Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

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  • Prompt 51

    What skills or lessons have you learned recently?

    You can be firm and still be nice. It is easy to seem, but it requires learning how to do it, especially in a work setting. Working at a big, busy personal injury firm, I have learned how to speak and write effectively in acquiring information and obtaining documents courteously and friendly. 😎

    Dealing with law enforcement for police-related reports and medical providers for confidential medical records has improved my interpersonal communication skills. I used to have butterflies when speaking to people, not to mention the police. Still, since my duties involve direct communication with them daily for our clients, I have chased off those butterflies and gained confidence in speaking in public. Still, one thing is to be overcome, which is to interact with those who are quick-tempered and callous. 🤨

    Shakespeare said life is a play, our world is a stage, and we are the actors and actresses of the play. That said, I should be a good actress in performing my role beautifully with fittingly chosen lines to keep my composure still and demeanor professional.⭐️🌼🧚‍♀️

  • Prompt 50

    What cities do you want to visit?

    Cities are a symbol of civilization and well of culture. It’s cosmopolitan and utilitarian in that all social classes mingle and become a parliament of humanity. I prefer cities to the lesser versions of human dwellings because of these reasons, and there are cities I want to visit on my bucket list.

    Rome – Built by the Rolumus and Lemus, bred by a wolf mother, Rome was an eternal city with boundaries stretching from the east and the west, the North and the south. All roads led to Rome, and I want to walk down the same streets that ancient Romans trod upon with their own stories. So much so that Edgar Allen Poe summarized Rome thus: “The glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.” People say that today’s Rome is nothing like ancient Rome, but they don’t see that the place memories enveloping the city’s aura are lingering, affecting the minds of the people living or visiting there. Thousand years have passed, but the spirit of the place is immortal.

    Vatican City – My primary purpose will be seeing Michelangelo’s magnum opus on the ceilings of the Sistine Chapel. Reading Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King has egged me on to witness the magnum force of art as a manifestation of the ideal appreciated by the faculty of the mind affected by imagination. It would have been much more wonderful to visit Vatican City when Pope John Paul Second was the Bishop of Rome.

    Other cities have histories of millennium years, but Rome and Vatican City still exist with vivacity and alacrity. They may be crowded, expensive, and trivialized, but they were, have been, and will be so in posterity. This also makes me think that our posterity might feel the same way about the places where we live now. Hence are my wishful cities. 🧚‍♀️⭐️🌍

  • Prompt 49

    Tell us one thing you hope people say about you.

    That which an ordinary good employee is a fit, I am described. And the good of me is reliability, punctuality, and diligence, which my boss highly regards.

    What with being the eldest child and having a natural tendency to attend to the needs of those in need, I am caring and sympathetic. Also, I can easily empathize with others, especially their sorrow, which brings tears to my eyes in one fell swoop.

    Thucydides, the ancient Greek soldier turned historian, defined hope as nothing more than an awareness of odds in your favor. Since I have heard the above-referenced compliments, I hope to hear from people that I am also outwardly beautiful with eyes of remarkable brilliance that rivet the whole countenance, beautifying even the slightest infelicity of other facial features. No, I wish no Helen of Troy with a face that launches a thousand ships, but I hope to hear that I am also outwardly beautiful. This hope is from the truth of my heart.

  • Prompt 48

    Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.

    Toro Then 🌸

    I can never forget the first time I adopted my first cat, Toro, from an animal shelter when I moved from New Jersey to California in 2018.

    I still remember the first day I saw Toro, who was nine weeks old, at Ventura Animal Shelter in Camarillo, CA, where I lived for the first time in California. They say it’s not you who chooses your cat; your cat chooses you. It is only true because when my brother and I approached the sheltered cats, Toro came to us with his tiny paw, trying to touch our fingers through the compartment’s opening. He was playful, curious, and affectionate. While waiting for my brother to finish the adoption process inside, I could never forget Toro’s eyes becoming curiouser and curiouser at me from the cardboard carrier, full of wonder about the new world.

    I still treasure the first time I met Toro, now three years old. I feel his little heart when he climbs on my back and shoulder, and I am glad it’s not a dream. 🌻💕💫🧚‍♀️

    Toro Now 🌼

    P.S. Something went wrong with my prompt posted earlier today; it was uploaded but then disappeared 🤨 Hence, this is a repost of today’s daily prompt. Sorry for the readers whose likes went with the post🐱

  • ‘Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard’ by Ben Crystal -book review

    Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard by Ben Crystal

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    During my undergraduate years as an English major at Rutgers, Shakespeare wasn’t my favorite figure of English literature. He seemed overly hyped and scholarly to tax the enjoyment of the simple pleasure of reading. The impression of the Bard has mellowed, but he’s in the upper caste in the constellation of writers. Crystal wrote the book with me and other kindred spirits in mind.


    Shakespeare wasn’t a stuffy academic writer whose ambition was to imprint indelible footprints in the path of humankind. Instead, he was a playwright, a modern-day screenwriter who was more interested in attracting audiences to his plays as much as possible. His characters are timeless and boundless, transpiring in every human face from all races and cultures because they are universal. The plays are dramatic portrayals of what it is to be human. King Lear, played by a Korean veteran actor, begets the same level of emotions as his English peer has demonstrated because it is the heart that spurs the mind to speak.


    Crystal is a knowledgeable writer who wears his knowledge on the subject from the studies lightly with the general public in mind. His endeavor to bring the figure of the literary giant is magnanimously noble and altruistic. Perhaps Crystal might have been the one who was disaffected with those elitist writers and pedantic academics claiming Shakespeare as one of their own, only to be appreciated by the literati. In sum, if you are interested in reading Shakespeare for the first time or discovering who he was, this book is a commendable read and a good primer for further reading about his plays and more.


    View all my reviews

  • Prompt 47

    Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?

    Although I never performed or gave a speech on stage, in middle school and college, I recited poems – I forgot the titles – as class assignments and received applause from the audiences. I still remember the smiles of my English professor applauding me upon reciting a poem in the classroom, a 400-level seminar class at Rutgers. 🤓

    Being an introvert means keeping things in graceful stealth. 🐱 That said, I prefer writing to express myself, however poor it may be. (BTW, Kurt Vonnegut encouraged us to practice an art, no matter how well or poorly, to make our soul grow. ) I like writing letters to editors of the magazines from which I enjoyed reading particular articles. Several letters have been printed in such magazines, such as BBC History Revealed and BBC Wildlife. I think it’s a great way of communicating your thoughts in writing because, unlike speaking it carries the mind and heart of the writer.

    In retrospect, I do not covet the extroverted and their penchant for being visible in public. Of course, not all extroverted people are pompous wannabe celebrities, but many of them pretend to be what they are not, and I can see it so well from their aura that it becomes vexing ad nauseam. Anyway, these are my private performances that became public. 🌼