Timed Writing

Good teachers are the ones who make the students speak up their ideas. Of course teaching partly is passing on the knowledge to the pupils, but more important part of teaching is making the individual students speak up their ideas.

Gaining knowledge is crucial part of education but it is not the main focus of education. The main focus of education should be to making the students a better person, and only by giving them more chance to show what they have in mind will teachers begin the process of making them a better individual. Some teachers try to pass on what they have, and are not good at accepting the ideas of the students, but when that happens, students become something of a paper to record the knowledge of the teacher. Therefore Giving ideas are not enough. Students should be able to show and reflect what they learned from the teacher and by doing so teacher can have access to the mind of each student. When students express what they have in mind they can show to the teacher what their principles are and teacher can share the insight they have gained through longer life experience and better knowledge.

Good education should be based on bilateral relationship of the student and the teacher. Teachers pass on what they can give to their pupils, and students in return give the teacher their thoughts and ideas, then again teachers based on what students’ ideas, provide necessary education. This should be an ongoing process that takes time. The key to make this possible is an openness and willingness of the teacher to accept and listen to what students think and says.

My favorite teacher is Mrs. O’connor who was my ESL teacher when I went to U.S at the age of ten. When I moved to U.S fourteen years ago, I knew nothing. All I could say was “hi” and “goodbye”. My father had to go to U.S in a hurry so I didn’t have any time to prepare English. I still remember my first day at school like it was just yesterday. I went to the classroom filled with American kids and they asked me many questions but I couldn’t answer any of them. However, Mrs. O’connor came to my rescue on the very first day of the school. She sat next to me and slowly but clearly started to explain what the kids were asking and I slowly yet clearly began to answer the questions. With her help I could avoid fear of foreign language and actually love English.

She was greatly skilled ESL teacher, and my fast improving English was a fine evidence, however that is not the only reason I remember her as my favorite teacher. She was a great and humble person, and she would always open her mind to me so I can speak up my ideas. I was a little kid who had hard time trying to adjust to a new life and language, but I could talk to her with out fear of speaking wrong English. At first all I could say was simple words such as “happy” or “sad”, but soon I actually begin to talk to her. I knew that she would always listen to me, and that she would always react to my words, so I could pour out my thoughts to her even with my short English. After a year under her education, my English was good enough to talk to the kids in school with out any difficulty and when I moved to N.Y, the school there decided not to provide any ESL programs for me since my English was too good for ESL. Even today, people ask me how long I lived in U.S, and they are surprised whenever I tell them four years, because they usually think at least ten years due to my English. I could have improved so much in a rather short time because of Mrs. O’connor’s openness and love to listen and interact with me. English became important part of my life and I thank Mrs. O’connor for this.

Reading Log

'Swaddling Clothes' was a great story to read. I could actually picture every scene of the story because its depiction of the characters and each scene was done with careful detail. When I can make a movie in my mind with the help from the writing, it's just so much more fun than watching an actual movie.In the short time of reading the story, my understanding of Toshiko was completely altered from "what?" to "Oh.." At the beginning I could not understand why she had to make such a big deal of the baby in the newspaper. Her premonition felt like a cheap movie. However, when I finished reading, I could agree with her anxiety. The new born baby wrapped in the newspaper was an incident that stayed in her. To her husband it was just an incident that would go away with a joke, but to Toshiko it stayed. Usually incidents just come and go, but some of them remain vividly in our minds. It would be good if what stays is good, but to Toshiko it was almost a fear. What's even worse for her is that fear shows its face at the end. I also have incidents that stayed, and it was all good so far. I hope what comes in the future also is good, not like Toshiko's.

