Tessa's Englishland Christmas Concert, December 20th

I spent nearly two months preparing for the Christmas concert with my kids. After trying a variety of songs, we decided on 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas', Frank Sinatra's 'Jingle Bells', 'Silent Night' with handbells, and then I had them all ask 'What is Christmas?' and they each gave a one word answer individually. Tessa was going to make them wear elf hats and shoes, but I kindly asked if they could just wear slacks and dresses. I should have known that my mothers would compare notes on clothing but was still shocked to see my little boys show up in matching tuxedos and the girls in matching dresses. They were unbelievably cute--way cuter than in elf hats. The 'Silent Night' handbells were the highlight of the Kangaroo Class performance. Even Philip, who stood mute and petrified through the rest of the songs, rang his bell to the delight of the crowd. They all did a great job.

Fall photos from Tessa's Englishland

On October 1st, I started a new job, teaching kindergarten at Tessa's Englishland. I have six darling little Korean five year olds, and we've had alot of fun over the last two months. I teach with six other foreign teachers, all Canadian.

I think our first event was Philip's birthday. Philip turned Korean age five, but I suspect he's only 3 1/2 or four. He still has that little baby face and is infamous for falling asleep regularly in class. He passed through his birthday with the blank and emotionless expression of one who just doesn't quite get it yet.

For the mini olympics, all seven kindergartens were mixed up into six teams and given to a teacher to lead. We each chose a country to represent. I chose to be the Denmark Vikings, and we also had Canada, Australia, Macedonia, Switzerland, and Fiji. Team Denmark won three of the five events. Go Vikings!

Next came Halloween. I knew that all the teachers were going to dress up, but not wanting to spend money on an elaborate costume, I put off thinking of something until the last minute. The night before Halloween, I gave Morten puppy eyes and asked him if he could make some butterfly wings for me. With his wings, I managed to pull off a pretty great costume, and for a good price too! Each teacher had to prepare a craft or game to execute with each class. I chose to make slime (which was really just playdough). I had a gas hotplate and all the ingredients laid out, and each kid got to measure and stir in one part of the dough. Then I gave each kid an individual portion in a plastic bag, and they got to squish in their choice of color. It was pretty fun, but after doing it seven times, I was ready to be done.

For pictures of all these events, please click here and browse through the sub albums.

LCI Kids Club Graduation Festival, February 10th

I know you've all been waiting anxiously for me to post these pictures, and here they are, in true 'better late than never' form.

This program is held every year to show the parents how much their precious little kiddies have learned from the esteemed foreigners. Right. Nevermind that the teaching of the songs and choreography actually halted all teaching of English for over a month...

Here's a rundown of the program:
My class performed The Eentsy Weentsy Spider, I'm a Little Teapot, and The Bugs Go Marching.
Liz's class performed Yellow Submarine, Phantom of the Opera, and Oh What a Circus.
Marc's class performed We Are the Champions, Octopus's Garden, and Russian Dance.
All three classes performed The Can-Can and Puff the Magic Dragon with orchestra instruments and ended with choreographed chaos to It's a Small World.

A big thanks to Miss Amy for her help with some of the costumes!

John and Jinny go marching while Sarah wonders what she's supposed to do
Brian the grasshopper
Bee Andy, Ant Sarah, Ladybug John, and Ant Jinny
The 'Beatles' go for a ride in the Yellow Submarine...
...and all their friends come aboard
Jack takes the bow of a 'Champion'
My little teapots exit the stage in a mixture of Beauty and the Beast pots and Genie lamps--NOT the costumes I ordered

Little Christines sing their story
The Phantoms fight the Raouls
The octopi dance in the garden
My little raindrops wash away the spider
Penny, world's cutest spider
The sun comes up, dries up the rain, and PennySpider makes a comeback
Had we known they were undressing the kids, we would have constructed the costumes differently!
Max and Julie tango to Oh What a Circus
Marc's class dances Russian style
Liz and I arrange triangles..
...and more triangles for the orchestra,
while Ellie and Debbie entertain the crowd during a costume change
My Stella shakes her maracas with intensity during Puff the Magic Dragon
Liz and I with the incomparable sisters, Penny and Sarah
My little princess, Sally

Pocket contents and other school weirdness

I am constantly confiscating small items from my children. The phrase 'WHAT DO YOU HAVE GIVE IT TO ME NOW' has come to elicit one of two reactions--an immediate relinquishing of the offending item(s) to AngryTeacher or a hurried stuffing of the offending item(s) into a pocket accompanied by wide eyes. It's always of great concern whether or not the item(s) will be restored to the offender, causing certain students to quickly learn the phrase 'Teacher, after class?' (funny how they remember things when they really want to). However, if the offender doesn't remind me to return the item(s) (funny how quickly they forget things they really wanted), I myself often forget to return the confiscated item(s) resulting in some strange pocket contents.

