Activity and Your Community I

¶ … Activity and Your community

I have considered the nature of the contribution I can make to campus life and where my talents can be of the greatest good. With the multiplicity of activities and groups available, it took some ingenuity to identify an opening in the academic canopy for my particular interest to blossom. I am an avid stock investor and analytical enthusiast. This interest provides an unusual opportunity for me to make a sterling contribution to the academic life, one that I believe will greatly benefit my peers on campus.

I shaped my principal interest as a child through observation. I excitedly followed the fortunes of a company my father invested in on the Kosdaq. There were occasions when the company did amazingly well and at other times, they experienced loss. My father observed my eagerness and took the time to explain to me the many nuances of investing. At times, I understood readily, at other times it was simply a blur. As I grew older, I read books on the subject and listened attentively to television reports. I hungrily consumed as much as I could on the subject and became something of an enthusiast.

I derive pleasure from analyzing the stock market. It is intriguing to unravel the association between a stock's price and the connection to the wider market economy. At present, I regularly assess the market and try to identify trends and compare my analysis to expert opinions. I have even had the experience of constructing a portfolio based on sector analysis, and then identifying the stocks with the highest possibly fecundity.

As I considered options for the campus, I observed that John Hopkins does not have a club on campus dedicated to the promotion of the development of stock investing strategies. I would like to fill this void by creating a club of that nature. The club would assist me in my quest to achieve greater expertise in the area, and provide similar minded individuals with a niche, for consultation and refinement of skill. An organization of this ilk would add greater variety to the extra-curricular offerings of the campus, thus increasing the lure and attractiveness of this esteemed institution.

I consider my country to be an exquisite place. We have a diversity of flora and fauna, many of which are unique to our country. The rapid growth of our economy has created great wealth for many individuals and simultaneously greater poverty. However, the most challenging feature of our growth as a country is the loss of traditional values. These elements defined Korean society, and identified our culture as one of the most courteous and foreigner friendly. To get a sense of the depth of this loss I will recount some personal misadventures.

There are times in Korea when the heat is unbearable. You awake drenched with perspiration and the stuffiness of the atmosphere makes breathing a chore. On this particular morning, I awoke at 9 am. Already late, I hurriedly took a cold shower and with my hair still visibly wet, scampered to the subway. The combination of running in heels and skirt, and the stifling heat, transformed my cool body into a sweaty frame. Thoughts of the hot winds and clammy discomfort swirled in my mind. I was jarred back to reality when I caught my heel on an object and almost fell. It was a man's brown leather wallet. I hurriedly looked up in time to see the owner speeding away, oblivious that the wallet had fallen.

I was late so, I cantered on believing that the other persons in the subway would give him the wallet. When I got to the subway, I looked back towards the direction of the wallet and observed that it was still on the ground. No one had taken it up. There were several persons around the wallet, a young man listening to an iPod, a woman chuckling and talking on her cell phone. They each looked at the wallet but did not attempt to return it to the owner. This infuriated me; I looked further down the station to see if I could see the man who dropped the wallet.

He was tearing though the station like a cheetah. I ran back, picked up the wallet chased him down and returned it to him. I shouted, "Stop!," "You dropped your wallet." The man halted instantly, his eyes focused on the wallet in my hand and a look of gratitude came over his face. He said "thank you so much" and bowed several times. I was a cacophony of emotions; unhappy that I was late, my make-up ruined and I was perspiring profusely. I was also delighted that I had done something for another human being. There was no personal gain nothing more than the delight of assisting someone in need. I looked at him and said, "You're welcome." His thank you was more than ample compensation for me.

It would be good to say that this was an isolated incident, but it is not. It demonstrates an alarming turn our country has taken, where individualism has begun to supersede the concern for the welfare of others. As I got on the subway, I observed another example of indifference and a troubling apathy. A young man with a Filipino accent was attempting to secure directions from the passengers nearest to him. The passengers were completely unresponsive to his solicitations. The continued listening to their music, or read their magazines.