질문 있어요?

I can't count the number of times I've asked "Do you have any questions?" in class. A lot of the time I mean "Do you have any questions about today's topic/vocabulary?" but a significant portion of the time (especially at the beginning of the semester) I mean "Do you have any questions about me?"

I know that many of them are really curious about me. Korea and myself in Korea no longer seems like a novelty to me (most of the time), and so sometimes I forget that my presence is still a strange thing for my students and some of my co-workers and many of the people I see on the streets. (It's a little weird to feel like you belong somewhere when you're seen as out-of-place by nearly everyone around you.)

I always answer personal questions when the students ask me. I've lost so many of my boundaries. As previously mentioned: if putting my insecurities on display makes my students more excited about learning, then I'll put them on a goddamn poster. The things that make me feel insecure have been on a goddamn poster for a long time. There's not a lot I won't tell my students to gain their attention (though I'll admit that I lie to them about some questions [e.g. "Why aren't you married?"] out of self-preservation).

And the students are curious about me, still - I learned that today. I stayed at school about an hour past the time I'm allowed to leave to prepare for speaking tests next week, and 5 of my students ran to catch up to me on the way to the bus stop and had so many questions.

They were really good questions, too, like "Live in Korea is hard?" "Why come to our school?" "Teaching our school students is difficult?"

I told them I love living in Korea (I thought that was common knowledge by now). I told them teaching students at our school is sometimes hard because the students talk loudly in Korean and I have to yell. I told them I didn't have a choice about which school I was assigned to, but that I am really happy that I was assigned to Seoul Electronics High School.

They told me about dance club, which is why they were staying late at school too. At the school festival (which happens SOMETIME) they will perform this dance. "Heartbeat" was all the rage amongst my students during the deep winter months/is sometimes still all the rage. I told them I'm excited to see them perform - that's true.

We all took the bus together to Sadang and then they waited for me while I recharged my Hello Kitty subway card and then we all took the green line west together. I was so impressed with their English and all the things they managed to talk to me about, I couldn't figure out why they'd never approached me before. Three of them were 1st graders, that's easy - they've only known me for 3 weeks. But 2 of them were 2nd graders (I don't teach them this year, they told me they miss me), they've known me for 7 months.

My stop was first, and they actually said "Please don't go" as I prepared to get off the subway. I wouldn't make that up.

I wonder what made them decide to approach me today. I wonder how the 3 1st graders will act when I see them in class again next week - quiet as usual? or newly confident about their English (which sometimes seems to happen)?

I'll definitely get on their nuts more in and out of class now that I know what they're capable of.

blood toilet

Fuck you to hell and back, Brooke Thomas. Yes, let's shame 14 year old girls for not having learned how to properly contain the blood that frequently spills over and out of the bodies of roughly half of the human population. And fuck you too, Daniel Kuan, for thinking it's more likely or acceptable to leave traces of nose-blood in the bathroom than menstrual blood. Let's be realistic here: the hormones of a significant percentage of your students are not making their noses bleed on a semi-regular basis. Even if the blood was only in the sink, I still think it would be far more likely to be menstruation.

I hope that student grows up to enjoy the way her blood spills on the bathroom floor and learns to resent all the various ways that the patriarchy demands that female bodies be contained.

dunkin sisters

is what Park Mi-Ran calls me and the gossip girls, because we three go together to Dunkin Donuts (the only place where reasonably priced coffee is to be found) ALL THE TIME.

If we're not at Dunkin, we're brewing our own coffee in Im Kyung-Hwa's (#1) department. Today over coffee Kyung-Hwa told me that she is jealous of I Young-Gyung these days. Young-Gyung sits in the desk in my department that belonged to Kyung-Hwa last semester. I talk to Young-Gyung a lot more than I used to because of this, and to Kyung-Hwa significantly less. Only because of proximity, duh. I love Kyung-Hwa way more than Young-Gyung, though Young-Gyung and I are beginning to have our hysterical laughter moments.

Kyung-Hwa, I MISS YOU TOO. No one teases me about blind dates quite the way you do.

