Presents

I read aloud, like a lot, to my kindergarten kids.  Now I'm teaching my kids to read more naturally so they don't sound like little Korean robots, no inflection or tone in their voices.  I record the stories for them and email them home to the mommies so they can listen to me and practice using their voice in story telling.

The kids love it (and read their stories WAY more often at home), and the mommies think I'm heavensent because it's not something the teachers at our school usually do - win:win for me!!  The past 2 weeks kids have been bringing storybooks to school for me to read aloud when we have a few minutes to spare at the end of each block (and I happily oblige them in a love of reading!)

The other day in the classroom we were having our second or third conversation about typeset in their storybooks.  We started with a discussion about the 'strange' forms of a/g/q/t/I that we see in stories that (big bad meanie) teacher won't let them use in their writing.  Then we started talking about why writers use italics and bold in stories.  They know about the exclamation point, commas, and periods, but they've never really absorbed the meanings of these 2 new things.

I often give words kid-friendly qualities when I'm trying to explain things that are a little out of the ordinary.  For example, in case you didn't know weird is a naughty word because it doesn't follow the rules of 'I before E except after C').  My kids remember things more easily this way, and it makes them giggle so I make it as strange as I can for them. 

Last week I was trying to explain emphasis to my bright little stars.  I told them that words printed in bold and italics, ones that "looked special" were stronger than the others (of course modelling strong by strutting around flexing my muscles, and in turn walking around the table to squeeze the biceps being flashed at me by my money-see-monkey-dos.  When the giggling died down and I could continue the lesson I told them that when we are reading those words we had to use a stronger voice!  It worked like a charm, and now every time my little darlings read these kinds of words aloud to me they remember to add a little somethin' special to their voice.

Today I got a present from one of my little ones, Edward (mom swears the name didn't come from the twilight series, but I choose not to believe her because I'm an Edward fan).  So yes, Edward is the little boy who joined us at the end of the summer, and hardly ever spoke before January.  He's very shy (in Korean as well as English) and rarely puts himself out there (unless he's jumping off the top of the playyard fortress!). 

Now he rattles off a storm of silliness and tells me wonderfully hilarious stories about bumble bee swordfights and teacher-eating monsters when he's so inclined, which is often (hmm, now that I think about it, I should ask him why his monsters always want to eat the teacher...). 

In August he couldn't write more than his name, and while I cannot convince him to spell teacher properly, he will write and write and write when he has time.

The present was this beautiful box of chocolates (yum!)

and the letter you'll find right below.

Now, I went on and on telling you about the silly reading lesson I gave to my kidlets because of what my friend Edward wrote on the back of his letter...

So he couldn't figure out how on earth to bold or italicize his printing, but do you see it??

First I was confused, but then...
Ohhhh, it made me giggle... I love my job.

User Problem

I have been using this 2-burner gas stovetop since the end of February.  I don't remember having trouble with it when I first moved, but then for some reason (come summer) I could only get it to light half the time... the first would come up when I pushed down on the button, it's stay on as I turned, and then as soon as I let go of the knob it went out again.

A couple of times I have dragged my neighbour over to come light it for me (which he did with a quickly flick of the wrist and a Korean man giggle).  I've tried it for a good 5 minutes some night when all I wanted was to be able to boil later... it has been making me NUTS.  I had even considered going through the supreme hassle of asking the super to come look at it, to see if it needed to be fixed.

Today?  I turned the knob: the stove lit and stayed lit when I let go.  Curious.  So, being smart like I am (and apparently not very hungry after all) I turned it off to try my luck again.  Turn and release: gas stayed lit.  Curiouser.  One more time, this is too weird... (I looked around my apartment suspiciously like someone might be watching me).  Turn knob for FRONT burner (I know this won't work!): gas stayed lit.  Curiouser and curiouser...  One more time (me and my science experiments).... 

OK, so it was more like 5 times later I've turned the burners (back AND front) off and on and they've stayed lit every time - except when I pressed the knob down only to light the burner, and then released it gradually as I was turning the knob and adusting the gas flow. 

Conclusion #1:  The stovetop is not broken.  You must push the knob down FIRMLY to light the damn thing.

Conclusion #2:  I am a dumbass and should probably be supervised more often in the kitchen.

Umm... let's not speak of this ever again, okay?? 

(slinking off to the store for chips and pop so I don't have to look at the damn stove for a few minutes...)

Crazies in the House

Once a week I have a playdate.  2 little girls come hang out at my house (a good excuse to have to clean up, wouldn't you say??!) for an hour and we make stuff, and we stamp stuff, and we colour everything that has a white space on it, and for the most part we just talk about nothing important and play.

Their moms are trying to convince me to start a homestay educational program once I get back to Canada... me: house mamma to a bunch of Korean kids.  Huuunnnh????

Mothers used to accompany their children overseas for a year at a time, leaving Dad and the other kids behind (and sometimes just Dad stayed home) while everyone else went off and got appropriately Englished. This (as any sane person might imagine) was incredibly hard on marriages, and in a culture where visiting room salons (bar-like places where your boss/company pays for hourly female company for all of the hardworking men) is commonplace, it was also destructive for marriages.  These days (the moms tell me), parents are more likely to send their kids off on their own for a year or two while taking a month maybe to go and see them each year.

