I take back everything I said yesterday. My students are disobedient brats, I feel worn out and overworked already, and I do want to avoid the teachers after all.
Today started out unremarkably enough. I managed to rouse myself only half an hour after my anticipated wakeup time of 6:00 am. Crazy and unnecessary, I know, but I’m finding it makes me feel much better about my day when I already have so much accomplished by breakfast. This way, I get all my Korean studying and ESL reading done every day without a struggle against my natural lethargy and apathy. I had been sleeping in an extra hour (with the excuse that I was “sick”) and so I was quite proud of myself for managing to get up this morning. We had an excellent breakfast of some of my favorite host mom specialties, most notably a mushroom-egg scramble. I like to roll it up with rice in lettuce and then dip it in soy sauce. Oh, it’s good. After all this, I was even feeling ready for school! I was thinking things were coming together…
But no. This is where things started to go wrong. My second-graders were a nightmare AGAIN. If I thought they were bad last time, well…it’s probably a good thing I can’t forecast the future or I’d have even more trouble motivating myself to work. Even the loss of hearing and voice, utter chaos, a huge mess, and a headache I can deal with, but when I looked up in the middle of trying to get twenty busy bodies to clean up the hugest mess in existence and saw that someone had not only been into my desk again (they’re always fooling with my things and it’s getting beyond annoying), but they had spilled my full tea ALL OVER EVERYTHING. My lesson plans for the day, all the worksheets for the coming classes, the markers, the floor, the computer (almost!)…EVERYTHING. I was so angry. I mean, I know things happen when you’re around kids and I’m usually pretty chill about that, but this was just the final straw in the kids gaining complete run of the entire classroom. Is nothing sacred anymore? I suppose it’s my fault for drawing hazy boundaries and I’ve tried laying down the line…I’m just not forceful enough, I think, and there is the obvious language obstacle. You’d think these kids would be good at reading body language, since they have to interpret so much of the world through means other than language, but I guess they either don’t notice or don’t care in my case. A few of the girls did find me later on my way to lunch and yelled, “I’m sorry!” but I could barely even look at them. (I am not sure who taught them that phrase, but it was sure more than appropriate).
And then, just when I thought I’d recovered, one of my third grade classes came and proceeded to raise absolute hell. It was TERRIBLE. They were so noisy and off-the-wall…it really makes me not want to do fun things, like games, if they’re going to completely lose control like this. I am feeling very vindictive at the moment and it’s probably not the best attitude to have when composing lesson plans. But I just don’t know how I’m going to get through a semester of this. I suppose to be honest I am really more disappointed in myself and my ineptitude as a teacher than I am in them for being unruly. I mean, they’re just kids. But I can’t help thinking they do know better. Somehow I am not inspiring much respect in these younger kids and I’m not sure why or what I can do to counter it.
And then when I was frantically making copies this morning, one of the new teachers cornered me and started blabbering away in Korean. I guess either she is very shy about English or is under a mistaken impression of the magnitude of my Korean skills. It’s actually frustrating sometimes how the teachers treat me—they alternate between talking to me in Korean and magically expecting me to understand, or assuming I can’t comprehend a word and slowly, haltingly, mistranslating random words. And even when I do respond, they tend to assume I don’t understand, anyway. So this teacher has decided she wants to learn English and thinks I am the perfect person to help her do this. My initial generosity in tutoring has, meanwhile, faded completely away…after berating myself for being a poor tutor last night, I remembered today why I was such a terrible teacher—I HATE IT. It’s draining of my time and energy and I just have no interest in it. And it sure doesn’t help when this teacher wants to learn English to essentially become a missionary in Taiwan and the Philippines. I don’t know if I want to assist in such a venture…but I also can’t say no. Argh. At this point, I hope the SK guys never do call me again, because if they do, I’ll basically be tutoring every night and probably fantasizing about ending my life. Hye Ok wrote me last night asking if we could meet this weekend…ARE YOU CRAZY?!?! These people don’t seem to realize that, wonder of wonders, tutoring is NOT what I’d like to do in my free time. How do I get myself into these messes?
TKD was a little better today. We worked on our forms, which is how we pass tests and thus move from belt to belt. I had to pass the first to be considered a yellow belt, and then the second and the third were needed to move on to green. I’m now working on the fourth form, but unfortunately I think I’ve forgotten the others…I should practice those again someday. Anyway, the teacher worked with me individually last week and with one other student today. I had a poor attitude to start, what with my terrible day, and the master kept telling me to relax, but at least I have the routine memorized, even if it’s awkward and disjointed. But here comes the weirdest part of my day…I was practicing by myself when all the sudden there’s a noise at the door and without even looking outside the master motions me over. A woman enters who I have never seen before and gives me an emotional hug. I’m standing there awkwardly as the kids are practicing around me, and I finally go back to practicing. A little while later, the master communicates to me via gestures and the words “me,” “home,” and “go” that I’m supposed to go somewhere—perhaps my house, perhaps her house—with this complete stranger. I tried to explain that I could not, but I don’t think he really understood. He just assumed I didn’t understand what he was saying and kept trying to get me to leave. It was so strange. I must find out who this woman is in case she tries to abduct me once more.