Fun Kid Conversations

Me:  Why is your name Pringles?
Student:  Because Teacher Andrea brought me these snacks called Pringles one day.  I liked them very much so I changed my name to Pringles.
Me:  What was your name before Pringles?
Students:  Nazi. 
Me:  Because you like nazis?
Student:  No, because I like Hitler.  He was handsome and powerful and not violent. 
Me:  Hitler was not violent? 
Student:  No.  You are violent, Teacher.  Hitler was not.  Hitler was handsome and powerful.  I like Hitler.
Me:  I might not tell a lot of people that.

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This Pretty Much Sums It Up…

You can go here to see a larger version of this, including country wide statistics on student achievement, class size, blah blah blah.

An Essay on Disgusting Foods

Yet another exciting day with 5th graders and essays. 
Today’s fun topic: Discuss what you think are the most disgusting foods.  Why do you think they are disgusting?

Most Impressive Answer:  Foie Gras
Most Expected Answer:  Nose Dust  (ie. Boogers)
Most Appreciated Answer:  Dog Meat
Most Disgusting Answer: Cow Eyes

We had a plethora of other answers but those were the ones that stuck out for me.  The "boogers" comment even started a long (and educational) conversation about throw up, vomit and barf. Throw up and vomit can be used with anyone, specifically parents and doctors. Barf should be reserved only for friends and siblings, in my opinion. 

One Year In Korea

I have no idea where the last 52 weeks of my life have gone.  It honestly feels like last week that I left the Aflac office with cupcakes in hand, picked up Charlie from his final vet travel exam, and we road tripped our way up to Missouri for a quick visit before hopping on a plane.

5am on October 14th we boarded a plane. 11:30 pm on October 15 we walked through the front door of our new home.

Like vs Love

I was on my way to buy spam kimbap for lunch today and I met a very interesting man outside a convenience store.  It appears that he’s visited several continents, is very intelligent and had an awful lot to say.  We talked a lot about the differences in English and Korean and, after some of my students walked by, he informed me of some of the slang that they use.  And how very perverted and inappropriate it is.  I’m kind of glad that I don’t understand them 98% of the time. He also knew enough about homonyms/synonyms to make quite a few jokes.  Too and two. Well and well.  Bye and bi. Old men are perverts, too.

Notes of Love. Sorta.

Amid teaching a Free Conversation class(read: no agenda, itinerary, text book, or lesson plan),  I look up and see these two signs.

A Gift In The Park

Much to my disinterest, Charles did everything in his power to convince me to take an afternoon stroll today.  I even tried to dissuade him with left over pizza from dinner with Lee Ann last night.  It didn’t work.  He still ended up parked at the front door waiting for me to get over myself (and the extra frigid air today) and pick up the leash.

We finally made it out the door and made our way to the concrete park behind our building.  Immediately, we met two of the sweetest little girls, Amy and Erika.  They were 11 and 10, respectively. I assume that is Korean age so they are really 8 to 10-ish. They were so sweet and their English was very good for their age.  Of course our conversation was very basic but my young ones certainly could not have a similar conversation due to the anxiety of meeting a new foreigner in a public, non-school location. My students would have froze.  Maybe we should work on that….

Bad Ideas & Essays

I let some of my students call Matt last week.  That has since turned out to be a very bad idea.  All they want to do now is talk about him, make up superhero stories about him, and call him again since most of them got too embarrassed to actually talk to him the first time around.  Most recently, they like to write essays about him.

The essay topic was where do you want to go for your honeymoon?  A strange question for a group of sixth grade boys, but I don’t write the topics. I just assign them.  This was the response from one of my favorite students.