“……I’ve told you
guys hundred times to find the clue in the PASSAGE!”
I was sitting in a classroom of a private
SAT academy of Gangnam city. Yes, I am the evil of the society, a participant
of the burning competition of private education. I am criticized by all kinds
of news media for spending enormous amount of money to get into a good college.
I am the subject of an EBS documentary about the lack of happiness in this
society.
I looked out the open window. Across
the street illuminated a cosmetic surgery signboard that caught my sight. The
cosmetic surgery would turn a customer into one of those people on the street,
running fast on high-heels and answering on the phone. I realized that cosmetic
surgery and private academy have something in common. They both help people
survive in this city, which requires excellence in standards of beauty and academic
skills that are equivalent to everybody. The survivors have same facial
expressions and same behavior patterns.
I averted my eyes. Everywhere was vaguely gray. The 8-line road
was gray. The luxury-brand cars were gray. The pedestrians’ suits were gray. The
buildings were gray. Even the clouds were gray. I wiped my glasses with my
clothes, which made them even blurrier. I put on the glasses and realized that
the clouds were lowered, or thickened. The bottom of the dark cloud seemed to
approach me. After I wiped the glasses once again, I found myself captured inside
the gray, humid air, which hindered my breath. I choked, feeling the urge to get
out of this cloud. I had to escape. But where could I? The buildings were gray.
The pedestrians’ suits were gray. The luxury-brand cars were gray. The 8-line
road was gray. Everything below the cloud was gray.
So I went up. I stretched my wings and elevated
vertically, past the window, past the skyscraper buildings, and past the thick
cloud. As I went higher, the sticky air became fresh. The air was separating at
the tip of my beak. I felt the cold flow of air riding on my skin. I listened
to the cheerful sounds of my fluttering feathers. Now everywhere was sparklingly
blue. I was feeling so free.
Perhaps a few minutes later,
suddenly I thought, ‘isn’t it too fast?’ Yes, it was. Whirls of winds were
fiercely forming around my presence. I closed my eyes because the wind hitting
my face was so powerful. My toes were quivering in frustration. The air riding
on my skin was now sucking me up. My feathers were fluttering so wildly that
they made thunderous sounds. However I could not unfold my wings. Rather, my
wings were becoming sharper and sharper, stiffened at their positions. I was
flying faster and faster. Wait, was I actually flying? No. I was falling. The
gravity was making me fall faster and
faster. Now I could see the gray city. Past the thick cloud, past the
skyscraper buildings, and past the window……
BANG! I crashed, right on the chair
where I was sitting, as my deskmate slapped me on the back, waking me up.
“Mingyu, how
dare you doze in the classroom? Don’t you want to get a good score?”
“……Sorry, I’m so
sorry, Ms. Kim.”
“Please pay
attention. Everybody turn to page 174.”
“So, you know,
this 14th waver who went to Stanford……”
As soon as I arrived home, my mom started
to tell me information about all these college admission stuffs she heard in a
meeting with other moms. She put out a pen and some notes, and started to
explain what specs do colleges prefer and who went to what college with what
kind of essay. Mom even seemed to be excited. I couldn’t understand. Man, I came
home for the first time since the start of the semester, and I did so to
relieve myself, not to hear college information!
I lost track of what she was
saying, almost deliberately. I hold the pen, and started to scribble on the back
side of the note. I drew curves, round and round, following the motion of my
fingers. Oh, the scribble looked like a bird! I drew a beak and an eye, and plumed
its feathers. The bird was flying.
I was flying. I was stretching my
wings in sharply streamlined shapes, drifting on the cold flow of air. I folded
my legs in order to reduce the air resistance. The air was separating at the
tip of my beak. I felt the cold flow of air riding on my skin. I listened to
the cheerful sounds of my fluttering feathers. I was feeling so free.
Then, suddenly I thought, ‘isn’t it
too fast?’ Yes, it was. Whirls of winds were fiercely forming around my
presence. I closed my eyes because the wind hitting my face was so powerful. My
six toes were quivering in frustration. The air riding on my skin was now
freezing. It was almost sucking me up. My feathers were fluttering so wildly
that they made thunderous sounds. However I could not unfold my wings. Rather,
my wings were becoming sharper and sharper, stiffened at their positions. I was
flying faster and faster. Wait, was I actually flying? No. I was falling. The
gravity was making me fall faster and
faster.
BANG! I crashed, right on the sofa
where I was sitting, as the arrow indicating the direction of the bird hit the
bottom of the page. I finished the arrow by marking its tip. My mother asked,
“Mingyu, are you
listening?”
“Of course,
mama. Keep going.”
