Hello, everyone! My name is Park Sun Woo, and I am the new Writing Tutor for Class 9,10,15, and 16. Hope you enjoy GLPS :)

30 Days Synthesis Essay

We have seen several problems in society: disparity between rich and poor and disparity in understanding others. However, we have focused much more on problems, not on solutions. Since the solutions are not complete in our society, we are facing several problems. In the synthesis essay, I will focus on finding several solutions which are plausible.

Rich to support the Poor

This is the movie trailer "The Blind Side". The movie perfectly shows how rich should support the poor. Supporting the poor is not a burden. It is a small duty for the rich to support the ones who are not able to support their daily life.

One economist Jang Ha-jun proposed a way not to kick out the ladder: through his book kicking out the ladder, the economist proposed the responsibility of the rich to support the poor. Therefore, we can find one plausible solution from relationship between the rich and the poor.

Understanding others

Maybe the teacher and the student was not able to understand each other. However, this video shows a solution how to understand others: to view the past. Many people do not find situations or opportunities to look back at their actions. Through this filmed video the people will have much more possibility in understanding other's opinions and cases

An Ode to KMLA Orchestra

Dear KMLA Orchestra

Hear I came to confess, not to make you happy or disappointed. Here I came to tell you what I had felt. Here I came to spread a memory – the two years I have walked with you. I had always wondered what the verse “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, How I Wonder What You Are” means to my life. It was not a piano – I could reach it within my fingers. It was not KMLA – I am now enjoying my life as KMLA student. It was you. You have been a star beyond my reach, but within my heart, on the night sky. Two years ago, I had a dream. I had a dream that I would become the only pianist to see you clearly shining in the dark creamy sky. Other students also had the same dream: to see you and to reach you. But, you gave a harsh and bitter ray to us. You had believed that there should be only one pianist to observe you. So, you were merciless and cruel to save only one person and to blind the rest. Luckily I was selected as the survived. However, I was hurt, heart-breaking, and disappointed by your cruelty and agonies of the blinded.

Still clutching the disappointment, I went on to observe you. I met the other survivors who had different talents. Most of them played violins or cellos. Some played flute or viola: but, there were no clarinets who survived. Luckily, there were seniors and sophomores who had experienced the shattering rays beforehand. For the first few months, you were brightly shining. The head observer, a 13^th waver, gave us several telescopes different in length and accuracy. Sometimes I observed you dancing the waltz when I saw you from the telescope “Shostakovich Waltz no.2”. I often saw you reading a book silently in a peculiar but magnificent castle whenever I observed you through “Howl’s Moving Castle”. Through the telescope “Requiem”, I observed you grieving, crying on the milky surface of the Milky Way. However, you vanished when I tried to observe you from “Mozart Symphony no.40 1^st movement.” Later it turned out that no observer, even the 13^th waver, knew how to use the telescope. Though I could not reach you, I always remember how you were seen through the lens for the first few months.

2010 Minjok Festival Picture

Oh, KMLA Orhcestra! Please forgive me that I had nearly forgotten you. I cannot deny that I once abandoned the telescopes. As the head observer changed from the 13^th waver to a 14^th waver, we seldom observed you from the telescopes. Only few days before the Minjok festival had we made charts, statistics, and notes on your brightness and your shape. Consequently, our observations exhibited on the Minjok Festival in front of students and teachers showed serious flaws and miscalculations. You were shown as a dim, red star which was fading, fading so drastically second by second. You did not make even a trace of movement. What the audience saw was a sick, pale star glowing dimmer and dimmer until it vanished into the cold night sky. Even right after the Minjok Festival we packed our telescopes into the attic. At first I thought we would observe you again few months after. But sadly, we forgot the telescopes. November passed. December passed. Vacation passed. And new observers from 16^th wavers arrived, expecting to see the “bright star” through the telescopes. I thought at least the head observer will call us to observe you next year. Again, apart from my expectations, February passed. March passed. And April passed away. Without any word, you were forgotten from KMLA.

