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Monday, March 10, 2014

3-11-14 Chansu Moves Up, Twins Everywhere, I Am Once Again All the Sick

11 AM: Apparently, I needn't have worried overmuch about taking over too many A classes because it all evens out--I'm teaching the 2nd grade B-ban twice.

I found this out today, when my schedule said to teach 2-3, 2-4, which I taught yesterday at B-level. I was about to head off to the English center to teach A, but lo and behold--I was teaching B again. AGAIN. What-why?

Our schedules have changed so much. I had heard JY-Teacher saying "you teach all the 2nd-graders twice" but I didn't know she meant literally twice. I have never before taught the same group of kids twice in the same week, so I had to explain to SG2-Teacher that I didn't understand my schedule. SO we just played games, new ones the kids hadn't done before.

And of course I was thrilled to see Yeonghan and crew again, and to get participation from so many new ones (Soonwoo's a definite new favorite already). We did okay for a piecemeal class that I didn't know I was supposed to be teaching.

Immediately next was 3-9, 3-10 A, full of delightful amazing kids as always. We've got Seongmo, Seohyung, Daehoon, Seonghak, Ikhwan, Taekyeong, Perpetually Sick Byeongmin and others. Most notably Chansu! Baby Chansu moved up to A-ban!  Yayyyy! And he's being happy and overachieving up a storm.

Also! Cardsharp Minsu! Is now A-ban! He did well, and at the end of class he came to ask me for candy. We chatted a bit and I told him how proud I was that he moved up and he grinned like crazy and said, "I'm B-class very smart," meaning that he always knew he was too good for B-class. Atta boy. Me and Cardsharp Minsu shared a happy moment, hooray!

Also, Taehyun, a tall soccer player who was the first kid to ever call me "Junho's Girlfriend" was in class. And that is the weirdest thing of all, because I think it means he moved up from C-ban to A-ban, which is kind of an unheard-of mobility. Last year, I taught all the A and B-level 2nd grade and never saw him in class, which I took to mean he was C-ban. If it's true, he's a real fighter to get up to the level he did.

Jaehee came to the office this morning and solemnly asked, "May I help your chocolate please?" I haven't quite impressed upon him the difference between "May I help" and "May I have," but he's got his manners down. He used to be quite entitled and grabby, but now he's such a gentleman.


Jeongmin was fairly stricken when he came to the office this morning, to let me know that the class he assumed he had with me is one where he's with B-Teacher again, because B-Teacher gets the A-ban twice and I get the B-ban 2nd graders twice. He was a few steps along the road to miserable when he perked up and found a silver lining--we still have Saturday class and we can collaborate on baking projects.

Gave Baby-Minho a chocolate and got a bow in return. New kid Jinshik appeared in the door and wondered if I remembered his name. He was thrilled when I did.

In addition! I found a way to tell Twin-Seungho and Twin-Jeongho apart, I think! Jeongho has a freckle over his left eye and Seungho doesn't. I'm so psyched about that.

Yonghan greeted me in the hallway, kindly not bringing up my mouse-dinosaur drawing from the day before. Duyeol said that since he's B-ban and I only teach A-ban, he should get chocolate because we'll never be together. I thought he was right.

Met another new kid, Byeong-Something. A-class Minsu was with him in the office. When Byeong-Something walked out, I asked Minsu "Is he 3rd grade?" because the boy is small enough to be a 1st-grader. Smaller than even Baby-Minho, Bitty-Seongjik or the Twins. When I said that, Minsu laughed and went out into the hall to announce to the other kids, "Leigh Sem said..!" The rest of his sentence was presumably about me mistaking Byeong-Something for a younger grade. I didn't mean to insult the boy's size; I just genuinely wondered what grade he was in since I hadn't seen him before.

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2 PM: Lunch was good, but I couldn't eat much. Just not much of an appetite, what with the sickness and all. Our Lunch Co-ordinator gets a big kick out of the fact that I just call her "eomoni" (mom) now. At lunch, Mr. B cut my meat with scissors (we use a lot of food-scissors in Korea because knives and forks and popular, and chopsticks and spoons are dreadful for cutting). Our lunch co-ordinator joked that he was my "appa" (dad) but the other men at the table said it was more like "oppa" (older brother).

One of the groundskeeper men, who used to not acknowledge me and who still rarely even nods in the hallway, asked Mr. B how to say "yeodongsaeng" (younger sister) in English. It was so unexpectedly sweet that he was thinking about making a joke in English.

