And in the battle of Leigh Vs. Snow, snow is in another weight class altogether and whipped me soundly. I got out the door at 8:20 thinking I'd catch a taxi. I thought wrong. 12 minutes at the taxi stand (usually chock full of eight or more taxis) produced only two taxis, each taken by people ahead of me. Then another taxi came up, to be stolen by an ahjusshi (50-something man) who dashed in front of a young mother and her child to get to it first. Eh. I finally realized that I had a better chance of getting to my school if I just walked it.
So I walked. And I called B-Teacher to let him know that I was going to be late if anyone asked. And my twenty-minute walk took more like forty because I was trying to be so careful on the ice. But my carefulness paid off because I didn't fall once. I also owe my safety to the cute and traction-y shoes my Mama got me.
"Swag? Check."
I wouldn't have had a hope of walking that far without these shoes. I think I could walk along the massive back of a snowed-on woolly mammoth and not trip.
I assumed that someone would be babysitting 2-1, 2-2 B when I got to school. Nope! They were just chilling in their classroom, huddled in clumps. They werevery happy to see me, and also accusatory. Yonghan said, "Teacher late. Why late?" with judge-y eyes. I explained to him that I wasn't used to the snow.
Then I got to the front of the class where Shotputter Jinseong was, and he was also aghast and my not being on time, and like a dad quizzing his daughter about breaking curfew he asked, "WHY LATE." I explained about the snow again, and since we only had 20 minutes of class left, I just wrote the Thanksgivign holiday information on the board and gave everyone their worksheet to fill out for chocolate.
While I was writing on the board, Jinseong bellowed at everybody to get in their seats and because quiet because "Sem is writing something!" I was so touched by that. Then I helped Jinseong, Hyunjoon and Comics-Joon, the three most delinquent boys in class, do their worksheet, and they were talking and making suggestions all through it. Jinseong kept bossing Joon and telling him what to write, but Joon was not going to be cowed, and instead wrote his own ideas. I've never heard Jinseong say so many English words and I was so happy to have Joon participating as well.
Yoontae of course filled out his worksheet, and it looked thusly:
He Did Put Forth A Lot of Effort.
Called Bitty-Baby Seongjik over to get a Reeses when he was hanging out in the back of the room. He's so adorable, I want to put him in my purse then take him home and feed him cookies.
1-9, 1-10 B went fine. Deokryeong kidnapped my computer at the end, and I came downstairs to find he had already plugged it up at my desk.
Secret Daeho was in the office today, and he wanted chocolate but he didn't want to say please.
Daeho: Teacher, chocolate.
Me: Okay, say "please".
Daeho: *turns to leave*
Me: No, Daeho, I have the chocolate. It's right here, you can have it.
Daeho: *turns back*
Me: Just say "please".
Daeho: *squirms, looks like he is dying a thousand deaths* No, Teacher. Not say. Cool guy. Cool guy.
Me: You're going to be a cool guy with no chocolate. Just say it--nobody's watching.
Daeho: Please.
Me: There you go! *gives chocolate*
Proposal-Heejoon, Governor-Yunho, Puppy-Jinho, Shoe-Thrower-Jongmin and about 5 other 1st-grade boys were in the hall today, standing for a half hour with their heads bowed, as punishment for fighting I think? Jongmin said it was for fighting.
Huge-Eyes Jeonghee, the boy who rested his head on my shoulder during the forest game, came trotting after me in the hallway, smiling and asking sweetly for chocolate. Jinseop came around for some, too, knowing that I can't turn away one of my favorite boys. He too, knows he is loved.
------------------------------------------------------------------
2 PM Had the weirdest lunchtime card games with varying members of my crew.
We started off with Jaehwan, Jinhwan, Daesung, and two new 3rd-graders: Heonho and Jinho. Wooseok was there of course, more intent on gabbing than on playing. Around the 3rd-graders, Wooseok is a lot like a cat running among a pack of Labrador retrievers. Nimble and perfectly capable of dodging danger if one of the Labradors decides their cat pal has batted their tails one too many times.
