New Beginnings.

This week saw the beginning of the new school year in Korea, which brought with it new students, new classes and a new schedule for Amy Teacher. Goodbye leisurely days of 2.30pm starts and hello morning classes, kinder kids and full days of work! I knew my dream schedule of the first 6 weeks wouldn't last long and now that my honeymoon period is over, I guess it's only fair that I actually have to work for my pay... but geeze it's been exhausting! I mean, I know the first week of school is always a bit crazy - the kids have new classes, new classmates and new teachers to get used to, not to mention the general sense of disorganisation they must be getting from the frenzied staff at school, but I certainly wasn't prepared for the absolute chaos that I encountered!! 

Early in the week, it became apparent that the normally polite and cute children I had become accustomed to, had morphed into over-excited, seditious little devils with a knack for executing seemingly random yet synchronised acts of sabotage on my classes.  Obviously I have underestimated the organisational skills and cognitive abilities of the 5 year old brain, as I now have reason to believe that somewhere, over the course of a single weekend, a series of covert meetings were convened by my students (most likely in someones tree house... not that they seem to have them here) to discuss mutiny tactics.

 I imagine blue prints were drawn up in crayon (and subsequently buried or even swallowed) detailing the layout of the classroom and the optimal positioning of students within the room so as to create an environment of chaos that is impossible for me to control.  I bet if I got hold of the meeting minutes they'd read a little something like this... 

"OK, so Kevin, you perch behind the door so she won't see you when she comes in... David, you hide in the cupboard.... Grant, you're under the desk to the right of the teacher and Andy you hold the left side... I'll fight with Leo and he'll cry which will instantly distract her.  Girls, it's your job to keep her distracted when she comes into the room, so Angela, you hug her while Sarah gives her a sticker... while she's thanking Sarah, that's when Lynn comes in with the back massage to distract her and lull her into a false sense of security, then she'll be an open target for Ann and Sophia to wrap themselves around teachers legs.  Whatever you do girls, DON'T LET GO... Once we've got her pinned, Grant and Andy will come out from under the desks and get her arms...If you can, tickle her as well. Anything, so long as you bring her to the ground or at least a sitting position so we can reach her head.  When she's down, that's when Kevin comes from behind the door and takes her glasses and David, you gag her so she can't yell at us or cry for help...  It's important that the timing of this is PERFECT otherwise she may try and teach us something and we want to avoid that at all costs..."  

I'm learning that teaching the kindy kids can be very hard and draining work... but it's also a lot of fun and really rewarding.  Whereas last month my students were mainly between 10-14 years old, my kids now range from 3 years old (that's about 5 years old in Korean age) to just 9 years old.  While I teach most classes just 2 or 3 times a week, there are 2 classes (a class of five 4 y/oand a class of ten 5 y/o) that I teach 5 days a week.... I love them.  Seriously, I am smitten. They are both incredibly noisy classes and the kids are almost always terribly behaved, but the glimpses of sweetness they show me has made me fall head over heels in love with them (even if I did temporarily swear off ever having children after a particularly trying class on Tuesday).

  A lot of the new kids who started this week have never learnt English before.... actually a lot of them have never been in an actual classroom before!  One particularly cute little boy, Andy (one of many Andy's) spent his first 3 days at school crying constantly.  Poor little thing just sobbed and sobbed his way through class after class and I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what was wrong with him.  He didn't seem sick, the others weren't being mean to him and I'm pretty sure he hadn't just endured some kind of long-term relationship breakup (he is 5 after all)... but he just cried into his books all day long.  On Thursday morning he walked into school dry-eyed.... that was until I said "Hi Andy" at which he burst into tears.  Great. It's me.  He hates me.  He hates me so much that I made him cry with a morning greeting.... but my hate-theory didn't really make sense because he kept coming up to me and holding my hand while saying something in Korean through his tears.  Eventually I went and got one of the Korean teachers to ask him what was the matter.  Turns out he was crying because he couldn't understand English.... because he couldn't understand anything we said to him. aaaawwww .  We then got some of the other kids who had been at the school a bit longer to explain to him that none of them understand much of what the teachers say at first, but that he will learn to understand soon... that's why he's here.  And just like that he stopped crying - and I think even enjoyed school on Friday! Success!

Aside from not understanding us, a lot of the new kids also didn't have English names (yes, taking on English names is a somewhat strange practice widely adopted around Asia it seems).  I was excited at the prospect of naming some kids... until I actually had to name some kids.  First of all, I was shattered to be told by my supervisor that neither 'Lucky' or 'Mad Dog' were suitable names for a child and secondly it was really hard to come up with a name that they liked!  Some had names in mind already (4 Leo's in one class... I don't think so boys!), and others had no clue... I tried to come up with English names similar to their Korean names, but when this wasn't possible I named them after members of my family.... The next day I got to school and half of them had either forgotten their names (why didn't I have the piece of mind to make name tags!?) or had changed them overnight.  Humph. Now they have English names, the next step is to try and get them to actually respond to them - yelling out "Tom, get off the table" doesn't really have any impact when Tom doesn't understand the words 'get', 'off', 'the' or 'table' and particularly when Tom doesn't remember that he is Tom....

 At lunch the other day, some of the little 4 year old girls were showing me their training chopsticks... see exhibit A: 

There's little rings to put your fingers in to teach the correct chop-sticking technique...

Anyway, so one of the girls has training chopsticks with a little penguin called Pororo on top.  As she was showing me how they work she began looking at the penguin, then looking at me, looking at the penguin, looking at me.... this went on for several minutes.  I was perplexed as to why she (a) had a very confused look on her face, and (b) had developed a sudden fascination with both me and the penguin.... but then a lightbulb turned on in her head and she cracked up laughing. And I mean hysterical laughter.  She babbled something to the other girls who also broke into fits of giggles, staring at me then staring at the penguin.  At this stage Lailla, one of the Korean teachers, came into the room.  I asked her to find out what was so funny and after a quick explanation, she too was in hysterics.  Turns out that in the minds of 4 year olds I bear a strong resemblance to Pororo.... what do you think?

In other news, it snowed like crazy again this week.  It actually only snowed for a little while, and as it was a reasonably warm day (when I saw warm, I mean it was above zero) the snow didn't settle on the ground for long... actually it was completely gone within an hour.  But still, it was, without a doubt, the most impressive snowfall I have ever witnessed.  None of the delicate little flakes of snowfalls gone by... these snowflakes were GIANT and hit my face and glasses with a splat. Naturally, i got snap happy...

Really not as impressive as in real life, the photo doesn't really capture the size nor sheer amount of the snowflakes, but it gives a small indication nonetheless...

As you may have noticed from previous posts, snow brings out my inner child.  So much so that the Korean teachers find great pleasure in alerting me to even the most minute sign of snow... apparently they like my 'happy snow dance'.  They also like to come outside with me and laugh as I run around giggling like a little girl while trying to catch snowflakes in my mouth...

Anyway, that's enough from me tonight - I have another big week ahead and should really try and start the week off as fresh as possible!  I hope everyone is well- wherever in the world you may be... In the meantime, if you get a chance, I really recommend you try a new drink I found in Korea.  It's not coffee, it's not beer and it's certainly not whisky....
Yes, that is correct. It's Cocktile.  Mmmmm.