Final Draft

Joseph Kim
December. 27. 2006
Final Draft

The Sensitive Mind

“Swaddling Clothes” was an interesting short story because of its strong and clear depiction of the main character Toshiko, and how the story was formed on Toshiko’s unique character. “Swaddling Clothes” by Mishima Yukio is a story of a sensitive young woman Toshiko who witnesses the birth of her nurse’s illegitimate baby at her own house and sees the maltreatment the baby received at the very beginning of his life when he was wrapped in a blood stained newspaper and laid on the cold floor by doctor and nurses. His life was evidently shattered from the beginning. Toshiko is gravely shocked by this incident as she sees the contrast of the illegitimate baby and her own child who is wrapped in nice swaddling clothes and sleeping comfortably on a warm bed. Toshiko takes what happened to the illegitimate baby seriously and starts to engage her every thought to the poor baby. The incident of the illegitimate baby could have been just a passing event, but Toshiko’s extremely sensitive personality magnifies it to the point of overwhelming her.

Toshiko is a very sensitive woman. The author clearly points it out by saying Toshiko is oversensitive and that she is always worrying (132). Just from these depictions of Toshiko, it is easy to imagine the sensitivity of her character. Being sensitive does not always have negative meaning, since it can give a person acute sense and feelings. However, this was not the case for Toshiko. Evidently the sensitiveness became a snare to her because the constant worrying made her thin and pale which made her look like a transparent picture (132). When a person is too sensitive, that person is very likely to be overly negative and cautious towards everything, and unfortunately this was the character of Toshiko’s sensitiveness.

The incident of the illegitimate baby was a little anecdote for many people but it engraved in to Toshiko. When the nurse’s baby was born, it was not an ordinary way to give birth to a new life, for there were no proper settings for laboring and she literally squatted on the floor (133). This was not an everyday incident and was a unique event for Toshiko’s husband and many others. When Toshiko and her husband were at the night club, the incident of the illegitimate baby’s birth becomes a laughable “fantastic story” (133) for her husband and people who were listening. They make jokes about the mother and the illegitimate baby, making the incident a little anecdote for the night. However, Toshiko thinks and feels differently. She is disgusted by her husband’s jokes about the illegitimate baby and feels that the scene of the birth would rather fit at the butcher shop (133). This shows how differently she reacted to the incident when compared with other people. The nurse’s baby was indeed given birth with out any blessings, but Toshiko takes it more personal than others and dreads what happened.

Not only was Toshiko too personal with the incident of the illegitimate baby, she also builds unneeded guilt with her sensitive mind. When the illegitimate baby was born, Toshiko kindly helped the baby by wrapping him in a nice clothes and giving him a good place to rest (133). She is actually the good one in the scene of the unfortunate birth. However, this good deed of Toshiko does not comfort herself for she feels too personal about the baby’s birth. She thinks that she is the only one who witnessed the shameful birth of the illegitimate baby (133). This is taking the fact too sentimentally and sensitively. It is not true to feel that she was the sole witness, for the doctor and nurses were there at the scene of the birth too. Toshiko’s gesture was the kindest among the people who were at the site of the birth, but her sensitive mind makes her fixate on the negative factors and she only feels the guilt of being there and witnessing the birth of the illegitimate baby. This is truly sad because Toshiko deserves reward not guilt. However, she is too sensitive to give herself a room for relief.

With unfounded guilt and unsettling mind about the incident of the illegitimate baby, Toshiko makes the impact of the incident even bigger by imagining the harsh future of the illegitimate baby and actually believing it. Toshiko engages every thought to what happened to the illegitimate baby, and after certain point she starts to think about the baby’s future. Again, the sensitive mind of Toshiko’s pays its toll by giving her the premonition of the terrible future that lies before the illegitimate baby. She thinks that the blood stained newspaper will be the “symbol of the baby’s life” (134). She imagines the future of the baby as if it was already meant to be and thinks that someday the baby will come to hurt Toshiko’s own child (134). Even worse, she reminds herself that she will take the place of her child when the illegitimate baby returns to hurt her child (134). This imagination is not even worth a cheap thriller novel, because Toshiko deserves gratitude from the illegitimate baby not revenge. She is the one who lifted the baby up from the cold and wet newspaper to the warm swaddling clothes. Unfortunately, her negatively sensitive mind makes her hard to see the positive truth.

