding with Fiona. He was keeping himself from blurting out the memories to her because she was on of his friends who talked a lot with. By being the receiver, he had lost his freedom communicating with people. Will his choice of freedom increase? or decrease?

Giver question 1

1. Would you want your future to be decided by others ? Why or Why not?

If was there was people who chose my future for me, in good way, I would prefer that than choosing by myself. This is because, it will change my life into easier way than now. Usually, people face variety of problems. Sometimes, they could be especially challenging, or uncomplicated. For example, it is hard to decide which way to go when you are travelling in a place you are not familiar with, but if you had a map or a guide, it will have lead you to an easier way. Additionally, there are gigantic decisions you have to challenge and unnecessary ones. For example, choosing a job is important because it can affect your future greatly but deciding to eat a pie doesn't affect much to my future accept for the fact that you get you stomach filled.

In the book, I like how the community decides for their citizens or members for their age. Everything is perfect under the control of the Elders. Most of the people find happiness with their assessments. Everything matches with everyone correctly. I think that is a place where I want myself to be. Less disagreements, more pleasure, more peaceful, and safer than the world I am living in. However, as I keep thinking about it, I belief it will make my opinions less powerful and finally, I will lose ability to create an opinion.

As a result of these, I think the community in Giver is always gleeful place, different from our place where we learn every knowledge that we have to know and be happy as well as miserable by the truth. In my opinion, knowing everything including gloomy ideas will effect us to know the pure happiness because, as we know the more, we will realize what is valuable and when is the most joyful time. On the other hand, by being aware of troubles that we predict will happen, only makes us fear, frightened and dissuades ourselves from being brave and courageous. However, to earn real happiness I think we have to choose our future by ourselves.

I-Movie Presentation

It was good time understanding ancient Egypt society and their powerful pharaohs. I believe we filmed well. our pictures were mostly good quality and recording was loud enough to be heard. It was definitely a good choice Harjot working on recording and using images as well as me writing the script. He added particular sounds that caught audience's attention. This genuinely made our presentation interesting and noticeable. We considered about putting picture in right time together, and it matched with recording well.

One thing we had problem was Tut, because there was not much informations about him. It is not sure that he built architectures because he didn't write his name on and he died when he was around twenty. However, with descriptive books and sites, we still obtained facts about him. Another problem we faced was MLA citation. When we presented it, we didn't put our URLs and we didn't know how to use the MLA citation. If we knew how to use it and if Tut had more recorded histories, it could have been better for us.

City Connection

4) What did you learn from the city presentations of others?

All the presentations were enjoyable. When I watched their presentation I just couldn't stop admiring the presentations. Even though they all did little bit of mistakes, they looked very natural and the presenters didn't seemed to be nervous. They each had their own styles of presenting and learned that everyone has their own boxes. I mean the box used in "Think out side of the box." Some of us had fascinating designs, projecting their voice enough to be heard and telling stories from pictures to audience. If I have to choose 3 well prepared presentations I will choose: Maria, Joseph and Tem. First, I chose Maria because she used interesting movements in the slides and contained lots of details. Before hearing to hers, I didn't even knew what Bogota was. However, after hearing to hers I noticed that it was a city in Columbia and it is located in high altitude. On the other hand, she rushed and presentation suddenly went forward by mistake, it just smashed my expectation. However, it was well constructed presentation. Secondly, Josephs was the best example of reading stories out of pictures. Even though he didn't had as much informations as Maria, he talked as much as her. One of his pictures that I still remember is the food like sausages,tofu and vegetables. He explained what it was and his own experiences about the food. Lastly, Tem's was simple but very descriptive. She memorized hers perfectly,which I have to learn from her, and she didn't hesitated because of the articulation. Hers included every features of her city. For example, clear maps, resources that made her city developed and other informations. I think I need to learn memorizing and putting informations like Tem. To improve I also need to learn from others like using skills of slides, putting certain color in the text to be seen, and other skills people had. Next time, I suppose I must memorize mine and color the text in different color to be seen.

Domi profile

In last Humanities class, we used our time knowing about ourselves. We did something called domi profiles, to know  how we have to study by testing which is our dominant eye, leg, hand, ear and hemisphere. I noticed that my right eye, hand and leg are dominant and my left hemisphere. As a result, I got profile A, which was different from my last  test. Maybe I have changed from few months ago.

I learn best when I pay attention to details of the subject I learn. I am not sure of this answer even though its from the domi profile. However, I think it could be right because when I study, I read all chapters of the chapter, but it could be also not right because I don't pay much attention to how I study.

I need to summarize what I have learned, speak out and write about it to memorize what I have learned. This answer from domifile I really agree. When I write or speak what I learned (usually writing) it is normally remembered by my brain correctly.

The strategies that would help me in my learning would be reading and taking notes of what I have learned. When I learn something, I try to read over and over again. However, taking note, when I take note even though I have note them down I feel worried because I feel like I haven't wrote down some thing.

I would like my teachers to know that I like the idea of reading the textbook together and note taking in groups which I prefer to be continued.

2011

          This year is 2011. To asians or to most asians, this year is year of rabbit. Even though a year has passed, I don't feel special or changes. However, there are some changes in my house. First, my cousin started to study in malaysia with me but different school. Even though we live in same house, we hardly see each other in the morning, because she goes to school at seven forty in the morning and I go to school at seven am. In my opinion, my cousin also has same problem with me, vocabulary which one of my goal. My other goal is to get A on Humanities. 


         Getting A on Humanities is my biggest goal and what I wants most. However, it is a task that could be easy  or could not be easy. Now, my humanities grade is not very far from my goal, but I think it will take many months. The first skill that could be a step toward my goal would be writing. I believe that is the skill that needs to be improved the most. To improve this skill, I go to a tuition center three days a week and write essays, and in my free times, I read books. I also work to learn more vocabularies which is my second goal.

         Building on my vocabulary is a part of my doing better at writing. I chose this for my goal of this year because this can upgrade my writing skills by sentence structures and word for right place. I really need to know more vocabularies because when I write some paragraphs, I usually struggle with words. To use more vocabularies, I read books, get tested on spellings in tuition center and memo word that seems useful. In holidays, I read a book called "The red pyramid" which is written by my favorite author who's name is Rick Riordan. I read this for 3 times which makes me easier to understand.

         Over my winter holidays, I spent my time in my home country, Korea. When I visited my grandparents, our family met grandmother, aunt's family and uncle's family. We rested until we night. That night since we were bored, our whole family including aunt's family and grandmother decided to drive through the new road undersea going to an island named Gagu(e)do. I was expecting to undersea and peaceful view of the sea. Unfortunately, as it as dark, I was not able to see anything and there was tunnels and bridges which were boring. However, the smell of the sea was cool enough to stroke my nose. At the end of the road we reached a car resting place was filled with people even though it was eleven o'clock at night.


         Everyone has a talent, but I don't exactly know mine. My friends say I am good at making people laugh but I am not very sure. However,  instruments I can play are piano, recorder and clarinet. However, for piano, I have quitted that when I was young, and for recorder and clarinet, I haven't play for them for half of the year. I still have one talent, that I got black and red mixed belt(right under complete black) from a huge competition when I was seven. Unfortunately, I didn't joined taekwondo since I was nine because I flew abroad to study. However, I am going to start taekwondo again. This year will be the time for upgrading myself.