::A Geek in Korea::

My school loves to suck the fun out of any holiday. Our "end of the year review and giant test" week falls on the few days between Christmas and New Years. Remember that time, where you had no elementary school on the horizon for a few months, and how impossible it was to concentrate on anything other than your gifts, free time, and playing in the snow? For some reason, we plan our biggest tests around the times where students have the hardest times concentrating.

I’ve been preparing all my classes for their final examinations by distilling a 100 page book into short discreet sections that they must study to pass my examination. For the most part, I’ve simply copied a section in their book, adapted a few questions, then pasted them onto the test sheet. If they study all the material I told them to, all of them should get 100%. In some of the classes I’ve told them the questions on the test. I still don’t expect them to pass.

Trying to keep students in their seats is nigh impossible when they know they’ll soon be free from the shackles of Korean school. Also, it’s very likely that some of my students will either be going abroad next month, or quitting the school. I’ve heard or read three or more students that will be quitting the school to bullying. These are students I like, that will be leaving the school because the teachers didn’t discipline the bad students. I get so upset when I hear such things, because I stamp on bullies pretty hard in my classes when I catch them. Unless it happens on the bus, or in Korean classes, in which I can’t do anything. There is no "right of refusal of service" when it comes to our school. The profit motivation is stronger with larger classes, even when idiots and bullies are thrown in. I wish I could simply tell my coworkers, "Keeping this idiot in class is actually COSTING US GOOD STUDENTS." Alas, that sort of reasoning falls on deaf ears.

At one point today, my students had such a hard time concentrating, I threatened to get a stick to poke them. Every time one student would turn around to talk to his classmates, I would prod him in the back with my marker to get him working again. It was like trying to guide a blind mule down the Grand Canyon. "Look here. Write." We were doing something fun in class too. It’s not even like the material was his standard book work.

A new torture method devised by Korean teachers is to keep students an extra hour for failing tests. If no one performs well consistently in a class on the vocabulary tests, students are kept after class to write words a certain number of times. This doesn’t seem to work in some classes, as there are logistical limitations to keeping the entire school for an hour. Someone has to watch the buggers, and there has to be enough classrooms to allow the next hour to study.

Can we just forgo the pretext and get shock collars for this week of class? It’s about the only thing we haven’t tried at this point.

My naughtiest, foulest mouthed student is also a liar. I was the one that caught him too.

In class on Monday, I couldn’t keep him concentrating in class at all. He would keep playing Tetris in class on his electronic dictionary. I gave him a few warnings about paying attention in class, but he usually didn’t know that he had been called on until I repeatedly called his name. He’s clueless in class because he doesn’t pay attention. After class, I went over to his desk, collected his dictionary and case, and took it directly to the teacher’s room.

I asked my director if holding onto his dictionary until he returned to class on Wednesday would be allowed. She said that as long as the electronic dictionary stayed put in my desk, she had no problem with it. I went back into class and told the students that anyone caught playing with their gadgets in class would have them taken for a day.

The student smacked his head and said in Korean, "Oh shit, my sister is going to kill me." It’s not his electronic dictionary. His sister is in my class on Tuesday, and I expected that she would want the dictionary back. Since she needs it for her homework, and not for playing games, I wanted to give it to her. She’s in the highest level class and has mountains of work that can’t be done without it.

She came into the teacher’s office when her class started and asked if anyone had found her dictionary. She said her brother had lost her dictionary at the school, and she was worried someone might have stolen it. I told her I had her dictionary because I had taken it from her brother, and that there was no possible way that he could have "forgotten" it, because I explained to the entire class why I had it. He saw me take it.

She said that she was relieved that I had her dictionary. She had punched her brother when he had come home without it. I told her he probably deserved it for lying to her. She begged me to call her mother and explain the situation to her mother. Her brother never gets in trouble for all the terrible things he does in our school. I told my Korean co-workers the situation and they agreed to call.

