I have been fulfilling my lifelong dream to be an eccentric uncle.
Nephew James, playing hangman:
My niece Sarah, ready for Halloween:
My nephew Jameson, looking up:
My nephew Dylan, looking down:
Category: Kids
Caveat: Monster Trucks
My honorary nephew Henry discourses on monster trucks.
Caveat: It’s morning so I decided to wake up
I'm going to drive to Denver to see my sister Brenda (and my father is meeting me there). I could make it in one very long day of driving (it's about 16-18 hours from southeastern Wisconsin), but I'm intending to divide it into two days. So tonight I'll be somewhere in eastern Nebraska, I would guess.
I had one last bowl of borsht last night, it was so delicious. And then I had some "apple brown betty" (apple cobblerish) that Sarah made, for breakfast. Also very delicious.
Henry's first words to me this morning: "It's morning so I decided to wake up."
OK, bye.
Caveat: Corn mazes and other midwesterniana
Today I went to a “corn maze” with my friend Bob and my honorary nephew, his son Henry. These are quite the midwestern phenomenon, they’re pretty fun. Here’s a website showing the actual maze [UPDATE: the link rotted – no replacement link found] we went into. Because Henry is only around 2 years old, we ended up converting a dead end on the star-shaped trail in the upper left quadrant of the maze shown in that picture (roughly west of the Ecuador, which makes sense if you see the maze map aerial photo) into a pull-ups changing station.
I drank some hot apple cider and Henry had more fun in the parking lot inventorying the various vehicles, including some tractors and an ambulance, than he did in the maze.
At the risk of seeming like an indulgent “uncle,” here are some pictures of Henry. The first was a picture of him at the corn maze, looking through a cut out of a car. I did it with my cell phone because I forgot to take my camera to the corn maze.
The next pictures show him hamming around the house.
.
.
This is a picture of him this evening at a gathering at some friends of Bob and Sarah’s, wearing interesting “shades.” Cute kid.
Caveat: Oh, how’s your alligator??
I found the following message in my email box this morning. I miss my students already.
HELLO! teacher.
Remember me??
I'm christina. My summer vacation was over.
So i'm so sad some time when i thought about
summer vacation.
How's you? I miss you…
i miss your alligator and your funny story.
i want you to come to Korea and teach students in
L-bridge school.
While i'm so happy to go Eldorado1.
But my friends are sad because i go to second
time in L-bridge school.(thesday and thursday time)
And i'm so sad because i can't study with Emily…
I visted your sight and i'm so happy to see your
alligators.
Oh, how's your alligator??
You gave all your alligator to our L-bridge teachers???
Any way, i want to hurry to teach L-bridge students.
SEE YOU WHENEVER…
SEE YOU SOON.. GOODNIGHT!
Caveat: The Kids
I finished putting this together, this evening, lurking in my hotel room in Tokyo. It’s not perfect, but I’m pretty happy with it. It will help me remember my 14 months at LBridge pretty vividly, I think. Great kids!
The song is from the children’s musical that Zina was in, that I went to see six months ago. Keep in mind that I “lengthened” the song by looping the 2nd chorus about 4 times so that it would match the length of the video – so don’t be alarmed if the thing seems a bit repetitive. Thematically… I’m not sure it’s a great match: I think it’s about about a mosquito who’s bemoaning the current environmental crises in the world. But I like the song, and I think it goes well with the kids, especially since one of the kids in my video is actually one of the voices performing the song.
Caveat: Bye
A short dialog with a student named Wendy, last Thursday.
Jared: Yes.
Wendy: Okay. Bye.
Caveat: “an unsatisfied feeling”
In about 24 hours, I'm flying from Seoul to Tokyo. I'm saying goodbye to my job at LBridge, but only a very brief farewell to Korea.
