My Debate Script :This House Believes That Culturally Specific Holidays And Observances Have No Place In A Modern, Interceonnected, Global World.

This is one of my debate scripts. In fact, I did this debate a few weeks ago but I couldn't upload it since I did not have enough time. The topic was that 'Culturally Specific Holidays And Observances Had No Place In A Modern, Interconnected, Global World' and I was the Leader of Opposition at that time. Meanwhile, my debate teacher said that I couldn't write debate scripts from the next class since he believed that doing speech with a short note would be better. I agree with his point but I'm not sure I can do my speech well without my script.

Ladies and gentlemen, as you may all know, all nations have their own cultural specific holidays and observances. For example, Korea has Chuseok and the New Year's Day. Americans celebrate Thanks Giving Day and Independance Day. One of the Spanish observances is bullfighting. And there are so many other holidays and observances, also. All of them are very important and precious traditions. They should be observed forevermore. However, because of the people who are arguing that all those ceremonies and holidays are unmeaningful and inappropriate these days, they may be all die out soon after. Ladies and gentlemen, think about it: without Christmas, without Chuseok and without New Year's Day, do you think that you can be happier?

Meanwhile, my name is Eujin Jo and I'm the leader of the opposition. The topic is that 'Culturally Specific Holidays And Observances Have No Place In A Modern, Interconnected, Global World' and our team strongly disagree with the topic. That is because, first, on some holidays like Chuseok, we can meet our families and relax for a while. Second, attatchment to our culture and nation is still important these days. And finally, some famous observances are helpful for the economy of the nation.

Today, as the Leader Of The Opposition, I'll give the split, rebut the points of the PM and state our team's first three arguments. Also, the DLO will state the other arguments and our whip will explain the clashes and finish the whole debate. Now, before I state my three arguments, I'd like to rebut the points of the PM. (I can't remember my rebuttals since I did an impromptu speech for the rebuttal.)

I'm gonna state our team's three arguments from now on. First of all, we can visit our families and relax for a while. Because they are so busy, many people can not meet their parents and siblings that often. Most of them can meet their families only on the holidays such as Chuseok, New Year's Day and Thanks Giving Day. The short but meaningful meetings often make people happier. You can notice it through this example. According to the latest news report by YTN, the famous broadcasting station. many people said that they became much more energetic and comfortable after they visit their parents on Chuseok.

Second, attatchment to our culture and nation is still important in today's modern and global society. All the observances and holidays are the important parts of the nation's 'national identity'. When Korea was ruled by Japan, the civilized Koreans often said, "our national identity is very importnt for us. If we lose it, we will lose almost everything, including the nation. " If all the traditions die out, we will lose the most important part of our national identity.

Last but not least, the popular traditional ceremonies can give huge profit to the nation. Let me give you an example: As you may all know, 'bull fighting' is one of the most famous ceremonies not only in Spain but also in other countries. Many tourists visit the country to watch the famous ceremony. As a result, matadors earn as much money as the best soccer players or actors. Furthermore, in Korea, about 1.12 million people have visited Andong, the city famous for beautiful Korean traditional houses and mask dance, to watch mask dance performances during the 'Andong International Mask Dance Festival' in 2010. The mask dance festival made Andong citizens earn about 2300 million won. These two examples show us that the traditional observances are very helpful for the nation's economy.

So far, I , as the Leader of the Opposition, gave the split, rebutted the points of the Prime Minister and stated our team's first three arguments. Ladies and gentlemen, culturally specific holidays and observances lasted for many centuries. Our ancestors put so much efforts to keep the traditions and make the future generations enjoy the fascinating and unique culture of the nation. Therefore, it is ridiculous to say, " you know, the traditional holidays and observances are unmeaningful and unuseful in today's society". Thank you very much.

Picture I Took On The First Day Of GLPS



I did not recognize it for several weeks but 2 months passed after I came back from KMLA. A few days after the return, the new semester started and I went back to my school. And now, I'm preparing for the mid term exam. Truth be told, I adjusted to my normal life very fast and some memories related to KMLA and GLPS already blurred in my mind. I think that alomost every camp participants, teachers, PAs and TAs did, as well. (Actually, the teachers in KMLA were preparing the next camp. When I entered the GLPS site by chance, I saw a notice about the 19th GLPS camp.)

