♦ it was a tiring week. last sunday, ms. park and her friend ms. jung (who i know from when i worked at dukwon middle school) took prairie, joe (prairie’s husband), shaun, and i to haeinsa (haein temple). the weather was gorgeous, and the scenery was stunning. the leaves on gayasan (mt. gaya) were just on the cusp of changing to fall colors. thus, there were many visitors there that day. it was nice. i did realize that i had visited haeinsa a couple of years ago with all the EPIK teachers in daegu; it was a mandatory get-together. apparently, at the time, i wasn’t aware that we were at haeinsa. now i know.
♦ monday came and went. as i mentioned last week, monday was “circus day” at taegu foreign language high school. we had over fifty teachers from all over daegu observing our ‘open’ classes. mr. seo and i did a lesson on the book stargirl, and it went very smoothly (thanks to class 1-5—the best class ever). we mostly got positive feedback.
♦ i had gifted classes on tuesday and wednesday. tuesday and wednesday were also festival days at my high school, so there was a lot going on those two days. my gifted kids presented their final projects, and the projects were very good. in short, each group had to tackle a controversial issue in korea, identify the cause(s), analyze the situation from various angles, and then reach a detailed solution. topics ranged from abortion to over-education to south korea’s relationship with north korea to the death penalty to plastic surgery…
i only had problems with one group, and it wasn’t because they did a bad project. these three kids (two girls, one boy) decided to have a complete meltdown right before class was supposed to start. members of the group yelled at each other in the hallway, accusations were made, tears started to flow…i was like, what the eff!? did i mention that it was an open class? meaning, all of their parents were present? at the time, i did my best to calm the kids down, but i wasn’t sure what the cause of the argument was. it wasn’t until much later that i found out that one boy and one of the girls started dating a couple of months ago, and they broke up, like, last week or something. ridiculous teenage fighting ensued. the boy left (with his mom) without presenting his project. so much drama.
they’re my gifted kids and i love them. however, i am sick of this class and i’m super happy that next week’s classes will be our last. we’re gonna have a big pizza party. i’m gonna say goodbye to them. they will go home. and i’m going to miss them.
♦ the puppies are 22 weeks old. this morning, oliver lifted one of his legs to pee. this is a sign that he’s a grown boy—no longer my little boy. it’s sad.
♦ i am going to sleep all weekend. i swear.
