Flightless bird, American mouth

I can't forget the song from the Twilight dancing scene. It's a beautiful song, but I don't understand what it means though I tried. It's a poem. Whatever. 
  Flightless Bird, American Mouth  (by Iron & Wine)
I was a quick wet boy, diving too deep for coinsAll of your street light eyes wide on my plastic toysThen when the cops closed the fair, I cut my long baby hairStole me a dog-eared map and called for you everywhere

Have I found you

Flightless bird, jealous, weeping or lost you, American mouth

Big pill looming

Now I'm a fat house cat

Nursing my sore blunt tongue

Watching the warm poison rats curl through the wide fence cracks

Pissing on magazine photos

Those fishing lures thrown in the cold

And clean blood of Christ mountain stream

Have I found you

Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding or lost you, American mouth

Big pill stuck going down

The following is what I got from an Irish GET who worked at my school. 

The first part: a young vivacious boy became too old for playing games

The second part: watching the youngsters now playing where he once played

Truthfully no one will ever know the meaning of the lyrics, only the songwriter. 

It is like a piece of art. Everyone interprets it in their own. 

For me it sounds like he's telling the story of how he was a young, confused boy in America and how he grew into an old bitter man. A love song of how he found his love, though. 

Twilight

I ordered the DVD in advance before its release. I watched the movie at least 20 times. Some scenes have kept lingering in my mind since I saw the movie at the cinema. It was a few movies I was fascinated when I first watch at the cinema. The Matrix was one of them. I bought the soundtrack CD and listened to RATM's loud music a lot. Previously I was shocked at their album cover with a monk on fire. 

Thich Quang Duc burned himself to death in 1963  
protesting the persecution of Buddhists by Catholic South Vietnam government

What I really like in the book is when they're still irrevocably drawn into each other even after Edward reveals his identity. That's typical of youth. You don't tend to calculate consequences when you're young. You just directly rush to your target/destination. On the other hand, you wait so long that you lose the chance when you're old. We get wiser and maturer. I hope we get better with age like a fine wine. 

How old are you?

Seventeen.

How long have you been seventeen? 

A while.

The lion fell in love with the lamb...

What a stupid lamb.

What a sick, masochistic lion. 

If you said, "It's a vampire movie. I don't like it," you're old regardless of your age. You're still young if you're mesmerized by the movie. It's another Romeo and Juliet romantic movie. Sadly, the sequels were poor, though. 

2009 was another transformational year. I moved down to Busan and I had a very hard time adapting to a new environment. Almost everything was annoying, even such a everyday trivial thing as getting in and out of a subway train. 
Reading this book helped console me and I was really into it. I stayed up late at night, actually early into the next morning 2 or 3 am, and got up at 6 to go for work. 

Please Look after Mother

 

1) Summary 

A mother is lost in a crowded subway station and doesn't reappear. Only after she went missing did all the family members care about her and realize her love and devotion while tracking down her traces through Seoul streets.

The first son, whose role is pivotal in every Korean household, didn't live up to his mother's expectations and accordingly feels regretful. The author-daughter, on whom the illiterate mother takes much pride, is contrite for neither listening to her mom's repeated worries and requests nor taking earlier measures on her chronic illness. The father is also guilt-tripped because he walked far ahead of his wife, as usual, on the day of her disappearance and didn't notice his wife wasn't on the train. His wife was more like a neglected slave rather than a lifetime companion. He has been immature and irresponsible as a head and once abandoned his family to live with another woman.

At the end, the daughter prays to ask for her mom's well-being in front of Pieta Maria who cries over dying Christ, but sadly, Mother is dead. The mother, even as a reincarnated bird, visits her family to see if they're fine.

 2) Thoughts

It's very heartbreaking to imagine that the mother suffering from dementia has wandered through Seoul. According to several witnesses, she is wearing blue plastic sandals cut to the foot bone whose pustulant wound attracts flies. The image looks so sad that I hoped they had seen a different woman.

From the beginning the author addresses the daughter and Father as "you," which is embarrassing and hard to understand the story. As I got used to it, I realized that the writer is smart enough to use this literary device as a scolding tool to intentionally make readers penitent.

The mother's name is So-nyo which means an innocent, demure girl. The witnesses say Mother's eyes are as honest and gentle as cows. She is indeed the epitome of sacrificial, devoted mother of the particular generation. Isn't it too much that Mother even secretly worked at an orphanage in her spare time? I've cried enough.

The mother figure in the book makes me keep thinking of my mom who has also lived a life of sacrifice. I've been overwhelmed by my busy life and burden at work and taken my mom's love for granted. Sometimes I even thought mom's worries about me are annoying. Now I'm aware that my mom wasn't born as a mom and she also had a time of being a girl. She wants to look beautiful, regardless of how old she is. I have to be a reliable friend who has a special bond with her. By the way, the other day when my mom called me on my way home from work late in the evening, I wasn't that kind to her, to tell you the truth. I'm always her daughter. I can't help it. 

