The Cogitating Korean

Oh Hey…

   It’s been a busy almost two months. Or something like that. Whatever, time doesn’t matter. Well I guess it does. Wow I haven’t written something, anything more than five sentences long for about two months. It feels weird. It feels as if I’ve lost something dear and precious to me that I didn’t know was dear and precious to me until I realized that I’ve lost it possibly forever. 

   I feel empty, alone, friendless… HAHAHAHA JUST KIDDING. 

   I can go a lifetime without writing if I try… but I probably won’t when I still can. 

Serious Things

   To be honest, I’m not good at being serious. I can do silly. I can do quirky. I can even do borderline retarded. But I’m not good at serious. Serious requires effort and effort is something I don’t do, ya know? 

   Except for today. Today was just one of those serious days. I tried to distract myself with silly conversations with various people. But it was so hard to keep it lighthearted and interesting. Conversations with the most amusing people I know turned boring too quickly. The fault was mine, I’ve just run out of funny things to say today. 

   It’s hard to be hilarious 100% percent of the time. 

I Don’t Want To Be An Arrogant Dick

   Today, Steve (viola teacher) asked me if I was a writer because he caught me planning out my essay in the cafe at my school. I… definitely do not qualify as a writer. First of all, I write stupid things that don’t touch the soul. I just write the diarrhea of my brain so it doesn’t leak out of my mouth later. Little, superficial things. Second, my grammar is pretty fucking bad. Punctuation, a joke. And lastly, what? I’m just… I am definitely not a writer. I just write stupid little things. A writer writes important big things. I guess I write funny things. Entertaining little tidbits of fluff. I’m just not capable of writing about deep soulful shit. It doesn’t work out well.

   Also, some writers are arrogant dicks. I don’t want to be an arrogant dick. 

Church Memories As A Child (Part 2)

   In the remainder of the time that I was a child (til I was about twelve or so and decided that I couldn’t be a child because I simply lacked the strange naive innocence), church became a boring weekly ritual. Going there, listening to the pastor talk, greeting my mother’s church friends, eating bland church food the church ajummas made… it bored me tremendously. I quickly found refuge in books because by this time, the two friends I had made had graduated to the next level (grades seven to twelve) of sermons. I read whatever I could find. Romance novels, thrillers, Dickens, fantasy, horror… whatever I could get my little hands on. I would bring books to church and read when sermons where over and I had to wait for my mother to finish gossiping with her friends. 

   I was known as the lonely bookworm. Very few, or rather none of the other kids around my age read. I found it a little strange that even most of the older kids didn’t seem to enjoy reading. I still find it strange and at times disturbing when some people around me don’t enjoy reading. 

   This was how my childhood years at church ended. I ended up a lonely bookworm and the social outcast. Mostly by choice. I found the kids around my age incredibly stupid and immature, mostly because I did not see that they were also human. I saw them as nothing more than little monkeys who were always being loud and uncouth. It’s a little sad that I still think in nearly the same way now. When I think about church, all I can picture in my head are a group of loud and stupid children screaming and running around all over the place. Children who don’t, refuse to and will never see the brilliance of words and good literature. When I go to church now, I still think pretty much the same thing. Except not only are the children no longer children, they’re also pretentious and ruin the beauty of the arts. 

   I guess I’m just a bitter young woman. 

Church Memories As A Child (Part 1)

   When I was a toddler in Korea, my church goings were generally nice, simple things. Go to church. Sleep in mommy’s arms. Get poked awake and sort of sing along to some songs. Sleep again. Mommy picks me up and we go home. That was it. Oh sure, sometimes I’d stay awake and sort of stare at the things that were going on, but mostly I’d just sleep and sing occasionally. When I came to Canada, things were different. The first church we went to was a white people church. Well, technically it was an “Anglican” church, but the congregation was 100% white. I remember the kids stared at me because I was one of the first Asian kids they’d ever seen and I’d stare back because I’d never seen so many white people in my life. It was crazy. I had to go to the kids Sunday School here, something which was new to me. They gave us juice and cookies. I cultivated a strong dislike of arrowroot cookies here. 