Jinseo, Blackhair Seonghyun, and a new friend of Jinseo's, Joonhyuk, came to play as well. Wooseok left the room, then came back and demanded that Seonghyun give up his chair for him. A shoving match ensued and I told Wooseok to just get another chair, but he was too far gone to hear me. Seonghyun lost the altercation because while Wooseok might not be the biggest kid in 2nd grade, he's potentially the craziest. It's best to just give up before he decides to do something really nuts, so goes conventional wisdom.
Made the mistake of bringing an energy drink to the conference room instead of my usual vitamin water. Wooseok drank some of it during the first second that I was distracted. Yeah, should have seen that coming.
Asked the boys about their siblings. Jaehwan has an older brother and an older sister in college, and Jaehwan is like me, one of five kids, but while I'm the oldest of five he's the middle of five. Wooseok has an older brother, Daesung is an only child.
Wooseok came close to fighting with a 3rd-grader named Heechan. Heechan is the kid who asked yesterday if I had a boyfriend, and said he liked me. 50% of the students say these kinds of things, but Heechan seemed to mean them. Today when I was playing cards and Heechan wanted to hold my hair, I let him because I think of it as one of those humanizing things, something that makes me into a real person who doesn't think she's better than you.
But Wooseok decided that Heechan should not have hair-touching privileges and they got into a shouting/shoving match over that. I just scooted my chair away and let them argue it out because no one was really getting hurt, plus these fights over me are never about me--it's always about the boys themselves, struggling to be assertive individual personalities. If I weren't there, they'd be fighting over smartphones or Pringles chips or flip-flops or whatever was on hand.
Heechan won, but Wooseok got in the last word, which was in Korean but the meat of which seemed to be:
"Yeah, hold her hair all you want, but I'm walking her home on Friday, so who is the real winner, here? WHO?" Wooseok then smarmily announced that he'd seen me yesterday by my favorite coffeeshop and I'd even offered to buy him something. I said yeah, but you had to go to the PC bang.
After Jinseo left, Wooseok came over to take the now-vacant chair next to me. He used this as an excuse to snap his plastic spoon against my leg. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough for me to make him stop. He started babbling in a cartoony language that was not Korean, so I babbled back in something that was inspired by English, sprinkled with Swedish and Cookie-Monster-ese, which also made no sense. We carried on for half a minute's worth of meaning-free conversation. Jaehwan and Jinhwan cracked up and Wooseok finally gave up talking that way, because he couldn't out-crazy Sem on this one.
During one game, nobody was listening to him when he was dealing for UNO and asked "Myeot jang, myeot jang?!!" (how many cards does each person get?) and he kept getting louder so I yelled back, "Ilgop jang!" (7 cards), which had Wooseok mimicking my voice for the next few minutes.
Wooseok also took it upon himself to explain a few more Korean curse words to me. He knows that I correct him for using about 5 words, but he must have noticed that the others just slip past my radar. Jaehwan tried to help him translate the concept that he was trying to broaden my Korean vocabulary.
Jaehwan: "Teacher. Korean bad word. Do you know? For example, E. X. : %&*&#*#."
I said yes, I knew that one. The interesting thing was that Jaehwan must have learned the phrase "for example, ex: " by seeing it on tests because he actually spoke aloud the "ex: " part, like "ee, ex". Wooseok ran through a list of 25 words, only ten of which I knew, checking for comprehension after each: "Arayo? Arayo?"
When it was time to leave, Wooseok hoarded the spoons and folded his arms over them, laying his head down to sleep. I gave him a hug and asked for the spoons back. Nothing doing. So I started to braid his hair, which is just long enough to work into micro-braids. Jinhwan and Jaehwan were laughing, but Wooseok kept his head down, protesting, "Mwo haeyo? Isanghaeyo!" (What is she doing? It's so strange!)
I tied off his braid with one of my hair ties, then turned to talk with Jinhwan. Now that I was no longer paying attention to him, Wooseok's head instantly popped up and he felt what had happened to his hair. He laughed and I tried to get my hair tie back, but he dodged away and ran off, insisting that the hair tie belonged to him, now. I hope he didn't return to his homeroom with the braid in. But I know he totally did. If some other kid doesn't pull the tie out first, he'll be walking home from school like that, too.
------------------------------------------------------
