[Extra Post]The Box Incident (revised)

“What? You can’t come, Mr. Ryu?”

It was like an unexpected volcanic eruption that killed uncountable numbers of people in Pompeii. Well, at least for us. We, the class number five, had been practicing this ridiculous box dance for the last two weeks, just to win any place in the Cheerleading Contest. Though none of us really “wanted” to do it, we put every ounce of our energy towards winning the contest. This was significantly because our adviser, Mr. Ryu, was participating very hard. I recorded the background music, Isabella made all the dance moves one by one, and everyone made his or her own box-head to wear; we even skipped numerous meals for practicing.

Considering all our effort, the sudden announcement of Mr. Ryu saying he could no longer participate in the contest on D-day was quite disastrous. Of course we understood how much he wanted to help us, and how he was so upset being forced to go to the seminar for the teachers. But understanding was not important at that time. We only had the 30 minutes left for the lunchtime; we had to choreograph the new movements from the start, in order to pretend as if Mr. Ryu’s space was not empty. We were all exhausted, but Isabella, as usual, demonstrated her leadership as the class president. Deliberating for about 10 minutes (we could not spend any more time on the thinking process), we decided to make one person be the fake-Mr. Ryu. And that was me, apparently.

Wearing Mr. Ryu’s Hanbok school uniform, tying up my long hair, and finally putting the box on, I turned into a real Mr. Ryu. The disguise itself was quite a bit more successful than expected. It was quite fun to face some of my close friends bowing at me. Even Mr. Sung stared at me with weird eyes, probably asking himself, “Why in the world is he wearing that hideous box? He is my age.” Before Flora, my overly talkative roommate, and Violet, my fairly talkative roommate, revealed the truth to every single person they met, it seemed like no one really noticed this awesome box-head was me. The talkative one did me a favor of pushing the button for the fake Mr. Ryu, as it is shown above.

Finally, the contest began. We were assigned to perform as the 11^th team out of 22 teams. Watching the other teams showing their best on the stage with wonderful performance and costumes, we had to feel somewhat discouraged, to tell the truth. One of the previous teams even played Taek-won-do and Kendo at the same time. However, it did not take much time to cheer up the classmates, since we don’t usually go with the words “discouraged” or “downhearted”. I asked Mr. Kwak, the general manager of this event, whether we could quickly go outside to practice for the last time. Right after the approval, we ran outside the door and began rehearsing. Unfortunately, it did not seem to work well. Half of us were exhausted and the other half were confusing the dance movements. Despite the failure in the last practice, we had to come back in. I am pretty sure most of us, including me, had 근자감 (unreasonable confidence) on how well we would perform at that time.

Last but not least, I would not talk about the details on how we did on the stage. We did pretty well, at least I believe. The fact that we did not get any prize was not that important. My dear classmates were already discussing whether we would have a barbeque party or some other get-together events. This is what I love about my class. We don’t get obsessed on the results that already took place, but we seek for something more fun, something more valuable. We put all our effort towards what we have to do, and the way we do it is what is significant to us. I guess I found one great proving example for that statement that I’ve just said. How cool.

[Mr. Menard] 050312 Sixth Assignment

The Garden Lodge

For more than millions of years since humans were created, or evolved from monkeys, there has been a subtle, yet distinct, division between the “suggested” characteristics between men and women. Men have been considered to be masculine, strong and incorruptible in some sense, where women have had to be homely, emotional and sensitive in most of the times. Although there should not be any discriminative rules regarding gender superficially, there are still stereotypes existing in people’s mind on how each gender should be. In “The Garden Lodge”, Willa Cather, like some other modernistic authors, gives a rather new perspective on the matter of gender stereotypes.

             Caroline Noble, the protagonist of “The Garden Lodge”, is a strong-minded woman who seems to bear more masculine sides compared to what an ordinary female is thought to be at that period of time. One day, her husband Howard Noble asks her whether she would agree to break down their garden lodge. Although it was to build a new summer house there instead, Caroline becomes melancholy, remembering the time spent there with tenor Raymond d'Esquerre. Raymond visited the town for his concert, and shared some happy memory with Caroline last summer. Feeling nostalgic, Caroline stays in the garden lodge that night, singing the songs that she sang with Raymond. She agrees to tear down the lodge.

             Considering the image of an ideal woman at that time, it might be easier to expect Caroline to be sad forever and live desperately for the rest of her life. However, Caroline is much stronger than that. After reminding herself about some good memories, she stands over it. She has power in herself to get over it and find a new way of her life. By showing the masculine side of a female protagonist, Cather paved her original way for the readers to think more about the concept of “feminism”, or feminist characteristics. Taking this short story, it is also possible to relate it to the overall gender roles of the society that we are living now.

             Although separate gender roles are less pushed nowadays, meaning that there are men doing housework and women working outside, there are still the ways that people expect each gender to be like. For instance, my grandfather tells me “be like girls” whenever I talk much about the current issues, such as politics. He does not think that it is “appropriate” for a young girl like me to participate actively in social matters. Even some of the male teachers at KMLA make sarcastic remarks on me for studying chemistry because they think all I have to do as a girl is to meet a good husband and raise some kid at home. Realizing that there are some people around me who are still living the 1800s, I felt a lot after reading this story.

             “The Garden Lodge”, even though it was rather a simple story about a housewife recalling her memory with another guy, it gave me some important points to think about. As a girl, I want to be a person who not only charges the society for the discrimination towards female, but can also control to be a strong human being myself. There are still a lot to fix in this world; and to fix them, I have to be strong, bearing some “masculine” sides. Whenever I feel weak, swimming in the nostalgic memories of the past, I will think of Caroline, and try be like her, putting effort to pave out my way for my life.

something special with the boxes? ^,^