The plan: 2 weeks in Japan, 1 week back in Korea as a tourist, then to Minneapolis. After that… road trip (Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, LA, Humboldt, Portland — big circle). Expecting a month or more pause in LA, though. After that… ? Back to Asia, most likely. Looking at Vietnam, Tawain, Mongolia, and/or back to Korea. I'll have to see what sorts of opportunities turn up. It's best when all is in flux…
And here's why I really like this teaching thing. I feel like I'm promoting myself by sharing this, but this letter I received from a student really touched me, and affirmed why it is I like trying to be a teacher so much. Here it is, mistakes-and-all:
Hi, teacher. I'm Shaina.
I write this letter because I want to give expression to thanks.
For the past six months, thank you very much. I was very shy, and I have no confidence about English. But you were bring conviction to me, so I gain confidence about English. Untill now, I announced many speech. But always I was tremble and wobble, but teacher was always praise me. So I can get good scores. And you teach our very funny and interesting. So I always respect you. But you will go will go back to America. So I have an unsatisfied feeling. And I'm sad. ^^
Even though you go back to America, I will not forget you. Thank you, teacher. and good-bye.
from Shaina.
Caveat: 나는 전지전능해
My student Anastasia wrote “나는 전지전능해” on her workbook cover. She translated it as “I’m almighty” but the dictionary suggests “I’m omnipotent” might be a better translation. In any event, it shows a lot of self-confidence, huh?
Saying goodbye to all the kids is hard. Then there are the moments when I just have to laugh, too. My student Brian (3rd grade) put on a very serious face and said, “teacher, I wrote you a letter.” He handed me an index card. I turned it over, and read a single word: “~bye”
My student Paul (4th grade) came up to me right after the end of class and spontaneously hugged me. That was great, but it wasn’t so great when he immediately poked me (well, gently) in my gut and said “I will miss your stomach soooo much.” Maybe that’s a sign I need to lose a bit more weight?
Lastly, I got the following card from Sally. She did the cover art herself, obviously inspired by my many alligators. I was touched by what she wrote.
Caveat: We have a Skywalker in this class too
The backstory to this is that we have an eccentric (but fun) student in our class who insists his English name is "Skywalker." Peter apparently did some research on his background, and delivers a speech that provides a summary of the Star Wars story. Speeches that summarize stories are not easy at this level, and I think Peter does a truly excellent job, using no notes and without just coming off as a memorizing robot-voice. I was really impressed with this — it was one of the best (absolutely best) low "Goldrush"-level speeches I've ever heard.
Caveat: My mother stole my money
I'm recording some debates and student speeches in class with my new video camera. I think that it will take a lot of editing to put together anything that looks like a "real" debate. However, there are some short segments that will make for good excerpts, I think. Here is Candy, telling a short anecdote about how her mother stole her money and went to Hong Kong.
Caveat: Are you devil?
I use my cellphone as a stopwatch in class when students are giving speeches. Further, I occasionally allow the students themselves to be “timekeeper” for a given other student’s speech. This means my students are often playing with my cellphone. It doesn’t really bother me, although more than once, I’ve gone back to it later and found its most recently used application was something under the “game” heading — I rarely play games myself on the cellphone because, since it’s a Korean cellphone, it tries to help me play the game with instructions in Korean. I did once manage to get a 37% score on a quiz game entirely in Korean, basically by viewing it as a linguistic abstraction game.
So… I was pulling photos off my cellphone last night, and found the following. I have no recollection of when this photo might have been taken. Is it flattering? I’ve definitely been making a lot of use of my plastic black and red pitchfork (lower left of photo), lately.
I don’t know how to put on the fancy frame, either. But whoever did this picture of me apparently had no problem not only surreptitiously taking this snapshot but then managing to add the fancy frame without my having a clue. I think it was a time when they were brandishing their own cellphones and I was hamming a little bit, so it’s not like I wasn’t aware of having my picture taken. In today’s modern (Korean) classroom, it’s ubiquitous, and something I accept as a matter of course. I suppose that technically, there are rules banning the use of cellphones in class, but I view such rules as both reactionary and irrelevant, and rarely enforce them except maybe during quizzes or when they’re clearly proving too distracting.
