PIXIES

For the last six weeks my gig has been a job, one that leaves me drained and pissed off and wondering why I ever sold my mitre box. I suppose I knew that this would eventually be the case but I really hoped that it would not turn out that way until much later in the game. As this was unfolding I spent some quality time with some of teachers who work at other academies and it turns out that this is simply the way that all of this works itself out. Every January and February the kids go on their winter break from their regular schools and the schedules of the academies change with all of the start times beginning about 4 hours earlier. Then, in the beginning of March, they return to something that is a tad more stable and that the foreign teachers can live with: start at 3pm, finish at 9 pm or so. I think fact that the foreign teachers like these hours has to do with the local past time (excessive drinking) but I could be wrong.

I will not say that the entire thing was a complete bust as I did have a bit of fun with a couple of my “special classes.” These were four classes where I was supposed to think up some creative things to do for small groups of students. They would attend thier normal classes and they we would spend an extra two hours every week with the idea that spending time with a "native speaker" would allow them to practice thier English. We did things like reading recipes and then cooking, lots of singing, lots of little projects involving crayons and such. With the older kids I broke out Boggle and Scrabble (yes, I played to win) and time was killed with some seriously competive games invovling three and four letter words. My favorite class was called B1 and it was simply four little girls: Sally(in white), Bess (in red), Hanny(the one with the cell phone taking pictures) and Julie (hend to face, eyes black as coal) . For the most part, as we held our class on the third floor of the school, it was simply the five of us doing very little and laughing a great deal. I’d give them money and they would go buy food at the little stand next door and then we would eat and they would bitch at me, in a shrill tone that would wake the dead, for not understanding their Korean. I would try to get them to talk in English but it cost me much in the way of candy. In the end I decided that they were like little Pixies and that each session was simply fun for all parties involved. I mean, no one told me not to screw off and give them candy. . . . As my Korean is still woefully sad, we were speaking in English . . . English punctuated with Bess screaming (she can shatter glass, of this I am certian), Hanny tugging on my sweater and screaming for my TOTAL AND ABSOLUTE attention, Sally saying "Oh my God!' when I asked her to do anything that involved using a pencil for something besides drawing and, Julie . . . Well, if everyone were like Julie the would would be a nice and peaceful place . . . Every day the chalk board was strewn with the kind of things that girls draw and I'd have to make certian that plenty of time was allowed for them to clean the chalk dust off of themselves. In the end, I simply decided that I had by the second session I had toally lost control and allowed them to run the show: as long as I did what they told me to I wouldn't be hurt.

For our last session we combined two of the special classes and made fried rice. As this is supposed to be an English class, I explained the way the recipe was to be made in English while my boss, Lydia, and the wonderful Ester Teacher, did the most of the heavy lifting in Korean. Lydia made all of the kids wear these little plastic chef's get ups and I thought I was goig to wet my pants with laughter. The kids were good little cooks although I was mortified at the sight of them with knives (dull as all get out) trying to dice and chop vegetables. I was waiting for one of them to slash a vein and then we would all discover whether the lesson that I tried to teach on what to do in an emergency had any merit. In the end our little feast was exactly that and there was no blood shed. As would be the case, yours truely was forced to do the dishes. I guess I all my years of prior work in that field have once again proven useful. No one has really been able to explain to me why Koreans make the little peace sign when they take pictures but they all do it . . . I mean, if you see a picture, they are doing the little "V" with the fingers. Some day I'll figure it out. I will note that they say "KIM CHEE" instead of "CHEESE." Nice.

So now my life is returning to normal. I have time to screw off which is really what I need most. I know that it is said that idle hands are the devil’s workshop but it appears that is one of those places that I like to hang out. Call it lazy, I don’t really care. I like to think of it as preserving my mental health.

Hope all is well.

Peace,

sh