When Toshiko begins to imagine the future of the baby, the incident of the illegitimate baby already took over Toshiko. She is not thinking clearly anymore, and when she sees the man sleeping on the bench, her mind grabs on him as if he was the final stage to all her worries, guilt and negative imagination. The man on the bench was just a regular person, but Toshiko’s sensitive mind gives negative definition to who he is by thinking that he is the “concrete form” (136) of the premonition of the baby’s future. When Toshiko’s mind reaches this point, it already overwhelmed her. She can not tell the difference between truth and imagination. The sensitive mind of Toshiko actually made her numb.

Toshiko is a good person. She is kind enough to give the baby proper care he needed after the birth. While others were cursing him with blood stained newspaper, she had the heart to provide the baby with comfortable swaddling clothes. However, her kind heart is overshadowed by her overly sensitive mind. She engages every thought of the illegitimate baby in a negative way while there was no need for that. When the negatively sensitive mind takes Toshiko to extreme, the incident of the illegitimate baby was no more a mere passing event. It devoured her.

Draft 2

Joseph Kim
2006.12.13
Draft 2

“Swaddling Clothes” caught my attention with its strong and clear depiction of the main character Toshiko, and how the story was formed on Toshiko’s unique character. “Swaddling Clothes” by Mishima Yukio is a story of a sensitive young woman Toshiko who witnesses the birth of her nurse’s illegitimate baby at her own house and sees the maltreatment the baby received at the very beginning of his life when he was wrapped in a blood stained newspaper and laid on the cold floor by doctor and nurses. His life was evidently shattered from the beginning. Toshiko is gravely shocked by this incident as she sees the contrast of the illegitimate baby and her own child who is wrapped in nice swaddling clothes and sleeping comfortably on a warm bed. Toshiko takes what happened to the illegitimate baby seriously and starts to engage everything to the poor baby. The incident of the illegitimate baby could have been just a passing event, but Toshiko’s extremely sensitive personality magnifies it to the point of overwhelming her.

Toshiko is a very sensitive woman. The author clearly points it out by saying Toshiko is oversensitive and that she is always worrying (132). Just from these depictions of Toshiko, it is easy to imagine the sensitiveness of her character. Being sensitive does not always have negative meaning, since it can give a person acute sense and feelings. However, this was not the case for Toshiko. Evidently the sensitiveness became a snare to her because the constant worrying made her thin and pale which made her look like a transparent picture (132). When a person is too sensitive, that person is very likely to be overly negative and cautious towards everything, and unfortunately this was the character of Toshiko’s sensitiveness.

The incident of the illegitimate baby was a little anecdote for many people but it engraved in to Toshiko. When the nurse’s baby was born, it was not an ordinary way to give birth to a new life, for there were no proper settings for laboring and she literally squatted on the floor (133). This was not an everyday incident and was a unique event for Toshiko’s husband and many others. When Toshiko and her husband were at the night club, the incident of the illegitimate baby’s birth becomes a laughable “fantastic story” (133) for her husband and people who were listening. They make jokes about the mother and the illegitimate baby, making the incident a little anecdote for the night. However, Toshiko thinks and feels differently. She is disgusted by her husband’s jokes about the illegitimate baby and feels that the scene of the birth would rather fit at the butcher shop (133). This shows how differently she reacted to the incident when compared with other people. The nurse’s baby was indeed given birth with out any blessings, but Toshiko takes it more personal than others and dreads what happened.

Not only was Toshiko too personal with the incident of the illegitimate baby, she also builds unneeded guilt with her sensitive mind. When the illegitimate baby was born, Toshiko kindly helped the baby by wrapping him in a nice clothes and giving him a good place to rest (133). She is actually the good one in the scene of the unfortunate birth. However, this good deed of Toshiko does not comfort herself for she feels too personal about the baby’s birth. She thinks that she is the only one who witnessed the shameful birth of the illegitimate baby (133). This is taking the fact too sentimentally and sensitively. It is not true to feel that she was the sole witness, for the doctor and nurses were there at the scene of the birth too. Toshiko’s gesture was the kindest among the people who were at the site of the birth, but her sensitive mind makes her fixate on the negative factors and she only feels the guilt of being there and witnessing the birth of the illegitimate baby. This is truly sad because Toshiko deserves reward not guilt. However, she is too sensitive to give herself a room for relief.