…
“Are you devil?” Gina asks, every time.
“Maybe,” I hedge. It’s all part of the schtick, right?
Every teacher needs a schtick. Or a fork. And a coupla alligators (made in China).
Caveat: A trip to the aquariroom
Jessica, a 2nd grader, writes about a trip to the "aquariroom" in her workbook. Apparently while there, she saw "in toilet stool there a fishes!" That sounds like a very interesting trip!
Caveat: Each Day…
I've been trying to decide if I will continue my monomaniac effort to post to this diary each and every day, after I cut myself adrift. It will be less convenient to continue doing so — I imagine a search each evening for a PC방 (Korean internet game room) or the local equivalent wherever I am. I've never been good at keeping up habits in the face of inconvenience. One of the favorite creative bits of language I've ever run across in any of my EFL students' writing was Ella's "inconvenience is the mother of invention." So what would I invent? No need, here. I can always "post date" / "pre date" my blog entries. But that kind of feels like cheating. Well, it's of no major consequence, actually.
Yesterday I had a student giving me a long, drawn-out excuse for unfinished homework, involving diarrhea and visits to the doctor, apparently. I would have preferred the abridged version, to be honest. But it did expose me to some unexpected vocabulary in Korean, and thus, as tends to be the case, I made it into a "teaching moment." I don't know it it was appreciated. But whatever.
Not-so-random notes for trying (still trying, only trying) to learn Korean
자신 = self-confidence, confidence -하다 to have self-confidence
할아범 = old man (according to dictionary)
할아범탱이 = not in dictionary, my students tell me it means senile old man
전염 = infection
변비 = constipation
설사 = diarrhea
모든 = each, every, all, whole
Caveat: … and the next Beckett?
My student, Troy, writes:
Person: Hello.
Another Person: Hello. Who is this?
Person: I’m a person. What’s your name?
Another Person: I’m just another person.
Person: Really? Oh. I’m looking for my brother.
Another Person: Are you my brother?
Person: Yes. I am. Let’s meet at LBridge.
Another Person: Hmm. OK. What is your phone number?
Person: 010-9246-7245872-3271.
Another Person: OK. My phone number is 010-4272-247671-1234.
Person: OK.
Another Person: See you at LBridge.
And Junseop writes:
A: Hello! My name is A. Can I speak to B, please?
B: This is B.
A: How are you?
B: I am sick. I’m getting cancer, because I smoked too much. I am going to die in two days.
A: Oh. That’s good.
B: What? I will kill you, too.
A: No! You can’t kill me. I’m visiting my uncle in Russia.
B: Ah! I’m dying.
A: Yes, you will go to heaven.
B: Oh, no!
A: I’m hanging up, now.
B: Don’t do that.
A: Why?
Caveat: The next Ionesco
I have a student who insists his English name is Skywalker. That's only the beginning of the absurdity. Here's an imaginary telephone conversation he wrote. I made some small corrections on word choice and grammar, but I made no effort to try to make the thing… make sense. Here it is:
Skywalker: Hello. May I speak to my fish, please?
Fishfather: No. If I give you my son, you will kill him. Please don’t kill my son.
Skywalker: OK. Aha… then can I fish with him?
Fishfather: As long as you don’t kill my son. Hang on…
Fish: Hello, this is fish.
Skywalker: What kind of fish hurt you?
Fish: A tiny fish that couldn’t bite me.
Skywalker: Maybe. Let me think. Aha, then I will make it so you can’t breathe.
Fish: No, please! I don’t like that. Just fish with me. Not breathing is not good for health.
Skywalker: Really? Oh, then… I will do that to the silver shark. He ate my expensive fish… four of them!
Fish: No, don’t do that.
Skywalker: Why?
Fish: He will be angrier if you do that.
Skywalker: I don’t care. Doo doo doo…
Fish: Wait! Don’t do that, you bad boy.
Skywalker: I heard that!
Fish: Bye.
