Don't cry for me, I'm already in bed

I rolled out of bed this morning to turn off my alarm, but it wasn't my alarm. It also wasn't the morning. It was 1:30 am and The Nice Man was drunk. He really wanted me to be drunk too. I was very confused because I didn't know any of these things until I tried to turn my phone's alarm off and accidentally answered the call. When I told him it was 1:30 at night he said "REALLY?!" 

Today we're going to look at three movies from a single class. This project involved breaking eleven classes into between six to eight groups. The average size of a group was five students. Out of approximately sixty-five to seventy groups total we received twenty-five movies. Three movies from a single class ended up being the record. Lets take a look at what made these girls so special.

If You...

What made these girls special was their gumption to make the first half of their movie utter nonsense. Who is throwing the paper balls? The teacher? And what is "shaking legs"? I didn't dare ask them, because it would have completely ruined the movie for me. 

I would also prefer to live in a world where the lunch lady was from Top Gun II: Farm Town - Fighter Bombers and Barley.

Do-do-do do do Do! do

About a dozen groups claimed that they were going to make a meticulous stop motion movie complete with miniature scale models of people sneezing and what not. This is the only group who actually did it. Kudos to them as well for perhaps the best special effects of the entire competition with their teleport maneuver. 

ceo FRIEND

This movie is being rejected by the servers, probably for being too big. Here's a youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB4QHfLd6tA&feature=youtu.be

Let me know if it doesn't work. I've never uploaded to youtube before.

Despite no one speaking a word of any language in this video, it came second in the school's vote for best film by only one vote. There was awhile there where I was worried democracy didn't work. With slick production value like this, you can sell anybody on anything.

Sunrise, Swingset

I was considering marking this occasion with a transcription of song lyrics that I find pertinent and meaningful, but then I realized that I'd already had a contractual obligation to show you the best films to come out of Bummul's film festival. I'm not usually a man of my word but I'm currently being vetted for office so I'll have to follow through.  I will follow through in the form of a Top 10 semi arbitrary list of 13 movies that I want to show you over the next few days.

Dangerous Motions

The boys here do a great job of using a television to pad their film with contextual and unlicensed footage. The stunt work is a bit wooden but the boys' demonstrate a reoccurring theme with an awkward tagline that would make a great film title.

The Poor Boy

The sad tale of a boy who drives himself into poverty. If you don't have a tear in your eye during the poor boy scene at the end you don't have a heart. Of special note is the actor's dedication to the roll of 'bad apple'. Yi Seung Jong put on fifty pounds just for the final scene where we peer into the boys future. Incredible.

Mix Daum Pot

Quite simply the greatest fake smoking I have ever seen.

I have taught my last class an achieved office ornament status until the end of February. This is a great time for us to really solidify our relationship.

Render as a blog post

These days are fast.

Lately my last dreams of the night have been strange ones. I met President Obama and his old wrinkled white wife in the crowd while I waited for the parade that he was supposed to be in. He wanted to hang out. Last night I was a bee. I wake up when my cell phone plays jazz sax and I look at the same dark room I've been looking at for nearly two years now and think "again". The three minutes I take to stretch like an inflexible dog and roll out of bed to find my sweatpants are the three minutes that feel the longest. Maybe that's why everything seems to rush back to them.

This morning after I showered the first thing I put on were my socks. I don't know why, but it was a nice change. I followed through with this impromptu dressing freestyle by putting on a shirt, then a sweater, then underwear and pants. I'm aware that this is the least attractive way to get dressed, but this morning I didn't pretend there was a camera in the corner of the room to strut for. This morning was just for me.

There are a lot of things I've never, depending on your point of view, bothered to or been able to do in two years here. One of them is fabric softener. When I take my towel off the drying rack it holds it's bend and folds with an impressive rigor. The fabric is very rough when it's freshly washed, but this reminds me of some unspecific positive time in my childhood.

The past three weeks I have been cajoling the 9th graders into making movies, specifically public service announcements, for a film festival that has finally arrived. Next week all the movies will be shown to all the classes and they'll get to vote for their favourites. We were going to have a preliminary round this week to pick the best film from each class, but so few films were turned in that they'll all getting into the event. Lucky for you, we'll be deconstructing the films all together over the coming days I feel like it right here at no dog.

Have a taste.

I might get to go home early today, so don't you work too hard.

Rock Paper Scissors

The boys have a new game. That is to say, the boys have taken an old game and their increasing lack of concience and put them together. I call it: Rock, Paper, Scissors, Idiot.

Here are the rules.

Rock, Paper, Scissors! The kids like to play it four or seven or eight at a time, at an overdrive that is hard to follow. All begin, there is a flurry, and then there is a champion or an ultimate loser, dependent on if they are playing to determine who is the best or who is the worst. In Rock, Paper, Scissors, Idiot, what is being determined is 'who has the worst judgement skills.'  You might not think that rock, paper, scissors would ferret that kind of deep internal mechism out, but it seems to. If it doesn't, then all who participate are equally poorly equiped. But lets give them the benefit of the doubte.

I first learned about Rock, Paper, Scissors, Idiot when a boy was caught... wait.

