Adaptation by Hee Eun Moon

 Once a month, the school gives us chickens. We call that day ‘Chicken Day’. It’s usually on the last Wednesday of the month. But if you were expecting hot and fresh chickens delievered to your room, all I can say to you is that KMLA is not friendly to the students at all. They rather make us work. Literally, all they do for us is making a purchase of 200 chicken boxes, 120 bottles of coke, and chilie sauce. All the other jobs like distributing chickens and cleaning up leftovers are left to the students, especially those who are in the department of food and nutrition. I am one of those unlucky fellas. Most of ‘food’ students got in the department of food and nutrition not because they choosed to, but because they failed to get into the other department. So the executive council assigned those students to the department of food and nutrition. Those council members are total phonies. They think they can change the world. In the beginning of the semester, they always come up with some new ideas and helluva lot of plans, but they never follow those.

 This department thing is pretty messed up. The executive council gives too much duties to the food department. We have to watch over students’ plate and give penalty sticker to those who left food on their plates. And we also have to do all the chores for the chicken day. I mean, why on earth should I spend my time staring at disgusting plates and tell students to eat up their disgusting leftovers? Seriously, this is just simply not right. And Chicken Day is no better than that. To be honest, it’s worse. We have to wear gloves and clean up the chicken bones that have been licked all over. It is true that we do wear gloves, but those gloves are goddamn weak. It’s like the weakest gloves that I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It gets torn apart too easily. We do wear gloves before we ever touch bones and garbages, but we always end up with our hands stained with chicken oil. 

 Yesterday was goddamn Chicken Day. I didn’t know. I knew it was the last Wednesday of March, but I just didn’t notice it was Chicken Day. Maybe I wanted to avoid the fact that I was to be disgusted soon. I don’t know. So I spent the first self-study period doing almost nothing. I tried to study physics, but this biot-something equation and other crazy electro-magnetic stuff knocked me out. I felt dizzy and tired, so I climbed up to my bed and slept for half an hour. Sleeping during the self-study periods is against the self-study regulation, and of course I knew that; but I just couldn’t resist. Besides, my bed is at the darkest corner of our room. If you place your blanket over your entire body, nobody will ever notice that you are there.

 So I woke up around 20:30s. Sitting on my bed, I turned my cellphone on. 14 missed calls. Then I figured out that I was late. The chief of the food department told me to come by 20:00 to do some chicken works. But I didn’t feel like I was doomed or some crappy bird poop fell on me. Instead, I felt I was lucky. Lucky to be free from chickens. Lucky to be exempt from phonies shouting at me to do this and do that. Especially the chief. He is one of the most impressive jerk that I’ve ever met. He loves Confucius. Fifty percent of what he talks is from those ancient Chinese fellas. I think he believes that reducing leftover food and cleaning up the chicken bones will make him a saint like Confucius.

 I walked up to the 12th floor anyway. The chief was angry at me, but I didn’t care. I decided to help a 10th grader. I found one trying desperately to gather chickens for students living in the 7th floor. I live in the 7th floor, so I thought why not. She was quite short and fat, and her face was pale and round like a grizzly bear. It would have been nice if she was smart or at least quiet. She kept confusing between fried chickens and lean chickens. So I had to check 30 boxes of chickens to see if she did right. And 10 boxes had to be switched. God, she was so damn ignorant. I couldn’t stand her being so phony, so I made excuses and came down to my room. My roommates were already gone for Honjeong, so I just sat on my chair and opened up my laptop. On Facebook, everyone seemed to be terribly exicited. I wanted to make comments on their statuses so bad, but I didn’t. All I wanted to say to them was to come and get their asses on the top of the huge pile of chicken bones after swallowing chickens or make sure to take care of their disgusting chickens and clean up, for Chrissake.