“Okay, so his
mom said that to be accepted by Princeton……”
In
the realism story <The Lady with the Dog>, the part I thought the most
realistic was that the transition was made by not an enormous milestone event
but a trivial event that can occur any time in our lives. Gurov went indignant
by a vain joke “The sturgeon was a bit too strong!” and made the grand decision
of travelling to where Anna lives. Surely our real lives are not composed of
dramatic events; rather a continuum of mundane routines eventually makes up a
change.
In
the magical realism story <A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings>, the
transitions are apparently not at all realistic. Suddenly an angel appears in
the courtyard, brings enormous wealth to Pelayo’s family, and flies away again
abruptly. However, those changes are described in such a mediocre tone that they
seem to be some of our gradual and mundane routines. For example, the first encounter
of Pelayo and Elisenda and the angel is described as follows:
“They looked at him so long and so closely that Pelayo and
Elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar.”
Pelayo and Elisenda’s
feeling is no more intense than what they might feel when they find an abandoned
dog and decide to nurture it in a chicken coop. They will not be familiar with
the angel if the angel is a landmark event in their lives. Moreover, his “miracles”
are trivial “consolations”, such as making
a blind man grow three new teeth, which are far from grandiose events. Even
when the angel flies away, he starts with a clumsy failure, while Elisenda is “cutting some bunches of onions”, an
everyday routine. Generally, the angel, possibly a source of significant supernatural
transitions of this story, is actually a decrepit man with wings full of
parasites, and merely a part of a monotonous routine. This brings the magic
elements of the angel into the pool of realism.
This
story is also realistic in that it describes the selfish human nature. The
relationship between the humans and the angel is absolutely based on needs.
After the angel cures their child’s fever, the humans feel magnanimous, and consider
releasing the angel on a raft with provisions. However, after they discover
that he is a potential source of enormous profits, they confine him in a
chicken coop and let him be tortured by the equally selfish crowd. As he no
longer becomes a fortune, Elisenda shouts “that it was awful living in that hell full of angels.” Their calculating relationship perhaps reflects the
connections prevalent in our contemporary society which lack warmth and altruism.
The spider woman is another notable theme that conveys how
myopic humans are. The spider woman’s provocative story, supported by awful
visual evidence, conveys a direct moral to the crowd. The crowd suddenly feels
no need to meet the angel, whose miracles do not provide a direct cure, and therefore
disintegrates. Even if their motivation to meeting the angel was a religious
conviction (regarding that Catholic has been dominant in Latin American
society), such belief is abstract and therefore easily overwhelmed by sensual
experiences. People tend to take the short and clear paths of which the
endpoints are immediately seen in their eyes, rather than the long and obscure
ones, which potentially have bigger rewards. Moreover, fear, represented by the
spider, more easily prompts people to act right away than hope, symbolized by
the angel. In these ways the spider woman portrays our shortsighted nature, a realistic
trait of humans.
Personally, I thought that the depiction of Elisenda at the last
part was also very realistic. When the angel flies into the air, her feeling is
closer to regret than to freedom from a nuisance, as she fastens her gaze on
the “imaginary dot”. The ending perfectly portrays how humans recognize a value
of an existence only at its absence, just as we realize that we have to serve
our parents with devotion only after they pass away. Whether the angel was a
source of profit or a source of discomfort, Elisenda gets to miss him when he is
no longer there.
<A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings> is a work that successfully
blends the magical elements into a realistic tone and theme, as the story
depicts magic as a banality, and deals with realistic human nature, such as
selfishness and myopia. I really loved the way how magical realism makes sense.
During my research I found that this genre is greatly affected by Latin
American folklores. I am looking forward to read other magical realism works
and perhaps the folklores that underlies as the basis of this genre.
“What
are you drawing on my window?” The taxi driver asked, breaking the silence.
Awaken
from my entangled thoughts, I replied, “Oh, a floating ball, sir.”
“What
for?”
“It’s
my physics research problem. A ball can float on a slanted airstream.”
I was thinking about one of
the forces that capture the ball inside the airstream. On the wet taxi window,
I drew a circle and some curves and arrows.
“Wow,
it’s amazing.”
“Yup,
it’s like magic. A juggling magic.”
I was surprised by myself saying
this. Truly the floating ball was similar with juggling. You juggle three balls
with two hands. The airstream juggles one ball with no hand. As juggling is a
continuous cycle of the balls, the floating ball exhibits a cycle of
oscillating motion.
I soon became lost in memories, in
a Christmas day 5 years ago. I received professional juggling balls for
Christmas gift. Excited, I juggled all day so hard. I stared at the juggling lecture
videos and scrutinized how the video guy showed a stable command of various
skills. I tried to mimic him, dropped the balls, and tried and dropped, again
and again. Whenever I was stuck I took a video of myself to see why I had kept
failing. At the end of the day I could juggle under my leg, behind my back, and
with my hands flipped. Still, there were so many skills left to do with three
balls.
