Norwegian Wood final Reading Journal

Norwegian Wood

"Don't judge a book by its cover."

My great fantastical love with Toru was torn into pieces as the book proceeded. Throughout the beginning of the book, I thought Toru kept staring at her as if he was charmed, feeling blissful at every little part of her and every little act she does. However, I slowly started to notice that Toru wasn't in love with her; he was just the kind of guy who is indecisive. He merely lets his friends and lovers come and go, and lets them do whatever they want with him. To tell the truth, watching him taking indefinite positions and maintaining vague relationships with all the girls he meets, Naoko, Midori and Reiko, I actually began to hate him from some point. If anyone continues to live like this, the twisted relationships will be entangled even more until it is inevitable to cut all the tangled ropes with scissors.

Gripping the receiver, I raised my head and turned to see what lay beyond the telephone booth. Where was I now? I had no idea. No idea at all. Where was this place? All that flashed into my eyes were the countless shapes of people walking by to nowhere. Again and again, I called out for Midori from the dead center of this place that was place.

My comment on "humans are lonely beings," on the other hand, has not changed since I wrote my last reading journal. People are born alone, go through numerous relationships to experience recurrent meetings and farewell, and in the end die alone. Most people, however, try their best to deny this fact. They continuously look for someone to stay beside them, miss friends and lovers, and desire to make more friends wherever they go. Thus, about 99.9% of all the fights and crying that happen around the world are due to the relationship problems. As such, people do their best endeavors to prove themselves that they are not lonely animals and therefore hate to lose their dear friends and families. It's because the fear to be left alone in this world is the fear that eats away your bones.

I personally think that this is why Naoko killed herself. Naoko lost her most valuable people in her young age without even a hint: Her sister and Kizuki both killed themselves. Since Naoko isn't the narrator of the story, the book does not reflect the detailed feelings of her. However, my assumption of her thought process is the following.

She would probably feel great resentment towards two people who had not said anything to her before they killed themselves. If I were her, I would think, 'Why didn't he tell me anything about his hardships? Why didn't she talk to me if she was going through too much on her own? Why didn't she let me share her tears? I told them just about anything! I never hid anything from them. How come I didn't know anything? Was I anything to them? Why did I have to face this horrible agony? Why?' It would be like a house with only two pillars with the pillars collapsed all at once. I don't exactly know how she felt then since I've never experienced such pain before, but this is how I think I would feel.

This is why Naoko kept on requesting checks for Toru's love. She was scared that Toru would leave her just like everybody else did. The trauma kept on living in her heart and she was afraid she might be left alone again. And what was more, she had already experienced the fear of being left alone. The increasing anxiety led her to the sanatorium and I think the more secluded life with even less interaction with others made the anxiety get even worse. Besides, her shock from the kiss with Reiko, other happenings we don't know, and the final blow, Reiko's words that Toru confessed that he likes Midori, amplified her fear to great extent to committing suicide in the end. It is not stated that Reiko had actually told Naoko about the confession, but I can't think of any other way to explain her death.

Naoko concluded to herself that Toru would leave her, like all the others. When she faced her death, she was probably thinking that she couldn't bear the same pain and loneliness all by herself again, if that moment comes.

Norwegian Wood I

The author starts the story at the present viewpoint and goes back to reminisce his life eighteen years ago. He talks about his memories about Naoko, from the first time he met her until he falls in love with her. Along with that, he describes his university life, introducing his bizarre roommate, "Storm Trooper." The next person he meets is Nagasawa, who became a legend after swallowing three slugs to end the conflicts. Toru is obviously admiring him, saying that he slept with a hundred girls and is an amazing conversational wizard.

The story goes on like this until page 50, but I have a more important confession to make: I think I'm in love with Toru Watanabe. While reading the pages, I quickly noticed that he is such a grown-up with amazing personalities and that he is very thoughtful, although he doesn't necessarily boasts those features himself. Also, I was awed by how he deals with people's relationships and the emerging problems from the relationships. Actually, this book, at least up to page 50, deals a lot with relationships, especially about love, parting, life, and death.

