It was the spring of 2012, when I was in 5th grade. I had not been able to speak English freely with other people since I had come back to Korea the year before. I was looking for a place where I could use English as much as I want, searching for other people like me.
One day, my mother asked me a very weird question. She asked ‘What do you think about living away from your dad and I for a month?’. At first I was surprised and a little bit nervous, since I was worried my parents might drop me off somewhere, maybe in the middle of nowhere. I was relieved when I found out they had found a place for me to use English, which was the GLPS camp in KMLA. Now that I think of it, my parents did drop me in the middle of nowhere, at a school on a hill.
I loved what I learned during camp and the English only policy so much that I had a hard time waiting for a year to pass. Sometimes I would think about the memories I made with my fellow classmates and imagine what it would be like when I went to camp again.
Finally, a year passed and I went to camp again when I was in 6th grade. But this time, instead of dreaming of going to camp again, I started to dream of life at KMLA as a student of the school. Instead of spending the month at camp chit chatting with my friends I started to ask my PAs and TAs about school life at KMLA.
Another year passed and I went to camp again , this time because I had received a scholarship from the previous one. As I spent the summer I decided to set getting into KMLA as my goal since I wanted to spend my school life like how I lived during camp, and I managed my grades and prepared to enter KMLA.
Maybe it was because of my dreams of school life at KMLA, I do not know, but miraculously I was accepted into KMLA. I couldn’t believe I was going to my dream school. I was so excited that on the night before entering the dorm I could barely sleep.
My first few weeks at KMLA were fantastic. It was similar to what I had thought and since it was still orientation time I was able to make lots of friends from all over the country. That is, until we started morning exercise.
Before entering KMLA, I had watched a documentary about school life in KMLA. In the documentary students were able to get up easily and did not look so tired. However, as we started morning exercise the students started to turn in to zombies, and I was able to realize that school life might not be as easy as I had thought.
Two months into my life at KMLA, my fantasies of school life have disappeared. Yes, I do still love my life here but, it does seem a lot different from what I had imagined before. John from ‘By The Waters of Babylon’ also seemed to realize the truth about the gods just like I realized what I imagined about life at KMLA was not exactly true. Just like how John found out that the gods were just people from the past I found out that the KMLA students are spending their time as typical Korean teenagers. Following the English only policy is not fitting well with them, and they might even sell their soul to the devil if they could skip morning exercise without getting any penalties.
Now, whenever I see a teacher I pretend to follow the English only policy. I sleep wearing the Kendo uniform not to be late for morning exercise with tissues in my nose to stop nosebleeds. Nevertheless, I can bear all difficulties since I am dreaming the next fantasy of mine. It doesn’t matter if it disappears again later like it does here at KMLA when I enter that fantasy island.
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