My life is amusing...

Hey there!

I don't even know where to begin honestly. My life is one big Korean blur.

After school classes. They've doubled my workload but are twice as rewarding than regular classes. My sixth-grade girls are chatty and well-behaved, mature ladies. Here are some bios:

From L to R: Kim Hey Won, Emily, and Grace


Grace is the most advanced - she grew up in Hong Kong and went to English kindergarten. Her mom is the pastor of foreign members at the largest church in our area. Some of their doctrine is sketchy...but she knows that I am a Christian and she's invited me to church a couple of times. Her Teacher Mail letters are long and elaborate. She's in love with Justin Timberlake and thought he was a movie star...that is until I showed her old school 'NSYNC photos and blew her mind. She is a quiet girl who thinks before she speaks and is very motivated and intelligent. A true gem.

Emily is a doll. She understands everything I say and is still somewhat shy about speaking up. I think the after school class will be very beneficial to her. She gestures a lot when she talks, and she'll get half a sentence out and panic and run back to her desk with her head in her hands. So funny.

Sarah is bright and personable. She was voted school president this year and therefore has a lot of responsibilities around the school. For the festival, she served as one of the three judges and was also in charge of running the sound board. She writes me long letters about the books she's reading...she reads a lot of books! I told her to read The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. She reminds me of an older version of my 8 year old cousin Sarah.

Kim Hey Won (no English name) is SO FUNNY! She is smarter than she lets on, and she writes me letters about how much she likes English class. Who doesn't love a suck-up? :) She has a face that she makes when she doesn't understand something...not an expressive confused face (think Erica Bush) but more like you can see the light go off in her mind. Its amazing. She thinks its funny that I can tell when she doesn't understand something. She tries to trick me.

And then there are the two boys:


John, pretty much hilarious, is the only sixth-grade boy in the class. He is a little chubby (which gets you called "pig" amongst Korean youth) and when I ask how he's feeling he always says "hungry". We were describing characteristics the other day and I asked them to describe me. Probably a bad idea, but I went with it. Without a second thought John says "You're fat." Now, I've lost some weight since getting here and though I am by no means skinny, I'm fairly well-proportioned. So I said "You know John, in America, if you told someone that they were fat, they might get angry with you." And he says "What? You're fat, I'm fat. Food is good. Delicious." And I thought...he's right.

Danny - my only fifth-grader - is ADORABLE. I call him Danny because he reminds me of how my brother used to look, if my brother were Korean. Now, if you know my brother, you know that he's grown into a very handsome adult. However, when he was little, that kid was funny looking. Ask my mom - she'll tell you the same thing. And Danny is so cute because he's just a scrawny funny-looking adorable sweet little boy. He's kind of trouble-maker in regular class, so I was a bit worried at first, but he's an excellent student.

And along with my 5 sixth-graders and one fifth-grader, I have a class of fourth-graders. Some of the more notable ones:

Sunny (No picture)- Kind of a drama queen in the funniest way. We'll play Jeopardy or Top 5 and she's always the girls team captain and says "Oh my God" and puts her head in her hands when she gets stressed out because they miss a question. She's like a sitcom character.


Mary - Good, smart, and quiet - just how I like 'em. Also, she wears pigtails everyday.


Kari - A know-it-all that knows it, kind of a trouble-maker when she spends break time chasing the boys around. But she's sharp as a tack.


Sarah - I think I've heard her say 3 words. But she's sweet.

Emily (No picture) - Wears glasses and pigtails everyday as well, also good, smart and quiet.


Tony - He doesn't understand a thing and screws around the whole time. Luckily most of the others ignore him when he throws paper wads at them. He spends a large portion of class time sitting in the back doing worksheets because I don't have time to individually tutor him without order dissolving around me.


Steven - T-R-O-U-B-L-E when you don't keep him occupied every second of every minute. But when he's focused, he's brilliant. We did color-by-numbers on Thursday and he ate it up.


Grant - A very good kid when he isn't throwing paper wads with Tony, chasing Steven around the room, or evading Sunny.


Tim - he's my favorite. He's bright and ornery, but extremely focused and dedicated to winning when we play games. He really gets into them and even tells everyone else to shut up when they're being too loud. And when I'm forced to skip the boys team because they're taking too long coming up with an answer during Hangman or Jeopardy, he whines "Teacher! Teacher! Waaaaiiit pleeease waiiit!!" So funny.

Funny story before I wrap things up:

*Caution - this story uses a swear word - so if you are Ryan, Mackenzie, Sarah or anyone under the age of 12 please stop here*

Like that's going to stop them.

Anyway, today in my fourth grade class we were watching a skit involving a boy who drops his toy robot into a lake. A mermaid pops out of the lake and asks the boy "Is this your robot?" and he says "No, my robot is small." And the mermaid goes back in the water, pops out with a smaller robot, and its his, and there is much rejoicing. But when the boy first drops the robot in the lake, he exclaims, "Oh no!" My co-teacher asked the class (after they had watched it once) what the boy said when he dropped his robot into the lake.

And one little fourth-grade boy in the back of the class exclaims, "Oh shit!"

Which is exactly what I'd say if I dropped a piece of electronic equipment into a lake. Fourth-graders - never fail to surprise me. One week they bring their own thermos of coffee to class, the next they're swearing like sailors.

Have a good weekend! Boiler up!!

Love,
Jess