But, I never forgot to observe you again. I believed that you were still shining bright somewhere else on the night sky. After the haunting mid-term and AP examinations, I called several observers to observe you again. This time I prepared three new telescopes and two old telescopes: “Toy Symphony”, “Libertango”, “Nella Fantasia” were the new ones: “Shostakovich Waltz no.2”, “Howl’s Moving Castle” were the old ones. I was at first scared to observe you for the first time in seven months. I was scared whether you would infuriate upon us, exposing us to the intense ray you throw upon us, and blinding us forever. However, you were benevolent. You slightly showed yourself hidden under the darkness. You did not give us intense ray I received when I observed you for the first time. You gave us warmth and will. You gave us light and life on the dark surface of the earth. You gave us courage and confidence to us as you showed brighter and brighter day after another. As we turned on the telescopes day after day, you slowly rose from the darkness like the sun rising up from the ocean. You changed from a crescent to a semicircle and from a semicircle to a perfect circle. Your light, rather than becoming more intense, became warmer and brighter. You also moved, dancing waltz, shaking a little cute tambourine, or singing a song in the middle of darkness, spreading benevolence to the cold, strict, and merciless world.

2011 KMLA Music Festival

At last, we showed you, a dot of burning gold, in front of the audience – once at the Minjok Festival, and the other at the KMLA Music Festival. Every audience was surprised at your invigorating warmth penetrating into his heart. Yes, you were sometimes faded and distorted because of the intermittently malfunctioning telescopes. However, you were shining brighter than ever. The light you gave us was not a jet of red, a jet of yellow, or jet of blue. It was pure white. Your white light turned the dark silent hall with light and music, invigorating everyone’s heart and sympathy. You were the true gold in front of the audience. Now everyone knows that you are shining brightly on the night sky.

Here, again, I came to confess for the last time. I might have made you happy or disappointed. The thing is, I have bought new telescopes. Maybe these telescopes will not work, but we, as the observers, want to reach you closer and closer. You have captivated my eyes. You have captivated my heart. I and the other observers want to see you dancing and moving again. I want to feel your benevolence and warmth again and again. And I want to give a thread of light to the new observers, who will also be captivated by your benevolence. “Let there be light, and there was light.” You gave me the light, and I remember a thread of harmonizing light.

Your Observer

With Respect, Park Sun Woo

Planning - an Ode to RCT3

Rollercoaster Tycoon 3

I have played this game since 2004, and it is really entertaining!

The video below is a grand park made by one of the players of RCT3

A Little Nightmare Music

A grand performance started from Vienna. The series “Igudesman & Joo” spread across the world like a lark waking up the morning. The first performance was “A little Nightmare Music” held in Vienna, held subsequently in New York City, Los Angeles, Rotterdam, and Milano. Although the audience was small, the cheers were much louder and much vibrant than thousands of people watching a dull and mediocre performance.

1) Performers

8.5/10

The performers of the series “Igudesman & Joo” are very talented and excelling musicians worldwide. Joo Hyung Ki, the pianist, has been performing several contemporary and Neo-romanticism pieces. Grown up in United Kingdom under South Korean parents, the pianist performed as a talented pianist who could drive the audience with passion and emotions. His famous performances include “Saint-Saens The Carnival of the Animals” and “Alla Molto Turca” (The new version of Mozart’s Turkish March).

Aleksey Igudesman is a russian violinist, composer, and conductor. He was born in Leningrad, Russia. Studing at Yehudi Menuhin School in England, he set his career as both violinist and composer. Contemporary critics consider Igudesman as a pioneer of “Classical Music Comedy” – combining classical music with comedy. He is considered as a brave composer to experiment several aspects of music. Some of his compositions have humoristic but sarcastic elements about the society. His famous performances include “Violins of the World” and the “Cyber Conductor for two violins and symphony orchestra.”

2) Pieces

9.5/10

Among the several pieces performed during “A little Nightmare Music”, the 3 pieces “Piano Lesson”, “Rachmaninoff had Big Hands”, and “A Ticket to Ride” put every audience into an entertained feeling and a pondering pose. All 3 pieces focused on two aspects: a serious problem and a creative but ironic solution. The performer encounters with a problem during the performance. Then, the performers show a solution – a solution that is at once entertaining and ironic that the audience laugh, chuckle, and ponder during the performance.

