Season favorites?

Blooming flowers, bikini sales, snowboarding, or trench coat season. What would you choose? For me, growing up in a summer climate all year long, I got used to the warm weather, buzzling aircons, eating ice-creams to fresh my dry mouth, wearing bikinis and enjoy my tanned skin. I guess my body got used to the climate here on this small island, where I grew up in and I have a hard time adjusting to a cold weather during winter times whenever I go out to Korea during winter. I dislike winter the most because.....makes my back hurts because I cringe my body from the cold weather and distracts my growing rhyme. Cuz you know....I need to grow more to become Miss Universe!!! yeah!!! well im just kidding but I simply hate the cold weather. Summer and Spring would be my top choice of seasonal favorites because it helps me keep my body not tense up and I can just enjoy my daily activity without any haste because of the coldness. I honestly have no idea what I’m typing on this blog, but I’m just doing it as a stream-of-consciousness style to help me finish this topic. I like ice-creams therefore, summer and technically spring is my favorite season. You don’t see many people walking around, eating ice-creams during winter time....well maybe not those who I know of but seems more sane if I eat ice-cream during summer time than winter time. Also, summer and spring is more convenient to go out on a date with your boyfriend than winter because personally for me, I do not want to go out of my house during winter time. Out in the cold, freezing and unsafe world.....when I could just stay in my bed, enjoy snuggled up to my bed-sheet, watching a movie while eating hot chicken noodle soup or something.....yeah... I honestly don’t know what the heck I am talking about.......I feel sorry for whoever is reading this and I apologize for it. But why are you reading it anyways? I’ve always wondered who those people were that visit my blog from southeast asia, Russia, Europe, Africa, etc. Who are they? Always makes me curious and how did they stumble upon my blog in the first place? Wow I’m going off topic like seriously. So back to my topic...favorite season.....yes. I have decided to stick with summer and spring. I shall make my body gorgeous in the future and wear a proper bikini. hehe. fo sizzles. Well, that’s all I have for now folks. I really don’t feel like writing but I have def. made up my mind to categorize summer and spring as my two favorite seasons in my agenda. 

Dear mom

Dear mom,

It is with great sorrow and regret that I am writing this letter to you. You know I’ve always followed your wishes, grew up as a women whom people can respect me, love me and look up to me. Remember that one time when I asked you what I should be when I grow up? Well, I think I’ve found that answer now. I want to be a wonderful wife. I had decided to leave with my new boyfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with you and dad. I’ve been finding real passion and love with Simon and he is so nice-even with all his piercings, tattoos, beard, and his motorcycle/hippie clothes. But it’s not only the passion mom. I’m pregnant and Simon said that he will take care of me and we will be very happy. He already owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole winter. He wants to have many, many more children with me and that’s now one of my dreams too. Simon taught me that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone and we’ll be growing it for us in our backyard and trading it with his friends for all the cocaine and ice we want. In meantime, we’ll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS/STDs so Simon can get better, because mom, he really deserves it. He is a great guy. You’ll love him when you meet him someday. Don’t worry my sweet mother. I’m old enough now and I know how to take care of myself. Someday we’ll come back as a happy family to visit you and dad so you can get to know your grandchildren. 

Your precious daughter, M.J.J

Dear sweet mother, non of the above is true....I’m over at my neighbor’s house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than my ridiculously low report card grade that’s in top of your desk. I love you! Please call me when it is safe for me to come home. 

Ivan Denisovich

Finding and appreciating pleasure to simple happiness in life is hard to find in this fast pacing digital society in which we live in. Especially in time’s most troubling moments. Some people work particularly hard in order to take mind off of things, others spend time with friends, while some of us find comfort in our favorite books. Never before I had read something like One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. This book set in Soviet labor camp in the 1950s, in an unspecified region of Siberia, describes a single day of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. Never before, the Stalinist repression been openly distributed which makes this book even more shocking and refreshing.

The book starts off with a worker waking up to a pounding hammer on a rail outside. Readers slowly register the setting as a prison camp. The prisoners are forced to work in uncountable conditions. Days are long, tasks are arduous, and prisoners are treated with injustice of cruel Soviet bureaucracy. Ivan Denisovich (the main character) was captured during World War II has been sentenced to ten years of prison after being accused of spying for the Germans. He is innocent, but is still being punished by the Soviet government. 

The author’s style of description is what shocked me the most. Vivid, explicitly written conditions exceed beyond our imagination. The working conditions at the camp are unbelievable, as temperatures rarely exceed over -20 degrees Celsius, the prisoners barely have enough clothes to keep them alive in extreme environments and are given only small amounts of inedible lukewarm “portage” mixed with water, potato chunks, and fish bones. Their personal belongings are taken away from them and is replaced with random numbers. To say that the life in the camp is difficult is overly underestimated. 

Due to the camp’s reckless environment, many of the men have lowered themselves, gave up their dignity and pride for survival. To keep themselves from going absolutely insane. Each prisoners have lost their hope, spending everyday like zombies, unnoticed. However, despite all the torment and turbulence these men face everyday, many of them find peace, joy and happiness in the given environment. I find it remarkable that those men, treated less than animals can go to bed at the end of the day and feel fortunate that they are still there, breathing in presence. 

The conclusion of the book shows Ivan Denisovich lying in bed rethinking about the day that he’s been through, thankful for all the small things that he has been blessed with which helped him smile in such extreme environment. This book helped me understand that even the simplest pleasure can bring happiness and joy no matter what or where the circumstances are, but it all depends on the perspective and attitude of the person. It reminded me that being appreciative and thankful for the simplest things can make my darkest days or even my brightest days, just a little bit better.