@saturtledaisy

An excellent write up, fellow beanie! Your words resonate with my teenage years experiences so much. The community where I come from all consist of such families: somewhat in the middle of the socioeconomic strata, parents who regard their children as nothing more than an investment and a possession to show others off, like one shows off their fancy cars and luxurious villas. I am immensely grateful to my parents for providing me with the gift of education, but this gift came at a great cost. Maybe that's why I can relate to the school dramas so much. The bone crushing academic expectations feels relatable on a spiritual level.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Pogo I LOVE YOU. But I love my best baby Kwon Soo-ah the most. THANK YOU FOR WRITING THIS ODE TO SOOAH.

I love her so much. She suffers so so so much. And you can see how she comes to hate her life and the world and herself a little more every day. And I wish she weren't so relatable, not to me, nor to you. But alas.

Kwon Soo-ah's story is a reminder to not forget about the present as you prepare for the future. Happiness right now is important as well and everyone has the right to enjoy their lives.

I love her so so much.

In less capable hands Soo-ah could've been a terrible villain (and she did do terrible things), but Chae Soobin made me feel for her and love her the most.

I love this entry so much I will never shut up about my hardworking baby Kwon Soo-ah who suffers the most.

I could see myself in Soo Ah too. Sometimes the urge to sabotage in retaliation did occur to me, & I empathised with her a little bit.
When you're constantly taught that the people you're with don't matter & it's all a competition with only you not taking things seriously, it chips away at you bit by bit.

Glad you found your footing pogo.

I absolutely adore Sassy Go Go to pieces, to the moon and back, all of that shebang, and I would write a million essays on it, because it's just so good.

I personally never felt that Soo Ah was let off "lightly"; the overwhelming guilt and regret of her own actions and self deprecation were enough of a punishment, and that was the whole point. This girl had suffered enough, by the system, by her mother, and by her own hand, and she needed grace and forgiveness from her friends, and from herself, to move forward.

Allowing Soo-ah to self-destruct, or shunning her as an absolute villain at the end, would have gone against everything the drama was about

This.
Sassy Go Go continues to have one of the best redemption arcs in kdrama ever (fight me it's true), and I love that it is just as much Soo Ah's story as it is anyone else's.

Bravo pogo!!! Thank you for sharing!!

Lovely write-up @pogo1. I too loved Sassy Go Go and wanted a good redemption arc for Soo Ah.

Thanks for sharing and I'm glad it was a more positive experience for you, 'growing up' with the burden of others' hopes and expectations weighing you down. I wonder sometimes if because I don't like the attitude of Soo Ah's mum and what she and other drama parents like her do to their kids, I may have gone too far in the other direction. But I want, and I want my children to know, that they are happy as students, that the desire to do well comes from within and that they can manage well without the external pressure from a parent. In the end, a formal school education is only up to a point and they have to choose to continue to learn through life while loving it.

This was a fantastic write-up, @pogo1! It made me feel kind of emotional and misty-eyed 🥺

I come from a society that, hasn't gone as far as South Korea, but isn't all that far off when it comes to the education system and the astronomical expectations that are loaded onto the shoulders of students, nation-wide. For some young people, that can be extremely damaging, and it's heart-breaking to see them isolated and questioning their sense of self-worth.

Here's to forgiveness—forgiving our friends (of course, maybe not everyone is deserving all the time) and forgiving ourselves, because sometimes it's important that we do that too ❤️

Also, side note but I was just thinking of Sassy Go Go the other day because Yeondoo's mum and Yeol's dad are none other than our Queen Dowager and Vice Premier Min Ikpyeong from Rookie Historian. Funny how they were so in love in Sassy Go Go, and total enemies in Rookie Historian!

Thank you for this excellent write-up. I loved this drama, and I loved Soo-ah's arc in it.

"...the crushing weight of disappointment and feeling like you’re not good enough by the only standards that matter? I know that all too well."

I know this feeling too. It took me years to unlearn this and remind myself that my worth was more than just the letters and numbers that were decided by someone else. Like the kids in Sassy Go Go I went to a school where most of the kids were really smart. I attended this school my entire life (so ~15 years). Unlike a lot of South Asian parents, my parents were happy with me if I got B's or even the occasional C so long as they knew I tried my hardest. Yet, despite this supportive home life, I didn't become a Yean-do, I became a Soo-ah (well, minus the maliciousness). I felt like a failure most of the time. It ate away at my self-esteem and I felt like I had nothing to offer, so I often didn't speak up or out, even when I did have ideas. I stayed in a shell because I believed I had nothing to offer. It was likely because I was in an environment where we joked that "A B+ is a failing grade". Imagine that when you're a solid B student...so, yeah. And the thing is, no one meant this maliciously. No one really knew my grades or even cared. But for some reason I internalized them so much. It was only after I graduated and went to university that I realized I was ahead of the curve in many respects. Being a solid B student at a school of incredibly smart people is not bad. (Not that I'm a genius.)

I think that once I realized that my worth isn't measurable in letters and numbers but by what you put out in the universe, my whole outlook changed. I was able to unlearn that habit and embrace failure and rejection. I learned that those things are never about me not being good enough, but rather that it's about me needing to keep learning, to keep getting better. It's OK to fail, it's good to fail. I stopped feeling a pit in my stomach when I failed. I stopped retreating into my hole of self-loathing. What mattered was the kind of person I was and whether I strove to be better. And getting better requires failures.

I'd like to say I learned this habit in university, but sadly this was a lesson that I only learned a few years ago after I'd finished all my schooling. It took a massive failure and essentially shutting down to finally change the way I saw myself. But ever since I did, I learned to ignore my worst instincts when that voice tries to speak out in my head.

I think that's why I loved Soo-ah so much in this drama. I wasn't the top student, but I was going through that same breakdown. And the thing that helped me was that I still had the people who cared about me around me and supporting me even when I thought I was unworthy of it. Soo-ah needed that too, and even if the ending was a bit too pat for some, I thought it was well earned.

Soo-ah had such a well-written arc and Chae Soo-bin brought her character to life perfectly. My heart hurt for her with every poor decision she made because she was just a kid who was put under so much pressure that she felt she had no other choice. And you could tell how much it hurt her too. I probably cried more at the video her friends made for her than at any outright sad scene in any other show. Thanks for sharing @pogo1

Aww i love this, reformed villain is definitely intriguing and interesting when done right...unfortunately I felt like in Sassy Go Go it was hard for me to feel for Sooah at times, however I'll admit my eyes produced tears during the scene of her ultimate breakdown when she let herself go to that very dark place that one shouldn't allow themselves to go to...I actually recently finished Sassy Go Go, it definitely dealt with really dark themes with an optimistic hopeful tone

i personally didn't relate to the amount of pressure that Sooah felt from her mom but I do have parents who highly valued education and didn't really let me take sick days from school for any slight headache or stomachache as my friends seemed to do. My parents were relatively happy with the success I had in school and didn't push me too far other than talk of wanting me to be a doctor or whatever which I did not achieve. Yet I did achieve a college degree and that was ultimately enough for them and most importantly it was enough for myself.