Whoosh, 4 years after, Christmas
day again, in a physics research camp. I was given a research problem for a
physics debate competition. Thrilled, I conducted rigorous experiments all day.
I stared at the phenomenon videos I had taken, searching for the conditions of
stable levitation. Various forces acted upon the ball, and various factors
influenced the motion. I put the ball on the airstream, dropped, and put and
dropped, again and again. Whenever I found myself in a theoretical dilemma I asked
myself fundamentally why the phenomenon happens. At the end of the camp I could
explain some part of the phenomenon, but still there were so many veiled
effects.
Whoosh, to the juggling days, in
the National Park, and in a service center. I performed juggling with my team.
I juggled two balls and an apple, which I bit in each cycle. Then my teammate stole
them away, maintaining the cycle of juggling. I pretended to be angry, and took
them back again and ran away, juggling and biting the apple voraciously. To
perfect a single performance I had eaten hundreds of apples and had thrown the balls
thousand times. Each cycle of balls, a fruit of devoted practice, delighted the
crowd in the National Park and the grannies in the service center.
Whoosh, now I was in the final
round of the physics debate competition. I made a presentation about my research of the
floating ball. With elaborate equations and vivid imagery descriptions, I explained
the forces that make the ball oscillate inside the airstream. Only for this
presentation I had been awake and struggling till dawn for an entire month. Each
explanation of the oscillation, a product of dedicated investigation, elated
other student physicists and professors.
Zoom, back in the taxi. I wondered
how come I had been driven back to juggling after 4 years. Then I realized, I had
been juggling with life all the time. Life has itself been an incessant cycle.
A cycle that requires numerous trials and lessons to unmask some of its extremely
various elements, but still the whole never reveals itself. A pure, fundamental
inquiry about ‘why’ usually eases the process of knowing its mystery. Most importantly,
life rewards only those who are the most passionate.
I looked up the window. The ball and
the airstream glittered as the water droplets reflected the sunlight. My juggling
cycle had not ended. In fact, it will never end.
From
a distance, in <The Dead>, Gabriel’s dinner speech that people should not
linger on the past may seem to contradict his later epiphany. Certainly,
although he says he will leave the traces of the past and rejoice in the
present in his dinner speech, he cannot evade the shadow of Michael Furey, a
man killed by love. But if you take a closer look you will see that such
contradiction does not exist. In Gabriel’s own speech he clearly says, “……still cherish in our hearts the memory of
those dead and gone great ones whose fame the world will not willingly let
die.” He shows respect to the souls of the past and let them change his
life, as Michael’s faithful soul leads Gabriel to epiphany. He never says he will
totally ignore the past.
Then
why would he have said that he will not remain in the past? Ultimately, his
speech is a message to himself at the end of the story. The attitude described
in his speech rescues him from irretrievable death in the course of epiphany. From
the souls of the past, he realizes that he has been spiritually dead: he has
been condescending in relationships with people, his nationality has been vain,
and his love has not been truthful. However, he does not linger on his dead
self that has been filling him until then. He does not despair remaining in his
dead past, as “generous tears fills
Gabriel’s eyes” for the sake of dead Michael and his reviving soul. The
reflective and introspective tone of the last few paragraphs also indicates a
course of maturation rather than complete desolation. Although snow might
represent death, it does not last forever: it soon melts away when spring full
of life comes. In short, his miserable epiphany does not lead him to absolute
death, but rather provides a resurrection with a refreshed, vibrant soul, and
this corresponds to exactly what Gabriel has said in his dinner speech. He lets
the past souls to affect him, but he does not linger on his dead past, and accepts
the renewal of soul at the present. In this sense, Gabriel’s dinner speech is
perfectly consistent rather than contradictory to the last epiphany.
Personally,
I was glad that I could have at least a slight grasp about what Modernism is,
and how it is distinguished from Realism. At first I was uncomfortable that the
story seemed to contain three separate stories (Lily, Ms. Ivors, Gretta) that
do not have apparent link to each other, and that especially the first two did
not have clear correlation with the death. However, I later found out that this
misconnection is itself the very property of modernism. Virginia Woolf, one of
the greatest Modernist writers, wrote “Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically
arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us
from the beginning of consciousness to the end.” Modernist writers concentrated
on reflecting the essence of life in literature work, and they thought that
life does not essentially work as a thrilling plot of four clear steps:
introduction, development, conversion, and summing up. Rather, life contains
several episodes that eventually reach a conclusion, which is exactly how <The
Dead> is structured.