           The main theme for this part of the story is about the love between Toru and Naoko. Actually, at first, I was confused if Toru loved this girl or not. Of course, he did want to make Naoko happy and said that he was distressed because of walking with such a beautiful girl, but all he does is describe exactly how she behaves, and speculates what she is thinking every moment. He never blurts out those cliché phrases such as 'my heart flutters too much that it could possibly burst,' or 'she made me crazy.' I couldn't guess how Naoko feels about Toru, either. However, when he writes, "My stories of Storm Trooper always made Naoko laugh. Not many things succeeded in doing that, so I talked about him often, though I was not exactly proud of myself for using him this way," I was starting to be convinced that he was falling in love with her. And at last, it became certain that Toru was totally into her when he wrote, "I wanted to hold her tight when she did these things, but I would hesitate and hold back. I was afraid I might hurt her if I did that," or "Besides, the sight of Naoko's smiling face had become my own special source of pleasure." I wish I had someone who loved me in this way. I also thought this could actually be the definition of true love.

           

          Another main thing the writer talks about is parting, or death. In the beginning, Toru wonders why he could only remember the scenery while he cannot recall all the other things, including himself and, most importantly, Naoko. He also writes, "The more the memories of Naoko inside me fade, the more deeply I am able to understand her. Because Naoko never loved me." I think the author tried to emphasize that humans are originally lonely beings. I think human beings are meant to be alone. There is always a farewell in any kind of relationships; whether it's death or fate, people are born alone and die alone. There is no eternal friendship and there is no eternal love. Toru's soul was also filled with similar anguish after his best friend, Kizuki, dies. Before Kizuki's death, he believed that life and death are remote from each other, but now he realizes that life and death always travel their paths together. Personally, I don't have any experience of death of someone near me, so honestly, I don't get what he's talking about.

           

         While reading, I also realized that a life can be altered according to how a person puts meaning to his life. Toru considers everything meaningless; he never puts any meaning to his friends, his girlfriend, and even the books he learns at school. "There was nothing I wanted to be," this is what he says. I'm guessing he likes "Gatsby" because Gatsby has the exactly opposite personality to his. Gatsby has the only one desire that he can dedicate everything for. Toru, on the opposite, doesn't even know what he wants.

          

            Lastly, my most memorable phrase in this part was the following: "If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking." Nagasawa said this, while rationalizing his liking of the rarely read books. Reading this part, I remembered how modern men only consider the bestsellers to be worth reading and buying. Then, I could see why some of the intellectuals say that nationally standardized textbooks and tests make people stupid.

Salty Memories

Salty Memories

When I closed my eyes leaning on the edge of the deck, the sound of the smooth, white waves flowed into my ear. The captain of the ship started the music that reminded me of Texas countryside, along which people danced and seagulls shrieked. The gentle breeze ruffled my hair randomly and the scarlet sun was sinking on the horizon. Standing there, I tried to think of other moments in my life that made my eyes shine with happiness, such as when I was accepted into KMLA and when my boyfriend told me he loved me. Ironically, simply standing there on the edge of the deck made me happier than ever.

It was then when I realized I had fantasies on a vague concept of "sea"; like a reflex, when I breathe in the sea breeze or hear the sea foaming with white waves, my body returns to a calm and happy state. I tried to think of reasons why I love sea so much and a never-ending panorama of happy memories at sea passed through my mind. At the age of 11, I learned how to surf in California, and I remembered digging out clams and catching blue crabs at mud flats with my mom, dad and my little sister. At night, we used to have barbecue parties with sweet potatoes and numerous stars embroidered in the night sky.

My panorama was stopped by the announcement by the captain, notifying a beautiful castle on the left that was built in the Byzantine period. The announcement ended and I looked down the cruise, craning down to see the white waves walking by, one by one. As I was watching them, people were chattering in loud, Turkish voice. Having no one to talk to, I kept on staring at the bottom of the ship, when a burst of loneliness pierced into my heart like an icicle. It wasn't a kind of loneliness in a boy and girl relationship, but more of a loneliness that I realized I had to go through for the rest of my life.

