March Madness

March madness is not just a bunch of college basketball games, but the weather we have been having in Korea lately. Snow instead of rain and yellow dust instead of sunshine. It was snowing like crazy yesterday evening. Snow. On March 22. Why??

outside my apartment

snow in late March!

Yesterday one my fifth grade students asked me, "teacher, do you love me?" I was taken back by the question and somewhat speechless for a moment thinking of an appropriate response. I didn't really know what to say and then finally I replied "I don't love you, but I like you." Then he turned around, pointed to another student, and said "do you love her?" At which point I realized he was cunningly quoting a K-pop song, "Brown Eyed Girls" by Abracadabra.

Korean students carry their pencils, erasers, rulers, etc. in a pencil case. I don't know if there is some kind of law that says you must carry a pencil case, but every single student owns one. They keep them on their desks and they often catch my eye as I am walking around the classroom. Most of them have really ridiculous English phrases written on them. I have no idea who makes these things or where they get these words from, but they are totally silly. I will give you an idea of a few examples of some I have seen. "Your heart and my heart are friends." "We love the earth together. Let's make it better." "Let's fly up." Basically I just smile and chuckle to myself when I read them. Along with pencil case phrases Korean students wear sweatshirts, hats, and bags that also have English words on them. Sometimes they are really silly as well. A girl in my class today was wearing an over-sized sweater that read "happy kitty" on it. Other times they are totally inappropriate for school/their age. Last semester one of my 6th grade students wore a baseball hat that said "drunken" on it. The other day I saw a student's backpack with pictures of hearts, panda bears, and some English phrases about alcohol including "alcohol is my soul mate". Not kidding. I am going to go out on a limb here and assume they don't really understand what these things say when they buy them and wear them to school, but who knows. As long as the principals and teachers don't speak or read English, it doesn't really matter, right?

I feel like a celebrity at school lately and I kind of love it. For some reason the students really seem to notice me more this semester and are way less shy about saying hello and talking with me. I walk down the hallway and students are saying hello and bowing left and right. I am constantly walking through the hallway saying "hello, hello, hi, hello, hi, how are you, hello, good morning.........." and that is just in one 5 minute walk to class. One of the things that I have missed the most from teaching in the states is the personal relationship I built with my students. I am finally beginning to feel like that is happening in Korea and it feels really good.

Namaste