9-15-13 All-Korean Church and Photos from the Week

2 PM: Went to an all-Korean church this morning! I can't say how nervous I was. This was my first time going into an all-Korean space by myself. In the past, anytime I was going into a foreign-language place, I either had another foreigner with me, so we could both blunder through our interactions together, or I was with a bilingual Korean who could explain me to other folks.

Here, I was the only blonde head in attendance.  But the older ladies at church decided to adopt me, so while I sat it in the back of the room, they issued enough questions to determine that I'm American and I teach English at _______ Middle School. They said something about "teacher," then rushed away and returned with a 30-something man who they pushed toward me, apparently ordering him to make English happen.

The man was a Korean American from New York, and I had a great conversation with he and his wife after church. They recommended some other churches that are not too far away, and we exchanged contact information. If all else fails, I can just come back to this church--even if I can't talk to anyone, I can tell that they love God in this place.

I could read the Korean songs off the projector, and a couple of the songs were originally English, so this morning I sang "Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus" in Korean. After just a few bars of that song, I started crying. I thought, "Oh boy, here we go again with the crying in church." This happened two weeks ago when I went to the English service in Daejeon; a lovely song plays that makes me think of the Lord, and suddenly I fall to pieces. And I did not want to fall to pieces just then, this morning. I'm among 350 strangers, I'm already nervous about how things are going to go, and I'm the most conspicuous person in the building.

Why do I have to cry, now? Can't I appreciate Jesus without this kind of display? If I can't talk to my neighbors or comprehend the sermon, shouldn't I at least be able to keep my tear ducts under control? I suppose not. I'm not sad or worried anymore, either. These were just tears of thankfulness for how much God has blessed me. Fortunately, I had tissues in my purse, so I eventually got back to looking normal. I think I simply have to accept that crying during church is something I do now. There's no fighting it. I'm just going to have to tuck away a box of Kleenex and invest in waterproof mascara.

Some pictures from the week:

My Hand, 9-11-13, Wednesday.

By now, the only faces I remember are Tall-Yoonjae, Afterschool-Jinseop, Soccer-Daesung, and Necktie-Shinhyuk. Without writing them down, I would remember no one.

Me and Peter-Pan-Taehoon's English-to-Korean Word Game.

We tried tic-tac-toe first, then graduated to something more language-based. First he wrote English words while I tried to match them in Korean, then I wrote Korean words and he tried to match them in English. End result is, he's better than me.

My Hand, 9-12-13, Thursday.

Seohyung is 2nd-grade A-Class, good with computers. Laryngytis-Sunghoon (spelled elsewhere as Seonghoon) is a tiny 1st-grade B-class who always wears a tie and who is friends with Governor-Yunho. I pulled him off a staircase on Friday. Don't recall the other children.

My Hand, 9-13-13, Friday.

Walk-to-School-Minki was the first kid I met that morning, and Simyong is C-class, but he and I had already had a conversation about some other boy kicking him in the leg, so when I saw his familiar face in the hall, I got Simyong to write his name for me. Slightly-Rounded-Heesu is Walk-to-School-Minki's buddy and he asked me in English if a have a boyfriend.

I remember that Sangyeop was smart and had really tanned skin, but I can't recall his face. Shotputter-Jinseong is unforgettable--that boy is gigantic, and was surprisingly sweet to me. Shotputter-Jinseong is a 2nd-grader in the same B-class as Sanghwa. I don't remember the last two boys at all.

Baked Goods I Helped the Moms Make for Chuseok, 9-13-13, Friday.

They're called maejakgwa (매작과), and the "gwa" part of the word means "cookie".

And More Baked Goods for Chuseok.

These ones are songpyeon (송편). They have an egg-like filling, and I ate about four of them, myself. My lunch co-ordinator also fed me one by hand while patting my cheek with her other hand and telling me I was cute. Because she is my school-mom!
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7:00 PM  Should have stayed in and lesson-planned, but I went to an awful movie with friends. We had lots of laughs about it as we left, and I saw a bucketload of my boys in town, as per usual. While me and the girls were getting snacks in a glass-fronted convenience store before the movie, 10 of the boys--none of whom I recognized precisely--flocked around the front doors and pushed the bravest one in. Behind my back, I heard, "Teacher!" I turned around to see a beaming second-grader. "Teacher, hi, hi!" -"Hello, sweetheart." -"I am very hungry!" -"Me, too." -"Bye! Bye!" -"See you tomorrow."

Then in front of the theater itself, I saw a middle-schooler on a  bicycle rolling leisurely toward us. I made eye contact as he wheeled up and we both smiled at the same time--it was Peter-Pan-Taehoon, one of my Top 5 favorite students. It made my day to see him outside of the school, just having fun. But I wish I had seen his parents--the boys are always roaming free of parental units when I meet them.

Saw a couple of third-graders outside a PC Room. They were chatting up some girls their own age, but broke away to say, "Hello, hello! ______ Jung-hakgyo!" calling out the name of our middle school and pointing to themselves. I greeted them and said I'd see them tomorrow, then they went back to gossiping with the girls, presumably saying something like, "Yes, she's our foreigner. She even knows how to say "yah!"."

9-14-13 Teaching Fail, Precious Middle School Girls, and Saturday-Jeongmin is the Best

7 AM: I am as sleepy as a Very Sleepy Thing.

But I have my 4-hour Saturday thing to prepare for, followed by actually doing it. On the upside, I've been listening to praise and worship music this morning, and it has uplifted me mentally even if I'm dragging a bit, physically ("Shout to the Lord" works wonders for attitude). I can pull things together for a few hours for these students, who I'm eager to see.

At the very least, we will all get to know each other today. I love these kids a little bit already, so I fully expect that feeling to be further cemented by being around them more.
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5:45 PM: So the kids I thought I was teaching, I was not teaching. Except that I was, but not until later. It wasn't Main Co-Teacher's fault, but no matter how many times it was explained to me, I couldn't understand that I was teaching boy and girl 1st-graders in Room 1-10 for the first two class periods, then teaching the boy and girl 2nd-graders for the next two class periods. I actually moved half of my 1st-graders upstairs before understanding that only I personally was moving upstairs.

It was awful. Like, I don't think anybody learned anything. I made a special trip to buy The Hobbit, but I forgot how boring certain early parts of The Hobbit are. I tried to balance it out by writing on the blackboard, talking about story elements like "fantasy" and "epic" and "problem" and "solution". Some of them were sort of interested in the movie, and some were sort-of interested in the story elements I had written. But right when I was going to stop the movie so we could do a writing project, writing our own fantasy stories with fun heroes and big villains, I discovered that I had to switch rooms and switch students! So we did nothing but watch the boring part of an English movie. Strike out.

Upstairs, things went better. I had only 7 students--four of my favorite boys and 3 darling girls. The boys had seen The Hobbit and the girls had not, so I got to talk to the boys more about the role of heroes and how Bilbo is a small, weak, boring person, so that's why he is an interesting hero.