The student's desks in my school are standard affairs, with the exception that over top of the wood there is a glass-like screen. This provides protection from the wood from wear and tear and graffity, as well as convieniently allowing things like the periodic table or pictures of attractive pop stars to be slid underneith like one's own personal display case. It can also be removed with far less trouble than is necessary to disuade a 15 year old boy. About a week and a half ago the loser of RPSI threw one out the window. The desk cover was obviously not actually glass, but a hard composite plastic that did not shatter after falling three stories to the pavement. It's durability only goes to show just how effectively it would have slaughtered anyone who might have perhapse been between it and the ground. They played one more time and managed to shatter the desk guard, no small victory in their minds I would assume, before they were caught and yelled at, and yelled at, and hit about the back with a wooden practice sword.

A week ago another group of boys played and the loser hit their Math teacher in the back of the head with a text book. Today there was a conference about that one.

Reporters are digging around Daegu for these kinds of stories of powerful misbehaviour. A Vice Principal was punched in the back of the head recently after admonishing a student and newspapers have been calling around. Schools like to keep these things under wraps, but our story appeared on a website, albet with the school's name kept anonymous. I dare say we know the VP's attacker's favourite new game.

Consider yourself on the cutting edge of fun. All the best trends get here first, at No Dog.

Featuring two languages and two fonts

At the bottom of the pile of things on my desk (in front of me now, starting from the shallowest and working deeper: a colour brochure(?) that I cannot read, (the picture suggests buffet or memorial service), helpful hints so that the children might understand Sponge Bob's musical 'Atlantis Squarepantis' episode, a copy of the school's annual English newspaper, two dozen laminated cards meant to represent the floors of a building, a yellow folder, a trio of recipes, scotch tape, a paper ball, 'Kid-O' brand 'creamy butter cracker sandwich' that I refuse to open due to a strong moral objection centered around how awful I imagine it tastes and ad infinitum)... where was I? Ah yes, the bottom of the pile. At the bottom is my schedule, where I have my classes for the week printed out and notes about what went on in them. Mostly though there are "   " marks under each class which means "the same as the last one", random things that might have piqued my interest and things that I am informing myself I should get done.  Last week of interest was:

왜 내 말 씹어요? 

Which sounds like [Way nay mal sheep ah yo?] 

and means: "why my saying you ignore respect older person?"

or if I'm a less literal obtuse jerk: "why are you ignoring what I say?"

Now I know what the children are shouting at me, and even though they add that little respect on the end there, it's still mocking - god bless 'em.  

On that list of things to get done for the rest of this week is to create a listening activity for the 8th grade. Now I have created a listening activity every other week for the 8th grade for the entire year. I do not feel like I am being too intimate if I tell you I am bored and sick of creating listening activities for the 8th grade. Recently, they have begun to drive me mad. Here is the listening activity from two weeks ago:

Jonny stood in the super market with an egg in each hand.

“My hands,” he thought to himself, “are full.”

A woman walked by with a large orange hat. Jonny waved an egg at her.

“Hello,” Jonny said. “Could you do me a favour? I am going to make a cake. Could you carry that bag of flour for me?” Jonny pointed at a big bag of flour on a table.

The woman in the large orange hat looked confused. “Can’t you pick up the flour by yourself?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” said Jonny. “Look, my hands are full.” Jonny showed the woman with the large orange hat the egg in his right hand and the egg in his left hand.

“Oh, alright then,” the woman with the large orange hat said and picked up the bag of floor. Jonny started walking and she followed behind him, carrying the sack of flour like a baby.

End of Part 1

A man walked by in a nice brown jacket. Jonny waved an egg at him. “Would you do me a favor sir?”

“What is it? I’m afraid I’m very busy,” said the man with the nice brown jacket. “I need to get ready for my grandson’s birthday.”

“Well, I am going to make a cake,” said Jonny. “Would you pick up that bag of sugar on that table?” Jonny pointed with his nose at the sugar.

“Why don’t you pick it up?” said the man with the nice jacket.

“My hands are full,” said Jonny, and he showed the man in the nice jacket the egg in his left hand and the egg in his right hand.

“Oh, well alright. But you better hurry,” said the man in the nice jacket. “I have lots of things to do today. My grandson is turning seven.” The man picked up the bag of sugar and held it far away from himself like it was very dirty or smelly.

Jonny walked up to the cashier at the front of the store. She wore a name tag that said “Sue”. Jonny looked at Sue, Sue looked at Jonny.  Jonny turned around and said to the woman with the orange hat and the man with the nice brown jacket “let’s go!” and walked past the cashier. The man and the woman followed him.

“Hey,” said Sue. “You forgot something.”

“What did I forget?” asked Jonny.

“You forgot to pay me.”

“I didn’t forget,” said Jonny.  “I can’t get my wallet out. Look.” Jonny showed Sue the egg in his left hand and the egg in his right hand. “My hands are full.” Jonny turned and left the store, the man with the nice brown coat and the woman with the orange hat followed him.  

Would you like the questions?

