The most valuable possession, My Diary

If someone asks me what my most valuable possession is, then I will answer to this question that is my diary. That’s because my diary is containing all my memory of childhood, school life, some special reminiscences, and even hard time that I went through. As I read my diary again, it reminds me of some wonderful recollections and makes me indulge in my reminiscence. Otherwise, I used to regret about something wrong at that time in the past, and then assure not to do like that again and seek for another solution for the future. Therefore, my diary has functioned as mirror of my life which is past and will go on.

Since I was elementary school student, I used to write a diary everyday. That’s why I have kept all diaries from primary school diaries to up-to-date ones. Sometimes I take out old diaries in the back of a drawer and read through, and then I suddenly realized that I have grown up than before. Like treasure, I carefully keep them in the safe place. Until now on, I do write diary everyday in order to leave my thinking, attitude toward objects, and what happened at the moment. To make memory elaborate, I prone to attach souvenirs like photo, ticket or pamphlet and so on. After a long time past, it makes me to reflect on the past described on my diary. Besides it gives me the power from good memory and some clues to sort out the problem I face up to.

Therefore I’ve been making another diary as my possession with writing diary everyday. It must be my young life reminiscence as well in the future.

War Memorial in North Terrace

If we walk along the North Terrace footpath, towards the Adelaide Railway Station, we would find a bing monument on the nothern corner of Kintore Avenue. This is called the Great War monument, or the Shrine of Remembrance. This monument was built for those who fell in the First Great War, from 1914 to 1918. The names of the South Australia soldiers, air force men and women and sailors from the Royal Australian navy are included on the monument.

Looking at the monument, we can see a huge figure, standing with its back to the wall and holding a sword, shaped as a cross, in the centre. There is also a 3-person group standing in front of that figure. As is stated on the South Australian tour organization website, the figure within the arch represents the Spirit of Duty, and the sword un the hands of the figure symbolizes battle and sacrifice. Moreover, the three people in the group stand as a symbol to the youth of the community who are offering a sacrifice. The members of the group are the student, the farmer, and the girl.

Furthermore, behind this monument, at the back of this monument, there is another similar monument but it has a different figure and fountain. The design features a crypt inside the monument, as a memorial to those who died, with bronze honor rolls lining the walls. These contains the names of the 5,511 men from Adelaide who fell during the First World War. Therefore, if you go into the crypt, you can see engraved names on the wall.

The memorial is made of massive marble, granite, and bronze. The firm S.D. Tillet Memorials Ltd was the contractors of the monument. This memorial is named the "Spirit of Sacrifice", and was designed by Woods, Bagot, Jory and Laybourne-Smith.

In 1919, the state government decided that South Australia needed a memorial to commemorate the Victory of the Great War(1914-1918). That is why the committee held an architectural competition to choose this monument's design. The designs for the memorial were completed by December 16 in 1926. Finally, the monument was unveiled on April 25th in 1931, to a lot of public applause and celebration. Therefore, it has stood in the same place as a memorial to the sacrifice of many from this community in the Great War.

When we look around this special place, we can feel a solemn sense of purpose and a sorrow for the victims. It gives us the opportunity to think about the peace achieved through fighting and war, and also allows us the chance to consider celebrating a time of living without any wars.

On April 25th each year, Anzac Day services are held here beginning at 6 am. Thousands of people come and stand in silence waiting for the Dawn Service to begin, to commemorate the fallen and to remember those who have died in wars in the past. It is quite a spectacular public monument. Hence, it will be a very important part of Adelaide's heritage for generations to come.

Patience Training through my parcel delivery

As I look back on the last 3 weeks in Adelaide, I am reminded that it is always cold here, because of the weather and that I am now without my winter jacket. I was especially looking forward especially to my parcel's arriving here from Korea during over the last few weekdays. My mother sent the parcel in on June 5th so it was supposed to be delivered to my homestay house untilone day last weekday. The weather was getting colder and colder but I had no winter jacket, so I felt cold as well as lonely in Adelaide. This is quite a tough time for me to endure the adjustment to the weather and every environment of here.

Where is my parcel?