The
epiphany of the story also follows a trait of Modernism. Influenced by Freud,
Modernist writers focused on the true nature of human psyche. By portraying how
Gabriel’s state of mind changes and finally reaches a realization, Joyce could
draw a deep insight on the internal world. Moreover, Joyce’s epiphany was
usually about acknowledging the reality, the true substance of life. Basically,
the epiphany in <Araby> was about the vanity of love along with religion,
and that in <The Dead> was about human interactions, identity, love, and death.
They are the abstract but essential cores of our life, exactly the interests of
Modernism!
I
liked James Joyce’s <The Dead> because it clearly exhibited the
characteristics of Modernism, which is distinguished from those of Realism in
that Modernism deals about the essence of life, which leads to an episode-based
structure and a focus on epiphany.
From a distance,
James Joyce's "Araby" might appear to be a tragic love story. After
all, when the nameless narrator becomes angry at the very last part, he seems
to be angry because he failed the quest of love as he was late for the bazaar.
However, on the other hand, his anguish contains a lot more meaning than a mere
failure in love has. His epiphany is that his ideal cannot exist in reality,
the banal life of Dubliners. Throughout the story the narrator’s ideal is
described as desperate, pure, and even holy. While he carries images of Mangan’s sister, he
imagines that he “bore his chalice safely
through a throng of foes.” In a room where a
priest had died, he presses his palms together and desperately prays, “O love, O love!” Araby, in his dreams,
luxuriates his soul and “casts an Eastern
enchantment over him”. However, such ideal
loses its value by the dull schoolwork, his uncle’s lateness, and
the train’s tardiness, which are the most typical aspects of his everyday life. When
he reaches Araby, which should be a festive and adventurous event, darkness and
timidity greet him. The young lady and the two men speak with sexual undertones
which insinuate an adulterate love. Finally he gives up buying his love a gift,
abandoning the ideal of love. Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to assume
that <Araby> portrays a boy realizing the discrepancy between the ideal
and the reality. In this sense, Mangan’s sister and
Araby, which represent his ideal, finally turn out to be vain and empty.
From a distance,
James Joyce's "Araby" might appear to be a tragic love story. After
all, when the nameless narrator becomes angry at the very last part, some
readers would think that his anguish is because his love has miserably failed
as he was late for the bazaar. However, on the other hand, in my point of view,
his love never has existed. At first, attracted by the lady's appearance, he
acts as if he has a passionate love in mind. He watches her through the window
blinds every morning, thinks of her at every moment, and murmurs "O love!
O love!" However, his uncle comes home late, and the train departs late,
and due to these slightest ordeals, suddenly he forgets the desperate feeling.
He "remembers with difficulty" the reason why he had come, which is supposed
to be 'love'. If his love has been real, how can it be so easily forgotten?
Moreover, he does have the opportunity to buy the flowered tea-sets, but he
simply gives up. Why can't he buy them and give them to the lady, saying that
those were the last products left in Araby at 10 o' clock at night? Wouldn't it
be a romantic ending? It is because he realizes that what he has considered as
love is actually a mere attraction. In fact, at the beginning of the story, the
priest shows a love that is not vain. In the sentence "He had left all his
money to institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister", the
priest had preserved love even as he died. The narrator's attitude contradicts
to that of the priest. Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to assume that he
has never loved the lady. He has been merely attracted by her appearance, and
has deluded himself that his feeling is love. In this sense, at the last part,
he becomes angry because he finally realizes what his true feeling was: vanity
and emptiness.
‘The Lady with the Dog’ by
Anton Chekhov is a captivating story about the love of a married man and a woman,
Gurov and Anna. I like this story because it has realistic and elaborate
descriptions about the characters’ mentality about love and adultery. In this
journal I would write about the change of Gurov’s attitude toward love: his
change from a flagrant philanderer to a true lover.
In part Ⅰ, Gurov is a corrupt character.
He is unfaithful to her wife, and despises women, even calling them as ‘lower
race’. However, ironically, and hypocritically, he comforts himself the most
when he meets women. He accosts Anna only to seek for entertainment in a dreary
routine. She is merely one of the ‘lower race’ people that pass him by.
However, in part Ⅱ, he certainly discovers her uniqueness: the “diffidence and angularity of inexperienced
youth” does not fit into any of his three categories of women. This insinuates
that Anna will be someone special in his life. However, his love is insincere.
He feels bored when Anna cries and suffers from guiltiness of adultery, and he is
more interested in kissing with her than understanding her emotions. Anna seems
to recognize this, and often “urges him to confess that he does not respect her”.
Moreover, about adultery, although he does not feel guilty as much as Anna
does, he does feel embarrassed. He displays vigilance while he kisses her in broad
daylight. Even the philanderer cannot completely avoid such embarrassment in a
society of stern atmosphere.
