Neal Teacher

Not too many pictures this time. Just one, actually.

On my last day at Buseok High School last year, some students from my favorite class (including my host-sister) gave me a choco-pie cake, complete with candles and giggling. After about two minutes, in which I at least got to blow out the candles and share some choco-pie goodness, they were unfortunately yelled at my one of the teachers in my office because they were apparently being too loud.... 

And then one of the students I had only been teaching for a few months handed me a bag with several smaller bags inside of it. I got home and looked through the bags, discovering that each one contained different cookies, including one labeled "Quiz Cookies," which had several cookies with letters written on them. I quickly found out that I was going to fail the quiz. One was obviously a heart, but I was at a loss as to what most of the letters were. The "H" could also have been an "I." The "T" could have been one of several Korean characters. I was pretty sure she wouldn't give me anything in Korean, but I had no of way knowing for sure. Finally, after texting me several times wondering if I figured it out yet, my student lost patience and just told me what it was supposed to be: 

I never wanted to be a teacher growing up. And now I am one. In South Korea. One day you stand in front of all of these kids and ramble on about this stupidly difficult and confusing language and you get nothing. They're sleeping or talking or hitting their neighbor(s). Other days, hands are raised for once and they're actually into something as random as a Connect Four powerpoint game. It's a daily experiment with mixed results and it really sucks sometimes, but it's also really awesome sometimes. There's the girl whose face lights up when she sees me because she's excited to give me a high-five, ask "what's up?" and run away. Two boys on my second day air-humping and telling me they love me because they remember when I visited the school one day last semester. The girl who likes to tell me I have a big nose in as many ways as possible ("Teacher, your nose like building!").

It doesn't have to be the day that your favorite students whip out a cake or the day that one of them says something with cookies that they're too shy to say to your face, but those are pretty nice, too.