Various fifth and sixth grade girls pointed out my makeup today: “Wow teacher! Pretty!” I told them, today only. I like to keep the people guessing. A 6-3 boy pretended to shoot me with the air bombs they made in science so I put him in a (very gentle) headlock. I love being able to play with the students. S playfully punches boy students in the shoulder when they forget their homework. Sixth grade is still making basic pronunciation mistakes (a b she, x-uh, eaJy instead of easy, bLeakfast, and generally adding extra syllables everywhere). I’m trying to recognize that I can’t fix or change everything, but damned if I’ll…

What’s your best accomplishment? Others: my child, a promotion, bought a house Me: I FINALLY GOT AN EMART POINTS CARD, THE SAGA IS COMPLETE, PUT THIS ON MY RESUME

Lunch and tea time were an exercise in cultural differences. My coworkers know I’m on a diet and asked if I’ve lost weight (two pounds actually, but I don’t know if that’s from purposeful exercise or just having to walk up a billion flights of stairs every morning). At tea time they asked “what’s the best race in the USA” and I was so taken aback until they rephrased as “what’s the best race stereotype” at which a giant neon sign flashed in front of me saying “You are not qualified for this conversation!”. But then G said something about “Negros” and I had to gently explain why we don’t…

Fourth grade was loud as usual but I’m finding more every day that I don’t want to yell over them or wait for them to quiet down, especially seeing how well behaved third and fifth grade have become. S told me during lunch that her throat hurt from having to talk over the class. Favorite part of fourth grade today though was stopping the class and correcting pronunciation of short vowels I/e/a. I made the short E sound and asked the class what letter they though it represented. S said “A”; I didn’t want to correct her in front of the class but when I quietly pointed it out she…

Over the weekend YouTube suggested I watch a video about an American elementary school girl and Korean boy meeting for the first time. It was very cute and awkward and I sent it to my to co-teachers today. The new sub, G as she will now be dubbed, thought it would be good to watch in class so we showed it to our fifth graders. Strong Girl had actually already watched the video. She also knows the celebrities I put in presentations so I’m mildly shocked we have the same taste in entertainment. The boy I ran into at the gym, who lived in Lynchburg Virginia for five years as…

Please celebrate the most embarrassing moment I’ve had yet: I suspected that on Friday I may have thrown my sports bra into the industrial dirty clothes bin in the gym locker room. That was confirmed on Saturday when I got to the locker room, started to get dressed, and realized I had no sports bra. I did a few quick Google searches and decided to rip off the Band-Aid and approached the front desk to see if there was anything to be done. But of course, who would be working the desk today? Not any of the nice ladies I’ve seen before. No, a handsome PT wearing a very tight…

The new sub G told me that gym boy actually lived in the US when he was younger! So obviously I need to track him down at the gym and question him about this new development. 6-3 was an embodiment of all the bad things I felt yesterday. Kids were falling asleep and I couldn’t get more than one volunteer to answer… anything. I don’t care if you’re wrong, just try. Give me crazy answers like one boy: I wash my hands once a century! But there was not a peep in the house and S didn’t reprimand them for their silence. Some of them didn’t do the book game…

The school day was a little disappointing and frustrating after grade three. It was a full day with third grade (the new sub has amazing classroom management and I feel the difference acutely when I teach with S in fourth grade). In 3-4 I taught some bow-wearing girls “bow” awhile back and quiz them every class. They’re going to remember something besides Hello if I have anything to do with it! Today they taught me 리본 (ree-bone) which is the Hangeulized word for ribbon. But because it’s Konglish, and Konglish is known for misattributing definitions, this actually means “bow”. One smart girl said “ah. Konglish*?” I drew a picture of…

I heard a “hi” behind me at the gym and turned around in alarm; the last time a Korean person approached me in English was to recruit me into a cult. It was not that, luckily, but one of my fifth grade boys. “Oh hi!!! We’re matching.” I pointed to our generic black gym-provided uniforms. That was too much English at 7 in the morning for him so he ran away. But we passed each other at school later and high fived. His friend was pleased that I also fist -bumped him. The new new sub showed a motivational video about a Korean man who was homeless until appearing on…