I guess the mother was taken back by our accusations, or surprised, because she wanted to come and speak to me personally some time this week. I don’t know if this is about the dictionary, or everything this student has done in class, but at this point I’m almost hoping it’s some sort of gift for my "emotional stress". It’s nearly the right time for a Christmas gift for that neglected teacher.

All will be well come next month though. My coworkers, the sister, and myself are waiting for January because the boy is being shipped of to the United States for the entire vacation to visit a home stay family. We can only hope his troublesome ways get him in some trouble that will require detainment and long term questioning.

Today, the boy came to class without the dictionary. His sister said she wouldn’t let him have it anymore. We did exercises looking up words in old fashion dictionaries since no one dared play with their toys in class. I’m still looking forward to him getting shipped off. It’ll make many more of my classes tolerable when I no longer have to see him.

Today I had to go into work four hours early. We had to choose winter intensive class materials for a months worth of classes next term. The way it was arranged was that we were given a schedule listing how many hours of a particular level we were responsible for, and if we shared materials with any other teacher. It was also arranged showing what type of book we were responsible for teaching, either reading, speaking, or listening. Some of the levels were subdivided by skill, so when even finding a book appropriate for a certain class.

Then, we also had a list of classes for the non-intensive "regular" classes we would be teaching as well in the afternoon. We needed to pick books that didn’t overlap with each other at any level. Not only that, we’d always have to teach new series that have never been taught at the school, in case a student had already gone through the series once.

For any particular class, we needed to find a book perfect for that level, of the right type, that was the right length, that was not in any series previously used by the school. Teachers sharing books didn’t need to find two individual copies, but we did need to decide on something together. Since I am the senior foreign teacher, decisions about levels and difficulties got run through me. I would be handed a book and asked, "Would this be suitable material for this class?"

I had my hands full.

I needed to approve more than a dozen or more books unofficially, while searching for my books, helping my coworker with his book choices, as well as choosing a second set of book material for a substitute teacher too. In some ways it was worse than when I was getting cornered by mothers asking for free advice in the bookstore, because I had so many factors to consider. At least this time I could make an educated guess as to the level of the students and how well some students would do when presented with the material.

There were only a few classes that were at a point where we couldn’t find something that fit out criteria for whatever reason. It was rather annoying to find the perfect book series only to be shot down because they had previously done the book two years ago at the school. Some series are objectively better than others, and being forced to choose something simply because it had been done seemed like it was a bad choice. The school’s position is that if a student wouldn’t join the class because they had already done the series, that’s like turning down free money.

My foreign coworker and I ran around for an hour and had found no more that two or three book series between us. The Korean teachers found their grammar books right away, so they came over to help us. We ended up with a massive pile of books. We had three large shopping bags full of material, and considering that stores NEVER offer spare bags unless it’s impossible to fit something inside, we must have had a ton of material. I’m very happy with most of the choices because I had a hand in everything I picked for my levels.

Some of my favorite book series will be what I’ll be spending the most time teaching this intensive period. The only problem is that when we go back to the book store to choose new book series for the Spring term, all the books we chose this time will now be off limits in keeping with their "already taught" philosophy. We’ll have an even harder time finding books in February than we did today. If we had that hard of a time with the levels we have now, reshuffling the classes and reducing the number of books we can choose from will only add more headaches.

After yesterday’s post, my wife and I went out to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We hadn’t gotten official "Anniversary Gifts" of a sort, since it’s only a week to Christmas. We didn’t really see a point to going out and purchasing something extremely expensive only to need to do it again for Christmas. Instead, we made plans to spend some time together shopping for clothing and have an evening out on the town for ourselves. We left Yoshi in the cage and went off to the nearest department store to catch some pre-Christmas bargains.

Thrifty people we are, our anniversary gifts to each other turned out to be a wool turtleneck and a wool jumper/jacket we got at a steep 70% discount in a store that was going out of business. I fit in the largest sizes (length wise) commonly available in normal stores, so the process of trying on clothes is simply finding the biggest thing the store has seeing if I’ll be able to do a "fat guy in a little coat" sort of thing with the sleeves or not. There were several things I wanted to buy that I would have burst out of, Incredible Hulk style, but eventually we found something good for me and her.

