(MUST-READ) My translation of a news article in relations to A’s achievement!!!

KUT, two students awarded with the Director’s Award at the Campus Patent Strategy Universiade.
Ranked 6th among 89 Universities in the Pre-existing Techniques Investigation segment.
Students from the Korea University of Technology and Education (hereinafter referred to as KUT) were awarded with 2 Patent Director’s Award, 1 excellence award and 1 participation award in the Pre-existing Techniques Investigation segment at the 2011 Campus Patent Strategy Universiade Competition.
In this competition, KUT students Choi Sang-Jin (3^rd year in the school of Mechatronics Engineering) and Yoo Seung-Mok (4^th year in the school of Energy, Materials and Chemical Engineering) were awarded with the Patent Director’s Award, while Kim Dong-Ha (4^th year in the school of Mechanical Engineering) and Lee Byung-Cheol(3^rd year in the school of Mechatronics Engineering) were awarded with the excellence and participation award respectively.
The competition, divided into the segments of Pre-existing Techniques Investigation and Patent Strategy Groundwork, had large companies lay down questions in the areas of power/electronics, shipbuilding/mechanical/metal and chemistry/biotechnology. It comprised of patent strategies, in accordance to the questions set, proposed by undergraduates, post-graduates and their advisors.
In the Pre-existing Techniques Investigation segment, a total of 2393 students from 89 universities nationwide entered this year’s competition. They then submitted their answers to 29 questions, wherein 1153 students passed the writing evaluation. After which a total of 169 students passed the presentation round and advanced to the finals where students Choi Sang Jin, Yoo Seung Mok and Kim Dong Ha were awarded accordingly.
Although KUT, producing 4 winners in this competition, ranked 6^th place after Kyonggi University (12 winners), Chungnam National University(10 winners), Inha University(8 winners), Yonsei University(6 winners) and Kumoh National Institute of Technology(5 winners), the institute was praised for having 2 winners awarded with the Patent Director’s Award through the achievement of excellent results.
Park Keom Jin, the technology support team leader, said, “From last December, over a period of 10 weeks, there was progress for more than 40 student patent representatives that extended over patent concepts, law in relation to patents, methods of invention, ways of searching pre-existing patent information and lessons from visiting professionals. The students’ responses were extremely good.” (t/n: Not too sure about the translation for this paragraph. ^^’’ )
Yoo Seung Mok and Choi Sang Jin who received the Patent Director’s Awards revealed, “Since last summer vacation, we attended lectures about Patents during our spare time and familiarised ourselves with the basic concepts. Until the competition in May, we prepared for it diligently with the help of Patent lectures and visiting instructors.” They added, “In order to solve the problems, we always consider them through the stance of the companies, and that helped us a lot.”

Patent Director’s Award- Choi Sang Jin, Patent Director’s Award- Yoo Seung Mok, Excellence Award- Kim Dong Ha.
Original article from: 충청일보

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Bolded name, Yoo Seung Mok, is A's Korean name. ;)

OMG, it took me ages to translate this article. Actually I’ve been practising translation for the past few weeks on shorter articles and this was the longest I’ve ever did. Of course I HAD to translate this, it’s about A’s achievement in the recent Patent competition he participated in.

Last week I posted on my facebook status about his photo appearing on naver.com, it is because of this article! :) There were several other shorter news articles and I heard the article was published in the newspapers too! But since this was the first one listed on Naver with his photo included, I chose to translate this article! It’s just mediocre translation as there are certain parts which I’m not too sure of but I try to make the article sound coherent and logical.
Anyway, I am SO SO SO proud of him! ^^The award he won, the Patent Director’s Award, was the second prize after the Minister’s Award (1st prize). There was prize money and it is quite a lot! He said that his school even made some sort of a banner (with the photos above) that showed off their achievement.
This sure reflects how hardworking and diligent a student he is… ㅠ.ㅠ He’s my role model…

New semester, honours year… Tougher than I thought

It’s already the third week into the 1st semester of my honours year. There is definitely a level of intensity that is beyond the normal undergrad level. Because I’ve taken the challenge to do a translation thesis, it requires high proficiency of the Korean language. Right now, I’m trying to improve my proficiency level and at the same time practice doing translations which can be immensely challenging. But I welcome the challenge as it is always better than it not being a challenge. At least I will learn something out of it.

