Meeting #653: Reading & Growth

20 Sept 2026

On the afternoon of Sunday, 20 September 2026, we held our 653rd meeting on the theme "Reading & Growth". It was still hot, and the meeting was hybrid, with people in the room and on Zoom. We also heard two Icebreaker speeches. With no guests, the Toastmaster skipped the role explanations and went straight to the theme question.

Theme and question of the day

Item	Details
Theme	Reading & Growth
Question	Was there a book you read when you were younger that felt different when you read it again later in life? How did it feel different? Or is there a book you read when you were younger that you would like to read again now? Why do you think your feelings about the book might be different today?
Date	Sunday, 20 September 2026, from 4 PM
Format	In person + online (Zoom)

Role takers

Role	Member	Notes
Chairperson	Sean Park
Toastmaster	Sujin Sim	Hosted in English, travelled from Sokcho
General Evaluator	Karen
Table Topics Master	Gilhee Park	Also the timer
Reviewer	Sean Park	Verbier
Timer	Gilhee Park
Ah-Counter	Jason Jin	Online
Korean Grammarian	Yeonsu Kim	Online
Speaker 1	Soo Lee	English, evaluated by Jihye Park
Speaker 2	Kevin Choi	Korean, evaluated by Sean Park, online

The theme, and the role takers' answers

Toastmaster Sujin Sim introduced the theme in English. She read a book as a university student in the late 1990s, during the IMF crisis, and did not understand it. After marrying and becoming a mother she read it again and it felt completely different: she now understands the choice of one of two twin sisters who lead opposite lives. She asked everyone: "Is there a book that felt different when you read it again?"

Each role taker then explained their role and answered the theme question.

Role	Role explanation	Answer to the theme question
General Evaluator Karen	Watches the whole meeting, the timing and each role, takes notes on strengths and improvements, and gives the overall evaluation.	A children's novel seen through a young heroine's eyes, with prejudice and racism: would she have understood it more deeply if she had read it as an adult?
Timer Gilhee Park	Shows green, yellow and red cards for speech time, with a 30-second grace period after red.	The book did not touch her at first because she had never experienced racism, but reading it as an adult she saw an everyday hero who does his best at every task.
Ah-Counter Jason Jin	Counts filler words and sounds such as "um", "ah" and "so".	Jurassic Park, the first English novel he read after moving to America. Listening to the audiobook now he noticed many details he had missed, and he thinks the book is much better than the movie.
Korean Grammarian Yeonsu Kim	Records good expressions and incorrect grammar and reports them in the evaluation session.	A maths book about a child who kept asking why we multiply first. His thought: no question is meaningless, but questions should be asked of people who can receive them.

Review session: Switzerland, part 1 (Verbier)

Reviewer Sean Park told us the first part of his two-week trip to Switzerland in July. It had been planned a year earlier as a family trip, but he ended up going alone.

Verbier is a village at about 1,500 m: a ski resort in winter, a place for hiking and paragliding in summer, and home to a famous classical music festival.
He took a cable car to the top of Mont Fort at over 3,300 m, saw the Alps all around, and showed photos of snow in midsummer and the shrinking glaciers.
He also told of overdoing it on a trek and feeling ill, and of cooking Shin ramyun at the hotel.
The Toastmaster shared her own memories of a European bus tour more than 20 years ago and of altitude sickness.

Prepared speeches

#	Speaker	Title	Project	Language	Time	Evaluator
1	Soo Lee	Growing Stronger, One Habit at a Time	Icebreaker (4-6 min)	English	7:59	Jihye Park
2	Kevin Choi	For Whom the Bell Tolls	Icebreaker (5-7 min)	Korean	7:04	Sean Park

Speech 1: "Growing Stronger, One Habit at a Time" (Soo Lee)

Her first speech, and her first time joining on Zoom. Before starting she asked us to correct the title to "Growing Stronger".

Part	Content
Opening	"What did you bring home from your middle school field trip?" She brought home traditional Korean herbal medicine from Jeju. Thin and often sick as a teenager, she became interested in health early.
Turning point	She relied on herbal remedies for years, but the real difference came from how she took care of herself every day. She tried weight training, Pilates, yoga, running and swimming; weight training built muscle and stamina best. Now she does strength-focused Pilates and swims on weekdays except Thursday.
Food	Whole foods, no highly processed food, less sugar and refined carbohydrates. She used to think she could eat as much rice as she liked if she avoided wheat, but white rice is also a refined carbohydrate and can cause blood sugar spikes. She quit coffee 20 years ago.
Sleep and mornings	The same bedtime and wake-up time every day. For more than 5 years she has not touched her phone for the first hour after waking, and uses it for a run or walk and breakfast.
Result	These experiences became an e-book, "Health Protocol", published on Amazon. The point: turn what you learn about yourself into habits you can repeat.
Closing	Her goal is not just to live long but to be healthy while she is here. What we do every day matters, in health, in time management, in skills, and in showing up and practising at Toastmasters. "One day at a time."

After the speech, everyone sent feedback to the speaker through the Kakao open chat for one minute.

Speech 2: "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (Kevin Choi)

A first speech prepared to mark his recent membership, delivered on Zoom from across the sea.

