The North Korea Situation

So as most of you know, North Korea has made some progress in their quest for nuclear weapons. In light of these recent developments North Korea has begun to participate in activity that they're well acquainted with: making demands and threats. It seems that this is something that South Koreans and other countries in the neighboring areas have grown accustomed to due to the personality of Kim Jong Ill. While I don't particularly feel alarmed by these threats, this reminds me of the constant dangerous presence that North Korea embodies for South Korea.

This is a personal concern for me because of my family in South Korea. As the son of Korean immigrants, the vast majority of my relatives live in South Korea. With North Korea's access to nuclear weapons growing more and more apparent and its relations with the rest of the world always strained, I feel that North Korea is a problem that we need to resolve to prevent any extreme from being taken.

While this situation is alarming to many, there are those who see these kinds of situations as nothing of the ordinary. It is true that Kim Jong Il is known for making threats. The occurence seems to be so common that when I mentioned the situation to my parents, they weren't surprised. However they did acknowledge that the leadership of North Korea is far too oppressive and needs to be dealth with so that the people of North Korea can live in a more preosperous land. I don't know what can be done but I hope that under the leadership of President Obama, relations with North Korea can be improved and it's people helped.

Are you open-minded?

Just found this interesting little video:



I feel that this video brought up many truthful points that I've personally experienced in my life. I personally tend to closely examine pieces of information before accepting them as fact. For some reason, people get annoyed when I tell them that I don't believe what they say. They take it as almost an insult which seriously annoys me. Sorry but I'm not going to blindly accept everything that's told to me. It's like like I said they were stupid or what they said wasn't true, it's just that they haven't convinced me.

What bothers me more is that most times I was told to be more open-minded, the person talking to me was being completely hypocritical. It's not like they were considering the idea they were wrong. They were just outraged at the expressed possibility that they were wrong and decided to lecture me for even thinking of such a thing. In the past I've always brushed these comments off but this movie did a great job in showing the stupidity of this hypocrisy. I think that I feel more inclined to make a comment after watching this video.

Important Decision Made

Last week was the week when I made the most important decision of the year so far: where to go next fall. The decision should not have been so stressful to make but I somehow managed to do it while thinking about my options over and over again. The last two schools I had to pick between were Cal Poly and UC San Diego. I'd visited both campuses and felt that I'd be happy at either college. That was the problem. I like both colleges almost equally and I almost couldn't pick between the two. My parents were exasperated with the amount of time I was taking to choose a college and as the deadline to submit my SIR came along they constantly asked me if I'd made a choice yet. But I could never say yes because whenever I made up my mind, I almost had the question in the back of my head of whether I would regret this decision years from now. This nagging thought persisted for several days before the deadline.


In the end however, I had to make a choice. I finally decided on UC San Diego. There were a few factors that made me choose UCSD. I felt as though I was more comfortable on the campus. I don't know exactly why but looking back, UCSD felt more like home. There was also the question of academics. While I knew that I'd get a great education at both schools, both my parents as well as some family friends felt that UCSD was the academically stronger school. While I couldn't say for sure, I definitely liked what I saw and heard at the UCSD admit day. When I visited Cal Poly, I was only able to get a glimpse of the computer engineering program so my view of the entirety of Cal Poly's academic programs was limited. This was particularly important for me because I know that I'll probably change majors multiple times before finding the one that's for me. The financial situation also held sway in my decision. While I was only offered loans by Cal Poly, UCSD offered me a sizable grant. This was important for me because it'd be a lot easier on my parents seeing as my sister is also in college at the moment. After considering all of these factors, I decided that UCSD was the best play for me to go. I'm happy with the decision I've made and I'm really looking forward to going there next fall.

A New Beginning

It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me..
And I'm feeling good....

So it's a new beginning for my blog. My old posts have been removed to help me transition into this different style of a blog. My subjects will be more personal and less academic and I'm feeling good about its potential. The intention behind this new blog is to help me create a digital footprint, a online identity that reflects upon who I am. To this end I'll be posting random thoughts or important evnts in my life. I've been trying to be a more active blogger but it's been difficult putting my thoughts into words.

While this blog's creation was spurred by the demands of a school project, I hope that I'm able to continue to use this blog in the future to transform thoughts and ideas in my head into coherent words. But that's far from where I am right now. With my task in mind and the tools in my hand I'm curious to see what the outcome will be.