Today’s question: “What did you do last weekend?”
Today’s answer: “I killed a chicken with Minsu.”
Followed by…
Minsu: “No. No. I did nothing, teacher. Nothing!”
Tag Archives: teaching
International Anklebiter Illustrator Day
I had my students draw some D&D monsters. (Thanks to Zak S. over at Playing D&D With Pornstars* for giving me an after-school class’s worth of stuff to do.)
On to the displacer beasts:
This one looks like that short guy at the bar who’s always super-pissed off and looking for a fight:
“Why I oughta…”
I love this one:
Yeah, no color – but he looks like something out of an old grainy Japanese superhero serial:
Here’s a monster one kid drew. Yeah, fuck owl bears. How about a bat-winged, fire-breathing, horned tiger shark? Vaults-players be warned, I’m statting this fellow up.
Next, from the Ur edition of Deities & Demigods, we have Myxlyxn the Unknowing. He created the universe only to be driven insane by the incessant prayers of his followers. You can see him here flanked by his attendants, Zeetzozu and Yozbobo, the Gibbering Yammerers.
One kid drew a giant two-headed millipede eating an equally gigantic cheeseburger, but he liked the picture so much he took it home. That’s now the calendar system in Ur. Each day corresponds to a leg on the celestial millipede as it twines about and consumes the year’s sacred cheeseburger.
* (that’s a SFW link, in so much as your place of work doesn’t object to you going to websites with the occasional Frazettaesque level of T&A and the word “porn” in the title.)
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I Can Tell When My Students Have Seen Star Wars
I can tell when my students have seen Star Wars because they’ll walk up to me and say, “I’m your father!” which inevitably escalates to, “No, I’m your grandfather.”
“No, I’m your grand-grand-grand-grand father.”
“No, I’m — I’m your ghost!”
At which point I look them in the eye and say, “No, I’m you.”
And their minds explode.
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These Days
Jin and I got smartphones. There’s the first picture.
Look! It’s Pohang!
This is the end point of the harbor where it becomes a stagnant canal. If you walk straight across the water (what? You can’t?) you’ll pass the fishing fleet on your left, and the ship repair dry docks on your right, then you’ll come upon a few scrap heaps, and the ferry boat landing before passing the lighthouse and going out into the Sea of Japan East Sea.
Lovely, no? The plan’s to extend this canal down to the river. So they’re bulldozing the entire neighborhood behind me, which coincidentally is where I teach.
Speaking of teaching, the semester starts again tomorrow. This year I’ll be teaching 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. It should be… interesting. Of course, I’m not teaching any of the students I taught last year, which, you know, would have made sense. But because of the internal rift between the English teachers at my school I get to start with all new students. Don’t ask. Or do, but don’t suspect an answer other than a shrug and a “I don’t make the schedule.” I don’t quite get it myself. Basically the two English teachers at my school don’t get along, and it’s tiresome.
Still, new students, and they want be all jaded like my 6th graders were. No more listening to poorly executed swears like “Pak you! Shut up your mouse!”
Shut up your mouse. Adorable.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, I Give You This
One of my students is on a “portrait” kick. Most of his victims are not amused. Anyway, I sat for him today during the break between classes. With any luck the picture will age while I stay 35 forever.
He then drew one of my co-teacher. It was less than flattering. He wanted to give it to her, but I said he shouldn’t because she’d likely kill him. He did it anyway. My co-teacher laughed, tore it up, and threw it away before chasing him from the room.
For now he lives to draw another day.
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My Life Updated
Here’s a post for folks who actually want to know how I am doing (one of the two of you must!). So why don’t you pull up a seat, grab a mug of something warm, and let me fill you in on the latest.
Ready? Here’s what’s going on…
… not much.
I mean, stuff happens, the day to day continues, I certainly find stuff to say on Twitter and Facebook everyday, but as to details, well… *shrug*.
Work-wise, the year is slowly grinding down. My 6th grade classes are almost entirely in open rebellion at this point, and once December gets here I expect to be guillotined in the playground, along with the rest of the faculty, by a mob of 12-year-olds. Some crazy stuff happened where one of the kids “disappeared” for four days after stealing some money from his dad. When he came back to school his teacher sat him down and the kid poured out a heart-wrenching tale involving the suicide of both his mom and his older sister. Sad shit–and it made the running away part sound like the best thing that ever happened to him. (He spent all the cash eating junk food, playing video games, and buying hoodies with skulls on them while camping out on the roof of his apartment building.)
Despite this (well, the fact that I teach at a “bad” school in a “poor” neighborhood) I’ve decided to renew my contract with my current school. It’s been an improvement over my previous school, and I’m looking forward to teaching some of the same kids next year. Maybe consistency will have a benefit, if only in the fact that I already know the troublemakers and can crush them on Day 1.
Other less harrowing stuff…
Yesterday was Pepero Day, a corporate manufactured holiday that succeeded in transforming my workplace into Wonka Land.
Last Monday Jin and I celebrated our 9th anniversary. Craziness. I’m still surprised when I wake up in the morning and find out she hasn’t murdered me in my sleep. Naw. I’m kidding. Besides she told me she’d likely murder me while I’m awake so she could see the look in my eyes.
Writing-wise, I sold a story to Beneath Ceaseless Skies. I’m quite happy about that, since it’s a magazine I love, and the story, “Shadows Under Hexmouth Street”, is one I’m really pleased with. It’s my Joe Mitchell in “Lankhmar” story. Work also continues on Clusterfuck: The Novel, but that’s all I’ll say about that.
Reading-wise, same old same old. I’ve got my nose in five different books at once and can’t help but download/order more when I hear about them. Two of the books are writing books, David Morrell’s The Successful Novelist and Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, one book is 19th century police blotter junk, Felix Feneon’s Novels in Three Lines, one book is short fiction, Maureen McHugh’s After the Apocalypse, and the last is Jane Austen’s Persuasion, since I never read Austen and I feel like I’ve been going through life without having done my homework. What I’m really saying is it’s certainly a chore deciding what to read when I go to the can most mornings.
Sheesh, hasn’t this been the most boring blog-post ever?
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Things I Learned From Watching Public School Musicals All Day
- Save the planet by remembering the three Rs: R-something, R-something, and Recycle!
- Never give up on your dreams even when your father beats you.
- Husbands wouldn’t kill themselves if their wives cooked for them more often.
- Don’t be a jerkface especially if you’re Cinderella.
- People listen to reason. It’s really quite simple. Like this:
Villain: I’m going to do this evil thing.
Hero: Don’t do that evil thing. It’s bad and will hurt people.
Villain: Oh, you’re right. How foolish of me. Let’s sing and dance together instead!
- Everyone loves kids with nunchucks!
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And Another Quick One…
I was walking back to my classroom yesterday when I passed three of my students carrying a box full of dirt and test tubes.
These three are a rather nerdy trio, so I like them. The dirt and test tubes made me curious and I asked what they were doing. They froze, looked at me, looked at the box, had a quick whispered conversation in Korean, and then one finally looked me straight in the eye and said in the loudest voice I’d ever heard her use, “SCIENCE!” before they all ran off.
It was the best answer ever.
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Quotidian Pohang
Since I’m posting everyday pictures here it only makes sense to put up one of my classroom. There you go.
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Learn English or It’s the Sharp End of the Stick For You
I wonder what their summer English camp is like, and if it at all resembles The Lord of the Flies.
Talk about stressful. Can you imagine having one of these things staring at you during class?
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