10-1-14 Packages, Banana Recipes, and Orange Nails

8:20 AM   First day of October!

 I had this weird thing this morning where I had ordered books online and found they were delivered not to my apartment but to the convenience store two blocks away, because everyone in our neighborhood just knows that the convenience store is where parcels go to live.

Anyhow, my packages of books had been there for so long they got sent back or something. Dude. At least now I know that when I get a little text saying my package has arrived and it notably has not arrived, I can go find it down at the pyeonijeom.

Went to listen to Joonsung play piano this morning. Hugged Chanyeong and tried to teach Sungjae how to play Heart and Soul.

Word has reached me that there is a snake in the school! Apparently, yesterday, someone saw a snake downstairs. But I think it's more likely that a kid saw a snake far outside the school and the rumor got elevated until Mr. Slither was actually within the building.
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11 AM

Ha, I only had one pan of banana bread leftover today from yesterday, and I got an entirely different batch of kids hooked on it. The usual crowd came by, but I also gave some to Seongsu, one of the funniest 3rd-graders who was a real card last year when I taught him and who sings in the hallways. He gave me a thumbs-up of approval.

Our Science Teacher doesn't even ask for bread anymore--just comes over in his lab coat and gets a piece. This means a lot to me. I haven't formally asked many of the teachers to try the bread because I wanted to test it out on the kids first, but sure enough, it's actually truly tasty, so next week I'll start asking the adults to try a bit, too.

Yeongjoon, one of the clever 3rd-graders, took a piece when I asked him to, then as I was talking to Hyo, I noticed that Yeongjoon kept coming back for the crumbs. He cleaned the remainder of the bread pan, and I promised him that I'd make more on Monday.

Ee! It's so satisfying to have the kids like the food I made. Hyo was actually so enamoured with the banana bread, he sat by me and got me to dictate the list of ingredients while he wrote it down.I emailed him the recipe for good measure, taking out the hardest English words. I know from experience how frustrating it is to follow a Korean recipe, so I want to make English recipes easier for him.

How cool is that, my little guy wanting to bake his own banana bread?

Saw HH's mom in the hall. She asked me about my summer vacation with my family and I talked about how they'd moved to a new state, a place which I actually really liked despite being worried about it previously.

Minjoonie says his history midterm was really hard, and Yonghan says their next exam is PE. They're having a written test for PE, so I'm assuming they have learned a lot about exercise science and physical therapy, not just about how to jump around.

Emailed JY-Teacher a list of crafts and activities which I think will be good for our Halloween party. I'll keep my open for possible snacks and games, but I think I got the craft aspect nailed down.

KBR told me that she needs to get the lesson plans for Winter Camp (January 5-10?) together by Monday, because the new vice principal is a very detail-oriented person, and also so that we can put together a budget.

First off, whee! We have a budget! Last winter, I did everything on my own and it was not a success. Now with acutal budget to back me up, who knows what's possible? Secondly, I was feeling really pressured and worried about getting a plan together, but then I calmed down and realized that 5 days of 4 class periods won't be that hard.

We'll do a Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe camp! We'll watch the movie bit by bit, use the school kitchen to cook one snack per day, and make two crafts per day. I've been using Pinterest to compile ideas and I think it'll all turn out splendid. No need to stress.

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12:30 PM    Our lunch is at 1 PM apparently, Right now the homeroom teachers are eating burgers with their kids, so I'm not sure who B-Teacher and I will be eating with at one o'clock but my school mom tells me that's when the food happens.

Jaehyung came by to chat with me. He's not going on the field trip to Seoul tomorrow, so I'll be missing him. He explained to me why his fingernails are orange, and I still don't really understand it. It's some kind of art form or beauty treatment called  봉숭아물. It leaves fingernails stained orange, like this:

Not even exactly pretty, just oddly colored. I can't tell if it's done to look nice or to improve the health of the nails or what. I used to see this occasionally on students, usually female students, and I thought it was some rare form of nutritional deficiency. Like a special Korean-only finger disease. I'm really curious about what it's for.

Annnnnd I just broke up a fight in the hallway. Taekyeong from my 1st ever afterschool last fall and a 3rd-grader I don't know where about to throw down in the hall. Two friends were trying to keep them apart and I stepped into the hall to put my hand on Unknown Student's chest. He wasn't stopping pursuing Taekyeong and Taejyeong was about to escape his friend's clutches, so I yelled out for Office Leader.

Thankfully, Office Leader is a big, scary man and took care of the situation. He gave Unknown a stern talking-to and is now making the kid laugh. I like how he brings them back from their anger, sometimes.

Also, one of our graduated students came by the office and I led him to YSR teacher, his former homeroom teacher. It was a sweet moment, watching the reunion. :-)

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9-30-14 2nd Day O' Midterms

11:15 AM

The banana bread is going considerably slower today. Only one pan gone and there are three more left, but I'll just pop them in the fridge.

Hyo came by much earlier than he usually does, all smiling. He finished one midterm and now has another coming up. I was so proud of him for looking so positive. His bandages from his bike wreck have come off, showing all kinds of deep white-pink scraped places on his face and hands. With all this evidence of how badly he was hurt, I just want to cuddle him, but I can't because he's got his pride.

HH came by to sigh tiredly about his exams. He never likes explaining why he's feeling bad, though he's got the vocabulary to do so. Most people like talking about their problems and wish that you would ask them more about them, but HH doesn't. He'll show that he's miserable, but he doesn't want to talk it out, just wants you to know he's feeling down.