One of my boys, HH, also commented that English fantasy stories always have dragons in them. Genius. I wrote on the board that this was because the very first English-language story, Beowulf, has a dragon in it, so ever since Beowulf, English story-writers have this impulse to put dragons in their stories. The boys said old Korean stories are full of ghosts and tigers.

The story-writing in this class went better. The girls wrote in a team and the boys wrote in a team, and we were all shouting at each other about what to write. The boys were nearly coming to punches over which direction their story should take as I was writing it down for them, so I was happy that they were so invested in their choices.
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9:30 PM: The reason Saturday-Jeongmin is the best is because he helped me get the video files going, both downstairs and upstairs. I had a Bad Teaching Day, but without Jeongmin's help I would have had a Miserable Teaching Day.

I don't know how to explain to him how grateful I am for his help. On a morning where I was sleepy and thoroughly confused about where I was supposed to be teaching and who and for how long, when I was staring at 16 unfamiliar 1st-grade faces when I thought I'd be with my favorite 2nd-graders, Saturday-Jeongmin was the only child I knew. The school was all but empty and I had nobody to turn to, but Jeongmin stood by me at the computer and found solutions for my technical problems.

During the 1st-graders' class, I didn't even try to keep the kids from using their phones because I had nothing better for them to do--just a film to watch and a writing exercise at the end which we didn't get to do. But I went over to five of the boys and started playing the word game I had worked on with Taehoon, where they write a word in English, then I try to write it in Korean. These boys had the advantage because they quickly moved past words I knew, like "book" and onto words like "storm" and "product," which I could not write.

Then we wrote a story in English about a dragon, writing one sentence each. I couldn't keep their attention for longer than that, but it was okay because 2 girls got so curious about what I was doing with the boys, they pulled up desks and chairs so I could write with them. The girls, Jeongin and Choongeun, were precious and we also played the English Word-Korean Word game, before writing a killer story.

In the story I wrote with Jeongin and Choongeon, a girl finds a magic book and a real unicorn with wings comes out of the book. The girl rides the unicorn into the sky, but a dragon comes out of the book to attack them! The girl uses a wand to fight the dragon for hours, until finally she shrinks him down and makes him small. The girl likes birds, so she puts the tiny dragon in a cage and keeps him as a tame pet, like a bird. This story is mostly Jeongin and Choongeun's doing--I only provided direction. We sat together for 40 minutes, doing this while the movie played. Everyone else was left hanging out to dry, but two girls felt totally adored.

I think Saturday-Jeongmin felt left out, too. I took the kids out for a walk down the hallway really quickly, just to stretch their legs, and I struck up a conversation with 2 other girls about an English book they were reading, translated into Korean. Jeongmin came up beside me in the hallway to discuss the book too, and to explain that he had read it in Korean and was now reading it in English. I was struggling to read the first Korean sentence from the book, and he rattled off the whole thing really fast, giving me translations along the way. Little show-off.

Also, I had written genre-related words on the white board, and when we got back from break, Jeongmin took a marker and started writing words about a movie he likes, writing the words slowly as he said them out loud, just like I do: "Teacher. Snowpiercer is a science-fiction movie. And it is also action. In America, I think you would think it is horror." I'm standing there, having an actual conversation about cross-genre films with a 13-year-old, and it's delightful, but I have to cut it short. Nooo!

Upstairs, with the 2nd-graders, I had my favorites Daehoon and HH, so it was a breeze. We wrote stories, and the boys were writing about a slime monster swallowing a boy's parents, but then he defeats the slime monster and his parents are released. The story was getting really violent, but when I left the boys to go work with the girls, I came back to find that the boy-story had taken a turn for romance--the slime monster had also swallowed Cinderella, so when the boy's parents came back to life, Cinderella came back, too, and she and the boy got married and lived happily ever after. The guys wrote this one. Awwwww.

Me and one of the 2nd-grade girls, Minji, got really close. Minji's got a great personality and brilliant English, and her story was grand. I'm hoping I get to talk with Minji again, soon.

I think I accidentally hurt HH's feelings. I was wrapping class up and I said that I'd have something better prepared for next month. I mentioned, "Teaching in America is very different." HH was quick to ask, "How is it different?" I stalled, saying, "It's....easier." -"Why? Is it because of the language? That makes it difficult?" I said no, it was easier to teach in America because I had more time to prepare for classes.

When I said that I taught differently in America, I was speaking out of insecurity; what I meant was, "Please don't think I'm awful at teaching. Back home, I was good at this." What HH heard was, "My American students were better than you, because at least they could understand what I say."

HH's amazing--he really is. He's a happy person, but he seems to pick up on any potential criticism, kind of like I do. I have to be careful that I don't say anything to slight him because he listens to every word, then examines the sentence to discern what you really mean, like a kid shaking a Christmas present to figure out what's on the inside.

He was the only student to get a joke I made at lunchtime. Co-Teacher brought us all these amazing bagged lunches from a local bakery, and I sat with my 7 kids, just chilling and listening to their adorable patter. They all argued really animatedly for five minutes about something, then the conversation hit a sudden lull. Like we were in a comedy movie, I immediately filled that one beat of quietness by saying, "Yeah, I didn't get any of that." It was a joke I made without thinking they would understand it, but HH was dying of laughter. He got the joke when no one else did, and I thought it was cool.

Daehoon also used the word "resurrection" properly in his story. Daehoon sparkles with inner beauty--he's just that sweet of a  kid.

Before lunch, I stopped the kids and said I was going to pray for our food. I said a quick blessing, then found out the 5 of the 7 kids were raised Christian. We talked about blessings and prayers, and how/when you say them.

My mom reminded me that I don't just need to be a hip, "with-it" source of pop culture knowledge for these kids. It's so simple to just dazzle them with my knowledge of zombie movies and frothy pop songs, but that stuff is unimportant. Even teaching them English is unimportant when compared to the bigger task of showing them love, and then hopefully letting them know why I love them--because Jesus is in my heart, prompting me to do so. I still don't know how to get this final point across, but maybe I'll discover a way.

9-13-13 "Just the Way You Are," Piano Duets, and Sanghwa is My Boy

6:30 AM  Ha, I was going to go out for coffee last night and study Korean, but I decided to "take a nap" first. So the nap at 8:30 PM lasted for ten hours. Guess I needed it.

Saturday I'll study for real, I think, because I want to have some new things to say to my Vice-Principal. Yesterday, I managed to tell him in a mangled past-progressive sentence, "Lunch time, I was eating." And later in a more correct sentence, "At our school, how many people are there?" He showed me a student population chart on the wall. It was awesome, asking a 2nd-language question and getting useful information back.

I'll be at school soon, and I want to be thinking of myself as a servant. I'm continuing my read-through of James and I just read "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up." I'm not there to chalk up cool points--I'm there to benefit the kids and teachers, to see needs and meet them, if I can.
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9 AM: I learned how to say "What are you doing right now?" in Korean (Jigeum mwo hago isseoyo?) and I've been trying it out on co-workers. Apparently it carries the connotation of "Are you busy, or can you help me with something?" Because KBR-Teacher was ready to leave her desk to help me until I told her I was just practicing my Korean. That really made her laugh.

