Learning to Fail and Failing to Learn

The greatest success in life is failure. The sentence is a paradox in itself but it’s also true. Take America’s Pastime, baseball, as an example. Just the other day Johnny Damon of the New York Yankees had a perfect 6 for 6 day, which means he had six hits in six appearances, a rare feat only accomplished by 64 other players. Perfect games (when a pitcher allows no baserunner to reach base during the whole game) are even a greater rarity having been pitched only 17 times in one day. Perfect days are celebrated all throughout baseball, the sad thing is it’s only for a day. For a day a select few get to rise from the ashes of mediocrity and get a taste of what it’s like to be immortal. Careers are an even greater example of failure. Ty Cobb, who was notorious of being one the most racist and vicious men ever to step on to a baseball field had a career batting average of .367. For those of you who don’t follow that means his total hits over his career plate appearances. .367. It’s a number set to be a standard for all baseball players but instead of saying Ty Cobb succeeded half the time why can’t we say that he had a .633 chance of failing to get a hit. That’s because we as humans are afraid of failures. We come to dread the feeling of defeat, knowing you couldn’t succeed in goals you set for yourself. Failing, in a sense, is the new ‘F-word’. But in reality if we choose to wake up, and only if, we will begin to realize through failure comes greater success.

The term failure has always been a associated as a dirty, filthy, god-forsaken, foul, and sometimes, a murderous word. The Oxford Dictionary defines failure as this:

” Lack of success“

That is complete and utter bullcrap. Failing is not a lack of success, as those brainiacs from Oxford say it to be, it is the road to success. The greatest success stories in life are built straight-up from failures. That’s what I learned from this class. To be truly successful we have to learn from our failures. That’s what differentiates the success stories from the so called failed ones. So what is my definition of a failure? For me, a failure is somebody who failed yes, but somebody who failed and didn’t learn from it – they merely sat there scratching their heads wondering what went haywire. Looking back on my past blog posts (which I exported all to my normal one The Sushi Bar) I succeed as a writer because I learned. I learned sentence patterns, beautification, and the little things that held me back from fully achieving my potential. Here’s a snippet from what I wrote on my first blog post: Comedy and the Web.

“Boredom always seems to get the best of everyone, even when they’re on the web – it’s an inevitable feeling in life. To somehow get rid of such boredom, one usually goes to youtube (if you haven’t heard of it get informed!!!). There’s basically everything on youtube, funny videos, useless videos, and even the occasional weird videos. To be famous on youtube is another story. To stand out between the millions of videos that are uploaded each day is a task easier said than done. Guess what? I’m gonna be one of them.

I’ve always loved comedy – the amount of jokes that can me made and done has always fascinated me.“

The first thing that popped into my head when I read this was “I wrote that piece of crap?!“. The sad reality is I did and the happy reality is I improved. Based on first impressions, the writing absolutely sucks, sucks like a baby licking on one of those big-assed lollipops. The second impression (actually my first) was that the title is lame, really lame. And that it sounds something like a tailor-made Disney movie. But I looked at this writing and I felt good. It shouldn’t have been the sensation I should have been having but I was genuinely happy I got this far as a writer in a span of five months. This class taught me writing is not a tool for getting ‘A’s’ its a skill to be used for everyday life – it’s an art. I walked into this class having writing as a mere footnote of my abilities and I walk out knowing I know wield a more defined sense of purpose with my keyboard.

I like to think of myself not just as a thinker, but a critical thinker. I have always thought this and I walked into this class with that status as well. Mr. Burell put more things in my head. He had me question the school system and the true meaning of learning. In school I memorized. In this class I learned. The thing that differs from this class is that everyone is pursuing a different topic and it makes us think what we want, not the school. It’s like the book 1984 by George Orwell, people were brainwashed into thinking the same thing. School is the power, we are the servants, this class is our outlet. I began to think about myself as a person and now know I truly appreciate what this class has done for me, perhaps later I could appreciate it more.

Now I made four videos in five months. That’s not a lot considering how much me and Mr. Burell expected out of myself. I was suppose to be this class’s star turned out to be the biggest fluke. It’s a sad reality I’ve come to accept. But, I like to say I gained more than I learned. For this whole class I seemed to be indulged in the unique experience of doing what I wanted I seemed not able to handle that luxury. I wanted my videos to be perfect, stressing quality over quantity, Mr. Burell wanted quantity saying that we learn from our mistakes. As usual he was right. I started to be more causing penning scripts and improvising myself on camera, some worked and some didn’t – but the ones that did made it on the web. It taught me more about failure. Don’t afraid of failure as long as you are willing to learn from them. Which got me thinking, the most successful people in life are those with experience. How do you get that. By failing. So my message to the WWW is this LEARN TO FAIL AND FAIL TO LEARN.

