If I don't get the 2009 ESL Teacher of the Year Award, there's been a huge mistake. Seriously, I should get a raise. A big one.

When it comes to English, there are certain things my 4th graders just refuse to grasp. Indenting is one of those things, and it drives me crazy because they indent in Korean grammar, too. It should be easy, but getting them to do it is like pulling teeth. I say, "Hey, Class!! What do we do to the first line of a paragraph???" And they all yell, "INDENT!!!" but when they write, not one of them does it. MAKES.ME.INSANE!

Africa is another big issue with my 4th graders. They have no trouble believing the ridiculous shit that comes out of my mouth, but try telling them that Africa isn't a country, it's a continent? Forget about it. Check out this little gem of a conversation:

Boy: Teacher! Africa is country with many Obamas!
Me: Many Obamas???
Boy: Yes, Teacher! Obamas! (Points to skin)
Me: Uh...we don't actually refer to Black people as 'Obamas.'
Other student: Teacher! Africa and many, many hungry Obamas!
Me: Hungry Obamas??? Do you mean starving Africans?
Students: YES TEACHER!! Hungry Obamas!!
Me: Guys, not everyone in Africa is starving.
Students: Teacher! Why lie?!?
Other student: Teacher! You know many Obamas?
Me: Seriously, guys, you can't walk around and call all Black people 'Obamas.' It's like calling every Korean person 'Kim' no matter what they're family name is, or saying all Asians are Japanese. You can say, "Black people." It's OK.

But they won't.

Alright, so the term 'hungry Obamas' totally cracked me up and will now be used in my personal repertoire as often as possible, but seriously, why are my students so afraid to use the word Black? I shudder to think of what they used before they learned about Obama.

So, the date last night went OK. I think I'll see him again, probably sometime soon. :-) We saw Transformers 2, and I know everybody has been bitching about the writing, but come on, people!! BIG.ROBOTS.FIGHTING!!! Plus, lots of shout-outs to Pennsylvania (those are my peeps, yo), Shia LaBouef or however you spell his weird last name (I think he's totally yummy), and, for the guys, Megan Fox's boobs bouncing across the screen for approximately 73% of the movie. I don't know what you all were expecting, but for a summer action flick it suited me just fine. I just wish I had made it over to see Petra and the Pyramids before those evil Decepticons ruined them.

I spent most of the day reliving the movie with my 4th graders. Most of them have seen it, so when I told them yesterday I was FINALLY going to see it they were super excited for me, and they were all confused about how I would understand it since it was subtitled. I was like, "Well, my dear, sweet little morons, it's subtitled IN KOREAN! The movie is in ENGLISH, so I think I'll be able to follow along OK," but apparently they had been talking about some of the crazy robot language the Decepticons use - the subtitles for those would be in Korean, too, so I wouldn't know what messages they were sending to Megatron.

Which was the perfect opening to convince them that I am fluent in Robot. "Seriously, guys, just like you can speak Korean and English? I can speak English and Robot. Really." And then I told them this great story about how Rockzilla (obviously an Autobot) beat the crap out of my microwave (evil Decepticon) last night.

And then I spent all of this morning teaching them in my best Optimus Prime voice, like this, "Children of this planet called Earth, I have seen what you are capable of, and so I must remind you - put the adjective BEFORE the noun when you write a sentence! Only with this important knowledge can your world survive!"

And that was my day. How 'bout you guys?

Occasionally, when my lesson ends before class is over and I don't feel like coming up with some bullshit time waster, I pick a kid to be the teacher, and they get to teach me and the rest of the students anything they want. It can be quite enlightening, to say the least. The top video is Daniel, and he's such an awesome kid. He stops by to visit me everyday after school, but won't let me tell the other kids because visiting the teacher isn't cool. He's the one who wrote the "Litter beet fun" note awhile back.

The bottom video is Mickey, and he's super smart and also very creative. He's the only one in the class who tries to use different voices for the different characters in the book. He named himself after Mickey Mouse, and he wears Mickey Mouse slippers everyday (no shoes allowed in my school). He totally rocks.

Man, today's classes flew by! I had expected a super slow day based on my morning - had a tough time getting my big ol' butt outta bed, didn't have enough coffee, and, knowing I was gonna need a little extra help to get me through the day, I searched high and low for my lucky giraffe underwear. Couldn't find them anywhere!!! Ended up leaving 15 minutes later than usual because of the search, so while I wasn't late by any means, I didn't have enough "warm up to the workday" time as usual before my kids came screaming into the room.

But, the day went quick and my kids were awesome!

