Chapter 20: "Why Pluto is Blue"

Some of my kids are so adorable, I can't even look crossways at them.

I may have mentioned one of my classes before, the one with five loud and hyper 8ish-year-old boys and one overwhelmed girl. Today we were studying the planets, and one of the listening exercises was to circle, out of three choices, what planet was which color. For instance, the cd said, "Circle the planet that is red," and the choices would be Mars, Earth, and Neptune. Easy enough exercise, except that all of our books are pirated (bet you didn't know you could pirate books ^.^) and in black and white. And I don't get a teacher's edition. I just have to listen and memorize the answers, then tell them in the end.

But the answers weren't given, of course. You just look at the giant (colored) picture of the solar system, right?

I don't know, maybe I should remember what all the planets' colors are. But darnitall, I just remember about 3. And none of them are the "blue" planet, which could have been (according to the problem) Pluto, Neptune, or Venus.

Teacher thinks:
Hmmm. Well, I thought Pluto was purple. But I can't remember, it's been too long since I saw that episode of Magic Schoolbus. Neptune could be blue, since Neptune is a sea kind of theme from Greek mythology. I'm almost positive that it's not Venus, because on Sailor Moon, Sailor Venus' color was orange. Yes.

Teacher says: "Uh, I don't know. I don't have the answers and my book is in black and white like yours."

Then I hear one of my precocious little boys pipe up from my right, "Oh! Oh! Teacher I know!!" Bless him, he remembers from science class. "It's Pluto!! It's Pluto. Because because because Sun is here (points to far right side of page) and Pluto is faaaaaaaar over here (points to far left). So it is blue."


T_T *wipes away tears*

Yes, my child. Pluto is the blue planet because it is farthest from the sun.

On a side note, I saw a t-shirt with this logo today:
http://www.engrish.com/detail.php?imagename=mickey-burn-leader.jpg&category=Clothing&date=2006-12-09

If I see it for sale anywhere, I will definitely buy it.

Chapter 19: "Onto Every Teacher, A Little Barf Must Fall...."

But not on me, as long as I've got my ninja-like reflexes and danger of impending sympathy-gag.

Yes, it's true. Today one of my students, the girl sitting right next to me, completely blew chunks everywhere, no warning at all. She was maybe ten or eleven, and this was no dribble either. It was all over her books, the table, her front, in a puddle on the floor....*loses appetite*

Over the past few years of babysitting I've been gradually coming to term with other people's bodily functions and fluids. Apparently this will not change now that I'm with Korean children vs. American ones. I was getting pretty wicked-good at the diaper changing back home. My class of second-graders likes to play the "who farted" game. The constant hocking of loogies by old Korean men around here is nasty, but dodging is only a matter of some quick stepping when you hear that tell-tale "HHHHHHOOOCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHH."

I wasn't there yet with the barf.

But it turned out okay. And it killed about 10 minutes of classtime, so everybody wins, right?

Chapter 18: "The Young Korean Entrepreneurs"

I hope I spelled that word right.

Anyways, an interesting story about one of our friends' students elsewhere in another English school. Apparently there is a girl, about 16 years old, who has a "list" of 300 bad English words that she gets from the internet. She won't say where she gets them, which is how her little ploy works.

Every day (?) she brings three new words to school, and auctions them off. The other kids pay, because they don't know where she got them (I guess google isn't as utilized here). I'm not quite sure of the details, but three students pay to get her words, then other students pay them to teach them. I'm not sure who is making more of a killing here, but I give them props, despite the nefarious nature of their business.

Chapter 17: "Monster Teacher"

Yesterday and today I straightened my hair and wore it down. It's pretty long, nearly halfway down my back now. The kids all thought I looked like the girl from Ringu, or the Ring, so they called me "Monster-Teacher." I dunno, I guess I can see the resemblance.....



Funny sort of thing happened today. I'll start with backstory.

Yesterday was a very stupid day for me. It was really long, and I forgot a lot of things I was supposed to already know, and I worried a lot over how much more of my stupidity the Korean teachers could stand.

This evening, between classes, my boss called Siobhan (fellow foreign teacher) and I out into the lobby to talk with him. I was thinking, Oh gosh, this is it. I'm in trouble. Goodbye, cruel world. Siobhan was thinking along similar lines, and my only consolation was that if I went down, she was probably going down with me.

Then William says to me, "You are twenty-two, not in Korean years, correct?"
And I'm like, "Yeah....on Sunday I'll be twenty-two. I'm twenty-three in Korean."

