Creative Essay: 11/27/31

This is my second day in India. Today morning, I received an e-mail explaining that the seminar I came to attend is going be postponed from 12/01 to 12/03. I't because the world climates are terribly unpredictable that it messed up the whole airline today that many people won't be able to attend the seminar at the time. I was actually happy to receive the mail (sorry for those who got damaged by the hurricane that occurred simultaneously) as it meant that I will have more free time in this country.

It's been a while to attend a seminar that required people to actually gather. I preferred offline seminar but I was really busy these days as my research was coming to the end, and the students asked me a lot of questions as it was near the final exam. So I was only able to attend online. However, this seminar was really important that I even canceled my other schedules to attend. Thank God that final was over as I wouldn't be able to reject my students. I was planning to reveal my research conclusions to the world through this seminar as the other people attending helped my project by answering my questions that I had and sharing some of their opinions. Therefore, I wanted to show them some respect by making them the first one to see my full outcome.

Yesterday, I walked around various famous places, taking pictures and drawing croquis' as it is my hobby. I should have been preparing for the presentation today, but the seminar has been postponed, so I decided to expand my leisure. I planned to visit where my educational volunteer organization is working. I was always sorry to order them and help them from distance, so I thought that this was a great chance. So I went to the head office of India branch. They greeted me warmly. After short talk about the current situation of the organization, I asked them if I could participate in today's volunteer, and got approved.

Even though the cities of India has been developed, the countries remained the same. I went to a small school where the organization worked. I brought some snacks for the children, and while they were eating, I asked how they were doing. Even in hard situations, they looked very bright, so I was relieved. I took pictures with them. The master of India branch told me that the number of Indian student volunteer was even lower than the number of students from other country. So we opened up a meeting, and concluded that the advertisement of our organization was too weak. And we planned to make posters to hang on 15 universities.

I left the further planning to the branch, and came back to the hotel to eat dinner. As southern India was summer in these days, it was still bright. I checked my e-mail and there was a new e-mail saying that the seminar will be held on 12/05. It didn't really mattered to me as I had nothing until my birthday, which is 12/20. I guess I saved some more days. Maybe I'll be able to help putting the posters in universities tomorrow.

TED: David Carson on design+discovery

Designing is a field that doesn't have a criterion precedent to follow. It's a filled with sense of humor and creativity to grab attention of people. David Carson shows myriad slides to introduce the world of designing and its characteristics in a very doggerel way. And when watching the video, it reminded me of a book Put on an Engine on Creativity by Hyunwoo Lim, which is a book about using creativity; especially on advertisements and designs. 


Design sends "message that's sent before somebody begins to read, before they get the rest of the information; what is the emotional response they get to the product", according to David Carson's speech. I think it is true. There are some designs that touches me even without making me to try to figure out what the design is about and what it is telling. Designs and advertisements are very ephemeral. People flip them over in very short time. So prodigal or esoteric wordings will be futile and mundane. Leaving a strong impression concisely is important, therefore the importance of emotion in designing augments.

David Carson gave an example of smoke-free design that he created. In small letters, it says, 'If tobacco companies can lie, so can we.' It's very humorous, but it looks very gravitational and professional as the design is in black-and-white color. When people first see the advertisement, they will worry and throw away their cigarette, as the advertisement looks very serious. And when they read the advertisement again, they will laugh at the humor that's hidden inside, and remember the danger of cigarette that is tacit in the advertisement, as the creativity leaves strong impression, helping the people to remember 

In the book, it showed a WFP's picture on Times, by Rein Skullerud. The picture illustrates a terrible repercussion of tsunami. Even among all the broken furniture, there's one tree alive that shows the hint of recovery and hope. When people first see this picture, they don't read the caption under the picture written in infinitesimal letters about the hope in the terrible scene. However, they get the lucid impression of hope by the standing tree itself. It shows that even in such a horrible situation, there's still something that's not lost. And it helps people to overcome.


At his closure in the video, he defined a good job, and it really hit me. He stated, "if you could afford to--if money wasn't an issue--would you be doing that same work? If you wouldn't, what the heck are you doing? you're going to be dead a really long time." I think this statement was for young people who are afraid to jump in and dedicate on the field of designing . However, it hit me too, as I was also worrying that what I want to do aren't revered in the society and it doesn't guarantee me of nice future. However, if I'm working on the job only because of money, then I'm not living my own life or living alive. I want to live genially, so I worried living a miserable life out of lack of money. However, a life only for earning money is more terrible. It might be a hackneyed dictum, but my own definition of a good life is that if I don't regret anything when I'm dying; it was a good life. And after I watched this video, I thought that to live an un-regrettable life, I should jump on to what I really want to do. Like the David Carson, who devoted on designing.


The video didn't states his one strong idea and espoused, but showed his small and many ideas of living and designing. And most of his ideas impressed me. I strongly recommend this video, as it is very humorous yet has significance that has power to change and inspire people. Also, the book carries the message that emphasizes the importance of creativity and audacity. So I recommend to read the book after watching the video.

