Memories of my university days ..

1. 

I remember a moment that I almost fell for a girl when I was at university. 

She was a teacher in the same Sunday church school which I voluntarily participated. 

I did not like her. 

She was a woman who was materialistic and ignorant. 

At least I felt so about her. 

I felt that there was nothing that I could share with her in her mind. 

It seems like she was a person who lived in a completely different world to mine. 

It was an ordinary Sunday.

I was in the church mass with my students, as usual. 

And when I was waiting in line to take communion. 

She was standing in front of me. 

I happened to look at her shoes. 

Her shoes were badly worn and had nearly a hole. 

I told myself 'Stupid girl, you should check your shoes first before showing off your vanity.'

I just kept looking at her shoes.

Then I thought what if she was actually very poor. 

I had thought that she was merely a hopelessly snobbish girl. 

But I hadn't been aware that her back was so small and looked weak. 

Without realising, I felt myself having a smile. 

She was lovable. 

Lovable to the extent that I could not resist her charm

.. which I hadn't realised for nearly a year, even though I saw her every Sunday before the day. 

However, I did not even attempt to ask her out. 

Such a thing as I go on a date with her never happened.   

Afterwards, however, I had a habit of observing her. 

I enjoyed looking at her talking and laughing. 

Still she was living in a different world to mine though. 

I did not want to intervene in her world. 

All I did was to introduce one of my friends to her for a blind date ...

because she wanted to blind date any of my friends in the dental college where I was studying.    

I do not remember whether she and the friend went on well. 

Just all I know is that months later he had a new girl friend, not her.  

...

2. 

She was a high school girl, whom I corresponded by letters when I was a teacher at a Sunday church school in Incheon.

I was a premedical student, but I studied harder religious education than genetics or embryology. 

In those days, church was everything for me 

... except for her. 

I would wait for Saturdays, which were the days when the Sunday school class was held in the church. 

Of course, it was because I was sincerely religious at the time. 

But, also because I could see her.

After mass, she used to come up to me to greet me with her friends. 

She and I did not talk to each other very much at church. 

All she and I did was to exchange letters. 

I do not remember how come I happened to do that. 

But the correspondence with her lasted nearly over one and a half year until just before her graduation. 

She sent her letter to my department address at university, and I sent my letter directly to her house. 

Sometimes she wrote me with 'Valentino teacher' as the recipient, and other times she wrote my name on the envelope. 

Her letters made me smile and happy. 

I thought that at the time the letters that I received from her were gifts for my voluntary teaching of every weekend. 

I liked every word she wrote down in her letters.  

It was the film,'The Cherry Orchard' (1990) directed by Shun Nakahara that I talked about in one of the letters to her.

I watched alone in the auditorium the movie which was screened as a regular event of a film club at university.  

I put the pamphlet of the film event in my letter to her. 

In her reply, she said that she hadn't heard even the title of the film before. 

I do not know whether later she may have watched the movie or not. 

Nor do I know whether she may remember that she used to exchange letters with a male university student whom she called teacher.

At the time I did not know that I would take charge of play club students in a Catholic girls' high school long after 

... which was exactly what the story of the movie was about. 

Just what I remember is that the cherry blossoms that were blowing inside the play club room in the scene during the closing credits roll of the film ...  made me feel as if she and I were standing in front of the window ... together.