Do You Believe in Luck? / 행운을 믿으세요?

Grace from Korea here.

I read one interesting article from my English Writing class. It was about the basic shapes of the face. It said 'The Chinese believe that there are eight basic shapes of the face, and each shape shows a special character.' Hmm.. Interesting, isn't it?

Actually, Koreans tend to quite easily believe in physiognomy things. There was even a movie about it 2 years ago. The title was 'Gwan-sang' which means physiognomy in Korean.

[Poster of the movie 'Gwan-sang']

The most interesting paragraph of the article was 

: Square faces usually belong to men, but women can also have them. Men with this kind of face are good at making decisions and keeping to them. They are generous and honest. They put their friends first in everything. Both men and women with square faces are lucky and live a long life.

- from Weaving It Together 2 by Milada Broukal

On the last sentence of the paragraph, it says 'Both men and women with square faces are lucky and live a long life.' So some people were born luckier than others it says, right? There was also a question about it in the book. So I've thought about it and made an answer. Here they are.

Q. Do you believe in luck? Do you believe that some people are naturally luckier than others? Why or why not?

A: I know there Are some days when I feel especially good in the morning starting a new day. But I don't exactly believe in luck. And I don't think there are some people who are naturally luckier than others either. The reason why these kinds of theories came out is there are certainly some people who can make their days seem to be lucky, I think. Some people were born optimistic and they don't care much about little troubles which van be happening everyday. So maybe other people think these optimistic people are lucky because it looks like their things are working out well. But actually, the truth is they get their things worked out well without planning. So eventually, it's less about being lucky, but more about personality.

I enjoyed reading that article and it was fun to answer the question above. :)

Speed Dating / 스피드데이트 / スピードデート

Grace from Korea here.

Speed Dating

Have you ever heard the word 'speed dating' ? I've never heard that word before, until today when I got to watch one interesting video.

Speed Dating Tips

* Language Learning

Out of the box : think about something, or how to do something, in a new, different or creative way

Rattling on : to talk quickly and for a long time about something that is not important or interesting

Rattle something off : to say or repeat something from memory, quickly and without any effort

Mingle : talk to people, talk to friends

Get along with : have a good relationship with

So.. It's for people who live in big city, have busy life. With their busy life, their work is so busy and their social life is so busy because there are so many options and things to do. As a result, it's actually really hard for them to find someone whom they want to spend rest of their life with.

Speed dating is fun, fast and efficient to meet people by just one night out ! Interesting !

Thanks to Jeff, my professor who made this interesting paper of questions, my classmates and I looked into this paper and tried to act like we were in speed dating place.

So, here are some interesting questions.

- What did you do last weekend?

- What kind of music do you like?

- What kind of movies do you like?

- What do you do for fun?

- What book are you reading at the moment?

- What makes you happy / sad / angry?

- Are you more of a city or country person?

- What is your dream job?

-What are you most passionate about?

- Are you night owl or an early bird?

- What song best sums you up?

- If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

- What would be your ideal holiday destination?

- What makes you laugh?

- What is your favorite takeout meal?

After looking into that paper, my classmates and I were pretending we were in a speed dating place ! And we recorded. 

1. Speed dating with Sera

with Sera, we had something in common which was we both had been in Australia as a working holiday ! As soon as we found something in common, it was easy to keep our conversation going.

2. Speed dating with Jaehee

With Jaehee, since he was a boy whom I really met for the first time, it was kind of awkward at the beginning. But thanks to the paper (lol), we asked a few questions to each other and it was informative.

3. Speed dating with Jihyun

With Jihyun, it was easy to keep talking thanks to her who tried to give me extra information. I had a fun time to talk to her :)

I don't know whether I will be doing speed dating someday or not, but I thought it can be fun one night out activity to meet people in busy life.

So ! If you are interested in speed dating, why don't you keep those questions in your mind? :) It will help you to be relaxed as preparing your own answers too !

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish / 계속 갈망하라, 늘 우직하게 / ハングリーであれ、馬鹿であれ

Grace from Korea here.

Hello :) I brought a very inspiring video to introduce to you today.

It's a video of speech of the late Steve Jobs at Stanford Commencement in 2005.

He was the CEO and co-founder of Apple. But I felt that he was hungry and foolish like nobody. You will get to know what I mean. Let's see the video first.

Link to the same speech video without English subtitle

There are 3 points of what he's talking about.

