Kyeong Ju Seo/ The guy in English Literature class/ Thurs 1-3

     The first word that popped inside my head when I saw him was that he was 'eccentric'. Never have I seen such a strange student in my English Literature class with such a notable appearance. He was a man in his late 20s probably around the age of 28. His long pitch-black hair was shaggy which was very old fashioned, like one of those outdated hair cuts in Japan. Pale white as a vampire, I couldn't stop wondering whether he put white powder on his face or if he was sick. Compared to his narrow shoulders and skinny fragile body, he had a square-jaw face with small cheekbones that stuck out on each side of his face. As if that impression wasn't strange enough, he dressed all in black from head to toe; black shirt, a black tie, black suit and black Oxford shoes. I really thought he just came back from a funeral. With his black suitcase held in his left hand, he sat down right in front of me holding out his right hand to shake mine saying, "Call me Earl". That was how I first met him in class.

     ​"I'm not Korean, Japanese or even Chinese. I'm actually Canadian", said Earl as he introduced himself to the class. That was very surprising because he certainly seemed Asian. He also added shortly, "I love poems. Do you?"  In group discussions, he would wildly express his excessive love towards reading poems with such enthusiasm that it made the members of the group very uncomfortable. At first, I felt very uneasy around him, too. To me, he was a weird poetry lunatic with a unique fashion sense. By the look on other student's faces, it was obvious that they felt as I did. But it didn't seem to bother him at all that the students in the class viewed him as 'odd'. During the group discussions, students read their given poem out loud in a casual manner but Earl refused to be ordinary. The moment he opened his thin lips to read out the last part of Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" poem, everyone in the room got quiet. "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference!" His voice filled the room, reading as though he was reciting his poem in one of the poetry reading society. I bet he would have gotten the highest prize in the most passionate poetry reading if it was a poetry reading contest.

      That wasn't enough for Earl. His excitement for literature exploded when he was presenting the PPT our group had made for group presentations. Literally, he would move around the room freely as if he was gently dancing to the rhythm of what he call the 'poem spirit' as he started speaking in front of the class with his eager dreamy-like voice. Sometimes in the middle of the presentation, he would slam the desk in front of him with his fist when he was overcome by his emotions. "Poetry has feelings too! Treat them with respect!" he would shout. That was interesting enough to get the audience's full attention. Thanks to Earl, English Literature class was never tedious.

     Although he seemed strange at first, people started enjoying his presence in the classroom. He really didn't mean any harm to anyone. He was candid, never hesitating to express his beliefs to the class. Later, I found out that he already graduated from SungKyunKwan Univeristy  majoring in law and has a decent job in Insa-Dong as a broker selling artworks. He already had a job, but he loved literature especially poetry so much that he came to HUFS to take classes and learn more about them.

     Now, whenever I read poems, memories about him come back to me. I respect his genuine attitude towards what he really enjoys doing and how he pursues them not concerning other people's judgment. He was never afraid to be different, to be himself. I bet I'm not the only one who thinks that way about him. Someday when I do meet him again, I hope he's never changed.

 

Dana Eun/Taks 3.2_freewriting/Thurs 1-3pm

A sound of flute is flowing out and it creates graceful atmosphere. Unlike other cafés located near school area, this place has its unique air. It's always full of people but it doesn't feel crowded or noisy at all. There are all kinds of people - family, friends, professors, students, etc. It's calm, light, and neat.

With the ring of the bell hanging on entrance door, a girl walks in. Her light brown colored hair stops right down the shoulder lines. She has dull expression on her face. She's wearing a navy hoodie with jeans and gray running shoes. She has a flower-printing backpack hanging on right side of her shoulder. I assume that she is one of the students at the university. On the left hand of hers is a book quite thick and its color is green. She strides down the aisle looking for an empty seat comes closer to me. Having put down the backpack and the book on the table next to me, she walks away. I think she's going to order a drink at the casher. But I was wrong as she walked straight out of the café through the back door. The book is a Persian-Korean dictionary. It's been 5 minutes since she left and she's still not coming back.