Caveat: Confident about…
I have this really smart class called Eldorado 2a월. The students had a debate speech test today, and so they embarked on a project to try to keep me distracted and conversational in hopes of delaying the inevitable start of the speech evaluations.
Somehow, we were talking about self-confidence. Unlike most of my classes, there was no need to spend time explaining what self-confidence was, conceptually. Someone asked, "Are you self-confident?"
"I am in some things, and not in others," I offered.
And rather to my surprise, one student asked, "Do you feel confident about teaching?"
It was a penetrating question from a 6th grader. It was not being asked in a hostile tone, so I answered honestly: that in fact, I don't always feel confident about teaching. I said that in teaching, I was always feeling I could do a better job. Yet in that moment, in that class, I felt really pleased with how things were going. I wasn't "fishing for compliments"… and none were offered. They just nodded as if they understood.
The tone felt a bit serious, so Candy lightened the mood. "I feel really confident about eating," she said, with a wry smile and a dry tone.
"Yes, me too," chorused some of the others.
Caveat: Let’s put a moratorium on fun
"Let's put a moratorium on fun." – my timid student Sarah, when asked to use the word "moratorium" in a sentence in a workbook.
And Ellen, summarizing an article, had some problems with a certain homonym: "Ulsan asked the International Wailing Commission to allow wailing on a limited basis."
Meanwhile, I was surfing around earlier today and found reference to something I'd explored a while back but never got around to posting (I don't think, anyway… I've been blogging long enough that I don't actually know everything I've posted, but a cursory autogoogle says "no"). I've always been into abstract art that looks like writing or maps (but isn't actually writing or maps). This is sometimes called "asemic writing" apparently, and I found an interesting commentary on "asemic art" recently at a blogger named The Nonist.
If I ever ventured to be a "real artist" in the field of visual arts, that's one sort of aesthetic I'd try to pursue, I'm pretty sure.
Caveat: 탱큐☆★
The following conversation with one of my students took place via cellphone text message this morning. I’ve never had a student do this before – she wrote English purely using Korean syllables. I’m going to have to show her how to key Roman letters on her cellphone. Or maybe she did it to challenge me in some way?
Jessica: 티쳐 캔 유 리드 코리안? 아이 호프 소.아임 제시카 앤드 아이 해브 어 쿠에스텬스 [tichyeo kaen yu rideu korian? ai hopeu so. aim jesika andeu ai haebeu eo kueseutyeonseu]
Jared: what is your question?
Jessica: 슈드 아이 츄스 온리원 토픽 올 두 얼 토픽스?? [syudeu ai chyuseu onliweon topik ol du eol topikseu??]
Jared: right. choose 1 topic
Jessica: 탱큐☆★ [taengkyu]
Caveat: Already Amazing!
I have a little self-inking rubber stamp that I use to "sign" my students' homework, as it goes faster and the kids think the stamp is fun. The one I'm currently using says "AMAZING!" and has a picture of something vaguely resembling a dragon (or perhaps an alligator). So it's all part of a theme, I suppose.
Today I was in my "Mayflower"-level class, which is the lowest level I teach, currently. So there are sometimes challenges in communication. I was going to stamp my student Ellen's workbook, but she put her hand up very seriously and said "teacher, I'm already amazing." That was pretty good English, for a level that often struggles to put together a sentence. And she used the adverb correctly, too ("already").
So I answered, "yes, I can see you are amazing. That was amazing!" And I stamped her book three times, rapidly, which everyone thought was hilarious.
Caveat: “벼락 오버머” 사랑해!
I was correcting student workbooks earlier today. There’s an article in the most recent newspaper (an ESL “teaching” newspaper published in Korea) that features “Barak Obama” – our belovedly misspellable future Space Emperor.
I found this picture, above, in Julie’s workbook. It’s BHO’s best picture ever! And she wrote above his misspelled name her own personal misspelled transliteration: 벼락 오버머 (byeorak obeomeo, rather than the standard translilteration, 바락 오바마). Note the little lightning bolt above the “벼락” (byeorak means lightning bolt, I think).
