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Final Fairytale

Written and Performed by Audra Fannon and Joo Park

Audra:  The story I will tell you happened not so long ago in Korea, or maybe suburban Maryland, or maybe Philadelphia.  Anyway, there was a girl named Jin Suk.  She was medium tall, and quite skinny except for her belly.  Her pale crimson oval face reminded people of an egg, and her twinkling brown eyes were deep like the River of Han in Seoul, Korea.  Then, lots of other stuff happened, but the important part is she cleaned only the center of a window.  Through the spotless middle, she caught a glimpse of a small private school in Silver Spring, Maryland.  It was a magical window.

                Joo: What she saw was a recently repainted, re-carpeted, and rearranged room big enough to squeeze in about a hundred people, a few arm chairs, and six backpack covered tables.   A girl named Audra was listening solemnly to her high school principal as he shared that another student had been asked to leave the community because she had said mean things about a classmate on MySpace.  This breach of trust clearly infuriated Audra who needed this trust in a place where she could treat the commons like her living room.

                Jin Suk:  “That is so sad. (said Jin Suk)  What an exclusionary group of people!  Everybody says bad things about each other on My Space.  It’s part of being a teenager.  How do they live in such a repressive environment?”

                Audra: Because this story appreciates balance, Audra also cleaned the center of a magical window one day.  What do you think Audra saw?  That’s right.  She saw Jin suk in her school.  Jin suk was asking her friends how they were preparing for their College Scholastic Ability Test.   They told her about their loss of appetite, weight, and hair, and their anxiety.

                Audra:  “Wow, (said Audra) those people are crazy when it comes to test taking. How do they survive in such a stressful academic culture? The pressure to do well on this one silly test has destroyed their lives and affected their health. I don’t take any tests that seriously.” 

                Joo:  So after that, time passed.  Jin suk and Audra applied to colleges in America.  After much deliberation, they both decided on a small women’s liberal arts college in a suburbs of Philadelphia, Bryn Mawr.  A clever fairy bewitched the residential life officials willing them to put Audra and Jin Suk in the same room.  Then, she cast a spell on the people who assigned the college seminars.  The fairy was going to work against ignorance and prejudice through Bryn Mawr College.

                Audra: When Audra and Jin Suk met on the first day of Custom’s Week, they thought they already knew each other, and they didn’t like what they knew.

               Joo:  Audra thought that Jin Suk would be studying all the time and would create a stressful living environment.

             Audra:  Jin Suk thought that Audra would watch her every move and judge every mistake.

            Both: (in cacophony) They both doubted they would ever live in harmony.

            Audra: But they decided to give each other a chance and see if they couldn’t revise the stories they had written about each other. 

            Audra: One day, Jin Suk took a nap. Her conscious mind turned off and her unconscious mind took over.  While she slept, she had a dream about the same magical window, but a fairy told her to clean the edges this time.   When she did, she saw that her new roommate was actually a kind and loving soul, and that the scene she witnessed in the center was superficial look into Audra’s life. 

            Joo:  What actually was happening was that Jin Suk was tacitly picking up Audra’s kind and loving body language:  Audra turned down the light and put on earphones in response to her roommate’s napping. 

Another day, Jin Suk, with her new found appreciation of tacit knowledge, noticed that Audra was hungry.  (Audra making her sound)  Jin Suk put down her books and offered Audra some food and culture.   Over a bowl of spicy Korean noodles, Audra realized her initial impression of Jin Suk was incorrect, and that the dirty edges of the window that nobody bothered to clean revealed the fun loving girl that Jin Suk really was.

Both:  (singing) Audra and Jin suk, they were living/ in harmony/ after all.