Next, we went to Bennigans, which is the best upscale American restaurant we’ve found in Korea, bar none. We’ve ordered a few dishes from them, and they’ve all been fantastic. I didn’t know the Irish threw shrimp on everything, but according to the Bennigans menu, they do, and it’s delicious. This is our third trip in three months or less, so it’s a good thing we picked up a membership that will get us free food every once in a while.

Yeobo, Yeobo, (This is how you would call a spouse to get attention, like "Honey, Honey")
A Transgender Bar in our neighborhood.

After the meal, we headed to a singing room. We were checking the local singing rooms in our neighborhood. They varied from "shady" to "less than reputable". In the building we ended up going into there was a transgender bar. I remember hearing about such a place from some of my old adult students, but it was odd stumbling upon it randomly. Eventually we found an abandoned singing place on the fifth floor of a building that had a modest collection of songs. I still haven’t gotten to do Gnarl’s Barkley’s "Crazy" yet. The singing room didn’t have a version of "Gay Bar" to sing either ironically, which is now my singing room staple song.

We had an hour’s worth of time, but at a unpopular singing room, you always get more free time. This is in the hope that people will hear your crooning and think it’s a good idea and a nice place to sing. We were even stationed at the very first room, and our speakers were deafening. Since I didn’t have some of the songs I usually do, I got to try some new material to what turned into a marathon two hour session of singing.

I cheated however, and did a few songs I was familiar with via Elite Beat Agents. It turns out, my wife likes "I was born to love you" (NSFW?) by Queen, and it makes a decent song for me to sing too. I also tried out Highway Star (I rocked out), Jumping Jack Flash (It was great.), as well as September by Earth, Wind and Fire (This song is IMPOSSIBLE.). My wife liked singing some Korean songs, and she was backup on some of the tracks she knew. We even got some praise from the owner as we left for our enthusiasm. All I need to do is getting the lyrics down, then dance like the Agents in the game do and I’ll be a singing room legend.

We had a great night out and did our own thing. We’re still planning on doing some Christmas shopping sometime this week, so even if we haven’t exchanged big ticket items for our anniversary, the chance to spoil each other will still be possible.

When I woke up this morning, I actually didn’t look outside or anything, but could hear the streets were "wet" as cars went by. I was finishing a book, so I didn’t pay much attention. Since the weather didn’t feel cold enough for any serious amount of accumulation to occur, I didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t until my wife went to leave for a bit that she opened the door and saw the snow. There was probably 10 centimeters or more of snow on the ground covering everything, making today the first real day of snow we’ve had all year.

It snowed on our wedding anniversary. Since we got married during a snow storm, this was actually a very nice day to remember. We had made plans to go out shopping and spending time together, but instead, we decided to "stay in" most of the day and go out for dinner to celebrate. We didn’t stay in long.

Yoshi (in Red) stares down Kangachi (A dog named "Dog" ) in blue

Yoshi got to see snow for the first time when we took him outside to the park near our apartment. He loved playing in the snow, and was running around greeting people, licking the snow, and burying himself. Due to his long hair, ice and snow balls formed on his legs. He looked like a little snow man come to life. We took pictures, talked to some other pet owners, and had fun laughing at Yoshi the entire time we were in the park.

After the trip to the park we gave him a bath to melt off the snow, warm him up, and get him looking respectable again. It’s a good thing we did, because we got a surprise call from my mother-in-law and an aunt. They dropped by our apartment to say congratulations and give us a cake. I got a scarf (my second this year) and we got a set of small forks to enjoy our cake. It seems like there is a cake for every occasion in Korea. We still haven’t finished off our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, and now we have to squeeze more dessert in the refrigerator.

