While I was in kindergarten, I was sent to private art academy for an extracurricular activity. I don't think I showed any talents for art and drawing. I was just forced to do it and did it quite a long time. Anyway, I could win many art competitions during elementary and junior high school days, and since then I've loved to do art work as a hobby.

Issac Asimov's science fiction stories made ten-year-old boy dream about the unknowns and the things to come. I read SFs one after the other all I could find. But only name I can remember now is Asimov as he was the most prolific than the rest, and I am sorry to other SF writers who influenced me for not remembering their names. A small telescope to watch the night sky was a best gift for me at that time. I was told to study hard to be a scientist, and I DID. Since then, reading have become my favorite habit, graduating from what I hated to do most.

It was 7^th grade when mental eyes to the world was widened. My mind was totally immersed in Rainer Maria Rilke's poems and an essay of Malte around September of that year. Read and read again, and wondered how one can express that way. Even if those were Korean translations from original German texts, I could still feel the poet's emotions from the translated words. Strong desire to read more kept me reading on Rilke's work which I could locate at that time. Then Hesse's work enchanted me again: Demian, Narziss and Goldmund, and Beneath the wheel.

I recommended friends around me to read Rilke's and Hesse's works. Following spring, I happened to sit side by side with this guy in my class. My first impression on him was that we had different life styles. When I asked him whether he read Rilke, Hesse and a few more German authors, he asked me whether I read Stendhal, Gide and some more French novels, which I heard of, but didn't bother to read in order to read Rilke, Hesse and some more German authors. We had a deal to lend each other books to read and talk about it later. Reading French novels gave me different perspectives which couldn't be found reading German novels.

Whenever we had time, we talked about French and German literatures, and whatever we read, saw and heard. As our views became widened, we realized that we should spend more time on Korea's traditional literature to find out who we are and where we came from, and read lots of Korean novels and short stories. We made a list of books to read, and tackled one by one until we went to high school.

Until that time, most I knew about the world was what's happening around me, the stuffs which appeared on television, something which was written in the textbooks and entries I could find on encyclopedia. Looking back, if I had read less at that time, my life styles could have been simpler, easier, and closer to normal. (I have been to so many different worlds and am still thinking of trying more challenges.)

A novel (and also a movie) Papillon (Butterfly) is about a French convict who were sent to a prison in South America and escaped for freedom. I was shocked how a man be that cruel to the fellow men, and admired one man's endless struggle to survive without giving up. I opened an eye for humanity.

After getting into a college, I met a new friend who lectured on how to view and interpret history in today's point of view. We used to hang around for a year and a half (until I came to America), and I say he lectured on me as I usually listened to what he said rather than I speaking out against him. During my freshman and sophomore year, what I learned most was from him, and very little from professors.

To visualize where I should go from here, I need to interpret the history to learn from the ancestors (or predecessors, if you prefer it) as they suggested me. How successfully integrating ideologies I'm trying to materialize into the present environments around me measures the degree of success and satisfaction; whatever achieved may not be valued at all; material things will be gone eventually, so never hold to it; keep working on it give me the most satisfaction; in the mean time, enjoy your life; and most importantly, Do and Regret rather than Regret not Doing it, as he always said.

Bonola's "Non-Euclidean Geometry" is the single most important book during my 20s. It traces how mathematicians found and proved non-Euclidean geometry against the Euclidean geometry which was regarded as the absolute for two thousand years. Riemann, Lobachevsky and Boylai were my heroes at that time even though I didn't fully understand their original papers. (At least, I tried). What I learned is: Mathematics can't be applied immediately to the present world a mathematician lives; just follow logical steps in pursuing mathematical problems; don't hesitate to express what I have found out by following logical steps.

Rudy Rucker's "The Infinity and the Mind" was instrumental in taking me seriously into mathematical logic. It introduced many concepts of mathematical logic itself with easy, graphical examples. I read several times in a row to grasp concepts; but only after taking a mathematical logic class, I could understand what Rudy was trying to convey and appreciated more than before.Escher's lithographs are frequently quoted in papers on recursion theory, infinity and logic. That explains the looping visually, and is aesthetically pleasing to see. When I need to start something new, I start on making Escher-like graphics. By the time my version of Escherish graphics is finished, I'm fully charged with spirits and ready to immerse in a new project.

