Teachers Day

No school today and yesterday I was showered with expensive gifts.

The first really took me by surprise. Rachel, five years old, came to me with Claire teacher. She usually does this just to wave and say hi, but this time she gave me a bottle of wine. I was perusing the schedule trying to decipher whether or not I had to fill in a class for one of the teachers gone on a field trip and didn't notice it was a bottle of wine until I got back to my desk. Still a little shocked.

Then a large bundle of roses and carnations arrived in the classroom, so I did the only logical thing available to me--spend the entire class convincing the kids that there is a monster named Basky living in the bouquet. (Last week Basky was named Basky-Carla and lived just outside the classroom, waiting to bobble up the children if they misbehaved. I guess when it moved into the flowers, it dropped the last part of its name.)

Then a cake bigger than some of the children arrived.

Then a late students mother handed me another gift that I didn't pay careful attention to until I got back to my desk. Actually, it was Traci that said "Is that Chanel?" And it was. Aftershave and moisturizer. I wonder if it's a hint.

The Day Before Children's Day

Last Saturday was children's day, a national holiday here in Korea. So, on Friday we celebrated by having something called market day. In class, we give out points to students who behave and participate in class, and take them away from those that don't. On market day the kids trade their hard earned points in for xeroxed dollars at the lousy rate of 10 points/1 dollar. The currency comes only in one denomonation--Hamitons. It was a good start to what ended up a bad weekend.


Here I am working the exchange with John, one of my students from the aptly named Dinky class. He's about 4 years old.



Traci helping Bob, one of my small conversation class students. Recently, he changed the fringe of his mullet from blonde to red. Way-to-go Bob!




Sunny and Claire try to keep a handle on the chaos, while not leaving the doorway.





I don't remember if Danny is hitting Jasmine, or giving her a pat on the back. Both are in my Dixie class. Jasmine is sweet and Danny is a devil.





Ryan is making some tough deals with the merchants to my left.





In the afternoon, the market dealings were all scheduled during the Korean teachers classes, so the foreign teachers had their own celebration of the imminent children's day. Traci played Jenga. And I played Uno.

This class is normally crazy; Claire Teacher once said they were among her craziest. But get 'em in a game of Uno and look how orderly they can become.




Lucy takes her Uno very seriously. Here she is yelling ya! at one of the boys, possibly for skipping her.





Shorter thereafter, Amy (middle) made a spectacular play, a red six on a blue six, thwarting Jenny's (right) attempt at going out.





The last class Keith, Traci, Rosaleen and I all brought our kids outside to the lovely park across the street. Traci tried to do a relay race; Rosaleen jumped right into tag; I let the kids "expend energy" before finally deciding that tag was the best way to study English that period.


My kids are not in the best of shape. Terry lay down, exhausted, while whoever was it was at a safe distance.





Owen kept coming to me winded, calling time and hoping I would protect him from someone less out of breath than he was.





It was going well until, after evading my panting pursuer, I looked over at Keith's kids and saw that one of them was looking at his bloody hands and bawling. I thought immediately that game time was over in the future, that one of the kids had actually slipped and fallen hands first in a pile of broken soju bottles (one of the prominent fixtures of the park). But nothing has been said. Apparantly, he cries over everything.




On Sunday, I get up early to go to the artificial climbing wall at the mountain only to find that, piece of crap that it was, it burned down the night before. So I introduced my new friend to the bouldering gym I go to (no ropes). I come out to find someone hit my bike, leaving me a 170,000W repair bill in the front end. And then there is the matter of my ignorance possibly costing me more money than I wish to talk about.

Rooftop Garden