Staring at the wide open, unpromising sea, I got lost in painful memories of my times of ignorance before I realized that I am the only one who can believe in me.

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Waiting was never easy. On that day, I sat in the same bench, under the same tree, at the same park, across the same building. I sat there waiting. Numerous people passed by. Around 6, I saw span pants jogging. Around 12, I heard yellow kindergarteners toddle. Around 8, lovers covered themselves behind branches. But nowhere could I find my person.

Some people asked me why I sat on the seat all day long. I told them, when you get lost at an airport, you stay there until someone finds you. When you get lost in life, you do the same. I just thought my someone would come up someday. But when?

Everyday, the sponge heart inside me got heavier. The sweat I shed during years of determination, the tears that streaked down when my wife left me, the damp hollowness I felt every night under the same soggy covers. Whenever I breathed in, the sponge would repress me. It made my footsteps lag across the street when I took a stroll. So I sat there on the bench until I could find my person who could heal my wounds and always take my side, which never happened.

When I was 11, I thought my best friend would always be there for me. When I was 12, I thought my favorite celebrity would always be there for me. When I was 16, I thought my advisor would do so. When I was 17, I thought my parents were the only ones who would do so. When I found out I was wrong the whole time, after experiencing a number of betrayals from people I trusted, I finally knew. No one, even God, if he existed, could ever be there with me forever and always. I was the only one who could believe me and be responsible for my own life.

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"Ladies and gentlemen, the dinner is ready on the first floor cafeteria. Thank you."

The announcement by the captain dragged me out of my epiphany recollections, and I stood in a line after a blonde European girl. Standing in the long, long line, I was about to fall into the past memories again when a guy after me told me to scooch. 

Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley

Certainly. I think he should be the president of ministry of education so that no more students would commit suicides from work stress.

The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

Gabriel García Márquez

"Uses magic realism but has a reality behind it"

           The first thing that struck me when I first finished reading the story was that the fictional society is oddly similar to the modern society where lookism is rampant in our daily lives. Such conclusion was driven by the way people behave towards the dead man, or such attitude and how influential a single person can be. The evidences are emphasized in the following points.

             Just as the women finished cleaning up the body, they are shocked by the extremely handsome appearance of the dead man, establishing a blind stereotype of him: "But only when they finished cleaning him off did they become aware of the kind of man he was and it left them breathless. Not only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they had ever seen, but even though they were looking at him there was no room for him in their imagination."

              With the bias deeply engraved in their minds, the women are willing to do anything for the dead man, slowly becoming big "fans" of him: "Fascinated by his huge size and his beauty, the women then decided to make him some pants from a large piece of sail and a shirt from some bridal Brabant linen so that he could continue through his death with dignity." The "fans" in the story is quite similar to "fans" today, who intend to serve their favorite celebrities as gods or goddesses. There are cases in which these fans send expensive or otherwise valuable gifts such as laptops and drawings of the celebrity, the situation that is similar to the women making some pants from a large piece of sail and a shirt from some bridal Brabant linen.

            

              The women are slowly and thoroughly manipulated by the stereotypes they established themselves, now starting to freely imagine what he was like when he was alive. The speculation has no evidence at all, but they come up with specific words he would have said or detailed behavior he would have shown and how others would have reacted to him. According to the women, he felt sorry for his own size wherever he went, not sitting anywhere lest he might break the chair he sat on. Also, his big size made him uncomfortable, "condemned to going through doors sideways, cracking his head on crossbeams." The women also thought that if that magnificent man had lived in the village, his house would have had the widest doors, the highest ceiling, and the strongest floor, his bedstead would have been made from a midship frame held together by iron bolts, and his wife would have been the happiest woman.

