10:15 AM: Snow was melted today, saving me from further tripping.
Had the Angel Class for 2-7, 2-8 B. Their power was still not working, so we just did the board games. Cardsharp Minsu wasn't going to be the least bit interested in anything until I offered him a pack of cards. "Cards" is a language he speaks. He didn't acknowledge me otherwise, but I think he's got some kind of baby romance going on with one of the girls from the other middle school, because he kept talking to his friend about "date" and "chocolate" and alternating between grinning and looking pained. Sometimes you're adorable, Minsu, you're just adorable to people who aren't me.
Played UNO with Chansu, Joonwoo, Byeonwook and another one. Then I watched Jungbok and crew make Jenga stacks. Watching other people play Jenga is surprisingly fun. After class, The A-level kids poured in and Hyunmyeong wanted candy so he, Jiwoong, Jeongwook and the usual crowd of favorites got theirs.
Computer-Jongmin gave me a piece of gum. He's such a sweet baby--between occasionally carrying my stuff, giving me candy, and telling his hagwon-van driver that he knows me, Computer Jongmin's someone I really like, despite him trying to stay silent around me.
Ran into Jaehyung in the hallway, and he told me he'd already played Jenga today, but that he wanted to play Monopoly. So I took the board to the special needs' room and we set it up, but didn't really have time to play. Hong-Teacher was making cookies in the special needs' room oven, and she gave me one, fresh and hot. Soooo nice!
This morning, on the walk to school, Giant Shion bumped my shoulder in greeting as he walked by. He said, "Hi Leigh!" I keep saying I'm going to give up the battle to get the 3rd-graders to add the word "Teacher" to my name. Two of the A-levels saw me by the playground yesterday and said "Hi Leigh!" I added, "Teacher," for no purpose, really. I'm not their teacher, I'm their fun foreign cousin, and nothing's changing that.
And now the info on my orphanage trip...
On Saturday, me and my friend BC rode a bus to the orphanage in town, and she taught a basic fun little winter-based lesson to three 8-year-olds while I had a sort of conversation class with teenage Daesung on one side, in between bouts of playing with Jinsu, a beautiful, chubby energetic 4-year-old.
I had the best time. Jinsu wanted to play hide and seek, and he kept grabbing my hands and putting them on his cheeks, then putting them on my cheeks, so I was going back and forth between holding both our faces. I used every word I knew, but wished I knew more Korean for him. I caught myself turning to Daesung to ask him to translate the baby for me, but though Daesung's learning fast, he's still got not so very much English.
The orphanage workers said Jinsu was a "new face" so he came to the orphanage within the last month. I think there are 50 kids there, total, and BC said that they go up through university age, though I didn't see those people. The oldest kid I met was a boy who goes to the high school next to my middle school.
In our little English class, there was Seongbom (who did a cartwheel for me and juggled drumsticks), Minguk (who seemed quite smart), and Samgal, who was quiet and called me "seongsaengnim". I couldn't talked with the 8-year-old much because of Jinsu's demands for attention. At the end of the lesson, we all played UNO, which Seongbom could not understand even when it was explained to him in Korean by Daesun. But we had fun.
Then it was time for lunch, when BC and I split up. I sat by Daesung and BC sat with some elementary girls, and as the lunch went on, little boys kept coming by our table to talk to me. Byeongwook was a clever 6th-grader who translated me for middle school girl Yujin, even though Byeongwook didn't particularly have more English--he could just understand my Korean better than Yujin could. Eebom was another darling 6th-grader with a big smile and a willingness to talk to me.
I can't know for sure, but the kids looked well cared-for. The staff seemed kind and mindful of the kids, and lunch was delicious. Most of the kids looked happy, and the ones that didn't, I'm inclined to think it was a pre-existing condition. You never know what misfortunes led to them being stuck in this place. The facilities were all big and clean, from what I saw, so I felt pleased with their living conditions.
BC and I are only allowed to teach English once a month, though we want to go more often, so I won't see the kids again until March, but I'm really looking forward to it.
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11:50 AM I went to 1-5, 1-6 B, but their homeroom teacher was there and they were all cleaning the room and putting in new books. So no class. All this week, old books have been hauled out of school and new books have been rolling in. Kid after kid walks in with arms full of fresh new text books. Wonder if we're getting new English books? Because I need copies, if so. So I can get to thinking of different lessons.