With unfounded guilt and unsettling mind about the incident of the illegitimate baby, Toshiko makes the impact of the incident even bigger by imagining the harsh future of the illegitimate baby and actually believing it. Toshiko engages every thought to what happened to the illegitimate baby, and after certain point she starts to think about the baby’s future. Again, the sensitive mind of Toshiko’s pays its toll by giving her the premonition of the terrible future that lies before the illegitimate baby. She thinks that the blood stained newspaper will be the “symbol of the baby’s life” (134). She imagines the future of the baby as if it was already meant to be and thinks that someday the baby will come to hurt Toshiko’s own child (134). Even worse, she reminds herself that she will take the place of her child when the illegitimate baby returns to hurt her child (134). This imagination is not even worth a cheap thriller novel, because Toshiko deserves gratitude from the illegitimate baby not revenge. She is the one who lifted the baby up from the cold and wet newspaper to the warm swaddling clothes. Unfortunately, her negatively sensitive mind makes her hard to see the positive truth.

When Toshiko begins to imagine the future of the baby, the incident of the illegitimate baby already took over Toshiko. She is not thinking clearly anymore, and when she sees the man sleeping on the bench, her mind grabs on him as if he was the final stage to all her worries, guilt and negative imagination. The man on the bench was just a regular person, but Toshiko’s sensitive mind gives negative definition to who he is by thinking that he is the “concrete form” (136) of the premonition of the baby’s future. When Toshiko’s mind reaches this point, it already overwhelmed her. She can not tell the difference between truth and imagination. The sensitive mind of Toshiko actually made her numb.

Toshiko is a good person. She is kind enough to give the baby proper care he needed after the birth. While others were cursing him with blood stained newspaper, she had the heart to provide the baby with comfortable swaddling clothes. However, her kind heart is overshadowed by her overly sensitive mind. She engages every thought of the illegitimate baby in a negative way while there was no need for that. When the negatively sensitive mind takes Toshiko to extreme, the incident of the illegitimate baby was no more a mere passing event. It devoured her.

Draft 1

Joseph Kim
Draft 1

Among the number of stories we read in the class, “Swaddling Clothes” by Mishima Yukio was the most interesting story. The main reason that made “Swaddling Clothes” so attractive was its strong and clear depiction of the main character Toshiko, and how the story was formed on Toshiko’s unique characteristic. Her sensitive character allows the incident of the baby wrapped in the newspaper to grab her by guilt and gradually turns it into fear which becomes a real figure in the end.

Toshiko is a very sensitive woman. This is told in the beginning of the story where the author clearly states Toshiko as “oversensitive since girlhood.” In the first part of the story, Toshiko is depicted as a woman who is sensitive by nature and who looks more like a transparent picture than a flesh and blood. This is sufficient enough to show that she is not an easy going person, but someone with acute sense and feelings. Such character of Toshiko is combined with her husband’s indifferent attitude towards her to add loneliness in her. This sets a perfect background for the readers to understand her reaction to the baby wrapped in the newspaper.

The incident of the illegitimate baby was more than just a simple happening to Toshiko. It actually leaves her such a strong impact that she felt the scene of the incident would rather fit in the butchershop. She was disgusted with how the doctor treated the new born child and was kind enough wrap the baby in a new clothe and place him in the comfort. However, what needs to be noticed is that Toshiko’s action was not from kindness or sympathy, but from her guilt.

This can be seen where Toshiko is deeply burdened by the fact that she is the only one who knows what happened at the baby’s unfortunate birth. She does not seem to be bothered about the baby itself, rather she is uncomfortable for seeing the incident and being a part of the scene. She is not sympathetic for the baby, but she is caught with guilt for seeing what didn’t fit with her.

