Practicing Korean at E-mart

A pretty normal Saturday. After class I went to E-mart to try to find hot dog buns. They have a larger selection of bread than most supermarkets, but nothing resembling what I needed. I approached an employee and tried my Korean, "Excuse me, but (the really, really polite word) is there bread (motion with my hand to the shape of the bread) pig meat (motion put into the bread)?" She carefully listened and watched my hand movements, then after only a split second of confusion I saw the "lightbulb" look and she said no, sorry, they don't have them. She answered confidently, so I was sure they didn't have them. If she had had any doubt about what I was asking, she would have gotten another employee to help, probably one who spoke English. But since there was no doubt, they didn't have them. That's just how things work here. I grabbed a couple of loaves of bread as a substitute and started to another section of the store. A couple of minutes later she found me and brought me back to the bread section to show me what looked like HAMBURGER buns that a different employee was just putting out on the shelves. I looked at them and said "No . . . " and again made a motion as to the shape of the bread. The stocking-the-shelves employee agreed, "That's right, hot dog buns are longer" (something like that!). I took another look and decided that what looked like hamburger buns would do. You do notice that I say "what LOOKED LIKE hamburger buns" and not "hamburger buns," don't you? Anyway, I got a few more things, checked out, and then made the long trek to the bus stop. The store is nice, with a good selection and low prices, but too far away from the bus for me to come back.

At home I ordered pizza and chilled for the rest of the evening.

More Red Mask

Friday again. After thinking about it several times this week, I finally got around to ordering a Mother's Day gift online. I was worried that it would be too late, but since it comes from a local florist, no problem.

We had our teachers' meeting today. Well, sort of. What's-her-name sent Sandra a text message that she and Nathan weren't coming--TEN MINUTES before the meeting was to start. Then Gloria didn't show up at all, and the new guy (the 500 pound one at the school WAY out near the airport) probably wasn't told about it. So Sandra, Julian, and I had our meeting. Was Sandra ever upset! She has a lot to get done in the next few weeks before she goes home, and she could have gone to the Canadian Consulate in Busan to start work on the paperwork for her wedding. I got a couple of good tips from her. (The topic was pronunciation.) I work on word stress a tiny bit with the students but hadn't ever thought about sentence stress and how important it is to speaking and understanding English. Saying "I did not steal your red bandana" gives a good example of how the stress is SO important. Emphasizing different words in the sentence COMPLETELY changes the meaning!! Later when Mr. Kim learned of the meeting turnout he wasn't happy. He excused Gloria because it's her last month here. Well, it's Julian and Sandra's last months, too!! Nathan and what's-her-name should have been there, though.

The poor middle school students. In the 5 PM class Laura looked horrible after only 4 hours of sleep. They had tests yesterday, today, and tomorrow at school, then another test at the special English class tomorrow night, then OLT test on Monday. They need more sleep! At 6 the High Impact book had a particularly hard reading passage. We worked mostly on pronunciation since the words and sentence structures were too difficult for their level. At 7 PM Paul (5th grade) and Beth (4th grade) told the best version of the Red Mask Ghost yet. They made it really scary, and I understood well. When they finished telling me the story they finally asked me the question that I had been eagerly waiting for. "Teacher, what floor do you live on?" Well, I live on the second floor, in the fourth apartment on that floor, and my bed is under a window. Their jaws dropped. They looked at me, looked at each other, and then looked back at me. They had worked hard to make the story as scary as possible without knowing where their teacher lived! Beth recovered first. "Don't worry, teacher! The ghost doesn't hurt babies or . . ." She struggled for the word so I helped her, "adults." "Oh, yes, not babies or adults, only children." Then Paul jumped in. He didn't say it perfectly, but what he meant was: "But if the ghost DOES happen to find you and rip your face off, I'll do Jaesa (the annual memorial service bordering on ancestor worship) for you." !!! I'm not sure if he thought I was scared and was trying to make me feel better, or if he wanted to scare me by making me think the story was real. As he said it he patted me on the shoulder in a reassuring way. Paul is just the funniest boy. His attitude has really improved, and with it his English, as well. I hope he does well on the test.

Insanity "in a slump"

The adults may drive me insane yet!!

Today there were only three of them; all came late. While I was waiting to see if anyone would show up, I started reading the newspaper. Grace was the first to arrive. She took a couple of minutes to TRY to ask me a question, stutter, stutter, stutter. It started out, "Why are you here?" or "Why aren't we studying?" or "What are you doing in the lobby?" or any of several other questions but she never got one question finished before switching to another. I finally understood what she was trying to ask as another student entered the lobby and it sunk into her head that she was the first student to arrive, thus why I was waiting in the lobby. She certainly has problems in English, but I'll wager that she has plenty of problems in Korean, too.

