::A Geek in Korea::

I had a nightmare day today. Class after class of stressed out, rude students getting out their study anxiety by driving their teachers crazy. I’ve been letting a little slack in my class go because of their “Noodle Apple Tests“, but it was terrible today. I went home with a raging headache because students kept being so annoying.

The book I use with some students continues to provide more amusement. Today students had to answer a theoretical question. What would be the best sensory stimulation to bring them out of a coma?

For example, I said if they had brought in my dog for me to feel, I might wake up from a coma. We were to give different sensory experiences, some for smell, sound, and touch.

One student said if his mother came and yelled at him, he’d wake up right away. Another student said that if he smelled pizza, he’s probably wake up with no problems. The next student said that if someone started poking him with a knife, he’d wake up. Weird.

The last boy whispered to his classmate that had a dictionary. “What’s English for the word ‘ko-shi-gi‘?” The word he wanted to know has no actual meaning, but is a word that you use when you want to address something indirectly. It’s a way of using a noun without actually identifying the noun in question. As in, “Something is over there on the desk,” or perhaps, “Doctor, my ko-shi-gi burns when I pee.” You use it when you want to keep the thing vague, or you are to embarrassed to say it. As such, it’s almost always the word “penis”.

The boy wanted to say that he’d wake up from a coma when someone started touching his penis, ….(or perhaps started waving his penis under his nose?). Ew. Ew. EW!

In the very next class, a student was complaining about the temperature of the school. I had looked for a remote control for the air conditioner (remote con for air con in Konglish) but a search of the teacher’s room turned up nothing. One student turned to the complainer and said, “Hey, should I turn on the air conditioner?”

I thought that was a little strange. The only way to turn on the air conditioner was to have a remote control. If I didn’t have one, what was he going to do?

The boy took out a remote control from his bag, turned on the air conditioner, then tried to return the remote to his bag before I could see. He assumed I didn’t know what he had been saying and I was too busy with all the other trouble makers in class to figure out how the air conditioner turned itself on.

“Is that a remote control from home, or did you steal that from the teacher’s room?”

The boy sheepishly returned the remote to me. He HAD stolen it from the school! He was keeping it in his bag as a private remote for his own class. After class, I told the director of this insane stunt. She went into the classroom and ripped the kid a new one. I could hear her yelling at the boy through the wall at my next class. It was fantastic.

**Edit: Forgotten Detail**

One boy showed a gift he got from his father. His father works on the high speed train service in Korea, and gave his son an industrial quality laser speed gun, like a police officer would have for checking the speed of cars. Except this was for trains. And this boy was shooting it at people’s eyes, the close circuit television, and everything else that might move. The boy might have stole it from his father. I have no idea.

On the side of the gun with a large sticker was a notice about it being dangerous, to avoid exposure, do not point at people’s faces, etc. The student didn’t have a clue about how to safely operate this laser device and he was firing it around the school the entire day. That’s fantastic parenting! He only stopped firing it at people when I told them there were risks of cancer and blindness, but even then he didn’t care. He also got his ear chewed off by my director.

My last class was no picnic either. Annoying students were just par for the course today. I was overjoyed to get out of school as soon as possible today.