One of those days!

I just finished teaching my last group of kids today and I need an opportunity to de-stress! This public school arrangement is a little tough at times! You know all the wonderful things I said about Korean kids last year?! I have learned that kids are kids and this public school deal has showed me that it isn't that much different from home.
Let me tell you about my day....

It started out with rain and gloom. I didn't feel 100% and I also wasn't feeling entirely prepared for my classes as I had skipped prep time yesterday to go to the immigration office. However, the day began with the usual bus ride. As an aside...I think riding the buses here in Korea should be considered an Olympic sport. I stand beside all these Korean girls who wear short mini-skirts and high heels and seem to have this innate ability for balance. I am the crazy white lady wearing work clothes and running shoes who grasps at anything and anyone for stability and still goes flying. Today was an exceptionally bad ride (I thought the bus was going to tip over!) and to make matters worse, I had an umbrella in one hand that prevented me from using two hands to hang on and my umbrella kept whacking people. I am sure it was quite the sight!

I arrived at school unscathed and managed to prevent any stabbings with the umbrella. On top of my teaching load today which involved some nightmarish Grade 5 classes, I also had to run a club activity called 'English Animation' that happens once every two weeks. For some reason, only boys signed up for this club activity (sigh) and it just so happened to be a combination of all the most horribly behaved boys from all of my other classes. I couldn't believe the combination of kids as they walked through the door. I knew it wasn't going to go well right from the get-go! I normally have a Korean teacher with me for classes to help with management, but I don't have one for the club activities- which is where I need it the most! Classroom management can be tough at times when the kids understand you! The first two boys walked in punching each other, a couple others followed who were soon rolling on the ground wrestling and everyone was yelling before it even started- it was absolute chaos! After trying an assortment of techniques involving yelling in Korean (and boy does it scare them to have a crazy white lady yelling with words they understand), I finally had their attention. I went to play the dvd we were to watch, but my computer decided to give me error messages in Korean! At this point the class is in chaos again and I couldn't get any of the dvd's to work. The tape player worked so I shoved in the only tape I had which was....are you ready....Winnie the Pooh! Oh my goodness- I just wanted to be swallowed up! The boys watched long enough to see the title and had an absolute fit. It was awful!!
Thankfully, my TV will display my computer screen so I quickly found some Mr. Bean and Animaniacs clips on youtube and I was able to keep their attention long enough to pass the time. Some of the really bad ones even fell asleep (and I was not about to wake them)!

One of the other challenges I'm dealing with is the kids trying out random English words they hear on TV- I'm sure you can guess the type of words I'm talking about. I know they have some idea that the words are 'bad' or they wouldn't try them, but they also are saying them in front of the Korean teachers and in front of me which makes me think they don't entirely know what they're doing. I am somewhat at a loss as to how to effectively handle situations like these.
At any rate...I earned my pay today! I'm exhausted. I'm about to lace up my running shoes and get on the dreaded bus again. I've got my umbrella again so pray for the safety of the people around me! :)