대치동, 10:10 pm 학원가 by Kim Jinju

대치동, 10:10 pm 학원가

 After the government made this stupid law that prohibits 학원 classes after 10 pm, there is always heavy traffic right after 10 o’ clock on the two big vertical roads in 대치동. The politicians are GD phonies. They just had nothing to do so went ahead and made this law. They think we students worship them as our saviors and heroes and they seem proud of what they have ‘achieved.’ They could not have been more ignorant.

Anyways, back to the point: I had this boring science 학원 class until 10. The teacher thinks ‘the world is governed by the ‘laws of physics’ but if the world is governed by “principles and laws” it won’t be such a crazy place as it is now. And it won’t be so full of phonies. We kind of learned something about Newton’s laws which didn’t seem to fit very well to our world anyway. But I do love math. Teachers say I quite have the right genes of a mathematician. They are one of the few people I know that seem to know what they are talking about. Sometimes, I sit down at my desks and take two theorems and combine them. It’s quite fun actually, because there are so many different possibilities and variations that you can make.

After class ends asking your mom to give you a ride home is just crazy because the road is full of 극성 mom’s who want to get their children home as soon as possible. So, instead, I always walk home. On the way, I saw a thousand plastic surgery advertisement posters. I’m a girl too, but personally, I think it’s simply complete madness to reshape your own face with those horrible knives. It’s not that you get any prettier. But today, I saw this really weird poster that read “We guarantee your happiness. A better look, a fresh new start.” This suddenly made me angry. It was not right. Everyone was unique, or so we learned at school. We shouldn’t have to care so much about what others think of my appearance.

Finally, when I did reach home, my brother had just come back from school. He goes to 대원외고 and he comes home quite late sometimes. My brother is the only person who can understand what I tell him. I try to share my thoughts with other, like my mom, but it doesn’t always work out well. All they do is sigh and tell me “I’m not acting my age.” Maybe I’m not. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t give a SH.

My brother heard me come in and came to me. “ How was your day?” I answered “ As always. We did this cool thing in math class where you can find the area of a weird shaped figure…” “Integral Calculus?” “Yeah, that’s it. It’s so much better than Newton’s laws.. I think..”  “How about other subjects? English?” “English was okay. We didn’t do grammar. I hate RULES…” “ Hey Liz, you look gloomier today. Tell me what’s wrong specifically. “ “I just can’t stand it. Rules, Rules. They tell me to follow them but these rules just make me mad. And I saw this stupid poster about plastic surgery. I don’t know….” “It’s not going to help you if you just complain about things. Study your favorite subjects and build up 내공!! In the end when you go out to the society, you may have the influence to change things the way you want them to be.”