Top Band -Season1

(# of pictures in this review/out of 10)

Top band is a name of a TV show. It's a band audition program where amateur bands compete against each other by tournament. And before the actual competition, they can choose their mentor among the famous experts of rock music and have lessons.  I really like this program, not only because I love rock music, but also the program helps the bands of Korea.

Korean indie bands aren't that famous among Korean people. So they suffer out of low income and interest. The program director was planning to make a documentary about the lives of Korean indie bands. However, the broadcasting station recommended the director to make a competition program, as it was a trend. So the program became in a shape of tournament among the bands, but it still carried the intention to advertise about bands.

The program showed the current situations and the hard times they had to overcome in order to present their music to the world. It was very impressive. The biggest problems they had were people's views toward them. When they declared that they would be musicians, their parents and friends opposed them. One father even threw a guitar out of the window to stop his son. And even after they became musicians, most were unpopular, so they had to suffer greatly. As the program contained such behind stories, people could learn about the backgrounds of the music. And as the program contained rock music itself, it advertised rock music to the public. The participants of the competition had a same goal, which is to notify Korean Indie rock music to the public, they helped and cheered each other.


Also, there are other types of bands than rock bands with electronic instruments. For example, there are Latin music bands, orchestra-like bands, brass bands, and many more. Also, people with musicians as jobs aren't the only ones who play in band. There are people who plays as a band member, but has a different job. Top band introduced these types of bands to the public, allowing publics to break the prejudice about bands, and giving courage to the minor bands and musicians.

Other competition programs had lot of operation behind the program to make the show more entertaining, like faking the statistics and directing people's every movement. However Top Band didn't had any. So the process was very clear, but it was less entertaining than the other programs. For example, Broken Valentine team, and Toxic team, who were considered to be in top4, had match in the round 16. So the Broken Valentine couldn't even go to the round 8, because the matching system wasn't controlled, and was out of drawing lots.

Also, as indie rock music is more about pursuing one's own music style than entertaining the public and adjusting to match the people, it certainly has limits as a TV program. As public's choice was included in the score, bands with unique and special styles had advantage. Also, visual was involuntarily included in the scorings as people preferred bands that were visually good.

Even though the program had few problems, it still had good effects on advertising the Korean indie bands to people, and it was very entertaining to me, as I really liked rock music. I am looking forward to seeing the participated bands in a bigger stage like the famous bands that came and performed for celebration. Also, I'm looking forward for the season 2 of Top Band.

The Body #1 Reading Journal

In the book The Body by Steven King, characters shared a treehouse to hang out and have fun. They played games and hid important things or things they didn't want others to discover. It's their own territory and others, especially adults, didn't have rights to invade without permission. If they tried to, the boys would have resisted to the invading force.

My friends and I also had a similar place too when I was a student of an elementary school. There was a church right beside our school that my friends and I also went, and at the bottom of the church, if you go over or under few pipes, there was a small secret field that nobody used or care. It was a open space, without ceilings, but it was deep inside so nobody really wanted to approach. It's surrounded by trees and a huge three machines that we assumed to be heating machines. So people can't see us, but we can observe people outside through the trees. 

We first found out the place out of curiosity. We were unbeatable elementary school children, and there was nothing we should be afraid of. We wanted an adventure, and we thought going through the pipes into a deep, unexploited place of church seemed to be the adventure we were looking for. We went through the pipes  and found the beautiful place. We declared it as our territory and gathered when the church ended. The field was too small to put things in there or play, so we only used the it as a gathering place and  a conference room where we discussed what we should do for the day. We also found a pot and his our treasures we found in process of searching and hid the pot in our secret place.

When we were entering the place, a few younger kids saw us and tried to follow. We said that the place was our own so do not dare to invade and scared them off. However, one time we felt that there has been someone who has been in our secret place, as our pot wasn't on the right place we used to hide. So we collected ash from the field, as farmers were burning the stems of rice after harvest, and spread it around our secret hiding. It was like animals placing their smell on their territory. We thought that the people will be afraid to come any nearer as they won't want their shirts get dirty, and we used it to detect the footprints that others would leave. We once were so obsessed with the idea of protecting our place from strangers, that we tried to make walls with bricks. Even though the place wasn't really ours, but the church's. 

The church people knew about us and created iron fences around the place so we couldn't reach there even though we passed the pipes. We were very angry, but we didn't have any power to rip off  the iron fence. We couldn't understand the adults as there was nothing important nor dangerous in that place. It was just a very small and simple field. So we decided to use the iron fence for ourselves. Unfortunate for the church people, we were very physically talented. We were able to use the walls to climb and jump over the fence. So the fence couldn't stop us, but it stopped the other kids form invading our place. We were satisfied. 

Even though it's a very embarrassing past to me, I miss it so much. And if I have a chance, I want to go back and visit the place once more. I believe the treehouse to the boys in The Body will feel the same. When they grow up, the treehouse, which is a place they have spent most of their time will be the most missing place. And they will be able to remind the other memories of their childhood. And I'm looking forward to peek their memory they will remind when they think of the treehouse, by reading this book.

(It was placed inside the circle, behind the trees.)