   This only lasted for a month or so and then we started going to a Black Baptist church. I was glad, because I’d gotten bored of white kids because damn, they were pretty fucking boring. All they did was stare at me and whisper amongst themselves. I was getting pretty sick of that. I think they were a little scared of me and the fact that I could actually speak English, albeit with a bit of an accent. 

   So anyways, the Black Baptist church. Shit, these people seriously know how to make Jesus really fucking rad. I loved them. I loved church. Holy crap, I loved the gospel choir, the pastor, the snacks they gave the kids. I loved Sunday School. It was AWESOME. The kids here were a lot nicer too. Once they figured out I could speak English, they were so cool. They were all like “whoa I speak English too, let’s be buddies!” and it was so great. I loved the snacks. Marshmallows, popsicles, ice cream, cookies (NEVER arrowroot), every flavour of Kool-Aid ever invented… I loved church. The thing I loved most was running around with all the kids and yelling for no reason. I was a pretty sad when we left and started going to Korean churches instead. It was too bad, we were only there for maybe around three months.

   Korean churches. We went to about three of them in a year or so. Three different ones. I didn’t mind. By then, I figured out how to make new friends but not form strong attachments to them so I wouldn’t be sad when I left. It was simple: I simply didn’t try to make new friends. I let children approach me first. And if they didn’t? Well too bad, I always had myself and my imagination. I was almost six years old and had a very active imagination. I was able to be content playing with myself. 

   Finally when I was about six, we came to attend Bethel Presbyterian Church (the one I am dragged off to every week nowadays) thanks to family friends who were already going there. I was friends with the eldest girl (there were three kids, two girls and the youngest, a boy). They came over to our house a few times and we amused ourselves running up and down the stairs. 

   My first day of Sunday School here was terrifying. I was (and still am) a very shy girl. All the kids knew each other already. Most of them were very outgoing and loud. The quiet ones were very few in number and were friends already with the loud ones anyways so they had a place. Everyone had a place in a clique. When I came in the gym where Sunday School took place, a quiet little person, heads turned around to look for a few seconds and then snapped back. They were kids, kids don’t know how to deal with new quiet people very well unless they were already friends with them somehow from way back. And then I saw the girl I was friends with and I waved. She ignored me. It was embarrassing.

   After this moment on, she and I were for some strange reason, enemies. I think she may have been a little jealous because at that age I was already doing lots of things that I was okay in. Gymnastics, swimming, violin, piano, french immersion… I have only forgiveness and sympathy for her now because I see what may have been going on in her life. Korean mothers are constantly comparing their children to other children. Her mother must have been comparing her to me. 

   However, she did do and say everything she could to make my church life hell for the next four years or so. Leaving me out of everything she could, taking the few friends I made, making snide comments about me to my face and behind my back… oh yes, she was a terror to me. I didn’t to anything to retaliate. I didn’t know how. I was new to this strange method of warfare. The only kind of battle I knew how to do was with my fists. I knew however, that it would be pointless and my actions would only be used against me. So I did nothing but asked my friends things like “what did she say about me?” or “what is she planning to do to me?” because I was scared. Scared of her because she was physically bigger than me and because she knew this other frightening method of fighting that I knew nothing about.

   It was the Sunday School teacher that made it somehow bearable. His name is Ins Choi (yes, the guy who wrote Kim’s Convenience). He’d do these little tricks, things like putting candy or little toys into one hand and then switching hands back and forth, making me guess which hand had the little surprise. I was somehow always right. He was a nice man and I thought he was the best guy ever. I loved him like a kindly uncle. 

   Finally, my nemesis’s family left the church. I’ve forgotten why, but I think it had something to do them moving and whatnot. I was relieved. But also sad. In the time that she was here, I had made a grand total of two friends. I was secretly a little bored of them. I am not a two friends sort of person. I enjoy having many friends. I spent the next stretch of time bored whenever I went to church and always cynical of whatever the Sunday School teacher said. 

  (Part 2 to come later)

On Writing

   Writing is a pretty arrogant form of art. What makes me think that my words are more important than someone else’s? Why do my words deserve to be out there, under scrutiny of the public? How can I think that I am unique, a beautiful snowflake amidst the shit and the vomit that is popular culture today? My words… how are they any better than the literary geniuses that came before me?

