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.