Reporter Column: Life is a Series of Exciting Journeys
Reporter Column: Life is a Series of Exciting Journeys
  • Reporter Lee Il-bong
  • 승인 2016.06.01 12:28
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I enjoy travelling around. For me, travel is one of the few things that I can definitely say attracts me. At the end of every semester, I sit in front of a table and start to design the upcoming vacation’s trip. I do not remember the exact time when I started treating the travel as part of my life, but I guess it was affected by my family. My family used to take short trips every weekend. We called it “Driving,” since we drove to various destinations. I learned a lot of things through these trips. Although I lived in Seoul, I was able to feel and experience many things, especially the nature of this country. We visited resorts, parks, lakes, and valleys, usually located in Gyeonggi Province. One day, we even drove to the East Sea at midnight, just because my sister and I wanted to go to the sea. Every trip inspired me and became a motivating force for living the next week. It also extended my point of view and insight. However, as I grew up, time gap between the Driving became longer due to the excess study loads. Nowadays, my family has no more time to spend on Driving. I still miss those days.  
I forgot those feelings that travel brings me for a while. I decided to travel again last year, during my first summer vacation in university. I was such a couch potato for the first month of vacation, and I thought about a special breakthrough that would refresh my vacation. The breakthrough I found was a Rail-Ro trip with my high school friends. During the five days of road trip, we experienced all sorts of hardships. Sleeping in the train, walking 2 kilometers under the scorching sunlight, unexpected events in various places, and embarrassing situations made the trip more dynamic. However, we overcame those events, and they became essential assets for us. Since then, I started to travel around, whenever I can afford it.
Escaping from my personal reminiscence, let me talk about a recent event. Two days before the Sunrise Festival, a news article “struck” the entire campus. The Ministry of National Defense announced their scheme to gradually abolish the exemption from military service due to the continuous decline of population and following decrease of military size. Many fellows around me are still confused about their future with respect to the military serve. The future we had drawn got blurred in one moment.
Nevertheless, life is a series of exciting journeys. No matter how carefully you plan the journey, unexpected situations occur. A trip is completed with every step you make during the journey. It makes the journey “alive”, and that’s why I got attracted to it. Postechians, I want to say that this is the moment we should fill our journey with our efforts. Not just watching the situation, not just discouraging ourselves, this is the moment in which we make our future by ourselves.