Continuing in the 'you don't care about this but I'm going to pretend you do anyway' style of blogging, here is a list of things I've wound up with in my pockets or on my desk at the end of the day:

• colored square paper for folding
• colored square paper folded into hearts or frogs or turtles
• plastic Won
  
• game tokens
• rubber bands
  
• several decks of fantasy figure playing cards
• a sticky rubber mouse
• berries of an unknown variety
• seeds of an unknown variety
• rocks
  
• toy cars
• hair bands
• lip balm
  
• disassembled mechanical pencils
• a trophy for singing
• plastic knives and swords
• very real looking toy guns
• gum
• gummy worms
• lollipops
  
• chips
  
• squid snacks

While some of those things are a little strange, none of them top the strange things I've had students say to me. Here are some of my favorites (oddly, or not so oddly, enough, alot of them involve the same kid):

STORY ONE:

Ryan: Teacher, I eat blood.
Me: (eyebrows raise) Really?
Ryan: Yes, I eat blood.
Me: (eyebrows remain raised) Are you serious?
Ryan: (earnestly) Yes, very delicious.
Me: Wow, uh, that's interesting, and kind of gross.
Ryan: Yes, my *Korean word* teacher say I can eat her blood.
Me: (eyebrows raise to highest possible position) Really? She's bleeding and she says, 'Here, you can eat my blood'?
Ryan: (very earnestly) Yes.
Me: (with disbelief) Wow.

STORY TWO:

Marcus: Teacher, me, pencil, eat. (crunches down on his pencil)
Me: Marcus, stop eating your pencil!
Ryan: Teacher, me too. I like eat pencil! (bites off the freshly sharpened point of his pencil and proceeds to chew)
Me: Ryan!
Ryan: Very delicious!
Me: (to myself) Good thing they don't actually make 'lead' out of lead anymore...

STORY THREE:

Me: (observing a neat half-moon with suspicious tooth-like marks missing from the eraser loaned to Daniel) Daniel, did you bite my eraser? (biting gesture)
Daniel: (grins excitedly, nods vigorously)
Me: You did?
Daniel: (grins, nods)
Me: Did you EAT my eraser? (chewing and swallowing motions)
Daniel: (giggles, grins extra big, rocks back and forth in his chair)
Me: (look of disbelief followed by removal of the eraser)

STORY FOUR:

Ryan: (bites down hard on the metal end of his pencil)
Me: Ryan, that's not good for your teeth.
Ryan: It's okay. Look! (pulls back cheek to reveal four silver teeth)
Me: Well, why do you think you have those? You should take care of your teeth!
Ryan: (looks down and says nothing, looks up at me again) I have eight! (pulls back other cheek to show me the other four silver teeth)
Me: (eyes widen) Just don't chew on metal, okay?
Ryan: Okay.

What the students do when Margie Teacher has a headache

Sleeping students

I couldn't resist sneaking this photo of Daniel sleeping during my 2:00 class last week. I snapped it through the window so the other kids wouldn't think I was being mean or making fun of him. I was actually a little concerned about why a seven year old was that tired. After trying multiple times to get him to concentrate on the workbook page we were doing (he struggles as it is), I gave up and let him sleep for the last thirty minutes of class. When I woke him to go home, he stood up, took a few weaving steps, fell against the wall, slid down, and went back to sleep. I carried him (still sleeping) to a chair in the arrival area where I left him. Today we combined our 5:00 classes for a movie. At 6:20 everyone cleared out, but I found two of my poor students remaining, zonked out on the floor, one sitting cross-legged with his head resting on the floor in front of him. The girl was so disoriented that she went back to my classroom and sat down saying she didn't need to ride the bus (which wasn't true).

Graduation and festival

Last Friday was graduation for kids who are eight and have been in our morning kinder program for two years. It was held in the school lunch/rec room durning school hours. Liz had one girl graduating, and Joseph had seven or so. Liz and I were told that our classes weren't invited to watch, but I asked if I could sneak out to catch a little bit of it. After the scissors incident, I was hesitant to leave my kids unattended, but I left Kevin in charge with an extra pile of worksheets, and they were just fine.