On Saturday afternoon I meet my friend KiJeong for lunch (I taught her daughter in kindergarten in 2006 and we kept in touch while I was away), and she asked me if I'd consider taking her 10-year old daughter for a year.  Sunday afternoon that my former student's mom Ana (who has only recently become my friend, it's her daughter Sandy that comes over to play on Tuesdays) called me for "coffee" and dropped her idea of a business proposal into my lap, giggling and saying "Well of course this is really what I wanted to meet you about, teacher"... sheesh, and here I was thinking she just wanted to get out of the house and go for coffee!!  :)

So long story short, the moms like me, trust me, and want to have a safe place to send their babies for English education and cultural exposure.  Ana (who lives in a very affluent neighbourhood and is a brand-name princess) has lit up her neighbourhood with the suggestion that she has a teacher friend who might take kids - she swears I could easily start a business with 4 kids a year staying with me as soon as I gave her the word go...

Oddly?  I'm considering it. 

I think I could make a viable business of it, and I think I would even like it!!  However, it will require much in the way of research and planning, and I know so little at this point that all I'm able to tell them is "I'm thinking about it!".  They don't like that answer, so I have a weekly coffee date with them too on Sundays so they can talk more and try to push me to say yes sooner - Korean mommies are a weee bit pushy when they want something from you, hahaha, but I adore them so we chat, I get overly excited about the whole thing, and they cross their fingers and toes and hope that it might actually happen.

Jury's still out... like I said, much research needs to be done, and I need to get MYSELF settled into life back home before I could think about taking kids into my life and my home. 

I am seriously considering it though... life is interesting!

My Darling Jay

He's all of 3 feet tall.

He's 4, and he'll turn 5 at the end of this month (7 more sleeps actually, he informed me this morning).

We 2 were on our own in the classroom, everyone else having ripped through like a tornado seconds before to climb stuff and throw things and screech at the top of their lungs on the indoor playground just outside my door. 

My most darling baby is still in his chair. This morning we talked about the new school year starting in March, their new (male) teacher, and my upcoming move back home earlier in the morning... he'd been a bit quiet/thoughtful since, so I'd been expecting our little chat.
Whatt're you doin' honey? Aren't you going to playtime?

"Teacher.... Mommy says you are a good teacher. Me too teacher, you're a good teacher. I like you. No going to Canada okay? You sleep in my house, and everyday - we can play."

That's very sweet my lovely, but I can't sleep in your house - your Mommy will have to cook too much food for me!

(his mom sends me snacks some days, and she is a GREAT cook - which would mean I would want to eat a lotta food if I lived anywhere near... teacher thought she was being 5-year-old logical and reasonable and all that...)

"NOoooo, it's okay! Mommy-says-it's-okay-you-can-do it - REALLY TEACHER!!"

Aww honey, you know teacher has to go to Canada soon... but you will have a great new teacher (a boy!!) for the next class, you'll have lots of fun with him in school - and you can call me on the video phone if you miss me, right?

"Yahhhh, but...." (damn... I should NEVER have taught them "yah, but"!)

My little one plunks his chin on his teeny fist and attempts to furrow his tiny brow as he's hard in thought (my favourite expression) and stares hard at me silently for a few seconds.

"Teacher?"

Yes, babe?

"Teacher, you n' me go duhn-duhn-duh-duhhhhn......duhn-duhn-duh-duhhhhn (tune of bridal march... he couldn't remember the words 'get married')... you don't go to Canada, right?"

(One of my co-teachers is getting married in the Spring and won't be returning to her home... this little guy can certainly put 2&2 together!)

Cue teacher turning to a gooey puddle at the front of the tiny classroom with shiny eyes from keepin' tears from sneakin' out as I look at my little darlin,' waiting for my answer so earnestly...

My voice cracked a bit and I cleared my throat a couple times before I answered him...

How about we talk about getting married again after you have some fun out at playtime, okay honey?

Like a big chicken, I thought it best to distract him since I couldn't think of what else to say in the moment...

"Okay teacher. You go to coffee, I go to playtime."

With that, my astute little one ran off to play and I (as directed) went to fill up my coffee cup and have a timout in the kitchen.  When recess wound down he came all hyped up on the climbing, jumping, and screaming, a huge smile on his face, successfully diverted from his worries once again.

Me?  Looking around the room at my shiny little faces I still had to do a lot of blinking to keep back the tears, thinking about how soon it was that I wouldn't be seeing my little babies anymore.

March is gonna be haaaaaaaard for teacher, methinks!

6 Weeks

I think it’s possible to leave a piece of your spirit behind if you leave a place before you’re ready; it’s happened to me before, like I was fragmented, part of my mind constantly on returning to the place I’d left, wanting to return, wishing I was there, feeling the pull of the connection I’d had... I want to make sure that doesn’t happen this time, but I don’t really know yet what I need to do differently...

