Square One

The monster was an absolute terror today: I lost count of the stairwell time-outs I dragged him to. (We don't do time-out in the classroom because he likes it and will refuse to leave the corner. He just loves corners.) From amusing correction of my pronunciation, he has quickly progressed to refusing to accept that we say 'square' instead of 'scare', or 'A B Cs' instead of the 'RAY B Cs'. (I blame the British English on those videos for the second one - I sure as hell don't have a 'linking-r' in my accent!) This kind of point-blank defiance is funny when aimed at my boss, but mostly because it's so exhausting to deal with it everyday. I definitely reached the end of my tether today, and I've lost the will to summon up a 'nice teacher' for him. We've tried cajoling, and bribing, and distracting, and scolding, and time-outs in 3 different locations. We've tried worksheets and videos and stickers and threats. We've let him cry it out and sulk it out and exhaust himself in the gym. We've taken him for walks around the school like a puppy when he pretends to fall asleep. I've yelled, I've mocked, I've joked, I've begged. I'm all out of patience. I hear that his parents are strict with him, but I don't see any improvement in this child. Other than his English. If any bright sparks out there know how to deal with a child who does not give a crap about punishment, please give me a shout. Because I am fresh out of ideas.

But on the other plus side, I've been cycling to work along the beach. Buddha's birthday is coming up soon, so they've put up tunnels of red and yellow lanterns along the sidewalk and I defy anyone to go through without smiling. It's just so cheery and warm and fluttery! It's hard to stay stressed when your daily commute includes beach-lantern-tunnels.

A is for apple, a-a-apple

After the last post, I think we managed a week and a half of blissful good behavior from the monster. Of course, this couldn't, and indeed didn't, last. But in that brief window, there was a siesmic shift: he started to speak English in front of me. Especially things like 'No!' and 'Dark cave' and 'Not monster'. His first full sentence was 'What are you doing?' - a question I ask him about 20 times a day when he's climbing up the cupboards or dangling from a chair. If I'm very nice, I get a 'Hi' or 'Bye', but my favorite greeting so far was last week's response to my cheery 'Good morning!': a blank stare, followed by (in Korean) "I'm not wearing my school pants today."

If you've taught kids this young before, you'll already know that they pick up your accent disturbingly quickly, and the monster is no exception. After 7 years in Scotland, I don't say 'good' like an American, and since I use a lot of praise when he follows simple instructions like 'Sit down' and 'Stop being a giant pain in the butt', he hears this word a LOT. And now uses 'Gut' as his standard affirmative response: 'Does this word start with a 'juh' sound?' 'Gut.' He also spends a lot of time watching a series of videos on youtube performed by a British ESL teacher, and so says 'Tyuesday' and 'boll' (instead of 'ball'). He even corrects my American pronunciation of 'Saturday'. Seems I'm accidentally on purpose feeding him non-American English. Oops!

Incidentally, he'd also make an excellent rock climber. He's happy to repeat the same activity forever (provided it's something he has approved of course) and now spends most of his time in the gym on the same bouldering problem: climbing up the slide. The slide has small pockets which are perfectly sized for his tiny feet, and he's finally realised that using them is more effective than his previous clamber-up-the-sides-and-grab-for-the-top-immediately approach. I should add that he is also practicing English while doing this: without my prompting, he started singing 'The Itsy-Bitsy Spider' while climbing. Though his rendition sounds more like "The etsy-betsy spider washed in da belk. Down came the rain and washed in da melk."

Today was our second field trip, resulting in the finest in monstrous behavior and the highest level of chin-jutting: The Godfather Jaw. While all the children sat waiting to make cookies, the monster was, of course, standing on the bench. Our director asked him to sit down, foolishly thinking he would respect her authority, only to be met with unflinching eye-contact and the exact same 'No!' the rest of us get. Good job, monster. Good job indeed.

Life in Busan...

...is very different from life in Daegu:

- THERE IS A BEACH. The importance of this cannot be overstated. I have never lived near a beach before and it's awesome. Just awesome.
- I have to get up early. And work long hours. blablabla.
- My apartment does not have nauseating wallpaper.
- I live with a cat. Which means lots of lint-rolling and laughing at her antics.
- I teach kindie. (translation: the monster) Actually, almost all my students are younger this year: I only teach two classes that are older than my youngest class last year.
- My students speak English. A lot of English. Enough English to challenge my nerdy grammar-love.
- No more 'foreign' (read: non-Korean) manager. Sob.
- People don't stare. On the subway, I can read my book or answer my phone without being obsessively observed. I don't really feel like I have to 'represent' all foreigners all the time.
- No more drive-by hellos. And no more children yelling '외국인!' (foreigner) either. Nice-uh.
- I can't wear my nose-ring to work. Double sob.
- I actually like all my friends. I almost never have to hang out with people I'd rather avoid. Love it.

So there you go: swings and roundabouts. On balance, it's an improvement, but it's only now that I can appreciate how sweet my job was last year.