1. About Connecting the Dots

He dropped out of Reed College after his first 6 months because he couldn't see the value in it. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life and no idea how college was going to help him to figure it out. So he decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. Even though he had no dorm room and had to walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week, he was happy to follow his curiosity. Because he had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, he decided to take a calligraphy class that he was fascinated by. At that time, that was not practical and not helpful to his application. But ten years later, when he was designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to him. Mac was the first computer with beautiful typography.

 He said that we can't connect the dots looking forward; we can only connect them looking backwards, that we have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in our future, that we have to trust in something - gut, destiny, life.. He said that believing in the dot connect down the road will give us the confidence to follow our heart even when it leads us off the well-worn path and that would make all the difference.

2. About Love and Loss

He said he was lucky that he found what he loved to do early in his life. He started Apple with Woz in his parents' garage when he was 20. As the worked hard, in 10 years Apple had grown to a $2-billion company with over 4,000 employees. But when he had just turned 30, he got fired. What had been the focus of his entire adult life was gone and it was devastating, he said. But it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to him. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed him to enter one of the most creative periods of his life. 

During the next five years, he started a company name NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with his wife. Well.. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. And Apple bought NeXT, he returned to Apple. He said 'Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle'. How important thing is that..!

3. About Death

About a year before that speech, he was diagnosed with cancer. His doctor hold him that it was almost certainly a type of cancer which is incurable, and that he should expect to live no longer that three to six months. After that, on some day he needed to get a few cells from the tumor. And when doctors viewed the cells under a microscope, it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. He had the surgery and he was cured. Through that experience, he got to think that time is limited, so it's wasting time to live someone else's life. He said 'Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition ; they somehow already know what you truly want to become'.

There was a publication called The Whole Earth Catalog which was created by Stewart Brand when Jobs was young. On the back cover of the publication's final issue, there was a photograph of an early morning country road. Beneath it were the words : " Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish " And he said he has always wished that for himself. Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.

Best sentence I was touched by is :

☞ Remembering that I am going to die is the best way to avoid the trap of thinking I have something to lose. I am already naked. There is no reason not to follow my heart.

And I want to ask few questions to you.

1. Are you happy what you are doing? Are you worried about how it's going to be?

2. Do you have any single quotes that keeps you look forward?

Actually I've always been taught from my mother to live my own special life, to follow my heart, not to care too much other people's opinion and that the only thing I can trust is God. So I'd thought I'd been confident with the things I'd been doing until I watched that video. It made me think for quite a long time. And it turned out I was not not 100% sure to my decisions I was making. I realized that actually, I was kind of faking it to think everything would be alright. 

But that speech of Steve Jobs got me relieve to keep going my own way, think that it's okay not to follow what other people are all doing.

Sometimes, it's hard to believe myself. Sometimes we have doubts like what if my decision I just made was really bad one to my future.. But eventually, it IS okay. As long as you're believing yourself, the dots will be connected somehow and make your life just perfect.

I hope you all really enjoyed watching it. And I want to tell you that living your own life is really amazing and beautiful thing. So keep it going and don't stop believing yourself ! :)

Words Inside of You :) / 내 안의 한마디 / 自分の中の一言

Grace from Korea here.

[English]

Hi :) how have you been? It's been 3 months.. is it? So busy winter holidays had finished and new journey has started ! yay

I was doing 'camp counselor' at Kijang Junior English Camp during the holidays. I had lots of fun and made great memories with lovely kids from Kijang. I'll let you know about more details on other posts ! And I went to few of Christian conferences, retreats. So it's been busy ; I'm kind of making excuses of posting nothing during holidays..haha :p

Now I feel so good and I'm ready to be on board on this new journey. :)

Okay. I want to talk about 'Words Inside of You'.

But first, I want you to watch this short video.

A Wall of Words !

This video is about Quotes people wrote and shared. My professor 'Jeff' showed this video to our class. It was very impressive. I want to share few Quotes I was impressed by from this video to you.

- May you live as long as you love and love as long as you live.

- Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.

- You are never fully dressed without a smile.

One women from this video said 'They(words we're holding onto) internally reflect who we are and the should shape our actions.'. and I totally agree with her.

Do you have your own quotes you're holding onto? that you get strength from? that make you feel strong ?

I actually like the Quote 'Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle' a lot. Just like this quote, I can always be happy if I light a candle instead of cursing the circumstances and situations. I'll try to keep this in my mind.

Please share with me if you have your own Quotes,

and let's get those words shape our actions ! :D

[Korean]

안녕하세요~! 잘들 지내셨나요? 3개월만이에요~ :) 

바빴던 겨울방학이 끝나고 새로운 여정이 시작됐어요. 여러분들은 어떤 위치에 서 계신가요?

