As April rolls around, a new Blogger of the Month emerges with it. Katie Kim is a grade 10 AP student at Webber Academy. She enjoys writing about a variety of topics, but hit her breakthrough when she released her blogs summarizing world history. Those posts have proved to be educational for both Katie and her readers, while remaining entertaining and concise. A favourite post of mine from Katie covers 10 English Based Korean Slangs. It seems that her blog posts about world culture and history generate the most attention. (You can read all of Katie’s posts by clicking here!)
Recently, I had the chance to sit down with Katie and have a chat over some coffee. What started with the intent of doing an interview, but that quickly turned into a casual conversation. Although I had never met her before, it was just as easy as catching up with an old friend. Katie is very down to earth and we just had fun discussing some casual topics.
Thus, the following “interview” is going to be more of a transcript of our conversation. Katie’s answers will be in regular script while my questions will be italicized. If the conversation seems a little bit off-track and out of order at times, that’s totally my fault. I think we all know by now how scatter-brained I can be. I also had to omit a lot of parts to cut down on the length of this post, so certain parts might also seem out-of-context or random. The transcript might not convey this, but there were lots of giggles and smiles throughout the conversation. Join me in getting to know Katie Kim!
~~~
When did you join Youth Are Awesome?
This was my first year.
So you joined September of last year?
Yup. Well.. I actually missed the first meeting, so I joined in October, technically.
That’s fine! I think we’ve all missed a couple of meetings. I’m guilty. Anyways, why did you join Youth Are Awesome?
Well, honestly speaking, I just needed volunteer stuff, that’s why I joined Youth Central. But, specifically speaking, I joined Youth Are Awesome because I like internet stuff. I have some friends who volunteer with Youth Central, but I found Youth Are Awesome on my own.
What do you like to blog about?
I started off doing the Crash Course: World History stuff, I did three of those, but right now I just blog about a variety of stuff. I’ve been doing a lot of “top 10” or list-type blogs because I find them interesting.
Right, your Crash Course blogs! So, would you consider yourself a history nerd?
It was more of a time-saving scheme. For our history course in school, we had to do notes and they literally take 7 hours to do.
That’s brutal! So, you mentioned that you like “internet stuff”. Could you elaborate on that?
Well, I spend a lot of time on Facebook, probably more time than is necessary. But in my defence, I actually do school stuff together with my group mates through Messenger. I mean, the internet has everything, who doesn’t like the internet?
So, are you into blogging specifically?
I had Tumblr for a while, so yeah, I like blogging. I like posting stuff where people won’t judge as much as they would if you’re posting on Messenger or wherever. I have two Tumblr accounts. One’s a full-on fangirl account. If you’ve seen some of my blog posts, a lot of them are about Korea. I really like K-Pop, so I have one of those accounts. The other one’s just an “ordinary” person blog.
Who/what inspired you to get into writing and blogging?
Nothing much, really. I just saw it and thought, “This is cool, I want to do this.”
What is your favourite blog post that you’ve written so far?
I like my Crash Course blogs the most because they took me a lot of time. I was writing notes at the same time as I was writing the post, so it was kinda saving time and kinda not. I was trying to summarize an entire chapter in 500 words or less.
Did that end up actually helping you in school?
It actually did! Some of the things I wrote in my blog post were on my midterm, and when I saw that I was thinking, “I taught people the stuff on my midterm! Yay.”
Okay! What do you do in your spare time aside from Tumblr, Facebook, and blogging?
I play the cello and the piano. I do lessons for both of them; I’m actually preparing for my grade 9 exam for piano. For the cello, I don’t do the levels but I do orchestra.
What’s your favourite thing about Youth Are Awesome?
I really like that it’s written by youth, so the content is relatable, especially some of the current events. If you read news articles, they’re all written by adults and there’s specific viewpoints that they take. But with youth, it’s different, it’s interesting.
What is your opinion on youth in writing and/or media?
Some youth need to cut back on their media use. Like me, for example, I’m on it way too much. Media can be really useful, but if you do something bad on it, then…that’s bad!
Do you like being on Youth Are Awesome? What do you think of our large group?
It’s kind of weird, in the sense that you’re doing something together, such as a blog series, but you’ll never see them in real life. There’s a weird connection that you build with the bloggers.
Do you have a favourite blogger?
A favourite blogger? You mean other than myself? Just kidding! Anyways, I liked that one blog post about IB vs AP because, for a while, I was debating whether I should go into IB or AP and that blog post helped me get a lot of information. I ended up going into AP because that’s what my school offers.
Right, okay. Do you ever wish that you went to a public school?
I did go to a public school up until grade 6, but for high school… I guess, I have a lot of friends who go to Western and they’re always all out partying.
So you wish you could go out partying more? I think you could just go join them!
No! I mean, I just think that there’s a lot more slack in public school. I don’t actually know how a public high school works, since I’m not in one, but I always see these Snapchats about Tutti Frutti and other stuff.
Well, that’s probably because it’s Western! They’re in the heart of downtown; they have a Tutti Frutti right across from their school.
Yeah, I guess. But I mean, the nearest shopping centre we have is a 20 minute walk away!
So, do you read a lot of books? Do you write? Are you a poetic person?
No, I’m not a poetic person, but we do have to do NaNoWriMo in school.
Wait, you were forced to do that?
Uh, yes. But, I really liked writing my own story! At the end of it, they provide you with your own promotional code and you can turn your story into a book. You don’t have to publish it, but they turn it into a book for you and it was really cool having my own book.
So, you’re basically just a normal teenager? You’re not trying to go about being the next Mother Theresa or Ghandi or anything? And there’s nothing wrong with that! I’m not judging you.
It would be nice if I did something extraordinary, but at the moment I don’t have anything like that going on.
You’re in grade 10, you have time. Finding something you’re passionate about totally changes your life.
I really like blogging because you put all your energy and thoughts into it. You don’t have to talk to specific people about what you want to talk about. You can just rant and people will actually listen to you.
If you could go on a one-day vacation to anywhere, where would it be and why?
I kinda want to go to a tiny island near Australia. Maybe Guam!
Well, I didn’t say it had to be on earth.
Shoot! That changes everything. Hogwarts would be really cool… My final answer will be that weird land that only Shadowhunters can go to in The Mortal Instruments.
~~~
In order to avoid dragging this interview on forever, I had to cut it here. If you want to listen to the entire, uncut, conversation, you can click the box down below! To close off, I’d like to give a big thanks to Katie for meeting me in the middle of her super busy schedule.