Sangcheol's Diary Podcast_상철의 일기

Today is June 16, 2016. Thursday.

Which language is the most difficult to speak or write ?

It seems to me that it is my mother tongue.

That does not mean that I cannot speak Korean. I am a native Korean and Korean is my native language.

But as I grow older, I realize that it becomes more and more difficult for me to speak and write with Korean.

I always have many thoughts going on in my head but it is not easy for me to express myself cleary with writing or speaking.

This problem will be with me until the end of time.

Today is June 15, 2016. Wednesday.

On the way home from the office, I gotten on the wrong bus.

Basically I take a walk from the train station to my house but today I was in wrong bus which took me far away from my house.

So I had to walk back and it took about 10 minutes.

While walking back to my house, I realized how important daily routines. Every morning I did not pay attention to the bus number and took any bus to the train station. That was my daily morning routine. That led me to the wrong bus this evening.

Small thing is not always small. It is the root of big thing.

Today is June 14, 2016. Tuesday.

As an old Chinese proverb says, there is only foolish king that make the country turn into turmoil. That means that if the foolish king has power, the country must face a lot of difficulties and perish.

In a democratized society, I do not need a strongman or dictator. What I want to see everyday on the TV screen is a President who acts in a rational way and leads our country to the future not the past.

Current President' remaining term is a year and a half. It is too long.

Today is June 13, 2016. Monday.

There are a lot of cable television channels in Korea. Among them, JTBC is my favorite one.

The reason I like to watch JTBC is very simple. JTBC is different from other channels.

Especially JTBC news room which is JTBC’s main news program, is very popular in Korea.

Most of Koreans love to watch JTBC news room because it has its own voice. It tells a story that other channels do not want to tell or are afraid of telling it due to the pressure of the government.

Its reporter or anchor’s reporting is not only correct but also rich in content. I think that it is a high quality news program which is seldom to find in Korea.

Although JTBC news room’ s broadcasting hours is 80 minitues every day, it seems always short to me.

Today is June 12th, 2016. Sunday.

Riding a bicyle with my spouse on weekends or holidays is one of my favorite hobbies.

After having a small brunch on the morning of Saturday or Sunday, I go to the bicycle road located Ara waterway near Geomam train station.

As usual, yesterday and today afternoon I went to there with my wife and rode almost four hours. Riding a bicycle is one of the most simple ways for me to clear my head and loosen the stress built up during the week.

During the riding, I talk to my spose this and that happened during the week and hear her opinions.

After riding, I feel a little bit tired. But I feel myself fully charged up every Monday morning.

Today is June 11, 2016. Saturday.

One of my collegues, Mr. Lee Kuhee was dead yesterday morning due to a heart-failure.

When I was working at other department fifteen year ago, I came to know about him. As far as I know, he was quiet and nice and always made everybody comfortable. Althought he was three years older than I, he treated me as a collegue. He was a man with manners and respect for collegues.

A few years ago, he completed his doctorate degree in civil aeronautics law while working at company. He also published his book last year.

I was so sorry to hear that he passed away. He left too early.

I pray for the repose of his soul.

Today is June 10th, 2016. Friday.

This evening two news grabbed my attention. One is Ehang's world first passenger drone's planned testing and the other is new atomic element 'Nihonium'.

Ehang is a name of Chinese company which unveiled a passenger drone at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas in January this year.

According to the news, Ehang's first passenger drone finally cleared for testing in Nevada and scheduled to begin testing later this year, working together with Nevada State in USA.

I think that future is not on the movie screen but comes from Ehang.

When I was in high school, I once tried to memorize the periodic table.The periodic table is a tabular arrangement of the chemical elements ordered by the atomic number.

Although it is difficult for students to memorize it, it holds significant meaning in scientific history. Furthermore, it is very difficult to find a new element and add it to the periodic table officially. One of Japanese scientists, who led the discovery team, Mr. Kosuke Morita finally made it for the first time in Asia.

Many Koreans do not like Japan but I think that we should appreciate Japanese' style in scientific research area.

Advances comes from technology and science, not from hate speech.

There was a news on the television this evening about a death of 29 years ago.

It was about Mr. Lee Han-yoel, who was dead 29 years ago. He was killed after being shot by police during the anti-government demonstration in 1987. In those days, police used tear gas bomb to the people participating the anti-governement demonstration.

As an university student, Mr. Lee attended the demonstration in June 9th, 1987 and was shot by tear gas bomb. Unfortunately it directly hit his head and he got seriously injured right after that and was dead some days later.

At that time, he was only 21 years old.

Someone said that he was killed by military dictatorship, not only by tear gas bomb.

Even though 29 years have passed after his death, I think that Korean society has not changed very much.

Military dictatorship has not gone yet.

Furthermore daughter of the former dictator is still in power.

I will be sleepless tonight.

Today is June 8th, 2016. Wednesday.

There are two teachers who have greatly influenced to me. One is Mr. Leo Babauta and the other is Mr. Luke Thompson.

Leo is American and Luke is British.

Basically they are not my teachers who taught me at school.

But I was much more affected by these two masters’ websites.

Ever since I had read an article mentioned Leo’s website http://www.zenhabits.net, I became a big fan of him and got to know of the simplicity and the notion of letting go.

Luke made me open my eyes that British English is also existing and made me realized that British English is also beautiful.

Through his website http://teacherluke.wordpress.com and his podcast Luke’s English Podcast, I am learning a lot of Britain and its culture.

Today is June 7th, 2016. Tuesday.

I thought today that how powerful and how beautiful a poem might be.

I read some poems of a korean poet and nun, Lee Hae-In last week but I still got the good feeling from the poem until today.

Her poem is made of simple and plain language but its meaning is very deep and makes me think many things.

Her poem is also very beautiful and it touches many people’s heart.

Someday if I could, I would like to translate it into English.

And if there is anyone who wants to learn Korean language, I can say to them that her poem is the first and most suitable text to learn by heart.