In author’s own words, Toshiko is an oversensitive woman. The guilt of witnessing the birth of the illegitimate baby carved her mind so deep that she starts to build fear on it. She sits back pressed by guilt in the taxi and starts to think of what could happen in twenty years. This imagination seems out of place, but for Toshiko it is more than real. Her premonition of the grown up illegitimate baby killing her son with a knife overwhelms her, and she decides to take her son’s place when that happens. Toshiko seems to be confused with reality from imagination. She observes the imagination as if they were unavoidable truth. This anxiety leads her to determine the illegitimate baby’s future as desolate, hopeless and poverty-stricken existence. Such thoughts are only unfounded imagination of Toshiko’s, but the more she sinks into it the more fearful it becomes for her.

Toshiko’s unsettling mind drives her to take a late night walk in the park. This is not her ordinary routine, but she was already not her ordinary self. The unfounded guilt and fear was too much of a burden for Toshiko, so she could not go back home where it all started. However, the park was another place for Toshiko to feel the same guilt and fear as she looked at the waste papers being kicked around. The incident of the illegitimate baby followed her everywhere and change of location was of no help. Rather, the guilt and fear becomes a real figure when Toshiko encounters the young man on the bench. At other times, this man would have been just another homeless person, but to Toshiko he was the real figure of her guilt and fear, and was the ultimate conclusion of the illegitimate baby. The homeless man wakes up in a surprise and attacks Toshiko, but she is not afraid at all for it was what she has been expecting since the incident. All she told herself was that the twenty years came earlier than expected.

Toshiko didn’t need to feel guilty or afraid of what happened to the poor baby. After all, she actually helped the baby by wrapping him up in clean swaddling clothes. However, despite what is obvious in the common sense, the incident was too powerful for a sensitive woman like Toshiko to handle. What was a laughable incident for her husband, was a matter of life and death for Toshiko. Her acute and sensitive characteristic makes what could have been just “and incident” in to “the incident” for Toshiko.

Cover Letter

The most valuable lesson I learned through English Writing Class is the importance of writing. We live in a time where writing became something of a task, because of all the visual merits and simpler ways of communication we gained through technology. Writing a simple letter now turned in to something of an old fashion due to e-mail and text message. We even feel special when someone gives us a hand written letter. However, this does not mean writing is less valuable, rather it means writing is more precious than ever. Only through writing can one reflect true self and this is not easy with any other means of communication, and this Writing Class proved this and gave me a chance to experience the value of writing.

Through the whole process of writing the essay, I learned that writing is the perfect tool for expressing my self because it not only shows my thoughts and feelings; it also helps me to organize what I have in my head and in my heart. As I worked on my essay, I had hard time with finding the right way to express my feelings and thoughts with letters. I could say it, but it was not easy to spell it out. After writing the first draft it took me quite a long time to finish the second draft because it was simply too hard. However, I did finish the second draft and I was personally happy with the result. It showed how I felt about the story and how I thought about it. It was certainly not the best, but I was satisfied with how I expressed myself with my essay. After the second draft the final draft was actually easy to finish.

The “Sensitive Mind” is the final result of my whole process. It is not perfect, but it is very important to me because I learned the value of writing through the process of writing this essay.

Joe's writing portfolio

My name is Joseph Kim. I am Korean and I lived in USA for close to 5 years. The times I spent in America helped me gain English as my second language and untill this day I enjoy and thank God for my ability to write and speak English. I am currently a senior at Fudan law school, and for a foreigner studying Chinese law is certainly a challenge but I try to enjoy it.

I like writing. I never knew I liked to express myself on paper until the spring of 2000, when I got A+ for my wiriting on War and Peace during my exchange student program in Concord New Hampshire. It was a writing about Korean War and how it affected the lives and minds of Koreans. When the teacher told me that my writing was "clear and touching", I was thrilled to know that my writing actually moved someone's heart. Since then, writing ws no more a mystery to me. I love drawing, and to me writing is another form of drawing. On a blank sheet of paper I express my ideas fully without any limitations.

In this class I plan to write about the characters of the stories I have read so far. They were all short stories, and I feel short stories have tendency to create characters that are more dramatic and sensitive. For example, Toshiko in "Swaddling Clothes" was an abundant source for me to write about prejudice and incidents in our lives that catches our hearts.

I am no professional writer, but I hope the readers can get a glimpse of who I am and what my values are through my writing.