These days though, I feel a bit of a motivational-drain… I want to study, but I keep getting distracted by things and by the end of the day my to-do list will always be incomplete. That is very annoying and it kills my motivation even more. But oh well, I just have to keep fighting…!!

Sometimes I feel that I can be a little too ambitious too, wanting to be fluent in Korean in an instant and then getting frustrated when I realise my Korean isn’t as good as I want it to be. I want to really sit down and mug, just like a Korean high school student –studying 20 hours or so a day. LOL. Okay that’s too intense for me, I still need to cook, do laundry, clean, wash, drink bubble tea, etc… Hehe. But I’ve done quite a fair bit of studying when it’s only the third week. I just feel that I need to study even MORE. Yeap, I need to but knowing me, I get distracted so easily.

I realised that in the recent months, I’ve absolutely no inspiration or  (the word again) motivation to blog about anything…….. When I look at my blog, I’ll go “ok I’ll blog another time” and it’s the same all the time until now. One thing is I guess I can easily pour out my feelings through twitter, in an instant! Also, right now I feel that I need to put more effort into blogging well, language wise. Write well to improve my writing skills… that thought alone sort of kills my motivation by 80% already. LOL. And this blog post is like… almost close to effortless because I don’t want to care anymore…. I need to revive this blog!! ><;;

끝.

Winter Break is coming to an end

Winter break is coming to an end soon! I’m actually more happy than sad because it’s going to be a whole year of intensive Korean language!! I’ve been revising my Korean during the holidays, although not as much as I wanted due to the holiday mood I have. I still have so much to study but I’m only left with a weekend before the new semester starts! But I find myself actually quite disciplined in revising my Korean, it’s the passion I guess! hee~ ;p

Besides studying, I’ve been enriching myself with skills and knowledge! Utilizing the time I had, I started learning how to…

KNIT! :) The photo shows a practice patch I knitted out while learning how to knit two colours together. I haven’t knitted out anything useable so far as I’m still practicing. There are so many different kinds of pattern stitches to knit and each pattern requires a different method of knitting. But I’m taking it slow as I have a lot of time before December comes!

And today I FINALLY got down to making the Korean sushi, Kimbab! I’ve wanted to make kimbab for so long but was too lazy to find out which Korean mart has the ingredients I need as not all Korean marts have kimbab ingredients!

For a first attempt, it’s quite successful although I need more practice with rolling the kimbab! ;p

It’s been quite a purposeful holiday, travelling with sister and cousin, studying, reading, knitting, cooking, hanging out with friends and saying goodbye to some. Soon I’m going to embark on my honours year!! OMG excited.

Semester 1, 2011.

Results for sem 1, 2011 were released few days ago and as I expected, my results were not on par with the previous semesters’. Definitely no Dean’s list this semester!

Can’t say I’m not disappointed because I expected at least one 7 for either MSTU or POLS. But I also expected to see a 5 for COMU, good thing it’s not! My first grade 5 in my whole uni life received in the last semester (for my normal BA). What a pity I could not keep my results purely 6s and 7s. Argh, Buddhism. From the first moment I learn about this course, I knew I would not do so well if I were to take it. It’s religion, it’s philosophy. The stuff that makes my head go haywire. Alas! I proved myself right. I worked quite hard for Buddhism, did lots of reading which is required actually, if not you can’t write shit. But well, other courses were quite as time-consuming with looooots of readings to do. I guess for this semester, without a Korean course, I was kept busy on my toes just like a “more” normal uni student. Every week, tons of readings to do.

The thing is, although my grades are not as good as my previous semesters, I felt that I learnt the most for this semester. Perhaps it’s because of the readings, but I would also credit my Buddhism prof (oh the irony!). Throughout the semester, he stressed on the importance of reading and writing. Reading is essential for everyone because it is through reading that we gain knowledge (mostly), which of course is true. Besides learning from lecturers, profs in school, we gain most knowledge through reading (be it textbook or other academic books). Besides that, having taken the political science course has made me realised how little I know about Asia. I reckon that I should not only focus on Korea and expand my knowledge to other parts of Asia as well, especially SEA which shamefully I have the least interest in. >< Because of this course, I am cultivating the habit of updating myself with current affairs around the world (especially Asia, since I’m majoring in Asian Studies). There are actually so much more that I’ve learnt this semester but I’m just too lazy to type it all out… lol.

