First 2nd-grade class went okay, if dull, but they looooved the quiz I put together for them. I cracked Chaeho UP with one of the questions. When I suggested that the female lead of the movie was "Optimus Prime's daughter," he nearly cried from the humor of it.
This is awesome, because very few of my kids know I'm funny. And last week Jonghoon died over one of my jokes as well, so the video quizzes are at least good for a few laughs.
H-Sol and I also had to have a talk with Giwoong about not talking badly about my body. The boys of 2-5, 2-6, specifically Giwoong, Hyunmin and Seonghoon, are extra interested in my dimensions. For the most part, it's a fascination/lack of understanding about the fact that American bodies are different from Korean ones. At home, I'm neither fat nor especially full-figured, but in Korea I'm bigger in all ways than most women I know.
Korean women are usually somewhat short and squat, or tall and very narrowly built. Nobody is built like me, as a shopkeeper reminded me last week when I was looking for dresses that didn't have a straight-up-and-down fit---"American, line is different, everywhere". So I'm an anomaly for the kids, and when you pair a physical anomaly with their lack of sensitivity, plus hormones in overdrive, plus the fact that I recently started wearing dresses exclusively, and you get some weird comments.
Giwoong started by writing the word "chest" on his paper and I asked him if he knew what it meant. He gave me the Korean definition, then said to Minshik in English semi-loudly, "Yours is bigger." I said well yeah, I'm a woman. Giwoong insisted he was talking to Minshik, not me, but that didn't make a lot of sense because Minshik doesn't understand that level of English and he and Giwoong are the same size of child, too.
Then I got up in front of the class to explain the speaking activity and Giwoong said while looking at me, "Horse dari," with "dari" meaning legs. I stopped teaching and started a dialogue with Giwoong about how we don't say things like that. I wasn't angry at all, just intent on letting him know how to behave. H-Sol called him up at the end and he said he'd been talking about another kid's legs, just happening to look my way. Eh. It's possible, but given Giwoong's track record, I think I'm right.
Anyhow, I told H-Sol that Hyunmin (who stuffed a ball down his shirt 2 weeks ago, to imitate my silhouette) and Giwoong are usually the kids who are focused on inappropriate body commentary, so she had them both apologize to me. I smiled at them afterward--we're all okay. I'm seriously cool with my little guys--I just want them to be kinder to women in the future.
It helps that I run 4 miles every day and I know for a fact that I look nicer than I ever have. 20 pounds ago, I might have been torn apart by comments like Giwoong's, but now I'm just thinking, "Yep, compared to what you're used to, I'm huge, but these horse legs are amazing because they can run for an hour without stopping." Rather than lamenting the tiny, delicate Korean body I will never have, I should appreciate the decent-sized, healthy American body God gave me.
This is who I am. And it's quite a blessing. I have life and health and energy, and isn't that worth celebrating?
S-Teacher told me that the 2nd-grade A-boys who are with B-Teacher complain about it and want me to teach them. It was a big pick-me-up, actually, when I consider that my own kids would prolly rather have B-Teacher.
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3:45 PM Whoa, lost an entire post...
Upshot is that Triple Class was good today.
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6 PM: So many things happened.
In the gap between one of my classes, Wooseok came into the office to talk. When he hung around, I knew he wanted company, so I had him pull up a chair and we listened to music while he surfed the Korean internet. Then he asked me what I liked, and I looked up that sad short zombie film about the dad saving his baby daughter at the expense of his own life.
I was shocked to look up and see Wooseok wiping tears. I think the short film is beautiful as an affirmation of fatherly love and family sacrifice, plus it's just a good empathy exercise. It's good for the boys to understand that other people have feelings and hurts. But some boys feel it harder than others, and Wooseok surprisingly is one of them. I side-hugged him and told him everything was going to be alright.
He responded by finding us a Korean ghost movie to watch--no gore, but it was really scary, and it made me jumpy while it didn't affect him at all. Throughout the movie, I asked him questions in Korean and he gave me answers, so it was language practice, too. It was amazing after seeing him so little this semester to have a whole afternoon with my boy.
I also found out that Wooseok's a Christian and that he goes to my church, which didn't really come as a surprise to me because I could have sworn I'd seen him before outside church, hiding behind a stone pillar so I wouldn't see him. We were having a religion discussion in the office and A-Class-Minsu is Buddhist, and so is my Changyo.
I had a random last-English-afterschool class, tacked on to my schedule just because it needed filling. We just watched a video and I had them all come up to me for "final words"--essentially a last blessing before I released them into the wild.
And it occurred to me that this is the first afterschool I've truly loved.
I loved individual kids within that first long purgatory of afterschool. I loved Byeonghyun, Seongmo, Jinseop, Seonwoo, Seonghak, Seongyeol. I had a fondness for Taehoon and Joon and Afterschool Jeongmin that faded a bit over time. I despised Jiwoong and Sanghwa at moments. I couldn't understand why Cardsharp-Minsu just wouldn't join the fold.
But as nasty as that class was, it gave me relationships with some of my favorite students ever. Even though he didn't mix with me much then and even outright declined my attempts to be nice to him, Seonwoo is my boy now and he visits me a minimum of four times every day. Four times. I wouldn't have Seonwoo without having had that horrific class.
Byeonghyun is a kid I'd probably entrust my life to, and I got him through that class. And nowadays I'm quite cool with Jiwoong and very friendly with Sanghwa--the unbearable awfulness of certain events does not last forever. I had not lost the respect of those kids for all time and eternity.
Also, it was on a totally defeated fall-afterschool day when I had leftover popcorn that I connected with Wooseok--he was a C-level kid that always bopped into our class and I decided to feed him as well.
Winter afterschool with last year's first graders was nearly a wash. But! It gave me Chaeho and Seonghyun, two kids I really appreciate to this day. Plus, grumpy Taehyun and I are finally connecting.
But oh, my spring afterschool. These kids. These kids were on a whole other level. I'm glad I didn't have a chance to prepare a special final day, complete with fanfare because I probably would have cried. Instead, I got to say some sweet words to all of them.
And they returned them. Minsang said he was glad to have met me. Daehyun said that I had a beautiful smile and good figure, and I kinda wish he'd stopped at "smile," but he said it so sweetly and guilelessly, I didn't bother to correct him for it. I ordered Huyunseo to say something nice as we were parting, and he grinned and said "Nice!" which technically fulfilled the requirement.
I walked home with my afterschool boy Changho, and we stopped at a convenience store to buy him a snack. At the store, we were greeted by 5 of my nicest 3rd-graders plus Chaeson, one of the beautifullest little girls from the Saturday program. She squealed and hugged me and we chatted as I walked around with Changho, picking a snack. She wanted to know when I taught her Saturday class next. She says everyone is waiting for me to come back, which makes me so happy.
A good day, it has been.
This is what I feel like:
Yes, I've come here to receive the...
'Aww Yissss
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