Kids are kids

I've been able to go to Seoul every weekend since I've been here. Every Saturday I visit Myeong Jin which is the orphanage I volunteer at. This past weekend we were dying Easter eggs and the kids were decorating them. During the fun one of the youngest boys, Tae Han started pitching a fit. After a little observation I realized he was upset because someone had the crayon he wanted to use. I laughed a little and said to a friend, I love that kids are kids no matter where you go. Any 4 year old would have a tantrum if they wanted something and couldn't have it immediately. I think this is one reason I love working with children. While the language may be different, the behaviors are roughly the same.


I want to also tell you a little about my school in this post. For the most part things are very similar to my experience teaching last year. One thing that is different though is that I have a couple classes that last 50 minutes but most of them last 25. Which means I have a lot of classes to teach in one day. I don't mind it because it makes the day go by quicker, but it's slightly frustating because I feel like I don't have enough time to really concentrate on the lesson and I've been struggling to learn all of the kids names. But it works out somehow.

Slightly ammusing stories... they aren't quite funny status.

I've always known my handwriting isn't the greatest, but to the average native English speaker there is no trouble reading it. However, when I write in a thick tipped marker on the white board and there are students learning to read English, there is all kinds of confusion. I wrote the number 50 on the board and my students were confused asking me, "Teacher, what is so?" I was like, "huh?" Then I realized my 5 was actually an S. Also, my "h" looks more like an "n" and one poor girl didn't even recognize my "r". I took a handwriting class in college when I was an Early Childhood Education Major, but evidently it didn't stick. One other bit of confusion happened when I was explaining emoticons. I was asking the students if they text messaged, all of them of course do. Then I asked them if they ever used the smiley faces, and again, yes. I then drew a smiley on the board and told them this was an emoticon when used in texting, or on the computer. I wanted to give them examples of other emoticons and so I drew what I thought was an angry face. Almost immediately one of the boys shouted, "Handicapped!" I lost it, I didn't know why he thought my drawing looked handicapped, but the other students joined in and said "yes, handicapped." After I composed my self, I tried to explain to them it was an angry face, but they wouldn't have it. I think they were encouraging me to stick to teaching, because drawing is not my strong suit.

Anyway, please pray that I would keep studying Korean consistantly and diligently. I bought a beginner's textbook and workbook, and so I'm trying to learn on my own, with help from my co-teachers when needed.