As of today I lost five pounds, and as of this afternoon, nearly all the rest of it in an embarrassing gym accident. Sometimes machines are not intuitively obvious and I had to call out “excuse me” in increasingly louder desperation until an older man replacing his weights nearby could save me. (The squat machine had a catch that released but halfway through the set I realized I didn’t know how to lock it back in place. “Oh no. Will I have to hold up this weight until someone sees me?”) Later in the evening a friend and I attended a rice wine making class and met two interesting men…

This morning after a restless night and sudden back crick I threw on my giant puffer jacket and face mask and boarded the bus. A young man with a neck tattoo and cheekbones kept glancing at me from two seats away then waved in the corner of my eye. I turned slightly and did a small head bow then went back to blinking away my sleep deprivation. He typed away on his phone in what I like to assume was an English dictionary. Casually he “dropped” a business card on the seat between us which I initially ignored but then thought, let’s see where this takes us. I pointed and…

After too long away, I finally made it back to the rink. I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it and I’m happy to report no loss of skills (but also no magical accumulation of new skills). But after I arrived, something strange happened that I didn’t catalog as out of the ordinary until later. As I put on my skates, kids in speed skates and parents were rushing all around and I wondered if I might see any of my own students there. Once on the ice, there was a small group of foreign students. And then I realized, the last time I came to the rink, over three…

A day of accomplishments: -As I have neither a scale nor a full length mirror, I measure my body composition change in terms of clothing looseness. Happy to report that Korean food, city living, and gym (probably least of all) have contributed to lost inches. I think. -A 6-3 girl who is very quiet in class asked me after “teacher do you know SuperM?” At which I nearly lost it:“Of course I know them! Who’s your favorite? Mine is Lucas. Hey where are you going—“(She likes Baekhyun and EXO, the classics, excellent taste) -The subject teachers had another tea time after which I ended up with pizza, chocolate truffles, croissants,…

I was mobbed by the fourth graders; or more accurately, I walked into the mob and was absorbed as one of them. From the school exit I could see a larger than normal group hanging around the ddeokbokki stand comprised of mostly fourth graders and one sixth grade bystander. The mob surrounded me to say they were meeting to go to coin karaoke and we had a lot of nonsensical conversation thereafter; our conversations take place somewhere between the amount of Korean I know which is not much, and the amount of English they know which is even less. But we manage. Joongki, a sass monger, recounted the time in…

Several months ago I received an email from the 5–2 homeroom teacher that student A was acting strangely and more violent than usual under suspicion of not having taken his medication. When he came to class later that day he was agitated, climbing on the desk, and willing to fight people. Since G has come along with her new system, I’ve noticed a huge improvement in student A. He greets me in the hall, is much calmer in class and to both of our great surprise, he even memorized the full script for the Willy Wonka role-play, which is something that most of the students did not do. G stopped…

I feel like I’m getting better at my job. I have a better handle on what the kids need and what they can handle. And fourth grade is responding better to my discipline style. I regaled guitar teacher with the blasphemous corn dog story and explained what an “alcohol jacket” was which surprised a laugh out of him. The subject teachers only heard the key phrase and asked him in Korean if he was wearing one. Hearing him having to explain it was a highlight of my day. He poked fun: “I think you like alcohol. You smiled when you told S about rice wine.” (Well, pot calling kettle black…

Since all of grade 6 went on a field trip to Jeju Island, S and I had a mostly empty day. One of the few students who didn’t go on the trip stayed in our class and for three hours we played a knock off version of monopoly in which you can still buy cities and build hotels but your playing pieces are spaceships. The game actually really helped me understand Korean currency which is on a system of 10,000 instead of 1000 (ten man won is 100,000). It was a nice reminder of the fun we can have and I’ve been too hard on S. We’re doing our best…