We give and take presents when birthday or wedding anniversary. According to recent news, most people prefer to receive money, gift certificate or accessory. The worst presents are a bunch of flowers, a letter and ‘heart’. Well, I like to receive anything, money or even just ‘heart’, because I hope I can respect all people who prepared something to me. However, I have a little taste that I want to receive as a present; book.             Last year on my birthday, I received 4 books from my friends. The Book of Bunny Suicides by Andy Riley, Le père de nos pères 1, 2 by Bernard Werber, and Wednesday by Ethan Hawke were those. Especially Wednesday by Ethan Hawke was very impressive because I hate popular lowbrow novel so I had never read novels about love story. However, by the present of my friend, I got a good chance to read that kind of novel. Actually, the book was not bad than I thought. If someone didn’t give me such book, I would never have a chance to read which I had a prejudice about. With this as a momentum, now I’m trying to read any kind of book without bias.              I think it is good to give someone book as a present instead of money or something like that. A good book makes people happy and gives good motives to try something new. I hope I can receive many good books on my next anniversary.

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             There are many way to spend leisure time. Someone go to shopping or someone go to sports ground. I like hang out somewhere, but sometimes I’d like to try something different with what I usually do in my leisure time.              Recently I took an interest in visit markets. There are some big markets around my neighborhood such as E-mart, Hanaro club, Costco and Garak market. I like those places because I can see many interesting goods even though I I don’t buy something. Food, daily commodities, clothes, furniture, electronics and even pat, there are almost everything that we need in low price. Specially, I love food corner. When I stroll through food corner I feel happy that I just see many delicious foods. The best food corner of many markets is Costco’s I think.               Most of Costco’s foods are the imports from abroad. Therefore, there are many cookies, candies, chocolates which we can’t see in normal places. Meat corner and wine corner are great as well. Most I love is bakery corner. Their cheese cake is my favorite. Prices of cheese cake are little expensive in cafes or bakeries, but you can buy quite good cheese cake in reasonable price. If you like cheese cake, I recommend you to visit Costco.               Another reason why I like to go market is that seeing many diverse people is very fun. Specially, guys in fish corner or meat corner are very energetic and humorous, they address customers as if they are their close friends.              Yester day, I went to Costco again with my boy friend. We had very good time there, and now I’m happy with a piece of cheese cake. If you want to get some different experience with in normal, you could go a big...

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Some times ago, JoonAng Newspaper started a campaign ‘WALKHOLIC’. The purpose of this campaign is informing people how good is walking and making them walk more. Therefore, I can get some good information and read interesting stories about walking.              Actually, I like walking on street. I think that is lucky at that, because I don’t like all exercises except walking. Well, I’ve tried some exercises and those were not very bad. But I hate the feeling sticky with sweat, so whenever I did exercising, I used to crave for taking shower as soon as possible. However, walking doesn’t make me sweating unless I walk too fast or too long. It’s very fun! I can have good conversation with somebody along with me. I can feel breeze on my face. I can smell of savory bread or green grass. I can meet cute dogs. I can absorb in thought with good music.              I love that the weather is lovely these days, especially at evening. It is really good to walk. I hope that the weather is always like these days.

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       Most people have some lists that they don’t eat or can’t eat. Some people hate to eat carrots and some are allergic to peaches. In my case, I hate oysters. I can’t stand the peculiar fishy smells of them. Also, their appearances so creepy (Oh, even I think that to write about, I feel disgusting). One of my friends who hate oyster like me, described it as ‘crushed eyeball’, so I laughed aloud clapping my hands. She expressed funny the mush texture and color’ mixing, doesn’t she?        Anyway, sometimes we need to cast away prejudices about food we hate, I think. Even try just once, you can have new idea about the food. I was too! I didn’t eat all of marine products uncooked, not only oysters. I hated fishy smells and I couldn’t stop thinking of parasites that all fishes have. However, I pretty enjoy eating raw fishes now. Few months ago, I went to a quality Japanese restaurant at the invitation of an acquaintance. Except some kinds of sliced raw fishes, most are really good to eat than I thought. Specially, slices of raw tuna’s belly (Odoro) and spawn of sea urchins are fantastic. Those are feeling like melt in my mouth! I even felt chagrined that I hadn’t tried to eat them by that time.         I want to say you guys to try, even just once, something that you hate. That will be really good than your thought. Maybe it is hard to just try once (Yeah, I know, so I can’t try eat oysters now), maybe it makes bring another pleasure, same as to me.

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    I like going to see movie in a movie theater. There are some good things that we couldn’t feel when we see movie in our houses. Of course, we don’t have to concern other people and we can see movie with in a comfortable position at home. But I love that I could see a movie with big sound and screen.     However, there are some people who interrupt my little pleasure in theater. I’d like to talk about them.     As I told in a former writing, I hate kids. They are fret during a film going on. “Mommy, I want to go toilet.�?, “Why that woman (on film) cry?�?, “Look, there is a dog!�?, “I’m hungry.�? I try to ignore those chirpy words, but that is not easy. Moreover, some parents even not try to them keep quiet. They talk with their children as if the theater is their own room. Or they continually tell their children what is going on the screen. If their child is too young to understand the movie or they could be a cause other people inconvenience, parents shouldn’t bring child in theater, I think.    Also, there are some people that make me annoyed. They entrance in theater with straight posture and I can’t see screen because of their black silhouette. I can understand that they coming late. Maybe they’d caught traffic jam. But why, why they shade the screen without shame? More terrible thing is that they make a noise to find their seats. “Where is a seat f-26?�?, “I can see nothing, it’s so dark!�? Then I miss some scenes on the screen. I can’t understand why they don’t stoop down!     Sometimes I speak in an undertone to my friend sitting next seat, or I lately come...