My vice-principal played "Just the Way You Are" for me on his phone and said that the song reminds him of me because I make him happy. From all evidence, he's a good man not a predatory one, so I took the compliment in a kind, fatherly spirit. I know that men can change pretty quickly from someone you think you can trust to someone who would harm you, so I'll still keep my guard up, but for now I'm content to view him as a good person and a helpful authority figure.

Met a precious little boy on the way to school--Minki. I've taught him before (he's in one of the 2nd-grade B-class). I recognized his face but didn't catch his name before. He has a few English words and we could have really gotten some good convo going on the way to school if his friend hadn't been distracting him.
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12:45 PM: First period class went fine in that no one was hurt and I connected with about 5 kids individually, and was not fine in that they could barely be bothered to pay attention to anything we were doing.

But 1-3, 1-4 B has Minki in it, the little boy I met on the walk to school! Doll. The other boys were teasing him saying, "Teacher, he gay!" but young as he is (12?), Minki distinctly seems to appreciate the ladies, so I said "Minki is very handsome!" This time, it seemed to give him status instead of causing a fight, like it did when I said it about Deokryeong.

Minki has a round-faced friend named Heesu, and between Minki and Heesu's few words of English and my desperate bundle of Korean nouns and the occasional adjective, we had a fun 2 minutes together. One kid--Dongseok?--acted up so badly, my Co-Teacher made him leave the room and kneel in the hallway. No idea what he did. The kids were mostly dead sleepy in 1-3, 1-4 B, but I gained the friendship of Minki and Heesu.

Next was 2-1, 2-2 B, who I thought I hadn't taught before, but I have. This class has Yoontae in it, the Taylor Swift fan who wrote me a love letter last week. His "Who Is Your Hero?" paper this week was about Taylor Swift. 2-1, 2-2 B has a cutie pie named Sanghyeon whose hero is Bill Gates, and a giant of a boy named Jinseong.

Jinseong has to be 13 or 14, but he looks 17. This boy is gigantic huge-massive. I may be exaggerating, but I think he's twice as wide as I am, and B-Teacher said he saw the boy in the local newspaper for winning a shotputting contest. Jinseong the shotputter--it fits. Jinseong can get "echo down the hallway" loud, and I've heard him cursing a lot in English, so I thought he'd be a good boy to have on my side. I made sure to pull up my chair by him and work with him on his English. He didn't cause problems in class, didn't curse, and I think he and I may get along nicely.

That second class went pretty well. I played them a zillion videos, and if it doesn't properly contribute to their understanding of English, it at least contributes to their understanding that I care about their engagement or at least entertainment. I used the last two videos as a way to keep the room distracted while I worked with the quieter boys on their papers. As a strategy, it was fairly effective.

When class ended, one of the boys walked up and announced that Yoontae the Taylor Swift fan was going to carry my laptop for me. I said he didn't have to, but Yoontae was already scooping up the computer. And the power cord. And my water bottle. AND MY PURSE. My shiny, sparkly 100% girly purse was slung over Yoontae's shoulder like it was no thing and he gestured for me to lead the way downstairs. We talked along the way, but when the other American at school, B-Teacher, saw us in the hallway I was suddenly embarrassed and wanted to explain, "I didn't make this boy carry my stuff! I'm not making the students my personal servants or anything!"

After class, I went to the Special Education room and spent time with O-Teacher's boys with autism. The piano prodigy played "Doe a Deer" from the Sound of Music, and I sang along. O-Teacher has video of it, which I may get to post later. Then piano-player 2 practiced with me for about 10 minutes, working on Heart and Soul. He can reliably play the lower part while I play the high part, so I suggested that we should play it for the school festival in November. He said he'd think about it!

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5 PM Great day! Something amazing happened with Sanghwa, again.

I was wrong.

I was wrong about Sanghwa---his attitude, his motivation, everything. You know why? Because Sanghwa is B-class.

I could have sworn that I taught Sanghwa in a 2nd-grade A-class. Maybe I did; maybe he was transferred downward. But for whatever reason, today I taught 2-3, 2-4 B for the very first time ever because I was scheduled to teach them last Wednesday, but I was out of town. I come into the B-class room ready to meet some brand new faces and I see a boy from afterschool.

What? Why is this child in the lower level? I saw him in A, didn't I? He's in my afterschool--an English conversation class for the brainiacs, right? I asked him, "Sanghwa, aren't you A-ban?" No, he said he wasn't. He didn't just sneak into a random B-class for the fun of it; he is in the room that is appropriate for his tested academic level.

Oh, my boy. A thousand things make sense, now. The way he always looked confused and scrambled--I thought he was messing with me. He did not understand my words. The way he always spoke to me through an interpreting friend and was madly asking, "what, what, what?" every time I addressed him--I thought he was playing some bizarre power game, pretending that I was this foreign creature he couldn't connect with, despite him having excellent English. He wasn't. He isn't. When he didn't raise his head when he was the werewolf in our card game, it was because he did not understand the game rules I had explained.

Today, I started making it up to him. I told him in Korean, where his friends could hear, that he was one of my "best, favorite students". My grammar was awful, but I think he took the meaning of my words. When I came by to help him with his worksheet, Sanghwa read every single word of the questions aloud, as no boy has done, not even the A-class. I recognized the action--pointedly reading out loud--because I do it myself to prove to people I'm not stupid. It's a gesture that says, "I'm not dumb because I can read. See me being aware and capable?" He wanted to let me know that he's still sharp, no matter what class he's in. Yes, you are, Sanghwa. I see that you're smart.

Our class together went well, and then when I was packing up to leave school, I saw a little buzz-cut head and a giant pair of glasses disappear out the front door. Then Sanghwa ran back down the hall, peeked his fuzzy noggin around the corner and waved a cheery "Bye!" to me. It was a devastatingly beautiful moment. I doubt our future will be all smooth sailing, but I know that Sanghwa is my student now, like Taehoon or Byeonghyun or anyone else.
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6 PM: Other bits from the day...  Finally gave HH a decent high-five, now that I know he's not just waving.

Little Yunho (pronounced "you know") from 1-9, 1-10 B has decided that we are buddies, so he has stopped quizzing me about his name and started proving that we're close by making obvious gestures of friendship when we pass in the hallway. One time he gave me a very solid high-five (some of the boys think I'm delicate--Yunho decidedly does not), and one time he reached out and touched my hair (which no one has yet done without permission) and announced "cute, cute. Is so cute". Yunho is going to be a governor or something when he grows up, because when he pronounces something to be true, there are no second opinions about said thing. And Yunho saw the English teacher, and behold she was good. End of story.

Pulled Yunho's tiny compatriot Seonghoon-With-Laryngitis off a staircase, warning him to be careful in Korean.

AND today I met several mothers of our students! None of the moms I met had kids in my classes, but it was still great. O-Teacher said that she was going to make Chuseok treats after school in the cafeteria, and she invited me to come because it was a special event for moms and female teachers.