Part	Content
Opening	Ten years ago he never imagined joining meetings through a screen; a joke about the origin of the name Matterhorn. "In ten years we may hold 3D hologram meetings."
The problem	AI makes things 24 hours a day and is even reaching for executive seats. But if companies hire only AI, people have no income: who will buy the products?
The intelligence gap	If humans are 100 times smarter than goldfish, an AI 10,000 times smarter than us could see us as goldfish in a bowl, or ants on the road. One data center uses as much electricity as a whole country.
The warning	In ten years there might be not a single real human at a hologram Toastmasters meeting. "Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." It is not someone else's problem.
Why he joined	However fast technology gets, nothing replaces gathering, sharing our voices and feeling for each other. He hopes to enjoy his time here.

Soo Lee spoke for 7:59 and Kevin Choi for 7:04. Only Kevin's speech met the time requirement, so there was no vote and he was named Best Speaker. Because we were behind schedule, the break was shortened to 5 minutes.

During the break: Zoom sound

During the break, online participants talked about Zoom's background-noise suppression. Later, several noticed an echo caused by the room speaker feeding back into the microphone, and it was suggested to test the sound before the meeting starts.

Table Topics

Table Topics Master Gilhee Park prepared fun and philosophical questions on the theme Reading & Growth. Each answer was 1 to 2 minutes, and five people spoke, including Zoom participants.

Question	Speaker	Summary	Time
What is the silliest thing you have done in your life?	Jason Jin	On a month-long road trip in the USA, he often does silly things, like following the navigation without looking at a map. On setting up sunrise and sunset time-lapses, he finds a better spot only after setting up at the first one: fear of missing out.	2:10
Is there a character in a book you have read who resembles the real you?	Sujin Sim	The heroine of a recent novel by Kim Ae-ran: a person who grew up always reading others' moods. It hurt, and the final "I'm sorry" text message stayed with her.	1:38
If your life were a book, which page are you on now?	Karen	A life story she has written like a diary is about 40 pages long. She does not know how many pages remain, but hopes for a happy ending.	1:04
If you were the hero of a movie, which actor would play you?	Yeonsu Kim	The actor Park Shin-yang. At school his nickname was "chubby Park Shin-yang". At Toastmasters he often hears he is stiff and logical, but he says he is actually full of silly ideas, and hopes the actor would try a goofier role.	1:56
If you met yourself from a year ago, what would you say to each other?	Jihye Park	She shared how her heart changed over the past year as she practised understanding and embracing herself.	1:35

Everyone stayed within time, and the host summed up that everyone was able to take part.

Evaluations

General Evaluator Karen ran the session in the order: speech evaluations, technical role reports, overall evaluation.

Speech	Evaluator	What worked well	Suggestion
Soo Lee	Jihye Park	Clear pronunciation and delivery, a wide vocabulary, and rich background knowledge about health and nutrition.	Adjust the camera so that shoulders and upper chest show. After asking the audience whether they know "Gyeongokgo", explain what it means.
Kevin Choi	Sean Park	A structure like a lecture: a curious hologram opening, then AI, the problems, and the human role. Good use of hands, which is hard to do online.	More on how we can respond to AI to make the human future bright.

A one-minute vote for Best Evaluator followed the evaluations.

Technical role reports

Role	Member	Report
Korean Grammarian	Yeonsu Kim	Good expressions included Kevin's closing about the human warmth of gathering. Suggested Korean replacements for foreign words: for example "luxury" style words and "character". He also mentioned the standard pronunciation of "online" in Korean.
Ah-Counter	Jason Jin	Overall few fillers. Korean habits such as "ne", "geu~", breathing at the end of sentences and hedges like "I think so" sometimes cross over into English; he wished for more confidence. English tips: "Let me start my speech" is unnecessary, and "made me the biggest difference" is more natural as "made the biggest difference in my life". There was no English Grammarian today.

Overall evaluation (Karen)

Strengths: The meeting started a little late but flowed and stayed on time. The Switzerland story had been prepared and then postponed by two weeks, so it was prepared twice; it was fun to hear, and the postcard-like photos and glacier photos cooled us down on a hot day. In Table Topics everybody could take part, roles were filled quickly, and online and in-person members were all present. Both speakers spoke English and Korean so naturally that you forgot which language you were hearing.
To improve: Please tell the group chat if you will be late so we can start on time. Please enter speech titles in the online app beforehand. Online participants need a little clearer direction from the host, and those in the room should turn the camera toward the online members more often. There was no Word of the Day today, and the General Evaluator said she will practise evaluating without reading from notes.

Awards

Category	Winner
Best Speaker	Kevin Choi
Best Evaluator	Sean Park
Best Table Topics	Sujin Sim

Closing

Toastmaster Sujin Sim said she was a bit slow after a long time away from the role, but that it was worth coming from Sokcho. Soo Lee, joining Zoom for the first time, said it felt awkward with the echo and that meeting in person is better, and that she reflected on not having read enough books to join Table Topics.

Role sign-up for the next meeting (the first Sunday of October, 4 October) followed. Yeonsu Kim said he will give a free speech, and others will check their schedules. Those in the room took a photo to close the meeting.

Best Table Topics 시상 후 · After the awards

SBTM meets on the 1st and 3rd Sunday of every month. If you would like to visit or join, please write to sbtm-info@gmail.com.