August has been an especially tough month. When I was first assigned “People of Yonsei,” I was filled with anticipation and pride. That particular article was one of the top reasons I signed up for The Yonsei Annals. I was fascinated by the idea of meeting prominent figures face to face, and now as I got that very opportunity, I was ready to rock it. However, what I did not know at that time was that my naive fascination made it difficult to see the entailing painstaking effort coming.
Readers who have already read this month’s “People of Yonsei” might notice something strange because this month’s article is not written by me, and there is a long story behind how the article ended up in Reporter Shin’s hand.
   At first when I was assigned “People of Yonsei,” the person who many of the Annals reporters wished me to contact was Huh Jung-moo, the former director of the Korean national soccer team. However, even after I had managed to acquire his phone number, whose owner is trying his best to elude from the press in general, he insisted that his schedule is fully booked until the early August. Since article is something that has a set due date, I had to look for someone else.
   The first person I was able to contact afterward was the renowned novelist Choi In-ho. Luckily enough, I obtained Choi’s email address through my father’s acquaintance. Everything seemed to work out well until I got a call from his close friend who gave me the email address. He told me that he was actually the one who was going to answer my questions on behalf of Choi who is too weak to do an interview. However, as he reviewed my interview questions, he found out that they are too personal for someone else to answer. Honestly, I admit I was slightly tempted to follow his alternate solution of changing the interview questions to ones that already exist in the mainstream press and easy for him to answer, but in the end I decided that writing so is against reporter’s conscience and hurts the trust the Annals has built.
   Later I contacted the famous basketball player Seo Jang-hoon. Getting his approval of the interview required endless patience and strength to cope with anxiety attacks that came time to time as I got his approval almost a week after I first called his team’s office. I would have been in a state of euphoria when I picked up Seo’s call of approval, only if I had not called Huh Jung-moo again and got his permission on the interview right before I picked up that call. After weeks of efforts, now I suddenly had two of the most prominent figures in front of me. So I decided to give the opportunity to interview Huh to my fellow reporter in September and that is how this month’s “People of Yonsei” came to existence.
   All I can remember doing for the last few weeks is continuously finding someone worthy of introducing, trying to find his or her number or email address, calling or sending emails asking for an interview, and waiting replies or response calls. Writing the seemingly not too long two pages of the magazine actually took so much effort and patience. However, even though my expectation has been slightly altered, I am still all too willing to go through the troublesome process all over again just to meet our eminent alumni who possess exceptional qualities so much to learn from.


Kim Ju-hyun (Assistant Reporter, The Yonsei Annals)

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