Writing and drawing have been my daily ritual since I learned how to write and draw. After devouring classical literatures of the world during my mid-teen, I even dreamt of becoming a writer like getting a fever in teens.

I was regarded as one who write persuasive and descriptive compositions during my school days both in Korea and America. As Korean is my native language, I don't have problem writing in it; as for English, I spent so much time to use the correct words as a resident living in Los Angeles, and it became a language for social and personal interactions.

I came in 1980 and in my Freshman composition classes taken in 1983, teacher's praisal of saying persuative and descriptive got me really satisfied with my writing style.

Even while studying mathematics and physics, I was constantly thinking on making a career in writing and painting until the following incident discouraged me.

It was around mid 1985-6 schoolyear when I decided to try something new to get up from the boredom of living school's dormitory. I always wanted to have a pet in my place, and instead of getting usual one which is prohibited in dorm room, I bought a pair of ducks (ie. male and female) from a local farm and release in the bushes surrounding the dorm buildings.

Actually I was not the only one doing that. Many cats were raised in the school's bushes with a necklace of ownership, and someone released a pair of ducks already, and I got helpful hints from him.

I put my name, dormroom number, and phone number in the necklace, and put those around the necks of two ducks so that it is easy for stranger to guess who those belongs to. We didn't even have time together much to get close and familiarize each other.

What I heard was they would manage to get a place to go and sleep, and find food, but would return to where I released them. I just hoped nobody catch those and cook.

For the first several weeks, I caught the pair wandered around the dorm buildings during the day and I tried to feed with the pair with cookies and fruits I smuggled out of the dorm cafeteria. I used to have early dinner and when I got out of cafeteria with fruits, it was usually around 5:30. I tried to entice the pair with fruits to get their attention and to feed them.

After the first several weeks, 5:30 became dinner time for them and our reunion time to see each other. I didn't have any strong feelings at all, and some of dorm mates occasionally fed them with fruits and cookies when they spotted the pair.

I always worried someone or cats might catch the pair, cook and eat, and felt very safe and gracious to everyone and everything when I saw the pair when I got out from the cafeteria after dinner or sometimes on my way to there.

Even if school life was burdensome and hectic, feeding the pair for ten minutes with banannas and biscuits and watching them eating relieved me from other burdens for a while. Sometimes watching other students feeding my pair of ducks also got me appreciative of their kindness.

I didn't bother to name them other than male and female duck, and I don't think I ever served them with drinks or juices. I was just glad that they were alive each day.

Then I found that the pair didn't show up for two consecutive days. The pair missed the day occasionally, but never for the two consecutive days. I worried and searched bushes around the dorm area. I didn't know where they settled for sleeping. Anyway they used to show up around the dorm area, so I didn't bother to locate the place. And I was a physical science student, not a natural science major to watch the nature.

When I couldn't see the pair for three consecutive days, the despair ovecame me quickly. If someone or cats decided to catch the pair and cook and eat, there's not much I could do about it. Furthermore I didn't provide enough protection for the pair.

Even so I kept bringing out banannas for several more days in case the pair returned to me; after a week, I didn't bring out any fruits from cafeteria to feed the pair, although I tried to search the bush area hoping to find any remnants of the pair after the dinner.

Several dormmates jokingly asked me whether I ate them, and I replied them what might have happened to my pair of ducks. They berated me that I should have been more protective of the ducks.

Anyway I didn't forget about them. I guessed if that perpetrator was a person, he must be around here as the campus is isolated from the city's residential area and he must had known that many dorm students here loved my ducks. That made me really sad. If that was one of many cats straying around the campus and bushes, I would never like cats anymore.

A couple of weeks went by with the despair smudged in my and some of my dormmates mind for losing the beloved pair of ducks. I felt sorry for some dormmates who used to feed the pair when they spotted the pair, as I didn't protect the pair enough. Nothing was explicit, but everything was implicit to us.

Then one evening, when I got out from the dorm cafeteria and walking towards the building where I was living (it was about 3 minutes walk), I saw something wrapped around in dirty white moving around in bushes of the small garden which was located in front of my place.

I had a strange feeling and paid a close attention to to the moving white packages.

Surrrprise.

It was a pair of my ducks with the necklaces I put on. Ducks surely look different from each other, but I could cleary recognize the necklaces I put on.

I ran towards them and it seemed like they recognized me and were running towards me to greet me.

Within a couple of seconds, there's more surpriiiiiiise.

Behind the pair of white ducks, there's three yellow small ducklings following the pair.

First of all, I just rejoyced that my ducks were alive, then came the elation that they made a family. Wow. They withdrew from us to start a family.

I didn't have banannas to feed them, so I didn't know what to do. Should I stroke them, hug them or what should I do to greet ducks? It seemd like the pair wanted me to feed them and their ducklings with the fruits.

