I'm a Korean 15 year old guy who was born on May 22, 1996 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. There's not too much to know about me. I'm both quiet and loud. I'm both shy and outgoing. I'm both serious and random. I'm both a lover and a hater. In simplest terms, I'm a mass of contradictions.
How could the board allow such a shitty teacher in Great Neck South?
Productivity at an all time low.
“Kinda random but, the other day I was taking the Plandome Taxi and I was getting a ride with some other guy who was going to the LIJ hospital to check on his newborn baby, which I congratulated him for. Funny thing was, we found out that the taxi driver himself has 4 children to support with the pay that he gets from being a cab driver. His wife died after giving birth to his last one, and I was shocked. Sometimes, I just remind myself to never take what I have in my life for granted, no matter how crappy my days happen to be. How many people get to play the sport they love on a consistent basis and take lessons weekly to be a better Opera Singer. I’m grateful that I am living a life in peace and comfort compared to others, and that’s why I want to make a lot of money Singing and help out the unfortunate, because I don’t need money for a mansion, I like a nice small comfortable house, and about half the money I make will go to my parents so my dad can go golfing all he wants and my mom can travel all over the world. Whatever’s left after my food, housing, and miscellaneous needs can go directly to charity, which I hope will be a lot. I don’t care how anyone judges me about this, but I decided to post this because I thought it was important.”
-Albert Shin
I don’t know if any of you have seen this Facebook status or not, but it received a whole lot of traction. This guy goes to my church (occasionally) and truthfully, I had a more negative opinion about him. He always seemed like a nice person and he was very kind towards everybody else. One could genuinely notice that he has the soul of a saint, but being the cynical asshole I am, I assumed this was all just a facade that he put on to allow people to like him. Even as I read this status, I couldn’t help but keep a faint thought in the back of my head that this was all faked, but I hope that all of this is true.
That was just a bit of a sidetrack from what I really wanted to say though.
I know that we hear all of these stories of hardship, struggle, pain, and toil very frequently, but how often do we ever think about them? I mean, for most of us, especially us teenagers, we bitch and moan about all of these first world problems that quite honestly mean nothing. It gets annoying and tiresome, yet we continue to do it. Now don’t think that I’m trying to make myself sound special because I’m just as much guilty, if not even more, of this crime. I complain all the freaking time and I sound exactly like an infant. I mean, with all of my gripes about Kappa and the outlines, sometimes I just want to slap myself and stop myself from every posting those messages. But does this mean I will stop? Of course not. I’m still a teenager and I am inevitably going to complain about the most trivial and menial things in my life. I mean, if teenagers didn’t complain about these things, they wouldn’t be teenagers. I don’t know why, but this post struck a chord in my mind and to know that I am in a position where I have resources and the abilities to receive a proper education without worry is more than anything I could hope for. Yet I fail to see how fortunate I am. Instead of whining about how much work I am receiving, I should be grateful that I can even receive work when others cannot. I know this all sounds very idealistic and childish, but I think it’s something that most of us have forgotten. We have replaced our thankfulness with greed and anger and until we can learn to reverse it, we can never mature.
As for the end of the Facebook status, it is obviously a naive dream, but it’s better than anything I have. Too often do I look to simply attain success without even realizing what success really is. Personally, I know he’s a dedicated guy and he is serious about singing, but to know that his motives aren’t purely for fame and fortune is something that comforts me. In a world where competition, greed, and corruption has become the norm, it’s nice to see these childlike ideals in a person. Rarely do we ever come across a person as selfless and altruistic as a person like Albert, so I wish him the best of luck.
Proof that Korea is freaking awesome.
I remember watching a TED video about a neurological disorder that makes one incapable of recognizing his/her own mother after a significant head injury. This disorder (I forgot what it is called) is more prevalent in men than in women. With this disorder, one has a clear image of who his mother is, but when he actually sees her with his own eyes, he refuses that it is her and is incapable of realizing that she is truly his mother. Even though the image in the person’s mind and what he is seeing are completely identical, he cannot recognize her as is mother.
Apparently, one of the only logical explanations of this disorder goes back to a Freudian theory that infants are born with an extreme sex drive and are naturally sexually attracted towards their mothers. However, this attraction is repressed greatly and kept locked away in a section of the brain where it is never to be released at a very young age. However, if the brain sustains extreme trauma, these latent feelings of attraction are released in full throttle and as a result, the victim now has to deny the very idea of his own mother because he wants to expel any awkward tension. Now it makes sense why this is much more prevalent in males than females.
I just thought I would share this because it seemed interesting and my textbook actually mentioned something similar to this.