Holding an ice coffee on her hand, the girl came back, sits down and browse through the phone. Her hair is tied in ponytail, different from how she came in earlier. Now I see why she didn't come back for 10 minutes. It seems like she's looking at Facebook or Instagram as she doesn't type anything on the phone. The phone looks quite huge in her hand. After a few minutes looking at the phone, she takes out a textbook and a note. Arabic letters are written in lines and she starts writing down things and studying. It's interesting how she studies Arabic as I have no idea at all. The Arabic letters always feels like the unknown world to me. She flips through the dictionary to find words. She looks concentrated.

 

Joo Hyun LEE/My mother/Thursday 1:00~3:00pm

     Do you know that one of the most important persons for me is my mother? What I envy her is that she is slender in figure and beautiful, and can, above all, eat everything she wants even late at night without worrying about the food's calories or getting fat. Indeed, she hasn't ever gone on a diet nor changed even a little in shape to this day whereas I easily gained about 5Kg when I was abroad as an exchange student. Surprisingly, her twenty-year-passed clothes still suit her, one of the reasons she seems to have a colossal wardrobe! She can therefore dress well as the fashion circle comes around again. However, in my case, I have only a few clothes depending greatly on whether I have gained or lost weight.

Not only does she seem taller than her real height as she has long racehorse legs, she also has strong but thin muscles everywhere which makes her look healthier and younger. In fact, her body ration is almost perfect having pretty features with big eyes, a sharp nose and an oval face. She probably appears much younger than she actually looks due to her clothing style, her body shape or even her straight long hair style which makes sharply contrast with other mothers. So when I go somewhere with my mother, people usually ask if we are sisters and do not believe when she reveals she is actually my mother. In the past, I was a bit annoyed as it felt like I looked old but now I am totally ok with that question. Indeed, I am proud of her. When she goes out, people usually say "You are really beautiful!" or "We can't believe you have already raised a university daughter and son!". They even ask her with conviction "Were you a ballerina or a supermodel?" But she actually majored in Physics! Even though she hears frequently those compliments, she seems to take pleasure in getting praised.

     Concerning her character, she has the heart of an angel with all the people, even those she has ever met before. She is kind, polite, charming and sociable. As an example, when we lived in France, she listened carefully to others and always took great care of her surroundings, having been an important member of her college alumni association. Besides, she always smiles and tries to be in a good mood when she goes out. However, my mother's unique negative point is that she is sometimes a rollercoaster with her close family. Though, I can perfectly understand her because it is nearly impossible to be always positive and lovely with everyone. But the problem is that sometimes her mood changes so rapidly and extremely that it is sometimes really difficult to consult her pleasure; something that was ok one day becomes a great error another day. Even though she sometimes gets some mood swings, she is, in my eyes, a nearly perfect mother as I believe that no one could be more cherubic than her! Not only is she beautiful, healthy and young but she also always cares about the others and wants to help them at any cost.

Dana Eun/You've Got a Friend In Me/Thurs. 1-3pm

It's been 8 years since I met her. With big round eyes, light brown hair and skin as white as rice, she has her unique atmosphere. She's little over 5 feet tall and has round face and plump cheeks. I remember the first time I saw her. She was sitting at the very back row of the classroom. At first I had some prejudice about her since she was very pretty and maybe there was a bit of jealousy. I thought she was one of those mean girls who gossip a lot and take everything for granted. But she turned out to be nothing like what I expected. She had a true value in friendship and genuine loyalty to friends. A year after the first encounter, we became best friends.

My high school was a boarding school so all the students practically lived together throughout the semesters so it was fairly easy to get to know each other. However, that was not the case with me and my friend, Inah. She had her groups of friends and I hung out with other group of girls who didn't like her much. Freshman year just passed because we really didn't have much chance to get to know each other. Then in sophomore year, she and I were assigned to the same class again.

At that time, I was going through a hard time because of all the school drama and the cat fight. I was doubtful of referring anyone as a friend. However, Inah changed that. Back in high school, we arranged seats by lots. Numbers were written at the bottom of wooden chopsticks and every month we would draw them by two and assign the sitting. She and I sat together for two months in a row by coincident and during that time, we became close to each other at an instant and not a day passed without an episode. Her laughter is like a seal and I enjoyed hearing that sound because it was hilarious.

