Merry Wednesday Good Gentlefolk!

Apparently a middle school student died recently in Cheongju after getting into a fight with another students/other students. Has anyone else heard anything about this? My co-teacher told me about it on Tuesday, after one of her homeroom students ended up in hospital with a possible broken rib after being punched in the chest by another student and finding it hard to breathe (he turned out to be ok). I think she said it was at Seo-Gyeong Middle School but I'm not sure - she might have said Seo-Gyo or Seo-Hyeon. Which brings to mind the stabbing incident at my school last year - I can't remember if I blogged about this or not (I certainly should have if I didn't), but last year after the movie "아저씨" ("Ajosshi" or in it's English title "The Man From Nowhere") came out which features a lot of violence, apparently it became popular amongst the second year boys to mimic the stuff done in the movie. To this end, one of them brought a knife to school (I think, or he could have been using his craft knife which all students quite ridiculously have and are allowed to carry around at all times, even when they aren't using them in any subjects, to semi-disastrous results) and was mock-stabbing his classmates. And of course, ended up actually stabbing one of them, sending the stabbed student to hospital for stitches and making the student who stabbed him have a panic attack and start crying because he genuinely thought he'd killed his friend. Which I guess was quite a smart move (although involuntary) because it made it harder to punish him for it since he was already mid-nervous breakdown. And then of course there was the incident with Jin-Seon. Don't get the wrong idea, it's not always the boys - the first year girls have been in trouble for going to visit their friends at other schools and starting scrag-fights there too, where apparently the go-to move is scratching up each other's faces. *Sigh* Teenagers.

Anyway, today is my last day of regular school before my winter camps start. I'm taking tomorrow and Friday off to use up my holiday days since they don't get paid out if I don't use them, and am overjoyed at the prospect of never having to teach my Thursday and Friday classes again (a jubilation that has lasted since last week). Hooray! Today I also only had one class with my favourite 1st graders - the "super-smart" class (my co-teacher's nickname for them). But unfortunately I completely stuffed up on that one - our timetables got changed so I had them first period instead of sixth (I normally wouldn't have class until 3rd period anyway), and wouldn't you know it, but I turned my phone off last night (so losing the alarm on it) and forgot to set my clock alarm, so I didn't wake up until 8.53am, 33 minutes AFTER I was supposed to be at school and 3 minutes AFTER my first class was supposed to start. On any other day it wouldn't have mattered but of course today... *double sigh* It's official - I'm a cotton-headed ninny muggins (I've been watching "Elf" with some of my students ㅋㅋ). Luckily my co-teacher knew that I wouldn't do something like that on purpose and wasn't angry - it's also her homeroom group so they were fine.

놈놈놈 (nom nom nom, haha^^)

I guess it's really a pretty typical way of ending my school year - violence and tardiness, although it's a nice change that it's me being late for once and not my students. If it was any other class than my good class I might still have wandered in 20 minutes late, just to be a jerk and interrupt their movie, since they do it to me all the time. Anyway, I better get going with finishing stuff for my winter camps! I have 20 hours of conversation class across the first two weeks, then 10 hours of a teacher's class and 10 hours of a students' class in the third week so I'll be pretty busy. And after last year, this time I know for sure not to be stupid enough to tell the VP or Principal about the class magazine/newspaper we're making, no matter how proud I am of my students :) Oh and it's 오징어덮밥 (ojing-eo deopbap, as in the picture above), which I love, with egg and vegetable soup (계란야채국) - which I also love! - and chocolate cake for lunch because it's Wednesday, so hooray!

Oh and one last reason to be happy: Ryan also has the day off on Friday! At least I hope so - if he doesn't I'm going to turn up at his hagwon, take a kitchen knife out of my bag and sit there glaring angrily at his boss while I stroke the knife blade for the whole day. A bit of a complicated story there that I won't go into, but it basically involves his boss dicking around and telling the Korean teachers that they had Friday off, then didn't, getting angry that they assumed they did, and then telling them that they DID have the day off and he was faking it to encourage them to work harder. Hi-LAR-ious, no?

Anyway, now that he apparently DOES actually have the day off, we can do what we had planned to do which is go to Deoksan to the Reesom Spa Castle, which is a warm water theme park, and then stay at this cute pension which has a jacuzzi in the room! How awesome is that?? Ryan originally tried to book us a place that had the in-room jacuzzi outside because he knows that I like outdoor spas, but since it will be the New Year's weekend places are pretty full up, so we couldn't find one that was free and also not horrendously expensive (like more than 400 000 won). And then I'm going down to Busan to meet up with my favourite ladies, including the Cheongju posse and my KBFF II, for what I'm sure will be an amazing NYE! So it will be a very exciting three day weekend ^_^

Oh and I'm meeting one of Ryan's sisters on Sunday for an early dinner/late lunch before she heads back to Seoul on the KTX and we go back to Cheongju, so wish me luck! I'm obviously going to have to go easy the night before so I don't look like I just fell out of a tree on Sunday when I meet her, haha :p

Anyway, happy Wednesday everyone! Hope you're having a delicious lunch today, if not a brilliant day :)

And then...

