Reflective Essay: my dynamic life in KMLA

I am a new student who joined Korean Minjok Leadership Academy in the second semester. It was my first time to encounter a dormitory school, so I was really worried. I had hard times trying to adjust to the dormitory school life such as following the rules, staying away from my parents, etc. Now as I look back, I can see that I have had a lot of experiences, and through those experiences, I grew older.

            As people say, experiences are mistakes, and from mistakes we change. That is exactly what happened to me when I first joined KMLA. I learnt how to control my own demerit points after getting a lot in the first month of the second semester. In September, my friends and I decided to order chickens to our dormitory room as we did not want to eat our school lunch. We ordered three chickens, all different kinds, to the gym and we told the  delivery guy that we were going to pick them up there.

            When we got caught after eating all and my friends and I received 10 demerit points each, that was the start of my downfall. After getting 10 points, I received another two points after forgetting to go for Shin-Sung. Another two points for being late for school, one point for cleaning violation, and another point for self-study violation. I desperately tried to stop going to the court, but I could not handle it; no matter how studious I became, I kept going to the court for some anonimous reason. My total penalty points exceeded those of my friends excluding some, and my advisor teacher started to worry about me.

            But that was the end of my penalty-points era. After receiving so many demerit points, I began to understand how the demerit point system works. It became easy not to get any penalty points, and Now, I have not been to the court for quite a long time. For cleaning, I learnt to clean on the day before the cleaning checking day, so that I am not late for school on the next day. This is like killing two birds with one stone as I can abide by both the cleaning regulation and be not late for school. Secondly, I decided to study during self-study periods which are between 7-9pm and 10-12pm instead of spending my time meaninglessly. Only after Honjung till 10pm, I talk to my friends, share jokes, and fool around with them.

            Lastly, I do not eat food from outside anymore. Whenever my friends talk about ordering chickens, pizzas or eating instant noodle, I refuse to listen. I just stay away from all this kind of food as I know that they are not allowed inside school. My parents told me that they will still consider instant noodles, but I decided to stick to school meals as they are the healthiest, even though not the most delicious.

            Therefore, my life in Korean Minjok Leadership Academy is good, and I am getting any more penalty points.

Reading Journal #3: The Body Final

This is my third reading journal after reading King’s stories. I have finished reading ‘The Body’, and I was deeply impressed at how Stephen King mixed different themes together to form this masterpiece.

           Four boys keep mentioning in the book that friends drag others down. What does this mean? This means that if you hang around with wrong friends, the community might downgrade you. That is what happened to Gordon in ‘The Body’. As Gordon always hung around with Chris, Teddy, and Vern who all have notorious family backgrounds, the community views him as a lower class.

           Chris comes from an illiterate family, so the townspeople scoff at him whenever he talks about going to college. People believe that, because Chris’s family received poor education, Chris should also remain illiterate. In addition, Chris is regarded as a thief by people including Gordon’s dad, because he took the milk money from school and tried to use it for his own good. Even though he returned it, the old lady Simons used it to buy her own skirt and Chris was blamed. For Vern, his elder brothers are real juvenile delinquents, so they expect the same from Vern. Teddy’s dad is a looney, and he almost burned Teddy’s ears off and made him deaf.

           As Gordie always hangs around with ‘a thief and two feebs’ according to Gordie’s father, even his own parents refuse him. Gordie is always compared with his elder brother Dennis who passed away, because Dennis had proper friends and even went to college. After Dennis died, Gordon’s mom pretends that Gordon is invisible; she pretends not to see him, and acts as if Gordie does not exist.

           I think this kind of phenomenon happened to me many times before too. When I was in the elementary school, there were some outsiders who did not have a single friend. People pushed them away, casting them out in every way they could. And whenever someone accosted them and started talking, even that guy’s best friends turned his back on him. Then, he becomes an outsider too. No one dared to approach these outsiders, afraid that they might be left out too from the group too.

           After reading ‘The Body’, I began to realize how sheepish, how cowardly I was. For Gordon, he decides to hang around with Chris, Teddy and Vern no matter what the townspeople says as he is not afraid of them. For me, I cared more about the eyes of the society rather than my own will, and that is what stopped me from hanging around with these friends.

           My overall comment for this story is that it made me reflect my childhood. However, I think I am still too young to embrace the left-out members of the society. I still see this kind of people, but I always push them away. I guess I have to learn to forgive and respect them slowly.