Caveat: Do the multicultural…
We have had "multiculturalism" as our debate topic the last few weeks. Specifically, multiculturalism as an emerging social phenomenon (very peripheral, so far) in Korea. I actually have some thoughts and observations at a fairly serious level about this idea, but I'll save that for a later, more coherent post.
For the moment, it's interesting seeing the Korean kids trying to make sense of it. One of my favorite quotes comes from Kevin, who says, "if we do the multicultural, then Korean men can be happy."
I think Kevin is referring to the fact that many Korean men, these days, have been in essence "importing" brides from Southeast Asian countries – enough so that it's becoming a "problem" the government has been trying to address. But the way Kevin writes about it makes it sound like it's some kind of weird dance.
"Hey, everybody! Let's do the multicultural!"
Caveat: Alligators For All
Caveat: Best Class
This has been my best class so far. All smart. All interested. Almost all the time. Awesome kids: Ellen, Candy, Eunice (she came back!), Helen, Anastasia, Sydney, Steven.
Caveat: Alas, Robuckle
It was a pretty rough week. Not so much in the quantity of work, but in the ups and downs of the affective environment at LBridge. There was the announcement, mid-week, that there will be layoffs, campus closings, etc. Though not impacting me directly, obviously the mood in the staff room has taken a beating. And today the rumors began to surface that teaching loads would be way up, next term. Which is logical, but no more welcome, for all that.
And there were deprecatory things muttered about "speaking teachers" (code for E2 visa-holding teachers as opposed to "natives") who have "easier jobs." While I disagree with that, with regard to class load, I do acknowledge that not having to interact with the parents, as is required of the native teachers, definitely makes things a little bit easier. I see how they struggle and suffer with the constant shifts in mood and policy (oh, there's a policy?), and of course, lack-of-support, on the part of management.
But the thing that has me most depressed is the situation of a student of mine. Not just mine… she's been in the Eldorado-ban (level) for a good portion of my time here. Her English name, self-selected, is Clover. I actually really have enjoyed having her in my class. She's not a great intellect, and her English skills are spotty. She's not a hardcore studier, and she's often moody. She can be easily discouraged, and is too often comparing herself unfavorably to her peers. The competition gets her down. But… she could be a lot of fun, too.
One day, a month or two ago, I came in, and she announced, "today, I am Robuckle." I said, "that's an interesting name. I like it." But I wanted to know where it came from. She managed to explain, after jumping up to the board and drawing it out in Korean hangeul, that it was the consequence of playing a common language-game with the hangeulized version of "Clover." This, of course, enchanted me – everyone, including my students, know about my love for all sorts of language games.
Here's how it works. If you write "Clover" in Korean syllables, it comes to keul-lo-beo (클로버). Then, according the rules of the language game, you put the first syllable last. That gives lo-beo-keul (로버클). But now the leading /L/ has been un-twinned, so it gets to become an /R/, according to standard Korean phonology. That gives ro-beo-keul. Finally, you un-hangeulize it back to something close to English phonology, and it sounds like "Robuckle." Fabulous!
Clover enjoyed having made me so happy with such a silly thing. So I enthusiastically endorsed the renaming of Clover as Robuckle.
Robuckle went back to being Clover a few weeks later, but after that, I always would grin to myself whenever I was scoring a paper of Robuckle's, or entering a grade, or whatever. I'm easily and eccentrically pleased, I guess.
Anyway. Clover's grades have been dropping quite a bit, of late. And she got a terrible score on the speaking final speech. She complained (via her mom, conveyed to the homeroom teacher, conveyed to me) that I had scored her unfairly. And she became grumpy and taciturn in class. Which of course caused her subsequent scores on things to drop, too. I asked her, several times, to bring me the scoring sheet I had given her for the speaking final – I was open to renegotiating the score, or, even, letting her have another go at it. But she was more interested in being angry about it. She finally told me her mom "threw it away" (meaning the scoring paper), to get me to leave her alone about renegotiating the grade.
