the day in review

As I was prepping the classroom for my co-teacher's after-school class I had a student come in to visit me.  He visits my co-teacher and I somewhat regularly, sometimes just to talk, sometimes to ask for candy.  He and my co-teacher tend to chat for 5 to 10 minutes, but when it's just the two of us, we usually exchange only a sentence or two.  Communication is hard since both of us know little of the other's language.  Today, though, he had something to show me - his ear.  It seems as if he or a friend pierced it today ... with a ballpoint pen.  Excellent.  It actually doesn't look that bad.  The hole is huge, the back is a little bloody - but overall, the ear could be in a worse condition.  I wonder how many students of mine have had their ears pierced by their friends?  Probably most, now that I think of it, ha.  Yikes.  I hope his heals well.  I think his plan is to gauge it, but right now he doesn't have anything in there - ugh, he'll have to re-pen the thing if he doesn't find something soon, right?

In other, less exciting news, today was not bad!  Decent in-class behavior and excellent between-bells communication.  On Thursdays, I have on of my best and most animated classes.  By best, I just mean that they try hard and are generally good - and by animated, I mean they don't sleep and answer my questions, ha.  They are unique in that they like to come in early and get a head-start on the lesson.  They'll pick up the worksheets and read through them, asking me questions occasionally.  After that, they'll start the usual calling-of-names that seems to precede most of my classes.  I have no idea how this can be so perennially entertaining, but girls and boys in every single class of mine seem to pre-game the lesson by calling each other silly things.

My last class of the day (a bunch of first graders) was a lot of fun.  They talked too much and had to be scolded, but aside from that they really were sweet.  The girl that sits closest to the front of the room almost always gets the right answers (no surprise, ha), but even (especially?) the kids that know nothing are fun and endearing.  One of them tried to teach me Korean today.  I told him that it was English class and not Korean, and I think his friend translated that for him, ha.  But that didn't deter him from trying to get me to read something he wrote for me on his paper.  I'm always really suspicious about that sort of thing - I remember my boys earlier in the term trying to teach me all sorts of Korean cuss words.  I read "kimchi jigae" (i knew that was safe) but hesitated on the next word he wrote.  Annnyhoo, whenever I repeated after him or read on my own, he'd given me a big pat on the back and say oh, great job!  Good!  in korea, haha.  Kid.  Whatevs.  And now, I appear to be super duper tired, so I'm going to have to stop.