Jihoon Yoo/#4 Meaningful place/Tuesday 9am

Memories of My House Jihoon Yoo EIT 201301135   Throughout our lives, we encounter and visit innumerable places that give us both pleasant or unpleasant memories and feelings of hope, joy, or sadness. However, we usually forget the feelings we felt, or dialogues we spoke in those precious and meaningful places after a while, as if those places only had been negligible or not worthwhile places to visit. As for me too, I have been to, or I think I have, visited diverse places that taught me important lessons and values, but have forgotten the feelings I felt or the precious values secretly covered in those places. However, there is one place that I still remember so vividly, and still can feel its warmth like it is still around me to this day. It is the house I lived in for one whole year in Wales, Britain, when I was in 5th grade. To talk about the exterior of the house, it was three stories including the attic, with a backyard and a small garage that could only fit one vehicle. Despite the dark colors our neighboring houses had, our house particularly was colored in white and light blue, which was standing out from the rest of the houses. Our house had a small garden in the front porch, where my mother used to grow some flowers I cannot name. Going inside the house, there were stairs leading to the second floor, and next to the stairs there were the living room and the kitchen, where I used to spend most of my times. My bedroom and my parent's bedroom were situated on the second floor, and my older sister got the big room on the third floor, which I used to envy so much at that time. Something that was unfamiliar and particular about my house was the fact that there were three toilets, one on the second floor, another one just next to the door leading to the backyard, and the last one at the backyard, covered helplessly by a wooden door. Also, ironically there was a sink located at my sister's room, and therefore it created a sensational combination of a sink and a bed located side by side. Guessing by its ironic and unfamiliar settings this house had, the initial owner that built the house must have been very lazy. The foremost reason for remembering the house so vividly despite it being over eight years since I left is not because of the fact that the house was so unique and out of the standards, but because of the memories I gained in the house, which I still cannot forget. There were a lot of memories that I still cherish, but I can say with certainty that except for only a few, all of my memories surrounding this house are related to my best friend called Nia Williams. When I now think about the places inside the house like the sofa in the living room, the bathroom on the second floor, or the stairs leading up to the third floor, the memories I had with Nia, whether it was trivial or important, spring up inside my head. Like normal 12 years old girls, we loved to hang out in each other's houses, and every time she came to my house, we would sit on the sofa and watch 'Cartoon networks' or famous TV shows, go up to my room to gossip about the boys we fancied, eat chicken soup in the kitchen, which we bought at the convenient store just a few blocks away from my house, dance to famous songs like the 'Black Eyed Peas' in the backyard, and sleep in my sister's room where the bed was big enough for two. Like this, our house was a little hideout for us two and there was nowhere inside the house that we didn't have any memories about. For a little Asian girl that went to a foreign setting for the first time ever, having a beloved friend I can talk to using my untrimmed English and get along with without having any culturally different mindsets, was something so valuable and irreplaceable. And therefore the memories I spent with her are unforgettable and are treasured so much. It has been more than eight years since I left that unforgettable, treasure box-like house in Wales, and since then I have moved to different houses in different surroundings. However, when someone asks me what my best house so far was, I will not even hesitate a second to say that my house in Wales was the best. It was never the richest house, or the prettiest house that someone has every gotten, but certainly in terms of the values and memories that a house gave, my house is without doubt incomparable. And I believe that I am very fortune and lucky to have invaluable memories to cherish forever.