[Reading Journal #1 -The Body: After reading 30 pages]

-Stand by Me♥-    
    
       When I heard this title for the first time, it came to me as a little bit strange and horrifying thing, since the word "Body" is not a common word as a title of a story. However, on the other hand, this point also made a positive effect that it made me very curious about this story. Then I started to read it with my big expectation.

        Since I didn't read the whole book yet, I don't know what will gonna happen after 30 pages, but til now, this is the story of the four boys who went to adventure to find the dead body. Frankly speaking, it was not that extremely exciting and fun, but it was still enjoyable. 

       Now, I will briefly intoroduce the main story of this book. There are four main characters, named Chris, Gordie, Teddy and Vern, all boys. Each of them have specialties in thier private backgrounds. First of all, Chris has an alcoholic father who is very violent so that Chris used to be hit by his father often, but as he is very patient, he understands his father and never being angry about him. Secondly, Gordie's older brother was died. However, since his parent still obsesses a lot to his older brother, he used to be an invisible man although he is the youngest. Of course, he gets a lot of stress from his parent, but he tries to understand his parents as they lost thier precious first son. Thirdly, Teddy has strange habit. He enjoys dodging by running transportations. So when he find the transtportation which is moving quickly, he directly go to that and get closed with it to enjoy dodging with it. However, he never hurted because of this habit. Lastly, Vern is just a normal boy, and he seems little bit chubby.

      One day, Vern heard something very important from the gangsters of that town. Actually, there had happened an event before, that a boy named Ray Brower died but nobody could find his dead body and even don't know the reason why he died. However, they, the gangsters, said his body is in the forest and the reason why he died was because he was hit by the train. Vern told this issue to their friends, so they decided to start a journey to find the body by theirselves. Here, I felt that all four boys had been too tired of their lives so far,that they want to be deviated from thier normal life. Also, in the part that four boys altogether agreed to find the dead body to be spot lighted by other people, I thought they want to be concerned and  be taken care of other people more, especially from thier parent. I felt pitty about this. 
       The first 30 pages was explaining the basic informations about the characters and it started to make the story. That's why it has been little bit "flat" but now, i'm expecting much more shocking, striking,and horrifying events for the left part of the book. 
      
☆ I heard that, there is a movie based on this book too. So I searched about it little, however the title of the film was "Stand by me", not "the body". So I really want to watch the movie too, to find out how the "stand by me" became the title of this film.

[Reflective Essay- about the movie,"Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring"]

< A Fly = A Bird ??? >

           Almost everybody might have experienced killing flies, ants or mosquitoes. Of course I do. The first thing that I'm planning to do when summer comes, is to buy a fly swatter as a preperation. Also, I never care about the ants while walking on the road. This is because I thought them which is fly and ant, as a trivial thing since it is small. However, one day, I got to realize something that is very important.

           It was during the summer vacation of my middle school third year. I was watching the TV program which is my favorite, and "a fly" started to annoy me. It continuously flied around me with its bad sound. I was very upset that I cannot pay attention to the TV program that I really wanted to watch. So I rightly decided to catch it and started to find the fly swatter. Finally, the fly sitted on the sofa, so I raised my hand holding the swatter with my full power. I stared at it for a long time to concentrate on it. Now! I quickly hit it. After I checked it died completely, I felt big satisfaction about what I had done. However, suddenly, “an idea” flashed my brain. "How can I kill it without feeling any guilty? and even i'm feeling satisfaction." In that short time, I became very serious and this is what i got for the result.

           Everything, yes, everything has its precious live whether it is big or not. Everything should be treated equally as a living thing. However, how can I kill the fly without any hesitation, and I even don’t feel guilty about it. It was obvious mistake. what is the difference between a fly and a bird as a living thing? There is no difference. To say again, we need to treat everything equally as a living thing whether it is big or not but I think we have been ignored this important fact. By the way a movie “Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring” by director Kim ki duck, gave us a lesson about this as well. 

