next week our two seventh grade girls have a test that will determine what high school they are eligable to attend. they believe that this test will determine the quality of their lives, that if they don't get into a good high school they will not get into a good college and then in society they might as well be dead. this is a paraphrased quote. they used the word dead. emma said that although she knew she wouldn't be physically dead, socially she would be. she is so stressed out that she has drawn a slit on her wrist with red pen to relieve her tension.
I know she'll do well, she is extremely quick-witted and intelligent, but it bothers me to know that these girls don't get to be carefree at all as seventh graders, they are already having to make choices which they believe will determine their entire future, and they believe that one slip up will doom them forever. of course I take talk of suicide seriously, even when it's said in a joking manner, and I tried to tell her that this test does not determine her worth as a person, that no matter what happens she has choices, that even if her choices in korea were to end up being limited, she could go somewhere else. in the u.s. this girl would quickly surpass most students her age. when I said that she said, "just pick up and start again?" in an almost sarcastic manner, like the idea was appealing to her but she didn't believe it would really be possible. I don't think it will be necessary, like I said I think her scores will be excellent. I just feel for these kids, all the pressure that is on them from themselves, their parents and their society. emma and rose, as seventh graders, say that they believe their country's future rests with them and that since the country is small they have no choice but to be hyper-motivated and successful. can you even fathom something like that coming out of the mouth of a seventh grader in the u.s.?...and then in other ways they are just normal kids, giggling and trying to get me and tricia to let them talk through their whole lesson instead of doing work, etc...

speaking of motivation, I need to buckle down and study my korean a lot more. since I'm paying for these lessons I need to get the most out of them. I'm doing well remembering how to say things, that's fairly easy for me. I pick up on sounds very quickly through repetition. it's the reading and writing that's tripping me up. I still don't have my vowels straight, many of the consonants confuse me...they look so similar to one another, and there are seperate letters for sounds that, when spoken, have almost no detectable distinction. the 'b' and 'p' sounds seem interchangable to me most of the time because the difference is so subtle. that's what's tripping me up on everything else, I'm still stuck on the friggin alphabet! what I need to do is completely ban the t.v. for a few days and do some intensive studying.

the refrigeration saga continues. the other night I turned it down as low as it could go and left it...for about 24 hours everything stayed frozen. then, last night when I got home from work I opened it to find that everything was lukewarm and there was no detectable refrigeration at all. opened the freezer to find the same situation. my grapes were mushy. my zuchinni was mushy. I threw them away and turned the dial back up...this morning when I woke up, thing were frozen again. presumably, I must resign myself for the next six months to having a freezer, and a slightly less powerful freezer, and no refrigerator. oh well. what are ya gonna do.

teaching yesterday was especially fun. I was in a goofy mood for some reason, and had a lot of fun with the kids. I have to keep that in check though...I know that the standards for teaching here are strict, and too much fun is not looked up favorably ;-). at one point I had a group of girls playing the spelling game (self explanatory- I say a word, they raise there hands if they know how to spell it, I call on them, and they spell it. I tell them if it's right or wrong), and they were so insanely excited that they would scream when they got a word right. literally scream. which I don't mind. I mean shit, if they can get that excited about spelling then that's awesome. but eric, the dude who runs the desk and does a lot of the discipline, kept peeking in the door to see what was wrong...and I know it's not exactly appropriate for them to be screaming. I *was* telling them to stop. but I just don't think it's so wrong for kids to be loud. they are naturally loud. let them be loud! let them have fun! especially if they're having fun doing something educational, ya know? this is why I know that long term I need to not work in a school setting (at least a traditional one)...I have too much fun with children to keep them as structured as school requires.

earlier in the day, with some of the tiny kids (first or second graders), I was teaching them to write a book review. we were using a book that linda (adorable, smart-as-a-whip little girl) had read. they had to list the characters, which included a monkey, a fish, a dog, an elephant, a gorilla, a duck, a snake, a cat, a bird, and children. when we got to the events, linda said "the monkey eat ice cream." this set them off.

child 1: the monkey eat the gorilla!
me: the monkey ATE the gorilla??!! the monkey would explode! the monkey is small, the gorilla is biiig. his stomach would burst!

they giggle madly, and begin firing off a chorus of smaller things eating bigger things, to which I respond with an incredulous "on no!" or "oh my goodness!"

child 1: monkey eat elephant!
child 2: fish eat cat!
child 3: duck eat gorillla!
child 4: cat eat elephant!

this went on for at least five minutes, and culminated with us drawing pictures of the snake having eaten an elephant and the fish having eaten a gorilla. it was great fun! then, at the end, sweetly and quietly,

linda: maybe, a bird eat teacher!

I laughed my ass off :-).

then a couple classes later with some slightly older kids, we were doing a fill-in-the-blank exercise where I have them read the sentence and decide which word goes there.

scott: a dog is big. a hamster is...teacher!
me: a hamster is teacher!!? teacher is small and furry with a tail?
all of them, laughing: yes, yes!!

then on the next question, terry: there are...teacher trees in the woods.
me: teacher trees!? like this?
and I proceeded to draw a tree with bangs and glasses, which they found uproariously funny.

yeah, I am having entirely too much fun with these kids sometimes, and I love it :-).

I was going to blog about a bunch of insights I'm having about myself and patterns of behavior and emotion and adjustment and a bunch of introspective crap like that, but I think I am all blogged-out for today. perhaps tomorrow can be reflective blog post day.