I update questions and answers about OPIc. This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and locations portrayed and the names herein are fictitious and any similarity to or identification with the location, name, character or history of any person, product or entity is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

OPIc Q&A 76~100

What are you proudest of in your life?

The proudest of things in my life is that I got a scholarship. I was struggling with whether I enter a university or start to work after graduating from high school. But, there were some conditions to enter a university that tuition has to be paid by a scholarship due to the lack of funds.

So, I looked up information that provides a scholarship and found it out in the end(ultimately, finally, at last). I searched for some information to secure a scholarship and submitted documents. I passed the judging and got a right to go to the university. I became a university student. Besides, I could go to a foreign university and speak three languages even though I could only speak my mother language.

I have gained many skills, techniques, and knowledge without paying any tuition. If I did not decide to find out and apply the forms, I would never experience this. So, I am proud of myself. In a nutshell, the proudest of things in my life is that I got a scholarship.

How has your life been different than what you’d imagined?

I suppose my turning point was that I decided to enter a university in Korea. I have been living in Japan since I was born. I thought I was going to enter a university in Japan or work after graduating from high school. I never had an option to study abroad.

However, I found out that a university recruited a scholarship that provides all tuition until graduation. So, I applied to the university and passed the judging. I got a scholarship and experienced a lot of things that I never went through when I was in Japan.

So, If I did not apply for the scholarship, I would enter a university in Japan or work and would experience completely different things like having friends in Japan or having an interest in something new. I would never experience the life of Korea, like having international friends, got the ability to speak three languages, having a dream that I want to achieve, and etc.

How would you like to be remembered?

I would like to be remembered that I am funny and have a sense of humor rather than smart(clever, bright, brilliant) or intelligent. I always have been told that I am a smart guy or an exemplary (model) student. I am sick of listening to the kind of words. So, I want to give another impression about myself that I am a fun man.

Making an impression that I am a fun man helps to form connections with people. I mean, it is easy to get familiar with someone who is fun and friendly rather than a logical and intelligent man. So, I was told by friends that I look like it is hard to approach(it is unapproachable). I am not sure the reason, maybe because of the appearances or mood that I have.

Anyway, I am tired of listening to words of “smart,” “intelligence,” and want to give an impression like “friendly,” “fun.”. That is the thing that I would like to be remembered.

Do you have any regrets?

I have a motto that I do my best and do not regret. So, I have been living my life without regret. Suppose that I was asked to live again, I would say no. I do not want to live again. But, there is only one thing that I want to re-do again by going back to the past.

The moment was that I was confessed by cute girls when I wan junior high school and high school. I was popular with girls. I am not popular with girls anymore. I rejected every time girls confessed due to my religious rules. I regretted turning down confession because I wanted to say ‘yes.’ If I said yes, I would have a different life. So, the thing that I regret is that I rejected confession from girls.

Why do you recommend studying abroad

I absolutely believe that anyone who can study abroad should actually do that because I experienced wonderful and numerous things after going to Korea.

First, I was able to learn two languages, Korean and English. Before going to Korea, I have been speaking only Japanese. However, I can handle three languages that worked fully at universities.

Besides, I was able to make foreign friends. This broadened my viewpoints on the world and my life that helped me a lot. I have learned various things from friends, such as the ethnic, tradition, culture, and values. This would not be obtained if I did not go to Korea.

What is more, I found the dream and objectives I want to achieve in my life. I do not mention my dream this time because it could be verbose. However, one of my objectives is to enter a graduate related to Psychology and want to be a professor and to live in the U.K or the U.S.

I realized what I wanted to do in my life thanks to studying abroad. So, I hope everyone should try to study abroad or live in a foreign country for at least one year if it is possible.

Who was the most important person in your life? Can you tell me about him or her?

The most important person in my life is my girlfriend. She is from England and speaks English mainly. So, I communicate with her in English, but she has been learning Japanese recently. So, I communicate with her in English mainly and sometimes in Japanese to practice speaking.

She looks beautiful visually, but her personality is a little strange. I mean, she has a unique or peculiar personality. I cannot guess what she is thinking. She is not a natural airhead but a kind of unintentionally funny. Even though she has the kind of character, She is clever more than you thought.