I had the time! The moms were so nice, and one of them had some English, so we had a fun chat. I learned how to make two kinds of traditional Korean flour-based goods. I would say say "baked goods," but I think they are actually boiled. Anyhoo, they tasted delicious and we had some fun fellowship, us ladies all together. Mr. B was the only male teacher to stop by the cafeteria, and he told me that if I make the baked goods well, it means I'll have pretty children. My cookie-things turned out fine, if I do say so myself, so I'm a shoo-in for pretty kids.

You're Welcome, Future Offspring.

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9:30 PM Ooh, surprise. The Saturday class I teach once a month is tomorrow! I get roughly 10 boys from our school and 10 girls from the other middle school for 4 hours. Now fortunately, I've met most of these kids and their English is crazy-good, and they are darling individuals.

A friend and I caught a taxi to the HomePlus and I bought a DVD to watch with the students. (The DVDs were not in the electronics section with the DVD players, but rather in the school supplies section, by the notebooks and crayons.) I told my friend that while we had been running into my boys right and left downtown, "we won't see any of them in HomePlus." First face I see when I walk through the HomePlus doors is GrumblyBear-Deokryeong, smiling like crazy and waving hi. I made a big fuss over him and asked if his arm was hurting--sometimes it's in a soft cast and sometimes it's not.

I'm praying tomorrow goes well, for the kids' sake.

9-12-13 Braids, Werewolves and Bold 3rd-Graders

11:00 AM: Wore my hair in braids today, and the school is in a happy uproar. Apparently, pigtails are really interesting. The older women in the office have been exclaiming "Cute!" at me all morning. The male teachers have let me know they really like it, too.

It's so nice to be so appreciated, but I'm already a vain person--vain about my abilities, not looks--and now I'm at a school where little boys shout "Beautiful! Very Pretty! Oh my gosh!" all day. I heard that Koreans were really blunt, so I fully expected to come here and have everyone ask why I'm so fat. I heard that they think all Americans are fat, so I was expecting to steel myself against a constant barrage of friendly insults, not a heaping helping of more compliments than I know how to deal with.

But it's their way of being friendly. Out of 1,000 boys only about 100 have good enough English to start a conversation, so if they want to connect with the new teacher at all, they're stuck with a vocabulary that's essentially limited to "Hi," "Hello," and "Pretty!" I think the Lord will keep me humble, though--goodness knows, I feel insecure enough about my teaching methods to balance out the ego trip of uber-appreciative-ness. Also, there's no reason to take pride in your own appearance because you can't control it.

I notice the unpleasant flipside of the appearance coin when I taught Deokryeong this morning in 1-9, 1-10B. He's a grumbly teddy bear of a boy, and when I went over to help him with his paper, some of the boys in his class asked why I was sitting with Deokryeong, because he's ugly. I said no, he's handsome! That made Deokryeong happy, but then another boy laughed mockingly, and D stood up to go hit the guy. I let him do it. It's not the best behavior, but D has developed his own set of defense mechanisms against the meanness of children.

Last time I taught him, I though he was a bit of a wild one because I could barely get him back into his seat when he was trying to fight somebody. Now I'm pretty confident that Deokryeong only did that because he had been mistreated. I've never seen him instigate, but he reacts pretty fiercely.

Also in 1-9, 1-10 B is Deukhee, one of my darlings. Deukhee and and I smile and greet every time we pass in the hallway. I'd love to spend more time talking to him because he seems to have the sweetest personality. In 1-9, 1-10 B we have Seonghoon, too, one of the smaller 1st-graders. I forgot his name, but I sure remembered him after teaching him last week. He's rowdy and mobile and delightful. For some reason, Seonghoon is never in a proper school uniform, he's always in a crisp while shirt and a black tie. Cuuuuuute.

Seonghoon was funny today, too, because he's one of the shoutiest kids I know, and he had lost his voice, so he had to resort to waving his arms madly to get my attention. The 1-9, 1-10 B boys wanted to know my name again, so I wrote it on the board and six of them promptly began doodling hearts with "So and so loves Leigh" in them. They also told me that because I have white skin, I am a gumiho.

Now, I knew that a gumiho was a Korean mythological creature with two forms--a human woman and a fox with nine tails. I also thought that a gumiho was a monster of some sort. Then when I looked it up on Wikipedia, I got this lovely surprise:"[the gumiho] can freely transform, among other things, into a beautiful woman often set out to seduce boys, and eat their liver or heart". Wut? Your livers are safe, boys. Maybe there's more to the legend than I know, because they said it in a sweet way, like "You're a mermaid!" or something nice like that.

My first class was 2-1, 2-2 A, with Byeonghyun, Seongmo, and Keundeok from my afterschool, plus Kimchi-Power-Kyeongbae, Poet-HH, and Computer Genius-Seohyung. I'm learning them, bit by bit. It was a great class. I taught by myself because poor KBR-Teacher was sick this morning (bless her--she's a sweet person and a brave teacher, so I sympathize with her hurting).

In 2-1, 2-2 A, we played 10 Questions with superheroes as the topic, and when the boys narrowed it down to "fictional male American superhero who flies and is sort-of a god and is not Superman," HH guessed Thor. Then we did 10 Questions for a song and Seohyung got "Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars on the 10th question. Then half of us sang a few bars of the chorus. It was a great moment in class history.
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1 PM: 3 free hours until afterschool! I borrowed a deck of playing cards from a teacher friend, so I hope to play some card games with them. One game called "Werewolf" should go over well. It involves "killing" people and guessing identities, so I think they'll like it.

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1:30 PM Daesung came over to the office and talked for 15 minutes! That is by far the longest that any boy has managed to keep a convo going one-on-one. AND Daesung told me that he's C-class! He doesn't even have English class with a native speaker because his level is too low. He didn't speak in sentences, but he used every word he knew, and we communicated a lot through writing. Being able to read hangul is a life-saver when it comes to talking to the lower-English kids.

Daesung told me that his mom is Korean, but his dad is from Pakistan, hence my thinking he might be from India. We only had one big miscommunication--he was saying he liked David Beckham and I thought he was saying he liked to eat bacon. We had a good laugh when we realized when I went wrong in interpreting his words. We had plenty of lulls in the conversation, but he just waited around until one of us thought of a word or phrase the other would understand. 
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2:30 PM Went down to O-Teacher's room to talk with the boys with autism. Nearly taught one boy how to play "Heart and Soul" on the classroom piano, then another special-needs student who had been ignoring us up until that point came over and played a jazz variation of "Heart and Soul" that was 10 times better than what I had been plunking out. It was beautiful. Then the second piano-prodigy boy played a Korean song and I tried to sing with him, reading the hangul lyrics. The kids thought it was funny, how bad I was at reading.
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 6 PM: The 3rd-graders (15-year-olds) have upped their game. Yesterday, one of the bigger boys graduated from saying "Pretty," to saying, "I love you. I need you!" But if I'm going to be hollered at by little boys, I suppose it's good to get full, grammatically correct sentences? Today, when school was over, they descended in a pack to ask questions. One boy I haven't met was busting out the lines. "Beautiful! Teacher, how old are you? Where you live? You invite me your apartment!" I told him no, never. He asked, "Why?" but I couldn't answer because I was distracted by Seongjae running up to hold an umbrella over my head as I walked. It wasn't even properly drizzling, but I couldn't get him to stop sharing his umbrella unless I opened my own umbrella. But what a gentleman! That kind of behavior will serve him well in 10 years.  

