A Hollow Year

A Hollow Year
May Lim

A regular girl from a regular middle school was accepted by the most prestigious high school in the nation. With big hopes and big desires, she finally entered Daewon Foreign Language High School, which she thought of as a magical place where enlightened students with brilliant minds could pursue their dreams. When she first walked up the stairs towards “heaven (which in this case, Daewon)” for the interview, she desired and desired to come back to this hall of heaven and become a part of the Daewon family. A few days later, she was officially announced as a student of Daewon Foreign Language High School. And from that moment, the tragedy began.
Sadly, and as all of you would have already figured it out yourselves, the girl from this tragic story is me.
When I first walked up this school, I had ambitions. Actually, I could say that my body was practically composed of ambitions, looking toward a perfect high school life in a perfect high school. I expected the best of the best teachers filled with knowledge and dignity and nerdy but brilliant students who didn’t know anything except studying. Again, I was ambitious. I had ambitions to study hard, no matter how difficult an adventure in Daewon lay before of me. …And I dozed off during the second period on my first day of school.
Almost a year having passed away, I look back on March and think about how my life had been for the last eight months. Friends who will go through this journey together for the remaining two years, a significant improvement in my English after I coming back from Canada, and the paradigm shift of my life as a happier and more of a meaningful life—these are accomplishments of the year, which look quite satisfactory in one way. However, when I really think about the past eight months, I somehow feel emptiness, for not trying with my best capacity or not managing my time so well.
Right now, the first thing that pops up in my head is the word “busy”. With 100% confidence that all of you will sympathize with me, this year has been the busiest year I have ever gone through. Coming back home at eleven at night and waking up at six in the morning was horrifying. To be frank, I don’t even know how I managed so well to wake up on time every day. And after I finally get to take my seat at my desk, I drink a sip of water and start off reading Fountainhead. Until the starting bell rings, I read as fast as I can, underlining some quotes that seems to have some kind of a meaning (Sorry, Mr. Cho). As soon as the bell goes, I silently put my 700-page book aside and see whether the next class is important or not. If it is Mr. Lee’s biology class, I take out my phone and start reading an article for Ms. Lee (Sorry, ma’am.).Not only that, skipping meals became part of my usual pattern. Skipping lunch and dinner for the sake of doing homework is quite sad and also pathetic, but that was the route that I had to take. These busy days arrived three times per week: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. This weekly routine continued for an entire year. Surprisingly, my calculations show that I have spent roughly 107 days, living in this busy cycle just on doing GLP homework. Wow.
Another thing that comes to my mind is the word “thrill”. With a great privilege that they can get a perfect score as long as they receive a higher score than 67, GLP students have incomparably less stress towards the mid-term and final exams than the domestic department students. In fact, many domestic department kids say that it really should be a piece of pie to get straight A’s. But is it? Well, at least to me, no. Really, who has the time to get a satisfactory score when he is given only five days of study hall? Many GLPians manage to pass several subjects with a smallest difference, which Korean students often refer to as called “pull-ups”. And after they get a dangerous score on the verge of getting a B, they study damn hard to make that score into an A. With this thrill of the borderline for A, GLPians live in fright with worries that stress them out every time they have a big exam.
After looking back on year that will never come back, I don’t exactly feel “satisfied”. I was always chased by time, so desperate to finish homework before class began. I was constantly under pressure by my grades, despite the fact that the cutline was surprisingly low. More than that, it feels like I haven’t managed my time effectively, just letting it slip away without doing anything. With various other reasons, I feel somewhat empty about what I’ve done this year. I can’t say for sure that there will be any dramatic changes next year. I might just spend another year with the same, busy, and stressing patterns. But with high hopes, I will try to not fall into that trap again.