She is funny and always makes me happy when I am together with her. I like her internal temperament that I cannot grasp her thinking. I might evaluate too much because I never had a girlfriend before but, she gives another world where I lived before. I started to feel happy and to have positive thinking. She changed my life completely. So, the most important person in my life is my girlfriend.

What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in life?

The most important lesson I have learned in life is from Albert Einstein. I will cite the word “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

Imagination started to be emphasized. I guess this is because only humans have significant imagination ability compared to other organisms, and the skill of imagination yields profits for a wide variety of industries.

For example, Albert Einstein came up with the law of relativity. This is never conceived by a normal scholar, I suppose, but he made it because he has an ability of outstanding imagination on physics. This revelation of the physics law contributed to inventing electric devices such as GPS(global positioning system), smartphones, etc. 

So, I suppose he said imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is foundings of the past, and imagination is the future. Both are important, but imagination is more important these days. I admired him because he knew it. After knowing the fact, Albert Einstein started to be one of my favorite persons.

So, the most important lesson I have learned in life is from Albert Einstein. I will cite the word “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

What is your earliest memory?

The earliest memory is a series of sad because my behavior was restricted by my mother, who has religious beliefs. For example, I could not make a girlfriend even though I was popular with girls and received confessions from some girls but, I had to turn down the confessions. Another thing was that I had to go to the church compulsory.

So, I had to focus on learning because of my mother’s religious beliefs. So, I do not have a positive early memory but a negative one. For that reason, the earliest memory is a series of sad

Are there any words of wisdom you’d like to pass along to me?

Words of wisdom you’d like to pass along to you is that you should live life without regret. The reason why I said this is that you can learn from regret, but it is impossible to re-do the regret. So, It is better to do your best rather than feel regret, isn’t it? So, the Words of wisdom you’d like to pass along to you is that you should live life without regret.

When in life have you felt most alone?

The moment of life that I have felt most alone is when I go to bed and try to sleep. Basically, I always feel alone in daily life. That is not anything special for everyone, I guess. We never met a person who understands you compared to you. We ourselves are the person who knows ourselves.

You can feel happy when you meet someone you like or do something you want to do. I am not good at making friends. So, I choose the latter. I like learning something through books or the internet. I do not have the sort of friends who have knowledge regarding academic content. So, I focused on learning academic things alone and grew up until now. I am satisfied with the activity but feel lonely because I cannot share my opinion. So, I assume we should make some friends or girl/boyfriend with whom you can share thinking and feeling. But, I could not make the sort of the person. So, I feel lonely when I sleep. When we sleep, our consciousness will point at our mind, and we might think about something. In my case, I always think about the thing that I told. So, The moment of life that I have felt most alone is when I go to bed and try to sleep.   

What does your future hold?

I am not sure about the future, but If I imagine the future, the world will change completely. Since Information technology developed, there are a lot of inventions have appeared, such as the personal computer, the smartphone, the drone, etc.  I had never thought that a person has more than two smartphones.

As an extension of the development of IT, I absolutely think that humans will have the technology to be able to explore space freely. The space of industries will be active more than now, and humans might discover aliens or reveal the secret of the galaxy.

I will be a data scientist in the future and might work and live in a different country. I might marry someone or die in the future. Anyway, since I cannot state myself, I talked about the world’s future.   

Do you have any favorite stories from school?

I am going to introduce one of my favorite stories from school. I am one of the international members of the volleyball team. When I practiced volleyball with friends, I saw that the ball hits my friend’s face. Hitting a ball to the face happened occasionally. So, it was not a rare event. But, this was different. The ball hits the face more than ten times. It was really funny because he had the badest luck among team members. I never saw the event before and also never saw such an unlucky guy. So, hitting a ball more than ten times is one of my favorite stories from school.

Have you ever had a crush on someone?

I seldom crush on someone recently, but I often did when I was a child, especially for a childcare worker in the kindergarten. I hate her because she restricted my behavior and punished me a lot. So, I resisted against her to fight and did want to obey(submit, be obedient to) her. So, I crush on her, such as by punching and kicking, ignoring her, throwing a few stones, etc. I was a child so, everyone does not blame me but my parents. I feel bad for my parents because they have to go to the kindergarten and listen to the complaint in regard to me. But, I do not regret attacking her even after passing more than ten years. That is a rare event that I crushed on someone.

