I work in a small town…a damn small town. As such, all of the kids I teach attend the same school. Today that school held their annual 운동대회 (運動大會 / Sports Contest). On Tuesday and Thursday I teach three classes, and today, this 운동대회 interfered with each and every one of them.
My first class of the day was a class of first and second graders. This class runs from 2:30 until 3:30, and the sports contest was not supposed to end until sometime after 4:00. “Great! One less class for the day!” WRONG! Earlier this week, a pair of kindergarten kids that had lived abroad (and gone through American kindergarten) got stuck in that class. Since here in Korea, kindergarten is not part of elementary school, this kids were unaffected by sports day. The class itself wasn’t that bad. We reviewed some of the material we had covered before and then played Chutes & Ladders. I actually enjoyed that class a lot more without the mob of first grade boys who have no idea what I’m saying because they never listen.
At 3:30 the kindergarteners took off to their homelands. The secretary was sitting out in the waiting room with one of her friends, and informed me that all the kids in the next class were still involved in their sporting activities. So I had a conversation with the secretary and her friend. It was one of those extremely random conversations that went all over the place. We talked about the upcomming holiday, the lack of a nightlife in the boondocks, ovens, the fact that I can eat spicy food, and the lack of adult English classes in 고양.
The secretary’s friend was attempting to talk me into moving to 고양 for some reason. She claimed it was so she (and other ladies) could “learn English,” but me being so full of myself, think that they wanted other services….hey now!
Anyhow with roughly ten minutes of class time left in the second class period, one student showed up. One kid! Man, what is that? With ten minutes of class, what can possibly be done? Not a whole hell of a lot, so we talked about what went down in the sports contest (apparently the blue team won), and then I sent her on her way.
The last class of the day had every kid come in fifteen minutes late, but they all showed up. So that class went as planned, though a bit shortened due to time constraints. From there I headed on home….to think about a possible move to the sticks to try and score with housewives…man what am I talking about?!