Now we are getting ready to go out to dinner and have a nice night out, walking around in the snow on our wedding anniversary. It’s already been a year. It’s hard to believe sometimes. Pretty cool.

December is time for those retrospective "Year in review" meme-y sorts of posts. People make claims of absolute certainty to quantify the quality of things that have happened or were released in the past year, whether it be the best television series, game, or movie. Trivial things get forgotten, and things get declared the best or worst of the year. What if you could apply these sort of trivial procedures to the events in your everyday life? The winners and losers of the first annual Torgo Awards are as follows:

Nominees for Best Purchase of the Year:
1. Nintendo DS Lite with Homebrew cart
This this is an absolute blast. Not only do I have a stylish and cool portable video game machine, but it also does homebrew applications like reading comics, playing games, and lots of other neat stuff. While I was crazy about playing the Nintendo DS before, the ability to walk outside and actually see the screen is quite a revolution. If I actually had breaks at work I’d play this more. Right now, while it lives in my coat pockets and is seen on my person quite a bit, I only use it when I’m not busy, which is on the decline these days.

2. Yoshi
What more can I say about Yoshi? He’s an awesome dog, spends tons of time with me when I am home, has transformed my relationship with animals and my wife, has gotten me to exercise more often. Even if we had no intention of keeping him in the beginning, I’m so glad I have him now.

3. First Apartment as a married couple
We had to put down a monstrous down payment on our apartment once my last job threatened to toss us out on the street after their illegal employment fiasco. We had less than two weeks to find a place, move in, have it furnished, get everything done, then go to the United States for vacation. We had help getting some of the stuff done, like the ride to the furniture warehouse with our family, or the real estate agent being a distant cousin of my wife, but everything worked out very well in the end.

4. Airplane ticket to the United States
Seeing my friends and family is always one of the best things to do in the year. Last year my family came to me for our wedding, and this year my wife and I flew to the United States to see them. It was a long hellish flight, but once we got back, we had a wonderful time meeting everyone. My wife was amazingly good at remembering the family structure and we got lots of pictures to help sort out who was who for my Korean-in-laws. Plus, I got to hang out with my friends, catch up on some old times, see my perpetually traveling younger brother, and generally relax for a while.

Nominees for Worst Purchase of the Year:
1.  A Million Little Pieces, a Novel, by Some Jerkface
Remember this book? The one written by the guy that was lying about his whole rehab experience? That book that even if you read it as complete fiction was so outlandish by the end that you could hardly believe ANYONE would believe a guy trying to sell it as non-fiction, even if he WAS on Oprah? That book? Yeah. I bought it. The amount of self-delusional egotism dripping off the pages has stained my bookshelf where it sits. I can’t even look it the direction of the book without gasping and shouting "GAH! STUPID BOOK!"

2. Rhythm Tengoku, a Game Boy Advance Game, by the makers of WarioWare
WarioWare is awesome. A music game based on the same mini-games as the main game principal should be awesome too, right? No. It really, really wasn’t. While the game had style to spare, the game was not fun. I can deal with Japanese quirkiness. Hell, that’s something I enjoy most about my hobby, but this game was not something I could get into at all. Every game was a two minute "push a single button many times at a precise time" sort of mini game that simply was too boring to care about. Even the whimsical scenarios and decent music couldn’t cover up the fact that the game was repetitive. The reason why Warioware works and Rhythm Tengoku fails is that you play Warioware mini games for blasts of five seconds, where you are stuck playing music for minutes at a time doing the same thing over and over. I bought it used, thankfully, and played it a handful of times before selling it back at a slight loss. No thank you.

3. Some Bad Pork, from Wal-Mart
Grahhhhh! ZOMBIE TORGO eat BAD MEAT! MAKE Torgo LOSE control of ALL BODILY functions and causes EXTREME pain for ONE DAY. CHEAP meat BAD. BRAINS good!

