Changing Chapter Two of Catcher in the Rye - Ho Yoon Jung

Changing Chapter Two of Catcher in the Rye

Ho Yoon Jung

I stood on the front of Mr. Kim’s office door. He is about forty years old. He has some kind of a long, cucumber shaped like head with little hair on top of his head. He teaches a useless subject called Physics, although he is very passionate about his subject. Come to think of it, he is not only just passionate about his subject. He is overly passionate about everything. He is famous for nosing into every possible incident. He is not the most popular teachers in the school. In fact, he is one of the least popular teachers in school. But, he has some weird kind of illusion that students like the way that he is acting. Even though I don’t like him, I somewhat feel pity for him, sometimes.

Anyway I knocked the door three times, to look kind of polite, and entered his office. He was sitting on a chair with his back pointing the door. I could see his cucumber like back of his head. His back stilled turned, he said in a somewhat solemn way “Who’s that? Is it Caulfield?” I hated the way he tried to act so dignified but answered politely. “Yes sir. You told me to visit your office today.” He turned his chair and faced me. With that same affected voice he said “Yes I did. Take a sit over there.” I sat. “You know the reason I called you?” Mr. Kim said. “Yes sir. I think so.” I said. Damn, this chair was to stiff as hell.

“As you know, I called you because of your yellow hair.” Mr. Kim said. “I know sir.” Some phony teachers in my school can’t stand my yellow hair. I don’t understand why the hell they care about my hair color. “Do you want to be expelled from school?” Mr. Kim said. Here comes that same old expelling threatening tactic again. I don’t care if I get expelled from this school or not, actually I would prefer leaving this school. But I answered, “no, sir.” “How many penalty points did you get till now?” he said. “Forty points, sir.” I said. “You realize that you will get expelled from school when you reach 60 points and do you realize that it has only been a month that the semester started?” he said. Shit, I know this whole crap about penalty points. I frequently use the word shit, because the whole world is full of it.  “Yes I know that sir.” I said.

Mr. Kim maybe became satisfied about his speech or was satisfied with my kind of polite attitude. But whatever the reason is, he began to gain that useless passion that I talked about. He maybe thought that he could change me into a well-behaving kid or something. He started nagging about millions of things. “Do your parents know about this? What did the student guidance counselor say to you? Isn’t school rules set to be obeyed?” On and on and on he went. Overwhelmed by his own speech. I couldn’t stand this false-dignified, affectation no longer. It made me feel like vomiting. “Sorry to interrupt you teacher, but I have a class in five minutes.” I said. Mr. Kim’s exiled face expression got removed from his face. “Okay. I hope you got my point. I wish you will act with some sense.” I knew that Mr. Kim really meant it. But I couldn’t just accept his thoughts. We were just totally different. I bowed to Mr. Kim and ran out of that office.

Adaptation by Cho Hyeon Woo

When I got to bus station near rest area, the tickets were all sold-out. Goddamn it. I totally forgot that there was some lousy conference meeting for wannabe KMLAns. There are still tons of phonies want to make their child get the step on school. When I first came to KMLA, there was some faggish looking boy next to me, and his sister was a hot chick. She killed me literally when I tried to lay hand upon her. When the ceremony was over, his mom went on burst of tear just like the old sewage at dasan building. I thought he became the president or just invented facebook. Well anyway, I wasn’t able to take the bus right away so I decided to wait for another bus. The bus station was not that cold. There are snack bar, convenience store, and even mini baseball park. However, after about an hour people started to look at me like dog lost his collar. I was wearing my brown hunting hat, red T-shirt(written Kill Everbody Else) and lousy quiltwork with my phony ex-school mark on it. Well, I should admit that I looked like homelss or communitst, and I was kind of half and half. Being tired of sitting on bench, I grabbed one pretzel with sprite and opened up Giancoli 6^th edition. I myself was quite excellent at math, but I couldn’t understand single thing about physics. All the forces, electrons and neutrons were just having squash inside my head. However, I thought it was so cool to have this thick book in front of me. I don’t look like a nerd, it’s more like of “I’m sexy and I know it”. When my head was full of those fantasies, suddenly, I just felt warmth. I could nearly smell the Starbucks coffee with cinnamon, and milkcow eating up haystack. There was a hot chick wearing high – heel boot brushing her hair over her ears. Oh my god. She is a bomb. “Do you go to KMLA?”. Goddamn it. Why didn’t take off the lousy school mark? “Yes I do”. I closed up Giancoli physics and looked it into her eye. “Oh, then do you know Jinsu-kim? He is my younger brother”. Yeap, I surely knew him. He is the captain of the crossover, who likes to show off his muscle. Whenever girls ask me if he has tattoo or big scar, I couldn’t stop myself laughing. Istead, he has freckles all over his body and wear tights even when taking shower. He is a guy who whisper love into chick’s ear, and talks about the size of nipple to roommates. “I have so much worried about him. Is he doing well?”. “Yes, he is doing well. Actually, he is one of the most popular kid in our school. We all just admire him”. “Oh, really?” she went all red at the moment. I feel so good when I mock the innnocent. “Yes, I mean.. I first thought he is a dumb ass, bragging. But it was not long after when I found out it’s such a self defense. He is a sincere, naïve child who cannot even kill a fly”. “Oh, that’s so sweet. My goodness, I haven’t ask your name yet. I should tell him we have met!”. Suddenly, she just hold my hand, soft, tender and warm…What’s your phone number again? Uhm, but I was kicked out of school so this scenario would be dangerous and also sterotypical. So much like D. B. “My name is Junseok Lee. ”, he is my calculus teacher.