Fourth period today, class 2-3 (girls). Apparently one of the students who never brings her book and sits there combing her hair is so angry that she can't understand English that she wants to get a shot-gun and shoot me, my co-teacher and all the other students in her class. She wasn't joking. So apparently bad attitude is completely our faults and not hers. Sigh.

But talking about afterwards with the other teachers is interesting, and quite a bonding experience. It also shows a lot of cultural differences I think - talking about her, my co-teacher commented that she wonders what type of wife this girl Yeon-Ju will make and what kind of man she'll attract, and how awful she'll be to her children. Other teachers nodded quite seriously and one of them remarked that if this is what she's like now as a child, then she must be going to make a really awful adult, and everyone else nodded some more and tsked over how she's ruining her future. This is entirely true by the way - Korean students start getting streamed into their high schools from second grade and if you go to certain ones (mostly vocational high schools or high schools out in the boonies) then you have no chance of going to university. But apparently even acute educational failure and lack of personal depth does not exclude you from getting married and having a family (as opposed to getting knocked up) in the exact same pattern as everyone else.

Anyway, depressing students aside, that same class has also given me some interesting directions on how to get to their houses (a worksheet I gave them). These have included:
"go straight and walk apartment wall ant turn right that bow grandmother and Go straight and put your hands up! cross at the zebra crossing and turn left at the corner"
"Go straight. Turn right and cross the zebra crossing. Across the zebra crossing at the bakery shoe store goes to (cross the zebra crossing and go past the bakery to the shoe store). Buy flying shoes in shoe store. Wearing flying shoes go over the wall. And go straight. 'I'm home!'"
"Go straight and turn right at the corner. And hang on the tree like Tarzan. It's a little hard -_-;; And run fast than light (faster than the speed of light). Then, I arrive the home! ^_^"
"I will invest money to make a rail and take a ride in a train. I will go home!"
"My home is very near school. So I ride a bamboo helicopter!"
"Go straight and across at the zebra crossing and across at the walking road and get in the park and jump up to 12 floor (my home) and broke the window next get in the house."

Anyway. Tired. My plans for the afternoon will definitely include napping.

And just 'cos it's awesome, the 'Can't tell if...' Fry meme: (aegyo or babo? Aka '[is she being] cutesy or just stupid?') Haha, I feel like this is needed a lot in Korea ^^ Thanks Michelle for that one!

The Day Jin-Seon Went Troppo And Tried To Kill Someone

So following through on Wednesday's promise (a couple of days late I know), details on what else happened on Monday besides my run in with the Knitting Nazi. Last Monday will forever be known as The Day Jin-Seon Went Troppo And Tried To Kill Someone. Now I haven't mentioned Jin-Seon before, but he's one of the sweetest kids amongst the boys at my school, which is saying a lot as the rest of first-year are mostly little terrors. Jin-Seon is a really calm and earnest kid, quiet in class, happy to help explain stuff to others, or if he doesn't understand something will write it down and look it up later. (I know this because he will often then try to use whatever it was the next week). He's also confident enough that he actually talks to me and gives answers in class. Unfortunately for him, my co-teacher for his class, Ms Yun, makes students sit by number, and the boy he has to sit next to, Hyeon-Seok, is a bully. Which is kind of surprising because he doesn't look it - he's skinny (to be fair, they all are), average height, not particularly charismatic, arrogant, smart or handsome, where most of the others have at least one of these. He's also the typical teenage boy stuck in a subject too hard for him when he's not studious at all either, and doesn't know how to listen, sit still or at least shut up (again, fairly typical). He's not really a bother in my classes, as in I've never caught him actively trying to injure one of his friends, destroy something mindlessly or tell him off for screaming out obscenities, but this might also be because he's one of many little monsters in the worst first year boys' class, and his level of mischief pales in comparison to some of the others. I have seen Jin-Seon getting irritated at him before and trying to ignore him though, and about three weeks ago I saw them having a punch-up in the corridor and had to break them up - for the record, Jin-Seon was doing a pretty good job of beating the crap out of him so I don't know why Hyeon-Seok keeps needling the poor kid. Boredom perhaps?