So all that was BEFORE class. Now on to DURING class. Grace attempted to use another idiom. As always, she used it incorrectly. She needs to master the basics of English before moving on to idioms! "Beth," she says, and waits to make sure she has my FULL attention, "I got in a slump." OK, so I understood what she was saying, but I had to say, NO LESS THAN TEN TIMES, that she was using the saying incorrectly. It's, "I am in a slump." She began arguing with me, since her dictionary or idioms book or whatever she's using says, "Got in a slump." HELLO, who's the native English speaker here?!?!?! OK, Beth, take some deep breaths, you can do it! Remain calm! Do not bite her head off! "Well, you see, Grace, that is correct if it's in the PAST. But you're saying you are CURRENTLY in a slump, so it's 'I am in a slump.' Really, I know what I'm talking about."

Then she went on about her "slump" and I felt like the therapist once again. "I not improve English. I don't know should I quit . . . " YES, PLEASE DO, drastically improve the quality of my life! ". . . and should I continue to study in English." OK, Beth, pull on the teacher hat, be the encouragement, you can do it! "Grace, you know many words . . . " She interrupts with a pleased grin, "Really? You think so?" Yes, you just can't SAY any of them correctly, despite the number of times that I correct you. And please don't interrupt me. "Yes, but you must practice listening more. Listen to English tapes, watch English TV, and work hard at pronunciation." With a somewhat relieved voice she replies, "Yes, I will try that. I will work hard." Oh, joy. That's great. How wonderful. Grace is going to work hard. Beth just may lose her mind!!!!

I'm off to walk to Holly and Jody's now, so the rest of the day will have to wait.

I sure do hurt. This morning I was squatting in front of the computer, just checking a quick news site, but then kept finding more and more good sites. By the time I finished I'd been squatting for 20 minutes or so--my legs would hardly move. I finished getting ready then just before I left I bumped into the bed--HARD. All day two toes have been sore and I have a nice whelp on my shin. Then the 3-4 mile walk home. I was walking perhaps a little abnormally because of the things earlier, but I also didn't have on the greatest walking shoes. I had planned to walk the 35 minutes to Holly and Jody's, spend the couple of hours there while we did the Bible study, then walk the remaining 25 minutes home. Well, apparently it was cancelled or changed location--the second time in about two months. If they're tired of having it every week, they should let people know ahead of time. I can only assume they call the people with hand phones. I know I'm harder to get in contact with, but I do have email. It's not very responsible to not let people know. Anyway, the intense walking for the whole hour left a painful blister on the bottom of one of my feet. Ouch. When I got home I was plenty sweaty, so took a shower then did some laundry.

Let's see--the rest of earlier today. I asked Mr. Kim about the pay, and he suggested I check with Jennifer (the secretary). In the past he took out a set amount for my utilities, regardless of what they ended up being. Now suddenly he's changing the way he's doing it, figuring it down to the penny (or won, as the case may be). I have a hard time believing that I used that much utilities. I think they forgot some of my overtime pay. Of course, some bills come directly to the school, so I'd have no way of knowing for sure. Does this new way of doing things mean the school is in trouble financially? We have lost a lot of students. Jennifer was supposed to be back in, but I stayed until 9 and didn't see her. She's been keeping weird hours lately. Julian said she lives in the same building as him now, and he frequently hears her arguing (loudly) with her boyfriend. I'll have to check with her tomorrow.

One night I was talking with a bunch of other teachers and they said that if you don't make at least one kid cry a week, then you're not a good teacher. Well, most weeks I meet that quota. In the first kid class of the day I made Kate cry. She was talking entirely too much so I had her stand against the wall but she refused to raise her arms so I put her outside the classroom (which she fought). After class as the other kids were leaving and she was coming back inside to get her bag I made her sit down. That's when she started crying. Part of it was embarrassment at getting trouble, part anger at being kept late, part frustration about not understanding everything I say to her, I think. More absent students throughout the day, especially in middle school classes. Tanya quit (the girl who wouldn't answer even the simplest of questions yet was studying Impact Intro book). She has some kind of serious problem.

