Finally made it to the classroom!

First, a coworker made coffee for me this morning. I nearly cried. Never had that happen before, what do you expect? Ok besides my family and I go out for coffee with friends. Oh and that one friend that worked at a Starbucks. 

Classrooms. Finally

Finally made it into the classrooms. Feels like need to have a password or something. Most of the kids are sweethearts, you have those occasional ones that are just downright bad. Not like “I hate you! Leave me alone!” bad but bad in their own little way. Almost as if they are hyped up on sugar…maybe pixie sticks and mountain dew or whatever else can make a kid hyper. 

Wait it was after lunch, maybe that’s why.

My co-teacher, I’ll call her Mrs. M, had to keep punishing some especially some boys that were all over the place before we even got in there. Putting their arms up does not work nor does sending them to face the wall. Looks like they loved getting out of work instead. 

5th graders

The 5th graders were actually better behaved than the 6th graders.Now I’m wondering if it was because it was morning time and before lunch, but at the same time they did just have breakfast. 6th graders are about to turn teenagers too…hmm.. I don’t know. 

A lot of the girls talked a bit more in class when needed and a couple of the boys wouldn’t be quiet. My first group of 5th graders were tired and nervous, one boy kept drifting off to sleep. I was nervous myself. Near the end of the class, I didn’t even want to leave. One girl S. drew a picture and ran out to give to me when class was over. They even made a list of words in Korean they think will help me out.

6th graders

My last class were 6th graders and they were so quiet and barely wanted to talk until I mentioned I liked kpop and other Korean things during my presentation. All of the sudden they all wanted to ask questions. Asking my favorite actor and going all “Ooooooooh good choice teacher!” Found out I went to Korea University even more “OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH! Aisha teacher is smart”  

That opened up the flood gates for the questions to come rolling in, including what’s my age followed by more oooo’s because I’m the youngest they’ve had, if I have a boyfriend and blah blah blah. 

I’m glad some classes are 2 periods because 80 minutes flies by. When we got to the classes that were only 40 minutes it’s like “Hi!” “Bye!” and I’m all like O.o What? That’s it? Ok we said more than that but it just went so quickly.

I won’t even see my 6th graders until the first week of September because they are going to the English Village next week that is somewhere here in Yangpyeong. I remember hearing about it and I saw the sign for it over the weekend when I was walking but it’s like 20km away or something. *shrugs* My 5th graders are going too but I will see them before September again.

If I’m not mistaken that’s where they filmed Boys of Flowers school scenes at. I’ll have to look it up. Don’t hold me to it. 

Tomorrow’s plans

There’s nothing to do tomorrow besides going to immigration (those are the people I forgot the name of yesterday) to apply for my ARC. I hope everything goes well.

I saw my test results and have no clue what they say. Curse not being able to read Korean.  All I know is that I gained weight, yet I’m in smaller clothes. I know my height officially and my blood pressure. That’s about it. But after fighting with that tomorrow. Mrs. M says we should be done by noon. She’s picking me up a little after 8, how long does this take?

Talking about it is making me freak out a little. But I get the day off as a “School holiday” for me. I was like what? Um…ok. Not like I was going to do anything. I have absolutely no classes on Wednesdays besides an “after school” one in which I get paid overtime. It’s not even really after school since everyone is still there but ok and I won’t start that until September also. 

Icecream? Getting close?

So while I was sitting at my desk mulling over how I’m going to teach 3rd graders the weather, some coworkers started talking about icecream. The next thing I know two came in with bags full of icecream and our principal handed them out. She’s all “Aisha…Aisha icecream! It’s so hot! Stay cool.” Then one of my coworkers he’s nice and you can tell he wants to talk more but at the same time worried about his English. When he does talk it’s awesome and I can understand broken English really well anyways, but his isn’t that bad. So he was joking around having us all laughing. 

Another nice coworker

After that Mrs. M said she needed to leave early to go to the doctor and a teacher from earlier would take me home. I just pictured a really silent car ride. But said ok anyways, none of them have to drive me anywhere. I’m lucky I have them *sniffles* anywho so I wait and was still trying to write down some things for lesson plans and didn’t realize the time.

The teacher came in and we left. I’ll call her Miss K. She’s really nice. Her English is better than Mrs. M’s because it is a bit clearer. We had a few good laughs, she asked if I liked beer and I’m like oh…Korean bonding time. Every time I get asked that someone wants to go out for dinner soon and it leads to you being pretty close or at least friendly to each other. We had some good laughs till the point I was getting out the car and we both were laughing, so that’s good. 

I think today was a successful day.