He
realizes his hypocrisy only after Anna leaves him. As Anna disappears with the
train horn, Gurov reflects back the memories with her. Thinking about his
ironical and condescending behaviors, he finally concludes that he has deceived
her. In part Ⅲ, he questions to himself whether he has really
been in love and whether his relation with Anna was beautiful or merely
entertaining. He has made a meaningful introspection, an essential prerequisite
for a mature, fulfilling love. Now he is ready for a true love.
Not
only he had some self-examination, his affection for Anna becomes more intense
after she leaves him. He would remember the memories with Anna at every moment,
and imagine their beautiful future. Anna “follows him about everywhere like a
shadow and haunts him’. She is now definitely a huge portion of his life. This
part reminds me of a quote from The
Prophet by Khalil Gibran: “And stand
together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.” Gurov can
love Anna more by experiencing a period of parting, rather than staying near
her every day.
However,
still the love is incomplete. By inserting the sentence “Anna Sergeyevna did
not visit him in dreams” in an awkward place, the author may have intended to
emphasize that his love still had a room for expansion. Moreover, Gurov still
wants to confide and show off his memories of love, which directly indicates
that his love is yet not fully mature.
Gurov
finally visits her city due to an event that made him indignant. The event is
seemingly trivial; it cannot force him to make such grand decision. However,
this is the point where I thought Chekhov’s description is truly realistic.
Life is not a continuum of magnificent events as in romantic stories: it is
often initiated from the tiniest happening. Although the dialogue “the sturgeon
was a bit too strong!” might not be as dramatic as what readers might expect from
love stories, it makes the description of Gurov’s change extremely convincing
and realistic.
Anyway
he arrives in Anna’s town. When he finally sees the lady’s face, an enormous,
wild wave blows his mind. This is the very moment of completion of his love. He
realizes that she “filled his whole life now, was his sorrow and his joy, the
only happiness that he now desired for himself.” The rejoin after a long
farewell made his love absolute. Part Ⅳ reveals many evidences of the maturity of his
love. He now admits that he had solaced his miserable soul by considering women
as lower race, and completely escapes from the need for such comfort. He has “profound
compassion”, and craves for sincerity, a quality very opposite to a blatant womanizer.
He is a true lover!
Not
all ordeals are resolved. Gurov strives to deny the immorality of his adultery,
justifying himself that “all personal life rests on secrecy.” Anna is still
miserable of their situation of being “thieves”. Despite all these
difficulties, as their love is hardened with sincerity, they feel certain that
they will overcome any further challenges. As the last paragraph insists, a new
splendid life full of genuine love would begin.
Physics
is my major subject. Since I read a science cartoon book about elementary
particles, I have been greatly interested in physics and studied hard. When I
was in the middle school I participated in the Physics Olympiad. These days I
do researches on specific physical phenomenon and join in physics debate
tournaments. The phenomenon has been there since the creation of the universe,
and I, a tiny creation, strive to find its secrets. I feel joy when my
theoretical model corresponds with the phenomena, and when I find an unknown,
buried aspect of it which needs my rescue of research. A joy of a young
physicist!
2.Floating
Ping-Pong ball
A
Ping-Pong ball can float on a tilted airstream. This was one of the phenomena I
have ardently researched last year. I remember the amazing process I have
undergone to explain the oscillations of the ball, establishing, breaking, then
revising the models relentlessly. I also remember the nervous and exciting moments
of the final round of Korea Young Physicists’ Tournament, where I showed the presentation
of my six-month research and debated with the opponent team and judges. Moreover,
the research is not finished: its spin seems to demonstrate the effects of the
Earth’s spin. Floating Ping-Pong ball certainly has a huge meaning in my high
school life.
3.Hip-hop
I
have listened to hip-hop for more than four years. I possess more than thirty
albums, and listen to almost every work of underground hip-hop musicians. Elaborate
manipulation of language on the strong, vibrant beats fascinates me. Its
spirits greatly influenced my attitude to life.
4.Independence
As
a student who lives in a dormitory, I try to be independent. I complete my business
by my own, and reject to be interfered by others. Some people might view this
as stubbornness, but I believe that independence generally had a positive role
on my life. For example, while all the other kids went to expensive hakwons to
get 5 on APs, I declared to my mother that I will study alone and prove my
legitimacy of independence by results. Guess what, I got 5’s on all six
subjects I had taken!
5.Straightforwardness
Straightforwardness
is one of the hip-hop spirits that formed my character. I despise hypocrisy: I
cannot speak with sweet flatteries only to please others. In other words, I
cannot deceive myself. This made me sometimes seem disobedient to the sunbaes
because I frankly disparaged their dogmatic behaviors. However, I do believe
that straightforward people are trustworthy because their words and behaviors
always reflect their true emotions and thoughts.