First they came...

I've come across a famous statement/poem. I guess I once heard of this. It makes more sense to me these days when I often find myself hesitating to come forward or stand up for a good cause. Have I become an old dog?

First they came...  by Martin Niemoller (German pastor 1892-1984)
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

The last line leaves a big impact on me, especially older me. As I grow older, I think I have to stay alert all the time since it's more likely to compromise into an easier, convenient way. Niemoller went through Nazism under which German intellectuals were inactive over Nazis' purge, and warns of the danger of political apathy.

Once the results of the latest general election came out, Seungwon lamented again the seemingly never-ending regionalism. Those three incorrigible regions or areas: Kyungsang province, Cholla province, and Kangnam. Even a dog can be elected if it runs with a particular number. Pathetic!

What I didn't expect from him was he even criticized Cholla province. I've thought they have justifiable reasons to always vote for liberal candidates. Well, I know it's almost 95%, more like an authoritarian country. There is neither diversity nor tolerance. He said Cholla should change first. If it happens, Kyungsang feels ashamed and follows. But I disagree. Cholla has been a historical victim. It's unjust to ask them to change first. Anyway, when will the day come a conservative candidate wins in Cholla while a liberal wins in Kyungsang?

Attitude toward higher learning

I'm going to be on a 6-month teacher training program starting September. They say I'll be paid even during the course. It's definitely good news. I feel burdened too, though. I'll be able to have pleasure of learning more as well as getting paid. I will make the most of this opportunity and study hard.

Mr. Jeong's Noneo class gives me some tips about the pursuit of learning.
He crashes a porcelain into pieces and says:
A true researcher who seeks the truth is not a a restricted vessel. He/she must not be confined to prejudice.
One with little knowledge is likely to be an obstinate person.
Devote yourself to studies and have an open-minded/open-ended person to be a true researcher.
Study very hard and pay back to people who helped establish the academy by paying tax money.
Your pursuit will make it possible to have one more step closer to people's better future.
Wisdom does lie in a question, not in an answer. One who asks why gets the answer on their own.



정박사의 논어 수업시간. 스승님은 항아리를 깨며 말합니다.
군자는 한정된 그릇이 아니다. 진리를 탐하는 군자라면 갇혀있는 편견에 치우쳐서는 안된다.지식이 협소한 사람은 자칫 자신의 좁은 생각에 사로잡혀 완고한 사람이 되기 쉽다.
열린 사람이 되기 위해 학문을 갈고 닦아 유연한 머리로 진리를 배우라.
백성의 고혈로 얻어 낸 학문의 기회, 부지런히 배워서 갚아라.
백성들의 더 나은 내일, 새로운 조선을 꿈꾸는 건 제군들의 의무다.
스승님은 이선준에게 통을 주면서 그 이유를 말합니다.
지혜는 답이 아니라 질문에 있다. 스스로 묻는 자는 스스로 답을 얻게 돼있다.

The Audacity of Hope

I've always wanted to read Obama's book The Audacity of Hope. The curiosity began from the book title. Oh, it was REALLY hard to turn pages, and I don't know when I finish reading it. It just should have been on my book list to read. 


"with her clothes in rags, her body scarred and bruised and bleeding, her harp all but destroyed and with only one string left, she had the audacity to make music and praise God ... To take the one string you have left and to have the audacity to hope ... that's the real word God will have us hear from this passage and from Watt's painting." -Jeremiah Wright


Hope / George Frederic Watts

Dead Poets Society

I've wondered why the title is "Dead Poets Society."

Keating says "The name simply referred to the fact, that to join the organization, you had to be dead. Full membership required a lifetime of apprenticeship. The living were simply pledges.

Their real goal in studying poetry is to study beauty and life. You cannot be an expert in life until you've lived all of it, therefore full membership involves finishing life (being dead). It also indicates that the apprentices were focused on learning, not merely socializing aimlessly. By Chris from Yahoo Answers

It's a little apart from the title, but it also reminds me of a British dead poet and my college literature class. You can sometimes draw people's attention and gain popularity after your premature death like John Keats received. I was lucky to lament his loss right in the room-turned-into-museum in Rome where his deathbed had existed. I've always wanted to go there since I first got to know about the young poet and his poems from the English lit class in the freshman year of college.

I'm fond of this book because there are several poetry excerpts shown, and below is my favorite:

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.

I've finally bought a copy of Walden. Walden is a thick book and I don't know when I can finish it. It's a new goal worth challenging enough. Some day I will surely go to Walden Pond in Concord, Mass. It's only a site, but on the day when I stand there I have to evaluate that I have lived well.