At 6 Billy was talking quite a lot in English, although being quite silly. Joseph listened even less than normal, and then at the end of class had his backpack on about 5-10 minutes before class ended. I told him that it wasn't time to go home yet, so take off his backpack. He refused, so I took the backpack from him. At the end of class the other students left and I told Joseph to sit down. He didn't, so I took his bag and told him to follow me. I had him write "I will listen to the teacher" 20 times. His anger was so evident; from his face I wasn't sure if he was about to cry or punch me. I had to make him sit down--he was just going to stand up and write. Then he was just scratching at the paper. I told him that if I couldn't read it he would have to write it again. Wow did he understand that; his handwriting improved immediately.

At 7 PM they spent a half hour telling me horror stories. Brandon in particular was interested in this topic--I've never seen him so focused on speaking English before. I guess that means I'm going to have to pull out some of my ghost stories to get his interest. Although from what he was describing, my stories might not be gruesome enough for him. He told me about a Japanese movie called "Suicide Club" that came on at midnight one night when his parents were at their friend's house. He was home alone (a 6th grader) so turned the volume way up to make it as scary as possible. He admitted to screaming a lot during the movie. It really was quite disgusting all that he said. I wonder what his parents would say if they knew he watched something like that?!

Cleaning and Delivery

Despite going to bed around midnight last night, I slept until 11 this morning. Then I did a deep cleaning of the apartment, including under the bed which hasn't been cleaned since after the first night. There were a few dead roaches and lots of dust and hair. Laundry, sheets, dishes, cooking, bleaching the bathroom. Then I did a first for Korea—I didn't really want to leave the apartment, but wanted pizza, so I decided to try ordering it. I'm pretty sure the manager was the one who answered the phone. I asked him (in Korean) if he spoke English, then he switched to English. It was easy enough to tell him my address and order. He said it would take 30 minutes, but 18 minutes later the delivery boy (he looked like a high school or MAYBE University student) was at the door. Free delivery, no tipping, that fast—WOW. Usually when I go in it takes about 30 minutes—walk there, wait 15 minutes, then walk back. I'm impressed! And now they have my address on record and my phone is on their caller ID, so I shouldn't have to say much of anything in the future. Cool.

Good Job!

The weather was cloudy again today. Only one adult (Nicole) today, so we talked for about 25 minutes then when it seemed that no one else was coming I got one of the books I read for In2Books and we read it together for the rest of class. A book by Jean Fritz that I read with a 5th-grader, the vocab was OK in most places, but the sentences were pretty long and of such varied structure that it challenged her. We got through perhaps 10 pages before the class finished.

Because tomorrow is Children's Day, Mr. Kim bought gifts for all the kids. For the elementary school students it was a cutesy pencil case—Winnie the Pooh or some Korean deer character. The middle school students got a more sophisticated mechanical pencil set. The first class (Dominic, Mark, Billy, the two Tims, and Brian) were so exited with their pencil cases. Then when they opened them and saw some pens, pencils, and mechanical pencil lead, they were even MORE excited. "Teacher, good job! Wow!" They kept saying, "Good job!" because I guess that's all they knew how to say to express how great they thought it was. The next class was also very excited, and kept saying "Thank you!" That's Miro's big class. When I entered the class carrying a tape player, my papers, my book, and 11 pencil cases, they rushed me. The few students who remained seated were left with few choices. Jake (5th or 6th grade) was left with pink. He's so quiet so he didn't complain or anything, but I later asked him if he wanted to trade colors—yes. As I was taking role scratching Kevin's name off was wonderful—no more disrespect and lack of trying and filthy language all from one kid.

At 5 quite a few students were absent because of the middle school tests. Rookie was his usual talkative self—talking about food and cooking when we were studying something else. The other kids are so DENSE—I explained things multiple times and they still didn't do it right. At 6 ALL of the kids had done their homework—my threat to keep them after class if they hadn't done it really paid off! Then at 7 they're doing a little better, but only because I'm acting like a dictator.

Matthew and Tanya have agreed to work at our school, but they are so picky. They've been doing too much reading online about the horror stories that happen at some schools. The latest is they want certain things changed in the contract. Sandra explained to them that the contract is worth VERY LITTLE here, but they persist. With their background in education (they'll be graduating with degrees in education a few days before coming to Korea) I hope they'll be flexible and able to adjust to the way we do things. We certainly don't need two anal people who know the best way to educate children running around.

Mr. Kim was around briefly, but again preoccupied with other things. The pay issue will have to wait.

Red Mask Lady

All of the adults were late today. It continues to get more and more annoying when they don't try, especially when they waste my time! Grace talked about being "under the weather"—she knows a lot of idioms but always uses them slightly wrong. Then she said that being with us young people gives her energy. That's sort of pitiful.

