By Jamie Fu
Reflections
Novi HS
1st Place Division 1, Yearbook Verbal
Personality Profile
JUDGING CRITERIA
- Clear, relevant, engaging angle that makes story worthy of inclusion
- Solid lead that draws reader into story
- Meaningful student quotes that enrich story and reflect effective interviewing
- Evidence of adequate research
- Story goes beyond superficial coverage to give a total perspective and feel for the subject
- Adheres to rules of good journalism including: short paragraphs, effective transitions and use of active voice, freedom from editorial comment, careful editing and proofreading to eliminate mechanical errors, correct use of grammar
Although senior Dongha Paek has only lived in the United States for less than three years, he has been obsessed with iconic American saga Star Wars since he was a child.
“As a little kid, I literally worshipped Star Wars,” he said. “I started watching Star Wars when I was five, and until I was seven, I literally watched one movie every day.”
He recalls forgetting about it for a while in elementary school until fourth grade, when he moved to Nebraska for ten months to study English. There, unlike in South Korea, Paek said, sci-fi was still all the rage.
“When I came back to Korea, I was obsessed with [Star Wars],” Paek said.
He started to collect Stars Wars figures, and since then he’s amassed quite the formidable collection. In middle school, he decided to open a small blog about Star Wars.
“It wasn’t really that popular, but I started to make friends that were kind of famous in the community,” he said.
He joined the biggest sci-fi/Star Wars community on Naver Cafe, a service for creating communities on South Korea’s dominant online platform.
“People post like stuff from like, Comic Cons or stuff. They do have some events in Korea. They have offline meetings too and they just post pictures and talk about Star Wars and stuff,” Paek said.
Eventually, through his dedication to the series, Paek was given administrative privileges to the community. As part of the management team to the 30,000 member community, Paek said that one of his roles was to “oversee the offline activities that Cafe members do.” His other duties included monitoring posts to make sure members were following community rules and removing ads on the community feed. But it’s been more difficult for him recently to participate in community activities.
“I used to go to online meetings and meet some people, but that was a few years ago,” Paek said. “I can’t do that anymore because I was really busy in high school and stuff.”
However, despite his now busy schedule and new home overseas, Star Wars still has a huge influence on Paek’s life. He has several t-shirts dedicated to the saga, which he sports to school on a day-to-day basis, and he also credits his interests in Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science in part to the series. Without Star Wars, perhaps Paek might not have become the person he is today.