4. My Donation to Nexus War for new character slots
If I had known that a text based Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game would have gotten me up at eight o’clock in the morning so that I could level up a character by clicking a button labeled "attack" when I had stumbled upon it, I should have simply saved my time. Instead, I went from playing a little, to actually donating to play more. I got obsessed with statistics, abilities, and even got friends hooked on the game. I deeply regret this decision. I wasted so much time playing this game. Even though it cost me a total of 10 dollars, the hours I wasted alone must have totaled entire DAYS of my life this year. What was I thinking? Thank goodness I’m clean and I don’t have any desire to go back to playing such a time destroying game anymore.

And the winners are!

In a surprise, "Best Purchase of the Year" goes to Yoshi, on the technicality that the plane tickets to the United States were actually purchased by my parents as a wedding present. This means they weren’t technically eligible as our best purchase. In the category "Worst Purchase of the Year", Nexus War wins hands down, as the rest of the items in the category combined couldn’t equal the amount of time wasted playing a boring MMORPG. Wow, more characters meant even more hours of time wasted every day! What a bad move!

The word "story", iyagi in Korean (이야기), is used completely differently than in English. It’s similar to the way we use the phrase "experience with" to describe your interactions and relationship with an object. Things have "stories" in Korean. An object like a notebook might have a story, as it is used and then discarded. Thus, the newest porridge restaurant near our school is called Chuk 1001 Iyagi (1001 Porridge Stories). While this might be a strange name in English, seeing the word "story" attached to something in Korean is fairly common, even if it is something as common as porridge.

The grand opening of the store was yesterday. They paid attractive women to wear flashy clothes and pass out menus while polluting the air with loud music for the entire day. I took the menu politely, and didn’t throw it out when I got home. My wife saw the strange flavors listed on the menu, (Cheese porridge?!), and it sparked a memory about the store. By the time I was on dinner break I was absolutely craving Ginseng Chicken porridge, my absolute favorite of all porridges. I convinced my coworker to go with me to the new porridge store with me for dinner between classes today. He wasn’t a fan of Korean style porridge, which he described as bland. Since I knew there had to be some flavor he would like, I talked him in coming over and checking out the menu before deciding. Eventually he settled on a "seafood porridge" that looked very good.

We sat down and admired the interior. A week previous the store had been a hard liquor store that had closed down. Now it was selling porridge in a moderately upscale setting. I ordered for my coworker and myself, and we got to talking. An elderly woman and her caretaker (daughter?) were the only other customers. The woman was shaking and needed help feeding herself. Porridge is said to have many health benefits, so perhaps that’s why they were eating here.

In the middle of the wait, a group of Buddhist monks came into the store. They were dressed in their gray winter robes. When Buddhists want money they aren’t subtle about getting it. They pull out a cow bell like piece of wood and bang on it with a stick. An annoying "tock tock tock" sound that drives everyone trying to have a conversation to either look at them in annoyance, or just pay them off so they stop being so noisy. The owner, as politely as possible, paid them off and pushed them out at the exact same time. Smooth.

The begging wasn’t done. There is a beggar that works our area of the city fairly often. I’ve seen her a few times while out to eat with my coworker. It must be her prime time begging hour. She’s the only beggar to work in English however. When we saw her on the street, she came up to us and said, "Give me some money." Not to be callous or anything, but the power of English education in Korea is undeniable. There are enough English speaking people for this woman to talk to that even as a beggar she needs to use English to survive. Too bad she doesn’t use the word "please" yet.  (Ok, that’s being callous).

The owner somehow calmed the second beggar enough to get her out the door. After that, our food arrived and I explained the proper eating procedure as well as some porridge related stories I had from my stay in Korea. This is yet another sign I’ve been here an incredibly long time. Not only do I have stories about eating porridge, but I have several that were interesting enough to discuss over the course of a meal. I don’t think I have 1001 porridge stories though. As a gift to us for being a customer on their first day of business, we got nice free tea mugs that have the logo of the store on them. Awesome. That just adds one more story about porridge to my collection..

