Seven Years Old. The world was vast, scary and full of obstacles. I was an adventurer and a vagabond, restless and curious of my surroundings. Compared to how I view my immediate surroundings the world for me at the age of seven was marvelous, exciting and full of opportunities for exploration...

I’m a minority. To make things worse, I’m a minority within a minority group. I’m Korean but my last name is not Kim, Lee or Park. It’s Ryu (pronounced You but with a R sound in front and not Rye-U).Unlike most Koreans I didn’t score an 800 or close to an 800 on my SA..

I was a listless, lackadaisical, poor excuse for a human being. It was disgusting. I couldn’t wake up for school if my life depended on it. I never had time to eat breakfast and if I made it to school on time I sat in class without a thought; as a shell without a ghost...

To be honest, I was a bit reluctant to go back to North Korea. Three days before my departure to the mysterious North there was an incident where a South Korean tourist was gunned down by North Korean soldiers. The North Koreans explained that she trespassed and proceeded to advance toward the sol..

...The shouts reverberated within the tightly packed scrum. I tried to assess the situation and make sense of this orchestrated chaos. The ball entered the scrum and I kicked the ball behind me. Soon, the scrum broke. In a moment, I had the ball in my arms and I ran as fast as I can towards the en..

It’s a three hour drive from the city of Gwangju to Seoul. I made this trip every weekend for three months. Initially, the drives up North consisted of an emotional up and down. My mother and I waged battles that often followed with a long period of silence. I put up a good fight but I was n..