             This state of the women, acting overly nice to the dead man and now making up whole stories of him when he was alive, reflects the desire to become familiar with every little detail of the handsome drowned man's life. The similar kind of desire is also shown by the "big fans" or "paparazzi" today, who are willing to sacrifice anything to get information on current state of the celebrity. The desire is exactly why the paparazzi and privacy exposure of celebrities have become one of the most critical problems in modern society.

             The women then assume that the man was good natured when he was alive, just by looking at his handsome outer appearance. The assumption, of course, does not make any sense, with no proof that can back up their stories. We make the same mistake today, automatically and unconsciously assuming that handsome or beautiful people have such good personalities. Furthermore, when the women come to learn that the drowned man is not from the neighbor area, they sighs, "Praise the Lord," "He's ours!"

              It is simply amazing how influential a single person can be. Given by the fact that the village people held the most splendid funeral for him and that they also "chose a father and mother from among the best people, and aunts and uncles and cousins, so that through him all the inhabitants of the village became kinsmen," the author is not only trying to emphasize the great impact the dead man has on the whole village, but also trying to lead the readers into thinking that this is ridiculous. By showing the ridiculous circumstances through the description of the story for the readers, the author may be trying to leave the readers laugh at the fictional society, thereby giving them a chance to laugh at, or look back on their own society. With rational thinking, worshipping a dead man and establishing kinship with the dead man are all extremely weird and in some ways grotesque. In this case, the author in this story most effectively delivered the lesson for his readers, both making up irrational and funny scenes to laugh at using magic realism, and emphasizing the huge impact the dead man has on the whole village, especially when the women thought, "… it seemed to them that the wind had never been so steady nor the sea so restless as on that night and they supposed that the change had something to do with the dead man," or in the last sentence, "… yes, over there, that's Esteban's village." 

The Dead Reading Journal

The Dead

The Dead

                 In "The Dead" by James Joyce, the characters, the symbol and other factors all add up to give the readers an idea of paralysis of emotion or passion in people's lives. Gabriel, the main character, is emotionally dead and tainted in the secular society. The first evidence is that he has never truly loved his wife, Gretta; his attraction towards his wife was a mere fascination to a desire to control her. When Gabriel "watched her while she slept, as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife," he cried, thinking "he had never felt like how Michael Furry did towards any woman." This shows that he is emotionally dead, never having truly loved his wife at least and most of the women he had met in his life. Also, Gabriel shows such an arrogant and disdainful attitude to others, as seen by his behavior at the annual party: "Gabriel took his seat boldly at the head of the table and, having looked to the edge of the carver, plunged his fork firmly into the goose. He felt quite at ease now, for he was an expert carver and liked nothing better than to find himself at the head of a well-laden table." Such attitude makes him disconnected with the rest of the population, which makes him become "dead" to others. Furthermore, he tries to solve problems using the power of money, immediately giving some tips to the caretaker's daughter, Lily, when she got annoyed by Gabriel's words. This behavior of his shows that he is too tainted in the materialistic world and is emotionally deprived.

                   The death of Michael Furry too represents the absence of passion in people's lives. According to the description in the story, he had lived a passionate life and lived fully, probably doing what he truly wanted, with great enthusiasm. Thus, the death may signify the death of such passion in their lives.

                   

                   Apart from these two characters, others, especially those in the party seem to live the lives of deadening routines. Every year, the Morkan's party takes place, with the same events happening every year: Gabriel gives a speech, Freddy Malins arrives to the party drunk, everyone dances in the same routine steps, and everyone eats while chats. No one thinks of opening a different-colored party or doing something else than attending party to associate with people and eat. This state is similar to the anecdote told by Gabriel with the horse that circles around and around the mill.

In the story, the symbol of "snow" plays an important role in conveying the theme of the "dead" mentioned above. At the very last part of the story, Gabriel watches snow covering the whole village, touching both the dead and the living, including the grave of Michael Furry.