6.Snapback
Snapback
cap is my favorite fashion. I used to wear my flat-brimmed cap on whenever I go
outside. I have four caps, and one of them is from the rapper Jay Park. I
caught his cap when he threw it to the crowd in a concert. Well, I look cool
when I wear it, don't I? Look at my profile picture!
7.Mr.
Kim Yon Soo
Mr.
Kim is the guide teacher of our physics research club Hyewoomnarae, and one of
the people who influenced me the most. He gave me one of the biggest ordeals in
my life. His insults on my fundamental personalities were simply unbearable. However
I cannot deny that those ordeals made me stronger and brought positive changes on
me. Although I still am afraid of him, I might sincerely thank him one day. Well,
everybody except me says so.
8.Minjok
Music Magazine
Minjok
Music Magazine, or ‘3M’, is a music column magazine club. We wrote articles of
anything about hip-hop and rock music in our blogs, and gathered and published them
as a form of online magazine each week. As the vice president of the club, I wrote
passionately. By writing those articles regularly, I could understand the
hip-hop music more deeply and broadly. I also enjoyed sharing feelings and
opinions with those who comment on my articles. Our club also had street
performances, blending rock and hip-hop music. This is my blog: http://blog.naver.com/horraywwkd
9.Basketball
– middle school friends
Basketball
court has always been a place of passion and true friendship. Most of my best
friends are my basketball teammates, both in middle school and high school. Men
exert biggest energy when they bang on each other and share sweat. True
friendship forms when we absolutely believe our teamwork and pass the ball to
each other. Basketball is still the most efficient way to get rid of the mental
stress.
10.Tutoring
I
have always enjoyed tutoring my friends. In middle school I was a 24-hours-available
private math instructor of my friend. I even drew geometry pictures on wet taxi
windows to answer his question via phone. Partly due to my effort, the tens
digit of his math score changed from 6 to 9. In high school I taught physics to
nine of my friends in MPT(Minjok Peer Tutoring), and one of them even achieved
the 1st place, while I was the 2nd. Anyway I have always
been a passionate and effective tutor who satisfied my peer pupils.
11.Juggling
Juggling
is one of my special talents. I learned juggling in a elementary school club, and
had big and small performances. The biggest one was held in the Seoul National
Park, and the smallest one was in a nursing home, for community service.
Although now I do not have official performances these days, having such skill is
still a great advantage, in that I at least have something to do at a talent
show.
12.Responsibility
As
a president or a vice president of more than three clubs, and as a participant
of numerous group projects, responsibility has been a quality most needed to me
during KMLA life. I believe I had enough responsibility to lead all those clubs
and group projects, diligently working and sometimes sacrificing my comfort.
13.Earphone
I
used to listen to music with earphone very loudly. My roommates sometimes
advise me to reduce the volume, but I still cannot relinquish the joy of
feeling the intense base drum of hardcore hip-hop songs. It feels as if I, not
the rapper, am shouting loudly, and getting rid of all kinds of burden. I’m
just worried if I should wear a hearing aid when I become old.
14.Petition
of appeal
I
am very proud of myself to having been the first person to submit petition of
appeal on the school court and be declared innocent. I was wrongly accused by
the houseparent, so I submitted the final defending speech. However, the court
rejected it because I had no evidence that I was innocent. I went indignant and
submitted a 1000-word essay as a petition of appeal, which mentioned about the fundamental
rules the judiciary must keep, such as the principle of legality. This was revolutionary
because the petition of appeal system existed but was never practically used. In
the second trial I was declared innocent, and I won at the end.
15.Math
As
a science and math kid, I have listened to the most difficult math classes in
KMLA, such as linear algebra, abstract algebra, and differential equations. Mr.
Hinde often gave us extremely challenging problems in quizzes, and I enjoyed
striving to find the right answer with the shortest solution. Math is also a
big part of my academics.
16.Slow-jam
While
I listened to hip-hop I naturally became accustomed to another genre of black
music: slow jam. Slow jam is slow and sticky music of sexy lyrics and
atmosphere. It really fits my taste. I enjoy letting myself sway free inside
its groove and sexy mood. D’Angelo and Frank Ocean are famous foreign slow jam
artists
17.Jaw
line
Jaw
line is my body part which I am very confident of. It is as sharp and straight
as a razor blade. It completes my beautiful profile.
18.Nose bleed
Since I was a little child I suffered from
rhinitis. My nose became weak because I blew my nose so hard and often. My nose
bleeds not only when I am extremely fatigued but also when cold water touches
my face. Once in two days my nose bleeds when I wash my face at the morning. Especially
in test periods my nose easily bleeds and disturbs me.