Picture: Esther, Joseph, Julian and the kids

Graduation Festival was on Monday. My class didn't participate since it was a beginner class, but Joseph and Liz had spent the previous month and a half teaching their classes choreographed songs and skits for the festival extravaganza. Julian rented a local community theater and costumes, and the parents came out in droves to see their little ones showcase their English skills. The kids were absolutely darling. The program included 'Do, Re, Mi', 'Hokey Tokey', 'Lion Hunt', 'Riverdance', and several others. As a final farewell, Joseph's class sang 'To Sir With Love' to him while he sat on the stage and cried. Pictures: Riverdance; Max and Mikayla rockin' the Hokey Tokey; recorder ensemble; me, Joseph, Liz, Joseph's girlfriend

After the festival, a group of the parents took us teachers (minus Joseph) out for Chinese food. The neurosurgeon that I've visited a couple of times was in attendance (THAT wasn't awkward), and he was called on to order. I think it was because of his social status, even though there were also an orthodontist and a Donald Trump type fellow at the table. Julian later commented that she didn't like the dishes he ordered--they were too heavy and rich and expensive and greedy. I didn't think it was too bad, but Liz and Marc and I all agreed that we could have lived without the sea cucumber.

How in the world do these things happen?

Kevin and Marcus who are both in my morning kinder class and my two o'clock class consistantly out-perform the rest of the kids, so I've taken to keeping extra worksheets on hand to keep them busy while the other kids slog through the intitial work. Kevin in particular loves writing, and I have several pages of alphabet writing practice just for him. He'll fly through one then beg, 'One more! One more!' It's great.

Anyway, this morning I was browsing through some materials in the staff room, and I found a book of beginning cursive. I thought, 'Kevin'll love this' and copied the first two pages for him. Sure enough, during my two o'clock, as everyone else was deep in a cutting and pasting project, Kevin had finished and was waving at me, yelling 'Work, work!' Mentally patting myself on the back for having thought ahead, I gave him the cursive worksheets. He dug right in. A few minutes later, Marcus, who will usually settle for a dot-to-dot or a regular alphabet sheet as extra work, was asking for a cursive work sheet. I was annoyed that I hadn't considered Marcus might like it too but decided that it would be no problem to quickly run another copy--I often slip out of the room for this or that while the kids are working.

I was gone less than a minute.

When I returned, my room looked like a crime scene being reenacted by Korean children on cheesy television. Kids were standing on chairs and pointing and yelling, I think. But my eyes first went to the floor where I saw a suspect pair of scissors lying on top of a medium dusting of paper snow. When I raised my eyes, I saw Katie holding Nicole's hands as though she were helping a wounded soldier, and Nicole's face wore a look that could have won a victim of the year award (I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that she herself had played a large role in her own distress; she is quite possibly one of the most evilly sneaky girls I have ever met). When Katie saw me, she removed her hands along with a blood soaked tissue. 'Dear God,' I though to myself, 'Nicole's severed a finger.' Shaking myself out the bad TV show and remembering that I was in charge, I hastened to inspect the damage. What I found was a relatively small cut that had simply produced alot of blood. FORTUNATELY. I don't think I would have relished rushing to the kitchen to pack a detached finger on ice. Luckily, I have been outfitted for such occasions--I had her slathered with ointment and bandaged and coloring again in no time.

Forget teaching, I should be an EMT.

The good news is that I'm not dead.

All other news is, well, mere details, I tell you. But at the risk of incurring the wrath of several faithful readers of my blog should I not touch on said details, read on.

Saturday Night:
Liz and I meet Morven and Tania--a girl freshly returned to Gangneung following a two month visit to Canada--downtown for dinner. We eat samgyeopsal, a bacon-style barbequed pork dipped in bean powder and eaten with the ubiquitous lettuce leaf. I enjoy a variation eaten with a large, thinly sliced raddish round.

From there we go to the jazz place where Taylor and his Korean girlfriend join us.

From there we go to Bumpin where I meet Michael, Carlos, Bryce, and Ivan (Aussie, Brit, Yank, Aussie).

From there we go to Wherehouse where there is a dance party. I agree to go because I love dancing so much. Uh-huh. Quickly tiring of bad music and an even worse sound system (I've been in cars with more powerful systems), we go back to Bumpin.