Grade 2 Chapter 8

Listening

1. What does Jonny want to make?

_____________________________

2. What are Jonny’s hands full of?

_____________________________

3. Complete the dialogue:

Woman with the orange hat: “Can’t you pick up the flour by yourself?”

Jonny: “No, _____   _________    ____”

4. How does the woman hold the flower?

______________________________

5. Why is the man with the nice brown jacket busy?

______________________________

6. Why can’t Jonny pick up the sugar?

______________________________

7. How did the man hold the bag of sugar?

______________________________

8. What does Jonny do wrong at the end of the story?

______________________________

9. What word/s could you use to describe Jonny?

______________________________

Number 9 is my favourite. I encourage you to answer it below.

I didn't complete "create a listening activity" on my list of things to do today. Do you know what else was on my list though?  Blog post.

I just accepted a new internet provider on a whim but I'd already written this

After school on another Monday I stand and watch some boys play soccer before I leave. Korea has admitted it was Fall about three times now only to take it back and crank the heat up. Today it is gorgeous at 4:30 in the afternoon. I decide to leave, but before I make it through the main gate I’m called over by a teacher. There is a truck full of apples in the parking lot, heavy boxes of apples. I’m handed four because “they’re not good enough to sell.” They are fine, just a few black spots. I pocket them and say 'thank you' and leave. Across the street two boys sit outside of an English cram school. They are young, no older than fourth grade. 

"Hello!" one says. He does not wear glasses.

"Hi," I respond.

"Where are you from?" he asks.

"I'm from Canada." 

A car drives between us and all I hear is "outer space."

"I'm not from outer space," I say. "I'm from Canada."

"I'm from outer space," the boy without glasses says. The boy sitting beside him elbows him in the ribs. He is wearing glasses.

"You're an alien?" I ask the boy without glasses.

"He's a monster," glasses replies. 

"What planet are you from?"

"Fuck you," he says. He hoists up his middle finger to complete the package. "I'm from planet fuck you."

"That's not a nice planet," I tell him. Glasses elbows him again. I turn and head down the street.

"Goodbye!" he shouts.

Busan Busan Busan Busan Busan Busan (dedicated to Hajimama)

It was crowded on the subway in Busan.  It's a pretty long trip from the high speed rail station to Pusan (you can spell it either way, now you know) National University where the show was. It's our least favourite part of the trip. The least favourite part of this particular trip was when the little boy started screaming.

The train car went mad. The boy's mother joined in and maybe the father and then there were many male voices shouting as they tried to free the boy. As the doors had slid open the boys hand had been pulled along into the recess in the wall where they rested. I couldn't see him and I'll be honest: I didn't move from my spot at the back of the car because already there was a huge group of people around the door, yanking and yelling and the addition of one more body in the press, especially one that couldn't understand anything that was being said in the panic, wasn't likely to help. Also, I didn't move from my spot because the intensity of the mother's screams led me to believe that if I caught sight of the boy it would be with one limb missing and a growing pool of blood spilling down the gap between the train and the platform.

The boy was fine as far as I could tell as his father carried him onto the platform. His arm was red from all the yanking but still attached.

***

12:30 is about the perfect time to go on. Bars in Korea stay open until five or six if there are still people stumbling in them, so by midnight-thirty people are just falling into step. Going into the third band of the night, there was a decent crowd.  Then I saw, what I must admit, was a pretty amazing trick. The lead singer of the band had already executed step one by getting himself very drunk. Step two was rambling between songs about how much he hated 'hippies' (an easily and often comically maligned group) and 'faggots' (not so much).  Now maybe there is a step three, but you don't need it if you just repeat step two over and over again. And that is just what he did. If his intention was to clear the bar, he nailed it. By the time they'd finished he'd effectively slimmed their audience down to those people too drunk to leave the bar and their friends who came to see them.  (Those friends left when they did, which was right away save for the drummer who I will say in the interest of fairness bought us all shots and stuck around to watch our set).

So, in true rock and roll fashion, we played to a nearly empty bar in a performance that was so intimate a girl felt the need to compliment us before she left. "You're lovely", she said. "I thought you were just surf rock at first but you're really good." Now I don't really know what surf rock is, or why she's maligning it, but it did immediately beg the question, "if we're really good why are you leaving the bar?"

***

On the early morning after to return in time for Ultimate Frisbee, Greg and I watched as a man pitched key chain flashlights in the subway car. Mass transit salesmen are common.  The only thing that caught my eye was the keen interest of the old man who sat on the other side of Greg. Hands on his knees, leaning forward, he nodded along with the man as he went through what I assume were the various grand properties of this particular flashlights. The old man and one other lady in the car bought one. At the next stop the old man got up and exited the train, only to walk into the next car. The salesman, completing his sales and corralling his inventory, took his cart through the double sets of doors that connected each link in the train. Greg and I looked at each other. It couldn't be. We watched, excited, through the port hole as the man silently went through his selling points again.  Sure enough, the same old man leaned forward and summoned him over and bought another flashlight. 

I am a large fan of street theatre and the 'flash' work of such groups as 'Improv Everywhere'. I was fortunate enough this weekend to be a part of a live infomercial. I did not even buy the product, and yet I am completely satisfied.  

