OPPapers.com

Walking With Angel

A Walk with an Angel
The morning after working all night on the research paper, I find myself ignoring my alarm clocks, rolling in the blanket not wanting to wake up. When I finally open my eyes and gaze at the clock, I see it pointing at 7: 50. The school bus must have left five minutes ago. This means walking 5 blocks to school in the deadly chill of South Dakotan winter. Ever since I came to America as an exchange student, I have been spending each night trying to translate textbook materials and assignments into Korean so it was not an unusual event for me to miss a school bus. But today is different. I see snow piling up outside, and trees dancing to the wind. If I could, I want to skip the school. Then I give up. I remind myself that I came here to study English and learn different culture, so be strong; you’ve got to go to the school.
I grew up in a metropolitan city – Seoul – where too many people were crammed into a small land. Just like any big cities are, everyone was busy doing their work, walking by crimes and injustices happening on the streets in indifference. Around dinner time was when many teenagers were out in the darkness of narrow streets, usually soaked in cigarette smoke, searching for a prey. Six in the afternoon, the usual dinner time for city families with fathers in stable companies, was when my younger sister was dismissed from the kindergarten.
The town of Seoul I lived was an educational district where many prestigious high schools were located. Naturally parents were eager to send their kids to after school academies until very late at night and yes, business was well for my parents who owned an after school academy. It was long after mine and my sister’s bed time when my parents came home. Not surprisingly, I was the one who picked her up. The longest ten minutes walking through the pitch darkness of narrow streets into the warmth of a small apartment happened everyday with an angel right under my arm. It was my duty as a big...