Week 18, Monday
5-1 and 5-2.
Grade 5 is quickly falling to the bottom of my preferred classes.
The difference I feel in class between 5-1 and 5-3 is like night and day. Gym friend kept calling himself spicy and cracking up. Since he’s fluent in English (five years in Richmond) we have our own conversations. And 5-3 had so many questions for me during their activity today. Enthusiasm! Yes!
Plus their antics keep me amused: one girl pointed out my eye shadow so I sent her a very cheesy wink. One of the boys intercepted and mimed throwing up, in a very Abigail move.
Another girl called me over:
“Yes? You have a question?”
“Oh. No. You’re pretty.”
These days I’ve been wearing little to no makeup (gotta keep the crowd guessing) so deviations are marked with appropriate admiration.
With recent events, grade 4 is my favorite of all I have to admit! I have the best relationship with those little rascals. S showcased some of their comics from the other week so I sat next to Baby J and joked around. We’re bros. He has trouble in class but always speaks English to me outside of class, usually accompanied by a big “Hi Abigail teacher!”
After class I handed out Christmas stickers my mom sent. H and S said “wow she is so kind, gentle, and generous!” I said, I’ve received so many gifts mostly because I’m far away. S told me “she must miss you so much. But I want you to stay another year.”
Mom, you should be happy to know that grade 4 fought over the stickers:
“Teacher I want a big sticker!”
“How about two small ones? Hahah byeeee”
“Hey hey hey!” chanted another boy.
“야! 친구 아니야…” Hey we’re not friends! I reminded him. S told him, that’s like using casual language. He immediately repented “죄송합니다”.
One boy exited with two snow men in his face.
More stickers went to 5-3 (H: oh what about the other grade 5 classes? Me: no) and the rest will go to grade 3 tomorrow.
Some grade three girls stopped en route to lunch to say hi, one Jaekyung personal note writer from the other week. S said “you are so popular!”
In camp news, my Korean ability has granted S one week of reprieve: the (non English speaking) 5-1 homeroom teacher has volunteered to assist in the second week. I don’t know how this affects S’s chances of homeroom teacherdom next year. No one knows, it’s Asia Time.
At the end of the day I figured I should put on my adult pants and finally deliver the extra goodie bag I had saved for guitar teacher.
(Oh yeah, he’s back but only on Monday afternoons. I think our understanding of “last day” is quite different).
After the club finished playing a Christmas carol, I knocked on the music room door to interrupt his after school club.
Tank Boy and Strong Girl saw me in the open doorway and shouted Abigail Teacher! I waved to my fans. Guitar teacher rushed to the door to see what brought me. He seemed to be hurrying me along, either to get back to club or to prevent any more interference from the peanut gallery (or he heard me singing *NSYNC next door and resented the sight of me).
I know, I just KNOW that Strong Girl is going to give him so much crap about his “girlfriend” dropping by with a gift and I can’t stop laughing. Merry Christmas, guitar teacher! This is your real gift.