Fuck the tooth fairy (unless you are eight, in which case I apologize)

I went to the dentist today and he told me "Kyle, you've got a secondary cavity under an old filling in your bottom left molar and I'm going to have to give you a root canal," which was great news because the dentist I went to two weeks ago before I left for China told me "Kyle you've got cavities, so many cavities. Boy you've got so many cavities I'm not sure how many you have. Five? Don't hold me to that number. One of them needs a root canal and just to be sure I'm going to drill out the middle of all your molars and pour *Cerc brand ceramic-like goop into those holes and fill them in because you don't need teeth you need very small vases in your mouth. And that's going to cost you 2,800,000 Won.  Also, your gums are too low. I think it best if I perform a gum graft, where just like it sounds like a cut a piece of your gums off, and slap it somewhere else.  You'll need three of those.  You're mouth is pretty fucked. Have you ever thought about fixing the gap in your teeth. Let me show you some pictures. You would be much more attractive. Look at how many very shiny pamphlets I have concerning all these procedures, almost as though I knew everything that I'd find wrong with you before you even came in. We x-rayed you in the elevator. I'll leave you with my assistant so that I can comb some more distinguished grey through this lush inky black quaff of mine. Don't call me an asshole on the way out because we've got sensors for that."

Before we (he) started the procedure today I told him that two friends of mine got cavities filled in Korea and they weren't given enough anesthetic. When they cried out in pain they were just told to be quiet and lay still. I asked for his assurance that this wouldn't be the case today. He just laughed and stuck me with three needles in what felt like terribly slow succession, each one pushed strenuously with a surprising amount of visible effort on his part to get through the muscle of my jaw so it would numb me up into my temple and down into my throat, making swallowing a little tough. They lay a large green piece of felt over my face with a hole cut in it for my mouth and began.

With some things, you just like the familiar. I grew up on pounds of skittles. This was not my first rodeo. Back home though, I am used to having a nice big springloaded plastic "widener" forced into my mouth to comically spread my cheeks away from the work in progress. That intense stretch of the skin away from the gums is comforting. It tells me "all your shit is far away from the drill, and you're not going to get any lose skin caught up and spun around the bit until your bottom lip tears off."  But not here. I opened my mouth wide and the dentist just went in there. I guess the felt would keep me from seeing the blood fly through the air, but the felt slipped so I'd have seen anyway. I repeated the chorus to a song I don't know that goes "I am a rock, I am an Iiiiiiiiiiiiii-land." I told myself that people are tortured in Iran. I sang Leonard Cohen in my head because I saw in an interview with a man that was tortured in Iran that singing Leonard Cohen songs had brought him great peace. When it was over, I was told that I'd have to come back four more times. At the door, the receptionist told me she'd have a Korean name for me by the time I came back on Tuesday. On the bus, I decided to still go bouldering. I practice swallowing, and planned how not to bite myself in exhertion on the rock wall.

Forget it kid, it's China town

When we woke up in the airport, Brittney pointed at the cockroaches skittering around the floor. I remembered the, what I thought were, phantom skuttled along my toes in the night. I'd never slept over in an airport, so I figured that was a pretty good first time.

We hadn't planned to sleep in the airport originally, but we also hadn't planned for our flight home to leave from mainland China instead of Hong Kong. By "didn't plan" I of course mean we "didn't know we'd booked a flight out of mainland China." Not a problem really, just meant a late subway, a written lie about the previous days excitable bowls at the border, and a Chinese Big Mac meal at 1 in the morning with Brittney glazing over, fretting about nugget meals and knocking over water bottles for the poor boy working the lobby in a country without a minimum wage to clean up. When I lay down on the metal bench seating I'd chosen for my bed, I didn't expect to sleep much. Then some security guards came around and made motions that maybe we weren't allowed to sleep there and I thought I wouldn't be allowed to sleep much, (even though everyone was sleeping everywhere.) Then the guards suddenly left and I decided to sleep some just to spite them.  I woke up at 6:30am to my alarm and the cockroaches.

I had never missed a flight before, but we did that too.

Our plane left at 7:50. Gate D it said. Gate D was inexplicably on the other side of Gate A from Gates B and C. There were many more dragon flies mating outside than there were people inside. In retrospect, a warning. There was no loading time beside our flight, and I assumed any minute the board would change to reflect what was apparent: our flight had been delayed. But there were no ticketing desks open, no customer service reps. Finally, Brittney asked a security guard, who did something on a something and told us our plane left from Gate B, and we'd missed it.

At the desk in Gate B, I could hear the hearty swell of emotions that potentially being asked to pay for another plane ticket brings up in Brittney's voice so I tried to put my own two cents in to impress all with my calm and even temper. Within three seconds I discovered that my temper was not even, but instead quite akimbo. I don't know if the woman at the desk understood intricately how her airline had fucked us over, which is what I desperately wanted at that minute, but she soon had new tickets for us free of charge.

