SoccerDaze

I’m not positive, but this might be one of the longest amounts of time I’ve neglected my blog ever since its infancy. Good thing it’s not a baby, amirite?

But seriously, apologies. Want to know why I didn’t blog for a week and a half even though I traditionally, neurotically bordering on pathologically post at least on a weekly basis if only to have an outlet for the adverbial adverbage swilling in my head? Me too. Got no idea, especially considering how impossibly awesome my students are this semester.

Bowen: smiling

For reals.

I’m not a gushing person by nature, but they're fantastic. And this is why:

Last Wednesday I first got wind that this Thursday would be another English department soccer game. I vaguely looked forward to it, but in the back of my mind was the isolation that comes with being the only American. The only girl. I remembered the first time I tried to play at Kosin and was sent away since no one had told me it was a student-only game. The weekend went by.

This Tuesday afternoon, I was walking up to my office when I met Bowen, coming down the stairs. Bowen is a third-year and built like a brick wall, expressionless even when he smiles. Even when he's talking, I don't think he actually moves his mouth.

“Five o’clock,” he said ominously, holding up a spreadeagled hand. “Five o’clock Thursday.”

Daniel

Yesterday, I was rushing off to class, perpetually late to morning freshmen English, when third-year Daniel skittered by. Daniel’s a shorter guy, an excellent student with a dorky laugh. He often skitters, but he can also skitter around a full complement of defenders, all a good foot taller than him and land a shot from the corner of the eighteen. “Oh!” He starts a lot of sentences with ‘oh!’ “Oh, Thursday! Five o’clock! Bye!”

Today, the much-anticipated Thursday, I finished off 9 am freshmen English and stayed at my podium as my students swarmed forward, rather than out of the doors. Chloe--tall, bright, perpetually late to class--checked her attendance record. Grace, with big dreams to become a cartoonist, always gives me a personal goodbye. El--my elfin student who loves fairy tales, once brought me pictures with which to decorate my office, and picked and personally brought me the most perfect pink lotus flower I’ve ever seen in my life--stopped by to tell me that when her boyfriend visits from Seoul she wants me to meet him.

Matthew--skinny as a beanpole with one of those smiles that proves “exuberance is beauty”--and Kaka--an older student, fresh home after his military duties, hard-working and aggressive--hovered nearby.

Skinny Matthew.  Not his real smile.

I raised two eyebrows at them, half-smiling. They’re both soccer-mad and the last time the three of us played together we connected on a few nice passing plays. I knew what they were about.

Kaka, the “hyung” or “older brother” in this situation, looked to skinny Matthew, who speaks pretty good English for a freshman.

“Um, at five o’clock, we are playing soccer. Together-?”

“Yep, I’m coming!”

Kaka

Truth was, I was waffling about it--it’s been a stressful week, I needed to relax--until that moment. Matthew grinned and Kaka broke out into his “Okay!” that sort of means, “Great/I agree/Good idea” all at once. Heartfelt, impromptu, double high-fives are my favorite.

The day passed in a high-stress, high-energy blur. By five o’clock I’d had a nice, throbbing headache for the past three hours and knots in my neck. My voice was disappearing from trying to control a 46-person conversation class.

But it was Thursday. Five o’clock. And  Brick-wall Bowen, Skittering Daniel, Skinny Matthew, Okay! Kaka, and all the rest of the soccer mad English boys were there: Hoon, Gerrard, Torres, Snoopy, Matthew2, Kevin, Steve, Jacob, Mike.

We didn’t win the game. I didn’t play well. But I think I’m starting to understand the power of Korean group mentality, the power of inclusiveness even on an avowed introvert. And it's great.

**For the record, these pictures were taken somewhat under duress (ala most things I do to my students here). During our English department retreat, I passed my camera around the circle and told them they had to take a self portrait. They hated it because they couldn't look at themselves as they took the picture like you can with a smart phone. Consequently the picture quality suffered because the kids were super awkward with my digital. Also, I promised the kids I wouldn't post the pictures on my blog. Sorry, Hannah. I lied.

Timeline

One of my favorite speaking class activities is making a life events timeline.