        One day, we were feeling drowsy because we stayed up all night eating snacks and talking with roommates. Chinese reading was on the next schedule and we decided to skip that class. During break, we went to the school nurse and lied to her saying we got permission to come down and take a rest since we weren't feeling good. We lay down on the bed and slept like a log for the whole class. When we came back to the classroom, one of the classmates said "Chinese teacher wants to see you guys in the office." We kind of panicked because we never thought that she would call us to the office.

She was very upset and reproved us for skipping class without any notice or permission. She kept demanding why we did such thing and whose idea it was. I just kept silence because I knew we were both responsible for this but I didn't have the gut to admit it first. Suddenly my friend opened her mouth. "I'm very sorry, Mrs. Chae. It was my idea. Dana wasn't sure about skipping class but I convinced her to come with me. I'm sorry." I was shocked and at the same time, ashamed. I never expected that she would take the blame for what we did together. She looked so brave that she would readily take whatever punishment there was. Luckily, Mrs. Chae didn't punish us in any way and we were dismissed without much trouble.

Ever since that incident, I know that she'll stand by my side no matter what happens and I will also do exact same for her. She is a very important person in my life and I'm glad that I have such a wonderful friend that I can rely on.

 

Shim Min Jung/Task 3.2 - Episode on the bus/Thursday 01:00~03:00pm

For this assignment, I had to go somewhere I could watch many people and choose one person to describe in the crowds. Actually, it's not easy to find the place because staring at a particular person thoroughly makes some misunderstandings. He might think I am interested in him even though I'm just doing my homework with no intention. And he might go other place within 10 minutes – the minimum time for observing. Even if I select a woman for the model of writing, I might annoy her. I'm kind of timid person.   So I took a bus and went to the back seat of it that could see the whole picture of inside bus. It was evening and not only bus seats but also aisle was filled with many people. They were office workers, students, the young and the elders. Among them, a lady caught my eyes. She was holding a bunch of real flowers in her left hand. It was composed of pink and purple flowers. By using the other hand, she was talking on a phone. Because of the noise inside of the bus, I didn't hear what she was saying but I think the conversation between her and her partner was something really funny or could be sweet. She kept smiling on the talk and looked happy. Her hair was brown and wore pretty little white dress with the navy cardigan. I was not able to see her shoes but it seemed like high heels considering her height.

Kim Donghee/My big little sister/Thursday 1-3pm

Some siblings amazingly don't look alike. But in my sister and my case, that's not it. She is like the exact duplicate of me, only taller and skinnier. If we stand side by side in front of a mirror, it'd be so easy to find out many resemblance between our faces, even the shape of our body bones. When younger we used be much more alike each other, even our voices were, and people on the phone often confused me with my sister. However as we grow up her voice got a bit lower than mine, and her height got higher than mine.

 

She is about three or four centimeters taller than me, making her the tallest person in the family, taller than our dad. Our parents always jokingly say, "I don't know what happened to you two; both of us are not that tall and yet you girls are really tall even compared to your friends. Maybe we fed you too much!"

 

When I heard knock on my door nine out of ten times it's my sister. "Sis, I've got something tell you." She says with excitement every time she enters my room. Then without my consent she just jumps right into talking. She's always a speaker and I'm more of a listener. Nowadays topics are usually about how her studying is going. She is preparing for 수능, KSAT, and wants my advice concerning that. I enjoy talking and giving some useful advice to her, but when I'm in my room that means I am enjoying the peace, alone.

 

So naturally I sometimes find her annoying. And she often recognizes that by suddenly asking me, "Are you listening to me?" She always uses wide hand and body gestures while talking, flapping her long arms. Occasionally she'd hit her hand or feet into a nearby wall, a headboard of my bed, on the floor, on our dog, or even me. That's actually terrifying thing to experience; she is the one who's always taller and stronger than me and being hit by her hurts more than you think. When we were young we frequently fought with each other as most brothers and sisters do, and I was the one who got injured whoever started the fight or even whoever hit whom. When she hit me in the face, I lost my teeth. In fact that's how I lost my first teeth. When I hit her in the head, my hand got cracked. It made me wear a cast for more than a month.

