I strongly recommend against wearing high heels the night before going rock climbing.
Not only does it hurt like hell when you try to toe-in, but the next day you are essentially crippled.
Though I will say, the shoes are hot. Still, I'm not looking forward to my hobble walk to work this morning.
My school is preparing for the Winter Festival. This is a very big deal, and students have been practicing since the semester started. There are now multiple hours each day dedicated to rehearsal.
One group is what seems to be a recorder chorus. If you haven't had the joy of listening to the same song played eleventy-million times each day for MONTHS, there is no way you can imagine the pleasure of that same song being played by 30-40 elementary students. On recorders.
1. Having stolen some ideas this weekend, I'm having a blast with Halloween mini-lessons so far. This includes scaring the crap out of kids by actually screaming when I give them a clue for the movie Scream. Also, having them watch the intro to The Nightmare Before Christmas and making them sing, "This is Ha-lo-ween, this is Ha-lo-ween" like monsters. Makes me happy. There was a kid who thought he was too cool to sing, so I went up to him all monster-like while the other kids were singing and "Rarrrgh!!"-ed at him. He shrieked. It was awesome.
These are 6th graders - I'm not doing this to little kids.
2. A gaggle of first graders came up to the English lab looking for my co-teacher. They sort of tripped all over each other like a litter of puppies, and said "Oh! Teacher!! Meguk-saram ayo?" and then to each other, like I couldn't hear them, "Yepoda!! Neun!!" (Are you American? Pretty!! Eyes!!) and then tumbled down the hall.
3. I have the plague. Or at least a cold.
Last week, a friend found out that her niece was diagnosed with Aspergers, a condition that is usually described as "high-functioning" autism.
I'm not an expert on autism at all, but based on my somewhat limited knowledge, for kids with Aspergers, the main interventions are in behavior - intellectually, the kids are usually at or above the level of their peers, and it is in terms of behaviors that their special needs are manifested in the classroom. And I DO know a fair bit about behavior management and the steps that go into the creation of an effective series of interventions.
Basically, I was able to talk to a friend about what I knew about the process and what steps should be taken to make sure the child would be able to function effectively (for my friends who know SPED jargon, FBA, BIP, lather, rinse, repeat). I also was able to suggest a few interventions that might be useful, based on what I had heard about the student.
This, on top of talking with a few friends about the basics of behavior management (function of the behavior, how is it being reinforced, blahblahblah) reminded me that I know stuff. That sounds silly. Basically, it reminded me that even though most of my day is spent trying to make a textbook interesting or communicating via charades and short sentences, there is stuff about this teaching gig I know a bit about, and I miss feeling like what I'm doing is useful. Don't know where I'm going with that, but there you have it.
Oh, and even though I think I'm being teased, I've gotten a bunch of folks to start using *person-first language when taking about their students with special needs. My professors would be proud. (Yes, I know it means the same thing, and yes I know it is pedantic and annoying, but it IS different, so there. *flounce*)
* person-first language means that when you are talking about people with special needs, you say the person before you say the disability. So you would say, "my student with special needs" rather than "my special needs kid." If nothing else you have to _think_ about the fact that they are a person before you talk about their disability.
In other news, I went climbing again this weekend, and even though I still feel like I'm struggling and cursing up the wall, I'm doing better. I still chicken out if I think I'm going to miss a move, but I'm starting to feel more comfortable with a less-than-tight belay, and learned how to clip as part of my prep for lead climbing. Also, the only time I feel this week was when I was working on an overhanging start (at the end of the day). This is progress.
I found this through a link on the Craft magazine blog and thought they were beautiful.
Last night I was waiting to get into the climbing gym and a group of middle school girls walked by and started to talk to me (Nicola, they were your students). WOW, do I miss middle school girls!! They spent about 5 minutes asking me where I was from and telling me that I was beautiful, and then pointing out qualities they found particularly attractive. And these girls had been taught that "big nose" and "high nose" are two very different things, and that "big nose" doesn't sound as complimentary as they think it does. Which is nice. I don't get as much "beautiful teacher!" as I did last year. Sad. I think that middle schoolers are better at sucking up.
1:10:20 (1 hour, 10 minutes, 20 seconds).
This is one minute and twenty seconds faster than the Jeju-do 10k last June, for which I was actually pretty well trained. As in, I was running more than once a week. Though in my own defense, I was running at least 1 mile most days up until two weeks ago. Still, one mile is a lot less that 6 and a quarter. This is also about five minutes faster than what I thought I would do, which is awesome. The past few weekends, I have been doing longer runs and/or played ultimate frisbee, which essentially is interval running.
I had fajitas last night, too. That also brings me joy.
Yesterday, a student gave me 4 bottles of one of the fiber drinks. It was very nice of her, but the only think that went through my mind was that she must think I'm full of something...
Teaching this year is a lot different from last year. This year I teach only fifth and sixth grade and I see all of my students (about 350 total - 10 classes of about 35 students each) about two times a week - a lot nicer for me than the two times a month if classes weren't pulled last year. I DO have to teach from the text, but I can play around with the "game" they have every lesson, and so I'm still able to bend things a little. My co-teacher and I usually divide the class time in half, so I rarely teach more than 20 minutes of my four classes a day. For me, it is nice to have a Korean speaker show up for all of my classes, but it also means that I have a bit less flexibility in how far I bend the curriculum. Still, I'm able to have a lot of fun, and I feel like I have a much better idea of the personalities of the students I teach, which for me was a big part of the feeling of not being a real teacher last year.
+ I ran 10k yesterday - in the rain - in a pretty good time for me.
+ I went climbing outside Saturday, and it was fun
+ I can already see that I'm improving my climbing technique after only a week in the gym. I'm at least thinking and using my feet more.
+ I feel like I passed some sort of test tonight at the gym. I don't know how to explain it or exactly how or why, but anyway, a good thing.
+ I feel a lot better about the 10k I have coming up next weekend.
+ A box that was sent from the US arrived at a friend's APO address (finally!!!)
+ Another order will be sent to me from a different friend on base.
-It ended up raining so hard (when I was as far as possibly from my house, so turning back was a moot point) that I really couldn't have been more wet if I had gone swimming in my clothes.
- The box that arrived at one friend's place is too heavy to have sent, and he is getting ready to go on a trip for about a month.
- I knew it would happen eventually, but on my second day in the gym I was told I should eat only rice and kimchi for breakfast and lunch, then drink milk for dinner. I cannot imagine the gastrointestinal disaster that would be.
I'm really happy there are more pluses than minuses in that list.
Tonight I joined the Mokpo Climbing Club.
The club I was going to join (further away but more beginner friendly) closed down, so the only game in town is the more intense club, which actually, in terms of me getting better at climbing, isn't a bad thing. There are enough foreigners who are interested in climbing and I liked the session I went to tonight. I think for the time being, I might just train at the climbing gym and run. My contract is over at my regular gym, and at least until it gets too cold to run outside, I should be fine. If not, I should have time after school and before the climbing gym opens to do both. We'll see.
