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Published: January 15th 2007
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This is my second evening off in the past two weeks... and it is glorious. I can no longer justify teaching my children because they all compute to ages 7 and 8. When you are born in Korea they count you as 1, and on New Years day after your birth year, you are 2. Then you celebrate each successive New Years as you are legitimately gaining a year. EX: I am 26 in Korean years. So when my kids tell me they are 9 and 10, they are really 7 and 8. As Verga put it - “I’m not saying the US is a great country but at least we got ‘counting time’ right, f—k that Korean b—---t.” Amen Brother, Amen. My class is more interested in attempting to kill each other and calling me mab-ba-gee.
(http://www.theedutimes.com/news/news_1_eng.html?code=entertainment§ion=view&page=1&number=73)
So my average day is as follows:
8:30 wake-up/skip breakfast
9:00 Play games until noon
12 Lunch and Break til 1:30
1:30 - 5 Games
5-6:30 Dinner and Break
6:30 - 8 Watch a movie
8 - Off to do whatever - Usually drink Soju (21% alc)
Long hours but easy work. But my class is the best because
Jane
By far one of my favorite students! She pissed me off for the first two weeks, everytime I said hello she would shake her head NO. Finally I was told that is an old timey way of saying hello instead of waving, afterwards I learned she hated most of my class and only wanted to draw, so I sent her away with a bag of markers and a pack of paper all we do is play games, everyone else teaches for 3 hours each morning. I taught my kids how to make the perfect paper airplane and how to play duck duck goose (Translation: Gut Gut GOO!)I play/read on the average of 5 hours a day. But our poor poor TAs work much longer than us. They have to be with the class from 7:40 for breakfast and do bed check at 10pm. And as for the typical middle school students, they’ve been caught smoking and drinking and sneaking into each others rooms, making our TAs lives much harder… Why is it that Middle school kids walk around with the biggest egos but are dumb enough to get caught?
This past field trip was a vast improvement from the last one. This time we went to pick oranges at an orange orchard, Natural History Museum, and Dragon rock. Turns out, migrant labor is much much much better than Mini Mini Land.
In other news - I got a great journal entry from one of the older students that is HILARIOUS!!! The prompt was ‘What did you do today’ - Here is what Katrina had to say about her day
Tom
MY biggest pain in the ass - TOM, he is ADHD and loves to run around in circles, but I cant stop laughing at him long enough to disipline him. at camp:
“Today, I want to talk about Japan. Do you know Japan? Maybe you know it. Japan is a very dirty country. Maybe streets is clean, but!! Their minds is dirty, and they think only theirs. Never care other. AH! Do you know? Every bad things are come from Japan, words, mind, style …etc. AND at about 1950, they bothering Korea because the wanted land and the want to go China, when they lost the war with China. They were bothering us more. They changed Koreans’ names and they make us use Japanese names. When we spoke Korean, we go Jail. Even the Students learn Japanese, when they use Korean at school, they were hit by Japanesse. And school Teachers were Japanese soldiers, So Korea’s improvement was late, And 1950 the UN made Japan stop bothering Korea anymore. So Now we can live like now. I’m fine to UN. And I hate Japan. When the UN says don’t bother Korea anymore, they got in Trouble. USA bomb Japan and they were poor. IN 1950!! Korea had war. So we divided by USSR and USA. When Koreans were fighting, Japan made guns, Bombers, tanks… etc They sold that. So they
Orange Orchard
This is where we walked on muddy planks through greenhouses to approach the ripe Orange Orchard were getting rich. So, Now Japan is made by Korea! But Now they are changing our history, and fight S. Korea and N. Korea. In my opinion, they want to sell something. They care only theirs. Very Bad.”
I had to pursue this, I asked my TA what she thought about Japan, she said “All kids in here hate Japan.” Then she shouted to the Class “Do you hate Japan?” “YES!!” in unison. I was taken aback, then one of the children raised his hand and shouted “I hate the Swiss too!” I thought that was ridiculous, who would hate the Swiss, maybe hate their neutrality, but that’s like hating someone that’s lazy or just dumb. Then my TA jumped in excitement, “I HATE THE SWISS TOO!” and then there was a round of applause. I will never bring up politics with South Koreans ever again.
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