On Sunday, I went with my dog to purchase some special dog food. Since Yoshi has a no-protein diet to prevent allergies, we must buy all of our dog food at pet stores that carry specialty food. This isn’t a major annoyance, because we have a local veterinary hospital not far from the park we usually walk at. I was concerned that Yoshi had developed an ear condition called "otitis", which is basically an infection in his ear canal. It’s common in his breed. I don’t know the signs of the illness, but I wanted the vet to check to make sure he had no problems.

I went to Macro 24 hour hospital in Weolpyeong-dong, which is next to the second E-Mart location in Daejeon. I decided to purchase the food, and while I was there, I asked Dr. Oh to check my dog’s ears. He quickly took Yoshi back to his desk. He then checked his ears and claimed that he did indeed have otitis. According to the doctor, it was "severe" in his right ear, and he recommended medication over the course of five visits two days apart. I would need to give him medication. as well as shots that would be administered during his subsequent checks at the hospital. This sounded fairly serious.

Something rubbed me entirely the wrong way about the procedure. The usual vet we go to is very good. We only went to Macro because I wanted to pick the food up on a walk. This was the first time I had gone to this hospital alone with my dog, and I was more interested in buying food that his health, since he seemed completely fine. Another thing that seemed strange was the fact that the vet never wiped the table surfaces between examinations, something my other vet was religious about doing. Another warning sign was the fact that the dog was never weighed before he gave me the dosages of his medicine. I’m not a vet, but even I know that you can’t give a little dog the same amount of medicine as a big one.

I was skeptical about his diagnosis, so I talked to my wife about the trip when I returned home with the medicine. When we went to administer his first feeding of medicine, we thought something was very strange. Yoshi had gotten treated for his skin condition in the past. Our previous doctor used antibiotics and steroids, but gave us a strict warning about the dosage due to the strength of the medicine. That was for a full body itch. This was only for his ears, but what we were given at Macro hospital was close to five or six times larger, if not more. The difference in dosage was alarming, and we both thought it was strange. We went back for his check up and got more medicine to cure his ear inflammation.

We fed Yoshi his new food, then we gave him medicine our usual way. We mix his medicine with plain yogurt. Yoshi ate all his medicine and was fine when we put him in the cage at night. When I woke up in the morning, I went in to let him out. He had made a mess in his cage. This was fine, except that instead of simply going to the bathroom, he had vomited thick yellow foam. The last time he had done this, we ran to our usual vet in a panic. We fed Yoshi breakfast, but he vomited repeatedly. Something was wrong.

We called our old vet, and he confirmed out suspicion. Thick yellow foam means that Yoshi’s stomach had been agitated by the incredibly strong medicine. Our old vet recommended we bring in Yoshi for observation. Sick or weakened dogs often die when given too much skin allergy medicine due to its potency.

Oh, hell no.

We packed Yoshi in his traveling bag and got in a taxi we had tissues prepared in case he decided to vomit in the cab. Thankfully, he held down whatever was in his stomach until we arrived at our old vet. He examined Yoshi’s eats with a fiber optic camera. He was completely free of any skin condition. Whatever Doctor Oh at Macro 24 hour hospital had been telling us about his ears being severely inflamed was a complete lie. We wasted 30,000 won on medicine that could have severely injured our dog out of greed from a crooked vet. The odd thing was, Macro 24 hour hospital came highly recommended by someone we knew that took his dogs there exclusively. We only went there due to its location near our house, but no longer. We now have a regular family vet.

Our "Good" vet works at Snoopy Clinic, which is near SaveZone department store, in Dunsan-dong. He’s the most honest, helpful vet we’ve found, and he speaks decent English. He treats dogs very well and is extremely knowledgeable. For new dog owners or foreigners, I’d highly recommend him. The trimming service is also the best we’ve found, and they do not use drugs or recommend sedation to get a decent cut. He doesn’t try to sell snake oil to people looking to take care of their pets, and is respectful of people’s desires while looking out for the welfare of the animals he services.

