Extra Care

Some good things from Wednesday: the 5 o'clock class was very curious about my trip home, how many airplanes it takes, how expensive it is, etc. That's the class I invited to come and see me! Ben and Joseph were arguing about pounds and kilograms so asked me which one the USA uses, and Europe, and Canada, and I stopped them—boys, I don't know everything!

At 7 o'clock Paul was my assistant teacher. We were doing the listening book, and after he marked the answer in his book he would rush around the class checking the other students' books and if they didn't know, show them the right answer. It was cute at first, but then the other students got annoyed so I stopped him.

More frustration: I couldn't get Jin to do anything, so put him outside. Stephanie was walking by so stuck her head into class, interrupting my lesson, to ask what he had done. After class she explained that he is a special boy and that I should take "extra care" with him. When he's sitting there boring a hole in his eraser with his pencil, talking about completely non-class related stuff in Korean, and in general being disruptive and disrespectful, I think it would certainly NOT be giving "extra care" to the majority of the students by allowing him to stay in class.

Today I walked into Miro's 3 PM class and Jenny and Ally performed a choreographed version of the song "Arirang." They might both be actresses some day!!

At 6 o'clock we studied things tourists might see (buildings, bridges, churches, villages, etc.) and adjectives used to describe them (famous, spectacular, lovely, etc.). A student was surprised by a picture of a Gothic-style church. He called it a "devil church." Another student, when making sentences, wrote that "Heaven has a lot of lovely churches."

Tonight I wrote evaluations for 2 classes; I'll write the tests tomorrow and then tape the listening ones on Monday. I basically need to have all of the evaluations written before the kids take the tests. It's doable, but I need to stay on top of things. This is essentially my last weekend with friends since everyone will be traveling next weekend, so I need to be careful not to let work stuff interfere with my social life. If need be I can finish writing evaluations next weekend and leave them in the apartment for Mr. Kim to pick up, or finish grading writing exams and email the results, or wait to correct online diaries. The most important things are to enjoy my time with friends who I'll probably never see again, write the letter of recommendation, and figure out if everything will fit in my suitcases or if I need to ship some stuff home.