So on Monday, when Jin-Seon started hitting Hyeon-Seok with his pencil case I didn't really think anything of it. I just said his name and shook my head at him and he stopped. Therefore I was extremely surprised when about two minutes later, Jin-Seon started again, except this time using his pencil case as a bludgeon, grabbing the back of Hyeon-Seok's collar and going all out. My co-teacher and I both ran over and about five of his classmates jumped in to try and separate them, but Jin-Seon was so upset his face was red and he was crying and wouldn't let go, while Hyeon-Seok's arms were flailing around as he was being choked to death. Five minutes of struggle later and we finally managed to pry Jin-Seon's fingers open, but my co-teacher had to actually physically pick him up (she's in her early 40's and not very big) and carry him away to stop him trying to kick the shit out of Hyeon-Seok, who's neck had gone red and actually had some grazes where the material of his shirt had broken the skin. Sensing the opportunity for further delaying the lesson, four of his friends picked him up and carried him outside, and then one of them put him on his back and they all tried to take him to the nurses office. Since Hyeon-Seok was laying it on a bit thick and pretending to faint all over the place while still having enough energy to keep saying "Oh, it hurts so much! Oh, I'm dying!" and the sort (in Korean) but not crying or seeming like he was actually hurt, I was a bit suspicious and said only one of them could take him, who of course couldn't really carry him, so they brought him back in and I sat him down to rest in a chair where he could lean against the wall if he was really injured. And of course five minutes later he was acting the fool again and joking around with his friends, I'm pretty sure about how he'd managed to make Jin-Seon snap. My co-teacher had a talk with Jin-Seon outside to figure out what had happened, but of course had to make a show of punishing him a little once they came back and made him stand at the back of the classroom. It was obvious that whatever had happened was Hyeon-Seok's fault, so I was really annoyed that he was sitting with his friends, not paying attention once I started the lesson again while poor Jin-Seon was all the way at the back (my classroom is the length of one and a half classrooms so it's really far back) straining to see and write down what I'd written on the board, even though he'd been so upset and could have easily gotten away with doing nothing. After class I got the details: Hyeon-Seok had been bullying Jin-Seon for a while and in fourth period right before lunch, had done something which Jin-Seon had been blamed for and punished by their homeroom teacher (probably meaning being caned). So as soon as they'd come into my class in fifth period right after lunch, they'd had to sit next to each other and of course Hyeon-Seok immediately started jeering Jin-Seon for getting the blame and he'd responded with his pencil case. When I'd asked him to stop, Hyeon-Seok had gleefully continued being an arse, which is when Jin-Seon lost it.

Anyway, so next lesson I'm going to move Hyeon-Seok to a desk by himself in the last row. As he doesn't pay attention anyway it's hardly going to impact his ability to study, but it's going to make it easier for my co-teacher to keep an eye on him while I teach. And hopefully Jin-Seon will be happier too.

What the frick.

Why are some of my students almost indescribably adorable and others so bad that I even doubt they have souls? Seriously, there's one in first year, Ye-Min, who's such a little b***h-face trouble-maker that I'm betting (hoping) she gets into a scrag fight with some older and much more bad-ass-er Queen B who can finally teach her that sometimes you just need to sit back and shut up. Because there's no other way she's ever going to learn it, and unfortunately it's probably only going to sink in that she's not top-dog when she gets her butt severely kicked. She actually reminds me a lot of the student last year (now in third year where I don't have to deal with her thank Jeebus) who told me to f*** off to my face twice who is now apparently shacking up with her much older boyfriend and wagging school. This is a BIG thing in Korea - keep in mind that she would be about 15 now Western age, but when she started all this, she was 14. Not only is she driving her parents and her homeroom teacher up the wall, but she's probably also effectively ruining her life since there's no way she's going to get into a good high-school or university now and she's too lazy to do anything to fix it.

Haha, sound harsh much? Well, maybe. You never know, she might wake up and decide that she wants a better life than she can have working in a booking club or all day at Lotteria for w8000 a day before it's too late. But this first year Ye-Min IS a jerk, and then some, so I stand by my prediction for her. She's also a bully, and causes so many problems with and amongst her classmates that about three weeks ago ALL of the parents of the students in her homeroom class got called into school for a meeting (and simultaneous dressing down of the students) with the first grade teachers. My second grade girls have also been complaining to me about how disrespectful the first year girls are, leading to some lunch room scuffles, and I have a feeling that Ye-Min might be one of the instigators.

Last week however, she really took the cake. I walked into class 1-7 to find all the boys hanging out the window trying to get a glimpse of the police car that had shown up at the school. None of them could tell me what had happened, and my co-teacher was equally in the dark, so I asked one of the teachers the next day at lunch (the gossip mill HQ) and apparently Ye-Min had called the police and accused one of the third year boys of sexual assault because he'd touched her breast. Yes, that's right, the police. Not a teacher, not her parents, the police. And so when they rocked up to school and into the main staffroom to investigate, with none of the teachers knowing why the hell they were there, and then walking into both Ye-Min and Ju-Seung's classes to pull them out and figure out what was wrong, you can imagine the chaos that broke out.

What had actually happened was that Ju-Seung had brushed past her at the water station in the canteen (which is a tiny confined hallway area anyway and getting water is like fighting through a rugby scrum at the best of times) and she'd thrown a hissy fit about it and then gotten even more pissed off because he hadn't noticed anything was wrong and just walked away with his friends. Now Ju-Seung is one of the nicest kids around - always polite to everyone (not just to teachers), always looks out for his friends, works hard, doubly so for subjects he's not as good at - and so of course was absolutely distraught at the allegation. Ye-Min being Ye-Min (and being a 11 or so year old Korean girl having virtually nothing to touch anyway), it was pretty clear how much basis there was to this. But of course, it was still a serious matter and it still took a while to clear up. Geesh.

So that was dramatic. Fortunately, most of my students aren't in the Ye-Min category. Of course they are all teenagers and so have their ups and downs, but they are mostly pretty well behaved. I'll have to do a post about the good students later to balance this one out :)