Tempers and Temperatures on the Rise

Rice paddies

English camp is next month and I am scrambling to get things done in time. I am putting way more effort into this than the previous camp. Mainly because this year's students  have a short attention span--so every minute must be planned for, or I will lose them. Also I must have an activity every few minutes otherwise, they're gone. I am also losing valuable planning time messing with Hangul Word Processor. It is worse than Word, if that is possible. And of course the two programs are not compatible, so formatting gets altered between copying and pasting. I must use this HWP because none of the other teachers know how to use Word (which is in Konglish, not English or Korean).

Also taking up much of my time are long teacher's meetings dealing with the growing problem of bullying. My co-teachers feel I must attend these entirely Korean meetings. Oddly enough, I am the only one paying attention to these meetings as the other teachers  are playing games on their smart phones, texting, answering their phones, or sleeping. I'm beginning to see where the children get their short attention spans.

The vice principal finally got involved with discipline when a sixth grader punched a third grader and measures are being taken to limit interaction between sixth and third grades. Though, no one seems to care to grasp the root of the problem. Nor do teachers seem to care when students shove, kick, and ostracize a student because they think they will catch her down syndrome.

There is a new student in second grade. She does not look 100% Korean and I hope the students don't single her out because of it.  This student's English is better than most of my sixth grade students and she is always happy to speak with me.

More and more students frequent my classroom to practice their English. Most days, I spend a couple of hours helping students with their homework or playing games with them. The older girls show me the latest K-Pop male bands, and the young students bring me gifts of  Angry Bird erasers, wilted flowers, strange insects, green apricots, grape-flavored candy,  and cough drops (which I give to the older students).

Last week, an acquaintance from Pullman camped out on my floor. The doormen in my building were not too impressed with this new guy. I presume they thought  I was cheating on Matt. I honestly don't know who they think Matt is. So for my reputation's sake and my possible fake marriage's sake, I had better not have any more males in my apartment.

This weekend I went to Cheong-Song to visit Matt. It was a much needed weekend in the country with blue (yes blue!!!) skies and somewhat fresh air (minus the smells of the open sewage in town). I ended up helping Matt with his English camp on Saturday. It reminded me of our certification days. And it was kind of fun interacting with middle school and high school kids.

We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out at the river watching the fish jump and the old people do this odd kimchi squat walk in the water with their heads in glass-bottomed dishes (third-world goggles?) picking up snails along the river bottom.

       This weekend I went to Cheong-Song to visit Matt. It was a much needed weekend in the country with blue (yes blue!!!) skies and somewhat fresh air (minus the smells of the open sewage in town). I ended up helping Matt with his English camp on Saturday. It reminded me of our certification days. And it was kind of fun interacting with middle school and high school kids.

       We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out at the river watching the fish jump and the old people do this odd kimchi squat walk in the water with their heads in glass-bottomed dishes (third-world goggles?) picking up water snails along the river bottom. I am guessing they were dinner.

      Temperatures are up to the 90s with high humidity as the monsoon pushes it's way through the country heading towards Seoul. It is making places like Cheong-Song and Seoul feel like a kettle on a stove.

(I am sorry for the retarded highlighting. It seems that Blogger is once again stupid and refusing to take away the highlighting that I did not select in the first place).