Some of dormmates gathered around, but nobody knew how to exchange emotions with ducks. One of the girl checked into cafeteria just to get some fruits and cookies, and came back to feed them. Feeding was our only way of communicating with ducks. We just sat around the family and watched them eating fruits and cookies.

Once they ate up what we gave them, they started to move back to the bushes as usual. There's no way I could ask them whether they would be back tomorrow as usual. I just watched the five ducks walking away from us into the bushes, hoping they would return tomorrow and thereafter.

That evening, I went to the libraray not to study, but to describe what I experienced that day to record the situation and the emotion I felt. All I could do was to record the sketches of the situation.

I really wanted to desribe the moments I spotted the pair of ducks, then the joy of reuniting them, then seeing three ducklings, then the joy of finding out the pair made a family, and then all of those which happened with several seconds.

It was not the matter of employing any languagess, but a matter of transforming the emotion and excitement into words and sentences. That night I couldn't get to sleep as I couldn't describe the situation into sentences I wanted, as the emotions and experiences would eventually fade away from me.

Several weeks after the reunion, I realized that I couldn't record verbally as I felt at heart and mind. The conclusion was that I couldn't be a good professional writer although I could be an excellent writer as a hobbist. I could write as much as I want, but to be a good writer as I admired reading classics, there must be something in it.

I have written a lot in technical nature as I am a mathematician, computer scientist and linguist by training, and quite a number of essays. But to write for writing's own sake, I just realized that I need more training or inate gift. That was during that summer I removed the writing from my career options and I haven't put it back yet.

I still try to describe the situation as I felt it at that time without any success. The joy and emotion is pretty much intact and not tarnished in my memory. I hope to find a way to write it.

As for ducks, they started to show up around every evening to be fed by us following day. They occasionally missed a day until the school year ended in late June, not two consecutive days. Summer was about to be started for three months of long vacation and I was about to be graduated from there when I was not sure what to do with the ducks.

Taking those home was not an option at all, and as there would be no students at dorms during the summer vacation, I worried they might be starved. I couldn't come to a plausible way of compromising it, and just decided to leave them there hoping them to find a way to survive.

I removed the necklaces and said bye to them on the last day of school year and left. It was quite emotional for me as I was an owner to them (ie. I paid for the pair), and I felt guilty as I failed to provide the adequate protection for them to survive in the wild. I felt bad for myself for neglecting them, but couldn't come up with any alternatives. Everyone was leaving campus for three months and I was graduating, so no one would care for them.

I just wished someone wanted to take care of them when they are strayed. But what I really felt despair was that I couldn't describe the elated moment of the reunion, rather than the fate of five ducks.

During that summer, I visited the dorm area several times hoping to see ducks were O.K. and to feed. I ran into them each time I went over there around evening and felt like they were missing and looking for people who used to feed them. I was pretty sure food was scarce and they might have been starved for a while. During the summer, there's no one in that area. I hoped to be there once every week, but was not that energetic to spend half an hour with them driving for an hour each way.

Going there was easier than leaving them as I had to leave them without any proection and food. As the ducklings grew, the color changed and they looked not that cute anymore. After leaving them there stranded, I might not be able to see them anymore. What I felt really guilty was when I imagined the ducks wandering around the empty, deserted, remote area where the ducks were used to be fed just to find nothing at all, and the despair they might have felt. I was pretty sure they did.

On the other side, the duck's fate is not that pretty as a whole. Their fate is destined as you know. Even so, I had some emotion exchanged with my ducks, and that was not trivial.

Last time I saw my ducks was during that October, after the start of new school year. I went there to see professors and stayed till evening hoping to see my ducks. Yes, I saw three ducks being fed by students there. I'm not sure those were really my ducks as I removed the necklaces which bears names, but felt like those were mine. I couldn't find a way to know what happened to a family, but what I saw was three ducks in different sizes, probably father, mother, and a kid.

I bought cookies from a nearby vending machine, and fed them wishing the well-beings for them later on. No interaction between us; and they might have just glad someone was feeing them, or they might have recognized me and wanted more feedback from me.

When the three ducks finished the cookies, they started to walk back to the usual direction to retreat to their place somewhere in the bushes. I watched them walking away and then walked towards my car worrying about being caught in heavy traffic on 405 freeway.

I revisited the campus every several months to see my professors, but didn't bother to look for ducks anymore. I still try to write down that reunion or to draw visually without ever being satisfied with it. It was twelve years ago and I'm still trying.

I'm one of those people with limited knowledge and capabilities, but am pretty much satisfied with the most I tried to do with the results whether those met the expectations or not. The only thing I'm constantly dissatisfied with the outcome is when I tried to write down that reunion with the pair of ducks.

I still write a lot, but am just not thinking of making a living out of writing.

(September 28, 1998)