There's a new teachers' club, headed by Kyung-Hwa, called the "Well-being Club" (which apparently is code for "beauty club"). It contains nearly all of my co-teachers and nearly all of my favorite gossip crowd. I kind of hope we all sit around and paint our nails together. I legitimately hope it leads to me spending more time with the gossip girls again. I miss them.

ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

I don't mean to say that I've never shared laughter with my co-workers and students and friends here before. Of course I have. But these past two weeks I've been having a lot of shared hysterical laughter with my new department-mates, which has never happened before. Yena's always been in my department, but I Young-Gyung and U Young-Hee moved into my department for the new year (replacing Park Mi-Ran and Im Kyung-Hwa). We already knew each other, but sharing the same office space presumably brought another layer of comfort.

Skipping, awkwardness, the Korean verb for "to lick," and melodramatic hand gestures are involved. I think I've let out another layer of weird, and that's a relief. We'll never be able to talk about rimming, but it's nice to make weird faces at each other. The first time it happened I was so happy, I didn't realize how much I'd missed the kind of red-faced-can't-stop laughter that is normally reserved for skype-biffles.

I think I'll be happy in Park Mi-Ran's relative absence from my life. Spending my school life next to her was a little oppressive.

faces to names

Seoul Electronics High School Yearbook 2009:

Principal teacher. He looks scary, but he's not really. Has wispy grey hair, always smiles at me.

Vice-principal teacher, this picture doesn't do justice to how frightening this man is when he says "An-yeong-ha-shim-ni-kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

Yoo Hyo-Gyung, social butterfly teacher, left us for Seoul Robotics High School at the new year. :(

Han Jin-An (is the patriarchy), once took away 8 points (8 points is a lot!) from a student because said student said "I love you!" to me in class. Dear Han Jin-An, not only do I not give a flying fuck if students try to flirt with me at this point, but that's probably not even what this kid was doing. Because this kid is c-level, REALLY LOW English. Sometimes they'll just say something, anything, and it won't make any sense but I accept it because it's probably the only English they know and they're just trying to please me by speaking in English, they know that's what I want. And it was the first class they had with me, too! and he lost 8 points! I really need to find a sneaky way to give him a lot of candy so he doesn't never speak English again.

I Young-Gyung, my youngest co-teacher at what we would call 25. She's pretty straight-edge, but we're becoming closer. <3

KIM YEON (continues to insert herself into my good time)

U Young-Hee (is the light of my life/meditation club leader/math teacher)

Ko Jae-Ho (KoHo) MOUNTAIN TIME

Kang Shin-Gu "I LOVE GOLF"/"LOOK AT ME I'M SO CHARISMATIC" P.E. teacher.

Hwang Byung-Sug/Mini-me, head teacher of my department, once gave me a hat.

Kim Ok-Su (mother hen #1, always feeds me apples)

Park Mi-Rannnnnnnnnnnn

Choi Yena! <3 biffle co-teacher <3 <3 <3

I Geum-Hee, school nurse, mother hen #2, always feeds me apples. Everyone knows I love apples.

I Jong-Hee, Yena's best friend, biffle by association.

Im Kyung-Hwa (gossip girl #1) <3

Kang Eun-Shig (is the christonormative regime)

I So-Yeon (gossip girl #2) <3

Shin Sung-Min (tech-guy) is kind of getting on my nerves lately. #GETOFFMYNUTSMOM

Mr. Bae (fancies himself my father figure)

not such a big money

Sometimes, these days, I find myself craving green tea instead of coffee. Even black coffee, nevermind the instant stuff that suddenly makes me want to vomit. That's weird.

I've started a new system with my 1st graders, in which I give them miniature laminated U.S. dollars when they volunteer in class or win a game, and they have to bring the dollar to me after class or during lunchtime to exchange it for candy.

It works ridiculously well. You should have seen their faces light up the first time I brought the dollars out of my bag and gave them to the winning team. There are a few dollars that I haven't gotten back, and I don't know if it's because the students lost the dollar, are too shy to approach me after class, or simply would rather have the fake dollar instead of the offered candy. I know for a fact that one of my students likes to keep his dollars tucked away in his wallet for a few days before exchanging them for candy. I find this unbelievably adorable, and I refuse to threaten the students into returning the dollars like my co-teachers suggest.

