(10.20.16) UNIT 2: Mini Dialogue Assignment

(10.13.16) UNIT 2: Draft + Final Draft + Reflection

Draft

Being a student is not as simple and as fun as some people may think. There’s always a never-ending pile of homework that must be dealt with every night, and arduous athletic training that must be taken on a constant basis as well. There are some discourses between full time student communities versus student athletic communities, because of their different priorities. I remember struggling throughout high school because juggling my exams with my tournaments wasn’t as easy thing. I traveled throughout different states, and skipped several days of school here and there, just so I can attend my tournaments. I always came home at around 10 in the late evening from practice, and then that’s when I had to start on my schoolwork. There were days when I would come home extra late because I had additional training sessions with my team.

But even though I had to sacrifice so many tears, so many sleepless nights, and so many hours of my days, I was never able to give up on either of these communities. Both of them represented who I was as a whole. My academics were to bolster me in achieving my goal of receiving a degree in Health and Exercise Science to become a sports psychologist. My passion for archery motivated me to earn the highest ranks as possible. I knew they were not easy tasks to accomplish, but both were goals that I wanted to achieve in the long run.


Final Draft
Being a student athlete is not as simple and as fun as some people may think. There’s always a never-ending pile of homework that must be dealt with every night, and arduous athletic training that must be taken on a constant basis as well. There are some discourses between full time student communities versus student athletic communities, because of their different priorities. I remember struggling throughout high school because juggling my exams with my tournaments wasn’t as easy thing. I traveled throughout different states, and skipped several days of school here and there, just so I can attend my tournaments. I always came home at around 10 in the late evening from practice, and then that’s when I had to start on my schoolwork. There were days when I would come home extra late because I had additional training sessions with my team.

But even though I had to sacrifice so many tears, so many sleepless nights, and even a previous musical talent of mine, I was never able to give up on either of these two communities. Both of them represented who I was as a whole. My academics were to bolster me in achieving my goal of receiving a degree in Health and Exercise Science to become a sports psychologist. My passion for archery motivated me to earn the highest ranks as possible. I knew they were not easy tasks to accomplish, but both were goals that I wanted to achieve in the long run. There were always tension in between these two groups. As previously mentioned, archery took a lot of my time. For some reason, my testing schedule for finals were always a weekend or two after one of my tournaments. This brought over so many much conflicts for me because it would make me doubt myself in even participating in the tournament; I didn’t want to end up overloading myself with pounds of stress on my shoulders and fail miserably in both my exams and tournaments. Time management eventually became probably the biggest challenge for me as a high school student. As I slowly adjusted to all the workload that was upon me, I resolved this by studying wherever I can, whether it be in the hour long car drive to practice, or a road/plane ride trip to competitions. Moreover, I was also an active choir student throughout my years in high school. My archery training days would sometimes conflict with my choir performance nights, and so I had to sacrifice one for the other. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t attend both events when they occurred at once.

My team was invited to train with South Korea’s Seoul National Sport University’s archery team. We vigorously trained six hours with them to prepare for an international tournament there.

Tension isn’t necessarily always going to be between two people. As you can see, it can be between two whole groups. These tensions will, unfortunately, always require some sort of sacrifice. At one point, I actually had to let go of one of these communities - not because I wanted to, but because I physically wasn’t able to do both:

In April by the end of my spring break, I was to decide which university to attend after I graduated out of my high school. I was very conflicted between a variety of schools: going out of state to either Texas A&M or Syracuse University, or staying in my home state by attending either University of Pacific or one of the top UC schools. Each school had its own pros and cons, but my main dilemma was regarding whether the school had an archery team or not. The amount of financial aid I was to receive was of course an issue too, but I viewed my archery much more highly than anything else. I wanted to attend Syracuse University, but I knew for a fact that there wasn’t an archery club or team. In the end, however, I ended up on taking up a big risk by attending Syracuse. My family and friends knew by heart that meant the ending of my archery career, but I felt that maybe it could be the possibility of something new as well.

