I thought to myself today, you know, I should start learning Arabic. I mentioned to my father that these days I have a huge mental block between my second languages. When I try to speak Spanish, which I studied for seven years, Korean comes out. I can’t remember basic phrases like “how are you?” or “are you wearing a jacket?” My dad suggested I’m too deep in Korean and probably need a break. I’m considering adding some easy conversational Spanish tutoring to my schedule and maybe doing an introductory course or two in something wildly different, like Arabic. According to the homeroom teacher for 6-2 at the travel school, Maria,…

“You look weak these days,” Jack told me. There was nothing to be offended about because he’s right. I nodded in agreement. “We have a saying here. 닭병. You have chicken disease. Like when a chicken gets sick and weak.” The descriptors weren’t very helpful but I could imagine a crated chicken slowly wasting away in a cramped cage. Between hospital visits and stress over my travel school lesson plans and lack of sleep that keeps piling up from thrice weekly online Korean classes and additional online English classes and the change of seasons and the promise of the end of the semester, I am tired. I do feel weak.…

Somewhere in the midst of trying to communicate with the sixth graders I was struck with a thought: This is dumb. Wait—I don’t mean teaching or English is useless. Far from it. I mean the setup of this job could be better. How much are the kids gaining by our language barrier, even when I’m a Korean speaking certified teacher? How much harder was this for the native guest teachers before me? I have a lot of thoughts about public English education which at current I do not have the energy to address; all resources have gone to battling the ceaseless appearance of drain flies. When my high school debaters…

Sometimes I take a pause at the beginning of my fourth grade classes and look at their precious little faces. Well, what I can see. They’re really cute! And they love chatting with me after class while I unplug my USB and pack up. Many in the shyest class demand extra, personal high fives. Or just jump up and down in my vicinity. They want attention and hey, I’ll give it to them! Fifth grade was also super cute today. 5-1 tried hard even though they’re normally very quiet. I like to think I bring out their fun side. There’s a special kid in class who often frustrates his classmates…

I realized that every day I give four to five interactive presentations. Put that on a resume! Today I tried to see what about 6-6 draws Helen in. 6-5 really ticked me off with excessive talking and one student repeatedly saying “goodbye” before class had ended. I ended class a minute early and they were shocked. “Wait it’s actually over?” Yeah, I don’t want to spend time with you when you act like this! My notes revealed that 6-5 constantly swings between being interactive and overwhelming. Then it was 6-6’s time to shine. And they did! I told them we’d play a game but only if they behaved, and they…

Apparently it is against policy for me to teach alone. I’m supposed to be teaching with the homeroom teacher (lol) and at the very least, the homeroom, teacher should be there most of the time. I chatted with Helen for an hour about the students and other things. She told me these fifth graders are notorious, and had problems with authority dating all the way back to the third grade. Big yikes. Apparently all the trouble kids were in one class and that year, the homeroom teacher changed four times. Eventually the vice principal and the head teacher had to monitor class every day until the following school year when…

At the hospital, I am the nightmare version of myself. Quite literally: in my most frustrating dreams, I am easily hurt and driven to tears. The people around me see me cry and instead of feeling sympathy, feel disgust. That wasn’t far from my experience last week. After a worrisome episode of arrythymia, I decided to put my national insurance to use and get checked out. Better safe than sorry! I wandered the dark empty hospital looking for the emergency room for twenty minutes before a call to Yana clarified I was in the wrong building. Say it with me: thank goodness for Yana. She’s the only one of my…

Fifth grade made me mad. The problem is, in those moments I have to react on my feet. I cannot go on the defensive and I need to think carefully, but also incredibly quickly, to diagnose how to handle the situation without making anyone cry. Myself included. Three girls of 5-6 sat in their seats while their classmates flitted around practicing. It took four separate reminders to get them to actually get up and talk to each other, and another several minutes before they admitted to me that not one of them had kept their scripts from last week. They needed further prompting to rewrite it. There were also two…

The chatty sub has returned and is already back to gifting me with various food items. Today was a simple day of sixth grade classes; I quickly learned that allowing them to form their own groups for Jeopardy was a no-go but things smoothed out after that. 6-6 has rearranged their seating which has separated the more talkative boys and made the day easier as a whole. I talked to a few teachers on a message board to brainstorm best activities for my travel school kids (they dislike competition so collaborative activities were helpfully suggested). My Anki deck also got revamped with vocabulary from my last few tutoring sessions. I…

“Excuse me, what flavor is this?” I asked the woman working behind the counter at my neighborhood 7-11. She is one of the three main workers I see among a young guy with bleached hair, an older woman with no patience for delivery men, and a new young male addition who laughed softly the other day when I dropped my purchases all over the floor and cheerfully exclaimed “aigoo!” I’ve met this woman before because I remember her cheerily asking me where I work and what I do. She came out from behind the counter and looked at the pink Oreos with me. I told her in Korean, “The box…