"Make a timeline of your life," I tell my students, "that includes the five most interesting, important events in your life. You have fifteen minutes: don't write your name on it until later!"

Fifteen minutes later I collect the timelines, number them, and tape them on the wall, sans names. Students have to read each other's timelines, ask questions, and figure out whose is whose. Then, when everyone's figured it out, names are written and I can give the kiddos credit for in-class participation.

It's a great activity for the first day or so of a conversation class. It's fun, low-pressure, and gives the students a chance to write and read before speaking. When they do speak, they have someone else's grammar from which to construct questions. It requires all sorts of students to speak to each other and it's a get-to-know you. On the teacher side of things,  I find out who can use the past tense reliably and who can't. Moreover, I learn about important events in my students' lives, helping me connect students to their English names.

It's also helpful with giving me perspective into the interesting, important events of my students' lives:

I worry about sex education in this country, but I'm happy at least that her
brother made the same list as her smart phone.

I enter the Kosin University: COURAGE.

I don't know what sick (or sike) tongue is, but I think the squiggles underneath are supposed to signify something pretty traumatic. 

This girl talks about her puppy in every class. And I have her four times a week. What's the Korean expression for "Please expand your vocabulary"?

Pictures are always appreciated, students. Always.

Sometimes I think my students don't realize English is a real language and that people will understand them when they speak it. 

Jason is okay now! Don't worry!

Ah yes. And there I am - right up there with new puppies, smart phones, and playing table tennis. YES.

Peer Review

In no uncertain terms, my university has announced that our contract renewal will be based upon our students reviews. I can think of stupider things to do (eat broccoli deep-fried in chocolate sauce, assign Elaine 46 students in one conversation class and 39 in a composition class, for instance). However, I’m going on to graduate school and not renewing my contract, so I don’t much care. Nevertheless, filled with curiosity, I read my student evaluations from last semester. Apparently, I didn’t teach my students well enough for them to write their evaluations in English, so I had to use Google translate.

And therein, I found a blog sitting, waiting. Judge me as you will:

English Literature Readings:

1.      Classes can have hope. 

2.      :D

3.      Professors like!

4.      Was a good time

5.      : D

Average rating: 4.24/5

Freshmen Conversation:

1.      Professor too too good

2.       Well done

3.       Painting because there are many difficulties. ((회화 means “conversation” as well as "painting," turns out) 

4.       Like Elaine professor

Average rating: 4.17/5

Global English

It was a good time for one semester. Well done

Perfect challenge and test my class as much as Professor does to me

Thanks for an unforgettable lesson.

thank you ~ ~ ^ ^

Professor contribute to lively classroom atmosphere was lively and good.

I love you Elaine

Good very Gute Elanine

Lacking we teach as well as many other makers suffer ^ ^

teacher very good! English is very fun! god bless you ~

Benefits have been

Salutary lesson was

suffering has

Was able to get a good knowledge.

La Lecture of the first foreign professor and fun and a lot of tension, but I hear it was painless.

Take courses on English as fear disappear

elaine!!!! I studied very hard this semester. Thank you. ♥

Did much trouble for one semester!

 _thank you. profassor_

Professor done

Was

Elaine ~ I was very happy to meet you. Thank you.

bye ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Average rating: 4.4/5

my personal favorite?

"Suffering has"

But turns out, it's a mistranslation (like 90% of the above, probably). "Suffering has," my friend Kim informed me, means "thank you for suffering for us" rather than "I endured much suffering." Turns out that's what my students have been saying for the past year and a half and that's the phrase I was told to repeat after every soccer game:

수고하셨습니다!

My prayer at the beginning of this week was that I might be grateful for my job, and boy did my students step up to the task. They're an eclectic bunch (not a word I use to describe Koreans very often) and I'm pretty sure this semester will be something fantastic.

Granched by Gratitude

“Grateful” is not one of the g-words I’m overly committed to. I’m more of a “gung-ho” kind of gal. Or “game.” I like gargle, gibbet grunge, garrote, and granched as well (though dictionaries say “granched” is made up).

