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

Tag: bloganuary

  • Prompt 87

    List five things you do for fun.

    First, I will call it a “leisurely” instead of a “fun” thing. Since Virginia Woolf said, “If you are losing your leisure, you will lose your soul,” these are the five leisurely things I do to refresh my fogged brain and stifled spirit at work and home:

    1. Writing prompts – It’s refreshing to unwind a stressed mind when jotting down short flights of thoughts and images captured in daily prompts, such as I am doing now during my lunchtime in the office.

    2. Decorating my diary and notebook – I like my writing accompanied by images, so my notes are filled with words, stickers, stamps, and drawings. I love cute stationery stuff to make my diary and notebook pretty.

    3. Coloring – I like coloring figures, such as fairies, flowers, cats, and other pretty things, using coloring pencils. The coloring activity takes off the worries and other malaise of daily life.

    4. Playing with my cats – Freud says the time spent with cats is never wasted. Indeed so. They are so adorable to play with when I am home. I don’t have to worry about what and how to speak when playing with my cats, unlike when interacting with my fellow humans. And I do believe animals have souls.

    5. Singing – I love singing to my favorite tunes, from hymns to pop songs. My repertoire consists of these songs: “Faith of the Fathers,” all the songs by the Cranberries, and some others that slipped my mind now.

    I didn’t include reading because it’s considered as studying in the sense that I read it with diligence and attention to acquire knowledge and to chew and digest it, just as Francis Bacon once realized it.

  • prompt 86

    If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?

    Camille and Toro from L to R

    Dear Toro and Camille,

    You may not understand human letters, but I know you understand my heart because when I write, it is my spirit addressing the world, and now you, even though I am writing this letter to you during my lunch in the office now.

    I always tell you I love you, and I do mean it, and I am thankful for you choosing to live with me when I saw you for the first time at the orphanage. I am sorry for not being able to provide us with a pleasant home environment in all aspects – from our tiny one-bedroom apartment to living with a mom who is sensitive because of her highly acute sensory system, which prevents me from letting you roam around. I feel like I am a terrible guardian who inhibits your instincts. But I also think there’s light ahead of us, a light that will lead us to a brighter future, which includes our living in a lovely house or an apartment commanding a great view so that you can see me coming from work through the windows. How about that?

    We rode the same galaxy train to a star across the rainbows, where we will live together forever. I know you guys all go to Cat’s Star later, but we will bypass there for a groovier kind of star. So, I will not let you go of – in any manner. We will stay together no matter what. Someday, we will travel together and see the world. I love you so much in every universe.

    With All My Loving,

    Stephanie

  • prompt 85

    Bloganuary writing prompt
    Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.
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    I have two first names: one is given by my paternal grandmother according to our centuries-old family tradition, which is Joori (주리). The other is by the centuries-old Church, Stephanie. Both names rhyme well, like eurythmics of serendipity, and they are originally Asian.

    Joori (주리) combines two words, Joo, (주), meaning Red, and ri (리), meaning Beneficial. According to the book of the family tree, the children of our clan must have the same characters as their first names. My cousin, the daughter of my father’s older brother, is named Joohyun (주현) and bears the character Joo (주). Hence, my first name also has Joo (주). It used to be quite a unique Korean name when I was little, considered exotic compared to other Korean names for girls. However, a soothsayer once told me that it’s not a good name for me because it obstructed any fortune ahead of me, and I should consider it for another. Nominative determinism, I call it. But I am too lazy to go through all the seismic name-changing procedures in two countries.

    Stephanie is my Christian name. My maternal family has been Catholic for three generations in Korea, so baptism was the beginning of a rite of passage to be received in the Church. The original version of Stephanie is Stephania, a feminine form of Stepehn or Stephano (Hebrew: סטפנוס, Greek: Στέφανος Stéphanos, meaning ‘wreath or crown.’ Mom once told me that a religious sister at a parochial church we used to go to when I was tiny looked at me and told her to name me Stephania. So, there’s nominative determinism with this name as well. I was named after St. Stephen, the protomartyr of Christianity whose feast day is December 26th in the liturgical calendar. He was a Hellenistic jew, a decon, and a Jewish community leader in Greece, who was not afraid of holding his fatih high and facing stoning to death by exclaiming, “Lo, the door of heaven is opening now!” Hence, he was crowned with the wreath of faith.

    Names are what endows people with presence. We are no longer immaterial spirits but materialize as corporeal individuals once the names are given and called. My first names, Stephanie Joori, constitute what I am. And to the people who ask me why I use a Western name, such as Stephanie, hark! The etymology of the name Stephanie is derived from Hebrew סטפנוס, and Israel is located not in Europe but Asia. And just like my patron saint, I am a Korean diaspora living in the States, speaking both Korean and English and helping those in both communities. So, nominative determinism seems to work on my names. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

  • prompt 84

    Bloganuary writing prompt
    What’s your dream job?
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    The word “Job” always triggers the image of Job, whose piety to God was tested by Satan, who made him go through the trials of life so that he could curse God for the suffering. The etymology of Job is from Greek Iōb, from Hebrew Iyyōbh, meaning ‘occurrence.’ Or ‘Joining Others’ Business,’ which is hardly anything dreamy.

    My ideal Job is one where I can perform my abilities to the greatest extent possible with good pay and benefits packages to secure my livelihood. After a series of misses on the Wheel of Fortune, I finally landed my current Job as a case manager assistant in a law firm, which I am grateful for (although some of the co-workers behave foolishly and immaturely as if they were teenagers.) It’s not a dream job, and I wouldn’t have to sustain a job if I won a lottery or possessed bequeathed estates from the family trust account. Still, it helps me pay the rents, dues, provide the food and medical to my cats and Mom, and keep my appearance.

    No jobs are dreams; if you insist, they will not last like a midsummer night’s dream because feelings are fleeting and precarious. Earl of Kent wouldn’t have had to get a job if King Lear had not let him go of employment as his trusty servant. And when he got it, it wasn’t his dream job, either.

  • prompt 83

    What makes a good leader?

    A good leader is not only knowledgeable but also patient and understanding. The Homerian virtue of Arete was a combination of military finesse with personal integrity, which applies to today’s prompt topic.

    But in reality, there are a few good men and women in leadership. Many women on the leadership level are afraid of showing traits of feminity and behave overtly professionally, berating other women whom they regard as too gentle or quiet. It is not an overtly manipulated air of aggressiveness that commands respect or attention, which the pretenders mistake.

    It reminds me of Queen Elizabeth I’s Tilbury Address: “I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.” You can be both gentle and firm, and that’s called wisdom. It makes a good leader.

  • prompt 82

    Bloganuary writing prompt
    If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
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    Daylight Saving Time. Puritanical and Calvinistic. I see no absolute necessity in going against the law of nature to disturb our biological rhythms that work differently on individuals by forwarding an hour to work all day as long as the Sun Chariot is racing around the celestial hippodrome. Why not let the time alone and accept the things of nature in summertime? I attribute it to puritanical ethics that waking up early in the morning constitutes an ethical code of a “healthy, wealthy, and wise” individual, as campaigned by Benjamin Franklin. While it has some truth, everyone has different mental and biological dispositions. Sleep deprivation causes loss of memories, anxiousness, nervousness, and attention deficiency. It has to go.