 

But I love her, and see many resemblance between me and her not only in our appearance but also in our minds. Our hobbies and tastes in many different things matches. I like to play video games and she loves it too. I love to listen to pop music and she's also a big fan. We both adore animals, we both like funny horror film, we both have celebrity crash on Simon Pegg, and on and on. We always enjoy talking to each other. 

LEE SHARON/MY EXPERIENCE IN KOREA (FINAL)/THUR 13-15 PM

First

Do you know how it feels when you should have to move to another country for a long time and leave behind your family and friends? I'm gonna explain you my first experience when I was arrived at this country called South Korea. It's so awkward because my parents are totally Korean, but I was born in Spain and when I was younger, I learned Korean but not at all. Only the simple things. But suddenly, I was very curious about the country of my parents because all of my friends asked me from there, but I couldn't answer anything for the reason that I didn't know it any kind of thing about Korea.

So, my decision was moving to Korea alone for learn by myself all of the country with nobody's help and I tried to situated in the asian culture. I took the opportunity for study here and now is my third year since I came at Seoul. It's really long time but, it was so hard for me that I feel like this was my first year. 

I had many complications living here. First, I couldn't be able to talk very well Korean and I used to communicate with signs. You can saw this like a very common problem between foreigners, but for me was more sad because I have the asian features and all the citizens looked me like "She's Korean.. How she didn't know this?". Because of this reasons, I tried to learn speedly the language.

Second, I really didn't know anything about the culture and costums. In the special dates like Chuseok, I went to the grandparents house and there, I met all my family for part of my parents that I didn't saw them since 12 years ago. They really care about me, but a lot of times they didn't understand me because of my different culture and attitude. I can do things for help them but they can receipt this information in another way. Actually, it's still hard to tract them, but when you are in another country, you need to mentalize that you are the stranger and strive for make clear your purposes.

I will never forget my journey about living here because it's being a very good experience for myself and living without my people forces me to grow more fast for my future independent life. And I think that live in another country helps you to have a broader view.

Final

Do you know how it feels when you should have to move to another country without nobody for a long time and leave behind you your family and friends beause of your hard curiosity? I'm going to explain to you about my first experience when I was arrived in this country called South Korea. It is so awkward because my parents are totally Koreans, but I was born in Spain and when I was younger, I learned Korean but not at all because when I went to school and met my friends or teachers, they talked in Spanish or Catalan and when I talk with my parents, also talk in Spanish and with my brothers too, of course. I really like the Catalan language so, it's so difficult use another language when with my nearest people I used to talk with them in Spanish or Catalan. In short, I'm still feeling comfortable talking with my native languages. But I wanted to learn more languages and I felt that I needed to learn Korean because is the native language of my parents and being curious of their backgrounds. So, I had the opportunity to travel to Korea. I was very curious about the country of my parents because all my friends asked me from there, but I couldn't answer anything for the reason that I didn't know it anything about Korea.

So, my decision for moving to Korea alone when I was eighteen was for learn by myself everything about this country with nobody's help and I'm still trying to understand and focus more attention in Asian culture. It has been a great amount of time that I took the opportunity for study here and now is my third year since I came at Seoul. It's really long time but, it was so hard for me that I feel like this was my first year. 

But like all things, I had a lot of troubles living here. First, I couldn't be able to talk very well Korean and I used to communicate with signs. You can saw this like a very common problem between foreigners, but for me was more sad because I have the asian features and all the citizens looked at me like "She's Korean.. How she didn't know this?". Because of this reasons, I tried to learn rapidly the language. My first year in university I was only concentrated in learning Korean.

Second, I really didn't know anything about the Asian culture and costums. In the special dates like Chuseok, I went to the grandparents house and there, I met all my family as a representative of my parents that actually I haven't seen them for 12 years. They really care about me, I can do things to help them but there is a misunderstanding about my real intentions. I can do things for help them but sometimes they receipt this information in another way. Actually, it's still hard to tract them. For example, in Korea is very important be respectul, but where I was born it's totally different. In Spain, I tract with a lot of confidence with all the people without measuring differences of age. But I know that I need to work this case, because when you are in foreign country, you need to mentalize that you are the stranger for make clear your purposes.

I will never forget my journey about living in Korea because it's being a very good experience for myself and living without my people forces me to grow faster for my future independent life. And I think that life in another country helps you to have a broader view.