I'm not great at goodbyes. It doesn't matter if I'm leaving a person or a place, it's the same for me when I'm attached. And attached, I am.

I have been happily tucked away in my quiet corner of Asia for a combined total of 5 years now, and I have been very happy here. Well, it’s been mostly quiet, other than some loud squabbles in 2010 that are all but put to rest now (at least in my sight). I love my work, I love the country, I love the people and the food, my ability to travel, my extra income, travelling around the country, seeing my kids, the amazing food (notice I said food twice??!) giggling...

In the time I've been here this place has become home. I have been back to Canada twice since I first got here; I love my country, Canada is flippin' awesome, but both times I wanted desperately to return to my life here within a month of landing, homesick for this place, for the life I could have here.

There are things I don't like of course; I keep trying to remind myself that there are things that I won’t miss...

I don't like living in a 20x12 apartment, being crammed into the subway car like a sardine, the SMELL on the subway cars any time after 7pm, or the piles of vomit on the street if you're out around 7am Saturday or Sunday morning...

I don't like being asked to pay $6 for 5 green beans or $17 for honeydew melon or cantaloupe, hearing No big size here, no big size – YOU BIG SIZE!, or No lady, no King-Kong size here, you go now!(hand pushed out in my face, stopping me at the door of the shop before I even go in there) when I try to shop for clothes, or being asked by taxi drivers with a wink and a grin if I’m a “Russian” because of my colouring (it’s not as polite a question as it seems in this country - they're really asking me if I'm a prostitute).

I don't like being shoved walking on the street (just crowded), or when I'm grocery shopping (right of way assumptions), the way people put their hand on my shopping cart and stare into it open-jawed as they STOP in the middle of the aisle (blocking the 50 people behind them and in front of me) gazing through the items in my cart (tofu, rice, vegetables, fruit, pasta...) wondering what the strange-coloured creature eats while she's in their land (same thing as YOU people!!!)...

I don't like the way people talk about me at full volume assuming I don't speak their language when indeed I understand enough to know that they're shocked at my tattos, wondering if my skin feels the same as theirs (yes, thank you for the random showertime boob grabs and the bum pinches grandmas!), and where I find clothes big enough to fit (thank you language classes and Rosetta Stone).

I hate the way they try to test me for pregnancy and STDs every time I visit the Dr (even about a cold or flu!) even though I've told them I haven't had a new sexual partner, and the way there's no privacy here in the medical system (yes miss, just put that paper dixie cup full of urine on that lunch cart in the middle of the hall with the other 30 dixie cups - your name is in pencil on the side, don't worry!!" (remember that part back in March?!).

I have tried the local dating scene, (market research completed) and that's just not my thing, it's too much work dating someone whose English isn't great. That being said I've been on a few dates with men who spoke English fluently... Americans (soldiers and teachers), Italians and Russians (embassy staffers), Germans (mechanical engineers and designers), Mexicans and even a Russian (contract workers), but none of that was anything that felt real - interesting enough diversions perhaps, but that was that.

I could go on really, there are always small things that drive a person crazy, but do you know what?

None of these things matter or make me want to leave Korea; they’re just little things that make me in-the-moment crazy on a bad day... everything is minor when I look at the big picture.

I miss many things at home; my friends and family, being on campus for school, the grocery stores, dating, teachings, and workshops, and ceremonies... I'm looking forward to those things, plus yoga and ninjutsu and all those things in good ole' English - yay!!!!!! See? I know there are good things at home too!!

In 6 weeks the school year is done and I’m outta here – it’s time, no matter how much I’ve loved it here. I want to leave on a good note, and not bitter and pissed off like so many who have gone before me, and I’m still on a good note.

I will have some time to travel on and off with a friend, and then it’s back to the ‘real world,’ whatever that means! :) I can catch up with friends and family; just enjoy being at home with all its conveniences and familiar things in the grocery store, haha... I will have to decide on which of the 2 cities to live in, and then find a job and a place to live, and I know the rest will flow more easily from there

It doesn’t feel real, as I look around my tiny space covered with all my crap, most of which is not coming back with me (the next teacher can use it, you might remember how this place had NOTHING when I arrived).  My stomach knots when I think about how little time I have left, and how quickly the days are going by.  I look out the window and try to memorize the view: the neon signs, the concrete, the traffic, the mountains (haha, “mountains”) just behind them... for all it's oddities and craziness, I really do love this place

For the move home I'm trying to get around my blocks before they pop up, trying to make it better before it has a chance to get worse.  I'm choosing to move to a new city, one that will feel different (I'm from Alberta originally) so it’s not like going back to the same time and place... I’m looking into things I can do when I get there that I’ll be excited about and interested in, like yoga and martial arts and art stuff, and I'm staying connected (and getting reconnected) to friends and family that are out that way...  it's a start, right?

How do you say goodbye?  How will I make sure ALL of me manages to get on that plane at the end of February so I can have a real chance of making myself a happy life at home?  I hope that since I'm ready to leave this time, since I could stay but am choosing to go I won't have that problem this time around - that's the theory anyway!

6 weeks and counting, and before you know it??  Wel....