32 /

The most I utilise years of voice lessons lately is in being able to belt over ten children screaming at the top of their lungs. (A secret power I only call on in times of great need.) My youngest class is all about songs. This is our latest jam:

Also, what is it about children and dangerous things? Today a light fell down from the ceiling in the middle of class and shattered everywhere. EVERYBODY started screaming like someone had just spontaneously combusted. I immediately ran to the back of the classroom because you know those kids are going to start poking around the glass no matter how freaked out they are. And they were SO freaked out. They were scared out of their minds. And you know something: they couldn't keep away from the glass anyway. It was like a horror movie. I was like SIT DOWN GUYS SIT DOWN PLEASE so they did, and then I tried to motion to them to stay in their seats while I left the room for a second to go ask the teacher next door for help. As soon as I left they started screaming again at the top of their lungs. REAL FEAR. AND THEN they got up to go look at the glass some more! I literally had to place myself between this little horde of terror and the broken light. LITTLE KIDS DON'T MAKE ANY SENSE. 

I should really update more, but I find that I usually want to talk about the same things over and over again. Time has been slowing down around here in my last few weeks. It's also rainy season, which I'm not enjoying. I can say that the humidity doesn't get to me that much, but I don't like rain. It makes everything smell weird. 

Creepy middle-aged woman encounters have also risen. To be honest, I have creepy/questionable encounters on the daily (or at least encounters that would be creepy back home) over here, but for some reason lately it's been mostly with older mom-types? I don't know why. When I first moved into my apartment, within the first couple of weeks this woman came up to me when I was trying to get inside, said a few words to me and patted my butt. I haven't seen her since. In the past two or three weeks though, I've had at least three other similar encounters.

1. Scary old lady stalking around my apartment building. When she saw me walking down the street, she slowed to walk behind me. I heard her footsteps quickening as if she were starting to run, and when I turned to see what she was doing, she stopped and laughed at me all crazily. I left to go grocery shopping for a pretty long time, and when I came back she was still there? It looked like she'd been just circling the block. She noticed me again, stopped, and just started at me. WTF

2. My ride on the bus is generally not my favorite part of the day to begin with. My bus driver is crazy. He whips around corners, accelerates to go over bumps in the road, cuts other cars off at dangerous speeds, plays chicken with motorcycle drivers and pedestrians, swerves down the highway, etc. Generally it's hard to make the experience more stressful for me, but yeah -- the other day this woman got on the bus, turned around in her seat, and stared at me for twenty minutes. Every bump in the road. Flying up five feet in the air going over speed bumps. Eyes left me maybe twice. Am I secretly a mythical creature or something

3. This morning while waiting for the aforementioned demon wagon, a lady came up from behind and started firmly patting my hips. I turned around like HELLO????????? totally startled (thought I had some kind of horrible bug on me) and she motioned to my shirt, then reached over to pat me some more and look at the pattern. Lol I love it here sometimes. Sometimes the only thing you can do is smile and nod. I know a lot of fellow TaLK program people have had experiences with random women coming up to them and launching into some sort of tangent in Korean. I think most of us are getting pretty used to it by now. Honestly though, I think I could be here for years and never, ever get used to some of the things that happen here. I've always been able to accept them as just... What goes on... But I'm still surprised at times that these things go on.

The most redeeming thing about teaching for me has been the fact that in a classroom full of little kids, it's okay to laugh at stuff like this:

This is as highbrow as it gets for first and second graders. Corny maybe, but I love it when they laugh. We have SUCH a good time sometimes.

... Sometimes.

31 / Good Day

Today was actually a great day at school. :)
It didn't start out that way, but at the end of the day some of my boy students came in with a HUGE VACUUM and started cleaning up my room without being asked. :O !! I didn't even know what to say. Usually these kids are throwing stuff around and making things messier. Wow.

We had a good lesson too. Instead of vocabulary, we worked on pronunciation today. Always hilarious. I definitely feel for these kids when we do something like this, because I'm hopeless at different consonant sounds in Korean. These were the exercises we did. They'd repeat after me, then I would say a word and they'd have to tell me which of the options I meant.

coffee vs. copy
rice vs. lice
feel vs. fear
vote vs. boat
zoo vs. jew vs. chew
ship vs. sheep
tail vs. tell
pass vs. path
bees vs. peas
lips vs. ribs

It's about 50/50 for them hearing the differences when I say these words, but they can't often replicate them themselves. "Bees and peas!" becomes "Bees and bees!" lol

The best is "I feel fear." That comes out like I don't even know what.

Also, the place where I cut my finger really badly is totally healed now, except that it's also totally numb. You win some you lose some.

30 / Couple Weeks Recap

Good Things at school:

1. Kids' immediate and in-your-face joy when I use Korean words.
2. Moment of brilliance in 5/6th grade where they managed to brainstorm 30+ occupation vocabulary words I hadn't taught them.
3. Watching Tom & Jerry with my youngest students.
4. Going home at the end of the day.
5. It's really cute hearing what everyone wants to be when they grow up. (: Animal doctors, teachers, etc.

Bad Things at school: (that sound ridiculous when they're written down, but are so infuriating when they happen)

1. Flies the size of bees. Bees/wasps that I swear are the size of small birds and give me a fight/flight reaction.
2. Humidity is starting to kick in. It's more humid inside my school than outside of it.
3. This morning a couple kids told me and my coteach they would rather "have a punishment" than "learn English". :C why does this affect my mood
4. Kid threw a huge handful of flashcards in the air to avoid doing work.
5. Kids have learned from him and now pretend they have "something to clean up" in order to avoid doing work. (Meaning they knock over stuff in the back of the classroom and then take fifteen minutes picking it up in slow motion while ignoring me.)
6. Had to ask my 3/4th grade to put their heads down for five minutes after awful lesson. They understand this English perfectly, but start playing dumb when I tell them not to play games under the table or to be quiet. Patience tested.
7. Kid brought a tough wire to class and started trying to stab another kid. I try to intervene and he starts kicking him instead. End up having to leave my class, now all going wild, to go and get help. Come back and some get thrown out. :c
8.

So pretty much this has been a rough couple of weeks.
There's going to be a lot going on before I go home, and I'm looking forward to all of it... I have plans to go shark diving at the end of the month, and then I'm heading to a mud festival with friends in July. It may be a symptom of my enduring culture shock, but the smallest things from life back home (that I may or may not have actually enjoyed while at home) seem REALLY AWESOME right now.