   BECAUSE MY NAME IS BECCI LIM AND I LIKE LOTS OF THINGS, THAT’S WHY, BITCH.

   Just kidding. I just like writing when I’m bored and sometimes, it’s not bad. I’m actually kind of funny when I want to be, I guess. So that’s why I write. Because I’m bored and I find words entertaining. 

Untitled #4

Oh jeez, I haven’t written anything in a while, so here you go, an extra long post. It’s a short story I wrote in my last year of high school, with a few recent edits. It’s also super disturbing and stuff. I advise you not to read on if you’re easily offended and stuff, mmkay? Love ya…

   The artist in his studio sits down at his easel. He cannot decide how to pose the model. Should she be lying down? Or remain sitting on the chair? Should she part her legs or cross them? Clothed or unclothed? He cannot decide. He thinks he will sketch her in charcoal as she is now; legs firmly glued together, hands primly clasped on her lap, face very unsmiling and solemn for the thin fourteen year old that she is.

   He begins sketching. The lump of charcoal makes scratching noises across the page. She is silent, she has nothing to say. After fifteen minutes of awkward silence, he speaks: “Would you like some tea? No? I am planning to brew a nice cup of chamomile right now, I need a break. Just stay there please, I am not quite finished with you yet.”

   The middle aged artist sighs at the young girl’s taciturn silence and runs an impatient hand through his shoulder length dirty grey hair.

   He goes to the bright buttery yellow kitchen. It is a very cheerful room, the windows by the sink are large and the warm natural sunlight pours in. The stove, oven and refrigerator are modern, cold stainless steel. He fills a kettle with water and puts it on the stove to boil. He hums the first few bars of the overture to “Cosi Fan Tutte” as the water boils over. The kettle sings after a few minutes and the artist picks it up, still humming and pours the water into a mug. He places a packet of chamomile in the mug of hot water and watches as the water turns a clear yellow. It is a pretty colour. It matches the kitchen.

   He is happy. It is a beautiful summer day outside, he is drinking his tea and he has a new subject to paint. He is very happy. He will make the girl’s image immortal in oil paint. Or maybe acrylic? Watercolour just didn’t seem right. Too thin. Perhaps maybe even pastel? No. It has to be paint. He wasn’t quite sure what he wants exactly, but he knows it must be paint.

   He walks slowly back towards the studio, pausing to look at some of his own art hanging in the hall. Mostly landscapes and still lifes, occasionally portraits of young girls. He pauses the longest at the last portrait, done in watercolour paints. The girl is nude and looks about twelve. She is languidly draped across a sofa and her eyes are closed, her mouth open. Her dark hair falls over the armrest her head rests on. Only one arm is visible, resting on her stomach. The painting’s title is scrawled barely legibly underneath on a small and perfectly rectangular piece of white cardboard. “Untitled #3”. She is exquisite.

   “She was exquisite,” the artist thinks to himself.

   He walks on down the hall to his studio. His muse awaits him sitting rather stiffly on the wooden chair. Her blonde hair falls in gentle waves to the middle of her back. Her blue eyes are open and sees only what is ahead of her.

   The artist sets his tea down on a little table beside him where his brushes and paints are. He continues his charcoal sketch and begins to talk.

    “You know, when I saw you there by the subway station, I thought, oh my… an angel! I’ve never seen someone with such a delicate little body like yours… it seems like if I put my hand out and touch your face, you will shatter. You charm me with your sulky silence now. You have me under your spell, little angel. Angel… yes dear, I know that’s not your name, you just look like one. Your blue eyes full of innocence and your lovely golden hair… You’re probably wondering why I am sketching you now, after we have made love twice today. I just want to remember you forever; you are very special to me. The other girls were not quite as innocent as you. Your cries of pleasure are like a chorus of angels singing in the heavens with their harps and lyres. Oh look at that! You are blushing! Oh that is lovely… Twin crimson roses blossoming on your round cheeks, oh my, that is quite, quite lovely…”

   After some more patter and scratching of charcoal on paper, the artist suddenly stands up. He unclips the now finished sketch and flourishes it before the girl’s eyes.