I was fairly grateful to have my umbrella open, too, because it enforces a bit of distance. Everybody was striking up conversations on the walk home and asking too many questions about where, precisely, I live. But Hwangmin and Yoonseop were really sweet, and they were trying to speak clearly, too.

Afterschool rocked! I played the boys an OK Go video to start class--it didn't connect to anything we were learning, but it had dogs in it, and it got their interest up. I had prepared a slideshow about the card game "Werewolf" we were going to play. The boys already knew the game by the name of "Mafia," so they were pretty familiar with it, but we still had a bajillion mix-ups. I had to push together 20 desks to make a table-like surface, then it was like herding a flock of greased penguins to get the boys into their seats.

I kept expecting the worst because Joon and Jeongmin didn't want to do anything, Jiwoong was horribly grumpy, Minsu was feeling mischievous,  and Sanghwa and Taehoon were jumping off the walls. But it went over fine! They had a great time, even thought they are awful at playing the game. I mean, they could not be worse if they were trying. They ALL peeked when they were supposed to have had their heads down, and for most rounds of the game, they were screaming the name of the werewolf before they even knew the name of the victim.

Oy. I was the storyteller, so during the first round of the game I said, "Werewolf, wake up and look at me," so that they could pick who they wanted to kill. No one looked up. Now, what are you gonna do, Teacher? The game doesn't work without a wolf. So I said, "There is no wolf, so I'm going to touch one person. They are the new wolf." That worked and suddenly the game was back in full swing. The wolf who did not speak up was of course, Sanghwa. I have no way of knowing whether he didn't speak up because he wanted to mess with me even though we've been on good terms the last few days, or because he was off in Cloudland and genuinely did not notice that his card was the joker.

In any case, Sanghwa was totally participatory in the rest of the game. So participatory that he could not keep quiet. Every round it was "Teacher, teacher, teacher! Him, him, he werewolf, it was him!" Oh, child. Taehoon had the time of his life and when I asked for a volunteer to be the storyteller so I could play the game myself, he leaped to his feet. And he mostly narrated in English. "Night now. People sleep. Werewolf wake up. Wake up NOW."

Then I let grump-master Jiwoong be the storyteller. I have to do nice things for Jiwoong because I don't want to--he rubbed me the wrong way on day one, so now I'm trying to work twice as hard to treat him well.

I gave everyone in class candy twice--once for showing up, once when they correctly guessed the werewolf. but Taehoon and Jiwoong wanted a third piece. With almost everyone else gone, I said they could have one more if they told me the name of their favorite song. Taehoon agonized over his favorite for a solid minute, when Jiwoong bulldozed over and told me, "My favorite song is Gangnam Style. Give me candy." Taehoon then said his favorite song was "Gentleman" by Psy, which was obviously not true, but he was doing this hopeful wide-eyed face, so I gave in. 

Saturday-Jeongmin was sick with a bad cold today and looked exhausted, so I gave him a candy, too, even though he's not in my afterschool.

My beautiful afterschool students don't know I was up 'til late last night thinking of what would work well for them, and they don't know I spent over two hours today determining the best rules for Werewolf (there are about 50 version of the game), putting together the slides, and troubleshooting for what I'd do if things went wrong. But they don't need to know. I can't put this much effort in every time, but today I was pleased to have found one more thing they love to play, even if they're rubbish at keeping their eyes closed and even worse at keeping their mouths shut. :-)

Seongyeol in afterschool has appointed himself as my protector. He helps me set up my computer, helps me pack it away, just generally helps with everything he possibly can. When I sang part of "Call Me Maybe" to myself in class, he looked it up on his phone and played it for me later.
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9-11-13 Video Chat Fail, "Yah!" and Joon Smiling

11:00 AM: Whew, first two classes went well. 1st-graders loved the music part of the lesson, and I hadn't actually taught this group before, since I missed last Wednesday to get the ARC card. One child, Pyo, kept trying to tattle on another kid who sits behind him, saying this kid was noisy and talkative, but by now I've figured out that any time one kid tattles on another, they are the culprit. Anyhow, I just paid Pyo a lot of attention and told him in English and Korean to be a good person. He still fussed: "Teacher. Him! He talk. All time. Very noisy at my back."

In 2-3, 2-4 A, I saw my afterschool Joon. He had been refusing my help lately, but today he let me work with him and he smiled and smiled when I told him that he was a bad person because he never wanted to try anything. There is a specific way you can insult a boy to let him know he is valued, but it's a very delicate process. This time it seemed to work with Joon. I've got to make sure that I remember that Joon's learning is just as important as Taehoon's--it just takes three times as much effort to draw Joon out, and with less immediate return on the investment.

BY is in 2-3, 2-4 A, and when we filled out "Who my hero is" worksheets, he wrote that his hero was a magician. BY is also an amateur magician, it seems. I am not surprised at all. After class, he asked me if "yah" was the first Korean word I learned. Let me explain...

I've been yelling "yah!" to get my classes' attention, lately. "Yah!" is the Korean "Hey!". Calling the boys in English doesn't often work because it filters through their ears as noise, and doing those clapping patterns they taught me in orientation doesn't work worth a flip, either. Most kids are just amused by the clapping, like "Aw...she's really trying to communicate! Good try, teacher! A for effort!" Sometimes they would clap back, sometimes they would burst into full applause.

New measures were needed.

Then I remembered from K-dramas I watched that when teachers needed attention or when a mom was upset with her kids, they would yell "yah". So I tried it with a noisy class, last Friday. 25 pairs of eyes, instantly trained on me. Oh, the power. You can only use it about 3 times per class, but that's all I need. And "yah" can sound harsh when you yell it, so I always give my sunniest smile right afterward--I am not mad at you, I just need your attention. My co-teachers have liked it, and Mr. B asked me, laughing, "Where did you learn "yah"?" My theory is, the boys listen up because I sound like their mom.

So BY, among other people, is really tickled by my shouting. I told him no, my first Korean word was actually "saranghae," or "I love you," and I learned it before the phrase for "hello," so once upon a time I could not have said hello to any Koreans, but I could have let them know I loved them.

Learned a new boy in 2-3, 2-4 A---Yoonjae. He's a doll and his English is nice and we had a big laugh when he wrote his height on a piece of paper and I wrote mine, which was 1 centimeter shorter than him. I couldn't believe it, so made him stand up and sure enough, he was taller. "See, Teacher? True. I very tall." We also had a mini-debate over how to spell his name in English--he wants to spell it Younjae, but I explained to him that native speakers might read it as Yuhn-jae that way, whereas if you write "Yoon" we'll read the longer sound.