           There is a young monk and a teacher monk. One day, a young monk tortures little things such as small fish, frog, and snake by binding them with the thread and the teacher was looking at him from beggining to end. Finally, the teacher monk decided to make young boy to realize that he did wrong so teacher did same to the young monk, binded him with the heavy rock. Therefore, the young boy could realize that he did wrong with the little things, and he began to find the things that he tortured. However, most of them were died already. When he saw that scene, he cried and apologized to them with all his heart. 

           After watch this film, not only the little monk but also I reminded that I have lived wrong so that i need to be careful from now on about respecting little things such as flies and mosquitoes. Furthermore, I hope, other people would realize this things by watching this movie like me. Then, i'm sure that our society will become much warmer than now just like a little monk's heart. 

<Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring- Directed by Kim Ki-duck.>

[Chain writing-metafiction: A dream, but not "only" a dream]

             While many people said that fried potato is cheap in McDonald’s I could’t agree, when I was in the college. Do you know that miserable feeling that I cannot buy a pack of fried potato? Whenever I fumbled in my pocket, I could touch only a coin, “a coin” not many. Therefore, I couldn’t open and enter the McDonald, since I was not rich enough to buy even a Happy meal. (JMA)
             Life, if I could call 21 years of struggling, a “life”, it had been miserable for me all the time. I would jealously stare at shiny cars passing by. 
           What changed my life had been an MP3 player that I picked up from a subway station. Somebody must had dropped it as he rushed to get on the subway. I picked the little metal thing up. It was cold and shiny. And I plugged in the earphones in my ears.(RJY)
           The sound shaked every nerve of my body. I could literally ‘feel’ the music with all my heart. This sound, was a thing I have NEVER heard before in my life. As I was listening to this rock music, I strongly felt an impulse that I needed a guitar in my hands right here, right now. So I decided that I have to beg for money to buy a guitar. I knew I had to do this.(PMS)
           The guitar I wanted to buy, wasted more than a few pennies. I needed MONEY more than anything. That is why I started working in the subway. My job was to write and design advertisements of the subway. Usually the motifs of the ads were from the music in the MP3 I found, as it became the energy of my life. The turning point of my life was when I finally got the money I wanted and bought the guitars. The guitar was blue and black with a rather shiny body. Fantastic it looked, I tell you, simply fantastic. The first time I flicked the strings of it, thrill was overloaded in my heart. The satisfaction was greater than anything.(PMJ)

            
            One day, I was drawing an ads with earphones on my ear as a usual. There was an extremely fast, strong and hard rock music. And I got the inspiration from it. I don’t know why this scene had been appeared on my mind, but anyway, it was a face of a crown. So I started to draw a crown on the wall in the subway station. The concept was the crown holding a burger on his hand was dancing.  After finishing it, I had a great satisfaction. So I was watching at my work with big smiles on my mouth. By the way, a man, who is wearing a nice suit stopped in front of my drawing and watching at it for a long time. And then, he asked me
            “Did you draw that by your own?” I answered
            “yes, why?” He said,
            “WOW! That’s such a big piece!”
Can you imagine what happened to me after? To say with an word, it can be “wow.” That man was a CEO of the Mcdonald, and he inspired from my drawing that the character of Mcdonald would be nice if it is a crown as I drawn. So we had a permanent contract. Also as a cost of using my idea, he gave me the job in the Mcdonald, but not a worker, a vice chief. Isn’t it surprising? Also, fortunately, my idea made a big hit. So my honor became bigger and bigger among the Mcdonald.
             One day, I was looking around the Mcdonald stores to evaluate them. However, the employees started to throw the burgers on my face. I was so embarrassed and shocking. But i couldn't say anything since the flying burger covered my mouth. The fumbling sound was the only thing that i can hear.“What happened!!!??”
            
             When I opened my eyes, my body, head, and legs were shaking. I was in the subway and a women, who was seating in front of me, was eating a "Happy meal"  from Mcdonald and it smelled very nice. I fumbled in my pocket and there was a coin. “A coin.”

             Yes. It was a piece of dream. And my life never changed. I’m a student, ah! , a poor student.
I got off the subway with big disappointment. I climbed the stairs. By the way, there was a thing on the road, which was shining so brightly. I rushed to that. It was an MP3!