I was informed today that the recent flurries and lingering cold spell is not typical Korean weather for March. Whew! Maybe I will survive in this country after all. I woke up this morning to surprise blanket of white, and while it did melt during the day, on my way out this evening snow started falling again with a vengeance. I usually don’t mind snow all that much—it’s much better than rain, because at least you can be outside in the snow and not get drenched!—the recent warm spell had led me to believe spring was well on its way and I was sorely disappointed to see that hope dashed. Hopefully this crazy weather will stop soon so I can enjoy the lovely Korean cherry blossom-scented spring I’ve heard so much about!
This morning I went to school completely unmotivated to teach, and lucky for me, the students had a test today, so I didn’t have to teach after all. Except one of my third grade classes showed up—SURPRISE! And they were naughty, too…I was none too happy about that. But they did remember the whole “What’s your name?/My name is _____” conversation we went over in December, so I was pleased with that, at least. Even the students I didn’t have last year caught on quickly.
I spent the rest of the day trying to organize my teaching materials into a more coherent mess. Mostly, I just did a good job of making a bigger mess. It’s funny how massive re-organization always involves a stage where everything is in complete disarray. It’s the stage I’m in right now and it makes things in my room very interesting. I was surprised to see how much stuff I have accumulated so far…I really went crazy in making classroom materials last semester, clearly!
I ate lunch with some of my sixth grade girls again today. They always want to eat with me and I enjoy eating with them, too, because communication is at least a little better than with, say, my second graders. Plus, they are really cute girls. Two of them are seriously into me for unknown reasons. I sat next to one today (I think her name is Yoo Jin) and she scooted over so she was literally right next to me and could barely use her right arm to eat. It was really funny. I will be teaching them for the first time tomorrow and I hope it goes well. Their teacher is my new co-teacher, Kim Jeong Sook.
This afternoon, some other sixth grade girls came to clean my room like they have been doing every day so far this semester. It’s been getting really dirty because we’ve been doing a lot of cutting and pasting, making our English name tags, and I guess the girls aren’t really happy about it. They wrote me a note on the board that read: “Jan library ground don’t dirty please!” Ooops. Guess they’re going to be even more mad when it happens again tomorrow and the next day.
I left school early again today for taekwondo. I hope none of the other teachers are secretly resenting me for leaving over an hour early because I really don’t want to do evening TKD again. It really kills my evenings to be gone until 7:30 every night. Add my tutoring commitments three times a week, and my life is pretty much over. The downfall of this new schedule is that there are many more students at 4pm. As in, there are typically 20 rambunctious boys and me. It’s fine most of the time, but they can be distracting (though it is fun to see the teacher crackin’ them with his big wooden stick…so medieval and corporal, but so amusing, especially for one who sometimes longs to do the same…). Today we learned routines and the teacher took the day to teach me individually. He’s so nice about helping me along. It’s really too bad I’m a terrible TKD student. My flexibility’s great now, after all these months of stretching, but my coordination’s still nonexistent. Sigh.
Tonight I went out to dinner with another teacher my age, Park Hye Ok, who is my age and teaches at Changhwa Elementary School. It is in the Hongsan vicinity, but is very small—38 students in all, she told me tonight. I met her last semester and we did a few things together, but she was so shy that our outings were always awkward and laced with long silences and they gradually petered out. She started off strong this semester, however, and contacted me right away about tutoring and spending time together. Tonight I found out why. I mean, we probably would have spent some time together anyway, because I think she is bored living in Hongsan with her parents, but now she has added motivation to learn English: she is the new English teacher at her school. So she’s been studying a lot and wants to practice more with me. And I’m game…I need the company, too. And her English has improved tremendously already. In her text messages, though, she kept saying “I will touch you later” and that really amused me. I’m so childish. Other than pronunciation and these little usage errors, though, it’s pretty good. We had soondubuchigae, a spicy tofu/bean curd soup that I really like, and she took me to a bookstore to buy me a present. Too bad they only had two real English books—something from Mitch what’s his name who writes all those tearjerkers, and this one of motivational sayings from a Korean monk. I chose the latter—at least it’s cultural. Plus, on the book jacket, it described the guy as Korea’s Thoreau…figured he must have something good to say.
And since I do have to teach tomorrow (unless this snowstorm morphs into a blizzard like I secretly hope), I must go to bed now. Oh, I do not want to work tomorrow!