The first Friday of May is International Space day.

I wouldn't be surprised if everything goes to the moon today.

This year International Space day falls on May 7th which is also NATIONAL BARRIER AWARENESS DAY. I'm aware that all human beings have barriers but this is the day we are charged with breaking down obstacles that divide us. Some obstacles may be a door that simply cannot be accessed with a wheel chair. Those obstacles can simply be overcome with a ramp.

Some barriers have very simple solutions and can be overcome with use of technology. Still there are certain barriers remaining that keep us from reaching our full potential. This is a day to recognize those barriers and look for a new solution to overcome.

I am definitely aware of barriers.

The first barrier I run into every day is the language barrier. It's cool that I speak Korean, but it's not cool that I'm not a native speaker. Sometimes nobody gets what I am saying.

At the same time students come to school every day to learn English from me. There are a lot of barriers I overcome to stand in front of them and listen to them and help them to speak English, but now there are more barriers. The mask is a big one. Students are supposed to be learning English conversation but I can't even tell if their lips are moving. We are supposed to have active engaging classes but we are not allowed to touch each other or move around the classroom. For interactive classes we are told to use zoom. Trying playing pass the ball on Zoom. It gets pretty funny because the ball is invisible. 2021 just gives us more barriers. What should we do? I don't want to sit and write a blog about barriers. How about thinking of one way to overcome one barrier? It's not going to be easy.

Yonsei University Literature Department Class of 1919 (During Japanese Occupation)

Each layer of the earth's atmosphere provides a barrier from space.

It takes a lot of power just to get off the ground and into the stratosphere. But pass the ozone layer into the mesosphere and temperatures can reach of -90 Celsius. Passed the mesosphere into the ionosphere and temperatures can reach 1500 Celsius. Finally the exosphere layer is broken and we are in space. The only barrier we have in space now is trying to breathe.

I just finished watching the Martian with Matt Damon. In this story the main character Mark Watney just faces one barrier after another. He is left behind by his crew. He is alone and has very little to eat more than 30 million miles from the nearest McDonalds. There is no water and no atmosphere to grow food. The character one by one overcomes all barriers to grow food and produce water from shit. Finally he overcomes the last barrier to forgive others.

It's not easy. It is like the first tender sprout of a seed coming out of the ground. First the shell splits and then the tender embryo shoots out taking roots all out of sight and then one day it just pops up out of the soil. This is life. It is all about growing and becoming aware of barriers and overcoming those barriers. It's an amazing new frontier and there may be an answer to earth's problems out there. Most likely the answer is already in here.