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.