Play Dohs

            When I first say play dohs, I was amazed by their bright color and smoothness of texture. I've played with other “dohs,” but none were like play dohs. When ordinary mud doughs were gray, stuck to my hand, and smelled like soil, play dohs were soft and had color that were almost glowing in the dark. They totally won me over and I begged my parents to buy them for me. I carried piece of dough with me almost wherever I went, squashing it in my hand. One day, I decided to mix my favorite colors-yellow, pink, and green. 'They are so pretty,' I thought, 'how beautiful would they be when I mix them together?' Determined to create the most beautiful color in the world, I started squishing three doughs together. I remember being extremely frustrated at the ugly brown colored dough. I cried all day long and demanded that my parents buy me a new set since my favorite colors were ruined. They decided to teach me a lesson and ignored my selfish demands. That is the first time I had my color lessons.

Significant Object

            My significant object is my letter box. It contains tons of letters and cards that my friends, teachers, and relatives in Korea sent me. I was ten years old when I came to U.S, and I did not know how to e-mail them. Actually, e-mail was not very wide-spread seven years ago. I exchanged numerous letters with people whom I was close with. I did not use e-mail until I was in eighth grade. Fro three years, I was writing to them and they were writing back. I keep all the letters in a shoebox and it is almost overflowing with envelopes and papers. There is a difference between receiving e-mail and finding a hand-written letter in a mailbox. E-mail is a lot more convenient, faster, and requires no stamps. All you have to do is to sign into your account, type few sentences, and click “send” button. However, the hand-written letters contain more personal aspects of the person. I memorize each person’s handwriting and I get to know their mood by reflecting their choice of designed papers and color pens. I do not exchange hand-written letters anymore, but whenever I look through my letter box, I miss people in Korea and remember them.

Pledge: Should we recite it every day?

            I am one of the students who prefer to sit down and finish the class work when the daily morning announcements recite the Pledge of Allegiance every single day. Although I am not against the school announcements rehearsing it, I certainly believe that students should be given choice to recite it or ignore it. The Pledge if Allegiance itself poses many problems; first of all, there’s the statement “under God” and not all of the students are believers of religion. They may be atheists, agnostics, or believers of polytheistic religion. The pledge does not even define which “god” of which religion. Also, there are many who are not citizens of the U.S. They clearly have no obligation to recite the pledge. Lastly, there are those who are simply not comfortable at proclaiming that he pledges allegiance to the U.S. “indivisible” whether or not he believes the U.S. government’s conducts are right. It may become a promise that he will never be able to keep.