Channeling to Chaewon Chronicle: 

Salutations (That’s just a fancy way of saying hello).

A double major in computer science (LSA) and linguistics with a minor of writing from the University of Michigan here,

Call me Chaewon Kim (I just love sneaking in that reference whenever I can). It is a two-syllable name, the first syllable 채 chae /tʃæ/ sounding like the beginning of the word ‘challenge’ with everything after ‘a’ crossed out, and the second syllable 원 won /wʌn/ sounding just like how it looks – same as the past tense of ‘win’.
 

And as you might be able to easily guess, it is not a conventional English name. Some of you would be able to deduce correctly, based on your online and offline interactions with others, that it is a Korean name 채원.
 

Even though globalization has made phenotype and name less credible to be clues for background profiling, the dissonance of my Korean name transcribed in English alphabet still remains, and will forever remain, alongside my appearance, as the most obvious indicator of my international background. I was born and spent my first 11.5 years and 10 days in (South) Korea, thus satisfying the TCK (Third Culture Kid) criteria of spending a significant portion of developmental years outside the culture linked to my country of nationality. 
 

Being exposed to two cultures that are different as night and day does widen your worldview – to the point you realize how insignificant you are in this world, for the innate diversity prevents people from truly understanding each other, and so-called diversity only promotes the loneliness of incomprehension furthermore. Thus a TCK – either a Third Culture Kid or The Chaewon Kim (surprise, there are not many Chaewon Kim in this Midwestern Mitten state) – came to the conclusion that the coexistence of two contradictory sayings “knowledge is power” and “ignorance is bliss” is a solid proof that this world is inherently paradoxical, or in other words, illogical and absurd.