JY-Teacher and I are gearing up to prepare a Halloween party for the Saturday English students, and we have an insane budget for it--I've just got to figure which kinds of games, snacks, decorations, crafts etc. will be best for them. I'm really jazzed about the possibility of planning the Halloween party.

Tomorrow is October, which along with November is my favorite month! Fall is in the air! Cute jackets, pumpkin lattes, and beautiful-colored leaves! I can't wait.

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9-29-14 Banana Bread is Eaten By Locusts

10:15 AM

Well, it's only the 3rd-graders having midterms today, so I did have to sort of babysit the 2nd-graders through a class this morning. Some of them studied while H-Sol and I talked. She's precious and we again got a little bit closer after some good conversation. She and I both recently enjoyed the same musical, so we got to chat about that.

Hyunmin spent a fair bit of 2-5, 2-6 class fending off marker attacks from Laryngitis-Seonghoon, who kept making tiny black marks on Hyunmin's white shirt. Hyunmin kept looking to me for recognition of the wrongs done to him and I backed him up, telling Seonghoon to quit. Hyunmin wants more attention than I give him, and I intend to remedy that. I always pay attention to Seonghoon and I see Hyunmin watching like he's not sure how to get similar treatment.

The banana bread I made last night is FANTASTIC! I made 4 little pans of it, two plain banana bread and two with peanut butter added. So far, one pan has been eaten entirely, mostly by Deokryong, who sat down and went to town on the bread with the tiny fork. And by Jungbom, a bigger kid from KBR's class.

I'm thankful that I had enough made to feed near-infinite amounts of students. 2nd period is happening now, and I expect another crowd of kids to roll in soon.

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10:54 AM   Well.

I predicted that my little guys would eat most of the banana bread, but I couldn't have foreseen this:

 

They ate three pans in less than ten minutes. THREE PANS IN LESS THAN TEN MINUTES. Six boys mainly did this: Jungbom, HH, Yonghan, Minjoon, Jaeyeong, and 3rd-Jeongmin. And Jeongil, Tan-Minsu, Twin-Seungho, and C-Jeongmin and Saturday-Jeongmin tried some, and I got Seongwonnie to get a bite even though he'd turned down some earlier in the morning.

I'll make more for tomorrow, I guess.

I'm just...surprised, and then I'm surprised that I'm surprised at how much they ate.

The boys don't just eat, they lay waste to food. If food was a village, they'd raid it and set its thatched-roof cottages on fire. Eating is something they don't stop doing for basically any reason. It would take a supermodel or a natural disaster to distract them from their munching, and even imagining an interruption from those sources is a stretch.

I had to keep pushing Jungbom back, though. With the amount of eating he did, I calculate that he ate an entire pan by himself, which is a little too much considering how many kids I was trying to feed. And he wouldn't stop when I told him to--I had to keep a hand on his shoulder to deter him. 

Is it possible that he was actually that hungry? Jungbom is one of the few outright obese kids at school, though being roundish doesn't mean a kid isn't hungry. Though surely a whole pan of banana bread is enough to take the edge off anybody's hunger without trying for more?

Anyhoodle, if I make another round of 4 pans for tomorrow, I'll have to just hand one to Jungbom and send him off with it. I can't turn him away from the food, and he can't set any kind of normal limit for himself, so I'll have to think of something else.

But all the boys said the bread was good, and it was very heavy, and thus stomach-filling, more like a breakfast food than a snack. They were all very surprised than I had baked it because not a lot of baking goes on in Korea. It makes me happy to see them full. I got a little fist-bump from Minjoonie, who couldn't contain his beaming happiness over the bread.

Deokryong's cast is off his arm, now!

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9-26-14 Papercookies and Boiled Pet Shrimp

11:30 AM  

Had a fine morning.  Woke up at 5 to make cookies, ruined like 60 of them because i added ingredients that made them stick to the paper, thus making them nothing I could take to school unless I wanted to feed the kids bits of baking paper. Not that they'd probably notice. But I would know that I was feeding the kids subpar papercookies. So.

But I wasn't let down. I learned stuff. I learned that you can't add copious amounts of sugar, milk and flour and have your cookies not stick. Maybe I should have greased the paper? Anyhoodle, I am rich in experience and I have a new story to tell.

This morning, I just let 2-3, 2-4 study, meanign I let them sit quietly reading manhwa. But Minsu and Sparkly Yeonghan kept sneakign out to chat with their buddies, so I'd just go stand in the hall with arms crossed, waiting with a mild frowny-face for them to waddle back to our room. SG2 was busy and had not come to class yet, so I was overseeing our little doodlebugs by myself, which wasn't that hard really.

I turned around in the hall and saw NG coming out of another classroom. We bowed and didn't say anything because we were too far away, and I followed Minsu back into our classroom. I was clearly not for-reals upset because I was calm, but the crossed arms signaled that the kids had done some mild thing they shouldn't.

To my surprise, NG came into the class (which is his homeroom class), apparently just to see if everything was cool. He sat in the back for just a minute, arms wrapped around Minjong, asking him questions. It was adorable. It was like he had come into class for the express purpose of hugging one of his kids. Dawww.

He left right after that, and SG2 arrived, looking exhausted. She worked until 9:30 last night, then had to catch the 40-min bus back to her home, then wake up early this morning to ride back. I tried my best to encourage her. Turns out, yesterday in 2-1, 2-2 class, my beloved Soonhyuk made her really angry. She wouldn't tell me what he said, but she said he was so rude to her, it made her mad for the rest of the day, and her 1st-graders worked overtime to make her smile.

