Lee: The Life of Another Korean American

There are many things that people can guess based on the stereotypes of a typical Korean-American man. For example if you had to guess my career choice, at least a third of you would guess it right. Or if you had to guess my major in college, 90% of you would guess it right. My life has been a part of this ridiculous but true phenomena of 2nd generation of Korean Americans that has dictated and controlled its fate and direction. Everything from my religion to my social awkwardness and naivety became so blurred by the stereotypical identity of a Korean American that by the time I attended college I struggled hard with distinguishing which parts of me were manufactured by the culture I grew up in and what part was created on my own.

Over these last five years my life has been a roller coaster of a ride. In high school I had struggled with fitting in and was an outcast at my school. The kid that got his tatertot's stolen every day? Yea he stole my tater tots. That's how low on the food chain I was. College was a tough but enlightening four years, it was also full of times of joy and rejoice after I took this opportunity of a new start to my social life. After barely graduating from college at University of California, while struggling long with gaming addiction and depression, I came out of college into the research industry working as a part time lab technician at the University. In this terrible economy I have no better option but to work as an intern in research and hope that I can apply for graduate school and get accepted in the follow years.

A little under a month ago I was struggling again with life, about the future and about the present. I got depressed again and found myself drowning the sorrows with binge gaming, all night to about 4 - 5 AM. I would wake up and arrive at work 3 hours late, I would leave 5 hours later and repeat the cycle. One night while driving from a church friend's house on my little Yamaha Zuma 125 Scooter I sped down a steep decline into an S in the road. I couldn't properly swivel through the S and ran into the corner of a parked car at about 45-50 mph. The average speed of a motorcycle accident that has ended in neck/back injury is 45 mph. While I lay there on the pavement cringing in pain I couldn't understand what exactly happened, all I could think was how much of an idiot I had been those two weeks sitting around and wasting my life in computergames. My friends who were fortunately driving behind me were able to help me up, pull my scooter out from underneath the car, walk it to their house and park it in their garage. My right leg had been severely bashed up and my back had been road-rashed but thanks be to God I had no broken bones or open wounds. It was truly a miracle that I walked away from that accident on my feet and without an ambulance. After weeks of recovery (and still recovering now) I learned that I had likely torn a ligament in my knee. Since I had no medicare/health insurance there was no way of knowing for sure, I was flying blind with a leg swollen almost twice the size of my other and severe bruising from some sort of internal bleeding. It was another miracle that only after 4 weeks I am walking normally with only some weakness and stiffness in my right knee.

After the accident in late May 2011, and my recovery through June, I found myself with a changed perspective. When you have something near death like a motorcycle accident and come out of it with some cuts and bruises, something in your mind changes. I dropped my computer gaming habits, I dropped my eating habits, I started dieting, I refreshed my faith in God, and I searched find new, constructive hobbies. It was in this search that I found this site, Squidoo and came to love the art of lensography.

I'll admit, when I first came to Squidoo it was for monetary reasons like most others. With my scooter totaled and sold of too a acquaintance of mine in Ohio, I had to find ways to earn extra money to save up for a car . Currently I ride with my father to work at 6 AM and catch a ride back at 5PM, 11 hour shifts on a part time job is mentally excruciating but a lot of spare time for blogging. It was all about money, money, money. I had found out about Squidoo through another lens-er's blog and just her earnings statement for the month of July last year. Squidoo wasn't the highest on the list but it seemed interesting and so I checked it out. Blogging was always something I wanted to try but with tools like WordPress where designing and updating the blog is a big headache and finding traffic is another headache it was nice to find a system like Squidoo with a community to support it.

After my first couple of lenses, one about my past hobby: Starcraft 2 (every Korean male plays Starcraft its like... Brazilians and soccer) and the other about a Pay-To-Do site I made money on I started enjoying this site and quickly cared less about the money then writing quality lenses about stuff I love. Instead of filling my Pay-to-do site with referral links and sales pitches for the site I turned it into a guide and plan for building extra revenue by utilizing established social networks. From there my lenses have flourished and blossomed into pieces of art for the public rather then selfish advertisements for my own profit.

Now I am a changed man, a new refined and improved self. I am a young adult building self dependence and my future, I am a dreamer and an achiever of dreams. I am a child of God and a man for Christ. I am an aspiring writer, photographer and scientist. I like to dig deep and find the true meanings of things, I think critically and analyze every aspect. I am a perfectionist who accepts his flaws as part of perfection. I will be applying to medical schools and graduate schools to get into either an M.D or Ph.D program but I hope to acquire both degrees and become a part time medical missionary and part time medical researcher, practicing physician or medical instructor. I have a vision for mission work in East Asia, particularly areas of extreme poverty. I have a heart for rural Japan.