This is an Advent calendar with a twist. 25 days before Christmas, twenty five levels of platforming goodness. Holiday advertising at it’s best. This is an extremely hard old school Nintendo platform game with collectible "snowflakes" that unlock bonus content at the end of each level. At least, that’s what I’ve been told, because I have yet to actually beat anything with 100% completion. It’s challenging. Also, there is supposed to be some sort of bonus for completing all the levels at 100% by Christmas, a feat I am sure to never accomplish. It’s also got a new wave sort of soundtrack. Good holiday themed time waster. Check it out.

I have a class that the Korean teachers have deemed awful enough to assign "boy girl" seating. This only happens when the Korean teachers have as many discipline problems as I do. My students are still at the age of "Eww, members of the opposite sex!" so getting them sitting in the right place is a hell of a task. Once you have the class in split gender seating by rows, the likelihood of mischief drops considerably, but the stupidity and naughtiness is still only diverted. Nothing prevents its flow entirely.

Two of my paired students hate each other. They aren’t good enough to be trusted a few feet away from the teacher, so they sit in the very front. The class is completely full, and they can’t be moved without disrupting the delicate discipline ecosystem that has evolved. This means that every single trivial thing they do to torment each other happens right in front of me. Today, the boy had brought in some water in little plastic jar with a screw off lid. The other students called it "poison water".

Before the class had even started, he had poured some of the water on the table, had ripped up pages of the copies of the book we had made for him to study, and was trying to make spitballs to toss at someone across the aisle in class. This is happening directly in front of me. I have my desk next to his to hold my books. When I ask him what he’s doing, he gives me this, "But I haven’t thrown them at anyone yet!" look.

As I went around class, the girl and the boy fought over the water. The girl spilled some of it onto his papers, and when I came back to check his homework I asked him what he had done to his copies. He said that the girl had spilled it. She might have, but I asked him why he had it in the first place. He wouldn’t tell me what the water was for, so I took it. I was going to give it back to him at the end of class, but then he threatened the girl for getting his toy taken away. The boy wasn’t going to drink it. He said he was going to dump it on her head after class.

Great. Now I had to sort it out before the students went home, which meant keeping them after class. The girl loudly complained she had a art school class after this one and would not miss the bus. She rode the same bus as the boy, so she was willing to accept whatever revenge this boy was dishing out just to go on time. I decided I’d rather not have my students fighting everyday, so I told them both to stay after class. Here I thought I was doing the girl a huge favor. She was going to get to rat out her tormentor to a teacher, which is her absolute favorite thing to do in class. Instead, she freaked out.

I told them both to go to the office. The boy gets sent in for discipline every day, so he complied. He sat down immediately and waited. The girl, on the other hand, tried walking out of the school. I called her back to the office, and she came in, only to try to sneak out when I turned in some paperwork. She actually walked away from me when I gave her a direct order to stop, then tried to close the elevator door on my arm when I went to bring her back to the office. By this point, she had a HUGE crowd around her, and everyone was wondering why she was in trouble. I kept telling her that she was supposed to be in the office getting someone else in trouble, but now was actually in more trouble herself. If she was only bright enough to realize that when a teacher is seeking vengeance, it’s best not to step in the way.

Eventually, I got the girl out of the elevator, and a Korean teacher talked to her to get her story. Had she just stayed in the office like I had asked, she wouldn’t have had a crowd of 20 students watching her as she cried. I didn’t feel good how it turned out, but she brought it upon herself the second she decided she didn’t need to obey a direct order. Once the girl had been freed to go on her way, the boy got chewed out properly by the head teacher too. He was more upset, because the girl got in trouble and he thought that the hammer was really going to come down. We had wasted too much time with the girl, so the bus had to go. He’s actually supposed to come in tomorrow for the rest of his punishment. I’ll probably pull the girl aside and make sure she gets an earful too, because I’m actually more upset at her than him now.