And William says, "Okay," and gets up and goes back into the lounge...which has gone dark.

Siobhan says, "Oh gosh, it's about our birthdays...." Hers was two weeks earlier. And sure enough, we had to walk the gauntlet of teachers and blow out candles and all that in the teacher's lounge. And they bought us cake, see? This one's mine:

Kind of looks like my turd-stamp on top, heehee. It's mocha-flavored.

Chapter 16: "Gidget Wins"

The photo gods finally blessed me with a picture that adequately captures the formidable powers of cute that my baby hamster Gidget routinely displays. Fear her.

Chapter 15: "The World Is Plotting Against Me"

I don't think this is going to be a very funny post, so people who only like to read about amusing Korean students should prolly get off at the next stop.

First, a bit of a rant on how it drives me nuts when people move my stuff. I'm a messy person normally. I'm pretty relaxed, not very many pet peeves, generally very good at adapting to my situation. But one thing I depend on is that stuff is where I left it. My workspace can be super clean, or an absolute pigsty, but if I left a cassette on my desk yesterday at the end of the day, I expect it to be there when I need it today. Yet it's not there. I freak out as I rack my brain, trying to remember where I could have left it, horrified that there's such a void in my memory....

It gets worse when I try to ask the other teachers, and they blow me off or act irritated that I asked at all. I know when I ask where my stuff is, it makes me look incompetent. So here I am, feeling like the stupid teacher, cassette-less five minutes after my class has started....only to find out that some other teacher took it to use for their class, and forgot to tell me or bring it back.

*headdesk*

This happens once or twice a day. I don't understand why I have to feel like an insane/stupid person so often for something that legitimately is not my fault. The worst part is, I can't make them bring it back. I'm the assistant teacher, so the Korean teachers are pretty much higher-ranked than me. But I'm capable of returning tapes and books to the Korean teachers. If a book or tape is my copy, why is it not on my desk??

If anyone doubts my anal-retentive tendencies for finding my things where I left them, ask my sister about my issues with tweezers.

*takes deep breath*

*twitches*

On another subject, today I gave a lot of my classes quizzes and speaking tests. This is routine Friday-stuff. I have one class full of very lively boys and one girl. They are all pretty smart, but they act like they're on crack most of the time. They finished their quizzes and speaking tests, and I started grading the papers.

The first kid whose quiz I graded made 85%. Not a bad score. I've known many many people in my lifetime who would've been ecstatic with an 85%. I have students who make 5% on their tests and don't even care. But he started crying when he saw it. I told him that it was a good score, but he didn't stop crying. Then the girl in the class told me that his father hits him on the neck (with a stick I assume) when he doesn't do well.

I felt so bad that I gave him a hug and omitted the hardest part of the quiz for everyone, so that he would make a 90% instead. But my boss told me that it's common for parents to hit their children when they do poorly in school. He even openly admitted to doing it himself. Now I don't even want to give kids bad scores, because then I'd feel partially responsible for them getting beaten :-(

Chapter 14: "Goodbye PeeWee"

So, I finally confirmed what I already felt in my heart....PeeWee was a boy, and the other one, whose name has not yet arrived in my conscious thought, was a girl. Laws of hamster nature declare that two boys will not get along very well, and since I can't be raising hamsters, it had to be two girls, or just the one....left all alone. She (who I temporarily named Pikachu) and PeeWee had such good chemistry. They frolicked for hours in the exercise ball, and when they were tired, they curled up together, two little babies with no care in the world but how to get their little ball around a pair of my sandals.

Goodbye, PeeWee. May you find a happy home somewhere else...

Meanwhile, poor Pikachu is a dwarf hamster, and naturally social. It apparently shortens their lifespan and makes them tempermental to be left alone, so I had to get her a friend. The only girl there was a white one, who lived all alone in a cage, probably because she's such an ornery coot. She's almost full grown, not as cute, and I just don't feel the same way about her as I did PeeWee, which is why I might name her Cruella DeVille. Hope it doesn't give her a complex.

They were duking it out earlier, or more like "Cruella" was chasing Pikachu around, making some awful racket. It must be hard to duke it out with someone threatening your territory, when you sound like a squeaker toy. I've been *gently* beating them off of each other with various hamster-y items to keep me from being bitten in the fray. So far to them the Hand of God is a toilet paper roll.

