Fresh Meat

In short order we have had three new teachers arrive, two in just the past week. The latest shipment from America stopped by tonight during the final minutes of work. I was struggling with using MS Word in Korean and trying to figure out buggered formatting whilst keeping my herd of study hall kids corralled in the lab.

There is a moment in many movies wherein two diametrically opposed people are introduced to the same scene and the viewer knows that hijinx or bloodshed will ensue. I, in my monochrome fashion, leaned out from the lab to catch a glimpse of the new teacher. She has bleach-blond hair. A large, sincere cross necklace. An Alpha-Phi t-shirt. Short shorts. And Ugg boots. We have a name for this kind of person where I come from.*

I know this doesn't bode well but I was unable to stop myself from rolling my eyes at the recruiter who brought us this juicy, fresh-out-of-college morsel for the hagwon meat grinder. It will be fine. It is of little consequence how much of her physical appearance advertises vapidity, she is probably a lovely girl and it will be good to have another full time employee.

Given that I mistook the other new teacher for a pedophile last week (and he's an absolutely lovely individual) I am fully aware that I should not rely on first impressions.

*It's 'eski-ho'

You Might Be An Overeducated Honky If...

Normal Women: Drink 'til they can't remember the name of the person in bed with them.

I: Drink 'til I can't name all the Justices on the Supreme Court.

My So-Called Life

I'm listening to this week's Wait...Wait... Don't Tell me podcast. One of the stories mentioned was about a young woman who found a baby bat in her bra and all I could think was: Why doesn't cool stuff ever happen to me?

For Your Magic Day!

Well-Adjusted

Phrases I have not learned in Korean but would find useful:

This music is fucking godawful.

You are in my way.

You are still in my way.

Get off your cell phone.

Hitting your child will not solve the problem of bleeding/crying/low intelligence/your many failures as a parent. (I have seen children hit for all of these things)

They don't blink, quit having a staring contest with them.

If I could kill you with my mind, I would.

That person is incompetent.

I am doing her job for her.

There are no roaches.

May I throw this watermelon from the roof?

Your child appears to be rampaging like a small demon through the subway/store/street/school, perhaps you should do something.

Not everyone gets to be an English-speaking astronaut.

Bad Planning

There are a lot of gaps and failings in our curriculum. I still maintain that we are a fairly good hagwon, however, there are still issues. Our TOEFL for 6th graders is lacking and despite my efforts I could not find anything worthwhile to supplement for today. We listened to some NPR stuff and then, at the students' request, looked at CNN. We found an article on selecting a dog for Obama should he win the election.
We voted. The class voted for the Bichon Frise, much to my dismay.

Until Things Are Brighter

Today one of my students asked me why I always wear black and informed me that black is hot in the summer. It was cute.

Yesterday I lost five minutes of class time discussing the phrase 'from the heart'. At one point I, with sound effects, pretended to rip something out of my chest and offer it to the students. That went over well.