Do you believe in life after death?

I want to believe in life after death, but cannot have conviction about it. People who have a religion claim that there is life, such as heaven, hell. They call it a spiritual world. In comparison, people who do not believe in the spiritual world or atheists premise on the physical notion. It means there is not another world except this physical world.

There are a lot of materials that prove a spiritual world. But, we cannot explain the detail easily. The majority of people who work regarding medicine seem not to have faith in a spiritual world. But, someone who experienced near-death experience started to have faith in a spiritual world. But, science elucidates the event like a brain function that makes the illusion of a spiritual world. So, I think it depends on people whether life after death does exist or do not.

Above the reasons, I am a person who wants to believe in life after death, but cannot have confidence about the existence of the world.

Do you often think of death?

I do not think of death often because it is meaningless to think of death. More than 160,000 people die in a day. So, death is a universal phenomenon and is inevitable for every organism. Humans will die someday, and we cannot know the date when we will die. So, it is meaningless to think about death because when the time comes, we would have to accept the fact, and it is unavoidable. So, I do not think of death often.

Do you think that there is anything worth dying for?

I do not have that there is anything worth dying for now. So, I am going to think about situations. For example, I have a girlfriend, and the girlfriend is going to drown in the river. Then, I will stake my life to save her. So, saving someone is worths dying for me.

Another example is the use of cigarettes. This is not an event of a situation but a material. Smoking tobaccos will reduce the human’s lifespan because tobaccos have carcinogenic [cancer-causing] material. I know the substances and sides effects such as addiction for substances, shrinking the brain that decreases the function, taking a high cost, etc. I cannot stand smoking tobaccos that can cause negative feedback.

So, in my case, saving someone worth dying but do not worth dying for taking chemical substances that could result in negative repercussions. 

What are some forms of discrimination?

I do not know about forms of discrimination. So, I searched for the forms of discrimination from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are ten types of discrimination.

The first, age discrimination. The second, disability discrimination. The third, sexual orientation. The fourth, status as a parent. The fifth, religious discrimination. The sixth, national origin The seventh, pregnancy. The eighth, sexual harassment. The ninth, race, color, and sex. The tenth, reprisal/retaliation.

I feel that I experienced all of the discrimination. I lived in and grew up in Japan for a long time but went through these discriminations. So, this phenomenon seems to be universal and widespread for humans.

Do you want to know the date of your death? Why or why not?

I do not want to know the date of my death. There are some reasons for this, and I put together reasons into two aspects; an aspect of the individual and an aspect of society.

The reason why I do not want to know the date of my death is that I do not want to pay attention to the date.  Death comes to us all. So, death is a universal law for all organisms. We will die someday, but If we start to know the date, we will start paying attention to the date. This will decrease human activities. You cannot learn something or talk with someone freely. So, I do not want to know the date of death.

Next is from the perspective of society. Perceiving the date of death might induce crimes. For example, a person who knows the date of death and is going to die in 30 minutes, he/she might make a bad action such as killing people. On top of that, this might decrease human ethics or morals.     For instance, human experiments might be taken place. Therefore, I think knowing the date of death will not produce positive feedback.

What is the most frightening experience you have had?

The most frightening experience I have had was when I went to the beach to swim. I was twelve years old at the time and went to the beach. I am looking forward to swimming in the sea because I love swimming and never swam in the sea. I dived into the sea and felt good. After passing a little time, I recognized an object, and the color was white and black.

I thought it was a sort of garbage, but it was also swimming and heading for me. Then, I realized that it was a shark. Fortunately, the shark turned backward. It is scary if there is a shark in front of you when you swim. So, The most frightening experience I have had was when I went to the beach to swam, and faced a shark.

Do you believe in God? Why or why not?

I understand the notion of god as something great. I also think god is a belief that is created by human imagination, but it functions in both positive and negative ways. Since I understand god, I can say I believe in god, at least because if I do not know the notion, I cannot perceive existence. Do not know means nothing.