"Piano Lesson" entertainingly portrays the education method of ordinary South Korean musicians. Although the teacher is talented in playing the piano, he is inept in teaching his students. Such lack of devotion in teaching lead to a “tragicomedy”: both the teacher and the student get tired of learning a new piece. The portrayal of the teacher and the students are balanced: the teacher, acting as an extremely arrogant and slightly mental person, and the student, acting as a very nervous and extremely scared child wearing eccentric clothes. The use of musical instruments as a method of education was also inspiring. The use of the bow of the violin to hit the student cast memories of being spanked by teacher among the audience who learned music in a harsh way. However, the performance was so short to be called as a piano lesson. Rather than portraying “a typical day” of the lesson, the performers would have gained much approval if they had performed several days in a row, like “day 1: learning a new song”, “day 2: still learning”, “day 3: tired of learning”. By showing the progress, Igudesman and Joo could have portrayed the misleading lesson much more dramatic and entertaining.

“Rachmaninoff had Big Hands” provides a solution for the pianists who have small hands. There are several incidents in which performers cannot play the notes accurately since the chords are so far apart that they cannot play at once, such as Liszt’s “Apres Lecture de Dante” or Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance no.5”. The solution Igudesman and Joo provides is remarkable: not so many performers would have thought about that solution. The portrayal of the piano performance is also entertaining: the helper who gives the “solution” to the pianist is again wearing eccentric clothes, while the pianist pay almost no attention to the helper who becomes almost breathless to sustain the pianist. I really enjoyed the first narration of the pianist: “Rachmaninoff, Big Hands”. “I am Korean (stated in Korean), Small Hands”. The narration sets the theme of the whole performance, providing both introduction and the conclusion of the performance. Several audiences, on the other hand, lost humor during the performance. Although the solution was a inspiration at first glance, it became another ordinary “solution” as the solution was repeated several times within a 1 minute piece. Maybe the performers should have used the solution less frequently to evoke the special characteristic of the solution.

“A Ticket to Ride” is a hilarious recreation of the Beatles “A Ticket to Ride” into a classical music. Joo performs as both the vocalist and the pianist. Though he makes several mistakes such as singing one note too long or singing voices too high or too low, he manages to sing the pop song with humor and sarcasm. The performance implicitly criticizes the performance of the vocalists who do not sing well. There are several musicians in modern society who performs exceedingly well and who performs extremely badly. The performance moderately mocks those who stood up in stage with great expectations from the audience but ends the performance with disappointment and frustration. The performance also makes adequate contrast between the performer and the narrator. Although the narrator makes several facial expressions showing dismay and shock toward the performance, the vocalist smiles, even shows enthusiasm even though he made devastating mistakes. However, the vocalist could have expressed other mistakes the vocalists make in daily life as well. The mistakes the performers made were limited to three mistakes: too high voices, too low voices, and too long notes. Maybe the performers could have tried several other “mistakes”, such as irregular breaths, wrong chords, wrong notes, and severe blackouts (in which the performer forgets what to sing).

3) Overall

9.0/10

The performance was one of the most hilarious and most thoughtful performances mankind has ever observed. Portraying both humor and sarcasm, Igudesman and Joo provided a new era: that Classical Music can be viewed from different perspectives: that Classical Music is open to everyone: and that Classical Music is humor.

In Class Writing

Only the Lights were shining on the stage. Only the dark was prevalent on the audience. With nervous but fascinating heart, I walked slowly up to the stage in front of the grand piano. From the dark heard a rail of cheering and claps. I sat in front of the piano. My hands, although warm as the bright sunlight, was rigid as a hardened wood.

There in the middle of the forest is a lake which the solitary temple floats on. A master and an apprentice live in the temple, enjoying the beauty of nature and the meaning of life. Then one day, the apprentice does a cruel trick: to tie a stone to a fish, a frog, and a snake. The Master knows everything.

Few months ago I had only seen the others performing the piano in front of a huge audience. However, I could not realize or understand the trembling heartbeat of the performer. Sometimes I was frustrated or disappointed at the mistaken performances. Too nervous to perform in front of the audience, the performers made several mistakes during the performance. Sometimes the whole magnificent piece turned into a nightmare, with the performer drowned in sweat and tears.

