12 PM: Good early classes. Nothing too awesome, but nothing went wrong. 1-3, 1-4 B was fine, and I met Tiny-Yong, Joker-Yoodam, and Silent-Minjoon. As soon as I started using his name, Yoodam got really animated and interested in everything.
Bossy-Dongseok came to the front of the class to see if he's as tall as me. Co-Teacher observed us back to back and said I was taller. Dongseok was very disappointed by this, but by this time next year, he'll definitely be the taller one.
My baby Minki was asking me all kids of questions. He did his worksheet and wanted me to write his name in English--two different ways, because it can technically be spelled "Mingi". Then he wanted me to write his name in hangul, both his personal name and his family name. He asked if I had brothers and sisters and was really impressed when I said I had 4 younger siblings. It was so good to spend time with Minki. He is my boy, after all.
I came back to my office to find Saturday-Jeongmin standing outside my door, about to go in. When he saw me, he offered me my choice of jellybeans from a box--and these were the real-deal copyrighted Jelly Bellys, too, not some wacky offbrand. I selected a butter popcorn flavored one and thanked him. He says he'll be by after lunch today.
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12:30 PM In 2-1, 2-2 A, HH got the chance to play the forest game himself, and he was thrilled to be at the center of the action. He was happily exclaiming in both English and Korean about how his character was going to die soon.
Byeonghyun yelled to scare me during the game, and it worked. When I eyed him murderously, he pointed to another kid.
Byeonghyun: He ordered me to do it!
Me: How could he make you do anything, you're the same age!
Byeonghyun:....he's bigger than me! (gesturing toward the obviously smaller child)
Euigi made a suggestion for next week's game, and I think Euigi's basically in my upper tier of favorites now, only two weeks after learning his name.
Dongseok just came by the office, to stand beside me and sweetly say "Sem" for no reason. He was so cute, I gave him candy.This was probably his strategy in the first place.
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3:30 PM 2-3, 2-4 A was fine, though my Byeongyoonie was out sick. I hope his headache didn't spiral into something worse--I hope it was an unrelated sickness.
Worked with Joon and Yoonjae on their worksheet, and Yoonjae seemed impressed that I remembered which celebrity he has a crush on.
Worked with Afterschool-Jeongmin, and he seemed downright pleasant, though he called A-class Minwoo a pig in a non-joking fashion. Tall-Yoonjae also said that Afterschool-Jeongmin was cursing at him. Maybe he's feeling a little bitter lately.
In the hall, Need-You-Junho was back to love confessions. The other night, I ran into him downtown and instead of offering his love, he just said "Hello, Leigh-Teacher," which made me really happy. A normal greeting! But today we were back to the lovey-dovey talk. I patted his head and told him he was cute, using English, then using the Korean word gwiyeopda, meaning "not cute as in handsome, but cute as in adorable-like-a-bunny-rabbit". He glowed and repeated my statements to his friends. Normally, the boys are far from thrilled at being called cute, but I guess Junho's going to take what he can get.
For class with the 3rd-graders, I just played them the 2010 version of "The Karate Kid" and played UNO with my favorites, minus Smile-Byeongseon, Meet-Sungjoon, and Model-Seokho. The crew for UNO was: Guide-Jaewan, Jjang-Donghwi, Boo-Jongha, Bowlcut-Youngjin, and a new guy, Boxer-Sol, because to me he looks like he could do welterweight boxing someday, though he has a sweet disposition.
We had fun with our card games, with Guide-Jaewan rigging the game so he could send bad cards my way. I stole his phone after he made me draw 8 cards, then gave it back after I'd caused just the right amount of misery. Jaewan also kept trying to see my cards by leaning back and yawning. Nice try, child.
I asked Donghwi to play, but he told me he was tired. Then he came up to join the game of his own accord after I started playing with the other boys. I was a little sad that I didn't get to interact with Seokho because he stayed in the back of the room resting, but when I ran into him in the hallway afterward, I stopped him by name and fished out a chocolate to give to him. His smile was angelic. I want to do more for Seokho.
After class, one of the 3rd-grade boys came in and speedtalked through a story about seeing me on Saturday. Judging by the level of English, he must have been A-class. He said he saw me going to Seoul (or in Seoul?) on Saturday and that he sat behind me (or I sat behind him) on the train. I think it must have been the morning train to Seoul, because I wasn't on another train that day.
He was so excited about having seen me, and I told him he should have said hello. He said, "I'm...shy." Dawww, so cute. Seriously cute. It never occurred to me that I might run into one of our school's boys who I don't teach and that he'd want to greet me but not have the resolve to do so. I try to be unapproachable for strange adults, but highly approachable for students, so those two personas can conflict at times. In public, I don't want to be bothered, but at school, I want to be bothered by everybody. Yes, you are important. I do have time for you.
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