I wrote her an encouraging note and left candy at her desk. She needs it. I'm so proud of her for all her hard work.

Minjoonie told me he bought a shrimp (saeyoo 새우). But "aquarium temperature too hot and he die. Saeyoo die." Poor baby accidentally boiled a cold-water shrimp by putting him in a tank with tropical fish. Rest in peace, shrimp.

Deokryong keeps coming by for snacks, as does Jeongmin. C-Jeongmin came by too, and Pepper-Dongmin.

BH's buddy Shion continues to be sweet to me, trying to make me laugh. Sujin told me I was beautiful and he meant it. BY says I know so much more about English than he does, which is sweet because he genuinely intends to give a good compliment, and also funny because like...yeah. Of course my English is good.
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9-25-14 Questionable Cookies Are Our Favorite

9:15 AM    Score! I brought the questionable cookies I made to school, for the kids, and I even bought a few bottles of water and some cups because I didn't want the kids to choke when they ate them--they are right dry, truth be told.

But it wasn't just the kids that wanted some. My school mom, our lunch co-ordinator, ate one and then took 4 extra to give to other people. O_O

My Jaehee ate 3 himself, and Youngmin had one so there aren't too terribly many left for latecomers, but hey. I'm happy. And I can make more, now that I know how. And with my existing experience with making cookies, I can combat the fact that I'm cooking in Celcius and measuring in metric while reading instructions in Korean!

Youngmin asked me why I bought food for his friends on Tuesday night but didn't buy any for him. I told him it was because I saw his friends and I didn't see him. I said that when I see him, I'll get him goodies, too.

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10:30 AM:  Ha, the cookies are all gone. Didn't even make it past 2nd period before my second-graders polished them off. Mingyu grabbed 2 and Donggu grabbed 3, and that's all she wrote. I have to decide whether to attempt banana bread tonight, or to keep working on cookies, since I know I can produce at least decent results with them.

I really like being a person that bakes things. I like calling Donggu (with his broken arm) down to the office to eat some. I like watching Jaehee eat three in a row.  I wanted to give Minjoonie some, but they were all eaten by the time I ran into him. Dude.

2-1, 2-2 went fine. Beomjoon was feeling very playful and I had fun with him, though he told me I looked ugly. I just laughed because I know I'm not and  alsoI know he's just metaphorically pulling my pigtails. I played a game in class, since SG2 was there. The kids really liked it and I was pleased by how it went. Changhee wanted to know what the word "thin" meant. My Taehyun called me over to help him work on his vocabulary words, which was sweet.

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11:40 AM:  I finished a listening test for the TOPIK exam. My brain is exhausted, completely. The test is in November, but man. It's going to be an uphill battle to learn this, isn't it? I still hope for the 2, but it's going to be fiercely difficult.

And my babies continue to be tiny stalkers. My Clever-Sunwoo came by the office with Minjoonie in tow, announcing loudly to me that he knew which apartment I lived in and giving Minjoon directions to it. I am right by the Samsung Plaza, so says Sunwoo. He saw me going home last night, but didn't call out to me or anything--just noted where I lived for future reference. Sunwoo-ya, you're weird.

Deokryong came by again to show me the 'sword' he's carving out of a tiny block of balsa wood, using an X-acto knife. This act is made more impressive by the fact that he's doing it one-handedly while his left arm's in a giant sling-wrap.

Jeongminnie's been doing nothing but studying. My boy really keeps his nose to the grindstone when big tests are coming up.
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9-23-14 1st-Junho and Sounds That Bother Joonsung

10:45 AM

First classes were lovely. For 1-9, 1-10 they needed to just study for the class period, so I spent the whole time playing word games with 1st-Junho. 1st-Junho (previously known as Grumpy Junho) is my boy, but I still have to remind myself to go after him and engage him.

For whatever reason, Junho does not initially show any indicator that he wants attention and if you start talking to him, he'll look down or away. I used to take this as a sign that the kid just didn't like me (because sometimes some of them just don't), but actually he's just shy.

He wants to be loved and praised as much as any other kid, because when I actually commit to talking to him or playing with him, he lights up after a minute or so and bubbles over with super-quiet super-contained happiness. He spent 40 minutes writing down words for me to guess, occasionally handing over the pad to to Jangwoo, Hyungeun, or Cool-Hyunseo. 

When the bell rang and I couldn't finish writing my Korean answers to Junho's English vocab words, I told him I'd have them ready for him in afterschool. In other words, 1st-Junho's my kid. He always wants to be my scorekeeper when we do games, he's been in two of my afterschools, he can sit for almost an hour playing word games with me--this child is both loving and lovable.

Joonsung came to 2-7, 2-8 today. I had to stop Gicheol from tapping his pen because Gicheol knew that that particular pen-tapping sound bothered Joonsung. Joonsung would yell at regular intervals from the back of the room and I didn't know what it was about until I came by and found Gicheol tapping his pen and then looking two desks over, waiting for Joonsung's unhappy reaction.

I took his pen and gave him the "no darling, this is not okay" look. Yunho was laughing about it. He's not cruel, but Yunho was enjoying Joonsung's annoyance too much. It's not okay to take pleasure in making a less fortunate person suffer, even just a tiny bit.

I was chatting with H-Sol when Hosung, one of the boys in 2-7, 2-8 who loves me, asked her in polite Korean, "What are you two talking about? Because I'm very curious." She explained that we were discussing the recent change in the school schedule, which has all classes starting 15 minutes earlier. I was really tickled that Hosung cared about such a thing.

