Read Online Desire in Any Language by Anastasia Vitsky - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Anastasia Vitsky
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didn’t understand the conservatism until right now. If the “rod of love” is a way of life, no wonder that girls wear longer skirts. I pray that my skirt covers more than I think it will, and no matter how sharply she brings down the rod I hold still. The tears that began before we started have dried, leaving my cheeks stiff and prickly. I take deep breaths and use the pain to focus. I am important. I am cared for. What I do matters.
It is one of the most painful I have received yet, but this time afterward it is my arms that reach around her first.
“It will be okay?” I ask. She gives me her usual kiss on the top of my head.
“It will. Now sit down and let’s draw up a schedule for completing all of your make-up work.”
I grimace at the word “sit”, but I do as I am told. Gingerly. When she returns the “rod of love” to its place on her desk, I scoot forward in my chair.
“Oni?” I ask, and even though we are at school she nods.
“Thank you.”
Desire Courageous
Ah-ee is annoyed when I reject each offer to go out at night. “You used to be fun,” she complains. She doesn’t understand that she can learn reading a lot faster than I can learn listening comprehension. All she has to do is memorize some vocabulary and correct her spelling. Growing up in a multi-lingual home gave her a fantastic ear for both content and pitch. She sounds like a native speaker when she opens her mouth, and even if she can’t spell half of the words correctly she can figure out the meaning of reading passages if she concentrates very hard on context. I’m not top of my class in reading no matter how hard I work, but it’s the one subject I am sure I will pass. It’s the devilishly difficult listening class that I can’t comprehend.
I stay in the media lab after class every day struggling to match the garbled gobbledygook coming through my headset to the printed transcriptions in my textbook. When each question is designed to deliberately trick us, how can I ever get it right? I memorize the transcripts in a vain attempt to make sense of the words, but the recordings blitz by even when I know the words. I am the first student in the media lab after class and the last to leave. At first the room monitor checks my desk every few minutes to make sure I am not sleeping or messing around, but by the end of the week I arrive to find that she has my usual cubicle ready with my class CD in the player.
“Thank you!” I beam in surprise, and she pats my shoulder.
“Study hard.”
I bring my textbooks with me to the cafeteria to work while eating, and I spill fish soup on the day’s lesson page. At least it misses my homework, but Ah-ee makes fun of me the entire day for smelling like fish.
“You spend so much time with your books that you’re going to turn into one,” she says. “You’ll be a book that can’t eat so someone will have to dump fish soup on you to feed you, and pretty soon you’ll waste away until you’re just a notecard.”
I glare at her, but Lee Sonsengim has already entered the classroom and Pedro pops to his feet to lead the class greeting.
“Good morning!”
“Good morning, everyone. Today we are not going to do the assigned lesson.” Click, click. The perfectly polished shoes stride across the floor as Lee Sonsengnim stands behind his desk. For the first time, he seems almost unsure of himself. He taps his fingers against his leg and then hands Pedro a small stack of papers. Pedro gives each of us a copy. Curious, I examine mine. At the top is a picture of the former president followed by a mass of unfamiliar words.
I nudge Ah-ee. “What does it say?”
“Shh!” she hisses. We’re not supposed to use English in class.
Lee Sonsengnim speaks very clearly and more slowly than usual. I find that I can understand nearly every word if I concentrate very hard.
“Some of you are worried about
It is one of the most painful I have received yet, but this time afterward it is my arms that reach around her first.
“It will be okay?” I ask. She gives me her usual kiss on the top of my head.
“It will. Now sit down and let’s draw up a schedule for completing all of your make-up work.”
I grimace at the word “sit”, but I do as I am told. Gingerly. When she returns the “rod of love” to its place on her desk, I scoot forward in my chair.
“Oni?” I ask, and even though we are at school she nods.
“Thank you.”
Desire Courageous
Ah-ee is annoyed when I reject each offer to go out at night. “You used to be fun,” she complains. She doesn’t understand that she can learn reading a lot faster than I can learn listening comprehension. All she has to do is memorize some vocabulary and correct her spelling. Growing up in a multi-lingual home gave her a fantastic ear for both content and pitch. She sounds like a native speaker when she opens her mouth, and even if she can’t spell half of the words correctly she can figure out the meaning of reading passages if she concentrates very hard on context. I’m not top of my class in reading no matter how hard I work, but it’s the one subject I am sure I will pass. It’s the devilishly difficult listening class that I can’t comprehend.
I stay in the media lab after class every day struggling to match the garbled gobbledygook coming through my headset to the printed transcriptions in my textbook. When each question is designed to deliberately trick us, how can I ever get it right? I memorize the transcripts in a vain attempt to make sense of the words, but the recordings blitz by even when I know the words. I am the first student in the media lab after class and the last to leave. At first the room monitor checks my desk every few minutes to make sure I am not sleeping or messing around, but by the end of the week I arrive to find that she has my usual cubicle ready with my class CD in the player.
“Thank you!” I beam in surprise, and she pats my shoulder.
“Study hard.”
I bring my textbooks with me to the cafeteria to work while eating, and I spill fish soup on the day’s lesson page. At least it misses my homework, but Ah-ee makes fun of me the entire day for smelling like fish.
“You spend so much time with your books that you’re going to turn into one,” she says. “You’ll be a book that can’t eat so someone will have to dump fish soup on you to feed you, and pretty soon you’ll waste away until you’re just a notecard.”
I glare at her, but Lee Sonsengim has already entered the classroom and Pedro pops to his feet to lead the class greeting.
“Good morning!”
“Good morning, everyone. Today we are not going to do the assigned lesson.” Click, click. The perfectly polished shoes stride across the floor as Lee Sonsengnim stands behind his desk. For the first time, he seems almost unsure of himself. He taps his fingers against his leg and then hands Pedro a small stack of papers. Pedro gives each of us a copy. Curious, I examine mine. At the top is a picture of the former president followed by a mass of unfamiliar words.
I nudge Ah-ee. “What does it say?”
“Shh!” she hisses. We’re not supposed to use English in class.
Lee Sonsengnim speaks very clearly and more slowly than usual. I find that I can understand nearly every word if I concentrate very hard.
“Some of you are worried about
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