Yet, the memory about the first day of GLPS is still clear in my mind. It was 2 o' clock or so when I entered my dorm room. My two roommaates-Soyueon and Jungyueon- were there. We unpacked our suitcases until 3 o'clock and went upstairs for the placement test. It was a big room and students used to study there in the midnight. Although I did not know at that time, the place was called 'Myeon Hak Room'. In 'Myeon Hak Room', we, the camp participants, had to write two kinds of essays: book reviews (or movie review) and essays about 'honesty'.

 I returned my dorm room after I finished writing. At the moment, I had mixed feelings. I was ecstatic since I could study in the school I admired with the best teachers in Korea and exceptional students for a month. However, I also thought, "what if the teacher and PAs who are scoring my essays think my pieces are awful? what if I can not adjust to my new life in this school? what if I can't understand what teachers and other participants are saying? what if I can not amount to anything? what if I get poor grades? " I sat on the chair and tried to do my school assignment but I could not concentrate on writing a diary. So I stood up again and tried to find my cellphone to take some photos.  As soon as I found it, I took a picture of my desk and bed.

                                                 

Looking back, I did not need to worry that much. I was placed in Class 14, one of the best classes -class 14, 15 and 16-  and adapted to the new environment pretty well. I especially liked debate class and writing class. My debate teacher was Mr. Kluge and he was also the advisor of Class 14. I did not even know what 'parliamentary debate' was before, truth be told, and I was not a good public speaker. However, I became more confident about parliamentary debate and public speaking through the debate class. As for the writing class with Mr. Garrioch, I and other Class 14 students made our own blogs and uploaded our writings. I tried to post as many writings as I could and finally got the Best Blogger Award among all the Level 1 Elementary school students in the closing ceremony. But I believe that I had to be nervous and worried at that time since if I weren't nervous, I might not have done my best during the camp.

English Gifted Class Assignment: The Greatest Invention

These days, the English gifted class teachers are encouraging us to write about various topics. In fact, I like their new policy since writing essays is more challenging and interesting than the activities we have done for several months- dictation, reading short passages, role-play, game and so on- So far, we wrote some articles, essays about recent news reports, essays about the most honorable people, debate scripts and diaries (actually, there WERE something more but I could not remember). This week, what we needed to write were 'essays about the greatest invention'. Truth be told, I almost forgot to do the homework and scribbled my essay this Tuesday. Anyway, here is the essay:

What I found during the 6 years as an elementary school student was that the majority of elementary school students were wearing eyeglasses.  Unlike past generations, we watched too much television and played computer games too long though we were very young, Besides, as we grew up, we had to study a lot and do stacks of homework. As the result, so many students came to wear eyeglasses. And I was no exception. When I was a 9-year-old girl, I realized that I could not see things clearly. Maybe it was because I watched too much television and read books in somber places. Anyway, on April. 2008, I started wearing glasses. As time passed by, my eyesight got worser and I could not do anything without wearing eyeglasses. Then I finally concluded that glasses were the greatest invention.

  
According to Wikipedia, the most popular online encyclopedia, eyeglasses were invented in 1286 by an Italian. However, there were some people who argued that glasses were invented in China in the 13th century. Historians keep arguing about the topic and we can not know the exact inventor of eyeglasses yet. Anyway, it is said that a Dominican friar named 'Giordano da Pisa' met the inventor and was very impressed. Since then, one of his fellows, who was called ' Allessandro della Spina of Pisa' started making eyeglasses and finally succeeded. Since 1301, people started selling eyeglasses in Italy. Meanwhile, it is said that Koreans started wearing eyeglasses in the 17 century. However, most of the ordinary Korean people thought that eyeglasses were for aristocrats or old people and some people even did not no the existance of glasses though they had very bad eyesight.

Nontheless, many Koreans are wearing glasses these days, as we all know. Some people, including me, can not even live without glasses since they can not read anything and see anything if they do not wear glasses. Also, they may have some problems in eating, walking and communicating without wearing glasses. If the Italian (or the Chinese) had not invented eyeglasses, so many talented people who had bad eyesight might not have seen anything. Thus, they might not have studied and researched so hard. The world could not have developed that much. The invention certainly contributed to the earth and its people a lot.