                    In spite of the theme of death covering the whole story, the author does try to lead the readers into thinking of a breakage of such theme. The snow melts someday, meaning the whole village that was covered by snow quietly will break its silence someday. Furthermore, epiphany came on to Gabriel; he realized that he doesn't have the actual power to control his wife's feelings and that he should no longer deny the past. He encounters such epiphany after talking to his wife who recalled the memory of Michael Furry, her ex-lover.

                    Both the title and the story itself seem to reflect the modern society quite thoroughly, since we are locked up in the same routines every day, living our lives with less passion and emotion than we did in the past, just as people in the Morkan's party. If anyone tries to get out of the system or of the norm, he or she must bear losing jobs, breaking relationship or get into lots of other troubles.

                    Of course, living in the routine is stable in terms of both personal level and societal level, since the stable system is important in developing a society gradually. However, it becomes a problem the routine system starts to lock up people's mind and body. This problem is particularly severe in Korea, with people blaming you for deviating from the norm even just a little bit. People expect similar ability, personality or outer appearance from everybody, making those who are out of the standards disabled or "weird" people. Little children who are repeatedly imprinted with such "names" lose confidence, often becoming psychologically disordered or going through difficulties without any reason. Such stereotypes led to tremendous popularity of plastic surgery, especially in Korea with the highest rate of plastic surgeries every year in OECD countries. This phenomenon is, again, due to the people's expectations of similar, beautiful outer appearance. Actually, if you walk across the Gangnam city for just 30 minutes while observing the faces of women in their 20s or 30s, you can easily notice that most of them have similar faces, just as the products mass manufactured in factories. There are tons of other examples as well. Korea is one of the countries with shortest period of fashion trend change.

                    This stereotype, or perhaps, culture, that people want to play in the same routine and be like everybody else is actually psychologically inevitable. Moreover, humans are social animals, so it is natural that people desire to follow each other. Nevertheless, the state the stereotype has gone too much and almost to an irreversible degree in the modern society. The reason why it is especially a critical problem in Korea is the culture; the culture makes us disabled if we don't follow the majority. Usually, people don't respect distinctiveness of individuals. If anyone tries wearing a quite different style of clothes than anybody else, if anyone looks quite different from others, or if anyone behaves in a different way, people immediately start to talk in whispers to each other, insult in the face or even take photographs.

                     The most representative example that shows our stereotypes is an example of glasses in Korean society. In my parents' generation, those who wore glasses or had bad eyesight were considered "disabled." If anyone shows up in public with glasses on, people used to pick on him or her, even including the teachers and friends. However, since then, the average eyesight of Korean population has been getting worse as people started to encounter a lot of electronic devices such as television, cell phones and computers, as well as establishing bad habits. Eventually, more and more people are wearing glasses and no one calls someone disabled just for wearing glasses.

                     Those who cannot use their legs are considered handicapped because there are more people whose legs work properly, and those with hearing impairment are considered disabled because there exist more people whose ears work properly.

                     As "the dead" tells us, we should no longer try to be similar with others, or live indistinct lives. Instead, we should sometimes make decisions that are out of the norm if you think it is right.

