Hello! My name is Alan Wong, and I am an opinions writer, online content writer, and not-often-employed artist for the Daily Trojan.
I am double majoring in Philosophy and Yellow-People-Studies (EALC), officially studying Chinese, and pretending to be Korean and learning Japanese on the side.
I am a member of KIVF (Korean InterVarsity Fellowship) and KCCC (Korean Campus Crusade for Christ) and consider myself a Christian. Though I know I need to be doing a better job at being one.
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Why I started this Blog:
Frankly, I don’t like words being put into my mouth. I don’t mind being called out on something I said (in fact, I gladly invite people to keep me accountable for what I say and do), but being called out on something that I didn’t say is another matter.
The problem is, I say a lot of things that I didn’t say. This is because I write opinion articles for the Daily Trojan, and submitted articles must go through an editing process.
I am not formally trained in any sort of journalism and therefore am not used to normal conventions of what can and cannot be written. So I concede that I may be breaking many generally accepted rules.
But to suggest that a good opinion piece is one which has a strong linear opinion, devoid of subtleties, as I believe many of my pieces have been edited to be, is a problem.
I am happy to write opinion pieces, and I hope at least some people are happy to read them. But I would rather my opinion pieces be published than the editors’. Needless to say, I claim no journalistic authority, nor expertise on the topics I discuss. But please, let me eat my own words, rather than another person’s used under my name.
I write this blog mainly for myself because I believe that I am somewhat accountable for what is written under my name, regardless if I wrote it or not. As a staff member of the Daily Trojan, I am not allowed to publish comments or responses on the official website. I don’t want to lose my job either.
So here you have it: a place where I can give my unedited opinions on a number of topics I find relevant to USC students, and a place where you, the reader, may call me out for inconsistency, bash my close-mindedness, or perhaps agree with me and support what I have to say.
I thank anybody that reads this, though I don’t ask anybody to, and hope that I might share something worth sharing in the near future.