The Fight

Now for the rest of the day. Before classes started Joelle told me they were collecting money for Sandra's wedding gift and asked what I thought was good to get for her. They ended up getting her some pajamas, but conservative ones.

At 2 PM Billy continues to do a good job of expressing himself using the vocabulary that he knows. He was trying to say "today" but instead he said "here day." Not exactly perfect, but I understood.

During that class the day got interesting but in a very bad way. It's no secret that Jennifer's been having problems. She's been missing days at work and making lots of phone calls sounding upset. I suspect that the "stalker" on the phone that morning was her boyfriend. She lives in the same building as Julian and he says she has horrible fights, lasting late into the night and LOUD. Well, while I was teaching the 2 PM class I heard some strange noise coming from the lobby area. I inconspicuously looked out the window to see a woman in her 40s or 50s trying to get behind the counter. At least three people were holding her back as she shouted and pushed against them. I was extremely curious about what was going on, but the classroom was situated so that the students couldn't hear or see what was going on, so I didn't want to draw attention to the situation. I saw Sera (Mona's 3 PM class) ushering two younger girls into the video room, away from the lobby. Whatever was happening quieted down fairly quickly and my concentration shifted fully back to teaching.

After class I went into the teachers' room, eager to hear what the mother was upset over. All of the Korean teachers weren't in there yet, but the ones who were there were quite tight-lipped and not happy with my asking what was going on. Kara hesitantly said, "Something quite serious" and went on to say that the woman was, in fact, a mother, but not a student's mother. It was Jennifer's boyfriend's mother. That was about all that was said, as I quietly said, "Oh" and tried to remove the foot stuck in my mouth. Oh. What a thing to have happen at work! It was toward the end of the hour, too, so there were lots of kids around to see what was happening.

The 3 PM hour I don't have class, so in between doing other things I was getting some water and a student (Tom from Miro's 4 PM class, he's in 3rd or 4th or 5th grade, I guess) excitedly told me about the fight and asked me questions about it. Jinny was also in the computer room and wanted to know, too. I can only assume that Tom saw the fight, because he said the "counter teacher" was crying and he also said something about a policeman. Did they have to call the police?? He asked if it was 2 teachers fighting, and I answered no. A mother and a teacher--no. Who? Don't worry about it! He didn't understand that, but I said a few similar phrases and he at least understood that he wasn't going to be getting any answers from me. Of course, not that I know too much more, but it's bad enough that the students saw the fight, and will probably go home and tell their parents about it. They don't need to know all the details. I saw Jennifer just briefly after that; she left for the day when Mr. Kim came. He stayed at the front desk for the rest of the day.

I did a little computer stuff during the break, and just before the next class I also managed to spill coke EVERYWHERE--on my chair, my pants, my shoes, the floor, a little on my desk, at least it missed the books! It was so sticky and quite a mess to clean up, especially when the only thing to clean it up with is toilet paper! It was totally due to the late night and early morning. By the end of the day I was absolutely exhausted.

At 4 PM they were a little crazy, stealing my markers and pen. But when I gave them my "I'm serious" face they gave the stuff back and settled down. Each day classroom discipline gets easier and easier! : ) Tom and Jinny again asked me about the fight. Apparently they had told the other students what they knew because the other students were eagerly listening. I told them it wasn't any of their business (which they of course didn't understand) and moved on to the lesson.

How stupid can kids be?? At 5 PM Rooky was without his book again, while the older boys made me feel like a kindergarten teacher. I explained the listening page, then we listened to the tape and they just stared at the book. All they had to do was circle the words they heard!! I yelled at them a bit in English, entirely too fast and with words they didn't know. But, it doesn't depend on the language--they understood that I was upset. Later in the class the word "sex" was used in the context of "the opposite sex." Sally disgustedly asked me why that word was in their book. She only knew it with the sexual meaning. They don't know the word "gender" so I wrote "sex" on the board and then under it wrote "boy" and "girl" and they broke out in nervous laughter, thinking the foreign teacher was about to do a little sex ed. Oh, must teenagers always think on the dirty side of things?! I resorted to a little Korean to make it easier. I drew a form on the board with Name, Address, Phone, and Sex. Beside sex I wrote (in Korean) nam (namja is man) and yo (yoja is woman). They immediately understood. Then Sally, with her 7th grade brain that's a little behind in knowing what's appropriate, asked me if I'd ever had sex. I skipped that question! I really cannot believe that she asked me that.

At 6 they were extremely good, which was a relief after the 5 o'clock class. During the next break I offered to take Matt and Tanya somewhere tomorrow. (They both went home after the meeting to rest; Tanya came back around 4 to watch some more classes; Matt came back at 6.) They sounded interested, and after the next class we arranged to meet at 1 PM at the school to go to Dae-wang-am. In the 7 PM class I had my dictator hat on. Joelle's timing is great--she came in to get a student to talk to his mother on the phone when they were at their loudest. Oh well.

I hung around school until 9 to say goodbye to Sandra. It was pretty quick since she still had to talk to Mr. Kim about some last-minute stuff. Then I came home and started writing on the last In2Books letters. They're due the 27th. This is the second or third letter (of 5) that I've had to write without having read the book. I even emailed them a few weeks ago to say that I hadn't received the book--no response. They need to do better with organization!