Recently, I’ve been trying to kindle up some my feeling of being grateful for my job. Here in Korea there are three types of jobs for your average English teacher: public, hagwons (private academies), and university. From what I gather from my friends, public schools are a bit like factory work. Everyone wears uniforms, teaches with a co-teacher who will probably spend most of her time insulting, ignoring, or haranguing you. Hagwons vary based on their owners and the age catered to, but most can be summed up by expletives. Sometimes (meaning the first month) everything runs smoothly and the kids are cute, the owner sweet, and the hagwon filled with magical unicorns. Other times pay is withheld, hours are changed, and the kids are hellions born hiding their true demonic nature behind adorableness.

These jobs—public and private—are like coffins.

They serve their purpose—paying off loans—but you don’t want to be in one. Also, you can never get out of them. Seriously. Or you can, but you don’t get your free flight home which is where the metaphor kind of breaks down.

In Korea, university jobs are the buffet at this country-wide wake. Your hours are flexible, your students are fully-functioning adults, and your co-teachers speak English and usually understand words like “contract” and “overtime” and “the hell with this.” Plus you get vacation time which, for everyone else in Asia, is a joke.

So why am I not grateful for one of the best jobs Korea has to offer? For the past couple of months I would have griped about the salary (it’s lower than the coffins’), the administration (Lord, beer me strength), my location (I’m at sea, on a mountain, Isolationapolis), and bizarre standards( only 30% of my classes can get As, even if more have earned it).

But all of those are red herrings. The real reason is that the rigmarole isn’t worth it in the short run. The short run is blank stares and late students, miscommunications and blind lesson plans, chaos and apathy in turns. In other words, even if the buffet is great, it’s still the buffet commemorating a casket occasion.

It’s the end of the semester now and finally—finally!—I’m starting to remember why we teach: improvement. My students who come to class consistently have, as I’ve promised them, shown improvement. My global kids—some of the lowest English-speakers in the school—not only know how to say “I didn’t get a handout,” but they willingly speak for fifteen whole minutes in English. It took three months of vicious bullying, but victory, my friends: victory is sweet.

So I am grateful. I’m grateful to my global students for listening, learning, and letting me coerce them into speaking English. I’m grateful to my juniors who have overlooked my first-semester snafus teaching an upper-level conversation class and learned their grammar anyway. To my freshmen who made some excellent skits yesterday and who laugh at my jokes. To my literature students who argued Maya Angelou and “Phenomenal Woman” with me for over an hour: thanks.

I Medical

Sometimes I view my job here in Korea as a form of glorified cheerleading.

Me: How can you ask for a favor?

Freshmen: *cough* *pretend to look for a pencil* *glare balefully at the world*

Me: Look in the book—you can do it! “Would you mind…”

Freshmen: Would you mind . . . . mumblemumblemumble . . .

Me: Would you mind what?

Bill: Would you mind . . .open . . . window. . . mumbleshamefacedmumble

Me: Great, Bill! That’s it! Keep it up!

Bill: Would you mind window mumblemumbleducksheadmumble open me?

Me: Not really—but good job! John?

John: hurple?

Me: Almost! Would you mind opening . . . *point to the window*

John: win . . . dow?

Me: the window, but yes! Great job! Go team!!!!! *double thumbs up, smile, nod encouragingly*

I’ve found myself naturally adopting this cheerleading mentality with every Korean who talks to me. I nod. I smile. I throw thumbs up left right and center. Everyone needs more encouragement, right?

Wrong.

Remember my soccer buddy who is made of awesome and all things sweet? He came back the other day and took me to soccer, which was excellent fun. I wowed the little boys, got some exercise and a ride home from a guy called Young Boom.

Soccer buddy (in Korean): Do you have an English nickname?

YoungBoom: Ahhhhhh TIGER!!! YA!

Soccer buddy (to me):  “Boom” means “tiger.”

Me: I’m not calling him Tiger.

Soccer buddy: Okay, bye!

BoomTiger: Do you like . . . ummmm . . . cheekin?

Me: Um, yeah! Chickin’s good. *thumbs up*

I abhor chicken. It is greasy and makes my stomach feel like it’s hosting an unhappy but high on ecstasy amoeba party.