From there, most of the aforementioned people go to noraebang (karaoke). But they don't just go, they go on a four-wheeler. An all-terrain-vehicle. All of them. On the streets of downtown Gangneung. Now, I like having a good time as much as the next person, and despite being fairly socially conservative, I can hold my own when I go out. However, I don't have 'I am stupid' written on my forehead, and at this particular juncture, getting on the four-wheeler seems like something only people with 'I am stupid' written on their foreheads do. Ivan agrees with me, and we follow on foot as I want to make sure Liz doesn't die on my watch. When I confirm that Liz is safely singing with the others, I leave her to her own devices and catch a taxi home.

Sunday Night:
Ivan calls and we go out for gamjatang with another teacher, an older guy who calls himself R. Bob, and his Korean wife (I know I keep saying Korean this person and Korean that person as if their names aren't worth mentioning, but the fact is that I just can't remember Korean words. The only reason I can write the names of the food I've eaten is that I describe what I've eaten to Julian, and she writes it out for me). Gamjatang is a spicy stew with potatoes and pork back--literally chunks of the spine eaten like ribs. Mrs. R. Bob orders mild, for me, I think, though she claims to not care for spicy food herself (food is usually eaten from a communal pot). By the bottom of my second bowl, my face is beet red, my eyes are watering, and I'm gasping involuntarily. And R. Bob is telling his wife 'You could have at least got medium, honey...'

Monday:
I don't remember Monday, so it must have been okay.

Tuesday, Valentine's Day:
I have to deal with above average crying. Several of the incidents involve chocolate, several others involve extra naughty children being sent to the hallway to be dealt with by Julian. Julian lets us read the new guy's resume, and we discover that he's from Seattle--I like him already.

Today:
Katie 'falls' into Kevin's knee and bloodies her nose, Kevin's pants, her hands, my hands, my coat and my jeans. Terry gets his foot stuck through one of the chair slats nearly necessitating the jaws of life. I finally get paid. Yes, this is all worth it.

This weekend I will be venturing to Seoul for a party to meet all the people who went through my recruiting agency. Cross your fingers that there aren't any ATVs.

A little bit of everything from this last week

It’s been (quite) a week since I’ve put anything real on here, so I’d better get to it before I forget to say all the important things I’ve wanted to say that seem to grow less and less important as each day passes. Thanks to all who wished me well (and prayed for me) during that awful sickness over the weekend. Needless to say, I didn’t expire.

The beginning of last week was difficult. I think I reached the ‘sink or swim’ point in this whole thing, and by Tuesday (it was only Tuesday!) night, I wanted to tie a rock around my waist to help speed the sinking right along. It must have been obvious because Julian asked me on Wednesday morning if I slept well. ‘Why, no, in fact, I didn’t, thanks for noticing…’ I passed most of it off on the fact that I have back issues (but didn’t complain about my rock hard bed, not wanting to appear ungrateful), and even went as far as hand-writing out a note explaining about chiropractors and such (we’ve found that in matters of importance, when being understood actually matters, we should always write a note). Later in the day she told me ‘Good news (everything is always ‘good news’)! Jason’s father is a specialist, and his mother will take you to the office tomorrow.’ I probed a little in order to assign some more defining terminology to the broad practice of ‘specialist’ but got none and left it at that.

By Thursday, things were going better with the kids, and that afternoon Jason’s mom came to whisk me off to her husband, the ‘specialist’. When we got in the car, she said, ‘Yes, my husband is a neurosurgeon, and he specializes in your kind of back problems.’ Say what? You lost me at the part where you said neurosurgeon. Maybe my note wasn’t very clear after all…but the car was already moving. The office was downtown, a neat little modern office on the second floor of a large building housing a variety of businesses. I had my blood pressure taken in the waiting room and within five minutes was taken in to speak with the supreme specialist. He asked me some cursory questions, poked and pushed on my spine while I laid on a table, and announced that I probably needed surgery. Hmm, is there a polite way of telling an intelligent, learned, foreign doctor that you think he’s full of it? I decided there wasn’t, so, to humor him, I agreed to let him x-ray me. As if I haven’t done this before. When he looked at the films, he let me know that I didn’t need surgery. Hmm, is there a polite way of telling an intelligent, learned, foreign doctor ‘I told you so’? And then came his next recommendation—analgesics and muscle relaxers. *sigh* If mere pain was my problem, I could play my own neurosurgeon and prescribe a couple of Tylenol for myself. Let's get to the problem! Dr. Neurosurgeon didn’t understand why I didn’t want medication but had another suggestion ready—IMS: intra-muscular-stimulation. ‘It’s from America,’ he said, but I think he really meant, ‘If you can’t even agree to THIS, then get out of my office, you know-it-all American!’ It was the best suggestion yet, so I said okay even though I wasn’t quite sure what I was agreeing to. I was taken to the next room over and told to lie face down on the table in one of the curtained-off sections. Dr. came in a few minutes later, felt around on my back, and proceeded to stick needles in the tightest muscles. The nurse then hooked electricity to each needle, cranked it up, and aimed a heat lamp over me. It was five minutes of electrically-induced muscle-cramping. I was then taken across the hall to a lab-type room where I laid on an almost unbearably hot heat pad. And that was it. I’m not sure how I felt. Different. Not better, not worse—just different.

