Almost a Month!

I'm not sure if this is the longest I've been without going home.

I don't want to say it is, but I went home for so many weekends during college - there was even a horrible weekend where I went home crying because I just couldn't handle staying with my roommate any longer. I went home a lot. If I didn't go home, I went to Dan - who quickly started to feel like a second home, no matter where he was.

Either way, this weekend is going to mark my one month anniversary of arriving in Korea! Woo! I'll probably spending this weekend much like I spend every other weekend here in the big K.

Alone and drinking.

But! Great news! This weekend might be one of my last lonely-lonely weekends for a long time, becauuuseee...

...Dan's coming next weekend! Next weekend! Next weekend! I'm excited in real life you guys! I'll be heading up to Seoul next Saturday and possibly meeting him at Incheon so I can make sure he doesn't get horrendously lost like I did upon arrival. I'm a little nervous about navigating everything on my own, but what's the worst that could happen? I got here, didn't I? (The cab driver bought my bus ticket to get here, everyone basically handheld me every step of the way, I haven't actually had to talk to someone for directions since I got here because I've been relying on my cell phone. So yes, the worst could be pretty bad I suppose.)

Anyway, being a teacher is weird.

I'm not entirely sure I'm too great at it. The class structure for one of my classes is so confusing, I don't understand it at all and especially after tonight, I feel like it's a million times more nonsensical but I don't know who to ask. I'm apparently the first one teaching with this material - does that mean I just make it up as I go along? Because that's what i'm about to do. Things like having to administer a review test on vocabulary even though they were never given the vocab books make me seem like the Wicked Witch of the East. I hate it. They hate me (I mean, they're teenagers, so it's not exactly like I'm a special case here). It's pretty bad.

Come to think of it, I think I might have been the only person back home who never had that "I want to be a teacher when I grow up!" moment during school. I also seemed to be the only person not related to a teacher, though, so maybe that has something to do with. Either way, this was never in my stars. It's strange and foreign and sometimes I wonder what the hell I've gotten myself into.

But there are some times when do I really, really like what I'm doing. 

I have a class today (Wednesday, America) that's just a supplementary session - so essentially three hours of sitting around reading through a single textbook and working through easy problems. There are only three girls in the class, they're all very young, and all very adorable.

But last week was the first session, and I met them for the first time. There are two that are clearly friends outside of class, and sat next to each other right in front of my desk. But then there was a third girl, who came in, sat down on the opposite side of the room and just huddled.

The other two girls spent the whole class answering questions, getting things right, speaking out loud and asking me things when they wanted to. It was a great three hours. But the girl in the corner just...didn't. I couldn't really get her to speak. She would get frustrated and shake her head and clam up whenever she started to say something, and she always spoke so quietly. At the end of that first class, I felt horrible, because I felt like she had left herself out and I'd been there so many times.

So this class, I decided I would do something different. There's only three of them, and it's not like they have to take any quizzes. It's just us and this silly book.

So I got up to my classroom today and did exactly what I had been thinking about for the past week: I set sail for Desk Island.

I pushed four of the desks into a little huddle in the center, put their vocab lists and worksheets on each one, and waited for them to come in. When they came in, none of the girls understood right away - they all wanted to sit in the rows like usual, like I guess they do in every other class, ever. But when I let them know they were sitting in the little desk-huddle, they looked confused, but followed. And when the bell rang, I just scooted my chair over to the empty desk at their island.

The quiet girl was the one I did this for. I'm not worried about the other two, they're both outgoing and they have each other. And Desk Island was fun - I sat with them and we did the work together instead of me standing up at the board while they remain scattered at all corners of the Earth. 

And you know what? It worked almost immediately. Last week I'd had the two of the three of them reciting answers while the third hid her face behind her hair. This week, by the end of the class she was the most vocal of all. I can get her to read, answer questions, and together we can always figure out the word she's looking for so she didn't clam up as much!

And at the end I asked them, "Do you guys want to keep the desks like this? Or do you want to go back to rows?" The two girls shrugged and after some prodding admitted they wanted to keep the desks like this for our class. 

I looked at the quiet one, and immediately she smiled at me, and jabbed her finger down on the desk.

So Desk Island is staying, you guys, and maybe I might not be so bad at this after all.

I teach them things, clearly. Not pictured is an hour later, 

when I "taught" them the names of the Backstreet Boys.