BoomTiger: Team. Cheekin. Eat?

Me: Um, no. I have to go home and study. Don't worry! I can take the subway.

BoomTiger: No! No! I drive. I medical. Me.

Me: I see. Cool. *thumbs up, smile*

BoomTiger: Gum?

Me: Sure! *anything-to-make-the-awkwardness-go-away smile*

It will take at least twenty minutes to get home. I ask questions—short, not scary questions—I chatter. I try to be a friendly, appreciative passenger. BoomTiger doesn’t know much English, but he asks questions, too.

BoomTiger: You like pizza? Chickin? Pasta?

BoomTiger: I drive car. You like?

BoomTiger: You like alcohol?

BoomTiger: You like music?

BoomTiger: Do you know ghjdiicsak? Music?

BoomTiger: Are you hungry? Food by Kosin eat?

I tried. I really did. I tried to stay encouraging. But when he said “Michael Jackson” and proceeded to belt a sampling of some incomprehensible rendition, wobbling his head back and forth like a mating peacock,[1] I shifted irreversibly into “polite.” Finally, as I was wondering what might possess someone to be quite so confident in their inabilities, he finished his warbling.

 BoomTiger: Shim shim? Do you know shim shim?

My phone dictionary displayed gratitude, heartfelt thanks.

Me: Yes. I shim shim. Thank you for the ride home.

BoomTiger: You. Phone.

Me: Hmm. Phone. Yes?

BoomTiger: Shim shim. Call!

Me: Ye-es.

I decided to check my phone again where I see the secondary meaning of shim shim. Bored. Meanwhile, BoomTiger has figured this out as well by calling a friend to ask him for the translation. I nodded and smiled, applauding the kind of efforts I rarely see even in my most dedicated students. Good job, BoomTiger! You tried really hard! Keep it up! Work on your verbs! I was already nodding and smiling when BoomTiger said, triumphantly:

BoomTiger: You bored. Call. Me!

Me: Oh. 

Oh please no. 

BoomTiger: Bored, yes. You? Me. Call!

Me: Oh, yes, bored, but--phone?

BoomTiger: You call. We food place. Eat. Alcohol. Okay?

Oh, be still my fluttering heart.

What went wrong? What could possibly make a boy think that, after sitting in the same car for ten minutes struggling to communicate the simplest banalities (even if she didn't already do that for a job), a girl would want to voluntarily sign up to do it again? Did I miss something? On the bright side, I've now got "medical insurance."

BoomTiger: You sick? Me call! I medical.

Oh good.

---

[1] Or rather, how I imagine mating peacocks do as they spread their useless but beautiful plumage.

Kids Vote Republican

If you never knew it, my sister is an incredible writer. It's galling because she's actually a music teacher and spent most of her school years bs'ing her way through writing and reading assignments, but she writes a mean blog post. Most of her writing is about her job as a middle school orchestra teacher. Since not all of you grew up in a family of musical educators, I think you'll find the stories of the job entertaining. Plus my sister's a riot.

Check it out: Daily String Warm-ups: A String Teacher's Musings

Also, check out the etymology of "riot:" which is TOTALLY different that the rather coloquial usage above.

Intimidated by Joy

The other day I was editing my novel (don’t laugh and don’t ask to see it because at this stage it’s laughable) and I discovered that most of the scenes I’d written were downers. Even the scenes that were supposed to be happy carried this dour, cynical certainty that things were going to get worse pretty soon. And I realized:

I don’t think people will believe me when I write about happiness and joy.

So much so that nothing I write—and usually nothing I say in conversation—ever conveys the unbridled joy that I know. Always, always I try to reign it in with a more believable frown.

The implications make me gag a little. It’s as if we all believe that true joy is a delusion at worst and an illusion at best. But I also realized:

My joys are much more personal than my sorrows. The situations, the people, the thoughts that make me truly happy mean so much to me that I try to hug them tight to my chest because if someone were to see them and to disbelieve them, ignore them, or, God forbid, laugh at them, that joy might be lost forever. Besides, if joy is so personal, can I possibly write it in such a way that you don’t gag from sentimentality?

