Taekwondo- unfinished

The origin of Taekwondo could be traced back to South Korea two thousand years ago. Two main styles are found in Taekwondo: Kukkiwon, which is developed from World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), has higher popularity and is recognized in the Olympic Games. Sparring, a system derived from Kukkiwon, is a combat which requires players to use strategies to defeat the opponent. This is what athletes use to compete in Olympic Games. The less popular style comes from International Taekwondo Federation (ITF). WTF and ITF follow different standards, yet they share the similarity in their ranking system.

The ranking in Taekwondo is divided into two stages, junior and senior. Junior is divided into ten “geups” (junior levels in Korean). Beginners start at Geup 10 and move backwards. Most of the time, Taekwondo schools use color belts to identify the geups. When you pass Geup 1, you move onto the senior stage, which is the black belt. In addition, the senior stage is divided into nine “dans” (senior levels in Korean). You move upwards from the first Dan to the ninth Dan. The Dan level is often indicated with the number of strips on the black belt.

Generally, it takes 52 years to achieve the highest Dan in Taekwondo. Juniors need to prepare for at least two months until they can participate in the exam. The exams for juniors are held in the Taekwondo Schools (or their local Taekwondo schools). The master will judge the students’ skill to determine if they are able to move to a higher level. For seniors, the interval to take the test from the first Dan to the second Dan is one year. The interval increases one year progressively. For instance, from the second Dan to the third Dan needs two years to prepare. However, seniors need to be 22 years old before they are qualified to participate in the third Dan exam. This explains why there are seldom ninth Dan masters in the world.

In the 2008 Olympics, the Taekwondo representative from Cuba, Ángel Matos kicked the referee in the head during the competition. He was angry at the referee for disqualifying him because he was taking longer than one minute when he got injured to recover. The consequences for Ángel Matos’ act was that Taekwondo was up for debate either it was an appropriate sport for the Olympic Games.

Therefore the most shocking event that led the doom of being eliminated from the Olympics to Taekwondo was something that Herb Perez, the team leader of USA was furious about the poor judging that happened to Steven Lopez, one of the athletes on his team. He spilled out the shocking news. In June, WTF asked the team heads to sign an agreement to not to file any protest that would lead Taekwondo to get kicked out of the Olympics.

 The news spread out and everyone couldn’t help wondering whether Taekwondo should be eliminated from the Olympics or not. Another reason was that cheating was really easy in Taekwondo because the rules were not specific enough and it was up to the judges to determine if they wanted to give points to the athlete’s kick.

Although Taekwondo is still in for the 2012 Olympics but it is still on the edge of getting kicked out. The WTF has been trying to fix the rules to avoid this problem. The most significant change is that they have changed the protecting gear to electronic protecting gear. Electronic protecting gear has devices built inside which will determine if the kick is worth points or not. Thus it will be more fair and less arguments.

Taekwondo is an extremely popular sport in Taiwan. There are several reasons for this. Tracing back to the twenty century, when Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan with many solders and people, he also brought Taekwondo into Taiwan hoping it would be useful when in a war. The other reason is that Taekwondo is originated from Korea; since the two countries are only around seven thousand miles away from each other, it was easily spread to Taiwan. The biggest reason and is that in 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the Taekwondo representative, Chen Yi-an had won first place. To Taiwan, it was a national wide glory. For the impact was more and more Taekwondo schools were open; in addition, Taekwondo became the most popular martial arts in Taiwan.

Autobiography

I am an out-going person, which is the explanation to why I always have friends surrounding me. Friends often come to me for guidance; I always try my best effort to help them. Down-to-earth is a phrase that can exactly condense my whole personality. I despite people who are hypocritical, they are the ones that will stab you in the back when you depend on them. The only people that I depend on are my family.

I have a loving family. My little sister is in grade 5 and my older brother is in grade 12. I am very close with my brother. We talk to each other about everything, our troubles, our relationships, our grades. We know each other really well by all these years. My dad is a computer engineer. He works really late and most of the time we don’t get to eat dinner with him. My mom is a diplomat, which is the reason why I get to explore many different countries and different culture.

I had lived in Ottawa for eight years. Most of my childhood was spent in Ottawa. I went back to Taiwan when I was ten years old. Although the schools and teachers taught different things, I eventually caught up with school work. During the four years in Taiwan, I have also been doing Taekwondo. At first, it was just a hobby of mine; but I gain more and more interest in it, then one day, my master asked me if I wanted to compete. I have been competing in many competitions since then. I have won the city champion many times; I have also represented my city to compete in the nationals, but I unfortunately didn’t win. Therefore it was a great experience. This summer, my mother gave me a choice whether to stay in Taiwan or follow her to Vancouver, because my grades are good and I had great enthusiasm in Taekwondo. Therefore, I wanted to explore the world and increase my world view even more, so I decided to come to Vancouver with my mother.

My ambition in ninth grade is to be on the principal list- which is average 90 and above. Although it is a strenuous goal, but I as long as I can catch up on English and Social studies, my goal is not too far away. Finding what I want to study in university is my long time goal in Vancouver. Vancouver is a very splendid place to find out what my interest, because Vancouver is like a small the version of the whole world with the different people and culture.

The Talk

“Quei-yun! “ Mom called me, “We need to talk.” I walked slowly and unwillingly out of my room. I started to have butterflies in my stomach; my heart was beating fast as it was coming out of my chest. My hands were sweating as I walked out of my room.

 The first thought that ran into my head was, “did she find out that I cheated on the test?”

“NO. She couldn’t have. Even the teacher didn’t notice.”

“It’s possible! You haven’t got such good grades for a long time!”

“That doesn’t explain a thing.”

“Yes, it does. No one can improve in so short of time.”

The angel and the devil in my mind were tearing my head apart.

“The test was three days ago, she wouldn’t have waited so long to reveal your lie.”

The devil stated.

“Hey! “The angel shouted, “You shouldn’t have even done that in the first place.”

“What’s done is done; and everyone cheats once or twice in their lifetime! Tell me someone who hasn’t before!” the devil sneered.

“GUYS! “ I yelled out loud. My eyes were bulging and my whole body was sweating. I was on the edge of emotional breakdown. I had to hold my head to prevent it from exploding.

My mom was startled, “Why are you yelling?” That pulled me back to reality. I noticed I was in the middle of the living room, with my whole family gazing at me with an unnerving silence. I managed to squeeze out a tiny smile.

“I want to talk to you about your allowance.”My mom eventually said.

I was a bit relieved; I stretched out my neck and ask impatiently “What about it?”

“I think you’re wasting too much money lately. So…I’m thinking of decreasing your allowance.”

I don’t know which is worse: finding out I cheated or decreasing my allowance.

Observing and accOrding details- bOOk title- A Light in th Attic

The title of this book is A Light in the Attic. Poems and drawings are by Shel Silverstein, the publisher is HarperCollins. Illustration on the cover is a face. The eyes are drawn with simple circles; the nose is traced with dots. On the top of the face, there is an attic that has a short chimney. A person is peeking out of the open window in the very front of the attic. Under the attic, the faces hair is like messy straw. Stars are surrounding the face with the title of the book on the very side. On the other side of the jacket, is a black and white picture of the author’s face. He is wearing a heavy coat with fur on the hood. His hair is all shaved off, he has very white teeth and he has wrinkles around his eyes.

 Beneath the jacket, there is a signature of the author written in the color, gold. A short paragraph about this book and a poem is in the inner side of the jacket. There are 168 pages in total.

A light in th Attic is a book that would catch my eye in a book store. My first impression is : it has a artistic surrounding feeling.