G12 Aria Jacobsen

My dad is a good role model. He is very kind. He is very cute. He has a lot of kindness and love. He is hard-working. He always cares for others. He has a lot of selflessness. He is a very good person and my precious dad. I love my dad. Thank you!

우리 아빠는 좋은 롤모델입니다. 아빠는 매우 친절합니다.. 그리고, 아빠는 아주 귀엽습니다. 그는  친절하고, 사랑을 많이 가지고 있습니다. 아빠는 열심히 일합니다. 아빠는 항상 다른 사람들을 배려합니다. 아빠는 진짜 욕심 없는 좋은 사람이자 저의 소중한 아빠입니다. 저는 아빠를 사랑합니다. 감사합니다.

For my mural project I chose to make two murals because I really enjoyed the process and message behind them. For my first mural I chose the words ‘loving others’. This also ties to the APIS moral of selflessness as I believe that loving others and selflessness is essential to positively affecting the lives of those around you. I think that being kind and loving is very important in a person and a good moral compass. I also chose this as my hero, my father, is very selfless and loving to everyone.

 My second mural was built around the word ‘adaptability’ because I also believe adaptability and flexibility are crucial in life. I believe life doesn’t always go as planned and you cannot always get your way so it is very important to be able to compromise and adjust to situations around you. 

첫 번째 벽화에서는 ‘다른 사람들을 사랑하기’라는 말을 선택했습니다. 이타주의가 주변 사람들의 삶에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 데 필수적이라고 믿습니다. 저는 친절하고 사랑스러운 것이 사람에게 매우 중요하고 올바른 도덕적 나침반이라고 생각합니다. 또한, 저의 영웅인 아버지께서 모든 사람에게 매우 이타적이고 사랑이 많기 때문에 이를 선택했습니다.

두 번째 벽화는 ‘적응력’이라는 단어를 중심으로 만들어졌는데, 저 또한 적응력과 유연성이 삶에 중요하다고 믿기 때문입니다. 삶이 항상 계획대로 흘러가지 않으며, 원하는 대로만 되는 것이 아니기 때문에 주변 상황에 지혜롭게 타협하고 조정할 수 있는 것이 매우 중요하다고 생각합니다.

오하나, 내 삶을 인도하는 나침판

모든 계절, 모든 시련 통해

우리의 눈물 거두고 미소를 띄운다

Ohana, the compass guiding my life

Through every season, through every trial

We gather our tears and wear a smile.

I had been wanting to learn Korean for a while but had not had the opportunity. I’m glad I was able to take this class this year as I finally get to learn more about reading, writing, and speaking Korean which I hadn’t been able to do before. I specifically love learning Korean because of my time in Korea, it is interesting to learn new words but also remember words I had heard in Korea aswell. I hope to return to Korea some time and put my learning to use. In Korean class I feel like I have been doing well on writing and reading Korean and can read and identify the Korean alphabet. What I feel I need to work on is the speaking Korean aspect as I want to work more on my pronunciation and being able to speak full sentences. Thank you for teaching me, Ms. Kim! -From Aria, December, 2023

Hangeul and Ohana Reflective Writing

In this project we learned about the local issues in Hawaii, the wildfires, and we researched and thought about ways we can help make a positive impact on the people in the community. To do this we came up with the idea of creating postcards and selling them along with korean food, hotteok, to be able to raise money and awareness we can donate to Maui. The research helped me notice the different struggles going on in Hawaii and opened my eyes to the different disasters that have happened recently such as the fires. This brought my awareness to how to help these communities and I learned more about how to help as well as what I can do to support and raise awareness. I also took value in connecting hangeul and korean culture into the idea of helping and doing this project as well. It is important to preserve cultural heritage to keep peoples family and history known. It is important to celebrate your people and your past for Korean immigrants and all people. I have learned a lot about the history of Hangeul as well as how and why it was created. I think learning about the way Hangeul was created, in an effort to bring together Korean people and have a language everyone can learn and speak, really shows the importance of connecting to your community and being able to communicate and help each other.

Another big part of the project was coming up with and creating our individual post cards and poems. At first it was difficult to get a good idea of what I wanted my poem to express, but I know I wanted to express my connection to my family and my ohana and the importance of that bond. In creating my poem I got to reflect on what I’ve learned about the local issues and my community as well as reflect on the impact and importance of family or ohana. This helped me connect to my community and bring out empathy for the broaders community. Sharing and reading others poems also helped me to connect with them and see their thoughts and opinions which I enjoyed and learned from and I hope we had the same impact on the people who got our postcards as well. Poetry helps to express the feelings of the writers, it is a form of art and takes the most important and significant words to form lines that represent the emotions of the writer and express themselves. Poetry helps people to explain their emotions through symbolic writing and connecting to people’s emotions through writing or art can really help grow a community where people can be open in their emotions. In the context of Hawaii I think everyone is very close like a big family so expressing feelings to each other is very important. 

After I had my writing done for the poem I could begin to design the postcard off of the poem. I was excited to include a visual element to my poem. The integration of art as the images and colors helped to express the mood I was trying to convey with my poem as well as the impact I am trying to have on those who read it. These match the themes of community and reaching out as I was trying to spread awareness. I wanted to make my postcard colorful to catch the eyes of the viewers but also strike emotion in the hug and crying of the girl. I chose a hug because it shows a good embrace which is what I want to be able to do with the people of the community, I hope to be able to connect to and embrace others who are struggling. These choices help portray my want to be able to help others and raise awareness for others to also reach out and connect to others who need it.

By being a part of this project and being able to see the big picture of it I realized the fun of being able to create things with others, but I also realized the difficulty of organizing something of big scale like a fundraiser where you are involving others and money and a lot of time. I realized the many different rules needed in order to have entrepreneurship and to be able to connect to the community, it is not an easy job and I have a lot of appreciation for people who do so. Overall, this project’s impact on me was very positive. I enjoyed being able to see people who buy it happy with their purchase and knowing their purchase is going to a good cause. I also enjoy knowing that all the money we raise will be going to help others in need so each little moment and purchase counts. This contributes to the project’s goals and my own growth because we are successfully reaching our goal of being able to connect with the community and make an impact.