Monday, May 27, 2013

Random Thoughts Five_The Vision Trip Essay for the Minjok Herald



           So I'm here, once again, sitting in front of my computer with nothing to do.
          Well apparently I didn't get to write for The Minjok Herald, so.. I've been a bit depressed last night and stuff. But oh well, it's over. My fault for not putting my best effort into the assignments, I guess. Had too many things to do other than the assignment. The English Conversation speech, the Samuchim practice, blah blah blah. Ehh whatever.
           Well it wasn't like a bad, bad, bad piece of writing, but I agree it was kinda boring all the way. And maybe out of focus, just a bit. I was going out of time when I was wrapping it up, so.. Okay, I admit, I knew when I finished that it was another one of those very common 'oh my god I learned a lot of things in America! So happy!' kinda essay. But I had like 20 minutes till the deadline (it's a pity that they actually extended the deadline for two days afterwards for those who hadn't turned their essays in on time.. oh wow) so yeah.

But still, I feel like posting the essay.
So here you go.

The Start of a New Life

There was a loud rattle as the plane took off, and I was off to America.
Going on a Vision Trip—the first, and the last, school trip in my three high school years, along with some sixty friends of mine—I was thrilled and worried at the same time: thrilled, because after all it was the start of a ten-day freedom from schoolwork; worried, because I wasn’t really sure if the trip was going to be that something I needed.
A Vision Trip to the United States, with all its university campus tours and info-sessions, is generally thought to suit its name well. But in my case, I already had a vision of majoring in biochemistry, of going to Stanford. I had never even thought of other possibilities; it was just there laid out for me, and I wasn’t going to go through all the trouble changing it—which I thought meant that the trip wouldn’t help me much with building up on my life.
It turned out that I was completely wrong in every possible way.
With the universities, I learned that Stanford wasn’t the only one in the world. Swarthmore, Yale, Harvard, and all the others we visited had their own unique characteristics. Swarthmore is located in the middle of a national forest when New York University has all of New York City as its campus. Harvard is full of ancient buildings when MIT is full of modern buildings. Added up, these features form very unique universities, both in academics and in campus life. There were a whole lot of possibilities out there that I just wasn’t seeing.
Outside the universities, I learned everything else—the “life lessons.” Five days into the trip, we happened to pass through Harlem on our way to Columbia. When I was told that we were in Harlem, the first thought that popped up into my head was ‘Whoa wait, hold on, we’re what? Passing through Harlem? You mean the Harlem with all the crimes and stolen cars and worn-out buildings and dark alleys?’ And looking out the window, I realized something was wrong. The real Harlem wasn’t what I had in mind. All that it was different from the other parts of New York was that there were a few more black people walking on the streets. Other than that, it was just the same. I didn’t see any sign of guns, all the cars had totally legal New York plates, and the buildings couldn’t have been cleaner.
Yes, it may be that because I really love crime novels and action movies, which usually make Harlem look like a terrible place, I might have a more distorted preconception of Harlem compared to other people. However, many people do have vague fears of the place. And seeing with my own eyes that the reality is far from what people think was a very fresh experience, something that I’ve never been through before.
Looking back on my experiences in America, it gave me a whole lot of things to think about—my future, my thoughts, everything about my life before the trip. Vision Trip certainly was the something I needed. Without it, I might have gone on with my life just as I was before, thinking the way I always think, acting the way I always act. But now it’s different. I’ll have to cope with a lot of changes in my life from now on, but if they make me a better person, I’ll do it.
So here goes, the all-new Ben Jeon.

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