Culturally Hilarious

Whew. Thursday down. It's almost the weekend. I'm tuckered out and ready for a rejuvenating St. Patrick's Day festival on Saturday.

Things seem to be settling down on the work front. My elementary children are calming down a bit and I've figured out the punishment and rewards system enough for them to start paying attention to me. The older ones have stopped flipping each other off openly, which I consider a personal accomplishment. Now I need to get them to stop beating each other every moment I look away. And I'll have to get that done pretty quickly, considering as I'm going to be observed tomorrow by my supervisor. Eek! I fear her critique. Who would think such a sweet woman could be so scary? Maybe she'll scare my kids as much as she scares me?

My kindergardeners... well, at least the hellions stay in the classroom about 50% of the time now. And they no longer throw their food, for which I am extremely grateful, considering the snack we had last week that had the consistency of cheerio milk dregs. (It tasted like that too- blech). Tomorrow I don't have to deal with them, which is a mixed blessing, since the trade off is that I'm in charge of my other kindergardeners on a field trip to a puppet show. Though it's easier to keep those nine in check than the crazy three. We'll see how it goes. Another kindergarden class has latched onto the idea that it's a puppy show, not a puppet show- I hope they're not upset tomorrow when they find out that there are no cute small dogs. Just floppy dolls jabbering in Korean. Us foreign teachers have been told to not get distracted by the show, since we're really supposed to be watching the kids, but I don't think there's much of a chance that we'd care much about a puppet show in Korean. I don't even much like them in English.

I love some of the interactions I have with my Korean coworkers. There's one in particular who is hilarious. She always want to talk about cultural differences and somehow we got on the topic of horses yesterday. She told me that she'd never ridden a horse (horseback riding is generally considered dangerous in Korea and is rather rare) but she'd learned from a television show that white horses are white because they are old and have faded. I was somewhat confused, given that I have certainly seen young white horses and I told her that there are white horses that are born white. She seemed shocked that the television had lied to her and told me that she was going to look it up. Then she said that if I was wrong, she was going to kick me!

This is actually a running joke, she likes to tell us that if we don't do something, she will punch us. This was made more hilarious by the fact that one of the kids we both teach wrote a journal entry in which she said "I love my mom but my mom punches me."

After I laughed for a little while, my coworker looked thoughtful and told me that she doesn't hurt girls. So if I am wrong, she's going to kick one of the male foreign teachers instead of me.

:P

I have a whipping boy! Go me!