During the spring semester of 1983, I was taking an upper division Mathematical Modeling class just because it was open for registration for me. It was not required to take, but as I enrolled late for the term, all other classes were closed and it was the only open class. By the time I decided to drop the class, Buckminster Fuller's Bucky ball was the topic and I spent the entire semester and the following summer calculating and building polyhedra models. Beauty and practicability of geometry and mathematical computation seem to be epitomized by Bucky Ball.

I looked for the references (not to do homework, but to pursuit my own academic interest) and learned Pascal to program geometrical models in computer. Even paper models looked good, and when I applied group theory to polyhedra models, all I felt was This Is It. I was not sure what's the real use of mathematics, but had to study Algebra hard to understand the geometry of physical objects.There was no formal course in Convex Geometry which covers polyhedra models. By holding a seminar on the subject, I could scratch the surface of the realm of Convex Sets. I could see how mathematical concepts be applied real world.

In Differential Geometry class, I was busy working on curvature and momentum by differentiating the equations. I wanted to do programming so that I can have computer models of geometric forms, but didn't get any time for computers. Although I didn't get what I wanted from that class, it was a fun to learn new stuff and definitely a healthy addition to my knowledge.

In my Topology class, I learned that nothing is as simple as it looks. Topology reshaped my mental eyes. I think, whoever took Topology would say the same thing. Courant's book "What is mathematics" stimulated me to be more knowledgeable so that I could write a book like that, and David Hilbert's book "The Geometry and the Imagination" aroused me to take geometry as my main subject.

At UCI, Prof. Martin Schechter's Ordinary Differential Equations and Partial Differential Equations classes taught me think critically. One year of undergraduate ODE and one year of graduate PDE followed by one year of graduate Applied Mathematics course under him changed my thinking habits. In three years of course work under one professor, lot of things can happen in many ways. I can't fully verbalize how I felt and changed. The thing is I learned to think rigorously and critically. Most scientists say mathematics is the language of science, I felt that way too. That was a pivotal moment if anyone asks there is only one.

Debating and talking anything about the world with friends met at physics and math classes made me see with more perspectives. Being around with friends with whom I could talk from the bottom of the heart and the brain, I felt secure living at this point of the turbulent human history and never felt lonely and was not afraid when trying out the never challenged, and going for the new direction. In addition to my clique of friends, who were math and physics students, several other cliques of classmates, who were physics and chemistry guys, also used to hang around with us and enriched our social life.

After graduation, quitting and being kicked out from colleges (it was about ten years ago), we all split out going and working in different fields, but mostly in science and engineering. I can't forget those times all of us spent together, and don't think all of us could get together again. The thing is each of us became more mature, experienced and responsible one with expertise. When a couple of us get together, I learn about the other fields through persons I can confide. Actually some of them suggested writing short essays to catch up the missing years to each other, and I'm writing it now. How brilliant and informative they are!

LISP programming made me redefine the language. At first, LISP was my tool for the recursion and the parsing experiences. Then I pondered about the language itself; verbal and body language of human, machine language, and visual language defined by arts and graphics. I still think about redefining the language, even after an unsuccessful attempt to study linguistics.

My first application of design form was to architecture. Architecture is really challenging profession, but more than half of it should be devoted to business side to be a successful architect, as I found out. My focus was slightly off to be an successful architect, as my colleagues pointed out. It was easy for me to give up architecture. An importance about this is that I walked into the new field, decided to quit based upon my experiences there, then I did quit, and am not looking back at all.

An Assembly language class is my first formal computer class. I programmed entirely in UNIX environments and became a lover of UNIX. Well, it's convenient and I can do whatever I want to do with computer by writing program. After this point, I didn't hesitate to say I do programming, even though I programmed the previous eight or so years already. What I can say is that I feel comfortable with and became addicted to UNIX environments.

Then came Linux for my home PC. Linux is complete workstation quality UNIX OS environment and is free. What I really like is its GNU spirit, that knowledge is to be shared, not tagging price on it to be shared.

Doing UNIX system administration and networking were the fields I'd never got any interests, but I got paid well doing it to get through the school. I only considered doing it as temporary job, but in the society, my such skills are valued and I'm getting lots of opportunities with the skills I've never had any genuine interest. You don't know what will lie ahead of you. (2-5-97)