Long Overdue Update, Mea Culpa

I've been fighting off a cold for the past few weeks. It triggered my asthma just enough to be annoying. I haven't been able to keep up my regular hiking/jogging routine, so I'm a little nervous about my big hiking trip across one of Korea's national parks in a couple weeks. Until this cold set in, I would head out for a hike/walk/jog for a couple hours everyday. I'm still getting out and walking around, just nothing strenuous. I'm planning to take it easy this weekend and am hoping to be back on the trails on Monday. We'll see if my lungs agree.

My classes are going well for the most part. I have my princesses on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have two kindergarten class, one preschool class, and one advanced elementary class (2nd graders). I teach a mothers' class for two hours every Thursday morning, and I tutor a very proficient elementary school student (5th grader) on Wednesday evenings. Next week, I'll start teaching another preschool class on Friday evenings. I'm staying pretty busy, but I like it that way.

This past Tuesday, my lesson in kindergarten was "big, bigger, the biggest." One of my very sharp little girls, who is also a little sassy and bossy, made the astute observation that she is bigger than Christina. The she went on to say that "Ellen-teacher is the biggest."

"Yes, you're right," I said, but I wasn't going to pursue it since I don't like the idea of comparing people's bodies.

Even without encouragement, that led a little boy in the class to come up with "Ellen-teacher is fat." And then the first little girl added "Ellen-teacher is a fat pig." That resulted in explosions of laughter from the rest of the class, and then everyone was chanting "Ellen-teacher is a fat pig."

I tried to reestablish order, but it was futile, so I called the school director to handle the situation. He chewed them out in English while the school's receptionist translated and added her own chewing out in Korean. By the end of the day, I had received phone calls from three mortified and apologetic mothers. Today each student said "I'm sorry" to me on the way into the classroom, and the little boy who came up with "Ellen-teacher is fat" handed me a note: "Allan i'm soli. Allan teacher. Pig is talking and laughing is i'm soli."

That whole class was exceptionally good today. I think we're friends again. I made a point to tell their mothers at the end of class how good they were. The mothers all laughed. I wonder what exactly they threatened/bribed the kids with this afternoon. Whatever it was, it worked. I was never upset about the incident. I knew I couldn't just let it go, but I actually thought it was kind of funny. I was even a little impressed. At least they had good subject-verb agreement, put the adjective in the right place, and pronounced everything correctly.

Here are three of my students showing off their artwork. These kids are from the "fat pig" class. Two of them are the instigators. They've been angels ever since that incident, by the way.My princesses have been standing on their chairs lately. I've tried all sorts of things to get them to stop, including taking away the chairs entirely. Most of them have stopped now, but on Wednesday, I had to mention something to the mother of one of the repeat offenders. The mother pulled the little princess aside before class and had a very calm conversation with her about acceptable classroom behavior. Said princess was so mad at me for ratting her out to her mom that she refused to come into the classroom and spent the afternoon pouting in the hallway on her own accord. Okay, kiddo, suit yourself. I thought that was pretty funny, but I hope she's over it before class tomorrow.

People don’t drink the tap water here. Most people either buy bottled water or fill up bottles at artesian wells along the mountains. For the past several weeks, I've been filling up a couple bottles when I'm out hiking. The city governments maintain the wells and test the water quality regularly, so it's safe.
Last week, I was filling up my bottles when this old man with a cane walked over to me. He stood about 2 meters away and just started yelling and shaking his finger at me. He kept pointing at my feet. I think he was upset because my foot was just a hair over the grate and drain, not that that would make any real difference anyway, since the water that drains off does not reenter the clean water source. "I don't understand," I told him in Korean. He kept yelling, shaking his finger, and pointing at my feet. "I don't speak Korean," I said in Korean. More yelling. So I stood up and told him "thank you" and "good-bye" in Korean and walked away. As I left, I realized I missed a great opportunity to use my three different phrases that mean "Be quiet!"

I went back to the well this week, and the same man was sitting there on a bench. I bowed, said "hello" in Korean, and proceeded to fill up my water bottles. He just sat there and glared. I need to go back tomorrow. I wonder if he'll be there.