I went to the bank to make sure I'd gotten paid—yes, but some strange amount about $150 less than I think it should have been. Mr. Kim wasn't in a good mood today, what with having gone to a funeral and dealing with communicating with the new teachers, so it's best to wait to talk to him about it. Don't they keep records?!

Today all the kids were talking about the "Red Mask Lady." Apparently it's a rumor going around their school. The 2 PM littlest kids didn't say anything to me, but at 3 they were discussing it, and tried to explain it to me. I didn't understand much, so when Cindy suddenly started to cry, I was confused. She seemed genuinely terrified. At that point I told Jenny (who was leading most of it) to not say another word about it, especially as Ally (rather more vocal than Cindy) told me, "Teacher, I'm scared" and looked like she might start crying, too. I spent a few minutes trying to explain that it was just a story and not real. Jenny tried to get it started again, but I wouldn't let her. It was like she got some perverse pleasure out of terrifying the other children.

After that class I asked Sandra if she knew what was up with the Red Mask Lady story. She knew a little more than me, but still didn't completely understand. Her students had been obsessed with it, too. She asked Jane about the story, and Jane asked another teacher (in Korean) about it, heard a response, but COMPLETELY IGNORED US. Sandra asked her again, and she WALKED AWAY WITHOUT ANSWERING. I must say, that's one teacher that I wouldn't mind if she left--if she doesn't have the English ability to talk with us, then she SHOULDN'T BE TEACHING ENGLISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, the story, told to Sandra by one of her advanced classes, then she told to me: the Red Mask Lady is Japanese. She had plastic surgery to make her mouth wider but it went horribly wrong and she ended up looking bad. Shortly afterwards she died, and now her ghost roams the earth. She's 3 meters (nearly 10 feet) tall yet oddly is afraid of heights. She wears a mask soaked red with her blood to hide her distorted face. She only visits girls who live on the 1st or 2nd floors in the 2nd or 4th apartments on that floor. She asks "Am I beautiful?" and if the person says yes, she kills them, if they say no, she kills them (both after cutting their mouths wider--different answers mean she cuts it just a little bit or from ear to ear). The only way to stay alive is to say, "You're neither beautiful or ugly." We weren't sure if she would then still cut the person's mouth wider while leaving them alive, or leave them without doing anything. May 4 is supposedly her birthday. The kids swear that a couple of girls have already been killed and that it has even been on the news.

Again

Another drizzly day. Matthew finally emailed me today with a long list of questions about working at the school. I wrote a nearly 4-page answer before church but then it disappeared as I was running spell check. How annoying! Luis gave the sermon since Bill was in Seoul. After the service I went around checking who was coming to the BBQ and getting people to sign up to bring food. Octavia showed up early and waited with a rather impatient look on her face. I apologized and explained that I was responsible for doing this. She gave her normal, "No problem."

After I finished she drove us to Shinbok Church where we had lunch. About 50 kids were playing some odd relay-type games in the dining hall. It was interesting to watch. Bible study had only 2 kids today—most of the others were studying for middle school tests. One guy who came a few times toward the beginning was there in his military uniform--I didn't realize he was that old! He said he's 22, which means he's 20-21 in Western age. Still, he looks like a high school student.

After that Octavia drove me home. She asked me to go with her to a raw fish restaurant at the end of the month—she named an approximate date and said it was a Saturday; I said I was busy on that Saturday (I knew the date); she ignored me and said she'd let me know the exact date later. Uh, I already know the date, and I'm busy then! She doesn't seem to get it that while I don't mind helping them out to have Bible study for the kids, I'd really rather have my free time on the weekends. Free time spent with native English speakers, for the most part. Her English is good, but still not perfect, and it takes extra effort on my part to understand her and to make her understand me. I want to be with people with a similar cultural background where I don't have to worry about doing something offensive. Her way of thinking is that she's doing me a favor showing me around. Well, that's a nice gesture, but I've seen most of the things around here. Plus, her method of seeing things is drive by, point it out, and continue on. How about stopping, walking around a bit (SLOWLY, so it can be enjoyed)?? No, that's not her style. Also, sometimes I wonder if she's not just showing me off to her friends—"Look at me, I have a foreign friend!" So when she asks me again, I'll just have to explain AGAIN that I'm busy on that weekend! (Really, I am, Simin Church is going to an orphanage in Busan.)

Later I wrote Matthew—again—and did some nonsense around the house, I can't even remember what. Another 4-day work week coming up!