Yesterday was nasty, in terms of how physically bad I felt. Thanks to simply being female, I was feeling exhausted and was hurting everywhere, stomach especially. It was baaad. I got through my morning class with NG okay, but then for H-Sol's class I had slowed down to where I had to concentrate to speak clearly.
For my little just-before-lunch 1st-graders, I had no energy at all. I couldn't even raise my voice, not because my voice was hurting but because it took more effort than I had to give. But they were beautiful--they did their activities perfectly and they kept telling each other to be quiet. My Jaehoon looked sad because he hadn't won the game, but I told him he could comeby my office anytime for chocolate, "Because you are my boy." "And you are my teacher," he said back.
Lunch was an ordeal. I wasn't very hungry and I was trying to figure out how to not eat much and to leave early without people noticing. Not that anybody looking at me wouldn't already be able to tell that I was in dire straits. My face was white as copy paper. I had to tell my lunch coordinator the cause of my malady because she was on the verge of getting me a ride to the hospital.
For after-lunch class, I stood and listened to the kids, and that was about all I could do. Sleeping in the nurse's office for 2 hours afterward was all that kept body and soul together. But this morning, I'm fine!
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2 PM: 3rd-graders have been borrowing my crayons all day.
They have some sort of home economics project going on, and it's pretty funny to see these giant boys beseeching for crayons, then tracking me down to return them. Hyungmin specifically is who I'm thinking of.
Hyungmin is so funny because even though he's A-ban, he never tries to communicate with me in English. Today our entire will-you-give-me-crayons/ yes-i-will/ okay-I'll-bring-them-back-by-lunchtime conversation was held totally in Korean on his side, and half in English on mine.
I had to turn and look at BY, commenting on Hyungmin's determination to use only Korean. BY said, "I often come over here to your desk and I see a scene like this. You're speaking English and they're speaking Korean, but you still understand each other."
A new boy--3rd grade C-level--has been coming by more lately. He's a Jinho, and I think I'll call him Chocolate Jinho because he has eyes that color. I had to coax Jinho into talking to me at all, because he always hung in the back behind the kids who were at my desk, answering and asking questions. But once I got him talking, Jinho seemed glad to have someone to converse with.
Chocolate Jinho came by yesterday when I was hurting so badly. Through the haze of pain, I told him to just take some crackers. He did, but then he settled onto the stool anyway and said, "Questions please." Daww. Daw. I summoned up my full effort to ask him, "How many hours did you sleep last night? What did you have for breakfast?"
He came by again today and spent 5 minutes thinking of English questions to ask me, but because there weren't other kids breathing down his neck, he was able to do. Later, when C-Yooseok came by and swore that he couldn't think of a single English question, I pointed behind him to Chocolate Jinho and said "μκΉ νμ΄." or "He already did it earlier." Jinho quietly preened.
HH came by and I wouldn't accept any easy questions from him ("what's your favorite color?" coming from this student is ridiculous because he speaks almost like a native). Taegyoon asked HH if he was having trouble with English, but HH replied that Sem simply wasn't accepting his questions. But it only took another minute for him to come up with clever questions and earn his chocolate.
Deokryong can't change the language settings on my school tablet. There IS no English setting to change it to. Eck. But I did get to feed Deokryong twice today. He keeps coming by because now I have popcorn in addition to trail mix.
Artist-Jungbok, who I haven't taught since last year, came by to give me his favorite gum.
Hyo asked me if my job was hard. I told him that some days, it honestly was hard. But most of the time it was a right good job.
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