저는 겨울방학동안 기장군이 후원하고 부산외대가 주최하는 기장군 어린이 꿈나무 영어캠프에서 생활교사로 일했어요. 아이들과 즐거운 추억 많이 만들고 정말 좋은 시간 보냈네요. 영어캠프에 관한건 또 다른 포스트에서 자세히 말씀드릴게요! 그리고 그 후에는 교회 수련회와 집회들을 다녀왔어요. 굉장히 바쁜 시간들이었어요. 그리고 지금!! 새로운 여정을 시작할 준비가 되어있습니다 :D 굉장히 기분이 좋네요.

오늘은 'Words Inside of You'.. 한국어로 번역하면 '내 안의 한마디' 정도가 될까요? 내가 생각하고 붙잡고 있는 한 줄 씩에 대해서 이야기해보고 싶어요.

먼저, 밑의 비디오를 봐주셨으면 해요!

A Wall of Words !

이 비디오는 사람들이 공유하고 적어 본 인용구에 관한 것이에요. 제프라는 제 교수님께서 수업시간에 보여주신 비디오인데, 굉장히 감명깊었어요. 이 비디오에서 나온 쿼트(인용구;한마디)들을 몇개 나누고 싶어요.

- May you live as long as you love and love as long as you live.

사랑하는 동안 살며, 살아가는 동안 사랑하라.

- Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.

어두움을 탓하기 보다는 빛을 밝혀라.

- You are never fully dressed without a smile.

'미소'가 없이는 완전히 차려입은 것이 아니다.

그리고 비디오에서 나오는 한 여성분이 이런 말씀을 하셨죠. "이 말들은 내면적으로 우리가 누구인지를 반영하며, 우리의 행동들의 바탕이 된다" 굉장히 공감가는 말이에요.

여러분들은 여러분만의 '한마디', 지금 붙잡고 있는, 힘을 얻는, 그로인해 강해지는 '한마디'가 있나요? 사실 '어두움을 탓하기 보다는 빛을 밝혀라'라는 말이 굉장히 맘에 와닿아요. 정말 이 말 그대로, 상황과 환경을 탓할 시간에 불을 밝힌다면 전 항상 행복할 수 있으니까요. 계속 마음에 담아두려고 노력해야겠어요!

만약 여러분만의 한마디가 있다면 저와 공유해주세요!

그리고 이 말들이 우리의 행동을 만들어가도록 노력해봐요 우리 :D

[Japanese]

お久しぶりです!元気でしたか？３ヶ月ぶり･･･ですよね？忙しかった冬休みが終わって、新しい旅程が始まりました！

私は冬休みの間、機張郡が後援し、釜山外国語大学が主催した「機張郡ジュニアーイングリッシュ・キャンプ」の生活教師として働きました。子供たちとの楽しい思い出をたくさん作り、本当に居心地のいい時間を過ごしました。キャンプに関してはまた別のポストでお話させていただきます。そのあとは教会の修練会、集会などを行ってきました。すごく忙しかったです。そして今、新しい旅をする準備が出来ています！すごく幸せです。

今日は 'Words Inside of You'.. 訳すると '自分の中の一言' 程度ですかね…

自分が想っていて、握っている一言について話してみたいと思います。

その前にまず、したのビデオをご覧になっていただきたいです。

A Wall of Words !

このビデオはみんなが心の中で想っている一言を分かち合ってくれたのですが、「ジェフ」という私の大学の先生が授業中に見せてくださったビデオです。すごく印象深くて、このビデオからの一言をみなさんにも紹介させていただきたいと思います。

- May you live as long as you love and love as long as you live.

愛している瞬間を生きて行き、生きている間に愛せよ。

- Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.

暗闇のせいにするより、キャンドルをつけよう(光を照らそう）。

- You are never fully dressed without a smile.

微笑が私たちのスタイルを完成させる。

そしてビデオからの一人の女性がこんなことを言っています。「この一言たちは内面的に私たちが誰なのかを反映し、私たちの行動の土台になる。」すごく共感的な言葉だと思います。

皆さんは、皆さんの一言、ただ今握っている、力が貰える、そのおかげで強くなれる「一言」がありますか。実は私は、「暗闇のせいにするより、光を照らそう。」という言葉がすごく心を打ちました。本当にこの言葉通りに、状況と環境を憎む前に光を照らそうと努力すれば私は幸せになれるものですもんね。心の仲に刻んでおいて、これからも覚えておこうとー。

もしみなさんもみなさんの「一言」があれば、私と共有してください。

そしてその一言が私たちの行動の土台になれるように、がんばりましょうね。:D