Wizville

Ugh to getting up at 7AM to go to work. How did I ever used to do this when I was in school? I even have to go to bed at a halfway-decent hour, and I've started drinking coffee in the mornings (Starbucks coffee full of chocolate and milk with whipped cream on top, but still).

I've been to Wizville Preschool for two days now. Doug left me a fantastic lesson plan and schedule, so I have instructions for everything I need to do. It was very helpful, but I was still nervous about teaching, especially since the kids are a little bit insane. My main class is Sinsaimdang, which consists of twelve kids who are all five or six years old. Some, like Shirley, are adorable. Others are driving me insane. But I can keep them under control more or less, and Doug's partner Monica is there to help me when things get out of hand.

Wizville is an English language school, so the kids aren't allowed to speak Korean. The teachers aren't called seon-saeng-nim like they would be in other schools, but (name)-teacher. I'm Christina-teacher. The kids find the spelling of my name interesting enough that I'm fast becoming Christmas-teacher instead.

Monica and I switch off giving lessons. She's really good at engaging the kids and getting them interested in the subjects. I play it pretty by-the-book, and the kids seem to spend a lot of time staring at me blankly. Kyle, Doug's friend who also works at Wizville, says that I just have to learn how to talk to them. The kids speak really good English, but they're still just kids. I have to speak in their vocabulary.

On Thursday I had a P.E.-type class with a different group of five-year-olds. As they started filing into the little activity room, they started running around and screaming. I was supposed to line them up against the wall to begin, but I waited until they were all through the door. While I waited, two of the first kids in ran smack into each other face-first. The girl fell to the ground, holding her head and crying. The boy put a hand to his mouth, saw that he was bleeding, and started bawling himself. I did my best impression of this painting:



Luckily, some other teachers rushed to my rescue and took the injured kids away to comfort them. I lined the rest of the kids up, and they peered up at me with terror in their eyes. Somehow I managed to change the mood and get them interested in impersonating farm animals, but I was a little shaken.

The next day, Friday, was much better. I've started getting the hang of things. P.E. went really well, and the kids in my main class are starting to warm up to me. In the afternoon, I had a post-kinder class of seven-year-olds. That was fun. The older kids speak much better English. This makes them easier to control, but also more difficult because they're capable of going off on tangents. Doug's instructions told me that if one of them misbehaves, I should write their name on the board and put an "X" by it. Apparently they've been taught well, because all I have to do is threaten them with an "X" to get them to calm down.

All the other teachers are very nice, especially Monica who has been a lifesaver.

Today was Saturday, so I slept in and then walked all over Itaewon and the riverfront park. Later I'm going to the World Cup game where they're showing it at the Coex mall. It's within walking distance, and it's supposed to be just as big a crowd as at City Hall.

It's been miserably hot here. The temperature isn't too high, so I don't know if it's just the humidity or if my illness in China is still making me sensitive. But I've started sleeping on top of the covers, naked, and spread-eagled, and I'm still sweating so much I can barely fall asleep. I'm also getting heat rash all over my legs, and I know it's heat rash because when I hose myself down with cold water in the shower it goes away (for all of five minutes). Gawd, it sucks being a delicate flower.

Maybe if it rains at the game I'll actually manage to be cold for a while. I think I'll conveniently forget my umbrella.