Korea's made me bi-polar

This kid isn't even one my students but I don't have any of mine looking quite this happy. This is Ian but I'm posting it to show my current mood. This other one is a girl my friend and I played with under a monument in Buenos Aires. We thought she might have been a homeless girl but it turns out she just likes to play in a lot of dirt. Her parents were eyeing us suspiciously from afar. She wouldn't talk to us, she just kept running around us and we'd purposely bungle attempts to catch her. Kids are fun.



I'm feeling quite well at the moment. Happy, actually. That may have been too strong a word maybe, well I just don't want to jinx it really. I'm sure this feeling will be gone by the time my afternoon classes roll around.

I had so much fun today with my Melon class. I was kind of an irresponsible teacher maybe. Well, I didn't try to teach them all that much. I don't even remember what we did for most of the phonics class. I would say at least 15 minutes was devoted to the textbook. Another 10 to the little letter quiz I give them. Ok, Paul show me a W. Then they write the letter and make a little drawing if they want. Fills up so much time and they seem to enjoy it.

I'm really going to miss Karen I think. I had so much fun with her today. We had a birthday party today for the kindergarten students. 2 of mine had birthdays. Sometimes I feel kind of like their father and am proud of them. Those are my kids up there and they're so much smarter, more fun, and better looking than those other kids. I was just kind of happy for them. So many ups and downs but really right now I'm higher than I have been for quite awhile. The birthday party is usually a complete mess afterwards. I have to serve them food, find cups and forks, and then clean it all up afterwards. The bell rang and I didn't even care that I'd have to clean it up all by myself. I was just playing with them all and was actually interested in what they had to say. I was picking them up, making them jump really high. Completely shunnning my obligations as a teacher. They get so much more out of real interaction though than focusing on the textbook. Yes, van starts with a V and foot with an F and all that but that's not useful. Julie came in while I was playing with them after the bell had rung and told them to put stuff away. I wonder why I used to like Julie as a person. Hmmm.. Anyways, I even stayed a little later than usual today. Usually I clean up and head out the door. Karen helped me clean up a little bit, well watched maybe, and then I flew her to the kids room. I don't know where all this good emotion is coming from though. I woke up feeling disappointed that my alarm wasn't the one to wake me. Then I got ready for work. Sleep really is a wonderful thing. I've just got to accept everything as it is. I don't even mind that the school is ripping hours away from my break time so long as I get to spend the time with my Melons not teaching them anything. Maybe I should just rush through the work and play with them. It would get exhausting I suppose. I could seriously put up with a lot of crap if every morning were like the one today. Too bad this afternoon will completely kill that. I can feel it already. If only they didn't fight with each other or behave so badly sometimes. I wonder if this is related to my feelings of freedom. I still don't have any definitive plans for October but for some reason I just don't care at this point. I will be free.

That Karen. If only she'd been there for August. I missed her. Amy and Andrew and Paul are growing on me too. I need to devote some posts to them I think. I still have a bit of time left. I'll be able to take photos of them on the field trip next week. I'll just need to have some energy. Some days they make me miserable, I must admit, but I'm going to miss my Melons. I don't think they know I'll be leaving yet.

Yesterday too actually went pretty well. I was having a miserable morning. I taught them speech class and afterwards I just felt really low and didn't want to do the class. Julie made mistakes on the schedule and has me teaching unit 8 before 6 and 7 and then teaching 8 again so I knew it wasn't a big deal. It's too bad there are nine of them. That's too many for games I think, well the nice ones that come in boxes. I just kind of let them go a bit crazy but controlled crazy if that's possible. The afternoon too I gave up on trying to control them. I just went with whatever came along instead of telling them to sit down and be quiet. You want to speak Korean, go ahead. Not caring about teaching them anything just relieved this huge burden. It just freed me. I still taught the pages but with very minimal effort. Teaching English isn't really something to be taken seriously. It's too taxing to actually force them to learn. I suppose it's because the school has just taken so much from me that I really don't care if I don't fulfill all my duties. It would be really nice to carry this feeling, this elevated spirit of mine right through the weekend, a four day weekend, in which it might prove impossible to actually do anything. It would be nice, maybe it could happen. I'll do my best.