Adaptation by Subin Lisa Joo

Introduction: In the book, Holden sneaks into his house to meet Phoebe. Holden shows affection for Phoebe, looking around the room for a while and then waking her up. In my version, the main character goes to the third floor of the Chungmu-building to see someone called Jay.  This is based on chapter 21, starting from page 157.

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     The best laugh I had in years, was when Sabum Chun started running after me when I climbed up the stairs leading to the side doors of the Chungmu-building. He had screamed at me to use the front door, but when I ignored him, he started to charge towards me like an enraged bull. Boy, was he upset. The last time I had seen him get so excited was when he discovered that I had been secretly letting my classmates get away with not coming to the morning exercise. Anyway, there he was, running at full speed towards me, hollering at me to get off that stairs now. Startled by the sight of his face, I sprinted up the stairs, slammed the door shut and locked it. Enraged shouting came, muffled through the metal door. I didn’t care one bit. He was a bloody phony, anyways. I hated him. He acted all nice and kind when other teachers were around, but when he was alone with the students, he enjoyed making sure that they knew that he was the superior. Besides, the only reason they started not letting us use the side doors was because they didn’t want to clean the stairs. The school is a real phony. Boy, I hate phonies.

     Anyway, I climbed up the rest of the stairs to the third floor all quiet as hell, and the motion sensor turned the lights on. Old Jay didn’t even wake up. He was asleep, slumped forward on the piano. With the light on and the sunlight streaming through the windows and all, I just looked at him for a while. His head was turned sideways, resting on his arms, which was pressing the keys of the piano. He had his mouth way open. It’s funny. You take other kids, they look lousy when they’re asleep and they have their mouths way open, but he didn’t. He can even be snoring and all and he would still look alright.

     I headed towards the piano, very quiet and all, and leaned over his slumped figure, careful not to touch anything. Jay had been practicing the Hungarian Rhapsody by Franz Liszt. He had written notes all over the sheet music, emphasizing this part and that, and had drawn little hearts around Liszt’s name. That… took me by surprise, but he was a somewhat strange kid, strange in a lovable way.

     I pulled over a chair and sat down next to the piano. Several books were placed on top of the instrument, mostly piano scores. The one on the top was called Episodes in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Euclidean Geometry. I looked at the front page but quickly gave up on trying to understand it. After staring blankly at the circles and lines and triangles on the pages for a few minutes, I decided to wake Jay up. I mean I couldn’t sit there on the chair for the rest of my life, and besides, I was afraid that Sabum Chun would barge in on me all of a sudden yelling about dirty stairs. So I woke him up.

     He wakes up very easily. I mean you don’t have to yell at him or anything. All you have to do, practically, is lean forwards and tap on the high-E flat key on the piano, and bingo, he’s awake.

     “E flat!” he said right away, shooting up from his position on the piano. And then he notices me. “Hey, whacha doing here?” He was confused as hell to see me. You could tell.

     “Nice to see you too,” I reply, “the piano needs to be tuned.”

     He wrinkles his nose. “Yeah, I know. The keep telling the school that, but they never do it.” And he’s right. What did I say? The school is phony as hell.

Adaptation by Inhee Ho

I couldn’t take all those characters Holden Caulfield had.. Being a outsider, antisocial, highly critical and sarcastic, I couldn’t make a story keeping all these. So I tried to focus on making the character an outsider and being a little critical towards the world.

A creaking sound of a door seeped into my ears. I irritably put off my earphones and turned around.

“Ah, mom. What’s the matter.”

It was my mom. I got very annoyed. The song was lovely and all! Why did she have to trespass my room at this moment, interrupting me enjoying the song? Well, he’s always that way. Always ruffling me.

“Don’t say you were again listening to music with your damn earphone in.”

I didn’t say a word. Instead, I stared my mom in her face.

“Don’t look at me so harsh? Your eyes are to stick out if you keep scowling at me like that. Get stuffed and study. Right now!”

