A remembrance on one late spring afternoon: Common App Prompt

Common App Prompt: Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

Another photography related essay, but about a more recent event (actually from the last weekend) in a little more story and less gloomy images.

A remembrance on one late spring afternoon

I sat on the stairs in front of the apartment waiting Jaekyeong to come out. Late afternoon sun glowed over the village. Jaekyeong came down and stood in front of me. I picked up my camera and started walking. Jaekyeong followed swiftly.

I walked quite fast so Jaekyeong had to catch up on walking with me. She grabbed my arms. “Could you PLEASE walk a little slower or something?” I shrugged, “I’m being slow, you know.” I grabbed my camera in my right hand and stroked her hair with another. She grabbed her camera, too. Her eyes sparkled with curiosity and joy mixed with a little bit of confusion. She tried adjusting her camera, clicking buttons and turning gears. Then she sighed a bit, and pushed it in front of me.

“My camera is answerless. How come it doesn’t really do anything with M mode?”

“Maybe because many people only use mirrorless cameras in automatic mode. Just use it with A Mode or T Mode.”

“I’m ALREADY doing that.”

Her lips rose with a slight arrogance, a cute smile full of pride that kids usually wear when they feel they are great. She then immersed into taking photos, clicking and adjusting her sleek white camera. Her round black eyes rolled in excitement. Her frustration seemed to work as a stimulus pushing her into the world of photography. I focused my camera to Jaekyeong: to delicate movements of her fingers, to her glowing black eyes, and to her face lightly puckered with seriousness.

We walked around the park under cherry blossom trees. Now evening was approaching and orange pink light was seeping through everywhere. People were pouring out from the zoo. We were surfing against the pink-gold waves of crowd, in search for faces and moments. The most remarkable ones came from babies and small kids. Their youthful movements and lighted faces were purely joyful. They did not show the slightest sign of fatigue or groan. No exaggerated movements or expressions that couples in twenties bore, no reluctance that older ones bore. They were just there in the park, running and laughing and playing. Nobody could intrude their immaculate delight in the moment. Orange sunbeams and baby pink flowers shone like halos behind them.

I was taking photos of these kids when I realized that Jaekyeong was not beside me. Suddenly I got very nervous, and the orange pink light lost its gorgeousness. The light was rather romantically muzzy. I crossed the road, heading to the museum hill, wondering if she would be there. I held my hand near my eyes, trying to avoid the sunlight blocking my sight. Azaleas lighted up the hill with its pinkish violet petals. There I saw Jaekyeong, and all azaleas around her blurred like magical bubbles from faraway.

Her movements were subtle in somewhat decisive and solemn way. She also emitted the youthful delight that the younger children in the park showed, and nobody could break into this immaculate pleasure she rejoiced. But Jaekyeong’s had this graveness that kids did not have. She beautifully gleamed rather than thoughtlessly sparkled, not like from the days she were few months ago. She was not “the little one” whom I did not understand and worried about. She was more than just a cute little sister who did not know much about many things. Her soft stinginess in her fingertips bore the faith and confidence she had about her own life.

I silently approached Jaekyeong, hiding myself behind the stone wall. I held my camera and focused on her hands and the flowers she were taking picture of. The sun was going down. The sun projected the last golden beam to the world, to the park, and to Jaekyeong’s eyes. I pressed the shutter, and cherry blossoms faded and mingled with shades of azaleas. (635 words)

The Eight-Thirty-Five Subway: Common App Prompt

Common App Prompt: Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?

I got the idea from the feedback I got from my commissioned essay.

The Eight-Thirty-Five Subway

             Eight thirty-five in the morning, the train now approaches Sadang. People with earphones in their ears, newspapers in their hands, backpacks on their shoulders struggle to the door. A crowd pours out, and another pours in. Silent but aggressive fight occurs within seats, driven by morning fatigue. I blink my eyes, trying to distract tiredness out of my sight. Sleepiness presses down my head. I crave the comfort of sitting down on the seat so much, but I persevere to stand up. Leaning near the door, against the bars, I fix my arms on the wall and focus on the shadows that linger on subway windows.

             Everyone is separated. Nobody is interested to others. Placing themselves in the world of newspapers and books and cellphones, people rather seem to be living in different dimensions. The figures of people packed in the subway look like hollow apparitions of them who are actually living in outer space. Everyone is heading somewhere, to every direction far and near from each other, to all different places. It is even mysterious that they are boxed up in this one vehicle that drives them to same direction and same stations.

             Shadows and reflections of people intersect one another. One shadow slides into the darkness of the transferring platform. A reflection from another train rests a while on the window of the train I am in. Although they do not realize how their fragments are overlapped and coexistent, people anyway pass by and pay attention to what they are interested in at the time. Even though I am playing the observer from my perspective, I am also another part of this set of momentary encounters, packed in the subway and heading together with the unknown crowd.

             I now focus the camera on my reflection on the window. As I face the darkness beyond the door, between the platforms outside, a flash of another arriving train penetrates the space between my shadow and darkness. I set the shutter speed to one tenth. The people behind the windows blur and stretch horizontally with the direction the arriving train is heading. I let myself separated but harmonize with this familiar-strange scene. I look like as if I am wandering in the sea of lost souls, trying to listen to something.

             I push my camera back inside the train. It is eight forty-three, and the train is approaching Seoul Station. Another series of silent fights take place around empty seats. The man who succeeded taking the seat looks relieved, and he let his falling eyelids close. A woman with a big backpack seems stressed, not being able to sit. Then a little story seems to bloom from this dry space of indifference.

Maybe each people as an individual play no big role in the stage people have in their own minds. Before the encounter or any events, they are only fragments scattered in various corners of the world. However, when people bump into others, as they realize each other, then some story begins between them, making spaces between their fragmented existences. (510 words)