Last Saturday, 10th graders (18th wave!!!) and teachers from high school came on a field trip. (I bet there's a batch heading your way Mandy ^____^) This group was even more dear to me, since our French teacher Mme Florence, and game over advisor Mr. Han came as supervisors. The weather wasn't as pretty as today's blue skies, but it didn't rain as forecasted! On Friday night, I had prayed that it wouldn't rain while we give a tour of the campus and have Q&A sessions with the college student alums and working alums. Rain poured down after they left. 

Whenever these kids come, I go through a set of emotions. The school that kindled faith in Jesus Christ, the school where I met lifetime friends, the school where I learned that you can become friends with teachers, the school where I learned how to study by myself, the school where I learned to appreciate nature. Some of the same teachers are still giving all their efforts to guide young ones to follow through in that same school, and the young ones are still choosing to go to that same school that I can't muster up the courage to go visit. It's been four years since I last visited. 

If I visit, I think I will be overwhelmed by sadness to see the school in a bit dilapidated state (considering that I don't think buildings are regularly renovated, or are they?), and my inability to help out. When I mentioned this to Mr. Woo, the English teacher who used to sing us pop songs whenever it rained on a Wednesday class, he told me that only when we are in our 40s, would we be even able to donate to school. He quietly told me that now is the time to focus on our careers. Mme Florence and Mr. Han told me that the vision trip is worth the effort and care, because they get to see us. Maybe this is why reunions are great, to remind ourselves of the dreams we had, people we invited into our lives, and why we chose to be where we are now. 

I'm helping out with the student production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. The play is going to take place on a beautiful lake in Worcester College in early June. I am in charge of making the 'behind the scenes production diaries, short videos released every week to stir up some pre-performance excitement. 

Yesterday, we shot the trailer for the play. Actors dressed up in colorful Tudor costumes to reenact one of scenes of the actual play. Although it was physically exhausting (shooting from 7AM to 5PM non-stop) I felt energized and strangely at home. Nick Lory, our DOP did an amazing job capturing and blending in the gorgeous scenery with the ambience of the Venice. 

It's a lovely feeling, to be part of something bigger, something that matters to a lot of people, something that makes them happy. I'm very fortunate to work alongside passionate students who care and give the play their all; Oxford will become more dear to me because of this experience. 

This morning, I realized with utter dismay that it is Parents' Day tomorrow and thought shit, too late to send a basket of flowers to Mom and Dad -- not that I didn't try, but for some reason the credit card service was not cooperative and the website stated that they could not promise to deliver the flowers in time if ordered post-Tuesday work hours (Korea time). So binned that idea. On to Plan B.

Instead, I went to florist and bought these white carnations, took a bunch of staged photos of the flowers and myself, and basically made a customized card (inserted text: Happy Mother/Father's Day, etc) and sent them to my parents via kakao talk. Daughterly duty executed in fashionable manner I would say. 

In Korea, during this time of the year, you see flower baskets carpeting the streets of Shinchon and Gangnam and florist shops teeming with daughters/sons/students seeking out fresh carnations in various hues of red, pink, yellow, and white for our parents and teachers. The whole floral tradition does seem a bit forced and contrived at times, but it seems like a nice way for all of us to appreciate the sentiment certain flowers on certain days of the year. 

The carnations sit near my window, with wine bottles as vases. 

I crawled into bed very early last night, slept through flatmates knocking on my door, sirens outside my open window, and turned over in my navy sheets dreaming of some unpretty situation that I can't remember anymore. When I woke up and groggily checked the time, it was 5:30 AM and there was this marvelous dawn scene seeping through my room. I was numbed by the beauty of the gradation in the sky, a mixture of desaturated pastel colors that reminded me of the safari. To the wonder. 

In elementary school, sometimes the teacher told us to draw about how you'd live in the future. I remember imagining flip-through books (iPAD), living underwater (I think there are some hotels that are trying this out?) and flying cars (not yet?). And now this google glass. 

Lying in my bed with all sorts of pain (muscle pain, sore throat, etc), I found this youtube video and started chuckling. Only a few have the privilege of trying these glasses on, but it must be kind of funny to be the only one with these glasses on and talking to it to say the commands. Each pair now costs $1500, but ebay up to $15000. 

If I had these glasses on, I'd take a picture of the pink flowers that are blooming outside the window and post it here and also google "how to enjoy the sun and not become more sick." Better stay healthy!!

I attended a 'Body Image Workshop' yesterday, thinking that it would be pertinent to my dissertation. The session took time to define what the term body image meant, walked through the history (take a look at the timeline!) of what society deemed a beautiful body  from the ancient greeks till now, and explored how society toys with the concept of the body image via sexualization of young girls. 

At the beginning of the workshop, the participants were asked to write three things we loved about our body, a task I found more difficult than I thought it would be; the natural instinct was to compare myself to others and try to figure out what components of my body out-excelled in an objective sense. I realized that my perception and judgment of my own body depended wholly on placing myself on a spectrum of the girls around me as well as the heavily digitally-altered images of celebrities I see in the media. 

Seventeen Magazine did good when it agreed not to photoshop images of girls in  their contents in response to an online petition initiated by a 14 year-old girl. Some people argue that when ads/magazines do photoshop images of bodies and faces, the images should be marked with a 'photoshopped' symbol, perhaps with a rate of how much they have been tweaked. 

With the rave surrounding the before-and-afters of Miss Koreas of 2013, the discussion on body image and digital alteration is very unsettling and difficult to dismiss because we the girls are the victims as well as culprits of it all.