Like Night and Day

First of all, Happy Saint Patrick's Day. A year ago I found out about my gallstone problem (my very first attack came the weekend before St. Patrick's Day when I was celebrating in downtown Chicago with a friend), and 2 years ago I was in Argentina celebrating with some Irishmen in a bar in Buenos Aires. Nothing exciting for me tonight (as I am also trying to conserve money for the weekend).

I had two quite extreme days on Monday and Tuesday. I mean in the sense that my kids were like 2 different people, and that one day was very good and the other was not quite so much so.

On Monday I teach 3 classes: my morning kindergarten and then 2 elementary school English classes. My kindergartners were good for most of the morning, but then after 11pm or so they were just all over the place with disobeying rules: they kept speaking Korean, they kept whining, etc. I had to keep taking away their "stickers" (points they get for being good or doing something right, etc). It was a poor start to the day. Then my first elementary class at 2:30pm was incredible. They usually are quiet (especially these 2 girls in particular who act like a deer is about to get run over when I call on them since they don't pay attention), but on Monday everyone actively participated. It was amazing, and it put me in such a great mood. Then my next elementary school class took that all away. Even my smartest kid all of a sudden acted like he lost 10 IQ points... he couldn't answer questions that I was sure he could get. It took him the longest time to respond in complete sentences. Even when I gave him incredibly obvious hints he never picked up on it. It took every fiber of my being to not yell or raise my voice.

Then Tuesday came along and things were so much better. Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach 4 classes. My usual kindergartners were much better, and in fact I could not be mad at them yesterday because they were so funny. In my last entry I mentioned that I say "ay-yi-yi-yi" in class... they all started for no reason just chanting it together in unison very loudly; so loudly, in fact, that everyone in the halls and the classes next door could hear (and asked me about it later). It was just so funny and out of nowhere that I couldn't be mad at them. Then during a song that we were singing called "Round the Village" the kids decided to replace the word "Village" with the name of a kid in class, Zackary. So they sang "Round and round the Zackary." I couldn't help but crack up. My 5:00pm class wasn't as great, but that had nothing to do with the day; that class is my least favorite as it is quite clear the students overall just don't want to be there.

I'm currently doing laundry for the first time since I got in to Korea. I have a lot of clothes, so I can get away with it, but I ran out of pants, so it was time. I took a picture of my washing machine and I took it to one of my Korean supervisors so she could tell me what I had to press (as all the buttons are in Korean).

Some things to note about Korean culture:
-Don't write names in red. I tried to write my students' names in red marker on the board for something and they got all worried and were like "Teacher no! No red!" Apparently names inked in red mean they're dead.
-Beating your children is totally OK. I walk a fine line when it comes to telling parents about their kids. I have been told by other teachers at my school that some of my students have been severely beaten before for things the teachers reported, like one of my kindergartners, Alice, just doesn't concentrate a lot, and likes to be in her own little world. A teacher wrote about it in her report about Alice to the parents, and apparently Alice got quite the punishment for it. In fact, in my first report that I sent to her parents (the teachers have to write weekly reports for the parents for kindergartners), her mother gave me permission to punish her if she wasn't concentrating. If there are things I need to address I bring it up, but I try to do so in a way that won't get the crap kicked out of them by their parents
-90% of cars here (that I have seen) are either from Hyundai or Kia
-All cars have GPS in them. All of them. They are standard. This is probably because most streets don't actually have names. Like, if you want to go the corner of Broadway and Belmont, it doesn't work. There's no way to say that. You would go by landmarks, like a subway station name, or a building. If I'm in a taxi in Seoul I would tell the driver Suji-gu (my district), Punduckcheon-dong (my neighborhood) and Lotte Mart (a major building in Suji that is like a mega Super-Walmart). And then from there I could either walk to my apartment, or just direct the driver to my apartment. I know "straight" in Korean, but I'm still trying to retain what "left" and "right" are.

I had a second birthday party today. It was kind of ridiculous; more so than the last one. The girl wore a princess dress to school. I will post those pictures up another day, because that party deserves an entry of its own.

-AALA