Philosophy: West vs. East

I was SO tired this morning. The adults were fine; we started studying the medical chapter. They were in awe that I've given shots before. They thought only doctors or nurses could give shots. We also talked about how the West likes even numbers and the East likes odd numbers. Grace had quite a time trying to explain what apparently even in Korean is a complicated philosophical issue. But as I understood it, even numbers indicate a finished product of pairs, while odd numbers indicate an emptiness that's always looking to complete itself. Perhaps that explains why the Koreans are always taking classes or getting extra certificates, while many people in the West (traditionally, anyway) don't learn anything new after graduating.

An interesting phrase I saw on the About Joel blog is:

기대만큼 실망도 크다
(disappointment is as large as the amount of expectation)

That phrase could be interpreted in a zillion different ways, but there's something about it that I like. Having no expectations is bad, but being too hopeful is bad, too. I guess what I take away from it is, don't have unrealistic goals. Now there are those who say you can't achieve anything without setting high goals, but face it, some things just can't happen. So don't try for something that's impossible. Maybe. It's an interesting phrase.

Kevin (Mona's 4 PM class, around 5th grade) wrote about what he did on the holiday in his diary. He wrote about going to a Buddhist temple and then, "I believe in Buddha so I hate Christians. The Christian is very silly." How do I respond to that?! In the 7 PM class I asked them how their holiday was and a very confused Paul said that buchonim (Buddha) and hananim (God) got married and had yaysunim (Jesus). The other students corrected him. At least everyone's not clueless!

The laptop guy asked Matt to proof-read/correct what he's been working on. Does he know that Matt's not getting paid yet? Matt mentioned that he's thinking about writing a book about his experiences here. He made it sound like he's the first one to think of such a thing. It sounds like he's writing a group email home practically EVERY DAY so far!! He's also CALLING home daily!! Monday he asked to borrow Sandra's handphone to call home, which I thought was rather bold of him. Tuesday he asked to borrow it AGAIN, which I thought was rude. From her face/voice, Sandra thought the same. I know her too well!

Matt was around a lot again today, mostly on the computer. The four of us got some more interesting talking in. Matt seems to be one of those Canadians who have a problem with the USA being the dominant power in North America. Nothing he's said has been too offensive (yet!), so I mostly laughed it off. Tanya saying, "Go ahead and hit him" helped the mood, too. They both studied history in university, so yesterday we talked some about the Korean war, and today about the North/South divide in the USA. Tanya's called me a "Yank" several times and I made it VERY clear that I'm not a Yankee!! She knows the regional differences in the USA, but apparently everyone in her area calls Americans that, so it's a hard habit to break.

The day was pretty stressful. I taught the first 2 classes, and then wrote some more evaluations. Jane came to get me to read the Impact First questions because the tape was a low quality. I thought Sandra retaped all of the bad tapes two sessions ago! After I read for that class I went into the video room and spent about 45 minutes wrestling with poor quality tape players. I got it finished just as the 5 PM bell rang. It was a race to hand the tape off to a confused Stephanie (who thought that it was still the bad tape so I had to accompany her), then get to Mona's class to give her speaking tests. But I also had to do a speaking test for Jake (from another class) because he was absent yesterday. I had one student left when the bell rang; that student was able to stay late so we finished.

My throat was really getting sore. Some from singing in the 3 PM class ("If you're happy and you know it" and "Hokey Pokey," which they particularly enjoy because I make it as crazy as possible) and also from all the talking and from going in and out of the A/C in the teachers' room. They turned on the air conditioner for the first time this year yesterday! It felt incredibly good.

At 6 I was free, then 7 I taught some really rowdy kids and I was free after that. But I stayed at school until when my class would normally end at 9:20, grading stuff.

I napped on the bus home and ran into Jane's friend. She asked how I was and I said, "Tired. We had tests this week." She responded how Koreans usually respond, "Oh, you do look very tired." Thanks a lot for making me feel even worse! She went on to say something about it being Friday night and that I should be going out. Nope. I need sleep more than anything else right now.

How strange: I was walking through the university neighborhood just after 10 PM and there were families out walking with kids as young as 3, students, and more than one group of guys so drunk that some of them were passing out while walking. Their friends were struggling to support them, but not having much luck.

Earlier this week Miro asked me to look over the test she made. I found some minor grammatical errors, but then a HUGE error. There was a reading passage and one of the questions the students were supposed to answer is, "What school does the boy go to?" Well, that information wasn't in the reading passage. It turns out that ALL of the Korean teachers thought "Band Geek" or "BG" for short, as used several times in the passage, was the name of the school! So I told Miro what "geek" meant as best I could, contrasting it with "nerd." She then shared the information with the rest of the teachers. Her English is good enough that I think she understood my explanation and accurately told the other teachers what I said. They've been teaching that book for three sessions now (nine months), and none of them have bothered making sure of the meaning they're teaching the kids?!