I really got the boys tickled when I explained our continuous speaking practice by saying, "The midterm is coming!" in Korean. I'm not sure what the funny part was (my pronunciation was fine), but they were really amused by it.

Went down to the special needs room, where Byeongsu explained to me that Jaehyung was a time traveller from the future. However, Jaehyung-From-the-Future still says that he's only 15 years old. Jaehyung tried to read my palm, which was surprising because I didn't know that was something he did. I couldn't make out any of the words he said except "money". But hey, who's going to turn down Moneyhands? I don't mind having moneyhands.

I feel closer to HS-Teacher today. I told her that I was worried about her, because I am, and I offered to help with anything she might need. She told me I was a good teacher and that my care for the kids really shines through. I just want to hug her and tell her how sweet she is.

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9-19-14 Wooseok-Stalker, and Gunwoo is My Boy

11:45 AM  

Just finished my 3-class marathon. The kids were great, though I'm quite tired. It's a good thing I got a mountain of rest last night and the night before, or I'd really be hurting today.

The biggest thing that happened yesterday was that my Wooseok followed me home. Like, all the way home. Many kids have walked me to my neighborhood or walked me to my apartment building, but Wooseok followed me down the street, snuck inside the building, then followed me up the stairs from just the right distance to see which apartment I entered without my also seeing him.

I barely had time to set my bags down inside the apartment when my doorbell rang. I asked "who is it?" before hearing a soft little voice say, "It's me!" I opened the door to find Wooseok, looking both elated and guilty. I gave him an apple and sent him home.

I hope he doesn't tell my room number to the other kids, but it was good to see my squishy little guy, even if he arrived in a stalkery-type fashion.


Today, I had to break up a small fight in 2-3, 2-4. I was talking with one kid when I heard SG2 order somebody to "stop!" in Korean. I looked over to see my Hyunho in a small pushing match with Gunwoo, the kid that I've just now been winning over in recent weeks.

The pushing got more intense and escalated to sharp elbow jabs from both kids, and they didn't respond to verbal commands from me or SG2, so I had to physically step in. I moved between Gunwoo and Hyunho and held Gunwoo by the shoulders. He still struggled a bit, but then he finally looked me in the eyes and realized that fighting me wasn't a good idea. I'm someone who cares about him, not an enemy, he seemed to register.

SG2 shepherded Hyunho to a seat and I told Gunwoo to sit down. Then I called up the next kids to do their speaking. After initially yelling at the fighting boys to stop, I didn't raise my voice. This was a much calmer, gentler approach to fighting, and I felt better about it.


After that, I made a point of calling Gunwoo up for an extra verbal exercise, one where I ask the students what school subject they're interested in. Gunwoo said very emphatically that he didn't like any subjects. He seemed to sink into a teenage angst-malaise that was dramatic but still very sincere, when he admitted. "Hate all. Hate all subject. Don't like anything. Hate all people."

I knew I had an "in" to brighten his mood, then. I said. "Do you hate me, too?" He looked shocked, then asked me to repeat it in Korean. When I did, he grinned in spite of himself and shyly said, "No." So now I've gotten Gunwoo to admit that there's at least one thing in the world he doesn't hate.

He was adamant that he's really into music, but that he has so many favorite singers, he couldn't possibly narrow it down to one. So now I know that as well--Gunwoo loves music. I asked him why the incident with Hyunho happened and he said Hyunho had annoyed him. I was glad we had so many talks because I have Hyunho's heart--I knew he wouldn't feel estranged by me breaking up his fight. But I had to make sure I secured Gunwoo, that he knew I wasn't just casting him as the villain because Hyunho is my baby.

Seungyeop was precious as ever, and Yeonghan continues to be supah-supah cute. Myeongui couldn't speak because his voice is changing.

In 3rd-grade class, Sujin said my shirt was pretty, which was a really nice compliment. Shion tapped my fingers with his ink pen, as he is wont to do, and I made all the boys crack up. One boy said "No jem!" meaning "no fun," and I countered with "honey jem!" which is an insanely cute way of saying that something is real neato and crazy fun. As the boys left class, they kept saying 'no jem!" so I'd say 'honey jem!" back at them.
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9-17-14 Easy Wednesdays and Black Hearts

9:10 AM

Thank the sweet Lord above, I have my first two class periods free! Wednesdays are my easy days, just three classes. Right now I'm eating peach jello (gift from one of the 3rd grade teachers) with a tiny white spoon and listening to Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier". The weather is perfect--overcast and cool--I didn't even have to flip on the office fans.

This morning, I got to school early so I could be part of the greeting process. From 8 to 8:20 about 15 of us stood outside the school gates and greeted the kids. It was fine. i got to talk to two of the 2nd-grade girl teachers, both of which had plenty of English. One had a LOT of English and has a sister living in LA. For 6 months I've seen this teacher and I didn't know that we could converse on such a level. The more you know!

Last night, I had a great hangout with SG2, 1st-Art Teacher, and 1st-Grade Math Teacher. 1st-Math has a car, so she drove us to dinner, then to a movie. It was a bit exhausting for me because the conversation was more heavily Korean than before and the movie was Korean with no subtitles, so my brain was right taxed.

But it was still lovely. Their friendship is a blessing. The very fact that such sweet people want to spend time with me is a blessing. 1st-Math complimented my pronunciation--on some basic sentences, I sound nearly Korean.

Deokryong came by. He has broken his arm and it's in a big old sling. He said he fell downstairs, I think? Anyhoo, he wanted one of my bananas for breakfast, so I gave it to him, whereupon he put it in his pocket. I hope it doesn't squash when he gets to class.

