Getting Lost with a Student

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The past week or so of my life had been pretty ho-hum until today. Every weekday, I go to school at 8:20 am. I teach classes, eat strange school lunches, and make lesson plans for the next week's classes. Then, I leave school at 4:30 pm. I go home and eat dinner/nap/Facebook until 6:30 pm, when I walk to my exercise classes at M Pilates. At 7 pm, I have dance class until 8 pm, and then I have Pilates class from 8 pm to 9 pm. After Pilates, I walk home and then have a Skype date with Edward until about 10 pm. After that, I get ready for bed/Facebook/watch tv. I try to go to bed at 11 pm, though I sometimes stay up until midnight. Repeat five days a week. lol

The most interesting things happen on the weekends. Last weekend, I had planned to go to GyeongJu (former capital of the Shilla empire). I was going to go with my Pilates buddy and co-teacher, Dong-yun and Jean, but they both had to cancel. So, it turned into a chore day. WooHooo so much fun! I went to pay bills, and was approached by a missionary on the way to the atm. She asked me if I had ever heard of "Our Heavenly Mother." I asked her if she meant Heavenly Father, and she explained that she was with the Church of God, and they believe there is a Heavenly Mother and Father because of some passages in Revelations and Galatians. Agnostic that I am, I was curious to learn more, and somehow ended up giving this poor woman my phone number. How do you say, "I'm not interesting in converting to your religion, just learning about it" in a nice, friendly way?

Anyway, so on Sundays, I go to a cafe called Hands Coffee. I brainstorm ideas for lesson plans and try to teach myself Korean while I sip on a hot mocha. Two other women (Chang Ae and Clara) from my Pilates class came up and we started up a conversation in English. We decided to get lunch at a pasta place (such a "Western" day), and then hit up Daegu for some impromptu shopping. I bought some clothes and a Korean phrase book (finally found a store that sells books in English... they are harder to come by than one might think). We had a great day, and it was a nice end to my weekend.

So far... nothing crazy, right? Here's your crazy story of the week....

Today, the clock struck 4:30 pm, and I left school, as always. On my way home, I noticed one of my special needs students walking in the road. I was running to get her and tell her to walk on the sidewalk with me, when a car came zooming by.. It nearly hit my poor student, and then it stopped. The driver rolled down his window and yelled at my student before driving off again. Freaking jerk, right!!

So, I finally get to my student and get her safely on the sidewalk. It's raining, so we share an umbrella. I ask her where she's going, and all I can make out is that she's going to catch Bus number 2. I'm not an expert on children with special needs, but I'm pretty sure they aren't supposed to be wandering the streets and riding public buses by themselves, especially not at the age of 12 or 13. So, I walked with her to the bus stop. I called my co-teacher and told her the situation. She told me that the girl's mother always picks her up at the school, and there's no reason she should be on a bus. So, I stayed with the girl at the bus stop while my co-teacher made some phone calls.

Then, out of nowhere, bus 2-1 pulls up and the little girl makes a run for it! All I could do was run after and follow her onto the bus, motioning ith my hands that she needs to get off the bus. The language barrier was not helping. Before I could even walk over to her, the bus speeds off. At this point, all I could do was pay the fare and try to get off at the next stop. The bus driver starts yelling at me after I put my money in the hole where I thought money was supposed to go, then change comes out of another hole and I was really confused about what was going on. I finally just took the change that came out of the second hole and sat down, with the bus driver still saying things to me that I didn't understand.

Finally, I call my co-teacher again. I told her what happened and she tells me to get off the bus a.s.a.p. The bus stops, and I grab my student's hand and lead her off the bus with me. I have no clue where this bus has just taken me, and it was going like 80 mph, so we're a ways from school. We walked for a while and then I saw it - YeongCheon's only E-mart. I knew where I was. I called my co-teacher AGAIN and told her where we were. She said to stay put, so we did. My student's mother came a few minutes later, and the poor little girl started to cry. I have no idea what she thought was happening, but I felt like crying, too. I was just glad that she was with her mother and I knew where I was.

I did some opportunistic shopping at E-mart, and then caught a taxi to take me home. And now, due to popular demand, I have added another blog. Bon apetite!

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