We arrived at the ticket desk in Shanghai, (the second leg of our return home), and were told "the tickets close one minutes later," which meant "we have just stopped giving out boarding passes for your flight a minute ago." However, there was a reversal of fortunes that day. They could give one of us a ticket in economy and one of us a ticket in business class. We rock paper scissored for it and oh boy did the guys at the baggage counter laugh. One man told us that they had two tickets after all and, joking, that it had been a test.  I had never sat in business class before. We made several too many jokes about how much better it was to be late for flights. I thought though, as I got on the plane, that 28 A was a bit far back for business class. It was in fact the very back corner of the plane. Brittney got the very front corner, but of economy. They hadn't discovered a second seat open in business, they'd found two tickets in economy.  And I had even got on when they called for the business class tickets (which is before the plebians). The flight attendants likely spoke of me over champagne that night.

Back in Korea, we were kicked off the hour and a half busride home. It drove off, and we found out from the helpful and sorry lady inside the airport that A: the smart people bought tickets for that bus a long time ago, B: the next bus was in two hours and C: we'd better take a taxi to a train that we'd have to stand on.  To hopefully no one's surprise now, we were intercepted by the very bus driver who kicked us off before we could get to the taxi, taken back onto his bus, and driven home for the very reasonable price of seven dollars.

It was all a Chinese miracle.

THIS IS..............SUMMERCAMP!

With summer camp comes the chance to work at an elementary school and be reminded of the joys young children bring.

Joy 1: Their willingness to have fun and engage with English

Joy 2: Reminding me that young kids are monsterous selfish ego machines who clamour to consume everything they are allowed to lay their hands on.

Joy 3: Manditory thank you cards.

Children are honest enough to tell you that the best part was when you left and they got to eat a donut, but well trained enough to feign guilt about it.

Daniel hopes I will stay, but he makes sure I don't get confused and mistake his hope for beer, which is a very valid concern.

You are not imagining things. This child has drawn me with a tiny dagger-like penis and dotted it with spotty graphite pubes. And with this, he surpasses my wildest expectations.

He's just trying to be strong, I'm sure.

This little boys wants us to hang. He wants us to be buds. He is dropping his digits and repetedly told me "teachah call me" making a phone with his pinky and thumb while slouching as he emphasized the word 'call' in a manner that conveyed "we are gonna rip this town UP!'

He ups the gangsta on the other side of his card. He's got rockets and he wants to know WHER'S YOUR'S HOUSE?

Here we have that little girl that you remember from your days in elementary school. She does everything best.

1. CUT OUT HEARTS. 2. GLUE ON HEARTS. 3. ??? 4. PROFIT

Stop child.  Hidden words? This is why everyone is going to resent you in three years.

"I really like it when you my favorite part of camp as I love you" Now that is an English sentence.

Finally, the real hero gets the acolades he so richly deserves.

Greater than or less than a good idea.

I have a math problem that I did not solve correctly. I will show my work and perhaps you can see where I have gone wrong.


>1 hour before I must leave my house for the weekend

+ a large load of laundry that must be done

= run the load in the washing machine and deal with it when I get back home on Sunday

What I didn't count on was the remainder.

The nylon shorts I play soccer in smell atrocious.  The game ends at 8 or 8:30 and the heat might have started to break by then if we're lucky. I put in extra soap on Friday just for them. In what must have been a titanic battle on the cellular level, that stench has defeated the laundry soap. Left with its spoils over the weekend, it has run rampant over all the other clothes mashed into that load of wash. Where as I once had a single pair of shorts to quarantine, now nearly all the clothes I wear on a regular basis are weapons grade.

I have, on some advice, purchased vinegar and baking powder (or soda?) in an effort to undo the damage I have done. I'm not sure exactly though if when I pour them all into my sink if it's going to neutralize the odor or make a volcano minus the paper-mache.

Business luncheon

Exams end at noon and the students leave. No school lunch. So the teachers go out or order in. There are three days of exams, and yesterday I left when they were done and tomorrow I want to leave after they're done. One out of the three days, I have been told, I must stay at school until 4:30. But the men teachers have asked me to lunch with them so leaving the school for a bit on my designated full day of work is fine. It's like a business meeting.

The men are not happy that the principal has joined us. The Nice Man tells me this in English while the principal is still there. They cannot relax while he is present.  They seem relaxed though. They are drinking like they are relaxed. The drinks I drink are certainly relaxing me.

The principal leaves and everyone bitches about him. It's now 1:30 and more beer is ordered, soju too. They are not happy that he has asked teachers to address the problem of litter around the school by picking it up. They think that the students won't learn how they should behave from watching them, but that instead the students will feel like it is the teacher's job. More drinks. They offer me some soju and are pleasantly surprised when I accept it. Soju is one of the things that = Korea. I will earn points for not being a foreign pussy.

The Math teacher who I have long suspected hates me (on a field trip he told the school's student President to 'keep me away from him.') breaks down around 3:00. He has been telling me things like "when Korea is a strong country we will not have to learn English. People will learn Korean", using The Nice Man as an interpreter. I nod. Then, at about 3, the room clears out for a moment, and we are left alone. It is then that he speaks to me in English for the first time. "My daughter," he says. I work out that he has a daughter a year younger than me finishing her degree in Math, heading to Vancouver to study English. He is worried about her. Suddenly he isn't so much a nationalist as a man who wishes he didn't have to send his daughter away to ensure she has the opportunities available to her in the future. I like him more.