Anyways, I've put them both in the Ball of Neutrality, for them to sort out their differences. It's going well, they've both stopped running around, and are now grooming. I turned on the heater, and since the heat comes up through the floor, maybe it'll make them drowsy and they'll both fall asleep. If they don't sort out their feminine differences within a couple of days, Cruella's going back.

Chapter 13: "Teacher You Are Very Beeyootyful"

I hear it all the time. Yes, I do realize that I am indeed beautiful. The frizz of my hair gently diffuses the harsh glare of the flourescent lights as I cast my obese shadow over ten small and innocent children. My makeup-less eyes lounge luxuriously atop soft bags, taunting everyone with the mysteries of how late I was up the night before. They give testimony to some traumatic experience, perhaps one which occurred while attempting to teach the junior highers. Is that a tick, or am I actually winking? No one can tell. Foundation merely conceals the glow of natural oil and denies each zit its God-given right to rise and shine....so I don't wear any. I wear the same clothes I wore two days ago because I think that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The bouquet is unlike anything anyone has ever smelled before....like fine wine, sometimes it's good to age your outfits a bit.

But somehow I sense that maybe these kids have learned the value of shameless brown-nosing along the road, and I have become the recipient.

Chapter 12: "FAIL"

I think I'm finally getting the hang of finding and posting to my blog, despite the evilness of Google. I'm gradually settling into my new schedule, and although the children suffer greatly from my general stupidity, I feel that I am a good and just teacher.

Student A: "You're very pretty."
Me: "Ok, you pass."
Student B: "You are ugly."
Me: "You fail."
Student C: "The cat are in the table."
Me: "That's completely wrong, but you have Inuyasha on your shoes, so you pass."

All shall love me and despair.

As a side note, if you know any foreign exchange students who took the TOEFL (test foreign students must sit to get into an English-speaking university), you should fear and respect them. They may not sound like they're that good at English, but I teach one class from the TOEFL test-prep book, and that mother is hard. Like, SAT-level hard. And think about taking the SATs in some other language.

For anyone interested in a funny video:
http://gprime.net/video.php/flashmob

Chapter 11: "Joanna-Ham"

The results of last blog's poll: Lindsey wins because she guessed MAGGOTS, which is sort of what these are:

Actually, they're silkworm larvae. Here is a pic of Daegu, from one of the surrounding mountains. It's hazy just because Daegu is in a valley surrounded on all sides by mountains, not necessarily because of smog, I think.


I've discovered that Korean stationary stores are INFINITY-TIMES cooler than stationary stores in the US. Not only do they have a remarkable proliferation of Engrish-riddled notebooks and spirals, but they have wicked-cool pens and pencils and markers and odds and ends that all look ridiculously girly and cute!! So I was doing a little morning shopping in a stationary store, and I bought several cute things, including those little paper strips you make stars out of, an eraser, some pastel thumb tacks for my room, and a rubber stamp in the shape of some steaming dookie.

...

What, you don't believe me? Look at it!!


This is for when I want to get crazy drunk (crunk) on chocolate:

My new classes went fairly well yesterday, despite my schedule listing the wrong room four times. I was irritated, to say the least. Very irritated. In the last class, we were learning about nick-names. I told the kids my old nickname (one of them) was Jo-Banana. They thought this was hilarious, natch, and decided they would invent me a new nickname, Joanna-Ham. ;_;

I realize I'm not a twig like all the other asians, but come on!! I will generously assume that they just thought it sounded funny, and it had no connotations of my girth. I had my revenge though, by calling the boy named "Harry" "Harry Potter" for the rest of the day. So there.

Chapter 10: "Demon Google Stole My Baby"

Gah! I've had sooooo much to write about, but because Google is apparently the spawn of Satan, I have been unable to access my blog until today. *strikes Google with a chopstick*

Oh, if only I could remember the exciting and amusing things that occurred this past week....my memory is failing me. But today (Friday) we got new schedules and classes. The upside is that my classes don't start until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, every day. So no more 8 o'clock mornings for me!! w00t!!

The downside is that sometimes my classes go until almost 10 at night. Not that I did anything interesting before that I can't do now. I'll still shuffle home alone with my ipod, occasionally dropping by a restaurant or Dunkin Donuts to molest the natives' ears with my crippled and broken Korean. And then I'll log on and socialize with the life I once had.....

I'm getting depressed talking, but you know I love being online more than doing stuff outside :-D

Poll: Whoever can guess what Fear-Factor-level thing I ate yesterday wins a film clip of one or more of my kids saying the catch phrase of your choice!! No swearing, but thick slang and/or ebonics is permitted!!