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.

Wicked

I just finished "Wicked" last night and am amazed at the depth of such a popular book. The characters, setting, and plot are all beautiful, dynamic, and well-developed. It really is as good as everyone says, and I look forward to reading more from Gregory Maguire.

Confused

At the beginning of the week, we print out spelling lists to hand in to the front desk to be posted online for students for their end-of-the-week spelling tests. This isn't even my class, but my director just called me in to interrogate me about the issue. Her first question was if it was my handwriting, to which I replied (honestly), "no." So she went on to explain that somebody marked out "calendar" by hand and wrote in "calender" on one of the official lists, so a lot of students got it wrong and now she needs an explanation to give to the parents, as if this were my fault. She asked me "Well, whose handwriting is it?" I'm really sorry, but I really don't know. I can only identify the other native female teacher's handwriting because it's girly, so I can only tell you it's neither mine nor hers.

Maybe I forgot that I had fudged my resume by adding "graphology" on my list of skills, right there beside "gift of prophecy," as mentioned in an earlier post. My bad.

Who can say their time in Korea is complete without having puked both on the street and from a taxi? That was my Saturday night. No rockin' party, friends, or even booze was involved. No, I was trapped in the city with a migraine by 7 p.m. and nowhere to go but a jimjilbang. But I couldn't even handle the taxi ride from Noksapyeong to Itaewon without having to stick my head out the window, just barely missing someone standing in the road.

I lack the words to describe how miserable the remainder of my night was in the hot, humid, stuffy spa, lying on a marble slab with no pillow, waiting hours for the families and their children to all shut the hell up and go to sleep, listening to the same cell phone ringing 3 or 4 times in the night in the SLEEPING AREA. Ugh.

Most days I don't believe I'll make it out of this country alive.

"I came here with good intentions. Something changes over time.Your belief that you are making a difference in the students’ lives turns into a lost cause. Your belief that they (students/teachers/admin) give a rat’s ass – disappears. Your belief that they are actually capable teachers – vanishes. You will remain, alone, to spend your year in purgatory. Teaching in South Korea is the midway point of nowhere. You won’t grow professionally or skillfully. You will instead grow to hate your job."


From Teaching English Sucks in Korea, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Evolution of Shadows

I read this book for the Seoul Women's Book Club this month, and I ADORE it.

In 1995 a missing photojournalist's former lover, his interpreter, and his mentor travel to Sarajevo to search for any sign of him after the war. The book tells each person's history with him alternating with accounts of their current search. Moving, sexy, gripping, and stunning, I highly recommend this book and will probably read it a second time before the month is out.

"About three things I was absolutely certain. First, Edwart was most likely my soul mate, maybe. Second, there was a vampire part of him–which I assumed was wildly out of his control–that wanted me dead. And third, I unconditionally, irrevocably, impenetrably, heterogeneously, gynecologically, and disreputably wished he had kissed me."

A Twilight parody from The Harvard Lampoon. There are a few good laughs, especially toward the beginning, but even at a mere 154 pages, the thing does tend to drag on a bit. It's worth thumbing through at the bookstore but not purchasing.

My favorite quotes:

Edwart "was muscular, like a man who could pin you up against the wall as easily as a poster, yet lean, like a man who would rather cradle you in his arms. He had reddish, blonde-brown hair that was groomed heterosexually. He looked older than the other boys in the room—maybe not as old as God or my father, but certainly a viable replacement. Imagine if you took every woman's idea of a hot guy and averaged it out into one man. This was that man."

"I had recently come into possession of a Thesaurus. You would not believe how many words there are! When I opened that book, I was like, whoa! Word party!"

This week I gave up on the hope that I might ever live in a mold-free environment and put some posters and things on my walls. Yesterday, my boss informed me that she still can't get a hold of the landlord about getting the wallpaper redone, so she didn't pay my rent this month so he will call her.

Or I'll come home one day to find a cute Korean family in my officetel and all my stuff on the street.

And I bet the late fee will be deducted from my paycheck, too.

FML.