Left a Jeju cactus chocolate and a "hope you have a good day!" note for H-Sol teacher, who has been looking tired and worn lately. She has a lot of worries I don't know about, so I want to encourage her.

I'm about to work on next week's game, then on this Saturday's English geniuses lesson, which will be on blackout poetry.

I miss my sisters this morning. Everybody, really, but I'm thinking of my sisters in particular.
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11:45 AM

Had a lovely class with 2-7, 2-8. They did their speaking parts charmingly and by having them do the dialogue twice, I was able to really help them with their pronunciation. Plus, I like getting to spend the extra time with the fellas, which double-dialogues provide.

Also, I got to talk more with them. I focused on their feelings, and we had a great time. When Yunho said "no" to me, I squeezed his cheeks and said, "yep, yep, yep," and he broke into a grin and did his part. Because Yunho loooooves attention. His "no" means "please make me do something".

Also, Gunho, one of the quiet apathetic kids, did his speaking part perfectly. He wandered away from the table where I was talking to him, but I heard him mutter "angyeong," so I knew he was going to go get his glasses so he could read from his book. Gunho was charming, as was Changhee, one kid I used to get frustrated at for not trying, did great. he reacted well when I asked him if he was acquainted with the new Korean-literature teacher.

Before he did his part, I teased Yeonghyun about not trying hard enough, but I did it in such a way that it made him grin. Then when it was time for his part, he did well.

Byeongjo came by my desk to give me a black heart folded out of paper. Sunwoo says that it accurately represents the state of Byeongjo's actual heart.

C-Jeongmin came by to give me bits of the waffle-cracker he was eating. he and Angel-Cheongyu and I sat around and nibbled on bits of the same cracker while we talked about sports.
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9-16-14 Simple Carbs and Kids Getting Closer

11 AM:

Whew, I little bit dizzy because I ate peaqnut-butter toast for breakfast. Simple carbs for breakfast (like cereal) have always made me fainty later in the day, but I got so excited over my new toaster oven's ability to toast toast, I ate some for breakfast anyway,

I'm about to have some cup-ramyun, in shrimp flavor, though. Banish those hungries away!

HH came by this morning and was shocked that I was just eating an apple by holding it in my hands in a napkin. Apparently, this means I have strong teeth because normally weak-toothed people cut their fruit in small pieces and eat it that way.

And in wonderful news, HH and BY are holding hands now. HH allows BY to put an arm around him, but still blows up over the possibility that BY said something bad about him to me, so I figure we're at a good place. This is not what the boys look like, but this is a semi-accurate representation of how they act, based on characters from my favorite anime..

The "listening" section of the 2nd grade CD is just not working for my boys anymore, so I had 2-7,2-8 mostly do speaking practice. They were great. Joonsung came and sat with us and yelled a lot in the background.

I'm going to the movies with SG2 and 1st-Grade Art Teacher tonight. We already had one exquisitely nice girls-only hangout on Sunday night and I consider their company quite a blessing, so I look forward to getting dinner and taking in a show tonight.

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9-12-14 Uri, Human Experiments, and Not-A-Bad-Friday

8:40 AM:    Byeongjo came by the office and said "Good morning, Woori," to me. Because my name "리" is spelled almost like "우리"(woori/uri), the word for "we". It was mighty cute. Then I was fixing my hair in the office mirror when Love-You-Need-You-Junho yelled "Beautiful!". I may have growled at him a little bit, re-enacting shades of last September when he first starting yelling such things, embarrassing me into the very dirt.

I used to mentally compare each month of my life in Korea to what I was doing the previous year in America, but now I've gotten to the point where when I want to compare this year to last year, it's stacking up What-I'm-Doing-This-Year-In-Korea against What-I-Did-Last-Year-In-Korea.

Got a happy greeting from Minhee, member of the Giant Class, in the hallway. It's good to see them outside the context of that particular classroom.

I have opened the tiny baking oven I purchased last year. I am going to become a person who bakes. Just last night, I tried to do a thing. I set out to make roasted apples and succeeded in making Very Hot Apples Indeed. They weren't what you'd call baked, but my friend tells me that I needed to preheat the oven. And I needed a pan. And butter. And as I quickly learned, I needed to buy an oven mitt, because I couldn't get the apples out of the over and had to skewer them from a distance with a chopstick to get them out.

But I went and bought tiny pans and butter and an oven mitt, so. Tonight I attempt baked potatoes! I have heard they should be encased in foil, and I have foil, so that's half the battle done right there.

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5:50 PM:   Sitting in a coffee shop and it's the weekennnnnd!

I made it through my 5-class nightmare just fine. It was quite a pleasant day, actually. I don't know if I just paced myself more gently, or if I was braced for the day or what, but it went purely fine.

My little squishy 1st-graders were a dozens levels of cute and my 3rd-grade pranksters in 3-7, 3-8 were grand. BY is still looking haggard from his human experiment on himself. He decided to go without food or sleep for a whole day, just to see if he could withstand it. This is what my genius boy does with his free time--self-experiments. Better than doing psychological experiments on others? Mayhap?

In 3rd-grade, Shion was also very happy. He came by my desk for chocolate and popcorn, and though he's still terrified to speak English to me--just flat-out won't ask me questions, but will respond when asked. He's really precious and I'm glad we're talking more lately, thanks to our mutual connection to BH.

BH is doing great by the way. Last year he was a mature-for-his-years kid who helped me survive the world's worst afterschool; this year he's a basically a man, with confident sociability and a smoother fashion sense. He's still wonderful in all ways, and even funnier than before.

