Personal Projects: What I've learned from the Vision Trip - A Mixture of Words

A Mixture of Words

           Name: Kim Ho-Sung A

ID Number: 131048

In the Plane

As the 18^th wavers have successfully enjoyed their vision trips, now it is a fact to say that all KMLAians have experienced the various wonders of the journey. The wonders that we have gone through are individually unique, giving each and every one of us a gift. They say that these gifts are unattainable from the books that we read or the speeches that we hear from a lot of studies. I remember my friends saying that the vision trip had given them the motivational push to study, a broader knowledge of each universities in the U.S. or perhaps that it had really given them vision as the name suggests. These are all awesome gifts, but to me the vision trip gave me a single mixture of words.

 May 10^th, 2013 it was a warm sunny day as the sun was brightening our faces soaking them with its gentle heat. The sky was as blue as you can ever imagine. Basically it was a perfect day to go outside.

That day we had a schedule to visit Princeton University.

Princeton University Ivys

The pictures that came in to my mind are gothic looking buildings, some statues, ivies, and an alumnus. I met the alumnus during the tour campus as we were going to see the house of the president in Princeton. When I was awed by the colorful flowers surrounding the building he came next to me gazing towards somewhere. The depression was etched on his face. So I tapped him on his back and I asked him “You came to a prestigious school achieving one of the highest goals of your life, but you look depressed. Why is that?” He thought for a moment looking up into the clear sky and held out a book. It was his yearbook full of his photos and the events that happened during his school year. He pointed at the corner saying “Read this.”

"There used to be a time, we believe, when we could say who we were. Now we are just performers speaking our parts. The bottom has dropped out - it looks to us like an illusion now, one of those illusions sustained only by the concentrated gaze of everyone in the room. Remove your gaze for but an instant, and the mirror falls to the floor and shatters."

- J. M. Coetzee-

             After reading this I gazed upon his face, curious. He looked straight through my eyes and said with a warm smile on his face “I forgot who I was and I’m losing myself. As we go forward we seem to forget that we are who we are.” Honestly I couldn’t fully understand what he meant. Even now as I gaze upon the little mixture of words I wonder. ‘We are a fragment of ourselves living on to be a whole.’

Watching Upon New York City

This may have come deeply to you or it may have not. It’s important that we as an individual should try to recall the gifts that we had attained from each of our vision trips. Try to remember the things that you felt most deeply to you. It may be the knowledge of each university you went to, the alumni you met or the single most spectacular scene of a particular place. I wish that the vision trip had given you the gift that influenced you in some way. In my case it was the mixture of words. In my friend’s case it was the knowledge of the universities. How about you?

P.S. Photos are all taken from the Vision Trip by ME... ^^