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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