One of the 2nd-graders has hideous long red claw marks on his throat. NG told me that one of the special needs' boys did it--one that I've not known to be violent in the past. I was shocked.

Giant class was okay. Me and NG have adjusted our expectations so far downward, if the children do anything at all, we're pretty happy. About 18 of them did one speaking piece in two classes. when they were sorta-kinda supposed to do two pieces. But whatever.

Also! I asked NG if he minded my playing a game with them at the end of 2nd period--I'd been trying to avoid that, since we're trying to get them ready for midterms that they are heavens-to-betsy nowhere near ready for.

But since we had nothing else really for them to do, we did the game with Myeongbae and scorekeeper, and 10 of the students really had fun with it. Rest of the class ignored it, but a few of us had a grand time. And unlike usual, NG hung out in the front of the class a bit and fielded questions from the kids.

When I asked, he later said that doing one game per week with the giant class would be a good idea. No games planned for the other classes, but these boys could use something special. And if NG's for it, that means I have the green light to do games with them! Ensuring at least 15 minutes of fun with me and the boys, at the end of the long stretches of Attempting English With the Unwilling. I was so much more encouraged today after playing something fun with them and ending on a high note,

Also! On a Thursday in October, I'm going with JY-Teacher and YSR to chaperon soem 3rd-graders on a field trip to Seoul! Score, scoooore, SCORE! Can't imagine anything awesomer.

9-11-14 Eye-Aches, Jeju Trip, and Mustangfish

11 AM:    First class went fine. 2-1, 2-2 was pretty chill. I just had one speaking exercise for them, so they had the last 15 minutes free.

I was hoping things would be good with Beomjoon since I yelled at him last week, and they were fine. He and Soonhyuk were having competitions for who could come up with the most ridiculous excuse for not doing their work. Soonhyuk: "My heart is sick." Beomjoon: "I have eye-ache". All this accompanied by violently clutching the body parts in question and moaning.

SG2 and I are planning to hang out on Sunday afternoon in Cheongju, with the first grade art teacher who is a lovely girl. I never get a chance to talk to her, so this should be a good bonding opportunity.


My Jeju vacation was quite good. I loved seeing all the scenery on the island--I'm really into nature and outdoorsiness in a way that I was not when I was young. To get to Jeju, I rode on the same type of ferry that was the center of the horrible tragedy in the spring, but there were no problems.

On Friday I rode a train 4 hours to Busan, then met my friend and waited 3 hours for the tour bus. Once on it, it was about 3.5 hours to Mokpo, then almost 3 hours on the ferry to Jeju, because they had to go around some fishing boats and nets.

And I learned that not only am I bad at sleeping on planes--I'm not real good at sleeping on trains, buses or ferries either. Basically, if I'm aboard anything that moves, unless a family member is driving it I'm almost assured of being awake for the whole voyage. When we finally got to Jeju and got past our first museum, I had to take a shower at the hotel just to stay awake until evening.

I met a lot of cool people on the trip (this was a trip for foreigners in Korea--everybody taught English somewhere), A nice Canadian married couple from Busan, two awesome girls teaching at a college in Masan, a whole crew of girls from Daegu who I joined for possibly the best noraebang session I've ever taken part of--2 and a half hours of mostly 80's/90's nostalgic songs.

While there are so many disadvantages to being part of a large tour (namely, the rowdy kids who act like it's spring break in Cancun not Thanksgiving in Jeju), but the advantages lie in having a neat schedule and having the opportunity to mix with folks you would not otherwise have met under any circumstances. I'm heavily considering another group tour if we have any long weekends after October, because my October short-vacation is committed to SG2.


On this trip I tried really hard to find people who needed help, either spiritual or practical. But to my dismay, there never seemed to be anybody who needed a shoulder to cry on or needed help carrying their bags or even Korean language help, the one area where I have a distinct advantage over many Americans.

Anyhow, I finally had to sit on the beach and tell God that I knew that he knew my heart. He knew I wanted to help somebody, although it didn't turn out the way I planned. My heart still leans toward helping, so I'll look for opportunities here at home, not just when I'm out on fun trips.

Ponyfish Minwoo came by for popcorn. I told him that he was looking very handsome lately because it's true; he's growing up from a little ponyfish into...into whatever comes next. A very mature Mustangfish, perhaps.  He said a little woundedly, "Oh. Teacher make a joke." And I realized that though I had said it seriously, Minwoo didn't think it could be true, because he's always being teased about his weight. I assured him that I meant it, but I guess I'll just have to say it again.

Jaehyung and Byeongsu from the special needs room and Daehwan from 2-5, 2-6, who has been hanging out with them lately, followed me into the English room and read from the projector while I practiced my lesson. Nothing could be funnier than having Daehwan take over and instruct his peers in English.
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9-5-14 Mango Chocolate, Friending Gunwoo, and Glacier Class

12 PM:   Sweet night.

It's my first break all day--I had 3 classes in a row, which is unheard of because it's nearly unsustainable to direct that many children for that long. But it went fine. I did okay with 2-3, 2-4, then 1-1, 1-2 were charming little babies (Minsang brought mango-flavored chocolates to give to everyone SO SWEET, both literally and metaphorically.

And 3-7, 3-8 is a class of merry pranksters. They had lots of fun and I had fun laughing at their antics. BH's friend Shion, who I used to think disliked me, is always making jokes with me and tapping on my fingers when I'm near his desk, so we've become good friends.

