(June 14, 2007) — Jennifer and Chris Davis’ humanities students made their way along with Maral Guarino’s poetry class into the auditeria last Friday to hear guest speaker and author Helie Lee. She could be seen sipping away at her coffee while busily scribbling on a piece of paper before her speech which was heard by over 100 students. Mrs. Davis went up first and introduced Lee’s book Still Life with Rice and how she had come across it through a recommendation from fellow English teacher Carol Pettegrew. Davis loves the fact that the book not only had such a strong female character, but that it also included elements of history, such as the Korean War which the Davis’ covered in their Humanities class. Lee began by describing how she had once had trouble fitting in with her Jewish friends in the San Fernando Valley after migrating here from Korea as a small child. She tried everything from putting Sun-In in her hair to applying Scotch Tape over her eyelids in an attempt to assimilate with her classmates. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I decided to face my greatest fear: being Korean,” Lee said. Clad in a pair of 501 Levi’s jeans and carrying a backpack with a picture of her boyfriend in hand, she embarked on a journey to find herself by flying to Korea. Although she was treated as somewhat of an outsider and was lectured for her “American” habits, she “found” herself, “In the most odd way…through the stories of [her] family.” After returning to the U.S., she visited her halmoni , “grandmother” in Korean, and paid her respect by bowing, which is a Korean way to show respect to one’s elders. Lee asked her halmoni why she had never told Lee her stories. Her halmoni’s reply was, “You never asked.” Lee finally asked her halmoni , and the stories started to pour forth. One day, Lee woke up and started writing a manuscript of her halmoni’s amazing life story, which later became Still Life with Rice . “I realized that I’m not so much Korean and not so much American,” Lee said. “I found a nice balance both as a woman and as a Korean-American.” Students had the chance to ask questions of Lee and many stayed after the period was over and well into lunch just to get the chance to say hello and to thank her for visiting and sharing her experiences. “I thought she was just going to come and talk about her book, but she talked about her personal life and it allowed students to relate to her,” sophomore Paula Gharabeicloo said, “I found her speech very inspirational.”