Unlike every other person in this free world I don’t do facebook (not yet anyway). I had no idea of what Twitter was and did. The only thing that me remotely close to ‘networking’ was the comments I left under videos on YouTube. Like I said I’m a clueless person. The reason for that was partly because I was afraid. Afraid of interacting with strangers. Afraid of saying dumb things. Afraid. But this class turned me from afraid to brave. I read people’s blogs, I post some stuff on Twitter, and I leave comments on every webpage I come across. I learned from this class that the only reason I was afraid was because I wasn’t interacting with the right people. I learned that by actually conversing with people who share a common interest we are able to do so much more. The web is not a gathering of people with corrupted interests but rather a community of living, breathing, moving people who genuinely care for people across the globe. I’m grateful I learned that.

I think my greatest problem is not being able to solve problems. It’s not just me it’s everybody. No one in this world is a perfect problem solver, we are problem causers (take the President for example). But, the only when we admit defeat, only when we are able to acknowledge that we were wrong and they were right are we able to be true problem solvers. To be problem solver we have to think critically, be smart, and learn to accept failure. It’s no coincidence that these are the exact same qualities we learned in English Seminar. This class taught us, not in the conventional manner, but in things we will actually need for life and I am grateful I leanrned the things I did.

Lastly I would just like to thank Mr. Burell for actually teaching us over the semester. I have truly evolved from a 20th century boy into a 21st century one. I also would like maybe periodically contribute to the Students 2.0 blog. Let me know and I hope we will keep in touch.

Photo Credit: Left Blue In Black and White, churl, kevan_cooke, Stabilo Boss

Ramblings From a Freshman

Things I Don’t Like

Wii Commercials

Dear Mr. Burell,

I somehow find comfort in writing blogs. I have no idea why. Maybe. Maybe its because I find comfort in sitting alone typing away whatever comes to my mind. Maybe its because I live in a society obsessed living a certain way I find it fun to see blogging as an outlet. Maybe its because I just plain like it. Blogs have caught the world by the storm. It has obsessed people, indulged them, and sometimes completely changed their lives. There are “pro-bloggers”, books written about blogs, heck some people blog more than they sleep. Blogging has evolved into a revolution, a revolution I am slowly taking part in.

No one comes to my blog, that’s okay which means I can write whatever crap I want to write without anyone saying anything. But, I don’t want that to continue for much longer. You see, I love writing it’s like breathing for me – it comes naturally. I said that this project I wanted to be famous for being funny and a smartass, I think I limited myself into thinking that making videos was the only way to do that, I discovered it isn’t. I can make blog (posts) and express my sophomore year all alone in a far far magical land called America.

Kids nowadays are completely engrossed in video games or obsessed with sleeping, it’s a sad reality and the world has to accept a unfortunate fact: kids are all the same. In a sense, we kids choose to pick a conventional path in life, a life with a future destined of a $25,000 salary, a run down car, and a single room apartment. I choose not to walk that road, instead I want to be different – special. I don’t want to live like crap, I don’t want to waste my time playing games and sleeping, and I don’t want to waste the one life I am given. But, I want to write – and a blog allows me to write whatever the hell I want to. I may not be famous, I may not be funny, but I will be writing.

This blog is meant to be hopefully a better understanding of what I want to do in the imminent future. My seventh grade teacher said that we are never thinking about the present, we are always thinking about the past and the future – I rarely think about the past but I always find myself thinking about the future, a prospect that excites me. I have something called potential – although everyone has it whether a little or a lot, I have potential that would amount to every singe mountain in the Himalayas. I think different. I am different. I define different. While my friends are obsessing over video games, I pop in front of my computer screen reading the New York Times, CNN Politics (OBAMA 08′ btw), ESPN, and anything else that catches my attention – never do I play video games. My favorite channel is CNN, I don’t have a PSP, and I don’t find myself not knowing what the capital of France is (one idiot in my class thought it was Berlin, when we said it wasn’t he adamantly defended his position until he saw the world map). I have potential, that’s undeniable, but if you don’t let it out, there is absolutely no point of having it. I’m in that position. I have the potential to do anything I want yet I limit myself in every single way possible. This project is an example, but I’m in high school – I have to grow up, open my eyes, splash water on my face, slap myself, and ultimately wake up. It excites me I can do anything but it also disappoints me that I’m not doing anything. Although I think a lot has been expected of me in this project, I believe it to be true to say that I failed miserably. I was given a big project and failed to deliver. But that’s okay. It’s okay because I learned something. I learned that I’m a smartass. I learned I have potential waiting in the wings. And most importantly I learned it is okay to fail, as long as you learn from them.

Sincerely,

Won Chung

Photo Credit: joelogon, Wesley Danes, stelari

Lest We Not Forget We Are NOT Perfect (and some other crap) – 5.4.08

Okay so I just threw some Shakespherian crap at you there. Deal with it. I’m not perfect, your not perfect, none of us are perfect. But, sometimes we try to be. Perfection is a goal out of our reach, they say ‘Practice makes PERFECT!!!’, I say that’s a load of cruddy breadcrumbs scattered across the kitchen floor. Everybody practices to some extent, some more than others, yet we are nowhere near what we would consider as perfect. So, congratulations your mediocre! And there are other people who are perfectionists, people so absolutely aesthetic about how they live their lives they are more consumed with every tiny winy detail they fail to the see the big picture – Mr. B tends to think I’m one of them.

