Adieu, March!

Yesterday was one of the historical days of my life! I had dinner at home! Surprisingly, for more than a month, I haven’t had dinner at home. Some of my friends envy my busy life, but others, especially my family, worry everyday for that it could ruin my health. Until last year, I didn’t really realize whether my life was busy or even harsh. However, having spent busy and dynamic months, I could feel every part of my body crying for rest. And yesterday, my brain couldn’t take it anymore. The parts of my body, including fingers, eyes, legs and many more, finally went on strike and were resisting against the brain, the commander, that they won’t work anymore. Now that I have made a compromise with them by giving them home food and early sleep, I would like to sum up the occasions of March.

Since I was very young, I have found it important to put meanings on to even slightest changes in life. For instance, summing up and reflecting on the past; I believe this action could actually bring improvements in the future. Today is already the very last day of March. Not only because my birthday is in this month, for many other reasons has March always been the most eventful month of the year, especially this march of the year 2011.

Most of all, the lessons begin! It is amazing, sometimes, to realize how quickly people forget things. Despite the fact that I took a break last semester, as I have kept on studying and as that it was only for one semester, I thought that everything would be perfectly normal and same as any other semesters I had. However, attending lessons was totally different to just being busy and studying alone. Even though I had spent more hours on self-studying in the break semester than lessons I have now, my body never showed any signs of tiredness, but nowadays, it can barely stay still for even one hour. Similar to “Monday syndrome,” I’m figuring that there’s also “March syndrome.”

Moreover, my birthday is in March! Having met on 12^th March, after 4 years of dating, my parents got married also on 12^th March. My mother once told me that not on purposely, but that I was also due to be born on 12^th March! Nevertheless, maybe I had wanted to celebrate my birthday separately from my parents’ wedding anniversary, I was born more than a week later, on 23^rd March. Until primary school time, having a birthday party was even more important than getting presents on Christmas day; which I now find useless and waste of time and money. However, thanks to my friends, this year was quite special. My friends at the play somehow found out that it was my birthday and gave a small surprise party during the rehearsals, which made my cry of happiness. There’s a saying in Korea that one should give presents to their parents on his or her birthday, for they gave birth to him or her. I always had this in my mind, but couldn’t put it into action; always making excuses that “I am busy.” Wait mom and dad for next year! :)

 

Furthermore, my job as an “actress” is now ended. I now feel really relieved and sad of the fact that the play is over. It is true that I have suffered a great deal spending all my power and time on rehearsing. I remember saying to my mom every morning, that I just want it to be over and done with, and that I won’t even miss it later. However, now that it’s really ended, I miss it a lot and I still makes me frustrated that I couldn’t give my full on the last performance day, for that I was really ill. The reason I had auditioned for this and endured it was because I knew that unless I decide to become an actress that there won’t be any more chances like this in my life. It sure was tough, but I really don’t regret it!

April is coming. Winter is now going. Some people mourn that their life is always just the same. When I listen to these people, I always think to myself that every second in one’s life is different. “Schedule” is not “life!” It seems to me that some people mistaken their schedule as their life and grieve that their life is same everyday. 31^st March 2011 can exist only once in everyone’s life. Carpe Diem!

Der Reigen

   “The day” is now only one sleep away: 25th of March, 19:00 pm. The show begins. With a history of 36 years, my major, German Language and Literature, has been performing a play once every two years. After I had received a phone call from my friend that there will be a play this year, at first, I got afraid that I would have to be on stage. However, realizing that there will be no more chances like this after my graduation, I applied for the audition; ending up with a role of a “rich count.”

  The play, we are performing, is called “Der Reigen” from Arthur Schnitzler. Its literal meaning is “circle dance.” Now that I have a quite good understanding of the play, I can see why the author has named the play “circle dance.” This play is composed of 10 scenes; more like 10 dialogues. 10 main characters come out and each scene is actually just a dialogue between two people, always one man and one woman. One very interesting thing is that each character gets involved in two different relationships, and these distinctive relationships are, somehow, connected like a chain. For instance, A and B are on the first scene and on the second, B and C; on third, C and D, and so on. This sense of “connectedness” seems to create a circle among the characters.  

  I actually had neither the background knowledge of the play nor that of the author of the play. Before purchasing the script to practice for the audition, I thought that this play would also be similar to the plays I have seen up to now. Considering that it was an old German play, I thought it could be something philosophical or even political or hopefully a romance like “Romeo and Juliet.” As soon as I opened the first page of the play I really spoke out loud, “I think I’ve bought a wrong book!” It was totally different from the plays I have seen. Well, not different, but unexpected. The content and the words used in the dialogues were unbelievable. It was too obscene and straightforward. Each scene contained highly sexual contents. Thankfully, as everyone, even the professor who chose this play to be put on stage, agreed that it was unsuitable to perform everything as written on the script, we decided to dance as a substitute.

   There were times when I regretted and even blamed myself for that I had applied for such time and energy consuming thing. Nevertheless, the memories I gained and also the people I got to know through this are so precious that I now tell myself “well done!”

Tomorrow is the day to show my three months of effort. Mijung! Break a leg!

How should one live ?

A lot of my friends call me either "a philosopher" or even "a grandma." This has a lot to do with the concepts and themes that I usually ponder over. Such philosophical questions as "What is the meaning of life?" "What do people live for?" "How should one live?" floats around in my head. After such questions tail one after the other, eventually I end up with the most silly, but an important question : "Why am I thinking about this?"

There's a famous saying: "Germans die spending all their lives only on thinking, how one should live, while French just enjoy their lives." As soon as I heard this sentence I thought to myself that I should stop being a "German" and start being a "French!" However, to make an excuse that my major is german, I find myself becoming more "german-like" as the time goes.

I remember the time when I was in primary and secondary school. Well, to be precise, I don't exactly remember what I did at that time (although I do, those were only just normal school life like having lesseons and taking a break etc.); the things that I can still think back on is how I felt about “living” and over what kind of things I was worried about. At that time, the focus of my thoughts was usually not on me, instead it was mostly on the relationship between my friends and family. Such concerns I had at that time were of course not very easy and they are still not easy. There are even books which teaches us how to get along well with the others. However, in my opinion, there’s a huge difference between centralising the thoughts on the connection and on the person itself.

No one can deny the fact that every single person in the world is different. Not even twins share the exact same genes. Therefore, it is lucid that everyone has distictive personality and cherishes different values in their lives. However, as the word “society” tells us, human beings are social animal. Despite the fact that we all wish for different things and that we all have different goals, to fit in the society people follow certain rules which I would like to define as “law of relationship.” One should be honest, understanding and caring to keep a consistent bond. Although this is not written on the present constitution, people follow this as if it is a law. This is why I regard it more concering to focus on oneself than the relationship. Whereas laws don’t easily change, persons feelings and goals change every blink of their eye.

Now that I am an adult, compared to the time I was in primary and secondary school, where I hardly had any responsibility, I’ve got to plan out my own future. And that process requires to look closely on myself. Would it be possible to come up with one solution to how one should live? Or is it actually necessary to define how to live? No matter what I contemplate now, there’s one crucial thing I should keep in mind : I would never be able to dominate or manipulate “time.”