Munity+East+Application+Works


 * Junior Divider **

Grade 11, in a sense, is like military service: it causes tiredness, sickness, and hair loss. Sophomores dread the junior year, juniors themselves barely live through it, and seniors (or what remained of them) have successfully completed it. But there is no denying that once it is over, you are stronger than ever and ready to take on anything. It is the year during which you grow the most: both academically and socially. It is when you will find your true friends, your true strengths, your true inspirations. It is when you research colleges and realize that the time for college is not too far away. But as they say, junior year goes by in a breeze.


 * Yearbook Feature: A Thousand Splendid Post-it Notes **

This year, any returning student looking for Ms. Patterson’s room should have ended up in the wrong floor at least once. The room beside the skywalk entrance, the one with all the post-it notes, the one in which numerous classes were held – after four years, it had to be emptied for the creation of a HS Staff Lounge. Just as the thousands of post-it notes were taken off the wall, so were the memories made inside that classroom.

For myself, it was a catastrophe -- no longer could I go to French class directly.

After several days of national mourning, people finally got around to accepting the fact that Ms. Webster’s room would no longer be H300.

Among those people were the KIS Yearbook team members. It can be argued that the Yearbook team members were affected the most by this change, for they have been there the longest. Students in English 10 will spend only a year before they part from this classroom; yearbook team members, however, forever.


 * English Feature: Logically Fallacious **

Do you argue a lot with your family and/or friends? If your answer is yes, then your arguments should always be air-tight and fallacy-free. The logical fallacy unit of the AP English Language and Composition class kicked off with Mr. Longbotham’s favorite question, “Did you stop beating your mother?” This is an example of a false dilemma, because there are more than the two choices of “yes” or “no” but the question is phrased as if only the two exist. (Both answers indicate that you beat your mother.) Here is another example: you tell your friend that the Earth is in the shape of a triangle, and your friend replies “Well, you’re crazy, and you always come up with these stupid theories.” At first, your friend’s reply may seem true to some point (and it probably is), but analyzed more closely, your friend has made use of a common logical fallacy: ad hominem. Ad hominem is an attempt at countering an argument by not addressing the issue, a triangle Earth, and attacking the person, you, instead. After a long day of dealing with your friend’s fallacious arguments, you return home to find your dad waiting in front of your room, and he does not look too happy. “Son, I heard you skipped hagwon.” “Yeah, but my friends were all doing it!” “Oh, so if your friends started jumping off buildings, you would do that too? Your father has also just made use of a logical fallacy: reductio ad absurdum, or “reduction to the absurd.” He has stretched the logic of what you had done to absurd proportions, and then attacked the newly-stretched logic. These are just some of the logical fallacies that we learn in AP English Language and Composition class. With these new logical fallacies equipped, you should never lose an argument (with a rational person) ever again! by Jay Jeong


 * __ XC Boys Feature ____ : __ __ Frenemies __**

The idea of a sport is to compete against an individual or a team, and from this competition arises great rivalries: Barcelona v.s. Real Madrid, New York Yankees v.s. Boston Red Sox, etc.

Equally great is the rivalry between ** Kyu Park (11) ** and ** Kangwoon Kim (11) ** of the Cross Country team. For three years, they have worked to outrun each other -- though never forgetting to exhibit good sportsmanship and, most importantly, that they are best friends. “I try my best to run faster than him, but if I fail to, I congratulate him,” said Kyu. “It’s not the fake, forced kind; it’s genuine, because I know he really worked hard to beat me.”

A truly great rivalry involves extremely close and varying results. In their first year of Varsity Cross Country, they were neck and neck -- probably why this rivalry began in the first place. In their second year, Kyu dominated for the most part. However, in their third year, Kangwoon has been pulling ahead.

We will have to wait until the end of their senior year to see who will graduate as the "winner," but I doubt that their rivalry will end there. Forever they will be the best of friends and the greatest of rivals.

by Jay Jeong