Entering
If you feel alone
If you started your first love
If you don't have a dream
If you have something you want to do
If you find love difficult
If you are worried because it is your first time
If you think now is the worst
If you don't like me
If you can't adapt to an unfamiliar environment
If you're into fandom
If you regret the short meeting
If your will to live is weakened
If you want to know the meaning of now

To future readers

I don't want to show my awkward feelings to anyone.
When I couldn't show it, I was lonely

In the eyes of Seo Hyun-sook, a teacher who has taught Korean language and literature to young people for a long time, young people are delicate and sensitive beings with fragile 'hearts' that fluttering like yellow sheets of paper.
If you feel weak to live, or angry because you don't like yourself, or sad because your heart has drifted away from the person you like, or afraid of doing something for the first time, or feel lost because you don't have the dreams that everyone else seems to have...
The author looks back on his teenage years, hoping that teenagers going through such times will find an appropriate title for their troubled hearts in this book.


Author Seo Hyun-sook confesses that she still lives as an adult who is timid, sensitive, and sometimes embarrassed by the awkward feelings that come her way.
And then, he confesses stories that he was ashamed of and could not tell others.
Just as you don't become an adult just by turning from nineteen to twenty, weak hearts won't suddenly become strong one day.
The author tells the story of a person who holds a wavering heart, a sentence from a book that is deeply engraved in the heart, small encouragements that come unexpectedly, and beautiful moments encountered in unfamiliar landscapes, and shows the moment when all of these things accumulate and come together to fill the heart.


If you don't like me
If you want to know the meaning of now

There were times when I had to stay at school until night to do self-study, and I hated that time so much that I would sneak out and go to the bookstore to read books.
I once got slapped in the face for talking back to my teacher.
However, there were teachers who acknowledged my inner weaknesses by writing about the books I read, and there were teachers who recognized my talents before I knew it.
There was also a heart-fluttering romance with a boy who would greet me in the hallway with, “Hello, sister.”
Whether it's during your school days or when you're a student preparing for an exam, you don't know when you're in that time.
What does all this mean for my life, and how is this part of me that I don't like so much now shaping me?


Fortunately, life doesn't always go as planned.
In the future, there will be an unexpected me that I cannot anticipate, waiting for me.
- Page 100

The girl who loved books became a Korean language teacher.
He was a clumsy teacher who would cry in front of his students first, and he was a timid person who couldn't invite authors even though he was in charge of the library.
After breaking up with someone I liked, I cried to the sound of pop music on the bus, and I spent the night suffering from insomnia while living alone in an unfamiliar place.
But one day, I started having reading clubs with students, inviting writers to meet with them, and even teaching Korean to children in juvenile detention centers.
I spent time immersed in my passion and everything in my daily life became enjoyable, and I was gifted with a sensitive heart that felt special even to the same scenery and people.


Maybe there is nothing special in the world.
There must be a 'heart' that considers something special.
- Page 108

I hope you don't think of your current self as a 'fixed form'.
Change is the essence of human existence.
-Page 99

As she honestly tells the story of her school days, which she was embarrassed to hide, and which seemed so ordinary that it was nothing special, author Seo Hyun-sook discovers one truly precious truth.
The truth is that life has hidden many unexpected joys and unexpected gifts along the way.
So all we have to do is live well 'today'.


Ah, the best thing a person who lives in the present, who can only live in the present, can do is to live today happily and wholeheartedly.
I need to put my heart into today and walk through it smiling with the people I meet today.

Only after today has piled up like white snow can we truly understand the meaning of 'today'.
-Page 154

Those who have walked that path first know that even the awkward feelings of the present can one day be remembered as a shining moment in life when looking back.


Introducing the Hippocampus Series
The joy of reading essays for teenagers too!

We live in an age of essay overflow, where we can encounter all sorts of stories and lives in books.
But maybe it's because it's somewhat distant from the reality of teenagers.
Essays have long been considered the preserve of adult readers.
"This is exactly my story!" Shouldn't we also provide opportunities for young readers to hear stories they can relate to, or stories from people who have had experiences different from their own?
This is the background for planning the youth essay.

The times I cried, laughed, met, broke up, got absorbed in, ignored, liked, and disliked piled up one by one to become who I am today.
So we are also the sum total of our memories.
Memory is the device that makes each of us unique, and it is also a person's identity in itself.
The place that makes this possible is the hippocampus in our heads.
A place where memories are received, stored, and reproduced.
This is where the youth essay series 'Hippocampus' was born.


As each author's past and present collide, become entangled, reconcile, and overlap, stories with different charms and individualities are created.
I hope that young readers will also discover their own stories and fully enjoy the joy of reading essays as they embark on a journey to discover the powerful memories that shaped who they are today.
Above all, I hope to experience the mystery of connecting with a book.