(10.11.16) UNIT 2: Chang Rae Lee's library

Chang Rae Lee’s article, “An Immigrant Thanksgiving” is about his personal experience of celebrating Thanksgiving. He first sets the background setting by describing where his parents are immigrants: “My father and uncle wear the same brow-line style eyeglasses that have not yet gone out of fashion back in Seoul (Lee)”. He continues to mention his childhood memories by bringing up his mother’s hatred for bugs and pests, and “no matter what she does she can’t bar them or kill them, and she’s begun to think the only solution is to move.. (Lee)”. Bringing up korean food, such as kimbap and bulgogi to the dinner table is also one of the highlights throughout the article because it accentuates one of the main differences between the two communities in regards to cuisines: American food vs. Korean food. Thanksgiving was a big special event for him as a child because he didn’t eat much poultry. So the turkey they were planning on eating that night, was going to be one of the few nights that they eat that certain type of cuisine.

After reading this article, I reflected upon the ideas within the tensions between discourse communities. I realized that there will always be some sort of discourse between communities because of the conflicting ideas and cultures.

(10.06.16) UNIT 2: Stanford Stereotypes

We’ve all seen those American classic movies that revolve around high school, like Mean Girls and Grease, where it shows the different cliques: the nerds, the popular girls, and of course the athletic boys. Throughout the years, society has perceived these varsity sports players as dumb jocks. Although this is stereotype isn’t necessarily true, it still has stuck onto everyone’s back of their heads, including the athletes themselves. Unfortunately, this lead to them having a lower academic performance by restraining their true potential.

In Clifton B. Parker’s article, he mentions how a Stanford researcher noticed that stereotypes genuinely do ingrain into the athlete’s head and negatively impact their performance. Different discourses that were highlighted that impacted athletes were their gender/race differences as well as their reputation and how people viewed them as a person. He stated how even just “warning people about the phenomenon can help overcome feelings or thoughts that they don’t belong to a particular group (Dee)”. To put it simply. having athletes self consciously be aware that they aren’t “dumb jocks” just because they are athletes is an important mindset that more people should have.

I personally don’t feel that there aren’t any other tension between student athletes and the larger student body. However even this one discourse between the communicates has lessened; I believe that more people are starting to notice that athletes can be just as academically productive as regular full time students, if not then more. It has been scientifically proven that those who stay physically active on a constant basis have more motivation and energy to be productive. Furthermore, many sports whether they may be competitive division teams or smaller club teams, require a certain GPA score, to ensure that their team players are able to equally dedicate themselves to both their sport and education.

(10.04.16) UNIT 2: 3 Literary Artifacts

When an item has sentimental value, it gives people more of a reason to never get rid of it, whether it may be a tattered blanket or a prized jewelry. They normally represent one’s background or perspective.

The first artifact that I decided to present was my team shirt from an international archery tournament in Korea. Not only was it one of the biggest tournaments that I’ve ever participated in, but also probably the most memorable. Never have I met so many people from around the world, all sharing the same passion as mine: archery. Archery is one of my communities that I am proud to be a part of. I have proudly been a part of this community for four years, and have learned many morals from my coaches and teammates.. They are all very much my second family; people who I were able to depend on to help me keep accountable of all my athletic performances.

The shirt signifies the memories I have made during the time of me being there in Seoul.

We all have put hours of time and bucketfuls of sweat and tears into our training sessions and games.

The second important community would be my Korean ethnicity. Growing up with both my parents being Korean, they both wanted me to maintain my cultures and traditions while I was being surrounded by an American environment. Thus, I grew to be familiar with the traditional holidays and cuisines at an early age. We always celebrated the important holidays every year, such as the korean thanksgiving, and ate different korean dishes everyday. Furthermore, I went to Korean school every Saturday morning, where they helped me practice my korean fluency but also the culture in general. I may be raised with a lot of my Korean culture, but my American culture is just as important to me. This actually brings a lot of tension between my parents and I because they don’t value the American background as much as I do. They favor more of their original customs, because of the fact that they were born and raised in South Korea.

My Southern Californian background is most definitely another community that I will never let go of. I have lived there my entire life, and have grown used to all the perks around me: Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm being only a half hour drive, all-you-can-eat korean barbecue restaurants within a 15 minute range, and of course all the different sightseeing areas in Los Angeles.