Araby: 1 paragraph - Second draft

             From a distance, James Joyce’s "Araby" might appear to be a love story in which the author tries to convey the boy's final realization that true love not only internal or religious as he thought it would be, but also secular and flirtatious. After all, when the nameless narrator elaborated the North Richmond Street as a "blind" and "quiet" street where the "houses had grown somber" and "cold air stung us," the boy seems to be one of the more innocent people in the village. Meanwhile, the boy gets to establish fantasies about the girl he loves, with his eyes often "full of tears" and at times "a flood from his heart seemed to pour itself out into his bosom." The boy then seems to reach his epiphany in the very last sentence of the story: "I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger," which indicates his loss of innocence and rage at the realization. However, on the other hand, such interpretation of the story is misleading. The boy was already aware of physical love himself since he first met the girl, given by the part where he notices every little movement of the girl: "she turned a silver bracelet round and round her wrist," and "The white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling…" In the first place, the boy begins his ecstasy of love after witnessing the physical attractiveness of the girl, provided that he did not speak to her very often and that he did not know her very well. The problem is that he did not want to admit that he was not religious; he believed that his love was innocent. But still, he could not refuse to take a look at her physical appearance, saying "I was thankful that I could see so little." This situation can be attributed to the effect of the religious village on the boy. (ex) The Catholics say people should repress their sexual desires and love that relies on physical attractiveness is wrong and improper. The whole village has religious atmosphere, and this religious thought is also dominant on the boy's uncle and aunt he is living with. (ex) Since it is inevitable for a child to be affected by his environment, the boy tries his best to repress his sexual emotions toward the girl, which is obviously too hard for him. Consequently, it can be concluded that the boy is having an internal conflict between his instinct and his religious beliefs. Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to assume that "Araby" discloses the idea that the boy is disappointed at himself, particularly his instinct, not at realization of true love nor the girl. In this sense, he is despaired because he finds out that he himself was not truly religious, and that his background is inevitably portrayed in his true personality and identity.

Why It’s Time to Get Rid of Standardized Tests

By Noliwe M. RooksOct. 11, 2012

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/10/11/why-its-time-to-get-rid-of-standardized-tests/#ixzz2M6iqb7zC

Do standardized achievement tests unfairly advantage white and Asian students and disadvantage the rest? According to a group of educational organizations and civil rights groups the answer is yes. The recently filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education pointing out that black and Latino students in New York score below whites and Asians on standardized tests so consistently that although they are almost 70% of the overall student body, they are only 11% of students enrolled at elite public schools. As a result, the complaint argues that New York City is in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act because schools rely on a test that advantages one racial group over another.

This is not the only instance where race has become an important factor for how standardized tests are used in public education. Just last month public schools in both Virginia and Washington D.C. announced targets for how many students in each racial group must pass for schools to remain in good standing. For example, in Virginia only 45% of black students in each school must pass standardized math tests while 68% of whites, and 82% of Asians must do the same. Officials say that these plans are not discriminatory because students who are the farthest behind must progress the most, but critics reason that if one expects less from some students, those lower educational expectations will become a self-fulfilling prophecy for school districts and those students will fall even farther behind.

(MORE: Why Do We Care More About Diversity on TV Than In Our Schools?)

What these recent developments make clear is that instead of setting different educational benchmarks for groups based on race or income, it may simply be time for us to stop relying so heavily on standardized tests to begin with. Though opinions differ as to why, on k-12 achievement tests and college entrance exams, lower income students, as well as black and Latino students, consistently score below privileged white and Asian students. These gaps persist despite decades of research and numerous studies attempting to explain and then close them. One theory suggests that students with grandparents who have graduated from college always score higher, suggesting that the tests unfairly penalize students who are the first in their family to attend college. Whatever the explanation, it is difficult to reconcile why we rely on such tests when we know that they so heavily advantage some and disadvantage others.

(MORE: Why the Online Education Craze Will Leave Many Students Behind)

And if the standardized testing gap between racial minorities is bad, it’s nothing compared to the gap between the poor and the wealthy. For example, one recent study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that the gap for achievement test scores between rich and poor have grown by almost 60% since the 1960s and are now almost twice as large as the gap between white students and children of other races. The playing field is far from level when we continue to use tests where we know at the outset that wealthy students will do better than less wealthy students and white and Asian students will outperform blacks and Latinos.

One thing all this research has shown us is that the issue lies with how we use these tests, not with the kids who take them. Just consider the history of standardized tests which — according to Columbia University Professor Nicholas Lemann’s history of the Educational Testing Service, The Big Test: The Secret History of America’s Meritocracy — were first developed in the 1940s as a way to exclude Jewish students from Ivy League campuses. Interestingly, Stanley Kaplan, today one of the largest test preparation organizations, got its start when Mr. Kaplan resolved to come up with test-taking techniques to “beat the test” and ensure that such students did well.