In 2-3, 2-4, I noticed that Gunwoo wants to be loved. He's always been a hard case, almost totally apathetic, and the kind of kid who hangs out with other apathetic ones. But I knew him to be smart. Today, I noticed he was making the same "hey look at me" sounds and flounces that Soonhyuk does when he's not getting enough attention.

Was it possible that Gunwoo wanted to be talked to? Yep. Double yep. I did his memorized dialogue for him, then I sat by him and worked with him on his paper. He was intelligent, thoughtful, and interesting in all his questions. When we finished, he tossed his paper toward the window like it wasn't important, but I gathered it up and said it was important to me, and put it in my textbook. The other boys all went "ooh," and Gunwoo smiled, so that was definitely the right thing to do. Gunwoo's gonna be my boy from here onward.

Got to conserve energy. Because I just opened a League of Legends account for online gaming, and the boys will want to come by at lunch and offer me 40 billion tidbits of advice. My playing their favorite game is the most exciting thing to happen to the 3rd-graders since the Ice Bucket Challenge craze of August.

After lunch, I've got the giant class twice in a row. hahahaha. Five classes on a Friday. And it ends on a double-giant class. But! On the other side of that is my vacation! For the Chuseok holiday, I'm vacationing on a Korean island with my roommate from teacher orientation, and we're going to see and enjoy and relax wondrously for 4 days. :-)
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4 PM     Holy moly. Well, double giant class was some kind of thing.

We survived. The babies did some stuff. NG and I learned some coping strategies. First, we can play them more videos. If they're interested in learning facts about plants or animals, we look up videos about those things.

The first thing he said when I came in for our marathon class was "we can take it slow," and that was a good mindset to have. We just moved glacier-slow from one activity to another, with no strong impulse to get them all involved or to get even 50% energy. It's the only way to keep from nearly passing out from tiredness after two such classes.

I didn't try to get any sort of quietness, even though it got so loud I couldn't think. And considering my supremely high noise tolerance, that's pretty doggone loud. Then NG got serious with their discipline in a way that he never has before--I think he literally hit every kid with the stick, the little one which stings mightily, not the big which is mostly for noise.

They were silent as a ghost town while I did speaking practice with pairs. It was kind of scary. I felt bad that he had to go to that kind of level to make them quiet, but if it's what we have to do to maintain peace, maybe it's for the best.

Anyhoodle, I kept a loving attitude toward the babies, so I did my part I believe.
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9-4-14 Birthdays and Beomjoon's Last Stand

9:20 AM    Today is Face-Yoonjae's birthday, so I took a can of pizza-flavored Pringles, some chocolate, and a hand-drawn Hello Kitty card down to his classroom. Every time he and I see each other, we mourn his dropping from A-class to B-class because it means we don't have classes together anymore.

C-Jeongmin came by the office to tap my arm and then walk away, pretending like he hadn't.

Walked to school with sweet little sniffly 1st-grade baby Jonghan, who said hi to my mom on the phone.

HH and Yonghan stopped by to ask me to confirm the spelling of the word "murder". Charming thoughts, boys.

Today's schedule looks good--2nd, 4th, 5th and 7th periods. That ain't bad, not at all.
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11 AM:  First class was okay. 2-1, 2-2 was very calm while we had to do our boring memorization stuff. Beomjoon decided to make a stand and not learn his piece, but I decided that Beomjoon learning his piece was a hill on which to die, and I got him to do it. Eh, I wasn't angry exactly but foots were put down in a way that I can't put foots down for the giant class.

My baby Soonhyuk kept sneaking back up to the front of the class to type things into the note I'd put up about their writing assignment. He wrote "nononono" and "goodgoodgoodgood" and then the word I use most when speaking with him: "move". He did it all with his serious I-Am-A-Grown-Man face, so it was all the more funny, like adding words to my memo screen was an act of mature defiance.

Soonhyuk likes to get a million percent attention, and I'd been forking over too much attention to Beomjoon, the prodigal who, as Soonhyuk pointed out, couldn't even be bothered to memorize his dialogue. I tried to fuss over Soonhyuk as well, but his pouty/seriousness remained. Yongmoon wrote some great sentences, as did Yosep.

3rd-graders are taking a national listening test now.
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9-3-14 Quinoa Tea, Email Help, and Someone Like You

10:30 AM:  Drinking some kind of hot 10-grain quinoa tea thing from C-Jeongmin. I get something from him everyday, always some tiny food-present, given where nobody can see it. It's precious.

HH came by with Yonghan and crew, to chat and get chocolate. I'm putting together a game where kids guess the sport from clues, so I asked them for sports suggestions and we got to talking about the 2018 Winter Olympics, which Korea will be hosting.

The boys told me that our new math teacher, a sweet guy in my office, always says, "okay kids, be quiet" in an unusual Korean accent, so they find that really funny and imitate-able. I say this means that they've accepted him as one of their own, because if the kids don't think you're a monster or a nerd or complain about you, their love is not yet true. The way the homeroom kiddoes complain about cute little SG1 and delicate, swanlike YSR is nothing short of stunning.

Minjoonie is sleepy, Deokryong's hands are covered in black ink for unknown reasons, Jaehee charmed me out of my last apple (which was fine because we had snacks of deok in our office today and I wasn't hungry), and Taekyoon still insists that I call him "Pringles," a nickname I invented for him last week.

Me and B-Teacher haven't had classes today, because of listening tests or some such. Which is good because I'm at 75% energy from fighting a cold. I'm taking medicine and mostly keeping the sniffles at bay, but I know it's the medicine keeping the cold away, not my own constitution. Just beneath the veneer of health enforced by the pills, I feel a weary body, just resting and recharging.