This week, I have those gold coin chocolates, and my students get really confused when they give me a dollar and I give them two gold coins in return. They think they've exchanged fake money for more fake money, and I have to explain that it's chocolate. Noobs. All of my 3rd graders know full well by now what those gold coins are.

pop music profile #10

Okay, so this has nothing to do with K-Pop. But I'm obsessed with this Shakira video lately, esp. the crazy contact dance scene.

But also: Dear Shakira, I resent the random depictions of female Koreans in traditional dress doing traditional Korean drumming. THERE IS NO CONNECTION. STOP EXOTICIZING MY - um, I mean, the history of the place I've lived in for the past 6 months.

Fuck.

sleep is my way of thinking. Is that wrong?

Fuck, but I'm tired lately. All I ever want to do is take a nap. The weekends are great because I can nap.

I think next on my to-do list is to find someone to force me to do some kind of exercise on a regular basis. To complicate my weekly schedule further and to help me out of this lethargy that I've fallen into.

Other news: Kim Shin-Jung, my official co-teacher, told me today that she felt like a novice teacher because she doesn't know how to make the textbook (which is an improvement from last year's textbook, but still too hard for our students) fun and engaging. (I am so lucky I don't have to use the textbook in my classes. It would be so hard teach material that is too hard for the students in an interesting way.)

Shin-Jung asked me to help her think of ideas to make class interesting. (Why are all my co-teachers always insisting that I know what I am doing and asking me for advice? I'm the novice here, can't you see?)

oh no, I did something really wrong!

Remember the "OK!" and "I love you!" student?

I had him in class again last Friday, and he was rowdy as usual. He continued to be ridiculous ("I love you!" "Teacher, you are beautiful!" etc). I'm still not very good at dealing with those of my students who think the answer to surviving English class is flattering me to extremes. How can I make them stop being ridiculous without discouraging them from speaking altogether?

Anyway, the "OK!" guy is pretty hilarious, has a stable group of friends, and always comes across as very outgoing and confident about himself. On Friday, as he was having one of his usual bursts of rowdiness and demanded my attention once again, I felt it was safe to tease him a little. I do that occasionally with the rowdier students. (Is it wrong of me to do that?) My reasoning has been something like this: the rowdier students are sometimes/often being rowdy because they want attention from me. By teasing them, I am focusing my attention on them, and maybe that satisfies them. When they are being particularly rowdy, they often attract the attention of the entire class, and a slight tease usually makes everyone (including the person being rowdy) laugh, and it directs the classes attention back to me so that we can continue with the activity.

I never thought I'd said anything really hurtful. It was never my intention to make anyone feel bad, but simply to refocus the class. If a student says, "I love you!", for example, I might tease them by saying, "Oh, really? If you really love me, then give me candy" (holding out my hands in a cup to receive the candy). The response is something like "sorry!", at which point I feign disappointment and carry on with the class.

This strategy usually seems to work perfectly, and so it's become something of a habit. None of my rowdy students have seemed to be discouraged by it before.

So I teased "OK!" a little on Friday, and everything seemed fine. The class was split up into groups at the time, so the teasing was heard by him and the group of friends that he was working with. "OK!" laughed, his friends laughed, I laughed and redirected their attention back to the questions they were supposed to be asking each other. Everything seemed fine.

But today, "OK!" saw me coming out of the subway, didn't greet me and whipped his head around to avoid me. That's bad, rude even. School etiquette says he should have said "hello" or "안녕하세요" (which is how they would greet their Korean teachers). And usually, if "OK!" sees me in the hallways or in the subway or at my desk he always greets me and comes over to chat me up. So the fact that he ignored me means he is substantially angry at me.