Around 4:30 they teach me a Korean lymeric. It was at one time meant to be sung to children, but the tell me I should never sing this to children.  It translates as "something something, something something, something something my hand will come down on your face like lightning." Remind me and I'll sing it for you. At about five o'clock I take my leave and I exit into the sunlight. I am o.k. drunk, which means I am drunk and that's O.K. I have completely missed the afternoon of school.  I hope that it doesn't mean that I'll have to stay until 4:30 tomorrow. It was a business lunch after all.

Grab bag

A drunk man came to school the other day.  He is the 41 year old cousin of a boy at our school.  The boy is not a popular boy.  He sometimes runs around the classroom for no reason and attacks the blackboard with chalk.  He doesn't play well with others I hear.  I don't teach him, alas.  So his older cousin got drunk sometime before 12:30 on a Tuesday and came to school with the goal of going to his homeroom class and telling all the children not to pick on him.  Now this man I understand.  You get drunk a few days in a row before noon and you start to question what goodness you are bringing to the world.  You little cousin sneaks you a beer that night because he's too young for his parents to include him in the serious family discussion about your alcohol abuse and you start to feel like maybe he needs somebody in his corner.  When you're making your way through your rice and rice-wine at  9:40 in the morning and it is the time to make plans, turn things around and start to leave your mark in the lives of the people who enable you.  I get it.

A woman pulled out and hit a kid on its way to the elementary school beside my middle school.  I'm not trying to be crass, I just heard the the kid referred to as 'he' and 'she' from different people telling me the story.  I was unfortunately on time for school and so missed being a witness.  I would tell you that the kid is fine, but I actually have no idea.  The order of events went like this: Woman hits kid, kid falls down, woman screams (in car), woman screams (out of car), woman hauls kid to its feet and then into her car.  Woman drives off. I'm going to be honest and tell you I don't understand this one at all.

And finally, sometimes we do good work around here.  Sometimes I get called in to do a class last minute, but the computer is broken by the kids so I'm sent back to my desk, but the computer is fixed by the kids so I'm called back, but the computer's sound doesn't work so I hang out while the kids try to fix it and eventually the tech guy comes by and fixes it in three seconds and we watch 9 minutes of hilarious sitcom 'Community' and the bell goes and I wish them good luck on their exams.  Lately it's one or the other.

In case you ever wondered what really happense

At school, I am on a 'need to know basis', not by virtue of the heavy classification that that the photocopier password falls under, but because it takes almost more time than anyone can afford just to explain the things that are extremely relevant to me on a day to day basis.  So never mind the little things, the asides, the office jokes, the latest gossip.  That just doesn't make it to my ears.

Do you already see the exception coming?  Yes?  Let me fill you in then.

When the lunch bell goes I wait an extra ten minutes to head down, mostly because bells aren't the boss of me.  Wednesday I was broken from the dead stare at my computer by the head teacher suggesting very much that I head down to eat.  It takes only a minute to zero in on the art teacher crying at her desk.  The other female teachers are assuming stress relieving positions and I do not need a Korean vocabulary larger than 35 words to know that 'you should go eat lunch' means 'you should not watch this teacher cry.'  I make vamoose into my middle name, Vamoose.

Lately at school, there has been a discipline problem.

And as these things work, on the way back from lunch my favourite Nice Man P.E. teacher begins to give me the lay of the land these days as he sees it.

Whatever institution decides these sorts of things has decided that hitting kids is now illegal, both with foreign objects and the human body.  That means no sticks, folding chairs, tazers, elbows or ear pulls.  This is one of those things that I knew was true some places, but didn't know if it had been applied like a heavy blanket over the peninsula or if they were "just talking about Seoul".  Now unless you are the one person who google analytics tells me reads this blog from somewhere in the Balkans, you probably are on board with the 'no hitting' thing. (Sorry to my one reader in the Balkans, I have made a joke at your expense with no real idea of how often/hard/creative you are in your corporal punishment.)  Put that aside for a moment.  Basically what has happened is that the traditional form of classroom discipline has been cast away and there is nothing to replace it.  There is so much nothing to replace it that last week there was a meeting to talk about insituting a new form of punishment for the students.  The meeting found that officially no one has any idea.

So the proffessional teacher with  more than a decade's worth of experience asked me: how can we discipline students?  I laid out how things were done back in my day as best I could and while he was very inerested he brought up a few reasons why he thought it just wouldn't fly over here.

Lots of kids go to academies or cram schools after they're done at school.  You can't make kids stay after school because if they miss these acadamies their parents get ulta pissed and complain to the school.

Parents work a lot and they work late.  This may translate to any or all of the above: a. they don't have a lot of time to talk to their kids.  b. they don't know how their kids are behaving in school c. they don't have time for parent-teacher conferences (which I suggested)

Parents are having only one or two kids, where as it used to be the norm to have many more.  He lamented the unwillingness for parents these days to believe that their child would behave badly.  He feels that children are coddled much more than they used to be.

