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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