10-16-13 Elementary Speech Judging

2 PM: Today, I judged an English skit competition. Co-Teacher came to pick me up, and I sat in the front of her car while HH, Geon, Insung, and Daehoon were crammed into the back, feverishly practicing their scripts. At the facility, before my boys and I went separate ways, I told them I wanted to pray for them, so I said a 20-second prayer then gave them a bag of M&Ms and sent them on their way.

Me and two other middle school teachers judged the elementary kids, and the elementary teachers judged the middle. The judging was great. The kids were so well-prepared and they were really entertaining, so it was hard to break down exact point counts among the 11 teams I judged. All the teachers and the education coordinators went out to lunch afterward, and now I'm going to take a nap because I have the day off, due to it being a "business trip" day. It was lovely and very tiring.

At the boys' skit practice last night, KBR-Teacher and I were mainly just there as cheerleaders, as I suspected. The boys had written their own plays in Korean and English, and were only wanting fine-tuning. KBR offered them some practical advice, and I changed about three words, but mainly I just paid attention and clapped at the appropriate moments.

And now I know that Byeonghyun and Seongmo "mocking" my shouty-voice two weeks ago was a sign of fondness, because they did it again yesterday in an obviously sweet manner, as did the four boys at skit practice. The skit-practice students were giggling over it, like my yelling "Guys!" to get the classroom's attention was the most precious thing they'd ever heard. KBR-Teacher laughed too--she's thinks it's funny that I yell, then give an ultra-bright smile to let them know I'm not mad. :-)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------