Also written on my hand is 2-3, 2-4 A's Shinhyuk. He's quiet but smart, and something tells me he's important to remember. Hyun and Seonbin from my afterschool are in this class, too.
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1 PM: 2-9, 2-10 B went terrifyingly well.Why are they so well-behaved? Why? They're a B-class, and they sit in a class with open windows where the breeze blows in and they can hear the shouts of other kids having P.E, so they should not be in any way the listen-y types, but they were great.

In 2-9, 2-10 B, I met Seongmin, whose hero is film director James Cameron. Seongmin wants to direct movies some day. A boy named Seulbin named a video game assassin as his hero--I thought Seulbin wouldn't talk to me, but he did with a little nudging.

Also in 2-9, 2-10 B in Jinseop, who is in my afterschool. He's one of the boys I never remember because he's not a chatty genius, a wounded emo-teen, or a fun rabble rouser, like most of my afterschool. Jinseop does not talk. Jinseop barely writes.I decided he just didn't care about English. The truth is, I think the child doesn't understand much English at all. And he's in an afterschool conversation class with A-level boys who can write whole paragraphs. Oh, dear. I'm going to have to show Jinseop special attention. I don't know why his parents put him in afterschool, but I need to make it a good place for him to land. His eyes were bloodshot yesterday and he looked sleepy. I should have said something kind.

I'm stunned by how many kids will flourish with 2 minutes of personal attention. Boys I thought were utterly checked-out can write and talk and be bright when you don't rush them. Trouble is, while I'm one-on-one-ing in the corner, every other kid is doing without. But how else can I behave? If I teach to the room, none of them get anything at all. Maybe I can hope that in the course of the year, I can get more quality time in with each student.

I still need more materials for each class, more for the students to do, but I'm getting closer to filling time.

I'm trying to respond to any too-rough behavior I see in the halls, while not viewing myself as everyone's hero. If I think I'm superwoman, sole defender of bullied students, I will really mess up. But so far today, I pulled two big boys off a first grader they were repeatedly pushing into a closed door, and got 4 boys off one kid they were sitting on. The sat-on boy looked fine, but I can never tell when they're genuinely okay or putting on a brave front.

I try to only address situations that look like restraint--if someone is being held down or trapped in place. If they're free and clear, I don't worry myself with the punching and kicking. Every time I pass Dongmin in the hall, I make sure to greet him by name, so that he knows that I know who he is. I don't know if he's truly a delinquent, but I do know that feeding kids the pepper-dumplings was his idea, and I know he made Taehoon look worried yesterday.

Met a new boy named Daesung. He's super-tall and may not be 100% Korean--he looks like he's from India or possibly Malaysia. Daesung's a sweetie and I can tell that he's been wanting to introduce himself for a while, because I every time I see him, he smiles and hangs around but doesn't say hello.
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1:40 PM - PIGS HAVE FLOWN. I just had a very pleasant 2-minute conversation with Sanghwa in the hallway. I think the upshot of it was that he has a cold today and that his class is going on a hiking trip tomorrow, so he will be out of class for awhile. We were talking! Mostly in Korean, but still we were conversing nicely! Atta boy.

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4 PM: My final 3rd-grade class went great. The videos I had for them kept stalling--don't know if it was a faulty internet cable or what, but things went much better than the last bunch of 3rd-graders who breezed through  45 minutes worth of material in 20 minutes. These boys were really sweet, and since I hadn't taught them before, they were extra curious. Mr. B translated that one of the boys is worried about my hair. I'm not sure exactly what the nature of his worry is, but one kid in 3-1, 3-2 B is distinctly concerned for my hair's well-being.

The boys in general find nice things to say to me. Yesterday, a student said in passing, "Your purse is wonderful." I was carrying my shiny silver bling-y purse, and several of the boys have said they liked it, but this was a new sort of comment. When I asked him to repeat, he stared at the glittery sequins and said again, "It's wonderful." I think I need to buy more sparkly stuff, if it makes them so happy to see shiny things.

Off to prepare for my afterschool--I've got something big planned, and I hope it goes well.
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8:30 PM It did not go well. I had a video chat set up so my students could talk to my brother in America, but the audio didn't work. I spent so much time trying to prepare this event--getting the boys to write introductions to themselves, communicating those introductions to my mom, making sure my adorable, precious baby bro was up at 2:30 AM American time to talk to my boys at 4:30 PM Korean time. Oh, my brother was a trooper. I so wish it had worked out.

But it didn't. And I had 15 teenage boys in a room and nothing to do. Again! I started off by herding them together and asking them these "serious topic" questions about school bullying and about whether all-boys schools were a good thing. But none of the serious topics caught on, so we spent the last 30 minutes gossiping and arm-wrestling. I let most of them win, and some of them won for real. Yeah, I know, arm-wrestling with your students is really lowbrow, but while we were having competitions, they were all smiling, laughing, and speaking English.

No, I'm not likely to ever do it again, but for today it was okay. After I lost to two boys and won with one, Taehoon demanded a turn. Then I convinced Emo Joon to try--he won, for real, and he was smiling and talking, neither of which is standard for him.

I gave them all chocolate before they left, and I returned five confiscated phones. Jiwoong told me I was "very very bad teacher" for taking his phone after his second incident of playing phone games in class. Not that this is the most serious afterschool class ever, but I can't do anything at all for them if they're off in phone-land!  But Jiwoong forgave me, as they all do. The five boys who wrote zombie stories got their papers back with comments on them--I was so proud of their writing.

O-Teacher and I had dinner at my apartment, actually. She knows how to order takeout, so we had some good fried chicken and better company. I'm older than her, but she says that I remind her of her younger sister, so she feels protective of me. I told her I understand--I've all but adopted Taehoon because he reminds me of my brother, so I completely understand "substitute family member" syndrome.

The real hero of afterschool was Seongyeol, who is the most helpful kid I've met, aside from Byeonghyun. Seongyeol helped me set up the video chat, helped me tidy up the room, and looked up a ton of words on his phone dictionary so he could communicate better with me. I hope he had a good day--he worked so hard to make sure I had a good one.

Anyhoo, I hate that I had another wasted class, but the boys are pretty resilient. So long as they use some English while they're with me and they're upbeat when they leave, I'm fairly satisfied that we had a good day. Keundeok even expressed an opinion for the first time--he has not seen World War Z, but he wants to, so he requested that I play it in the future.

9-10-13 Good Day with Sanghwaaaaa! And English Speech Competition.

10:00 AM Didn't teach my first period class because of a schedule mix-up. There have been a lot of those lately. I'm preparing for afterschool and altering the lesson plans for my regular classes,according to what worked best.

It's a damp, foggy day and I'm trying to keep my spirits up because I have boys to encourage. So what if there are some stubborn ones in the bunch? Is that going to stop me from reaching the people I can? No. :-)

Here's a cute thing--the boys keep arguing with me when they lose "10 Questions". The game is simple: I say I'm thinking of an animal, then they have to guess what it is. Sometimes, especially with the lower levels, they'll just say, "Is it a tiger, is it an elephant?" But others can narrow it down pretty far by asking, "Does it live in water? Does it eat meat?"