That night, Joseph and I went out to dinner as I still want to explore more facets of Korean cuisine. We had (spelled phonetically) dwae-jee-gal-bee—a big pile of meat and vegetables cooked in front of us in our table and eaten with a lettuce leaf and raw garlic and onion. It was delicious. Side note: I’ve picked up on the fact that Liz and Joseph don’t like each other very much which makes it awkward if I want to hang out with either one of them. Liz simply thinks Joseph is crazy, and Joseph thinks Liz is humorless and stoic. They are mostly just indifferent to each other, but one day they nearly came to blows in the staff room over a point of teaching phonics. I sincerely hope the new guy likes Liz, and likewise, or this is going to be a long year.

I’m not supposed to do a lot of real heavy duty academic stuff with my kinder class to begin with, but on Fridays we really relax and have fun. Last Friday, we played quite a few rounds of ‘ring around the rosy,’ each escalating in fervor, the last of which ended in James being unearthed, crying, from a heap of screaming miscreants. In my post-kinder class, I was feeling especially lax and let what started as innocent drawing and coloring turn into an all-out marker frenzy. I don’t know what possessed me to let Marcus and Joshua do it, but one marker became two became four then ten, and I got caught up in the fun. What can I say, I’m a sucker for a good photo-op. After school Julian ordered ‘Chinese’ food, and we had a meeting to plan for festival and graduation at the end of the month. My class is not participating as it’s a new class, but I’m helping and have been, of course, roped into playing the piano for several acts. It’s a big deal every year, and I’m looking forward to it.

Artists at work: the early stage

'Two handfuls of markers with no lids...what in the world am I going to do?'

Marcus, working so furiously my camera can't keep up.

The Masterpiece

Saturday Liz and I had haircut appointments down the street at Oh Ji Yeuhn Hair. Liz went first, and I grew sleepy as the proprietor cut and cut and thinned and whacked away at Liz’s amazingly thick mane of hair. Then they washed it and attacked it with two blow dryers. My turn was similar. Spritz with water bottle, cut, wash, blow dry. All in all a very serviceable haircut. And for less than eight dollars, too. Next time I might go into Seoul for an experience more like my friend Rebekah’s in Italy (see Jake and Rebekah link), but it’ll do just fine for an emergency cut. After our cuts, we walked up to the store to pick up a few things for the weekend. On our way home, I commented on having a bit of a thick throat. Within the hour, I was on my floor shivering through four layers of long underwear and sweaters topped with a coat. I tried to distract myself with logic puzzles and a movie, but as the fever got worse, so did my focus. At 9:30pm I tried calling Julian who didn’t answer. Lacking medicine and both Liz’s and Joseph’s phone numbers, I decided, in a partial state of delirium, to bundle myself up and walk to Liz’s (we all live within a block of each other). I must have been quite a sight in my flannel pajama pants and my snowboarding coat and gloves. When I got into the street and saw that Liz’s lights weren’t on, I thought I’d try Joseph even though I’d never been to his apartment, and at that point I wasn’t even sure which building was his. I knew it was one of two, so I picked the most likely and knocked lightly on a likely door. I didn’t get an answer and didn’t try anymore doors. My leg muscles completely cramped on the stairs, so I sat there for little while and moaned until I figured out that I could go down sideways and not hurt as much. I limped home and sat on the floor and moaned some more and longed for the 24-hour Walgreens of my recent past. So overcome with fever, and (somewhat melodramatically) afraid that my throat would swell shut if I went to sleep, I went BACK out, this time disregarding Liz’s extinguished lights. She wasn’t looking so hot herself but was able to give me two blessed Tylenol for the fever. I finally fell into a fitful sleep, and sometime in the early morning hours I grew warm enough to shed a few of my layers.