It’s a tall order. It terrifies me to try. But “For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.” So:

Every Wednesday I take a two-bus commute across the city to a little apartment situated on the fourth floor, above the third-floor Nore-bang.[1] When I open the door faces turn and laughter pours out into the hallway before I can slip the door closed. Shoes spill over the entryway, into the tiny, over-warm living room packed tight with twelve or so of us. I yank my shoes off quickly, tight-roping over stretched legs and sprawled conversations into my usual corner, sinking into our circle. Two hours later, the circle stretches wide as we go our separate ways—by bus, subway, scooter, and foot. We’ll meet again next week.

That’s the best I can do until I grow up a little more. The happiest moments of my life have been when I disappear into the heartbeat of a group like that. It’s been a long time since that’s happened to me on the soccer field or in an orchestra: shared passion, shared goals.[2] Here in Busan it’s difficult to disappear. As a foreign teacher I stand apart—naturally excluded from my students both by nationality and occupation. It is inevitable, understandable, an interesting part of the expat lifestyle to be apart in a culture obsessed with togetherness.

And it makes my Wednesday nights all the more joyful.

To be honest, I'm still not completely sure what we were doing in this picture since we were supposed to "make a
Downton Abbey face" and I've only watched one episode. Still, I think it gives a decent insight into the group.
Squirrels notwithstanding.

---

[1] Karaoke room, for you non-expat waygooks.

[2] Punny!

A.J.

A.J. is tall for a Korean girl. She’s pretty and tomboyish and the first time I met her she was glaring at me from the back of my Global English classroom. Glaring death. I don’t remember if she had her arms crossed or if she slouched back in her seat, but that’s how I picture it now. For the first few weeks of class, she was what my mother calls a sourpuss.  Her death glare met me when I gave directions, when I elicited responses, when I happened to be within 10 yards of her.

Unfortunately, my instinctual reaction to any student who is not happy to be in my classroom is one of instant animosity. You don’t want to be here? Fine! I don’t want you here either![1] I don’t remember if I was cool or aloof, but that’s how I picture it now. Despite her decent comprehension, I had to drag answers out of her: “my mother is worker;” “my father is worker;” “my hobby is sports with friends.”

I have several students like A.J. this semester and, aloofness aside, I find that I’m drawn to many of them. I liked A.J.—almost immediately. She's the only girl student I have that likes sports and even if that emotion is distaste for my class, there’s a warm place in my heart for visible Korean emoting. I was curious.

I was looking forward to her midterm where I can pry a little; a one-on-one conversation about family and introduction stuff can explain a lot about a student. Maybe I could solve the mystery of the death glare.

A.J. came into her midterm.

I smiled and said hi. She looked nervous when she sat with her purse on her lap; she wasn’t glaring.

And that’s all I remember. I have no idea what her parents’ jobs are or where she’s from or why she chose Child Welfare as her major. I have no idea what her grade was, how the midterm went. None whatsoever.

            I have no idea why she came into class today with all kinds of spunk. I have no idea why she sits up straight and volunteers answers or even asks questions about words she wants to know. I have no idea what changed to make her actually smile after class and say “See you later!” None whatsoever.

            I like to think she woke up a couple days ago. She sat up in bed, frowned, and said, “The hell with this not being awesome stuff. I got this. I’m tall and I’m smart and I’m going to rock the world.”

---

[1] I will never be a good person. I know this. There are other things to be like hungry, hard-working, hirtellous—and that’s just the h’s.

Feeling Korean

On Thursday, our English department head told us, laughing, that English department heads always get cancer because foreigners give them so much stress. Maybe, she added, I’ll get breast cancer. Ha! Ha! Ha!

            We tried to smile politely because, being veterans of Korea, we know sometimes things are lost in translation. But still we’re not sure if it’s a joke or what the joke is or why our department head is both laughing and why she thinks the very simple issues we’ve raised are nuisance enough to kill her. Surely it’s more stressful for a foreigner to live in Korea than a Korean to interact with a couple foreigners. Surely our requests for our contract to be honored are reasonable. Surely.

Surely?

