Kay oh Ray: Half empty or half full?

September, October, November, December, January, February, Ma....well most of March.
Suddenly Susan! We've been here over 6 months which means: we are halfway through our job contract and on the way down the analogical hill of our journey.

We have a 13 month contract with our school (just for good luck) so instead of leaving exactly a year after we arrived, Tim and I will be working at our school until the beginning of October of this year. Don't ask what happens after that, and if you know, please tell me.

In Busan, spring is really trying to push winter out of the way but keeps getting trampled on by cool weather through the weeks. Our weekends have been nice and balmy with the temperature this past Saturday reaching 18-19 degrees. Cherry blossoms are on their way and I feel like all of the Korean women of Busan are ready to shed the tights they wear under their shorts all winter (credit - Busan Haps magazine).

With no real holidays or events this month, school/work has been the focus of life. We brought in a new group of Kindergarteners at the beginning of March and also had our work schedules switched around with some new classes and new elementary school kids. One thing I can consistently say about my job is that I absolutely love 'my' kids. It sounds extremely cliche, BUT, they bring a smile to my face in so many different ways and make every little annoying thing (things that happen at any job in any field) feel insignificant.
I am already feeling sad at the thought of leaving them in the fall.

The kindergarten kids are pretty special, partly because of their age, and partly because we spend the most time with them (they are at school each day from 9:30-2:00pm).
I snuck my camera into one of my new classes with the 6 year old kids who are in their second year at our school. These kids are hilarious because they are smart enough to know a fair bit of English, and still care enough to use it. They wouldn't DREAM of speaking Korean in class, and if they should happen to slip up, their classmates are quick to point it out (in English).

On Friday, we had a 'cultural' event, which usually happens once a month for the Kindergarten classes in varying degrees of bigdeal-edness. Chuseok, for example was an all morning party, as was Halloween. St Patrick's Day is clearly not an important lesson for Korean kids, so we had to settle for a 40 minute 'party' of 'making a green hat' in the classroom. What this really turned out to be was ' watch the teacher make green hats FOR you, and be quiet and don't move while you are waiting'.

I was assigned to make the craft with some of my favorite kids, Banana class (7 years old). They all have personalities and are some of the brightest kids in the program. David, who joined the class about a year late is probably my favorite in the class. His heftyness reminds me a bit of Ronny from Jersey Shore, and instead of walking through the hall with his hands on his hips (the RULE), he can't stop himself from shuffling sideways, making peace signs with both hands and closing his eyes, all the way from the class to the bathroom. Here he is in a rare silent moment (sideways).

The older kids who come in the afternoon are just as important to me, and I often feel bad that a lot of my energy has been drained by the time I teach them.

There are so many really really intelligent kids and genuinely good students that it makes the very few unmanageable ones manageable.

One new class of kids that I have are about 9 years old, all went through the kindergarten program and are in their 3rd year in the afterschool program. I look forward to teaching these kids more than any other class. Their level of English and their personalities is a combination for any teacher's dream class. They practically fight with each other to answer discussion questions and love to show off what they know. Like the kindergarteners, they are quick to call each other out for speaking the forbidden language (Korean) and have better reading, writing and vocabulary skills than a lot of CDN kids the same age that I have taught.

It is really rewarding to be able to actually teach these kids because they are genuinely there to learn and work harder than I think I ever did in any of my years at school.

These older kids have progressed to the level of English where they even insult each other in a foreign language. This leads to some funny classroom dialogue such as the following:

Max: Teacha!! Teacha!! Danny dirty! Danny DIRTY!

Me: No, Max, Danny is gross. Danny is gross.

Some other quotes, made especially hilarious when spoken by Korean kids:

" Teacha, is piano a sport?"

-Lucy

Me: " Kevin, cool hat. Where did you get it?"

Kevin: " In the closet."

And here I will end my little shout-out to my favorite part of my job, and I shall conclude with some more pictures of the little (and medium) guys.