I had one of my worst classes so far today. And one of my best. I guess that's good… lots of variety in a day. Kind of a roller coaster.
One class, I nearly gave up and just walked out. I had nothing left to say to them, no way to get through. They chat and write notes and do work for other classes, and if I tell them to stop, they stop, but then they sulk and pretend to understand not a single thing I say. Reminding me of something I heard recently about the Buddhist monks in Burma, who as a way of protesting don't exactly go on strike, they just become obdurate and uncooperative and generally opaque to the authorities. Call it an attitude strike.
Then another class they were interested, engaged, asking creative questions, getting excited about learning and the possibilities of knowledge and all that.
Why such differences? I don't know.
The school is moving this weekend – to a new building a few buildings down from our current one. I don't have to be there for this, but I'm looking forward to vast amounts of confusion and distraction when I come in on Monday. Meanwhile, I have hagwon tomorrow.
And at the moment I'm doing laundry and watching a Korean game show… I have no idea what's going on, but I find the Korean more interesting than the dialog in dramas or news shows (the other options) because there's a lot of mugging and impromptu and informal speech, which are the bits I most desperately need some skill in understanding.
So… more later.