From the very moment I was walking on dark-hided street, smelling like piles of garbages of fish' I could see some features shivering with tears and doing something. I felt  afraid, but cautiously moved my feet toward them. It liiked they were crouching near the trash cans. I suddenly felt betterflies on my stomach and not knowing that I was also shivering, finally I came infront of the creature. With my cold gifid hand, I hesitately found my flashlight in my pocket. As soon as I was trying to lit the light, one woman shouted "Boys!!! Time for dinner!". Two boys suddenly jumped out with lots of dusts in their hands. Relieved, I continued walking, going deeper and deeper through the dark. Now I regret it. 'Damn, my betterflies are moving crazy in my stomach.; What they were eating weemed to be awesome. It reminded me of Michelin restaurant I've went yesterday. But, the more I approached to their meal, I could do nothing but vomit a bit.I felt so weak. I needed help. Luckly, there was hospitaljust 5 meters away. I walked in, and old manwas sitting at the center. Please..... My stomach hurt so much... But he replied "Get out. It's closed." "But sir.... Please give me at least some sort of treatment..." "None of my business. Shoo!". So here I am, painfully wrinching my stomach, desperatly needing help, shivering on the road. My situation reminded me of the two boys earlier. It feels so lonely and isolated in this society. I need someone to lean on. But there was a stray cat. It looked at me with its glowing tabby eyes, and then walked to a narrow alley with its tail in the air, and runs into dark-hided street. At themoment, I just followed the cat. Without any consiousness, bewareness, but I chased the cat like a gashhawk. Then, I realized I was in the middle as the street. But there was nothing on it. It was dark, gloomy, with some trashes.
Then I woke up. It was a dream.

                                              Episode 4: "Carlos doesn't remember"

In the podcast “Carlos doesn’t remember”, it shows our depressing education system and reality. It tosses several vital questions on why the students who are really smart cannot be developed more than their present  situations. Gladwell brings the concept of ‘capitalization’ to explain our society’s situation.

 As he explained about Carlos’ tragic environment, I wondered what is to be a privileged person. I believe to be a privileged person or born in a poor family is not about individual situations nor luck. I think it is a natural cruel cycle that every society has to try to solve the problems through it. Even though Carlos had tremendous talents, he couldn’t go where he could and really wanted to go because he had to take care of his sister and his mother forced him not to go.

Actually, when I was in middle school, since I lived in a rural area, I could observe many tragic situations such as Carlos, but I thought my friends’ situations were worse, nor because of the financial problems, but they were just losing hope and don’t know that they have the superb potential deep inside them. I tried to persuade them to develop themselves and open a larger door for new opportunities, however they were just thoughtless on how smart there were. They were just thinking about how to earn more money and how they can support their families. While talking with them, it was a disaster. The thing that I got shocked the most about was that their parents were being proud and abetting their children to close the door which can lead them to unbelievable, unreachable opportunities. I could see  Carlos inside them, and I felt aghast when I wondered how many students who are really smart but can’t fully spread their wings of opportunity. A student like Carlos in Korea, it’ll be the same but may be worse. There are lots of smart and talented students in the world and just medium high class students, but what I see in Korea, the ones who are really smart are vanishing with lack of hope but the others are being more supported because they can achieve better and more sophisticated education through money. I think education has an endless about of magic that can alter mostly everything in the society, but the societies that aren’t affording and supporting on those superb students seemed unfair and wasteful.

As Malcom Gladwell states at his podcast, I believe capitalization force is really important in the society and I think it increases exponentially when it comes to the students like Carlos getting full support. Our present society is still too dark to brighten the students’ potentials which are also related to the society’s potential. Especially in Korea, what I really got shocked was that the difference of amount in education between the rich and the poor is tremendous. In middle school, I have almost never been to private academies because nobody was going, but when I came to high school, all students were attending private academies all weekends, bit the differences were larger than I thought it would be. The financial burden kept increasing, even though I knew my parents can’t afford me lots of academies costs much, they kept sending me because everyone who are placed in upper class(of money) were going private.

I think Korea has more severe problem on capitalization and tragic fundamental problems on education.

            My thoughts after listening to episode 3: The big man can't shoot

 

All people live together, interact each other and influence as they communicate. Every people live in their individual lives and as time goes they become more ignorant to each other.

However, we should look at our inner conscience which differs when we are with other people.

When I was in middle school, I was passing the severe times thinking that everyone is looking at me. I was a very energetic and bright student who wants to make other people laugh a lot, but one time , one friend of mine told me that “you look so funny when you sprinkle your nose and laugh.”. I just laughed with my friend’s word, but then I went to the restroom, standing in front of the window and made a smiley face. When I looked at my face, it was so ugly and I could barely look at my face. After that time, I had an extreme horror in my mind of watching at all kinds of materials that can reflects my face and also I really hated to take a picture and see my face. When I had to go to the supermarket, I often wore a mask and those kinds of acts slowly changed my personality. The person who always laughed a lot and often get scolded by the teachers, became very quiet and a passive person. One time, the way my mom and I was heading to the hospital, we were waiting for the elevator. Especially, that day my mom was staring at my face for a long time with a strange face, so I asked why she was looking at my face so closely. She answered, “ I thought your nose was a little higher than now, and why are your eyes too small. It will be fine when you grow and get some slight surgeries. haha “. I was angry so angry that I didn’t recognize that I felt the deep anger in my heart, but meanwhile I was embarrassed and hurt by her single words. From those scars, I began to think what other people look and think of me and I used to try to fit inside them just following what they are saying. Now, I overcame those kinds of wounded scars however, sometimes those memories evoke me and give me fear. I believe not only for my previous cases, most of the people would have the memories that they should consider others than keeping what they really feel and want. Also in the revisionist history podcast, although the basket players could gain more scores by throwing underhand, because of the peer pressure that they feel from the other people’s sight, they didn’t choose to use the method. Then, in our daily lives, what gives us the power or courage to overcome the peer pressure? In the podcast, Malcom Gladwell suggests the concept of the threshold of each people.

In my very own personal thoughts, I think overcoming the peer pressure depends on each individual’s mind not on the surroundings. I think it is important to consider the priority of their own actions and they always check and compare the costs between their own personal acts that they want to take and the amount of pressure they feel from others. If the person considers about how people think about him or herself, the person can never overcome the peer pressure.

Eventually, the guts and bravery to do what they really want advent from the subtle change and movement of their minds. In my case, just telling myself that I am a valuable person no matter others say actually helped me a lot to think like that and it changed my mind. Those change of mind led to the changes of my actions, personality and inner confidence.  The fear and the potentials to get over and to break the walls coexist inside every people, however to overcome it or just to follow what other says depends on each effort to alter their minds.