1. Was driven home by 6th Grade Teacher Man (some call him Mr. Kim) today after school. I asked him who would take the place of the pregnant 3rd grade teacher (some call her Mrs. Kim, there are lots of "Kims"), who is due probably at this very moment, once she departs. After getting a less-than-straight answer we, for some reason, begin to go over the length-of-stay formula for Korean teachers: They change schools every 5 years, and the principal changes every 4, mandatory change.
It's hard to justify conversations between my coworkers and me via blog, so just imagine a lot of slowed-down speech, frequent pauses, and misinterpretation.
Mr. Kim: "This year...many, many teachers.. leave Hyopo [my school]. Change school."
Me: "Oh-really? Who-is-leaving?"
Mr. Kim: "...First grade teacher..................third grade teacher...........that is all."
Me: ".......Oh! [muttering] Remind me to teach him the word 'many'....Are-you-staying-at-Hyopo?"
Mr. Kim: ".............yes........................................................................"
Me: "Oh okay.....I'm going to pretend to stare at the passing mountains as if this is the first time I have seen then, something I do too frequently in times of awkward silences."
2. Since late-December, as most of you know, I haven't had a regular class. Well, not until Friday the 3rd. For 6 weeks or so, minus my vacation, I was teaching winter camps and going to school until noon. It's a weird situation they put the students in. They have 6 weeks off for vacation, they come back, and not even 2 weeks later they have another 10 days off or so for Spring Break. Then, they "graduate" to the next grade levels. From what I've read on the online blogs, most English teachers don't even teach during this period between vacations, and some are even advised to just watch movies with the students. Seems pointless, but what the hey. Ramblings aside, I decided to do some fun lessons for the kids. Today, I had my students make Chinese New Year lanterns, decorating them with their names, birth year, Chinese zodiac animal, and the animal name in English. They turned out really well. The 4th graders ended up with the Year of the Dragon, and all the girls wanted a cute little bug-eyed dragon to draw, and the boys all wanted a manly dragon, which was nice because I found both doing a Google Image search. All the boys wanted me to draw the muscular dragon arms for them, and I of course DID. Who doesn't like drawing dragons that lift weights? Anyway, this class was right after my 3rd grade class, and went much smoother. The third grade class was very enthusiastic, which was nice. BUT, they couldn't agree on a picture, and one kid was born in a different year, so he was the Year of the Snake, while everyone else was the Year of the Horse. I had to switch back and forth to help the single snakester, but every time I did that students would erase their horses and start drawing snakes. "No, no!" I cried. "Your horse is okay. Don't erase!" *Click* is the sound made when I switch back to the snake 3 minutes later, pre-lantern papers full of beautiful, majestic horses. Next sound I hear? Pencils dropping on tables, erasers quickly becoming smaller as children race to destroy the beauty that is the pencil-drawn horse. Exasperated, I draw the kid's dang snake myself and leave the horse picture up where it should be.