Fuck, I thought, and then nearly started crying on the way to school. I really did wish he would stop saying "I love you!" constantly, but I never meant to hurt his feelings or make him angry or discourage him from speaking English. I'm sure I've annoyed some of my students before, but I didn't think I'd done anything to anger or hurt them. How do I fix it? What if I can't?

anxiety of words

When I got back to Seoul 2 weeks ago, this book


was waiting for me, and what a relief. Contemporary, and not just contemporary, but written by three anxious women who make me feel as though I'm being slapped in the face the way Alice Notley makes me feel as though I'm being torn apart. There's violence in their words, and it's a welcome change to the other volumes of largely nature-centric bilingual Korean/English poetry that I've managed to get my hands on.

This is 이연주.

매음녀 6

어머니, 날 낳으시고 젖이 없어 울으셨다.
어머니 숨 거두시며
마음 착한 남자, 등짝 맞대 살으라 이르셨다.
나는 부둣가에서
선술집 문짝에 내걸린 초라한 등불 곁에서
매발톱 손톱을 키워 도회지로 흘러왔다.
눈 붙이면 꿈속에서 어머니
이 버러지 같은 년아,
아침까지 흑흑 느껴 우신다.
내 심장 차가운 핏톨, 썩은 물 흐르는 소리.
나는 살 속 깊은 데서 손톱을 꺼내
무덤을 더 깊이 판다.
하나의 몫을 치르기 워해 삶이 있다면
맨몸으로 던지는 돌 앞에 서서 사는
이 몫의 삶은 ...
희미한 전등불 꺼질 듯 끄물거린다.


Prostitute 6

Mother cried after giving birth to me because she had no milk.
Mother told me with her last breath,
"Find a kind man and live happily ever after."
At a pier next to a dented lamp hung from a tavern door
I grew my thorny toenails, fingernails
and drifted to a city.
When I close my eyes
Mother weeps in my dream until morning, "You wormy bitch."
My heart, a cold bloody speck,
the sound of putrid running water.
I take out the fingernails from deep inside my flesh
and dig the grave deeper.
If life exists to pay off a single life
then this life
lived naked in front of the rocks thrown at you is ...
The dim light flickers as if it's about to go out.

I like this translator (Don Mee Choi) a lot better than Brother Anthony of Taize, who seems to dominate all the bilingual Korean/English poetry available. But I'm still really confused by a lot of the line break decisions she makes. I really need to learn Korean better, so that I can understand what the original poems are doing better, and make more judgments about the translations.

pop music profile #9

Finally, T-Ara's come out with a new song, which I love even more because it reminds me of several Britney Spears songs. I love T-Ara, and two of my favorite students discovered this when they came to my desk while I had my headphones on, watching a less racy T-Ara video.

"Teacher! You know T-Ara?"
"Oh yes, I love T-Ara."
"T-Ara member what favorite?"

I've promised them I'll decide who my favorite member is this weekend and tell them next week.

My favorite member is Eunjung, the leader, by the way.

Their favorite song is Bo Peep, I relate completely.

suddenly I have a busy life, how did this happen.

monday: 1st grade c-level with Han Jin-An (is the patriarchy), English teachers' class, 1st grade b-level with I Young-Gyung. Korean evening class a short bus-ride away from my home, 3 hours.

tuesday: 3rd graders with biffle co-teachers, English teachers' class. After school english class for students, 2 hours. Tango class, 1 hour, milonga if I still have the energy.

wednesday: 3rd graders, 1st grade c-level with Han Jin-An. After school english class for students, 2 hours. Meditation club if I still have the energy.

thursday: all 1st grade a-level, all Park Mi-Ran, all the time. Korean evening class, 3 hours.

friday: 1st grade b-level with I Young-Gyung, 3rd graders. No after school schedule as of yet, but maybe that's yet to come.

I'm usually away from home from 7:30 am til about 10:30 pm, and when I get back I barely have the energy for checking my email before I go to sleep. When I signed up for Korean evening class, I didn't know they were going to spring 4 hours of after school classes per week on me. It's extra pay, so I'm not arguing, but damn, that pretty much means I have to eat dinner on the go every single weekday.