Except for one little thing. Ant. My 4th graders are OBSESSED with Ant. They will not stop asking the most ridiculous questions about him! It got so annoying that I had to cut them off from all AntSpeak in the classroom. Now, they have to earn the right to mention his name. Seriously. 5 stars and they get 2 questions about him. You guys can't imagine how well this works! Standing in the corner, threatening to call parents, etc., etc. They could give a crap. But, everyone in the class does their homework and we can call Ant and as a class you can have 3 minutes to talk to him...not only did everyone do their homework, they did all the back homework they had skipped out on!!

Only I forgot to tell Ant, or check to see if he had other plans. So he didn't answer the phone call. And then when I ran to the office to grab something, one of the little bastards grabbed my phone and called Ant AGAIN, which means he was probably cursing my name for calling his cell phone incessantly while he was doing something else.

They were so bummed!! I wish I had pictures of their sad little faces when I had to tell them that there was no answer. Instead, they got to ask some questions, which is probably better because we tried calling Ant before, and the second they heard his voice they got all freaked out and forgot how to speak English and tried to frantically pass the phone off to ANYONE else.

"TEACHER!!! Ant-uh is tall?"
"Yup."
"Woooooooooooowwwww!!! Very good!!!"

"TEACHER!!! Ant-uh likes the kimchi?"
"Umm...he likes a little bit of kimchi."
silence
"BUT TEACHER!!! Ant-uh eats the kimchi?"
"He eats some kimchi, but not with every meal."
silence
"BUT TEACHER!! Ant-uh eats the kimchi sometimes?"
"Yes. Sometimes."
"Uhhhh...OK, OK. Sometimes he eats. It's OK."

They're so freaking cute.

This weekend we were talking and it somehow came up that Ant has never seen one of those creepy thousand legger bug things that can crawl faster than I can run. He kept wanting to know the name of them, but all I've ever called them is "those creepy thousand leg bug things that run really fast." I know they're all over the East Coast...do they not have them in CA?
Normally, with the exception of mosquitoes, I don't mind bugs all that much. But I can't stand these things! I have an amazingly irrational fear of them. One time while living in the charming little community of Bethlehem, PA, (it really is charming, especially around Christmastime) I stooped down to pick up a piece of fuzz off the carpet, and it turned out to be one of these bugs and I have to tell you guys, I damn near had a heart attack.


So this morning I come into my classroom, open up the closet door, and what do I see? Yup. There it was, staring right at me. I know they're harmless, but man do they freak me the hell out!

And of course, you know the little bastard is going to wait until I have a classroom full of sissies to crawl out and make an appearance. And that's exactly what it did. You have never seen or heard 10 4th graders behave in such a manner. I swear, the Japanese were a thousand times calmer when Godzilla showed up. I wasn't much better, though. I literally ran to the other side of the room while repeating to myself, "YOU ARE THE GROWN-UP!! YOU CAN'T CLIMB ON TOP OF THE DESKS!! YOU ARE THE GROWN-UP!!..."

I pulled it together long enough to remind the students of my WE DON'T KILL THINGS JUST BECAUSE WE'RE BIGGER THAN THEY ARE rule.

But we will use our workbooks to swoosh it under the door to Tim Teacher's class, then count the seconds until the 3rd graders freak out. :-)

Yesterday during class, my 4th graders told me they were going on a field trip today. The conversation went something like this:

"TEACHEEEEEEERRRRR!!! Tomorrow...no Englishee!!"

"Englishee?? What does that mean? I never heard of the word Englishee."

*Sigh* "Teacher! ENGLISH! Tomorrow, no English class!! We have field trip!"

It is a fine example of Korean organizational skills that the teachers are the last to know they don't have class. It's not the first, or last, time for this kind of last minute announcement. 2 days ago my students told me when they would be taking my mid-term exam. Apparently, mid-terms are next week. I had no idea.

Anywho, my 4th graders informed me that they were going on a field trip to the most boring place in the whole world, and I was like, "Really? You guys are going all the way to my hometown of Sunbury, PA just for a field trip?!? Say hi to my mom!!" But apparently there's some garden or something that is even more boring than my place of birth. Boring is one of their new vocab words this month, and ever since they learned it there hasn't been a single thing that's happened in their young lives that isn't described as "soooooooo booooring!!!"

And behold (!!) some boring pictures from boring English class:

So today, I suffered through 120 minutes with my 1st graders, and have been wasting time on the interwebz for the rest of it. It probably sounds nice, but it's starting to feel like this day will never end!

One of my 4th graders just passed me a note that said "Teacher is bery bery nice, but I think study english is only a litter beet fun. Srory teacher!!!"

Litter beet fun.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!