After lunch, I walked around the soccer field while all the kids were out playing. Byeonghyun greeted me with "Leigh!" minus the "teacher" part, and when I walked close to the giant fence that separates us from the high school, I heard, "Leigh!" again. It was the A-level 3rd-graders who graduated last month! They smiled and asked for chocolate jokingly, since I couldn't reach them. It was so good to see them.

Later, Jeongmin came to get me to play chess. He reached out his hand, prince-leading-lady-from-a-carriage-style to help me out of my chair, but I had to turn down the hand and stand up on my own. Sometimes he takes his defender role too seriously, like when he told me that he was sorry he wasn't in class with me, "to protect [me] from danger". It's so beautiful that he wants to protect me, but I don't want him to think I need it. I'm a grownup. I take care of the little ones, not the other way around (usually).

At the chess game, I met a 2nd-grader called Eungyo. Jeongmin tried to tell me that "there's another student like him..." but I didn't understand until Eungyo left the room and hauled in his twin Eunjae to meet me! The Korean word for "twins" is "ssangdungi" and the way to tell these apart is in the eyes, too. Eungyo's more hyper and has a scar over his right eye, while Eunjae is more steady and has no scar.

Eungyo was fascinated by my eye color and kept asking, "Wae geuraeyo?" or "Why are they like that?" Genetics, kiddo. He kept making Eunjae look up from the chess game so he could see Leigh-Sem's eyes for himself. We seriously had about four rounds of "Have you SEEN her eyes? They're blue!" And "yes, I've seen them already". Followed by, "No, this time look harder."

Tall-Sweet Junho (different Junho from my favorite) tried to warn me on the stairs that BY was about to attack me, but I heard him too late. After being grabbed by the shoulders, I nearly fell and I told BY to expect retribution.

Got two more classes soon--no idea where they are or even if the grades posted are correct. But we can do all things through the Lord's strength! Even face minor classroom uncertainties. :-)
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7:30 PM

I have bronchitis, yippee-yay. Illness in the house, won't you put yo' hands up!

Okay, so that's nothing to be happy over, but I am happy over getting medicine. My beautiful co-teacher KBR-Teacher took me to the hospital. This 4-day sore throat just wasn't going anywhere and it moved down into my lungs.

On Monday and today, I talked through my classes, but after my third class today, I just had a quiet emotional come-apart. My throat hurt, my body hurt, and the kids hadn't responded well to me so I felt like a bad teacher. Nothing wrecks me faster than illness+professional shortcomings.

The last two days were also difficult because the schedule is quite confusing--the print out is missing key information, and I don't know where I'm teaching or who. That's stressful, or it seemed so. Te new technology is a blessing, but it took several missteps to learn how to use any part of it. So the myriad little stresses combined with my high expectations for myself.

I went to the bathroom and locked myself in a stall to regain my composure. I didn't do a good enough job because when KBR-Teacher saw me, she asked what was wrong and I started crying. Like, an eyes-the-color-of-chili-peppers face-is-swelling-up kind of cry. I managed to tell her that I was tired because I was so sick and had been sick for days.

She got my last class covered by telling them to just study, then got Mr. B. to take me home, after a brief stay in the nurse's office where I cried again. The only thing worse than crying is crying while people are watching. Like the tree falling in the forest with no one to hear, tears don't make much of an impact if they're not witnessed. I know I'm safe at my school, but I hate showing weakness. People can't un-see you crying.

But it happened, and I have to live with it. Neither Mr. B nor the nurse nor KBR-Teacher seemed to judge me for it, so there's that.

I stayed at home and cried some more, taking more of the medicine that hadn't fixed my throat before. I was well on my way to drowning in my own tears when my mom called and convinced me to ask a co-teacher to take me to the hospital, because I probably had bronchitis. I had bronchitis 10 times in grad school, but I've been healthy for years, so I kept hoping it wasn't that serious.

Why didn't I just go to the hospital by myself? The staff rarely speak English. My co-teachers kept saying "you should go to the hospital" but since they haven't quite adjusted to Main Co-Teacher being gone, they didn't register that I had no real way of getting solid medical treatment without an interpreter, because Main Co used to handle that part of business.

Anyhow, I interrupted KBR's dinner in order to ask her to take me, and she agreed with no begrudgement at all. She took me to the hospital, translated for me, waited 20 minutes while I took a breathing treatment, then took me to the pharmacy and back home. She deserves something really special--I plan to get her a nice gift.

The doctor wants me to avoid talking for a few days, so KBR said that I could just come to school and have the kids in my classes do quiet study. Sounds like a plan to me. I was told I could just stay home, but I feel guilty for doing that when they never take time off. So I'll bundle up and come and be quiet. :-) Should be workable.

Thank you God, for medicine.
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