KoHo is trying to convince me to do another language exchange program with him and some other teachers, and what can I do when he looks at me calmly and asks me if I've read the book of Buddhist sayings he gave me? U Young-Hee would really like it if I joined yoga class every sunday. I'll try to stay strong.

But when will I knit? When will I study Korean? and more importantly, when will I lesson plan?

oh, thank fuck, my students are still there.

I taught my first classes of the new year today. My first period was 1st graders and they were SO QUIET and they just STARED AT ME THE WHOLE TIME, I swear. I introduced myself, then we played a game, and then we took what was supposed to be a mock quiz (I mean, the person who gets the most questions right gets candy, come ON). They acted like the game was a test and took the quiz like their lives depended on it, which is good in a way (it means they were paying attention and will probably study hard), but gosh, I meant for the class to be FUN.

So that was rough, and it got me even more nervous than I had been before about teaching the rest of my classes, but it was all uphill from there. The next class of 1st graders was great, and then I had one period of my beloved 3rd graders, and I really can't emphasize enough how much better they made me feel. I know them, they know me, we are comfortable with each other, and I was truly happy to see their faces. Being in front of a class of 25 3rd graders feels ever so much more like my comfort zone than the 1st graders do. I told them about my vacation, they told me about their vacations, I tricked them into thinking I was a married woman now, and the whole thing couldn't have gone better. Even shy-girl engaged and spoke, I was so happy.

Then my last class of the day was another 1st grade, and they were positively RAMBUNCTIOUS. I couldn't believe that at the beginning of the day I'd been worried about my students being too quiet. One student's English was pretty much limited to "OK" and "I love you," but he would not stop saying those two things over and over whenever given the opportunity. He's going to be one of the "give me candy!" students, I can smell it.

pop music profile #8

Remember G-Dragon, way back from pop music profile #5? A month or so ago, he put on his debut solo concert, and is now facing charges and possible jail time for violating the Youth Protection Act with this scandalous performance at a concert with teenagers (13+) in the crowd.

G-Dragon maintains that the song is about having an innocent dream about your ideal lover and that the performance was not meant to be sexually explicit.

If I was still in BsAs I'd be going to sleep right now,

I guess I'll just blog instead.

When I walked out of the airport it felt like spring in Seoul, but the cold weather (read: 0-8 degrees C most days) is back now, I think that's for the best. For a minute I thought I'd skipped out on the end of winter, and was partly thrilled about it but also a little disappointed. I must have missed the cold weather, maybe I wouldn't do as well in a year-round warm climate location as I've always thought I would.

I spent the weekend getting over the cold I came down with mid-flight between BsAs and Johannesburg, and didn't really enter the world again until just this morning, the first day of the new school year at Seoul Electronics High School (Monday, March 1st was a national holiday - Independence Movement Day). For a long time I was completely calm about my approaching return to teaching, but I became incredibly anxious last night, briefly contemplated dropping everything here, flying to Chicago and spending the rest of my life crashing on Jamie's couch. Apparently I've returned to the pattern of my weekly Sunday night (or night-before-the-new-week-of-work) near-breakdowns. For some reason I thought my time away would change things in some way, I don't know how. But the old anxieties are still there, and I still feel infinitely calmer and happier at my desk at work than I do anywhere else in Seoul (except maybe at the top of a mountain, there isn't anything that makes me laugh the way the peak of a mountain does).

Everything's changed for the new year. Park Mi-Ran no longer sits beside me, and neither does Im Kyung-Hwa (frequently referred to as gossip girl #1). Shin-Jung seems to be stepping into her rightful place as my main co-teacher, and either I'll move desks, or Park Mi-Ran will no longer play as large a role in my life as I've become accustomed to.

I was expecting to be teaching 1st and 2nd grades again, but was told this morning that I'd be teaching 1st and 3rd grades instead. I start teaching Thursday, the new 1st graders were staring out the windows at me as I walked into school this morning and they either mumbled something to me in English or mumbled something to each other in Korean. I smiled and waved and stared back at them, they ducked back inside the window.

For some reason the instant coffee I just drank tasted exactly like I'd just vomited in my mouth, I hope that never happens again.