10 memories of my earliest days

Last Humanities class, we had a chance to be in Taylor Mali’s performance show in the library. Taylor Mali was a poet and a teacher. He told us poem was a honest lies. He read his poems he wrote and suggested us to write down 3 earliest memories of each of us. Few went out to the stage and performed. While performing, Taylor Mali advised the performers to have moment for themselves before saying in order to have no non-meaning words, such like ummm.., uhhhh, like... When his meaningful speech was over, he gave us homework to write seven more memories. And they are:

1. I remember drowning like an ant when I was six. Stretching my tiny hand over the surface of water, lifeguard reading his dumb magazine yawning like a hippopotamus. I dashed in the water, which was much slower than in the air, to the ladder and arrogant lifeguard pulled me out as if he had saved my life.

2. I remember having a new shiny bike. How gorgeously and gracefully it went through the woods. How quickly it was stolen!

3. I remember flying a toy plane at the age of 8. A senior boy smashed it and promised getting me a new one. In the cold winter, waiting someone who won’t comeback, I was standing in the middle of the playground.

4. I remember reading Percy Jackson for the first time in my life. It was hard but as much as it was hard, it was fantastic sensation sparking into my eyes.

5. I remember when I was 9, starting school year in Malaysia.

6. I remember planning and preparing to be a cat when I was 3 by wearing cat mask for days.

7. I remember when my aunt got married with a friendly, cheerful man as old as her when I was 9.

8. I remember having first Internet account in my whole life which was fascinating to me.

9. I remember my seventh birthday with a banana cake, which I could never find again and never forget.

10. I remember having nightmares of spies after watching cartoon about spies when I was five.

My Name

My name is Jong Hyun Park. It is based on a Chinese character, and it means “a bell that rings across the world in the morning”. It an also mean bright, glory and similar meanings. As it is based on Chinese, my name can be written in both Korean and Chinese. Usually, most Korean names are based on Chinese characters. Those Chinese names were often created by name specialists, fortunetellers. Therefore, when I was born, my parents took me to a place where a name specialist worked and asked what my name should be. I believe it was a good choice, because I feel very blessed, peaceful when I imagine the meaning of it and when I hear it being called.

Although I like my name and want to use it as often as possible, there is no exact pronunciation for my name in most other languages. Therefore, I use an English nickname, Samuel. My nickname, Samuel, has a interesting behind it, too. When I was seven, my mom was thinking of my English name. She wanted me to have an English name as soon as possible. One day, she bought a baby spoon. On it there was a little bear, and under the bear, there was its name, Sam. After saying it few times, she thought it was a great name and from that moment, I was Sam. I started using Samuel as I got older, when I began to think that Samuel sounded cooler.

Before I was born, my father wanted to name me similar to my mother’s name, Hyun Mi. He wanted to name me Hyun Gi, by only changing the middle name. However, my mother was thinking about my English name. The first name she thought of was Tony, but thanks to the baby spoon, I was named Sam. When I first heard that I was named Tony, it sounded very wild and athletic to me, which is opposite of my real personality. From the time I started to read, I always thought it was cool to have the same name as the ones in books. However, both of my names rarely appeared on any books. I guess I saw my name only in three books, a math book, one story book and another book I was reading lately called Alfred Kropp And the Seal of Solomon. The one that had the same name as me was a man who was trained tough as an agent and who was also a serious person. He didn’t use my name from the very beginning. He was called Operation Nine, but realizes that his name was Samuel when the story gets to climax. I wish I could find more books that have my name in it. In conclusion, I don’t regret having my names, and instead, I find my name really reflects myself.