Everything he said I had heard said before.  Just never all at once.  So it seems plausible that this is one of the ways things are.  But I have to admit now that I have grown uncomfortable talking with way, without making anything up or even embelleshing.  I am reminded why I leave the straight facts to others.  So you'll have to forgive me if I duck out early.

With Summer comes

It was hard to decide whether to stay or go at the end of my contract last year.  In the days after I made my decision it was this time of the year that I thought of, the Summer days.  The beautiful, cloudless, endless, humiliating, shirt-pooling summer days.  They're here again.

Between one and two in the afternoon when it crests at thirty-something degrees and holds itself there with near complete humidity it is difficult to be.  My shorts soak through under me at my desk.  In the classroom I weave and steal things from the children to try and keep my brain occupied instead of sludging down the back of my neck and away.  I do not begrudge them their head down, sweat staining my handout about how to give advice.  Here is some advice kids: fake a tumor until the Fall.  Nothing will be taught except how to pit-stain.

At 7pm when soccer begins tonight it's barely broken.  After a half hour of running my body wants to quit so badly that it feels as though I'm having to will my bladder to hold itself.  This is entirely expected.  It was the same last Summer. 

The heat is only beginning.  A barely intrepid thirty-one today but we'll see forty* sure enough.  My icecream habit puts children through college and me on a fast track to diabetes. And with the heat comes the bugs.  What does the small moth watch me approach, allow me within nearly an inch before perhaps deciding to flutter away without any hint of need, while the Mosquito darts and hides in my apartment with a guerilla instinct that would shame the Viet Cong?  It is because we are at war with the Mosquito, and they have never known another Summer.  Each one was bred* only to win this single season.  To steal my sleep and force me to see the room go bright while the buzz my ears.  I hate them and when I kill one in the last part of what should be my night's sleep, I curse them and their mothers and their fathers and their sisters who will come after them with my voice and not quietly.  I leave their bodies in the wall and in the cieling, little notes that are never read by my enemies.  Then I go back to bed and fall a-sweat.

*denoting edits by some asshole I know.

A niche market post

When I was in the seventh grade, I lived, ate, breathed, sweat and often watched professional wrestling.  I knew the moves (I still know the moves), I did the moves, I had the moves done on me.  I set a bar for what was the  pinnacle of young fandom. 

It has been shattered. 

Bum Goon is in my seventh grade class.  He has a round face with not a lot of chin, a bowl cut and eyes that never open up all the way, but are never the less always smiling.  If you ask Bum Goon to preface a question with 'who' he'll ask "who is the most electrifying man in sports entertainment history?"  If you ask him to use 'what' he'll ask "what is The Rock cooking?"  And if you don't ask him anything at all he'll turn to his partner and tell him "choke slam.  I'm the World Heavyweight Champion."

When the class had group presentations on what they would need to take some form of public transportation to the moon, Bum Goon told us how he'd be taking the Undertaker to drive the space-bus and tombstone pile drive any attacking aliens.  When I gave the class a word search and asked them to find words that were not on the list underneath, he did not take it sitting down when I told him that 'HHH' as it is a proper name, didn't count. 

I ended up counting it. 

And on Monday, May 23rd, after the weekend that was heralded as the Apocalypse by some people with a radio station, when I asked Bum Goon if he had heard the sad news it took him a second.  "What sad news?" he said.  And then, "Oh, Macho Man Savage.  Yes that is very sad." 

Today's Twix

One of my favourite teachers keeps her hair short.  She's the most casually dressed in the office; jeans, t-shirts, hoodies. 

I found out last week that there are about a dozen girls in love with her.

They say that when they first met the teacher they thought she was a guy.  A handsome guy.  By the time they learned the truth, it was too late they said.  They still think she is so handsome.  They still go out of their way to see her.

...

There is no 'z' sound in Korean.  The closest they have is the 'j'.  I hear a lot about 'scary jombies' in my classes, but I was still surprised when I student told me he was going to take care of elephants once he became a jewkeeper.

...

This morning my vice principal wandered the office with an envelope doling out whatever it was within to people around the office.  Whenever anyone doles out anything in the office I am very probably going to be offered some.  It's really hard for me not to sit and watch them make their way towards me but all that potential eye contact might seem demanding.  So I stare at my screen and act surprised when they come by.  

"Would you like some green tea?"

I accept everything I'm offered except for coffee, (and even coffee sometimes if they're smiling too wide and don't understand enough English to know why I'm refusing).  I get a bunch of rolled and dried leaves mounded on a piece of A4 paper, from the envelope to me.  

Now I'm a big enough person to admit that I don't necessarily know what to do with these, or at least I can be.  Not today though, today I am not big and not even thirsty for green tea, for hot drinks at all.  But the longer this mount sits here the longer I am marked by it.  