So, now I’m officially a Bachelor degree holder and moving on to another year of honours! I’m sooo excited for the new semester to start! Only two weeks of holidays left, I have to take this time to study and revise my Korean due to the lack of Korean practice last semester. ><

Short post on the Melbourne/Gold Coast trip!

I have been fighting the unmotivated will to blog all these while and finally I’m here still struggling to type what has been going on  in my life since my last blog post. I see blogging as a practice for sustaining my writing skills although it is not something I want to boast about and it may not be an effective practice (due to the lack of a 3rd party proof-reading) but it is still SOMETHING which is better than nothing! That’s why I don’t want to give up blogging.

June was a really really busy month which is kind of obvious considering my number of blog posts. I was busy with exams and assignments, after which I went on a vacation to Melbourne and Gold Coast with my sister and cousin. It all ended within the month of June! A month mixed with working hard and playing hard.

Melbourne/Gold Coast trip was really fun. I was pretty impressed with the amount of things to do in Melbourne city! There is the Fed Square where we participated in the winter light festival on one of the weekends, where there were performances and a beautifully lit pyramid of lights. Chinatown in Melbourne was bustling and seemed authentically Asia, heaps better than the Chinatown in Brisbane which is labelled as the red light district (danger zone). As our hotel was located at Chinatown, we had to walk past Chinatown everyday. I think I have been to Melbourne’s Chinatown more than Brissy’s. Melbourne city closes way later than Brisbane city as well which is super awesome! Woolies was still open at 9+ near 10! Certain boutiques were still open at around 7+, 8 on Sunday when Brisbane shops closes at 5 sharp on Sunday!

But the less populous city of Brisbane appeals to me more. The amount of people in Brisbane is just nice to me, not too many and not too little. That’s one of the good things I like about Brissy, other than the weather!

Besides city touring in Melbourne, we went on a day tour to Great Ocean Road and Philip Island. Although it was freezing cold, it was still a great experience! The good thing about the tours was that I didn’t have motion sickness!! It was probably because I ate medicine and slept almost throughout the whole bus rides. Waking up really early in the morning for the tours helped too. ;)

I’ve nothing much to rave about for Gold Coast since I’ve been there 485720302348023 times. Hahaaa, you know that’s figurative right?

I will blog more soon…. I think I’ve depleted my writing juices last semester (sem 1, 2011).

My favourite Professor in UQ

This evening, while taking a bus home from uni, I spotted my Asian Studies prof sitting a few seats in front of me. Apparently he was reading some sort of Japanese catalogue on Japanese visual art, i.e. paintings, calligraphy, ceramic art, etc. I thought in my head, “that is so Dr Low”. He never ceases to amaze me with his passion towards Japanese culture and his overall enthusiasm towards Asian Studies. Of course, being the Asian Studies major convenor he SHOULD be passionate towards it. But compared to other profs I’d encounter in my uni life, he exudes the most passion for the courses he’s teaching. Whenever I coincidentally spot him somewhere in uni or on the bus, he would be reading something. And he always provides lots of reading materials during his classes each week. I’ve taken his courses for three semesters and always enjoyed his classes, no doubt writing blog entries each week is kind of troublesome at times, but I think that it does reinforces what we learnt during lessons.

Oh his passion for Japanese culture goes way back I reckon. It seems he had lived in Japan for a few years and is pretty fluent in Japanese. He’s an Australian born Chinese/Hong Kong, I think. And he teaches Japanese popular culture in UQ, a course which I took in my first semester.

I find that he’s a really good example for me. His passion and quest for knowledge seems limitless… well that’s the feeling I get from him whenever I attend his classes, or see him reading some article about Asia/Japan. I hope I can cultivate this kind of passion towards reading and gaining more knowledge. Also for this passion to keep burning till I retire or even after!!

Busiest semester of my uni life!!!

Very busy, very very busy. Just taking a break to blog….. about me being busy. –_-;

This busy life will not end even when my exams end because my sister and cousin are coming over to Aus and we’ll be busy playing!!!

My free time will start in July and that’s when I’ll be very free, very very free.