19.Has-been
I was once named as a number-one physics and
math genius, a brilliant past. However, as I entered KMLA, I had to study many
more subjects other than physics and math. Moreover, I met many kids much
smarter than me. Now nobody calls me a genius anymore. Those who had called me
genius now call me a has-been. I simply admit for this is the position I am
supposed to be, but the nickname ‘has-been’ stirs complex feelings.
20.Haptic phone
My
nickname is ‘haptic phone’, for I turn on only by ‘touch’. I am a deep sleeper,
especially at mornings, and it is impossible for me to wake up by hearing an
alarm. My roommates have suffered from waking me up because the only way was to
physically hit me hard. When I half-consciously woke up, they yelled “Get up,
you stupid haptic phone!”
21.Internet
cartoon
Internet
cartoon is one of my pastime hobbies. Every day cartoons of various genres are
updated on the portal site ‘Naver’, and I subscribe about eight of them daily.
It takes about 30 minutes every day to read them, and I know this is a big
waste of time, but I cannot but keep reading it. It is a significant party of
my daily life.
22.Bouncy
ball
‘Bouncy
ball’ is a phone game I have been doing for about six months every honjeong period.
My friends wonder when I will be tired of this game and play another one.
However, as consistently as I am, the game is regularly updated and new stages appear
again and again, so I cannot stop playing until the update finishes. This game explicitly
shows my stubbornness, and perhaps, to a very positive-minded person, perseverance.
23.Guilty
‘Guilty’
is the title of my favorite song in singing rooms. I perfectly memorize the
lyrics and can sing and rap fairly well. I even performed this song with a
friend in Minjok festival. It is a song of a man’s parting words to his
girlfriend, spitting out the complaints he have had.
24.Mental
stress
As
an ordinary high school senior, I have a lot of mental stress. Part of it comes
from enormous workload, and the other part comes from the pressure of college
application. Sometimes my parents contribute to this stress. I sometimes feel
myself becoming more nervous and impetuous. I should try to resolve it by
positive thinking and hobbies.
25.Love
It
is so lucky to be able to include love in this list. Although love sometimes
does bring me into trouble, generally, it is always a source of invigoration, motivation,
and refreshment. It follows with other beautiful values such as trust, patience,
dream, and consideration. It gives lesson every day and guides me to be a more
mature person. Although the school prohibits it, love is still a beautiful
quality.
26.Last
farewell party
Last
farewell party is one of the moments that come into mind when I think of
happiness. I had to part with my middle school earlier than other kids because
KMLA opened semester on February. At my last day, my classmates prepared a
surprise party for me. When I entered the classroom knowing nothing, the
classroom was filled with balloons and there was a cake on a desk and there
were messages to me on the chalkboard. It took me a while to realize that this
party was for me. I was so moved and swore to myself that I will never forget these
friends. I realized that I was a beloved one. It was certainly one of the
happiest moments in my life.
27.SIGMA
Community service
SIGMA
is a community service club that teaches elementary school children math and science.
I taught math to 13-years-old kids. Although they were easily distracted and
were far from smart, I enjoyed arousing their curiosities and seeing their beautiful
limpid eyes. As a vice president of the club, I passionately taught the kids
and improved the club’s system. Even now I am planning to make an effective
teaching material for the club.
28.Galaxy
TAB
It
is very unusual to use a huge 7-inch tablet as a phone. Therefore my Galaxy TAB
has been some kind of my symbol for two years. Although its size seems overly
big, it surprisingly fits into most of the pockets, and big screen offers great
convenience. Now it is too old: it often malfunctions and is being
disintegrated. It does not gather my friends’ attention anymore. However, I still
feel affection for this gigantic cell phone.
29.Fingers
My
fingers are really pretty. They are also the body parts I am proud of, as well
as my jaw line. My fingers are long, and fingernails are round and handsome.
Even those who say I’m ugly may not be able to deny the beauty of my fingers.
30.Friends
and family
The
most banal cliché ever, but it is still so true that my friends and family are
people who influenced me the most. I always learn a lot from relations with
them. I often feel grateful to the love and care they provide to me, and feel
sorry that I do not compensate enough. They are really precious in my lives.
* Sorry about the overuse of the word "BS", starting from the title and the image. I was not trying to make fun or anything, just that the keyword "BS" hits the core of the story, my journal, and apparently some part of the class, so it needs some emphasis.
Although most of the literary
analysis is originated from a thorough and profound understanding of the
literature work combined with its author, background era, location, and genre,
it easily turns into a BS. Regulating this short story “The Student” as a
realism work also has a considerable possibility of being a BS. To avoid this
BS, I tried to have a more fundamental understanding of the story’s content and
message itself rather than its tone and literary skills. Therefore I could
finally find out a non-BS reason why this story is realistic: it talks about
BS. To specify, it talks about the BS of human nature.
I found a very interesting
consistency in the beginning and ending parts of the story. Let’s look at the
sentences from both parts.