(Sidenote: this weekend was the lunar or Chinese New Year, a very big holiday in asian cultures)

I woke Sunday morning to Julian calling to ask why I had called her the night before. Ugh. An hour later I woke again, this time to my doorbell, and it was my landlord looking very dapper in a shirt and tie and sweater vest. He mimed eating and pointed upstairs, and I deduced that he was inviting me to eat with his family for the holiday. All but dead, not to mention still wearing an odd assortment of clothing, I apologetically mimed back having a fever and a swollen throat, but thank you. I was sorry I didn't feel better--I would have enjoyed the experience. About ten minutes later, he came back with a tray bearing a small platter of cut fruit, some extra un-cut apples, and some puffed rice treats. I was more than grateful, and somehow the fact that he brought me food made me feel less guilty about not going uptairs. Later that night my landlady brought down a plate of special bread. These people rank right up there with Sherie, mom.

I had Monday off for the holiday--fortunately--and spent the day sleeping and reading and ridding myself of the last clinging wisps of sickness.

A day at LCI

Since several of you have asked, here is my schedule for a typical day:

9:15-9:45 – Arrive at school
10:00-12:00 – Morning kinder starter class—mostly six and seven year olds with one eight year old and one girl who says she’s five but doesn’t look a day over two for a total of fifteen
12:00-1:00 – Lunch
1:00-2:00 – Afternoon activity of some sort with morning kinder class
2:10-3:20 – Preschool class—four kids from the kinder class plus one more boy
3:30-4:45 – Sometimes free time, sometimes conversation with Karas, Julian’s daughter
4:50-ish-6:10 – Advanced class with Karas, Chad, and Harry

The morning kinder class is a handful, but their class is supposed to be lots of fun and games and activities so it’s pretty easy. We read stories and color and sing and learn things like ‘What is your name?’ and ‘How old are you?’ and other basic English phrases and words. The preschool class is difficult because they are used to the fun and games of the morning class, but I actually want them to work. It’s my goal to teach them how to read. We’re breaking down the alphabet into sounds and slowly transferring those sounds into words. It’s slow going, but they’ll get it. I love having conversation with Karas. She gets to practice her English, and I get to learn about places to eat and shop or get a pedicure and my hair cut. She is distracted by Harry in the advanced class, so the one-on-one forces her to actually think about what she’s saying. Harry, 15, is brilliant. He has amazing comprehension, a large vocabulary, decent grammar skills, and an accent better than Julian’s. Chad struggles. I don’t know why I have him and Harry in a class together. With them, I talk about current events, movies, what they do during the day, and we also do a little grammar and read a story or article or essay of some kind. On Fridays I let them pick a game, usually Monopoly or Clue or Sorry or Uno.

Stay tuned for the acupuncture story and others.

First day of school

LCI Kids Club, Gangneung, Gangwondo

This morning Liz and I didn’t shower due to the lack of hot water. Fabulous way to start my first week. School starts at ten, but we walked across the street at nine to prepare our lessons. It’s the best commute I’ve ever had. I spent most of the hour shuffling frantically through the pile of ‘curriculum’ books Julian dumped on my desk. When I asked her for direction, she basically told me to sing and dance and have fun. Fantastic. Joseph, the one male teacher, rolled in a few minutes before ten looking like a hobo and rubbing his eyes sleepily. He seems like a cool guy, though, and was probably the most helpful in giving me suggestions. Fortunately, Esther (a Korean woman), a former teacher who does administrative stuff, took my first class so I could observe Liz, who has been here for exactly three weeks longer than I have.

The first floor of the school has three classrooms—Liz’s, mine, and Joseph’s plus an extra room for playing or videos. There are also the teacher staff room and Julian’s office and a main reception area. The second floor has bathrooms, the kitchen, another playroom, and a multi-purpose room which serves as cafeteria, gym, and anything else we need. Julian and her family live on the third floor.
I don’t know how, but I made it through my first day. My biggest task of the day was giving all my morning kinder kids English names and writing nametags for them. During lunch, I noticed that Lindsey was wearing a nametag that said ‘Thomas.’ When I asked Julian why someone had put a boy’s name on her, she told me that he was in fact a boy. I sheepishly apologized but thought to myself that the parents should consider a haircut and something other than pinstriped pants, long plaid coats with fur collars, and berets for their son. But if that’s the biggest mistake I make, I think I’ll be okay.