Hee Sun Kim / Chapter 4 Final Draft / Narrative Composition / Tuesday 11am

<The magical number 416>

 

 Happiness, sadness, friendship, excitement…. All of these memories reside in the number 416. You might consider this number somewhat common, but it is the most magical number in my entire life.

 

The high school I attended was a foreign language high school, where students from different areas gathered around in order to get higher quality of foreign language education. Unlike local high schools, our school was located in a place far from the city so that students can concentrate on study more. Therefore, every student had to live in the dormitory. Every semester students had to move to different rooms and meet different roommates but the room where I had happiest experience was room 416, the very first place I lived in my dormitory life history.

 

Entering the wide glass door of the reddish-brown brick dorm building, what you can see is a silver elevator. This elevator leads you to all the floors of the building. Floor 1 and 2 were for boys and floor 4, 5 were for girls. The 3^rd floor was for teachers. As you might have already guessed, my first room was at 4^th floor since the room number was 416. The room was at the end of the long, long corridor.

Opening the heavy, turquoise door, the first thing I could see was a small square front door with a wooden shoe shelf which could keep only a few shoes since it was too small. Inside the room, there were four bunk beds. The first floors of the beds were desks so that we could study. The desks were large enough to handle a lot of books and other stuffs such as cosmetics. And the second floor of the bunks had beds to sleep on. The sheets of the beds were dark brown, and the blankets had vivid orange color. I remember I had loved the blankets because they were very soft and fluffy. I felt so cozy and relaxed in the orange blanket. In order to go up to the second floor of the bunk to sleep, we had to climb up a ladder. It felt cold whenever I climb the ladder since they were made up of iron. In the morning, we were so tired and half asleep so sometimes one of my roommates failed to step the ladder properly and fell down. It was so fun teasing her about that silly mistake. Beside the desks, little closets were attached so that we could put our clothes in. My closet used to be always messy with unfolded clothes.

The toilet was right next to the front door. It was not so big, but enough for one person to have shower and do one's business. The warm, orange light of the toilet somehow made me feel comfortable.

 On the middle of the wall, there was a little window with dark green frames. It was very small –almost the size of a regular computer screen. Sometimes we could hear dogs barking through the window late at night which made us very annoyed.

 

 At first glance, room 416 might seem stuffy and uncomfortable since it's really small and doesn't have enough spare space for four people. However, with the memories my roommates and I had made in the room, the room has become the best place in my entire life.

Since we had to share one room, it took very little time to get close to each other. Every night when all the lights were gone, we climbed up to the beds and talked for hours about our school life. We talked about gossips at school and mostly talked about boys. It felt as if I was on camping every night. Every night our room was filled with chatting and giggling voices. We always had to keep our voices low because if we get caught by the dorm inspector, we got punishment.

 Sometimes we hid secret things like instant cup noodles in my messy closet so that the dorm inspectors could not find out. They could never find out since my clothes were piled up mountain-high. At that time, we were officially banned for food from outside such as noodles or chicken. But we were fed up with the school meals. Moreover, at the end of the day, we were so starved because of studying so hard. We wanted some savory, mouthwatering food from outside! After the roll call at night, we quietly went into the toilet and locked the door carefully, trying not to make any noises and hoping not to catch the inspector's attention. Inside the toilet, we poured hot water into the cup and waited impatiently for the noodles to be properly cooked. We had to be careful for the smell because it could leak out to the corridor, so we used deodorizing agents like febreze a lot. The midnight feast was awesome. It was more delicious than any other cuisines in the world, at least for us. Sometimes we got caught because of the smell and got punishment, but it was still a very enjoyable moment.

 

We had made tons of episodes in room 416. I cannot tell them all right here, but it was definitely amazing and I had so much fun in room 416. Thanks to my roommates of 416, I could adapt to the school life. We were almost like a family; we always stayed together, relied on each other. For some people, when they see the dormitory rooms they had lived, they might recall the boring, suffocating atmosphere. However, for me, I had one of the most wonderful experiences at the dorm, and the number 416 reminds me of those memories which make me feel some kind of home sick. I miss those times when we liked each other without any conditions. I miss the times when we could giggle at night in the dark room on the second floor of bunks, sharing secrets. If I could choose one moment to go back to the past, I would definitely choose the time when I lived in room 416.