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.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Seung-Hui Jeong / Essay 4 / Thursday 1-3 PM
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.
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.
Seung-Hui Jeong / Essay 4 / Thursday 1-3 PM
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Seung-Hui Jeong/Essay First Draft/Thursday 1-3PM
First Encounter
7th grade, school cafeteria. My friend and I were looking for lunch tables to sit at in middle school when we decided to join a group of kids in our year that looked friendly enough. We were part of the new Asian kids that year and school was already exotic enough without the added pressure of the need to blend in. Some greeted us with enthusiasm, some didn't, which was to be expected in most rearrangement of cliques. It was only when I sat down, hanging my backpack on the side of the chair and set my lunch plate on the table, when I started to take in the faces of everyone at the table.
She was sitting in front of me and after a brief hello, she went back to sifting her fork through the mound of pasta with a concentrated face. For the sake of convenience, I will call her P. P was neither enthusiastic nor was she discontent with the two new strangers in front of her. In fact knowing her now, she was probably wondering why the lunch ladies could never get the ratio of pesto and tomato sauce just right or why the school took out the cinnamon bun only to add in the blueberry muffins. She didn't talk throughout the entire lunch but I could tell she wasn't sulking or being moody.
It was only when we were moving to our next classes that we started talking. She was pretty much silent during the entire lunch so it came as a surprise for her to start talking first. I do not remember the first conversation we ever had. I do, however, remember everything else about her. The slouch of her shoulders and her walk. Oh, her walk. Her walk was so distinct that I could recognize her just by the sound of her step. P had feet that were large enough that made it hard for her to find decent shoes in the women's department, which had her fantasize about petite mary-janes and oxfords. It was precisely these feet that made her walk with a rather flap to the ground, resembling what it looks like to be walking in scuba diving fins. This walk came with a set of her concentrated expression on her face, a façade of her ever-so hectic mind that constantly ran at a hundred miles per second with the rest of us just happening to be part of the swiftly changing scenery.
She was the only person that I have ever met that truly enjoyed watching horror movies. I mean, she laughed and was almost brought to tears in scenes that made me shut my eyes and ears simultaneously. We sat through Saw and Paranormal Activity and Pan's Labyrinth with her snorting her popcorn throughout them all while I cringed in terror beside her.
And it was also P who shaped the core of my identity. She was acute to both her and other's emotions and believed it was important to comb through the layers and layers of vague emotions to truly pinpoint the one emotion that is the catalyst to one's actions. She believed this was a crucial process of understanding oneself and it was this that allowed me to get through some of the hardest moments of my life. Her philosophy about every aspect in life seeped slowly but surely and entwined through mine throughout the years I came to know her and became my mental axis. It didn't come as a surprise then when she decided to become a psychology major. Without her influence, I would have remained dull to subtle emotions, unable to truly connect with others on an intimate level.
All that has shaped me as who I am, in its core, can be attributed to P. This reads almost like a love letter and in some ways it is. I have never thought to put pen to paper or rather ink to word doc in writing out P's influence on my life. Writing what was visually and mentally fuzzy but vibrant and seemingly whole seems to dull down when it is declared in detail and made tangible. Tangibility, however, is what makes memories last and my first encounter with her and her influence are memories that I would feel hollow without later on.
Friday, June 10, 2016
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