Several times now, a class has not been able to guess the animal, and they always protest. One of their clues for elephant was "does not have fur," but the boys shouted, "elephants have fur!" I think that's only loosely true--they have hair of some sort, but not like a mammoth. Then on Friday BY, the fluent boy who lived in America, objected to losing on "monkey" because I said it had 4 legs, and that was deceptive and threw them off. Well, technically, monkeys have four limbs, but I thought the distinction would be lost. And it would be, with any kid but Byeongyoon.

BY's another favorite, and not to be confused with Byeonghyun. They're both in 2nd grade (14 years), and both in A-level, but they're totally different. BY listens to everything I say, even from across the room, then calls me on it. If I say I like a certain band, I better be prepared to name my favorite member. If I overlook him during a game because he knows the answer and doesn't need to practice his English, I can expect him to protest the ill treatment. And he does it all with a smile--it's impossible not to like fussy people who smile!
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1 PM: First class went well! It was 1-5,1-6B, which has Munsu-Octopus, Hyunshik-Pig, and Jinho-Puppy in it--their choice of nicknames, not mine. It was hard to get them all to pay attention, but we had several bright moments. I changed the "Baby Sloth" video I had shown yesterday's 1st-graders to the "Assassin's Creed Parkour" video I showed to the 2nd and 3rd-graders. Needless to say, they were into it.

I also met some new kids. Hyunho, a spritely, sunny child who wants to volunteer for everything and who likes acapella music. Yongmun, a quiet boy who is very smart when you speak to him slowly. Heekyu, a clever loner who came up to me after class with a written question, related to a song we had heard--"What means "I knew you were trouble"?" All 3 names are written on my hand, so I keep them in my mind. I know I'll recall Hyunho, because he's also the kid who held my glove last week and said that he liked baseball. Hyunho also sang along to the "I Knew You Were Trouble" acapella video we watched--he likes Taylor Swift, and he was getting most of his English right. Darling, darling, darling.

My Hand Today (9-10-13): Hyunho, Yongmun, and Heekyu.

Saw HH before lunch--he was trying to give me a high five, but I accidentally left him hanging because I thought he was just waving.

Teacher's-Pet-Jeongmin came by the office to say hello. This Jeongmin also called out "Teacherrr!" on my walk home yesterday, when I was really close to my apartment. I shouted back, "Jeongmin, are you following me? Are you a stalker?" He smiled and nodded a hearty affirmative.

My lunch co-ordinator is really sweet to me. She's always bringing over extra bowls of meat or bottles of apple juice, telling me to eat more. I'm trying to learn more Korean phrases to say to her. Today after I ate, I managed to say "Da mogeosseoyo." Or "I ate it all!" I think nothing makes her happier than my using Korean and my eating All The Things.

O-Teacher and I have contacted each other on the internet--we're officially real friends, not just buddies-at-work friends! I would totally make outside-of-work friends with A-Teacher and JY-Teacher, too, but they're married with children, which cuts down on hangout time.
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2:30 PM -- Class went well for 2-5, 2-6A! Sad to say, I don't recall any of the boys in this class, but I know 5 of them by face. They are very happy and lovable. The internet cut out halfway through class, so I couldn't show them the extra movies I picked, and we had to play 4 rounds of "10 Questions," but everybody survived. Next time, I'll get names because this bunch are solidly amazing.

My vice-principal is teaching me Korean, and he's GREAT at it. I learned how to say "I have 4 classes today" and "I ate 3 meals yesterday". He explains it piece by piece, and I'm really enjoying the quizzes.

Now I must prepare for one last class of 3rd-graders, plus afterschool. And I think I'm staying after afterschool to judge a speaking competition.
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10 PM: Good day! Good day! Thank you God for your blessings! Sanghwa was good today in afterschool. What's more, I think I really managed to show him that I don't dislike him. For the time I was teaching class, I knew it to be true, too--I looked at Sanghwa and thought of him as one of my favorites, tried to treat him like he was prized. He still won't speak to me in English and uses another boy as an interpreter, but when class was over, I called him over to give him an extra chocolate piece because, as I told him, "you had a good day." I don't want the candy to be a bribe, but I want him to know that I see when he's doing right and I appreciate him.

My Taehoon, as always, wouldn't write a doggone thing until I sat by him and asked him to write. This kid does not know the meaning of the phrase "self-directed learning". I did finally outright tell him that he reminds me of my brother. I think he understood.

Our afterschool class topic, since I had exhausted zombies, was a debate: Is Psy (famous Korean pop singer), good or bad for Korea's reputation? To start with, the topic was failing. Fail, fail, fail. The boys all love Psy, so the negative side didn't want to argue against him. They didn't want to split into two groups. They didn't want to move to opposite sides of the room. It was like pulling teeth to get them going. Then at some point, after I went over to sit by Sanghwa and Taehoon, we started debating. Like a for real, knock-down drag-out debate. "Psy is bad because he cursing!" "Psy is good because unique personality!" "Psy is bad because he is a fat pig!" "Psy is fat, but he is also very cute!" The things these guys come up with.

Anyhoo, it was a rousing success and a good time was had by 75% of us, so yay. I gave a chocolate piece to every boy who contribute to the debate, which was most of them. They were pretty smiley when they left.

But my day wasn't done, because I still had a 2-hour English speech competition to help judge. It was long and tiring, but more than worth the effort spent because me and JY-Teacher and KBR-Teacher got in some great bonding time. We talked about so much--the kids we love, the kids that drive us crazy, the way we want to deal with bullying, the popularity of K-pop, the goodness of chocolate, the best way to learn Korean, the closest local churches--It. Was. Perfect.

The English speeches were actually skits, done by 8 teams of  four kids. Saturday-Jeongmin was in the first team, and I just melted at his cuteness. BY, the kid who lived in America, basically ran his whole show and occasionally let the other 3 kids in his skit talk. :-) KBR-Teacher told me that a couple weeks ago, the entire school took an intellect test and Byeongyoon scored the highest. Not an English test, an intelligence test. Highest score. In a school of 1,000. I am dealing with a sassy genius.

Byeonghyun was in one skit, which was a very funny self-writen skit, but could have used rehearsal. Then HH and Daehoon came in and their group just sort of ruled the show. It was clear that the final team sailed away with the prize.

Main Co-Teacher drove me home since it was dark, so I met one of my buddies for dinner at Lotteria, the closest thing my town gets to McDonald's.

Closest, But Still Not Close. This is A Bulgogi Burger.

Then we got some ice cream at a Baskin Robbins.

Loving the Teeny-Tiny Cute Spoons.

