Far and Away

• “He will not pass high school. He will be human trash. He will be under arrest. He will be prison breaker. He will be under arrest again. He will kill police officers. He will die in prison. So, he must go to high school.”
• “You will become a kindergarten teacher. But you will get cut from there because you make children cry.”
• “You will sleep. You will eat. You should wear clothes.”
• “You will be rich, but you will fat. You should exercise regularly.”
• “You will eat lunch. You will have stomachache. You shouldn’t eat fish.”
• “You will be ugly. You will die. You should live well^^”
• “You will be a billionaire. You will marry with Hollywood star. You should study more and more and more.”
• “You will be very hungry because you’re very poor. 2045.12.15 good bye.”
• “You will meet ugly alien and marry with her. You will be famous. You will be good at soccer.”
• “You will have have a special boyfriend. And your chances are always nearby so you should do your best.”
• “You will give money to me. You will be my slave. You should make a lot of money.”
• “You will be ugly. You will have no money. You will die early. Forever single.”

Outside of the usual, like eating kimchi and going to Gyeongbokgung, I got some pretty creative answers:

• You should make some Korean friends. Koreans are so kind so they will lead you.

• She should wear short clothes.

• You shouldn’t go anywhere because everywhere has many people.

• She should wear cool clothes.

• She should meet Psy.

• She shouldn’t go PC Room.

• She should eat horse meat. She should sleep. She should ride horse.

• She should see Jenna.

• She shouldn’t ask how to go somewhere. Because people can’t speak English.

• She shouldn’t call the sea between Korea to Japan “Sea of Japan.” There name is not “Sea of Japan,” there is “East Sea.”

• She shouldn’t go to our school.

• She shouldn’t go to the club.

• She should eat Oreo cereal.

• She shouldn’t hit someone.

• She should take a gift for me.

• She should master Korean.

• She should live.

I’ve forgotten what it feels like to teach without jackhammers constantly in the background.

And of course it’s summer and they removed all the air conditioning units in all the classrooms for some unknown reason, so we have to keep all the windows open to avoid baking completely.

Is it the weekend yet?

1. Walked to class in the middle of passing time even though the bell obviously hadn’t rung yet.

2. Told my coteacher to go ahead to lunch first since I had to send a few emails…except we still had one more period before lunchtime.

3. Dropped a chalkboard eraser covered in white and yellow chalk directly onto the front of my black dress.

4. Took about three tries to spell “independence” for one of my students.

Why am I so out of it today??

Yesterday, I got out of my long afternoon club class and had five missed calls from the same number waiting for me. Thinking it was probably relatively important, I called the number back.

It was my principal - the one from last year. The one who I can easily say is the quirkiest person I have ever met. And he wanted to meet for dinner.

If you haven’t been following me long, let me summarize. This man was completely enamored with me from the moment I started at my school a year and a half ago. I don’t mean this in a creepy or threatening way, just in the sense that he introduced me at length every time we met someone new (or even when the person had gotten the whole spiel before) as our wonderful native teacher who is from Minnesota and who used to do synchronized swimming and uses videos in class very effectively. He knows this because he used to attend my classes a few times a week, diligently repeating words aloud along with my students.

In any case, after he was transferred to a nearby high school this spring, things have been a lot quieter. Honestly, I can say I kind of miss him - even though it’s super awkward at the time my coteacher and I could always bond about the great stories afterward (plus I have a feeling my blog was a lot more interesting when he was featured on a regular basis. So even though I knew it would be awkward, I accepted the dinner invitation. The fact that he never takes no for an answer might have played a part in that decision as well.

So after school today he dropped by to pick me up. But we didn’t go straight to dinner - no, he wanted to show me his new school, since I teach in a middle school and might not know what a high school looks like (spoiler alert - it’s basically a middle school but the kids running around are a bit taller.)

But this basically turned into me awkwardly standing there while he introduced me to every teacher we ran into and kept praising me like he always used to. Now, I do try to do my best and I feel like I’m a good teacher. But I’m not an amazing amazing amazing teacher, nor do I want to hear someone tell random strangers that I am. Also…that school has a native teacher too. I don’t know who it is, luckily we didn’t run into her, but I know I wouldn’t appreciate some random other teacher showing up and seeming to show off in my school. I felt really bad, and tried to get out of there as quickly as possible.

I survived, and we went off to a really delicious galbi restaurant for dinner. His English is not amazing, but he’s very enthusiastic, so dinner wasn’t too awkward.

Then, as he’s driving me home, he makes a sudden turn into the EMart parking lot. “I will buy you some fruit!” he said. Not a question, a statement, thrown over his shoulder as he was already halfway out of the car. I really should have seen this last part coming, of course. When I moved into my apartment, he made an impromptu pit stop at the store to buy me toilet paper and orange juice as a “housewarming gift.”

Of course I protested, as always, and as always it was futile. At some point, you realize that it’s more awkward to keep saying “no” than to just let your former boss buy you orange juice.

And by orange juice, I mean a ton of random other stuff. In the end, my haul was: a box of cherry tomatoes, a bag of apples, a bag of oranges, three bell peppers and a box of Froot Loops (or, as they call them in Korea, Froot Rings).

I’m really going to miss Korea, if only because this crazy stuff makes life so much more fun.

One of my boys has promised that when he fulfills his dream of being an idol he will give me a signed CD.

We pinky swore and everything, so it’s pretty much guaranteed.

This week we’re practicing future tense, which means my kids are making predictions about the future.

As I was helping a low-level boy (kind of a punk, never really pays attention in class) I asked him what he wants to do in the future.

The lightbulb went on.

“패션왕!” (Fashion King)

I laughed, and said slowly, so he could write it out, “I will be the king of fashion.”

But, thanks to the fact that Korean has no “f” and pronounces “f” sounds like “p,” he wrote:

“I will be the king of passion.”

And slammed his pen down on his desk triumphantly.

Luckily I could control my laughter enough to correct the slight error.