Day: July 22, 2012

During the past two weeks, in my TP반 debate classes, we’ve been debating the topic of monsters, or more specifically, cryptids – e.g. the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, the Chupacabra, etc. The debate proposition was several variations on the sentence: “Monsters exist.” The kids seemed to really enjoy the topic. They like these off-beat things, they seem less intimidating and serious than the standard debate-class fare of public policy issues.

At the end of last week, before our actual speech tests, I took a class period and did a kind of free-writing activity – the kids had to invent their own monsters (including drawing pictures if they wanted to) and then present them to the class, defending why their particular monster was “real.” It was fun. Here is a portrait of all their interesting monsters.

From top left: The Refrigerator Monster, which is harmless but eats all your food (it may be related to a teenager, the clever student explained); Daniel, which no one realizes is a monster, but just don’t make him angry (in fact, Daniel is the creating student’s younger brother, whom I have in a different class); The Hupig (half human, half pig, a mutation as a result of too much pollution); The Bling-Bling Skinny Bigface, which doesn’t seem that attractive to me, but which some students alleged was beautiful (it’s a human mutation that results, if I understood, from excessive vanity, including too much make-up, too much dieting, too much plastic surgery, etc. – interesting); The Lake Park Lake Monster, that lives in the lake at Lake Park, and is invisible and eats small dogs; An un-named but aggressive monster that results from the mutation of students suffering from excessive study – it hunts and brutally kills hagwon teachers (I’m not sure this was a positive message, from this student); A sort of half-fish half-dinosaur, with detailed anatomical drawings, that’s “not really very scary, it just lives in the water and eats fish.”

Speaking of monsters…

What I’m listening to right now.

The Knife, “We Share Our Mother’s Health.” Check out that great, freaky video.

[Daily log: ah, no]