I'm off to sleep, now. It was a lovely day

9-9-13 Taehoon's the Best, A New Friend, and What To Do With Sanghwa

10:45 AM  Well, first class went decently well. I felt like I didn't teach them much because it's hard to teach the whole room--their chairs are really spread out all over the place. But they stayed in their chairs and talked to me when I came by them one-on-one. I played a video about cute baby sloths to elicit and "agree" or "disagree" response. "I think baby sloths are cute...do you agree? Or disagree?"

Later, I played 2 lyrics videos; one for a pleasant pop song, one for an ear-jarring dubstep song. They liked both, but only when you questioned them up close. They do not respond as a group to anything. So as labor-intensive and time-consuming as it is, it may be that the only way to teach 1-7,1-8 B is to meet them as individuals.

My little Hyo was amazing. He has the best and neatest handwriting in English, and can write whole sentences. He didn't do that for me last week! He marked "don't agree" on his paper for whether students should wear school uniforms, and when I asked him why, he tugged his collar and said "too hot". He also draws--he drew a chick on his paper and wrote in English under it, "Baby Chicken". Dawww. I want to feed him cupcakes.

Another boy in 1-7,1-8B wrote"I disagree...B class". When asked, he confirmed that he thought he belonged in A-class, not B-class. He has the brain for it, definitely.

Hyunmin makes fun of the way I call the class to order. I'm looking for ways to make a fuss over him, so he's so full-up with positive attention, he doesn't seek negative attention.

Seongjae met me in the hall. When I just said "hi" and didn't immediately mention his name, he went into a small panic. -"Teacher! My name? My name is!" -"Seongjae." -"Yes!" -"You. First class." -"Yes, I teach your class next." What he meant to say was that I'm teaching him in my next class, right after he gets out of P.E. I look forward to it. The third-graders are energetic, which I need after teaching a stone-quiet 1st.
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1:10 PM   3-5,3-6 B went better, and they may be shaping up to be my favorite class. We have Seongjae in there and one of my favorite Jeongmins, and Yeonghyo, whose name I wrote on my hand last Friday. Also, I learned two more names today--Hyunjoon and Hwangmin. All of these boys are delightful and full of personality, and if they're not invested in English, they're at least very, very invested in spending time with me.

Normally, students won't call me over when they need help, but I was answering a dozen calls of "Sem! Leigh-Teacher! Helping! You help me please." And "Done! Finishee!" I'm not making fun of their linguistic level, there--they actually do add a full "ee" syllable to the end of the word "finish" because Korean words rarely end in that sort of consonant sound. I loved the whole class.They did their work, said their lines, and chatted with as much English as they could muster, so it was really a successful class in terms of speaking practice.

They've caught on to the fact that when you write something really good, I put a smiley-face on your paper, so now they all wave their papers to get one: "Teacher! Smile!"

And they really liked the parkour video I played for them.

At the end of class, a large pack of them ran up to me to show me a treasure they had found in the stairwell--a small dead bat. They helped me spell the word "bat" in Korean on the chalkboard,so it was a language exchange moment. Just me and my boys and chalk and dead bats. And possibly the rabies virus.

Here's hoping that my next two 2nd-grade classes go well! I'm going to try my best.
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7:00 PM Survived the day! Wheeeee! I taught a 2nd-grade A that went well--it had Sunwoo and Geon in there, one of whom I know from my afterschool and the other of whom I know from Saturday. The class went nicely. The boys were rather quiet, but they answered their "Who My Hero Is" worksheet very well. One boy said he was his own hero and wrote highly flattering things about himself on his paper--"He is my hero because he is smart, talented, funny, and handsome". Not too proud of yourself, are you, kiddo?

Then I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off for the next 10 minutes because I thought I was teaching 2-1, 2-2 B when in fact it was 2-1, 2-2 A. So I had unplugged a laptop and gathered up my stuff to walk downstairs, only to trot right back up those stairs and get everything going again. Oy. And these boys are louder and rowdier than their earlier counterparts, so it was harder to keep there attention. My Taehoon was in the back, putting his head on the desk and complaining of a headache. Attention-hog.

Finally the regular classes were over, and it was time for a double afterschool. We were going to finish our zombie movie, do worksheets, and write short zombie stories. I brought up the wrong laptop and had to dash downstairs for the one with the disc in it. Sweetie-Sunwoo said "You are late!" And he was right. Leigh-Teacher does not have all her ducks in a row. The ducks are so far out of their row, they're not even all on the same floor of the building.

But our movie went okay. The boys had fun. We nearly had a meltdown regarding cellphones though, because Sanghwa was back. So help me, I'm beginning to resent that child. When he's not in afterschool, everything goes smoothly. When he's there, he's not content to just be a cellphone-game-playing slacker. He's got to draw half the back of the room into talking with him.

The other back-row boys were willing to help me with nametags. Sanghwa would not. The other boys would fill out their worksheet. Sanghwa would not. I patted his back to calm him down and he said "don't touch me". I want him to be happy, but nothing makes him happy--not schoolwork, not slacking, not attention, not being left alone. He skipped class for second period, saying, "I get message, I go to hospital!" and I was not sorry to see him go. *sigh* Four beautiful classes and one rather successful double-afterschool, and I'm still a bit down because I can't make Sanghwa anything other than a tiny ball of anger. Pray, please.

But! I had the best time with Taehoon. He wants to play his phone, too, but he drops it the minute I come up with an activity. We sat in the back and played a word game---he would write a word in English, then I would try to write the same word in Korean. We did 10 of those, then I would write a word in Korean and he'd have to match it in English. He would grin like crazy when he thought he'd stumped me, but we were even when the game was over.

At then end, I told the boys if they wrote a 5-sentence zombie story, they would get chocolate tomorrow. Byeonghyun, Seongmo, Sunwoo and Taehoon are definitely getting chocolate. Though Taehoon's is a bit unfair, since he only wrote a story because I was there asking him for every sentence. He came up with it one his own, though--"Korea is full of zombies. They are nice. They are slow. They eat animals. Yeongtae was a zombie. He was fast, different." I was thrilled with this.

But. I can't just focus on Taehoon, can I? I tried to write with Joon, but he told me he wanted to work on his zombie story at home. I told the boys that even if they wrote me a zombie story at home and brought it in tomorrow, they'd get their chocolate. I would give anything if Joon would let me work with him, but maybe in the future. I can only push and encourage so much--some of them are open and ready to respond, some of them are semi-closed or fully shut.

After class, Byeonghyun was the only one left in the room, and I hated to burden him but I asked, "Do you know why Sanghwa....is so angry? Is it me? He doesn't like me?" Byeonghyun said, "No Teacher. He does not like being in afterschool. It's not you. You are good teacher, now." Thanks for the vote of confidence, Byeonghyun. You're pretty special, yourself. So I still have no clue what to do with Sanghwa, none at all. I want to ignore him and not even try to engage him, but that is wrong. I must change my heart toward this little fellow.

Also, I have a big blessing in my life! I have a new friend. O-Teacher is a single woman like me, and we seem to have many similar interests. I'm going to try to cultivate this friendship because I really think that we click. She's so sweet, and she lived in the states once, so she knows what it's like to be a foreigner.
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