it’s almost 5:30am on a Friday morning and i find myself in front of the computer finishing up a presentation packet for the King’s Crown Leadership Awards, for which KSA [my beloved Korean Students Association], has been nominated for four awards. of course, nominations, based on online student surveys, do not mean much, but for some inspired reason, i feel (and many in my club feel the same way) that we are worthy of at least one of these awards. and hence, the work being put in last second to make a sincere attempt.

in a few minutes, i’ll be walking over to john jay to wake sei-wook up. wook has been my trusty partner in preparing the necessary materials for numerous KSA occasions. just a few weeks ago at yale, where we were attending kascon, i remember us running with laptops open in our arms, to the nearest kinko in order to print out presentation packets for the KSA expo. it’s a shame we didn’t win, but the experience was definitely worth the hours spent inside the hotel room, arranging photos and writing descriptions of our events.

i had a picture on my website sophomore year, shortly after becoming ksa president, of john jung sitting next to a pile of ksa culture show t-shirts with a hand-written sign that advertised its $3 price. the caption i wrote for that picture was “oh, the things we do for our club.” someone once told me that it was important to do what i love, and as cliche as that may sound, i feel like being involved with ksa this year has been such a blissful time because it has allowed me to do something i love over and over again. what exactly is it that i ‘love’? spreading cultural awareness, like our mission statement says? creating bonds with the people i work with? testing my limits in leadership? working to build a proud history? it may be a little bit of everything, but whatever it is, i’m grateful i’ve been a part of it.

village copier – 24 hours, presentation in less than 4 hours.

-pk