            The longer I’m in Korea, the more I see and feel Korean. Not only do I finally notice my small face and high nose; I’m happy to have them. Although a medically dubious claim, our department head’s stress to the point of cancer is beginning to make a lot more sense to me.

            When Koreans are told to work overtime, they do it. And they do it without overtime pay, incentives, or ill-will toward their company. Overtime isn’t good news to them, but there’s no furrowing of the brows that says, “Why should I? Is this the best way to increase productivity? Have you thought about x, y, and z?”

            Time is not yours to arbitrate in Korea; you are too far down on the totem pole for that. You may want more time to sleep or to be with friends, but you are a student now: time is dictated by your professors. Now you’re a company worker: time is given to you by that company. You have to earn time; it is not an essential right. Right now the company is busy, so, company employee, you stay until 11 each night instead of the tacitly assumed 9:30 and, for fun, we’ll have a mandatory company retreat on Saturday and Sunday. We’ll play games and drink soju and it will increase productivity through team spirit. You will not experience more stress.

            Why don’t you quit? I asked my friend. She works in a hospital, and for about two months every year they work three hours overtime every day without pay. She shrugged.

            “There’s more work for the hospital at that time,” she explained. “And if I quit . . . other companies are worse.” She laughed. “I finish work at seven or eight on a bad day but on Facebook I see my friends at Seoul writing ‘Early day’ and like that when they finish work so early.”

            Here at Kosin, while we foreigners are dragging our feet on some random government or school stipulation, weighing the benefits for our students and the logic behind the decision, the Korean teachers don’t bat an eye. They certainly don’t raise questions like, “Is it ethical for a Christian school to violate a contract—taking away pensions and severance—in order to save money?”

            Our department head blinks at us when we do. “Everyone is taking a pay cut. No one gets a pension anymore. Even Korean teachers. Actually, three art teachers were changed to part time recently.”

            “In violation of their contract?” We are horrified.

            She didn’t understand why. The next issue—getting into the English department office when the secretary locks us out—was similarly thorny.

“Our secretary . . . I cannot convince her. She is stubborn. The secretary wants extra pay for coming to extra events,” our department chair said, shaking her head in disappointed frustration.

Now it was our turn to be baffled. Convince her? Of what? Why shouldn’t she get pay for extra work?

Photo unrelated except as evidence to my parents that I'm still alive.

It all makes me hate those geography textbooks we had growing up that covered every spare inch of their spreads with colorful pictures of cultural dress and drama and transportation methods of other cultures to explain their differences with America: windmills for the Dutch, yellow and blue-jerseyed Soccer players for Brazil; the Nutcracker for Russia; Sushi and chopsticks for Japan. The unknown and unheard-of traditions. As if those things separated us; as if any of the unknown clothes, language, dancing, chopsticks—were the barrier that kept us from understanding one another.

As if it weren’t the known—the assumptions, the unquestioned—that was the real problem. 

Rhythm, Music, and My Man

I am hurt today. One of my better students said something unkind about my teaching abilities, and another agreed with him in front of the class. I came home crying, ashamed, upset at knowing that he’s right—I don’t teach that class very well. Otherwise the comment would not have hurt me. I also don’t play soccer anymore or practice my violin very much. Nothing happens with my writing and I step on my kindle and leave my camera behind and feelings of worthlessness are scarily able to slip into my mind.

As my good friend Alyssa would say with characteristic enthusiasm and some hand-flailing:

fuck. that. shit.

I am Fallen and God is the one who picks me up. I am worth so much and it’s not because my there’s anything worthy about me—about my teachings skills, or work ethic or success or my inherent humanity[1]. I am worth more than all the riches of the world because I am created, loved, and cared for by Christ. I will do everything for him—including work extra hard to be a better teacher, forgive myself when I fail and forgive my students when they hurt me.

Back off, doubt. This bitch be armed with Bonhoeffer.

“The existence of a natural right of the individual follows from the fact that it is God’s will to create the individual and to endow him with eternal life.”

“God gives before He demands.”

I'm crazy for you.

---

[1] What a joke. We know what humanity does when left to its own devices and it is not something that brings us worth. Pol Pot, gay-bashing, Christian-hating, self-absorption, and an ineffable God complex.