My mom squeaked quite nervously and went out the room. I put my earphones in again and turned on the music. But the overflowing feeling I had a while ago is never to be felt again. Damn, she interrupted the whole thing.

As a matter of fact, I hate exams. Or maybe I hate the exam ‘period’ more than the exam itself. This midterm is my twenty first exam (since I took it since third grade), but I can never get used to this damn thing. It stresses me out. I ask my mom if I could go out and have a walk or something, but my mom always tells me to drop that stupid joke and study. Am I joking? Of course not. I’m just serious. Yes, she never lets me out during exam period, and I have no excuses to go out during that time. She thinks the more I stay home, the more I get to study, and the higher my score gets, which is totally wrong.

Anyway, on a wonderful Wednesday like today, I decided to go out.

“Mom, can I go to library?”

Mom gave me an ‘interrogatory’ stare. I kinda hate places flooding with people, and library is one of those places, so it’s nothing wrong for her to think me going to library weird. But, that was the only excuse I could think of.

“I mean….. I can’t concentrate so well in my room. The TV sound distracts me.”

I added.

“Ah, so you’re now blaming ME, huh?”

“Well….. I thought maybe I could find some motivation in library since there are hundreds of people studying.”

I added again. My mom didn’t seem convinced at all, but she finally nodded. That’s how she replies. She nods when she is admitting something she has no mind to let me do. And I can be positive that she will nag at me on the dinner table. Whatever. I don’t care. I now got out of that damn house.

It didn’t take me so long to notice that I really didn’t have any place to go. Nanny’s house down the street was the only place I could think of, but that wasn’t a great idea either. She would call my mom right away and start talking on a phone for an hour or something, starting off from why I got to visit her house. So I just decided to go to library.

Library was a very interesting place. There were quite many people, but they all focused on their business. I hate when people-especially those squeaking girls-wonder around the street, talk about pretty much everyone around them, and giggle so loudly. That’s like the most annoying thing in the world ever. And it’s such a wonderful thing there aren’t any those people in library. I looked around the no.3 reading room. People were mostly sitting on their seat with some kind of book opened in front of them. Few had their ear phones on. One guy with a dark blue jacket was constantly beating his feet, which made a tapping sound around the library. Except that guy library was extremely silent. I picked up [Ladies behind the Emperor] from the New Arrival corner and started reading it. I didn’t bring anything to study, so reading it was pretty much the only choice I had.

I bammed my head on the desk. Quite a few eyes were on me. I flung out of the room right away, leaving the book on the desk. I just needed some fresh air to stay awake. That’s all. I headed to the ‘open air lounge’ on the second floor. But it didn’t take me so long to notice that the ‘open air lounge’ wasn’t a great place to get fresh air.

Fan-fiction of "Catcher in the Rye" by Soho Shim

Fan-fiction of "Catcher in the Rye"

Soho Shim

*I wrote a fan-fiction(J) in the scene where Holden has a conversation with his roommate, Ackley. (chapter 3). The setting will be the boarding school, 2012. (Although it is not directly said) Background would be almost identical to that of KMLA. All names or places appear in the story don’t aim any person or things. 
 

*        *        *

           It was pretty nice to get back to my room as everybody was down at the Rock Festival. The room was quite cozy, and I didn’t have a crappy homework that Mr. Park, math teacher who just reads the textbook, used to give me. To say more about it, his homework was always crappy and phony. It really did. He always provided the assignment of writing all the definitions in the textbook. According to him, it was ‘voluntary’ work, but he gives ‘plus-alpha’ (plus-point to the grade. It affects GPA stuff) to those who did the assignment ‘voluntary’. What a phony.

           Anyway, I took off my purple Nu-bi coat and started reading the book that I borrowed in the library. That book was taken by mistake. I was supposed to borrow ‘The old man and the sea’, but the librarian gave ‘Lord of the flies’. I don’t know about the similarity between those two titles, but they just did. I thought that ‘Lord of the flies’ would be just one of the ‘so, so’, nothing much surprising books. Well, it was kind of nice. But it is not my favorite book. What really knocks me out is the book which makes me want to go to Sosa with the writer. And in the case of ‘Lord of the flies’, it is not. ‘Different seasons’ is one of them.

           When I was reading the book, I heard the sluggish steps in the corridor. Yeah, it’s Hyun jun. He was supposed to be in a senior class but he flunked in almost every subject, forced to spend another junior year. He is very interested in girls. He always tried to go out with girls, but it never happened (although he tries to make up a love story). He was dumped by the girl whom he proposed in the freshman party because he was dirty, sloppy, and perverted. Such a pity he never knows his reality.

           He went into my room, as it happened accidentally, saying “Yo” in a so-called ‘chic’ way. “Hi,” I said, but I didn’t look up from my book. If I looked up from my book, I wouldn’t have been able to escape the constant chat with Hyunjun.

