Jaeyoung Choi/ Meaningful place/ Thursday 1-3pm

My Home, Forevermore

 

The place I will forever know as my home is in Guatemala. Even though I was born in South Korea, since the age of three, I have lived in Guatemala City and been raised surrounded by its people and culture.  Many people believe it is dangerous because of the many accidents that occur inside the country, but once someone gets to experience and live there, its beauty becomes irresistible. Guatemala is still considered and undeveloped country, but in comparison with other Central American and South American countries it is the most advanced in technology and economy. Like in every other country, there are two kinds of people, the rich and the poor. It can be easily noticed when a neighborhood is wealthy or not, just by taking a look to the architecture and cleanness.

There are small Korean communities that live altogether in the same neighborhood. We own several churches and many textile companies near the area. Flowers and trees surround the streets, it is very clean and quite. I live in a second-floor brick house. We have two gardens, one front yard and one on the backyard. We have a bush-like looking peach tree and red roses surround it. On the first floor, we have the living and dinning room, the kitchen and the laundry room. The stairs are shaped in a zigzag way with a really high roof with a chandelier hanging on the middle. On the second floor there are the three rooms and two bathrooms and the balcony.

My favorite place in the entire house is my room. I always liked the color pink, which is the reason why my blanket sheets and closet are colored pink. The bed is king size and occupies most of the room. The reason I like so much this particular room is because once you enter the room there is no other thing you can do but lay down and fall asleep. The mattress is not so soft but hard either. You lay down, and immediately you can feel the cozy and quite environment. You can hear police and ambulance cars from far away and the bird's singing. The only reason you would wake up would be because of the smell of the delicious Korean food that my mom prepares.  

Now that I live in Korea, every year is the same, after every fall semester I would go home for the winter vacations. I can't wait to go home and sleep. 

Yunji Kim/ Meaningful Place First Draft/ Thurs. 1-3 PM

I was always the kind of person who enjoyed hanging out with small group of friends. In highschool, I had 4 close friends who I ate, walked, talked and laughed with everyday. We always walked home together after class. It was not a short way home, but　remember laughing and giggling all the way.

On hot summer days, it was almost impossible to walk under the sizzling weather. We had to stop and hide under tree shades. We always went the bench under the tree which was located just about halfway home. Before we dragged ourselves to the shade, we always went to the optician's right next to the bench. They gave out free ice creams for those who had membership cards, and the three of us had the membership. I remember sharing the three ice creams we grabbed, under our tree. The tree was big enough to cover all 4 of us and big enough to hide us from others. That's why we always immediately took our shoes off and even lied on the bench like it was our room. We chatted on and on under the tree, 80% of the chat being laughters without reason.

I clearly remember lying down on the bench and frowning a little under brilliant sunlight peaking through the leaves. My friends and I used to stay there for a long time until we recharged ourselves to walk into the sizzling sunlight again.

This place is truly meaningful to me because　I shared most of my highschool memories under this tree. This tree is an inseparable part of my teenage life.

 

Subin Lee / Meaningful Place First Draft / Thursday 1-3 pm

I enjoy spending time in cafés. Many people like to rest, study or chat with friends in cafés, and I am one of them. Among all the cafés I've visited, there is one specific café in my memory which has a special meaning to me.

 

The café 'Bavis Garden' is a place I spent my time in the winter of 2014. I had plenty of them, since I had just taken the entrance exam and was just waiting for the results. My friends and I used to take exercise classes to lose weight, and whenever the class finishes, we would drag our tired bodies to take a rest in the café. Our bodies, which were freezing cold and tensed from the winter wind from outside, became relieved and melted down immediately as we stepped into the café. It was always warm inside, and the pleasant heat was just about right when we took off our coats. The pleasant, snug ambience made us doze off from time to time.

'Bavis Garden' was a small café, with only 5 tables. However, it was cozier than any other cafés could be. If I were to name a color for the whole atmosphere, I would say 'warm brown'. The songs hummed at a low pitch in languages that I could never understand. The calm and restful music was never too small or too loud; it was just right as peaceful background music when talking, and as a sound that tickles your ears when you close your eyes and take a sip at your coffee.