Although I encountered with several of those performers, I seldom practiced the piano. Because I was not that interested about my music, I did not have much passion to be indulged into my piece. Now it was my turn to turn the magnificent piece into a horrible mess. My hands were already beginning to stiffen even though I had not started to play the first note of the piece. I was trembling with fear and anxiety.

The Master knew all the things what was going on. The next day he tied a huge stone to the apprentice, demanding the apprentice to untie the stones of the fish, the frog, and the snake. What the apprentice found out was a dead fish, a suffocating frog, and a blood-stained dead snake. The apprentice only cried.

The music started without my intention. I just played the first note, and the other notes came along unconsciously. For the first time I discovered that the music of unconscious was not that pleasant than I had thought. My hands were playing the wrong notes more than hundreds of times. I just begged for the performance to end quickly so that I could rush out of the stage. However, the music did not end that quickly.

After five frightening minutes, the music finally ended. The audience, although disappointed with the disaster I created, gave a literal “formal” applause with no enthusiasm. As soon as I got out from the stage, I rushed to the bathroom and cried silently.

What would happen to the apprentice? What would happen to me? The two experiences the apprentice and I went through were shocking. Both of us were hit on the cold surface of reality. However, there were several people who already anticipated the outcome: in case of the apprentice, the master already knew what was coming: in case of me, my family and my teacher would have known that I would make a big mistake. However, the true value of the experience lies on the development of an individual, not on the harshness of the experience. Through the experience the apprentice learned the importance of life. Through the experience I learned the importance of courage and practice. Would the apprentice and I have learned the valuable lesson if we had not experienced a harsh reality first-hand? I will say no. Even though I encountered such mistakes in the viewpoint of the audience, or through second-hand experience, I could not understand or grasp what was important as a performer to understand. Similarly, the apprentice was constantly exposed to the life of the master. However, he was unable to recognize the importance of life. Therefore, first-hand experience can teach a person much more than exposed to second-hand experiences several times.

Then there arises another question: how intense should the first-hand experience be? Some of the viewers of the movie doubted about the effectiveness of the education method of the master. They claim that the procedure the apprentice experienced was too shocking or too overwhelming that the experience would last to the apprentice as a trauma. However, I think that the education method of the master was inevitable to make a change in the misbehavior of the apprentice. We always realize that it is hard to change the behavior of a person to a right way. Parents often punish their children for wrongdoings to guide their children to a better way. Maybe the apprentice would have done the misbehavior again and again had the master not taken strict measures to him. The master wanted to assure the apprentice not to repeat the same mistake again. Similar to the apprentice, I also went through a harsh experience full of embarrassment and anxiety. Although I subsequently heard from my parents and teacher to practice every day, I did not even go near to the piano. However, the harsh experience at the stage assured me to practice every day at least several minutes: currently I am able to play at least some of the pieces without major mistakes.

Life is the cycle of experiences. How can we realize the essence of life? Through the experience of the death of the fish and the snake, the apprentice realized the importance of life and the enormity of murder. Through the experience on the stage, I realized the importance of practice. Then, is this one experience the end for the apprentice and me? There are still several substantial experiences we have to endure and learn. The essence of life can be only obtained through subsequent experiences. Philosophers in 16th century mentioned about the importance of experience. Since mankind cannot directly pinpoint the essence of a subject, they should encounter several experiments and experiences to reach closer to the essence. Similar to the idea of the philosophers, the movie hint that the apprentice will experience several important events which will give him dramatic changes: such as the marriage with a woman, crime, and the role as the new master. Maybe the time will tell to the one who had experienced so many agonies, happiness in life, tediousness in mundane routine, and sadness at the end of his life. Maybe in middle age the apprentice will be able to acquire the teachings of Buddha. Maybe in adulthood I will be able to discover the characteristic of piano and classical music.

The little but big experience became, is becoming, and will become a cornerstone of discovery for both the apprentice and me.

Evaluation: The Mission

I am going to evaluate the movie: The Mission

I watched this movie in Mr.Ganse's class.

The music and the acting is very impressive, although there were several limitations.