           “What the hellya reading?”

           “Goddamn book”

          He took the book for a second, looking at the cover which would have never helped him to figure out the story, and then said, “Is it good?”.

           “It’s good. I like the part where Jack and Ralph have a fight.”

           “Nah it sounds boring to me. What is really interesting is where the hot chick and the cool guy having a relationship.”

           What a pervert! Ha! Well… that goddamn one would never have a girlfriend.

           “Anyway, where the hell’s Seung-Jae at?”

           “He’s got a date. He might have gone to Wonju.” I yawned.

           Seung-Jae is one of the macho guys in this school. He is doing a bass guitar in the band ‘WWRY (we will rock you)” which totally blows up the girls’ mind. Besides, he has a good looking and a fair height. Well…goddamn! I know his style of handling girls. He knows when or what to act to girls, and he actually succeeds with his fine figure and his suave actions. And after having a relationship, the love game comes to an end. And well, I have a strong feeling that goddamn Seung-Jae would have a short relationship with his date. What a pity. But it’s just her bad luck.

Adaptation by Isabella JhaEun Kim

Pg.69-70

Saturday night. I went out to the Concert Hall to see the idol group YellowMonsters (YM)’s comeback stage in a music program. I was with my two classmates, Rachael and Tina. Rachael is a very noisy girl, like, I’ve never seen her mouth shut in my whole life! On contrast, Tina is a very quite, but a foxy girl. Like, she’s always thinking about boys but unfortunately, none of the victims knew her real nature. I don’t like them, but I came here with them just because I had no one to go with, as my other friends weren’t so interested in the idols. But now I’m starting to think that it would have been better if I came alone.

We were waiting in the line. Tina was peeping around to see any hot boys but she seemed to fail. Rachael was bragging about her last time going to concert. She said something like that she made eye contact with the Gogostars and they didn’t look away for a long time and all that. Nobody was listening to her but she kept on telling anyway. People would think that she was keep saying things even no audience were listening, because she was very excited. But to tell you the truth, she’s always like that.

I’m a big fan of YM. I mean a super BIG fan of YM. I’m even in their fan club and I have attended most of the concerts they open. I’m totally crazy about them. I mean, they are so nice, their songs are good, and all that! When they smile inside the TV, I feel like that I should break inside the Braun rube of the TV or something, so I try to attend all the concerts and meet them in person. I fail when my mother interrupts. She doesn’t understand me. She thinks I should do something else like reading or something than ‘chasing’ those idols. But I don’t understand her. How can she NOT buy tickets for YM’s concerts? Like, is that even possible?

Well, while Tina’s luring and Rachael’s bragging was keep failing, we were finally able to enter. We went to our seats and near us there were these handsome boys. Who made Tina’s eyes wide like animals aiming for prey. They seemed like they came to see the jumping girls, based on their conversation. I really don’t understand why people like such group. They are pretty only because of the plastic surgery and their songs aren’t so good too. If I had much plastic surgery as they had, I would have been prettier. I almost puked when I saw pictures of their faces before they had the plastic surgery.

Anyway, Tina was trying to talk and get to know them, and Rachael was trying to get involved in the talking, like always.

“Hello.”

“Oh, um hi. Where did you come from?”

As they are boys, they seemed favorable in talking with Tina. I guess she is very charming or something. She is foxy and she is interested in boys, but the boys seemed to be interested in her too. Such lookisms.

“I’m from Bundang. How about you?”

“I don’t live so far. I’m from Suwon.”

“Oh great! Whom did you came to see today?”

“Jumping girls.”

And here is where the great Rachael gets involved.

“Oh my gosh, Jumping girls? You must be kidding! The TV programs and everything probably fooled you. You know, my friend’s cousin’s friend works in the broadcasting stations, and she had a chance to meet the jumping girls. And she said that they are such….”

I could feel the anger of the boys. It was like they were going to punch her in the face despite of the fact that she is a girl. But Tina was faster.

“Well I think the Jumping Girls are very pretty and nice.”

You spoke ill of the Jumping Girls yesterday with Rachael in school, Tina.

“I know, aren’t they? Have you seen the TV show named……WHOOOAAAAA JUMPING GIRLS!!!!!!!!”

The show started. And the opening was the Jumping girls. Tina was trying to grab their attention and kept talking, but they said swear words to her, forcing her to shut up and I say that it was a interesting sight to watch. She was so offended due to the ignorance. I guess she never experienced it or something. So she was biting her lips and left before the concert of Jumping Girls ended. Rachael was so curious about where Tina was going and she smelled some things to gossip, so she followed Tina and left too. I think today will be a long, satisfying night. YM’s turn was coming up.