All the tables and chairs were different from one another. The tables each had different size and shape. Some chairs were hard, wooden ones and others were soft and fluffy. My favorite chair to sit in was a dark red, round fabric one. Whenever I sat on this cushiony chair, I would sink into it so deep that sometimes it made me wonder if it could be similar to how babies feel inside the womb.

*Some parts in the back are missing, due to an error in saving. I'll try to find a way to do something about it soon. Sorry!

Chaeyoung son/ first draft/Thursday 1-3

The banner hangs down between the two columns of main gate is fluttering in the strong wind. It gets too windy at this time of the year. Everyone hides their face in muffler or clothes. I'm also wearing mask so no one can't get a tense look on my face. Yes, today I'll take the CSAT. Lots of people await us at the main gate to cheer for students. Walking through a tremendous crowd, I'm lost touch with reality. It is noisy out there but the school is peaceful and quiet. Not a creature was to be seen in the school playground. A few horizontal bars that seem to have been chipped away are in there. Also there are old baseball courts and goalposts. I twist my head around to look at school buildings. I cannot detect movement of people inside the building. It is like a dream. Completely desolate playground and two somber shade of grey brick buildings, 5 stories high.

I step inside and look around. It is the first time that I observe the interior of another high school. It does not differ much from my school. Stairs, stairs, and a huge number of stairs, corridors, restrooms, classrooms. The air smells powerfully of dry dust as is the way with other public schools. The only difference is that this school is about 30 years old. All that concrete is sort of ugly and dismal. My eyes wander towards some crude paintings and pictures on the concrete wall. One of them is a reproduction of Sunflower by Van Gogh but it had not achieved the intensity of real Sunflowers. To me, chrome yellow color seems to be gray. The corridor echoed from my footsteps.

Seven girls are preparing CSAT in class. One student is writing something down, some are reading and the others are watching their cellphones. I'm finding my desk with sticker which is entered my name and test identification number. All desk are bruised and not hardwood furniture but very clean. Maybe teacher order them to paint out the scribbles for this test. When I sit down, I see four large pieces of paper are on the blackboard. But I can't see the words on the paper clearly.

Chyue / Meaningful Place First Draft / Thursday 1-3pm

Blue Island in Mawlamyaing in My Mind

I would really love to visit Blue Island where my grandparent and aunt live in. The place is far from the bustling city and getting there is already part of the adventure. One can take the tunnel or drive but whichever way you take when one arrives in the island, it's like being transported in time. There is that feeling of de`javu one gets when you see the heart of the island for the first time. Maybe it is because of the old films that featured the lots of pagodas. The place is filled with old buildings, structures and lots of pagodas that remind us of how Myanmar people might have enjoyed the Buddhism.

The place is like a giant traditional ancient place without the technologically advanced tools. It offers pure delight and tons of fun. It is a place where everyone is invited to enjoy the sights and sounds of the place and peaceful of the world.

The whole island is lots of monastery with pagodas and meditation places. The smell of natural bamboo from forest and the sound of triangular brass gong as one walks along the streets in dawn reminds us of simple days when our wants and desires were simpler. The people are friendly and in keeping with the religion works are always ready to make your visit to the island worth remembering. When one strolls around the commercial center, one can do so leisurely without the need to see everything, to make feel relieved everything and taste natural environment in one day, one keeps coming back to Island because it is removed from the hurried, impersonal and rudeness of the city.

In winter, the place is like a giant ice kingdom, where everything is glistening white and silent. During this time, people who are living there do rarely go outside because of cold breezing. Sadly, not many people visit Blue Island these days because of difficult transportation.