The other day, she apparently complained to her mom that she "hated" all of her teachers at LBridge. Which is fine. Such complaining is the god-given right of every adolescent. But she alleged that we all hated her, too, and that we were unfair to her. Such complaints come from children everywhere, all the time. But the problem in the hagwon biz, where the parents are the paying customers… well, you can imagine: I've written about this dilemma at least once before. The management is just as likely to side with the kid as with the teachers, especially if the kid in question is being unequivocably backed by his or her parent.
The outcome of this is that Clover's homeroom teacher got a dressing-down today by the manager, for not intercepting Clover's problems, and for being unfair, and for not mediating her perceptions of unfairness of her other teachers, such as myself. And that left Clover's homeroom teacher pissed as hell, naturally. At Clover. At Clover's mom. At the manager. And Clover is, most likely, dropping out. And Clover's sister, a star pupil across the street at the middle-school branch, is being pulled, also. Officially, it's all the fault of us teachers.
You see how this works? It's depressing.
And despite all that, I'll miss Clover, too. Her unkempt hair, her occasional wry grin, her sullen slouch, that baseball cap permanently affixed to her head, her flashes of real intelligence shining through the murk of atrocious syntax.
Alas, Robuckle.
Caveat: Beat the keyboard
"The piano is easy to play. Beat the keyboard." – Shaina, 5th grade. And here, all this time, I thought it was difficult. That it required some kind of finesse. Maybe I should give it a try.
I found a phrase that just drove me nuts:
우리학원을 오시려면 이렇게 오세요
The breakdown, as far as I can figure out:
우리학원을 =our school+[OBJ]
오시려면 = come+[HONORIFIC]+["INTENTIVE-SUPPOSITIONAL"(whatver that is)]+[CONDITIONAL-CLAUSE-SUBORDINATOR]
이렇게 = being thus+[-LY] ("thusly")
오세요 = come+[HONORIFIC CONJUGATED]+[POLITE/FINITE]
So, from all that:
if your honorable self might come to our school, come like this [i.e. here are some directions for getting here? or, i.e. come "as you are"?]
Meanwhile, babelfish alleged:
"Our school five cotton come coldly like this"
Hahaha. Never trust babelfish. That looks like it should be on a tshirt, though.
Other Korean Vocab:
회원 = member
금상=gold (first) prize
Caveat: Brian’s Beast
Caveat: Alligator teacher
Again, I’m reminded that many Koreans find my age more disconcerting or unexpected than just my foreignness, per se. Age means so much, here, and such different things than in the West. Not all good, not all bad. Just very different. I struggle with how best to present it, even to my students, when they exhibit so much interest in it. Morbid-seeming interest, from an American cultural perspective.
I’m not that old, really, but my excessively grey hair makes faking it impossible, as I’ve mentioned before in this blog. A self-respecting Korean with my “problem” would be dying his hair, 100% guaranteed.
Friday evening. Two girls, maybe 4th grade, walking arm-in-arm in the 3rd floor lounge. I’m sitting on the sofa, on a break between classes, and avoiding the staff-room downstairs, as I sometimes do between classes, functioning instead as a sort of unofficial hall-monitor. I don’t know the girls, which means they’re probably lower- or intermediate-level (since I have, almost exclusively, the most advanced classes). I’m known by many of the students at LBridge as the “alligator teacher,” because of my use of toy alligators as in-class diversions and props (see Sydney’s picture, for example).
Shy Girl, exaggerated whisper: “…alligator teacher!”
They stop and stand in front of me.
Brave Girl: “What is your name?”
Jared: “Jared. What’s your name?”
Brave Girl: “I’m Emily. … How old are you?”
Jared: “I’m 793.”
Pause. Rolled eyes.
Emily: “Not possible.” [This is pretty good language processing, for the level of students I suspect these two are.]
Jared: “OK. I’m 43.”
Emily: “Ohhh. You have young face.”
Jared: “Thank you.”
Shy Girl: “Old hair.” She reaches out and touches, and then they run away.
