2009, a strange year

what the hell is up with 2009?
Of course we are drawing closer to the end of the world every day, but I feel as if time has decided to pick up its pace.

So many famous and significant people died this year.
(A friend responded to this remark: "People die every day, everywhere. It's just that the proportion of famous people is extra big this year.")

김수환 추기경님.

노무현 전 대통령.

Michael Jackson, the 'King of pop'.

'아시아의 물개' 조오련.

and now 김대중 전 대통령.


Roh really shouldn't have killed himself.
Back in May I was one of those sympathetic/understanding why he chose suicide (surely a dramatic end for a dramatic man),
but now I really feel like he was irresponsible, that he took the easy way out, that he was selfish.

It's been decades since DJ was sick, people knew he was going to pass soon.
With no Roh and no DJ, there's really no one at the moment who can carry on what they have laid down.

Poor little MB, look at him, struggling every day to fill some very big shoes and failing at every attempt. (I bet he dreams every night of those days when he worked at Hyundai, wishing he never entered politics.)
Not to say that DJ and Roh were perfect presidents (they were actually far from it), but it made me (and many other Koreans, I believe) quite proud to see that it was actually possible for Koreans to elect someone like them to be the president. It just meant so much, that they were the living proof that democracy in Korea had taken another step. I felt as if I'd moved my pawn another square forward.
But with MB,.......
Every piece of news, every new law enacted, makes me think, "what the heck did we fight for? Is this where we thought we were headed?"
We're taking sweeping steps backwards. And it hasn't even been two years since MB became president. How much more will we 'undo' what we built in the last two decades?