So, If I choose like dualism, I would believe in god. But, the degree is not high. I mean, I believe in God but do not depend on god because it does not do anything for us. If a person says, this happened because God gave benefits or graces, that is true and right for the person because he/she attributed the events with god. On the other hand, I do not attribute events to god. Suppose that I have learned a lot, and taken an exam, and passed the exam. Then, I think this occurred because I made an effort for the exam. God never does something for the exam. It is natural if you do something, feedback will come. So, I believe in God, but do not rely on something great.

Is it ever okay to steal?

It is not good to steal something. Stealing means take (another person’s property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it. So, we need to have a deal before taking something according to the definition of stealing. For example, we can deal with the person who has the product if we can steal or not. I suppose almost all people say no, but if they say yes, the person who asked to steal something will start to have an opportunity to conduct the activity. So, asking permission is the line whether we steal or receive something in performing the action.

We can come up with an emergency situation that someone’s life is at stake. Then, someone takes medicines without paying money. The action is stealing because the person never pays money and asks permission to get it. But, a person who was stolen the produce might figure out the situation that the person who stole the products needed to get the medicine as quickly as possible because the person had no time to lose to save someone.

So, it depends on how the person who is stolen something perceives and says. If the person permits to do the action, the conduct of stealing will be established. While if we cannot get permission to take products without money and steal something, the action will be stealing.

when a soldier shoots an enemy soldier, is that murder? Wight a definition of murder

The definition of murder is the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another. If you kill someone based on a plan you made, it will be murder because it is prearranged. Therefore, it is not murder when a soldier shoots an enemy soldier. But, we have to think about some situations.

For example, what about when the war happened? People in the nation will be conscripted and be soldiers and might kill someone. In that case, murder will not be applied because people do not have an intention to kill someone. They shoot because they are ordered to kill enemies. There is no law on the battlefield, though.

Will you call the police if you see a person speeding very fast in a car? You see a person stealing a book from a bookstore?

I will not call the police even I see a person speeding very fast because I cannot give proof that the person drives too fast. The person drives too fast, then I cannot take a photo and movie because it will pass away in a moment. So, I will not call the police because I cannot get objective proof for the person.

I will not call the police because there might be a lot of surveillance cameras, and it could find who did that. If the store does not have cameras, I will call the police. But, there are no stores where do not have cameras. So, I will not call the police because almost all people who stole something will be arrested someday.

Should this death penalty ever be used? If not, why not? If yes, or what crimes?

The death penalty should be used, and there are three reasons why it should be.

First, the existence of the death penalty can restrain crimes. People will be unwilling to commit heavy crimes if there is a possibility of being sentenced to the death penalty.

Second, condemned criminals or life prisoners spend the nation’s money to keep alive them. They keep their life in prison thanks to our tax. The country has to utilize the tax efficiently in a different direction, such as for children, social welfare, etc.

Third, prisoners can escape from jail and commit crimes. Suppose that there is a heinous prisoner and he/she escaped from the prison and killed someone, who will take responsibility for the case? The prisoner has to pay responsibility, but jailers might have to take the blame. On top of that, we cannot take responsibility for the potential victims.

Accordingly, the death penalty can provide deterrence for crimes, and cut unnecessary expenses, and no one can not take responsibility except criminals. The death penalty should be used.

My life at Sun Moon University. The most interesting thing and the most difficult thing.

The most interesting thing about Sun-Moon university is that there are a lot of international students who come from different kinds of countries, such as the U.S, the U.K, Russia, the middle east, Africa, Latin America, etc. I could have cultural exchange with them and know each country by talking about the situation of own country, the education of countries, global issues, etc. It developed my value on the world.

The most difficult thing I have experienced at Sun-Moon university was when I was a freshman. I entered the university in the second semester. So, I felt awkward in the classroom because I did not have any Korean friends while other Korean had friends though. On top of that, I was not good at speaking Korean compared with native Korean. So, getting accustomed to the environment was the most difficult thing for me.

OPIc

I update questions and answers for OPIc. Ninety percent of the contents are imaginary. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of my imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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2021.10.29