On last Tuesday, I could find out where my parcel was. It was delivered to Sydney at the first, but the searching program said that my parcel couldn't pass through Australian custom so stuck in there. That's why I was really worrying about my parcel. Because It was very important things than every problem I had. So I attemped to search my parcel by sending E-mail to Custom, calling to Australian post call centre, and visiting to postoffice with my parcel No. But Everything was impossible to look for pathways of my parcel. Everyone I contacted said to me to wait for a few days and then try to find again. For me, I used to try to solve the problem I face up at the time, so always I could work out a problem. However, it seems that everything is impossible to solve. I was frustrated at my endeavor to find out.

Surprise! Surprise!

Suddenly I realized that it is a sort of training of patience. I usually don't wait for everything what I expected and attempted to know everything. This my habits has two sides. It's very good attitude to find out wondering in education and business situation, but it makes me feel much stressful by myself. Because I'm worried about something too much unnecessarily. That's why it made me exhausted.

However, I was going back to home on last friday. On the way to home, I decided to wait until next weekday. I didn't expect this surprise event. So I didn't go into my room just after back home. I went straight to Kitchen and took a rest. My host mother came in, then said to me that your parcel was coming! I could find it in front of the door!.What a surprise!!! I was just happy, felt that today is the wonderful day during a month in Adelaide.

After this happening, I thought that I need patience to wait for a while and not to be hurry too much. Now I feel warm enough and no more lonely. Thanks God for giving me training of patience!

Making Our Community Compatible

We usually belong to several communities and try to live together in harmony. Humans are social animals so we cannot live alone. That is why we have to coexicst with different people. However, living with people from different backgrounds makes it little bit hard to understand the differences.

Neverthless these days, society is composed of different people having different backgrounds, their own living environment, identity, culture, experience and values. We should live together, and then what should we do? These are the most important points about living together in a community.

Firstly, we must respect the diffeerences without pre-conceived ideas. In my case, I have met an erogant and exclusive person who ignores the different people and just belives oneself. When I met this person, I felt very uncomfortable to being with her. The difference is not a matter of right or wrong, but just different. We each have our own colors like characteristics that can be a difference. Even if some colors look strange or beautiful, it just someone's opinion. Therefore, we shouldn't dislike a person just because of their characteristics but respect the difference.

Secondly, we should try to find someone's strengths rather than their weaknesses. In Korea, there is a proverb that says "It's easy fo find someone's tiny bit, but it's difficult to discover our own big problem". That means we usually quickly discover little weakness of other people's rather than their good points. That is why it is easier to quickly assess and dislike someone else rather than like them. However, if we try to look for strengths we may find out, we could actually have many things in common with that.

This is the first step to get on with each other in a community or in society as a whole. By respecting other and lokking for that person's strong point instead of their weaknesses, we could relate better with each other better in our community. In addition, we can find happiness through community relationships. Hence, with positive thinking and looking for a person's strengths, social harmony within each comunity is possible and probable. I believe this is positive step towards better understanding and acceptance within a diverse, multi-cultural group of people.

Chusok, Korean Harvest Festival

Chusok is one of the biggest holiday in Korea. It is 15th August in Lunar Calender. We usually get average 3 day-holiday for Chusok. Chusok is similar to Western Thanksgiving day.

Early on this morning Korean perform an ancestor worship ritual with food made of new crops, thank to ancestor for giving harvest and pray for good fortume. However nowadays It has been changed. Christianity spreaded out to Korea, There are lots of Christian. That's why they have own chiristianity style ancestor worship. In my house, we have different way to perform.

Usually In Chusok, All family members gather together who have lived separately to their hometown or the first brother's house. So we could ask how you are, and talk about some topics in own family. Thesedays It's quite difficult to visit each other if they don't live closely. In fact, some families could meet each other once or twice in a year because of their busy business. To be honest, My family also couldn't go to my grandmother's house on Chusok, because my father's shop was too busy.

Anyway, we have some games for fun, these are see-saw, Kang-gansulle(country circle dance under the full moon) for women. However, It's kind of traditional games so we don't do this thesedays. Instead of this, we just do some board games which is more familiar with us. As time went by, It went through lots of changes.

During my time in Adelaide, there is chusok in September. I'd like to visit my grandmother's house and look around my cousin's house in east-southen Korea. But I can't. It's little bit sad not to go there, but instead of that I'm looking for some festival in Adelaide and I'll enjoy that :)