(MORE: In Defense of School Testing)

Today, as an acknowledgment of the inherent racial and economic inequity of standardized achievement tests, hundreds of colleges have already stopped requiring the SAT for college admission decisions. However, the same cannot be said for k-12, where scores on achievement tests are in part used for everything from admitting students to prestigious public schools to placing students in gifted or remedial programs, allocating federal funding, and even evaluating teachers.

A growing number of parents, school boards, teachers and civil rights organizations are beginning to question the fairness of our overreliance on standardized tests and recently over 300 groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund signed a petition to ask congress to ban the use of such tests. Given the recent developments in Washington D.C. and Virginia, it would seem that it’s about time.

MORE: What Distinguishes a Superschool from the Rest

Reading Journal: The Lady with the Dog

Reading Journal: The Lady with the Dog

While I was reading this short story, an idea struck me: both of the characters, Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna probably got married from some kind of coercion or force, not from true love for their partners. I inferred this idea from the fact that they both do not feel any guilt when they are so-called "having affairs," betraying each of their partners, and that the way their encounter is described is very much like that of the first love, the true love. If they were married for the genuine love, they would at least feel guilt and have internal struggles on their own to choose from the two.

Thus, technically, they can be said to having affairs, because they ARE, of course, secretly going out without their partners' notice. However, I think this is like the story of "Romeo and Juliet"; some people may treat the love between Gurov and Anna as dirty cheating, but I see this as an effort to search for true love, and the final realization of true love between them.  

Based on this interpretation, I could easily relate this story to the reality of the marriage culture in Korea. A few decades ago, my parents' generation tended to get married by the coercion of the parents who believed in fortune-tellers' marriage compatibility, and that anyone who first can get married. My grandparents' generation was not even allowed to look at each other's face before the marriage. This only seems like a story of the past, but this stupid practice is still carried out today, in the 21th century! Today, many of the millionaires, especially the children of noble birth, such as those of the CEO of big companies like Samsung still tend not to marry according to their own wills. Instead, they get married for the profit of their companies and businesses.

Particularly in Korea, the kinship and family love are valued as one of the most important morals of all. Therefore, if children of tycoons get married once, unless they get divorce, the tycoons cannot easily inflict harm on each other. In other words, they are united as one force once they get married. This is basically why many children of rich family are forced to marry certain spouse. This tradition is, of course, slowly fading out of our society, but is still widely practiced these days.

This irrational tradition should cease to exist. The children of these rich families have the right to lead happy lives, and marriage is one of the most important parts of the people's lives. The parents of rich family should not take away their rights in the name of "future prosperity." Most of these "marriage of convenience" end up in misfortune, such as leaving their child and getting divorced, betraying each other for the sake of money, living in an unhappy family forever, and even committing suicides.

For these reasons, I really hope Gurov and Anna would get together, get married, have children of their own and live happily ever after.

Winner Takes it All

I don't wanna talk about things we've gone through,
Though it's hurting me, now it's history.
I've played all my cards and that's what you've done too,
Nothing more to say, no more ace to play.
The winner takes it all,
The loser standing small beside the victory, that's her destiny.

I was in your arms thinking I belonged there,
I figured it made sense, building me a fence,
Building me a home, thinking I'd be strong there,
But I was a fool, playing by the rules.
The gods may throw a dice, their minds as cold as ice,
And someone way down here loses someone dear.

The winner takes it all, the loser has to fall,
It's simple and it's plain, why should I complain.

But tell me, does she kiss like I used to kiss you,
Does it feel the same when she calls your name.
Somewhere deep inside you must know I miss you,
But what can I say, rules must be obeyed.
The judges will decide the likes of me abide,
Spectators of the show always staying low.

The game is on again, a lover or a friend,
A big thing or a small, the winner takes it all.

I don't wanna talk if it makes you feel sad,
And I understand you've come to shake my hand.
I apologize if it makes you feel bad seeing me so tense, no self confidence.