Of course, you may think, " other inventions, such as Hangul, light bulb, airplane, paper, pencil, computer are greater than eyeglasses". However, all of them are unmeaningful and unuseful if we can not see them or read them. Therefore, I'm very thankful to the inventor of eyeglasses (even if I can not know who he/she is exactly) who makes me read books, study lots of things, see clearly and write this essay though my eyesight is very bad.

                                  

TED Video: We Are All Cyborgs Now

Living without digital devices such as cellphones and computers is becoming impossible for many people these days. We can see numerous people who are sending Kakao Talk messages to their freinds, doing internet surfing and talking with their friends over cellphone while walking through the streets. Due to the development of technology, now all of us can communicate with anyone around the world whenever we want to. And Amber Case, who does a presentation in this video, calls all of us 'cyborgs'.

Her picture from the TED.com

Actually, Amber Case is the 'cyborg anthropologist' and she studies the interaction amongst human beings and technology in our daily lives. She believes that we, the Homo Sapiens, are so curious that we want to add something on our bodies and discover everything. As the result, we are eventually becoming very different form of Homo Sapiens compared to our ancestors. We do not try to develop our physical selves anymore, as Case said. We do not try to learn how to run faster, make strong tools and protect ourselves from the attack of wild animals. Those things became old-fashioned. Instead, we are trying to communicate easier, know about the recent news faster and improve our 'mental selves'. The goals are making us 'cyborgs'.

Therefore, now, all of us have the chance to get our 'second selves'. 'Second selves' are our another selves who appear on the internet.  Other people can interact with our second selves using Facebook, Twitter, E-mail and blogs even when we are not staring at the monitor. What we need to do is just maintaining our second selves and checking the messages and E mails frequently. Also, Case says that we can interact immediately with our friends using the 'warmholes in our pocket' -i phones, blackberries, and so on- . Let me explain the reason why she portrays cellphones as 'warmholes'. According to the encyclopedia,  'wormholes'  exist in the universe. You can reach to a far away place immediately if you pass a wormhole. Likewise, A and B can be connected immediately if they talk over cellphones.  We don't need to go to far away countries or cities to meet our fellows and spend precious time and energy anymore. What's more, we can put a lot of information, pictures and documents in our digital devices and they never get heavier.

However, the development of technology and digital devices is also causing some problems. As I mentioned, the digital devices can store numerous stuffs such as photos, videos and documents. Moreover, if you are internet users, you can post everything you want.
They're really convenient, aren't they?  Meanwhile, since we put too many stuffs in our digital devices, we sometimes can not find what we have saved in them long time ago.  In that situation, we say, "Oh. no! where is the document I have saved years ago?' and start to find it(however, in many cases, we can't).  Case explains that this phenomenon is called 'panic architecture' Also, she portrays us as 'paleontologists' who always dig the ground to find the old things.

In fact, the biggest problem caused by the digital devices is that we do not have enough time to do 'self reflection'. We, as human beings, sometimes need to reflect on ourselves and check whether or not we are on the right track to achieve our goals. However, nowadays, we are too busy to do self-reflection because we are engrossed in using digital devices. The cyborgs need to check all the Kakao Talk messages from our families and fellows, put efforts to maitain our second selves, upload some posts on Facebook, play computer games and talk with our friends over cellphones. We do not have enough time to ponder about our future, our goals and ourselves.

Then what should we do? When it comes to my take, I believe that we should not let the digital devices control us. We should change our attitudes. Of course, our lives will be pretty difficult without the digital devices. It may be so annoying if we should go to the far away countries and towns to meet our friends. It may be so inconvenient if we should carry all the heavy documents, pictures and other stuffs that we used to save in our USBs. So, we should learn how to control ourselves. We should plan our daily schedules and decide what to do first and what to do later on.  If so, the problems like 'lacking of self reflection' will not occur anymore.

As cyborgs who can hardly live without computers and cellphones, we should concede that they are very useful and practical. However, we should not look on only the bright side of using digital devices. It can cause huge social problems, also. In fact, the problems caused by the digital devices are taking place right now, as well. Many people are suffering from the worldwide problems such as hacking and cyber bullying these days. But the good news is that we can prevent the problems if we put some efforts. So, now, it is your choice to decide whether or not to control yourselves. What will you do?