   “My, my look at this, my pretty, look at this! Just look at it! It is your image, in charcoal! I am sorry it does not do true justice to your beauty… Oh you say you like it? You think it is beautiful! My… Oh thank you, thank you very much, I do try so hard to please… And yet, not many people seem to appreciate my work. Yes, yes it is true… There are very few people who truly understand my art. You are one of the elite, select few… My dear, darling child, my angel, let me kiss you once more, let us make love one more time before we must part… Yes dear, I am sorry our time was brief, I truly am. One day, I shall find a way to free you, but meanwhile, we shall have to part soon. What do you say? You feel stiff? Why so do I, but a different kind of stiff my dear, a different kind, heh heh heh. Yes I will carry you to the sofa dearest, angels don’t deserve to touch a dirty floor with their bare white feet.”

   The artist clips the sketch back on his easel. He slowly approaches the girl on the chair and sheds an article of clothing with each step. When he has come within touching distance of the girl, he is already in his briefs. He goes around to the back of the chair.

   The back of the girl’s head is stuck to the chair with dried blood. The artist gently pries her head off the back of the chair. The girl’s head has been smashed with a heavy blunt object in the back. There are clumps of dried blood and brains matted into her blonde hair along with bits of her white shattered skull. The artist takes no notice and cheerfully hums Papageno’s aria from The Magic Flute as he picks up the girl. He cradles her in his arms like a baby. The crotch of his boxers has tented up.

   He walks with the girl in his arms out of the studio and back down the hall. The artist goes through the kitchen and through a large sky blue room which doubles as a dining room and a living room. He gently places the girl on the sofa. Her eyes still stare straight ahead of her and her body is stiff and cold. Her hands are still stiffly clasped together on her lap and the artist pulls them apart. The man impatiently pushes her arms over her head. He unzips and pulls off her short leather skirt and pushes her tank top along with her brassiere over her small developing breasts. He looks down at her, breathing hard, then rips her lacy panties off with his bare hands. The artist pulls down his pants. He is ready, and hears something crack as he forces her legs apart.

   So delicate, he thinks as he thrusts in and out, so delicate, like porcelain.

   They make love.

The Stupid Man Who Lives Downstairs

   For the past six months and a bit, our internet was not secured with a password, simply because our family forgot and we never went more than the limit of gigabytes we had per month, except for once in October we went about 4 gigabytes over and in December, we went 12. I suppose we have no one to blame but ourselves. Heck, we practically just gave the whole damn neighbourhood free internet. 

   My parents (especially dad) flipped when they saw that our household apparently went 12 gigabytes over the limit. Instead of 60 gigabytes, we used up 72. Immediately, my parents called Rogers and got me to translate, because when it comes to internet-y stuff, neither of them have any idea about what they’re talking about (and to be completely honest, neither do I). So after about an hour of conversing with creepy French-Canadian men to try and see how we used up all that internetz and being put on hold, I finally just hung up. I was fed up with those Rogers people, my left shoulder was killing me and I just wanted to torture a small animal. Finally, I simply made a new rogers.ca account for our billing shit. Unfortunately, although I could see how much we were using per day, I could not see who was using it and why. However, I could see how much we had already used this month, which was very nice. 

   My dad had already left for work by then, so my mom called up the stupid man who lives downstairs. We just wanted to let him know that we had used up over 60 gigabytes last month and to be careful, just for in the future and stuff. This ungrateful ass bastard then with this creepy little giggle and smile that refuses to slide off his face goes “are you blaming me? I feel like you’re blaming me for this… hahaha…”

   Oh god, I wanted to punch him in his stupid face.

   First of all, are you paying for the internet? NO! What the fuck are you getting all defensive for? Second of all, stop smiling. Seriously, it’s really fucking creepy because you won’t fucking stop. Third of all, WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK. NO ONE IS FUCKING BLAMING YOU. I DON’T EVEN CARE IF IT WAS A JOKE. IT’S NOT FUNNY.  We’re just nicely telling you “hey, so uh, we went quite a bit over last month, so just kinda be careful in the future, ya know?” We’re not telling you to cough up some money to pay for internetz. I even gave you the password so you could watch your porn and play WoW and whatever else you feel like. Okay? Okay?

   Oh god I still want to punch his face.  

UPDATE:

He moved out a month ago (it is March 20th now) and I forgot to tell you guys. I AM GLAD.