Beyond clumsy

On Wednesday one of my 4-year-olds fell off the table and bumped her head on the floor. (They like to sit on the table while they're ignoring story time, which is all the same to me.) I didn't push her and she wasn't hurt, but she did spend the rest of the class sobbing, gasping, and sniffling for like 20 minutes.

Yesterday she fell off her chair, from a sitting position, not even 12 inches from the floor. I don't know how. She looked stunned and close to crying until the other student distracted her again. But not 10 minutes later she was jumping up and down on the table, and none to gracefully I might add. I snatched her down saying, "Oh no, no, no, my darling little dumbbell. Don't you remember what happened yesterday? You silly thing." Of course she couldn't understand a word I said.

It just goes to show that common sense cannot be taught and has never been bred into the Korean bloodline.

And then TODAY, she fell on her face from standing on her own two feet. She jerked back as I reached for her hand and then tumbled on the floor, her head narrowly missing the wall. I breathed a sigh of relief when she jumped back up to keep goofing around. I'm really clumsy, but 진짜? Maybe "accident prone" is the phrase I'm looking for.

Yesterday one of my older students argued with me about the proper spelling of "boost." The word "boots" absolutely was not on that spelling test, but I don't think he's ever gotten a less-than-perfect score before then. It was a tragic thing to witness, let me tell you.

Later, one of the teachers warned me the same student was being disagreeable because he was hungry. Even at his best, I think the boy a foul, bothersome child. I found that you can tame train bribe placate the monsters with candy. Yay.

The most notable part of my day was walking home with another teacher and just as we passed a little old lady, ajumma let loose an impressive, rip-roaring, might-want-to-check-your-pants toot. I couldn't hold back my all-too-loud peal of laughter and prayed she didn't turn around to beat me senseless. I may be going to hell for that one, but holy shit, it was the funniest damn thing I've heard in months. And we laughed about it all the way home, too.

That night, I sat on a guy on the subway. I usually have pretty good aim when squeezing my behind into a tight spot, so I can only conclude that he saw me coming and kicked out his knee just a little farther so the dirty foreigner wouldn't try to sit there. Too slow, I sat on him instead. Luckily I don't know "sorry" in Korean; I didn't really want to say it anyway.

Thursday was made for comedy.