This song is originally sung by ABBA, also sung by millions of others after it became even more famous for the musical Mamma Mia. I watched both the movie Mamma Mia and the Korean version of the musical Mamma Mia and I felt a shudder somewhere in the middle of both of the works. I do not know why, but I did feel the feeling what the experts call "feel the shudder." 

Recently, while I was tearing my own hair out while writing my cover letter and peer letter, I was at the same time listening to random music in my iTunes. I was hearing, not exactly "listening" to the music, but one song suddenly grabbed my mind. It was this song, "Winner Takes it All." Nowadays I'm feeling depressed that the universities only choose the "winners," the ones who have already "won" in various contests and competitions. They say that they value potential and other factors, but what they actually value is how successful you already are. This concept is not restricted within the university world. This "winner-takes-it-all" principle is valid in any institutions or jobs. Thus, I figure that this principle is something that I should follow, although many criticize on this. 

I can't do anything about it, can I?

< The Student > Reading Journal

< The Student > Reading Journal

Fate is pre-determined.

I'm not a person of religion; in fact, I have not believed, do not believe, and will not believe in anything unproven by scientific community, such as fate, fortunetelling, ghosts, gods, which is probably why it was extremely difficult for me to fully understand this short story. Only after reading it nearly 5 times did I finally came to make sense of the story.

Obviously, this short story is highly religious in that the majority of the story deals with Jesus and Peter from the bible. Within this religious story is a valuable moral lesson especially for faithful Catholics, "Fate is predetermined."

"The Student" kept emphasizes that people's destiny is established beforehand and that what humans do have nothing to do with the influence on the fate, the idea that is fully explained by the story of Jesus and Peter. According to the student, at the Last Supper, Peter said to Jesus, "I am ready to go with Thee into darkness and unto death," telling him his true feelings and strong resolution of his own towards Jesus. However, Jesus replied to him, "I say unto thee, Peter, before the cock croweth thou wilt have denied Me thrice." Later, as Jesus had predicted, when Peter saw Jesus being beaten, he denied his knowing Jesus for three times. After he denied for three times, Peter wept "bitterly – bitterly." This situation demonstrates that feeling and actions of humans do not have ability to change the predetermined fate, just as Peter was not able to free himself from the Jesus's prophecy despite his passionate love towards Him.

Vasilisa, surprisingly, suddenly erupts into cry, giving "a gulp, big tears" flowing down her cheeks and is obviously ashamed of her tears. Her reason for this reaction is probably the realization of the moral lesson that the story of Peter and Jesus had given her: people cannot alter their own destiny. Vasilisa was grieved and remorseful that she could not do anything about her daughter abused by her husband, and when she hears the story of Jesus and Peter from the student, Vasilisa becomes aware that her efforts cannot make the situation any better. Thus, she cries and at the same time, is ashamed of her own inability.

This story also draws attention to the fact that the history goes through the same cycle of events in a repeated manner; that is, similar incidents happen with certain intervals. In the very first part of the story, Ivan thinks 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, and the lapse of a thousand years would make life no better," the statement that explains how past events can relate to the future events. Later, when Vasilisa and the student meets, the student again implies this idea by saying, "At just such a fire the Apostle Peter warmed himself," while stretching out his hands to the fire in front of him. The connection of past and future events is further reinforced by the student, who thinks that "if Vasilisa had shed tears, and her daughter had been troubled, (story) had a relation to the present – to both women, to the desolate village, to himself, to all people." This relationship makes the student see "both ends of the chain and when he touches one end the other quivers."

I'm still not sure what exactly the author is trying to say by implying these moral lessons to the readers, but I'm sure that this story cannot certainly be considered as realism. According to Wikipedia, realism in the visual arts and literature is the "general attempt to depict subjects as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation and in accordance with secular, empirical rules." Of course, the method that the author uses to unfold the story is realistic and the story overall deals with what real people think of certain values. However, "The Student" does not deal with the "objective reality," which is essential for a piece of work to be realism. Instead, it covers the subjective views of certain group of people, not a real event as it is.