Emily, calling out: “Bye, teacher.”
Caveat: ㅂ2
My students know that it’s fairly to easy to get me to wander off topic. And sometimes, if they find the class content dull they have learned that with a well-placed series of comments and questions, they can get me to go on endlessly on something unrelated to the syllabus. Thus in my Eldorado 3 class yesterday, they managed to get me to talk for almost the entire hour about cold-war geopolitics, and North Korea vs South Korea as proxies for great powers, despite the fact that the official topic of the day was advertising.
Today, in my Eldorado 2 class we covered a lot of territory not really pertinent to our upcoming debate, which is a bit dry, having to do with “Green Industry” policy initiatives of the current South Korean government. I actually love teaching topics like that, but we nevertheless managed to wander off onto something else entirely.
One thing that happens, of course, is that sometimes they teach me things, instead. Today I learned that Korean language text-messaging slang “ㅂ2” means “bye.” It’s the Korean phonemic jamo ㅂ (which represents a “b” sound IPA [b]) followed by 2 (which is pronounced “ee” IPA [i], the sino-korean “two”). Sound it out: buh-ee… it’s actually the English word “bye.” Simple, right?
And then conscientious Anastasia raises her hand and says, in a remonstrating tone, “Teacher. I really think we should be discussing the debate topic. Don’t you?” And with that, the bell rang.
Caveat: Good to feel welcome
I found this on the board coming into the Thursday iBT class yesterday.
That’s Ellie in the picture. She’s the closest thing to a native English speaking student that we have at LBridge. She lived in Germany for many years, and attended an International school, there. So, she’s a Korean girl who speaks English with a German accent, although a coworker who knows quite a bit of German reported to me that Ellie’s German is much worse than her English. I guess just being there rubbed off on her pronunciation.
A while back, the following dialogue took place, in a different class:
Jenny: Monday is my birthday!
Jared: How old will you be?
Jenny: I don’t know exactly. Maybe I’m 13?
A note about Korean ages: you should subtract at least one year from Korean ages, because when babies are born, they are one year old. Also, typically, despite the fact that they DO celebrate birthdays, they will state their ages as if they changed on January first. The net result is that there is a 1 to 2 year difference between a Korean’s stated age and an American’s stated age. Perhaps Jenny is confused about her age because she is aware of this. But I doubt it. It’s just kind of her personality.
Caveat: Comic Time
Sydney creates comics. Here is one that appeared on the back of a recent homework assignment she turned in.
Caveat: cute★☆
My student Christina is a big fan of my “alligators” – my collection of toy alligators that sometimes accompany me to class to give us something to talk about, etc. During the break between classes the other day, she was taking portraits of all of the toys with her cellphone camera. And she text-messaged one of the pictures to me, today. The accompanying description line on the cellphone message was “cute★☆” Here it is.
Caveat: 지구를 지켜라 : 100살 모기 소송사건
On Saturday afternoon, I went to see a musical. More accurately, it was a children’s rock musical about global warming. The title was “지구를 지켜라 : 100살 모기 소송사건” (roughly: “Care for the Earth: The 100 year-old mosquito lawsuit”). I’m not sure if it’s the mosquito that’s 100 years old, or the lawsuit. Or both?
I went because one of my students, Zina, was in it. I understood only bits and pieces, of course. But basically, a bunch of children dressed as humans and various sorts of animals appeared to be debating the global warming situation on stage, and would occasionally burst into song and dance. It was awesome. It combined my love of watching things I don’t understand, with my interest in seeing my students perform and my interest in stage performances of all kinds. Not to mention the eco-angle.
I tried to take some pictures, but most of them didn’t come out so well. Here’s one with Zina on the far right, gesturing skyward.
I don’t think of her as particularly tall, but she was the tallest-but-one in the cast. Everything being relative, when you’re a fifth-grader, I suppose.
I bought the CD, after the show. Some of the tunes were pretty catchy. I wish I could figure out how to post a music track here. Maybe I’ll work on that.