10:30 PM: Good day! Here's the Thank List:
101. New baby students whispering furtively,
trying to figure out who I am. The surprise and wonder as they arrive at the only
possible answer: I'm their new English teacher.
102. Reconciling a difficult matter with a
friend, knowing we'll be okay after discussion and forgiveness.
103. Cream-colored turtleneck, tucked neatly
under my jumper, the white and black patterned one I wrote with my clear-lens
glasses last Halloween.
104. Wind biting gently this morning, not the
vicious sting of previous days--March comes in like a lion.
105. Crisp bits of office donut, delivered as a
present to JY from her much-loved former students.
106. Chanyoung, laughing over snow.
107. HS's blue sweater, which is totally her
color and makes her look buoyant.
108. A drawing I still have from my graduated
student Jungbok, which is a stack of cartoon pumpkins for Halloween, drawn with
friendly faces.
109. banana "nice cream" which is
nothing but frozen bananas run through a food processor and which has the
beautiful, perfect consistency of ice cream. Yesterday's late-night treat.
110. the nostalgia of listening to a k-pop song
that I first heard back when I was preparing to come to Korea. I first started
looking up Korean stuff in September 2011. I'd decided to go there by November
and mom gave her blessing in December 2011. I came to Korea in August 2013, and
now it's March 2015...I've been in my dream-country for as long as I dreamed
about my dream-country. It feels kind of like those people whose marriage has
lasted as long as their pre-married life. (just realizing that my dad has been
married to my mom for over 50% of his total life.) ALSOOOO...I taught in
America fall 2011, all 2012 and the beginning of 2013, and I've taught in Korea
fall 2013, all 2014, and the start of 2015. My work experience levels in the
two countries are. Exactly. The. Same. o_0
10:50 AM.
Had a good first class. It was noisy 3rd-graders, but we got along well.
For the first time, I really had to tell them to quiet down and get into place,
but they did comply just fine and we settled into a good movie.
One of the kids called me a ghost, and I wasn't
sure if it might not be some kind of a racial slur, but according to JY it
isn't. It's just that Korean ghosts are typically females with long hair, which
fits my description.
And that particular kid just wanted
attention--he later turned into the best question-answerer I had, despite being
C-level.
One of the Tall Babies--Sangbin--sat in the back
and quietly explained the plot to his friend, as he was one of the only kids
who had seen it before.
(I used to mentally refer to Sangbin and Sehong
as The Tall Babies because they were both about 6'1 in only the second grade.
But after a lot of persistence, Sehong graduated to being My Sehong.)
And Chanyeong was in this class. He quite liked
The Chronicles of Narnia, and he couldn't stop laughing with joy when Lucy
first encountered the snowy branches in the wardrobe.
I heard that I have 2nd grade conversation class
starting today, and I find that frustrating because it wasn't supposed to start
until Monday, but it'll all work out.
1 PM: Good news; I don't have to have conversation
class today. HS will just take role and we'll class plan, and that will be
that. Nice and easy!
Also, I may be at the center of another minor
turf war between 3rd-graders. I accidentally ignored Sehong in the lunch line
and squeezed Soonhyuk's hand right in front of him. It's a big lunch line, I'm
walking by quickly, and I can only resister so many faces and make so many
greetings as I walk by, so I inadvertantly skipped him.
But Sehong isn't the kind to let such things
slide. As soon as I walked back into the main building, he emerged from a
gaggle of friends, and headed straight for me. Before I knew what was
happening, he'd gone in for a side-hug/Prince-Charming-style one-handed waist
grab. That's a new one. I just patted
his back and said hi while extricating myself from the embrace, and thanking God that I was wearing my winter coat, for maximum distance.
As I walked away, he said "bye, my
darling!" and behind me I heard some other boy retort, "no, MY
darling!!!"
Thus it begins.
3 PM: Had the best meeting ever with HS, and we worked
out something fantastic for next week's conversation classes. Luckily, the
Monday class and the Friday class are different kids, so we can repeat the same
lesson twice in week.
Add to that, we restart the class in May after 8
weeks, so that further fixes things. Whee!
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