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     A few days ago, I was reading a book in a subway station. Suddenly, a black man came closer to me and asked if I could tell him how to go Itaewon station. We were in an Onsu station (line no.7), so I told him that you should go up stairs and take line no.1 and transfer twice. He seemed to not understanding. And he asked me to take him to line no.1. I was a little annoyed. “Unless I willing to bring him there, why should I to do that? Isn’t it rude to me?�? But the way to get line no.1 is not very far from where we were, so I said I will.      On the way to get there, we had very common and boring talk. More over, when we get our destination, he asked me my phone number and he said if he is in an emergency situation, he will call. That sounded so weird! I’m not his mother or tour guide! I unavoidably gave my phone number (Well, maybe I was worrying image of Korean, how stupid), but later, I didn’t receive his calls.      I had thought it will be easy to make friend with anybody. However, I realized that it is not easy as I thought. When I met him, I thought he is too old to be my friend. When he said he came to Korea for sightseeing, in my mind, there was a selfish mind-‘If we become closer, maybe I have to be a ‘personal guide’ in Seoul for him.’ Also I couldn’t understand well his pronunciation (I guess he couldn’t understand either). It was really discomfort to have boring dialog with such strange pronunciation.      I thought I’m a open-minded person because I don’t hate somebody or...

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Gord sellar is my 3rd English composition teacher. He is a most energetic and passionate foreign teacher I’ve met. Some teachers grumble, something like “Oh, This class is too big (It may say ‘I don’t want to teach this large class’).” or “(apathetically) Check your grammar (I’ve try already. I don’t know where the errors are). But he’s never say like that to his students. I know he try his best to help his students. He is always cheerful and smiling to students. He uses many humors and jokers during the class to encourage and help efficiently to his students. I love this trying. I know many great people make the other people smile by using jokes or humors (for examples; Einstein, Feynman). Some students complain that he gives too many home works. Well, maybe they are right because he gives us many subjects for composition. However, I think that is proper because I believe that the most important things to improve writing skills are thinking a lot and writing many essays. I think I’m a lucky that I’ve met him. I’m learning not only about English composition, but also a positive attitude and view about life. He is a competent and passionate teacher.

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 Recently, Well-being is a hot issue in the whole world. This simple, plain logic-live happily, healthily-make many people to do something such as buying organic food, avoiding to take too much natrium or fat, or exercising at a fitness center or a park. A vegetable diet is a part of those efforts.  Actually, I’ve never understood why some people live on a vegetables. I’m not a picky eater and I like eating vegetables and fruits, but I couldn’t imagine how I can live without juicy steaks or crispy chickens(I’m nor a goat!)! Moreover, my cousin, who is from America, really annoyed me when she came in Korea last winter. She is a vegetarian so I was really hard to find a menu without meat when we hung out downtowns (She  even doesn’t eat milk, cheese, egg or butter).  However, I can understand vegetarians a little bit and even I think I could be a vegetarian if I feel it really needs someday. The change of my thought is because of a story about my friend’s acquaintance. She has had some times in Ji-Ri Mountain to train her mind and to meditate by an Avatar program. I don’t know what exactly the program is, but it seems that it makes change her life totally.  In Ji-Ri Mountain, She realized that how live people should be and how control our mind and body. And naturally she could be a vegetarian. She told my friend that she realized a vegetable diet is more delicious than meat-eating (not for her healthy or environmental problems). Also, she had been suffer from a trouble with her family, now she said she have a rest of mind and feel happy. I don’t know exactly why my thought about vegetable diet have changed after I just heard her story. Anyway, after...

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Do you like babies or kids? Some of my friends love to look after them or have some fun with them.  Actually, I don’t like babied or kids. Well, sometimes I friendly say “hello~” to a cute kid when I meet him/her on the street. Or sometimes I’m fall into raptures over their innocent eyes or naive manners. However, maybe those-cuteness, innocence or naivety-are just outward aspects, I think. they behave knavish with angel’s smile. They always run with a clattering noise or keep crying until get they want. They continuously questioning about all of things around the world. Their hands are always sticky. After they reached their full growth, entirely ignoring all of their parents’ love and concern (and money), they would say to their parents-”Leave me along!”,”Get out of my life! I don’t need your medding!”,”There’s nothing good because of you!”  If I marry someday, I’ll never have a child. It is really terrible to put all of my times and money into a child. Some friends say, “You are too selfish.”or “That’s not true! You’ll love children you getting older.” Well, I don’t think so, I would rather feed a cat than a little devil.

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