Assignment for Week 3 – Draft of My Essay (p.50)
Accidental Chance to Make New Friends
201001006 Hyejin Kim
Have you thought you make new friends in a totally unfamiliar country? When I was young, I believed this kind of story was truly ridiculous. But I want to tell you amazing incident that changed my mind and characteristics completely.
Since I was in primary school, I hadn't had many friends. This was because I didn't enjoy to be surrounded by many people. Maybe it was influenced by relatively big family including parents, grandmother and younger brother (even uncle when I was a little kid). I always hung out in small group 2 or 3 friends, so it was very natural to have about 3 of true friends when I became an adult. Attending a university, all of my friends scattered and it was hard to see them twice a year. I thought I was too shy and picky person to make new friends easily in new environment, Seoul.
In the meantime, 2 years ago, I got a chance to go to England for volunteering work. I spent about a year in the small city near London and I traveled other European countries by myself during vacation. I took second vacation in April, 2013 and visited Switzerland at the beginning. It was two-week trip and I had a backpack and a huge suitcase which were even bigger than me. Arriving Zurich airport and before I realized that I arrived in Switzerland, I had to hurry to get to the train station since I had to take a train that led me to Luzern. The scenery passed by through windows was incredible, mountains covered by snow, lovely houses, meadows, high and blue sky, sheep and cow… I spent peaceful time in the train but when I arrived at my accommodation, a Korean guest house that I booked previously, I was totally exhausted. It was a long journey-car, train, plane, train and bus.
When I opened the door of the guesthouse, there were 4 or 5 Koreans sitting around a table. They were drinking beer with sausages, cheese and vegetable fondue. One of the guys said "The owner of the house is not here. So, you can put your luggage in this room, girls' dormitory and here are your slippers you have to wear in this house". Other girls and guys laughed loudly and one of the girls shouted "Oppa, you're like a host of this house!" I was quite embarrassed and didn't know how to respond.
After I make my baggage tidy in the dormitory room that 5 or 6 people shared together, I sneaked to the dining room where the group of people gathered. I was so thirsty and I wanted to drink a glass of water but not being spotted by them. When I showed up in the dining area, everybody looked at me. It seemed that they were twenty-something. There were 2 girls and 3 men. They started to talk to me like "Are you traveling alone?", "What's your name?", "How old are you", "Is it your first country to travel?" "How long have you been in Europe?" and so on. I answered them politely and then, they suggested me to sit on the table with them and have some food they prepared.
Drinking beer on the table, I listened to their stories carefully. Some of guys were traveling together as friends and all the girls were alone. Also, one of the guys was living in Lausanne, Switzerland for Ph.D. Everybody came from different regions and had interesting stories. I also talked about my life in England and difficulties of volunteering works. Each of us shared routes of trip and gave good advices about them for all night. Even though we had all different plans for traveling, we promised to meet again in Korea and exchanged contact numbers.
During the trip, we kept talking on Kakao talk, sharing beautiful photographs they took in different countries. And surprisingly, we could meet the members in Korea again! In last summer, we went to Yeosoo together for summer vacation, although two guys could not make it. Now we are all busy doing work, study or something else and we don't have many chances to gather. But we still keep in touch with group chatting on Kakao talk and share our life stories.
The accidental meeting made me surprised that I could hang out easily with utter strangers in unfamiliar situation and could share my stories to them very comfortably. Now I'm much more confident to make new friends and start talks with them. The good friends that I met in Switzerland helped me to believe that people having different perspectives and backgrounds can be true friends if they try to know each other.
ReplyDeleteTo Hyejin Kim
From Kwon Hye-ji
Assignment# 2 First draft
What I like about this piece of writing is I can easily follow the progress. This is because you narrated your story as time passed and especially, you started the paragraphs with the sentences indicating the specific time periods. Your main point seems that you've made good friends by accident in totally unfamiliar environment and from that experience you realized you could be close with new people. When you describe the image you saw while you're on the train bound for Lurzen, it struck me. I like this part "the scenery passed by through windows was incredible, mountains covered by snow, lovely houses, meadows, high and blue sky, sheep and cow….," because you clearly described the peaceful and exotic atmosphere of Switzerland. It makes me want to go there too and it lets me enjoy your writing more.However, some parts aren't clear to me. For example,you said "This was because I didn't enjoy to be surrounded by many people. Maybe it was influenced by relatively big family," but for me I still cannot understand why you don't like be surrounded by many people. I think if you explain more about the negative factors of living in the big family, I can understand your feeling more easily. The one change you could make that woul make the biggest improvement in this piece of writing is I believe if you use more interesting verbs, your eassy will be more attractive.
Thank you.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ .
Yoonhae Kang
ReplyDeleteHi, I really enjoyed reading your essay. You really well described how you met new people and be friends with them at the guest house while you were traveling. I also have similar experience as yours; I met several fellows at a guest house in Kyoungjoo and I'm still in contact with them. Anyway, your essay vividly features your experience.
To Hyejin Kim, From Haesook Yoon.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the use of past continuous made your experience seem real to me by making me imagine what's happening at that time. I do not really understand why making new friends in other countries is a rare experience. I rather think making Korean friend in Europe might be a new experience. I like your introduction. It grabs readers attention because you are going to tell something that changed your charateristic 180-degree which would be something important and amazing. I can see you are using past tense because it's all happened in the past and I don't see any tense problems in your writing. I think you can find another title that is more closer to the meaning (topic) of your writing such as 'My turning points'. Also it'd be more better to describe how your characteristics changed after you've met your new friends in Europe because you've said that this event changed your mind but you don't really explain the changes. Otherwise, I enjoyed your experience in Europe. This writing really makes me to plan a trip and meet different kinds of people. Great work :)! Good night and see you in class!
- Hyejin Kim
ReplyDeleteA Turning Point in My Mind
201001006 Hyejin Kim
Have you thought you make new friends in a totally unfamiliar country? When I was young, I believed this kind of story was truly ridiculous. But I want to tell you an amazing incident that changed my mind and characteristics completely.
Since I was in primary school, I hadn't had many friends. This was because I didn't enjoy to be surrounded by many people. Maybe it was influenced by relatively big family including parents, grandmother and younger brother (even uncle when I was a little kid). There were so many people who have big interests in me, so I wanted to be more independent and to spend more time alone. That’s why I always hung out in small group 2 or 3 friends. Naturally, l had about 3 of true friends when I became an adult. Attending a university, all of my friends scattered and it was hard to see them twice a year. I thought I was too shy and picky person to make new friends easily in new environment, Seoul.
In the meantime, 2 years ago, I got a chance to go to England for volunteering work. I spent about a year in the small city near London and I traveled other European countries by myself during vacation. I took second vacation in April, 2013 and visited Switzerland at the beginning. It was two-week trip and I had a backpack and a huge suitcase which were even bigger than me. Arriving Zurich airport and before I realized that I arrived in Switzerland, I had to hurry to get to the train station since I had to take a train that led me to Luzern. The scenery passed by through windows was incredible, mountains covered by snow, lovely houses, meadows, high and blue sky, sheep and cow… I spent peaceful time in the train but when I arrived at my accommodation, a Korean guest house that I booked previously, I was totally exhausted. It was a long journey-car, train, plane, train and bus.
When I opened the door of the guesthouse, there were 4 or 5 Koreans sitting around a table. They were drinking beer with sausages, cheese and vegetable fondue. One of the guys said "The owner of the house is not here. So, you can put your luggage in this room, girls' dormitory and here are your slippers you have to wear in this house". Other girls and guys laughed loudly and one of the girls shouted "Oppa, you're like a host of this house!" I was quite embarrassed and didn't know how to respond.
After I make my baggage tidy in the dormitory room that 5 or 6 people shared together, I sneaked to the dining room where the group of people gathered. I was so thirsty and I wanted to drink a glass of water but not being spotted by them. When I showed up in the dining area, everybody looked at me. It seemed that they were twenty-something. There were 2 girls and 3 men. They started to talk to me like "Are you traveling alone?", "What's your name?", "How old are you", "Is it your first country to travel?" "How long have you been in Europe?" and so on. I answered them politely and then, they suggested me to sit on the table with them and have some food they prepared.
ReplyDeleteDrinking beer on the table, I listened to their stories carefully. Some of guys were traveling together as friends and all the girls were alone. Also, one of the guys was living in Lausanne, Switzerland for Ph.D. Everybody came from different regions and had interesting stories. I also talked about my life in England and difficulties of volunteering works. Each of us shared routes of trip and gave good advices about them for all night. Even though we had all different plans for traveling, we promised to meet again in Korea and exchanged contact numbers.
During the trip, we kept talking on Kakao talk, sharing beautiful photographs they took in different countries. And surprisingly, we could meet the members in Korea again! In last summer, we went to Yeosoo together for summer vacation, although two guys could not make it. Now we are all busy doing work, study or something else and we don't have many chances to gather. But we still keep in touch with group chatting on Kakao talk and share our life stories.
The accidental meeting made me surprised that I could hang out easily with utter strangers in unfamiliar situation and could share my stories with them very comfortably. Now I'm not that shy to talk with strangers. I feel much more confident and active to make new friends and start talks with them. Even I enjoy the thrill coming from meeting new people and knowing each other. The good friends that I met in Switzerland helped me to believe that people having different perspectives and backgrounds can be true friends if they try to know each other