Went to the special needs room to hang out with Jaehyung while he played MapleStory, an online game the boys are loving lately, though it's been around for 10 years. Jaehyung had on a headset with padded earphones and a microphone, and when I tried it, I could hear the game's music.
Yeognchang came in and requested that Jaehyung let him play just once. So Yeongchang sat next to me and hooked up his phone to the game's headset. I didn't know what it was for, but it turned out that he wanted me to listen to music on his phone while he played MapleStory.
When he heard that I liked the song "없구나" (Eopguna), he cued it up for me, then gave me the headset. When that song was done, he said, "Teacher, Teacher..." then scrolled through the songs on his phone and played "Joah"! It was the cutest thing. Just when I think that everybody but Seonghoon has let that particular performance go, Yeongchang reminds me that to him, this song is my song. Dawww.
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1:45 PM No afternoon classes, either.
Because the boys are moving more textbooks and more desks and bookcases and random tidbits o' furniture than I didn't even know we had. The 2nd-floor teacher offices are being purged as we speak--the doors of the office are gone, the entrance a cavernous maw out of which flow children lugging stuff.
After lunch, Saturday Jeongmin came to hang out, but since we've both been a little board of the Minecraft videos, I told him that we had to watch videos that would help me study Korean. He wasn't slightly interested in the Talk To Me In Korean video I had going, but he found a video of an Englishman who speaks fluent Korean and who challenged his friends in London to eat spicy noodles...the video's only two days old, as of my writing, and it's got English and Korean subtitles.
I'm rather in danger of envying the main guy his Korean-speaking ability, because I watched two of his other videos, and I'm nowhere near his level of fluency. The jealousy, it burns. I want to be goooood!
So Jeongmin and I laughed out heads off at the video, and I got some ideas for what to say when I'm eating spicy stuff. Daesung came in while I was watching the video, and he just stood around until Jeongminnie had to run off for lunch.
Then Daesung played chess with me, and Adorable History Teacher stopped by to say, "Chess!" His enthusiasm... it's just precious. I told him, "대성아, 체스 잘해요. ...가끔." (Daesung's great at chess. ...sometimes.) AHT laughed because I made a joke, then he said in English, "Chess is fun." I said yes, but it often made me angry.
Earlier, Jeongmin said he was really hungry, so I fed him some cheese crackers I'd bought to keep at my desk in case any of the kids needed more food than just chocolate. Nobody wanted them until now--Jeongmin had 5, then Daesung had 7, then the Teacher-Who-Talks-To-Jeongmin said he wanted one, so I gave him one and finally got his real name written down. I be meeting people!
When chess was over, Daesung wanted to do our word game, and there was some confusion because he kept telling me that his family name was Kim, then saying his family name was "Sung" and I was like, "No, Dae-Sung" is your personal name and Kim is your family name....but then he looked up the word on my phone dictionary and it turns out that the Korean word for "family name" is "Sung" so "Sung" is a syllable in his first name and also the technical term for Kim, his family name. That's not confusing at all.
I had a serious conversation with Daesung about how he was to contact me if he ever had a problem in the future. I've given him my phone number, but while he has a cell phone he doesn't have service, presumably because he can't afford it.
He also said he doesn't have email, so I asked him how could he contact me if he had a problem? Once he's a high school student I won't see him every day, so how can we communicate? Not that there's nobody in Daesung's life who cares about him, but you never know when he'll need somebody.
He might or might not having a living mother--that part is actually unclear. He definitely lives at the orphanage. I'm assuming that the adults in his life are all teachers or orphanage workers. I don't want him to find himself without resources; even if he and I can barely talk, I want to be there if he needs something. So he gave me the phone number of the individual house where he lives. So he can call me from there, and I can call that number if I'm worried.
Daesung asked how long I'll be in Korea, and I tried to tell him that I'll just BE in Korea. Until when, I don't know, but other than visiting home, I don't have plans to move within the next several years. When I said that, he shrieked and held his face, but he was smiling. His response shocked me, so I asked him if he was happy or angry about the news--I honestly couldn't tell. He said he didn't know which!
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