You would have put them in hot water right?  I now have a cup full of leaves; no longer dries and rolled.  They have taken up a lot more of the cup than it looked like when they were mounded on that A4. It's hard to drink without eating one and in the same way I could have asked I could also just eat these.  Except I'm not going to, not today.  Today I am going to sneak a mini Twix from my lowest desk drawer, (I sneak it because eating without offering to share with everyone in about a twenty foot radius is selfish and I might have enough to share with the 8 people who sit in that circle but I'd certainly have almost no Twix left and I am in fact selfish - especially today), and I'm going to consider putting a fish in my cup and watching it swim amongst the reeds of my tea.

Clarity

I am leaving for Jeju island today.  Google them if you wish to feel jealous.

Midterms have just taken place.  There has been some trouble with the exams.  In short, one class was not taught one example that appeared on the test.  About eight students from that class have been in the teachers' office every day since to harangue us about it.  A meeting is being convened, I am told.  I am told, but I am not invited, but after I am told the teacher stands and waits, and waits.  I guess that perhaps she would like me to talk.


I say that I don't know how the system for dealing with this sort of thing works.  I ask if it would be possible maybe just to cleave that question for the exam for the 40 students in that class.  Render it null and simply make their exam out of 29 instead of 30, or 99 instead of 100 or whatever it may be.  But I don't use those words like cleave or null.  I try and be as clear as I possibly can.  And I am not even suggesting, I am only asking if that is a possibility that they would consider because I don't know the procedure, I don't know what can be done and what can not.  


I finish and she looks at me.  She looks at me.  She looks at me.  She keeps looking at me, her mouth set in a dead straight flat line.  She says finally, much too long for the answer to feel hooked on to the question, "yes." And then she slowly backs away and leaves.  And I have no idea, no idea at all if I gave her what she wanted out of our brief but hanging conversation.

Be studious

Midterms are next week, and I have asked my 9th grade classes to put themselves in my shoes and make exam questions they think they might see.  Here is one of them.

Group 7

Guess what.  I lost my meat.

A - You mean we don't have any food?

B - You mean we don't go school?

C - You mean you have any meat?

D - You mean you feel so good?

E - You mean you don't have pet?

Please solve and commit to memory.  It will be on your final exam.

Footclan

The boy sitting in the front row of my class has a classic henchman face.  His eyes are hooded, his hair is dyed, the sneer is stuck on just like his mother warned him would happen before he broke her heart.  He has a cast on his right hand.

"How did you hurt your hand?" I ask him.

He is unable to respond.  Typically henchman.  Someone in his group says he punched his friend.  Is this boy the ringleader, the brains, his boss?

No.  He is soon punching that boy in the head with his good hand.  Soon he is spraying some kind of cleaning agent in the boys eyes.  (The bottle just says 'Clean').  Does Korea use the same symbols to declare corrosion, toxicity and the dangers of ingestion?  There is nothing on his bottle.

Later he is up on his feet, a bad sign, and ducks a book meant for his head.  The challenger looks to me like a henchman.  I will have to dig around about gang colours.

I used to be somebody

I take this break on my Monday to tell you about what's making me feel good right now.  It is, namely, myself.  It isn't bragging though, I don't think, to boast about things you did a long time ago.  Currently I'm trying to do something and it is going very poorly.  But this guy?  This guy back then?  Man he did a thing or two that were good, I am talking WELL CONCEIVED.  I wish I could be more like him.

http://www.theredherring.net/2010/01/24/a-history-of-violence/ is one article.  If you click on my name under the side bar "authors", you can see other things I wrote.  Feel very free to make comments despite the two years that have passed since I wrote for the Red Herring and maybe a web master will notice and summon me back to the University to teach courses in nostalgia.

Woobang (Tower Land)

I don't like the amusement park very much.  The lines are long and all the kids call me sexy but don't mean it.  The batting cage markd medium speed s actually very fast and I can' catch up to it until the very last ball.   The revolving restaurant makes me feel weird and tiresd and the backs of the dinner chairs are too short and too thin to sleep soundly in.  The icecream is good though.

Because you know we're all just people except for you

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Believe me, don't be afraid

There is a boy in the third grade.  He shakes. Not all the time, the radius is about five feet I think. I come within five feet from him and he will put his eyes down and it's like someone is singing just the right pitch to rattle his glass bones.  I asked my coteacher and she says he does the same with her so it isn't because I am exotic.

Last night I was coming home on the subway and the old woman sitting beside me, (I stood), poked me in the back.  She bradished a religius leaflet and spoke Korean.  The only words she said in English were 'heavenly mother'.  I said "I'm sorry, I only speak only a little Korean." More truthfully, and more telling, I actually said "I feel shame, Korean little." She went on regardless and I, polite, followed along. The woman beside her said she felt sorry for me with her eyes.

The old woman was so sure of her heavenly mother. What did language matter. The spirit of this would certainly sink into me. She motioned several times for me to phone a number   a number on the back of the pamphlet.  I am certain there would have been no English on the end of that ine either.

This is how I feel about the boy though. I am desperate to take him aside and assure him that I beyond anyone should not shake him. Certainly my good intentions will shine through the awkward gape in language.

Of course not.

 I wish you could see this kid though. He shakes like a roll on a snare drum.