10:20 AM Good morning. I just played a movie for my morning class with SG2 (we finally finished the Hunger Games). She and I hung out in the back of class and chatted happily. She's so sweet; I love being her friend. She's still healing up from her accident--I think she's got some wrenched joints, so she's still moving carefully.
She and I were talking about Changho, who is her homeroom student and who is astonishingly good at English for such a little guy. He really does well with pronunciation, and he always manages to communicate what he wants, even if he has to do it in a roundabout manner. He's the class vice-president, which doesn't surprise me at all. Changho is the kind of child who brings order to others. I'll teach his class later today.
Lately, I've just been stopping to ask PE Teacher random questions, since I know he can understand me. Today I was passing some late students who were being punished by having to frog-walk in a crouch up and down in front of the school. He says it's Ori-georeum in Korean--the Duck Walk. Thaaat's pretty adorable. Our punishments get very creative and occasionally cute.
Got presents ready for BY, whose birthday was yesterday, and HH whose birthday was 2 months ago but who did not inform me of his birthday until now.
Left a Cola for Chanyeong in the special needs room.
Saw Donggu this morning. He followed me down the 2nd-grade hallway, playing with my hair. I have his class next.
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4 PM: Gave HH his late birthday present, a handwritten note and his own entire can of Pringles, and he was pleased. There was some question of why he was getting a present two months late, but I explained (via holding up my calendar) that last Friday was BH's birthday and yesterday was BY's birthday and that they had both gotten their presents already.
I said I would have gotten him one before, so now I was just making restitution. He tucked his Pringle can under his overshirt, eyeing the other students and saying "I'm surrounded by hyenas." Which is probably the funniest thing I've ever heard a student say in English when they were clearly trying to be funny.
And despite getting a whole can to himself, HH came back by later to answer questions and get more of my Pringles. I jokingly told him that his greed makes me sometimes worry about his psychology.
My second class of 2nd-graders with NG was good. We just sat and talked for the whole thing. He's still not giving in on the whole "your students adore you and you need to recognize their value and get to know them as people" thing. He denies that they're cute. Denies that they're special. But he did let Seungyeop follow him around the room, with Seungyeop trying (and succeeding) to cuddle NG the whole time.
Then Donggu came over and looked at us accusingly. Donggu's more than a little jealous, but I'm not sure which one of us he's jealous of--NG, for being able to talk with me for long periods of time, or me for monopolizing NG's attention, when that's Donggu's homeroom teacher who he idolizes.
At any rate, the last two minutes of my talk with NG involved Donggu playing with NG's hair and pulling out allegedly gray pieces. (Later after lunch, Donggu came to my office and brushed my hair, no pulling involved.) For someone who says the kids are beasts, NG sure does endure a lot of their megawatt affection. He gets teased and petted and hugged more than I do, by a lot.
My class of 3rd-graders was free study time, which meant that one third of them studied one third chatted and one-third huddled around me, playing word games. I played mostly with Euigi and Computer Seonghyun, who kept giving me words like "nebula" and "equinox" to translate into Korean.
By now, I think I have a few dozen students addicted to the Memrise phone app I use to learn Korean. Clever Sunwoo wanted to know the app name so he could download it for himself. Youngmin had a million things to joke with me about and he commandeering my phone for long periods of time, playing Memrise.
I told Soccer Minwoo that we needed to play the word game together sometime, and I was shocked to find him waiting at my desk during the next class break, having taken my words to heart. Minwoo is here to play the word game. He did excellently well.
Got BY his birthday present-a game of Spoons and a hand-written note telling him how cool he is and encouraging him to use his powers for good and to be kind to others. I know he will.
