While I was waiting for 태진 this evening, one of my younger students, Joe [11 years old] was strolling round with a SHINee poster. I asked him about it and we were trying to fathom out the name of the member [sorry SHINee fans, I don't know their names D:] and then he asked me if I liked 원더걸스. I told him I did and he ran off. I was just about to leave with 태진 when he ran up to me and gave me the card above :D

The next bit is an extension of the awesome, so read on. I took the card and said, “아~ 유빈아, 사랑해~” [kidding obviously :P] and he said, in English beyond his capabilities, “Oh, Alex! Your girlfriend will be mad!” *uses fingers to make pointy devil horns* XD

My face went from O_O, to :D, to XD and then I ran away :D I wanted to hug him but he was too busy battering a friend with his SHINee poster XD

I challenge anyone to say I am not a kick-ass teacher after I tell you that the CD and poster is what I gave one of my favourite middle school students for his birthday today :D He bought me a 빅뱅 for my birthday and I thought it only right that I return the favour. I wanted to buy him the new 소녀시대 album but they’re too busy being ditsy on Factory Girl. He was really pleased with it and all the other boys in the class were jealous when he opened the poster. It was my first time seeing it and all I’ll say is that I might buy the CD just for the poster XD

Also, if you like 80s music, or even if you don’t, watch this and laugh.

My middle school students are taking exams right now so a lot of my classes are quite empty. Sometimes this is good and sometimes it’s a bit difficult because if it’s only the ones that usually sit quietly and don’t talk, then I have to do all the work. That was almost the case in my last two classes today but thankfully they were behaved and worked hard for me ^^

The first class had one chatty girl and one boy that always says, “hello” but doesn’t say much else unless poked. We did the lesson and they talked to me a little but I had to drive the conversation mostly. The boy had asked to listen to ‘Number 1′ by 빅뱅 yesterday and today he asked me where he could download it. I said I’d e-mail it to him and I did when I got back from work. I even wrote the e-mail entirely in 한국어 :D

I thought I was onto a winner when the bell went because I hadn’t seen any students from my final class around. I was getting ready to go home when 태진 came and said there was a student waiting in his class. I went in there and it was the new kid. I say ‘new’ but he’s been here two or three weeks now. So it was to be just the two of us *bursts into song* for the 45 minutes…I needn’t have been worried because although he was quiet, he was as polite, kind and generally pleasant as I could possibly have wished for. In class he’s quiet in comparison to the other students but he was forced to deal with me one-on-one which I felt bad about, but he dealt with it well. We laughed, asked questions about each other and did some studying too. He rocked my socks by saying, “I hope we can talk more later. You are a good teacher.” as he left *weeps* My students are adorable XD

On a side note, I am so going to go into Spris tomorrow morning and buy some shoes. I wanted to go in today but bottled it Dx

I don’t know about you, but I tell the time to the nearest five minutes. Korean school children do not >> Here is a typical conversation during class:

Student A “Alex, what time is it?”
Me “It’s 11:05.”
Student B “No it’s not. It’s 11:04.”
Me *resists urge to beat students senseless* “…Turn to page 47 please.”

I swear, I come so close to throttling some of them. At first I thought it was some sort of joke but they are deadly serious that I was that one minute out and it seems to get right under their skin. Maybe I should do it more often :P

진선 [JinSeon] bought me tickets to the SMTOWN LIVE’08 concert :D She managed to get me ‘R’ Seats even after trying for over an hour. Thank you so much :D

I’m seated in D6 so if anyone else is going or knows someone who is, please let me know. I’d really rather not have to wait in line with a billion excited fangirls on my own >>

In other news, Ellen, one of my favourite students left yesterday. It sucks because she was a really good student and one of the absolute pleasures to teach. Thankfully, things are going well outside of school right now, so it all evens out.

Yesterday morning/afternoon I was standing in the melting heat handing out fans to the kids as they came out of a local school. Imagine the picture above but with heat waves coming off the floor >> The response was mixed. Some students ran towards me to grab a fan, others came up slowly and some walked past me to go to one of the Korean teachers. To be fair, I wouldn’t be my first choice in that situation :P

After about an hour the Boss came back and took us out for some lunch. I had some hot rib soup which was pretty nice. When we were done we walked back to the academy and bummed around until classes started. 심심해 ±_±

Why wasn’t I doing things like this when I was in school? I suppose I don’t have that Korean ‘thing’ that makes them enjoy taking pictures and videos of themselves but I wish I did :P

The song is 발자국 by Monday Kiz and I have uploaded the video on Megaupload here :) Totally stolen from 진선’s blog with her permission.

[EDIT] Here is a link to the original video without the music.

I haven’t posted anything about what happened during my day for quite some time so I thought I’d write about some of the little things that happened today. Nothing crazy exciting but little bits of goodness to make it worthwhile. And in chronological order, we begin.

First thing I did today, or forgot to do was my ‘Day in the life of’ post >> It was lunch time when I realised that I’d forgotten to do it yet again. I’ve been trying to do it for about a week now and every day I get to lunch time and realise that I’ve forgotten. I promised Tali that I would just now on MSN so I’m hoping that will force me to remember tomorrow.

Work for the most part was pretty standard until dinner time. Well, I say “dinner” but all that we had was some cake that one of the student’s mothers had brought in. The cake was great but it wasn’t what we needed at that time and so we were all a little hungry afterwards >> You think it would end there but no. James ordered me some food that I ate during a five minute break :D Unfortunately, because I had to eat it so quickly, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I might have and I ended up giving myself slight indigestion DX

Don’t be fooled by the above ‘Love Letter’. They were definitely taking the St. Michael out of me but in a funny way. I accepted it and gave them some candy to shut them up :P

In the same class there was a period of sheer embarrassed agony for me. We had a some time at the end of the lesson and so we played Pictionary. Yuri drew what was supposed to be something in reference to a new drama but to me looked like something very different. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one that thought so which turned out to be my downfall. One of the other girls beckoned her over and whispered in her ear. I have no idea what was said, but by the laughing and her reaction, I guessed it was the same thing I thought it was. I swear I didn’t move my mouth that much but Yuri picked up on it and asked me if I knew what it was. My silence only served to prove that I did and that of course just sent them into peels of laughter D;

Last but not least was my most advanced class but out of a normal class of seven, only two showed up because of the exam preparation. They are both very intelligent but quite quiet when I’m teaching. Anyway, I needn’t have worried because we had a good lesson with no awkward silences and we actually talked a lot which was nice :)

And one more time, I will DEFINITELY take the photos tomorrow…*hides*

Meeting students outside of the academy is definitely worth it as today’s haul proves :D I picked up some caramel cake from Suzie who I saw with her mother on Sunday outside Home Plus. She’s outrageously adorable and she will definitely break some hearts when she’s older.

The second gift was a plum from Emily and her mother who I just saw on my way home from work just now. She said hello and then her mother gave her a plum to give to me ^^

You’ll also notice the blue Mickey Mouse phone charm that Elisha gave me. She gave me a red one yesterday but asked if she could change it this afternoon. I’m not fussed what colour is but I know I want to have more phone charms :P

At the end of my penultimate class today I witnessed what has to be one of the most obscure games in history. I’ve never seen anything like it and I couldn’t really fathom the rules behind it. I told them we didn’t have games like this in England but I suppose we do. They certainly aren’t played as often as this though and also, we don’t hit each other as much for losing.

Sometimes they ask me if I’ll play but I don’t want to be hit and I don’t want to hit them either. It would be just my luck that a parent would walk by and see me hitting a student XD