Lee Ji Won/ Meaningful Place First Draft/ Thursday 1-3 pm

201502643 Lee Ji Won   The air in the study room of Ulsan Foreign Language High school was always quite stuffy. Rather than a relaxed atmosphere, there was a tension in the room, full of 175 senior students who all concentrated on their studies. How could I always endure two hundred minutes every day sitting at a desk for three years? I had feelings of both love and hatred toward the study room. While I was sick to death of studying at that room, it was still the place full of precious high school memories.  Walking along the slope leading to the study room, I could smell food odors of that day's evening menu since our school cafeteria was next to the slope. While walking up, I could see far in distance that the front gate of the study room was crowded with students waiting for it to be opened. The gate was painted in blue and since the doorknob was quite slippery, we often could hear the door slam if someone miss the doorknob. In front of the door, there were always tons of scrap papers and completed workbooks which showed how fierce we were at studying.   We each had our own designated desks and chairs. Since the size of the desk was just a little bit larger than our body and every desk was separated by partitions, it was such an optimized atmosphere to concentrate on studies. Most of the students sit properly on their chairs but there were some students who kept studying while standing, not to be drowsy. The study room was filled with the sound of student's writing sound and sometimes we could hear a recurring beep of the timer which somebody set for the end time of a math test.  I also studied hard. Well, you know in my own way. I used to secretly watch movie or listen to the music after a short 30 minutes studying. Since both of them were not allowed, I put the earphones only in my right ear in order to know if teacher is coming or not by concentrating my left ear to the sound of stilettos on the marble lobby. One of the other thrilling moments was when I secretly ate snacks with my friend who sat right next to me. Both of us loved salty corn-based snacks which was quite hard that we almost should melt it in our mouth not to make eating noises.  When the bell sounded for 20 minutes break time, students ran excitedly outside to use a vending machine. It was like I was in the middle of an earthquake hearing the footsteps of almost five hundred students all together. I loved that short 20 minutes when I put my head down on the desk to sleep for a while, wrapping myself in a fluffy blanket. Although the chair was very stiff, it didn't matter since I was sitting on such a soft sitting cushion. Then my eyelids grew heavy with sleep slowly. A babble of voices stopped all of a sudden and the study room became as silent as death with a sound of bell informing the start of second period. These same routines were repeated every day in our study room. Although I was sometimes tired of these monotonously repetitive routine, it obviously was and is a precious place that shows our passion toward studying and our friendship.

Seung-Hui Jeong / Meaningful Place / Thursday 1-3PM

Mom first told me about this bookstore that she had seen during one of her many walks. It was almost three months later when I finally visited this bookstore mom so raved about. The paved streets and the pedestrian overpass were gray with old cement. It had rained that morning and there were still murky rainwater puddles here and there. Swinging my umbrella in one hand, I padded through the street with a slight grimace until I saw a shiny blue shop right in between many gray ones. It wasn't shiny, in fact it looked rather old in faded graying blue. But to me, it seemed like Christmas. As I pushed open the door I heard the sound of gentle bells as breathed in the smell of coffee. On the right of the entrance were small tables and cushy chairs where a few people were drinking coffee out of mix-matched mugs and eating tiny sandwiches while they read. As I looked around with wide eyes, I slowly came to the realization that this wasn't any regular bookstore, it was a secondhand one. It was my first time in a secondhand store of anything and I could feel the excitement creeping in as I forced myself to calm down. A skinny old man with a scruffy beard in a flannel shirt and faded jeans greeted me with a smile. There were shelves of weathered books lining every inch of the walls. At the back of the shop there was a staircase that led towards a second floor. There were stacks of children's books on every step and I could smell wood and the staleness of books when I arrived on the second floor. It wasn't big - the entire bookstore wasn't, but books were stacked from floor to ceiling and towers of stacked books that had nowhere to go were on the floor. I was careful as I toed my way to the back on the creaking wood floors to not topple over any of them. There was a huge circular window that was hidden behind a shelf. The sunlight was shining through the shelves and created a patch of bright warmth onto the dark wooden floors and the shelves. In the sunlight, I could see dust floating through the air. Time seemed to have stopped and I felt strangely at ease as my heart bubbled up with contentment.

It was at this bookstore that I bought volumes one and two of much battered Anna Karenina and a browning Les Misérables that was slightly torn at the edges. It quickly became my favorite bookstore and I bought brand new books only if this secondhand store didn't have them in stock.