You see when I approach these videos and filming for that matter, I try to engage the audience – by being funny and making my video visually appealing. The reason I’ve taken so much time on these videos is because I am not simply not happy with them. They are just not funny. Another minor reason is because I look so fat in front of the camera, they say the camera adds ten pounds when it actually adds 20. Back to reasons. I need to have at least one funny moment, because examining how YouTube videos work, that’s what they’re really centered around. So I like what I did in the IT room the other day, so with that clip I want to edit it by the end of the week (no guarantees it’ll be up on YouTube, I always get in trouble when I guarantee something).

Okay before I get to far I have to tell Mr. B something. GET READY TO DO A INTERVIEW NEXT WEEK (with me that is). I want to get this video done before the end of the school year. This video is going to be almost spontaneous, playing around a little bit, with the exception of my questions. Mr. B, dress semi – formally (by which I mean dress in what you always wear) and be prepared for anything, and I mean anything because you never know what I might cook up. And when the interview is done your hair is going to turn white, just an advance warning. So that’s basically it…………

Being in this class really taught me about interacting through electronic means. I entered this class thinking that I was to be handed the textbook and taught to write conventional essays, it turns out that we were to enter the class with a goal and exit achieving it. I haven’t done that yet. In retrospect, I haven’t even come close but I tried. I have never gotten an ‘F’ in my life, to me it stands for ‘Forbidden’, Failed’, and another word I’m not aloud to say, but I’m not crying (not yet anyway). This is because I learned something. I think if school was like this way I would actually be smarter. A testament to this are two great geniuses: Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein. Lincoln never had a formal education yet is today considered the greatest orator that ever lived (with regards to Dr. King). Einstein never finished standard education (school for those of you airheads out there), failed math, and obviously failed with his hair. Yet, he came up with a single formula (I could of thought of it too) that baffled all the book smart nerds. And one more example that popped into my dead: Will Hunting (from a movie, but what the heck). Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon, who according to Wikipedia went to Harvard) was a janitor at MIT, whose mathematical genius blew everyone away, including his dumbass professor and mentor. What I’m saying is that this class teaches us street smarts (not as bad as it sounds), something we will never obtain from textbooks, books, audiobooks, or e-books – book smart. I’ll trade my textbook for my MacBook any day.

Photo Credi: Santa Claus by Sephiroty Fiesta, albert einstein by joao~grando, I’m Sorry I Can’t be Perfect by éoo™

Beyond the Hype : I’m a Walking Disasters

Okay so my title is a little weird and vague, confusing and stupid, and may even deserve some scratches in the head, but it does mean something. When people look at me they see something extraordinary, specie, and a short, handsome, funny, kid – and they would be idiots not to notice that. Right now, beyond the hype I am a walking disaster. Lately, being consumed in so many different things has detered me from devoting more time to making videos, which has made me do more thinking than actually doing.

So what I’ve been thinking about lately is where I want this video project to be headed. I definitely want to continue want to continue making videos even when the class is over in addition to maintaining my blog – I’ve gone somewhat accustomed to having it be a part of my everyday life (kind of). Something I’m thinking of doing is a couple of spontaneous videos – sometimes the most random piece of junk may be gold. The good thing about spontaneous videos is that it can be really funny, if not I could just delete the damn thing.

Another idea I’ve been thinking of doing is an interview with Mr. Burell. Like my role models Stephan Colbert, David Letterman, and Craig Ferguson (some role models eh?) I want to be really really really really rud but at the same time be somewhat respectful to my guest (impossible is nothing). I want to do this behind the green screen, so by the time I do this interview I have to find how to do the mysterious chroma key while also finding a suitable background. For Mr. Burell I want this to be unscripted, while I hold in my hands the mind – blowingly ridiculous questions. This has to be funny so I plan on adding some more sophisticated twists later, hehehehehehe.

I’ve also been thinking about what to do if I have international correspondents invading my show. I was thinking that since the presidential elections is so huge in the U.S at the moment I was thinking of having a CNN type of news cast with the correspondents somehow messing up. If that somehow does not go as planned I could always green screen as a replacement background.

So because I will continue to make more videos even when the class is over, these are some ideas I plan flirting with. Although not everything is set in stone, I want to do at least one of the two fore-mentioned wacky ideas before the last day of school. How? I have no friggin’ idea, but I will figure it out – I always do. Anyway, one thing I realized while embarking on this god forsaken project is that being funny is not as easy as it sounds. One reason my production has been so slow is because – yes, I am somewhat of a perfectionist but I also don’t want to upload some random crud on my youtube channel, because in the long run I value quality over quantity.

Given the topic of my project is probably very ambitious (maybe the most in the class, I don’t know you be the judge) I think in a way I am put too much burden on my shoulders. I’ve been trying too hard to be funny when I needed to do is sit back and talk my genius brain off (I think I’m a borderline genius by the way, I’ve come to that conclusion a loooooooooong time ago . I want to make people happy because in the end, that’s what this project is all about. Not the grades, not the stress, but the people. I try not to forget that.