And
now, shrinking from the cold, he thought that just such a wind had blown in the
days of Rurik and in the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter, and in their time
there had been just the same desperate poverty and hunger, the same thatched
roofs with holes in them, ignorance, misery, the same desolation around, the
same darkness, the same feeling of oppression -- all these had existed, did
exist, and would exist,……
…… he
thought thattruth and beauty
which had guided human life there in the garden and in the yard of the high
priest had continued without interruption to this day, and had evidently always
been the chief thing in human life and in all earthly life, indeed; ……
The first sentence is the student’s
first realization before he arrives at the garden. The next one is his second
realization after he sees the women cry. Two realizations are both about the connection
of past, present, and future. Desolation, darkness, oppression, truth, and
beauty equally exist in all three phases, because they are “linked by an
unbroken chain of events.”
Due to this consistency, the lesson
that past, present, and future are all linked acts as a “topic” of this story.
And the main link is Peter. As we see in the first sentence, the student thinks
that the cold wind may have blown also in the time of Peter, which leads to the
realization. His second perception also comes from Peter. The campfire at the
windows’ garden reminds him of the story of Peter, who denied Jesus thrice,
right in front of a fire in the yard. He told this story to the widows, and
they expressed intense emotions, because they had a connection with the story
about Peter.
As we see, the two realizations are
consistent, even equivalent. Not only the realization itself but the subject
matter is also the same: Peter. Now let’s look at the conclusions, the
aftermaths of each realization that the student has made.
……and the lapse of a thousand years would make life no
better. And he did not want to go home.
……and the feeling of youth, health, vigour -- he was only
twenty-two -- and the inexpressible sweet expectation of happiness, of unknown
mysterious happiness, took possession of him little by little, and life seemed
to him enchanting, marvellous, and full of lofty meaning.
The first one is merely a useless complaint. Without
any will to change and improve the situation, he simply moans that the poverty
and depression has been inherited from the past by inevitable link with the
present. He adds that he doesn’t want to go home (just because he is hungry):
not even a complaint, rather a baby’s whining. Well, “he was only twenty –two”.
Then, after the pointy-headed talk with the widows,
the conclusion suddenly turns into a grandiose one that might suggest eternal delight
to the whole world. He feels an ineffable enchantment, as though he reached
nirvana and discovered a permanent truth. However, in reality, he doesn’t even
know that his perception is exactly same as that before the talk.
Now we see an inconsistency, a BS. Although they
originate from the same realization and subject matter, the student’s
conclusion and feeling before and after the talk are totally the opposite. Even
the age of twenty-two makes him a hungry, whining baby before and a healthy and
vigorous youth after. Why does this happen? Simply because he was cold and
hungry at the beginning and was very glad at the ending. He might have been
proud of himself that he told such a touching story to his audience and finally
made them cry. This mere change of emotion turned him from a baby to a Saint.
However, as we now all know, the Saint’s realization, although decorated with fancy
words and phrases, was only a depressing, hungry knowledge that the baby had
already well known. Silly, isn’t he?
No, he is not silly at all. He is only an ordinary
man that sometimes deludes himself in favorable circumstances. We all fall into
such delusions. It’s the BS of human nature. People are essentially ironic, so
their thoughts and philosophies greatly depend on the immediate circumstances
and emotions, not the essence. For example, if there is no meat in the menu on
Monday, we blame the school meal for not deserving the expensive price.
However, if the Tuesday menu is fried chicken and steak, we exclaim, and thank
the school meal system for the cheap but wonderful meal. The reality is that
the essence has never changed: price, chefs, and the school meal system were exactly
the same on Monday and Tuesday, so it is a BS to make opposite evaluations on
the school meal. But this is exactly how we all behave!
Moreover, in our youth, we easily delude
ourselves that we are awesome and our philosophies are grandeur. At the
transition period from a child to an adult, and at the period of learning and
training, we often experience some kind of realizations, as the student did.
Not all of them are noteworthy in our lives, but they all seem to be brilliant
at that very moment. In the case of this story the perception is insignificant.
The story thoroughly portrays the process of a young man coming up with a
trivial realization but admiring himself, a common and realistic BS of a youth.
Perhaps this is why the title of the story is “The Student”.
Now we can finally answer to the question that in
what way this story is a realism work. This work portrays the intrinsic BS of
human thought process extremely realistically. A student realizes that the past
and the present are connected, makes two opposite conclusions, and quivers in
joy that he had discovered the truth. Through this student, the author shows
how ironically humans, particularly youths, behave. He reveals how dependent
humans are on the instantaneous emotions and circumstances. He discloses how exaggeratedly
people think of themselves. He demonstrates who we truly are, and what we are
really filled of: BS. How could a story be more realistic?