SG1 asked for my help in writing an email to her hotel for her winter vacation stay in Europe, so I was beyond psyched to for-reals help someone by using English. I like SG1 lots. Her English listening is good and my Korean listening is good, though we both come up short in the talking department. I told her I want to talk more in the future.

For unknown reasons, Adele's "Someone Like You" was playing over the school speakers a bit ago. Like, I don't think it was coming from a classroom. I think it was on the PA system. It was funny, because B-Teacher and I both began singing "hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited" at the same time, and I could have sworn he wasn't the sing-along type.

Got a facebook message from Youngmin. It consisted of thumbs-up icon pictures. 3rd-graders be so weird, yo.
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9-2-14 Sprite Rituals and Silver Linings

11:45 AM  September has hit and the weather is interesting. It's quite cool in the mornings and evenings--not quite jacket weather, but not far off, either--and in the middle of the day, it's boiling hot.

I have a pretty strong headcold going on right now, which my co-workers think is due to the September weather change. They say a lot of people get September colds because the weather transitions from purely fire-hot to varying widely from dawn to noon to night. But so long as I stay medicated and the cold doesn't move down into my throat and lungs, I'm good.

Last night, we had the big beginning-of-semester teacher dinner. I sat by my school-mom, our Lunch Co-ordinator, who thinks I'm the cutest thing since Hello Kitty and who fed me (by hand) until I had to beg to stop. Moms don't mess around when it comes to eating.

Mr. B had me go and pour a shotglass of Sprite for the Principal and the New Vice Principal (you're supposed to pour soju, a very hard alcohol, if you're a guy, but ladies get to pour Sprite instead). It was technically challenging because I had to do it while kneeling--we were all eating on the floor at low tables--and making conversation in Korean.

And to that, when you're done pouring a drink for the important person, they pour you one, and you're supposed to drink it while turning your face away from them, out of politeness. Why turning your head away from Important Folks while drinking is polite, I don't know, but it is. My main difficulty was that I was facing the principal, kneeling between a wall and the vice principal, so when I took my shot of Sprite, there was nowhere to turn but awkwardly toward the wall.

Then I got to pour for NewVP, who seems to be the sweetest, kindest person. I think he'll be a big blessing to us workers.

1st-graders in 9-10 were precious this morning. CoolGuy-Hyunseo insisted on holding hands with me despite my obvious cold. Daww. That's pretty special, when a kid is willing to risk illness for affection.

The 1st-grader who calls me Elsa mentioned to his friends that I know his name, but I didn't. He was floored, but now I've written his name down---it's Dohwan.

Seongwonnie yelled 'hi' to my mom this morning, as I was walking in to school while talking to my mom on the phone. Then he came to my office for chocolate. He's so beautiful and he's grown so much--he's almost what you'd call a young man, and one that's always sunny and smiling at that, not the hurt little baby I knew when I got here last summer. One year does so much.

2nd-Grade Hyunseo also had an interesting episode with me last week, when he came to my office to request the chance to walk me home. This is a brilliant 2nd-grade B-level with not a ton of English, so I was surprised, but we had a good walk. Then it turned out that he was expecting to get invited into my apartment and I had to explain to him why that wasn't happening, despite his overly innocent protests that he "didn't care" about how such a thing would look. Kids and their crazy ideas.

Deokryong came by. He and Jeongmin are getting into small tiffs, mostly about how Jeongmin is fed up of translating for him and if he wants to talk to Sem, he'd better well do it for himself. I had to tell both kids that they were good people with good hearts and no, I didn't think either of them was a bad person.

BY and HH were sitting together and laughing at lunch yesterday, so it brightened my heart to see that.

SG2 says the young art teacher girl wants all three of us to hang out together in a couple weekends. Girl time with sweet co-workers? Heck yes. Where do I sign up for that?

NG tells me that he and I have the giant class twice on Fridays, back to back. I was so shocked/upset to hear that, I punched his arm harder than I meant to and begged him to tell me he was joking. He's not. I still haven't seen the schedule,  but he wouldn't joke about something this hardcore. Man. How are we going to survive that? It's...it's going to be harder emotionally than anything, being around kids who don't care for that long at a time. Ah, there's gotta be a silver lining. Silver lining? You there?
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7:50 PM:  Day was good. 2-5, 2-6 was fine.  Me and NG managed them all right and we talked about what to do for our giant class on Fridays. The upshot according to him is, we wait them out and hope they fall asleep; that is our coping strategy, for the present.

My poor, sweet KBR is so overworked. She had to miss our 3-5, 3-6 class today, but the boys did okay. I love my 3rd-grade dudes. They're terrifically smart and will only work a little when prodded, but I like them infinitely. Diamond Seonghyun refused to be my scorekeeper, just so he could compete against the other kids. Diamond Seonghyun was in my first afterschool and he never wanted to join in with me on things, but these days he tries to be smart/funny and to connect.

I gave C-Jeongmin a for-reals hug today because he looked like he needed one. Then he reached for my notepad and wrote "I love you" in English. I told him I returned the feeling.

NewVP continues to be super-nice, from the supershort snippets of convo I've had with him.

JY-Teacher's got some personal stuff going on and I offered to babysit for her. She's helped me so much, I'd love to bless her back.

KBR told me she loves my games and thinks I'm a very diligent teacher. That touched my heart more than anything. It was a word in season to the weary, I think.

Good day, all around.
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