An ode to my students

My post drought can be explained by my inability to come up with anything creative after pouring all of my cerebral efforts into being patient with eight 11-year old Korean kids. By the time I get home, my brain has turned to mush and sleep is the only antidote.

One of my favorite students will be leaving tomorrow. It brings me great sadness as his loopiness is what got me through the eighth hour of the day. A couple of days ago, he and I ended up with a bump on the head and a swollen lip respectively. We were having a tickling match and just as he put his head forward, I was going in for an attack of my own. *Ka-pow* The effects were instantaneous. Our deranged laughter was replaced by groans of agony. I'm not sure who had a harder time of it. He hit his head on teeth with braces and I got my poor teeth slammed against a hard head. That kept us from doing anything radical for the rest of the class. I shall truly miss our violence and threats of death.

Remember that kid who wrote faster because of my singing? I found out later on that he really just found my singing apalling. An ego was deflated, to say the least. He was taken out of my schedule and is currently spared my atrocious vocal stylings.

The children in the school I teach in come from mostly urban families. They have lots of money, live in apartments in the city, and have had very little contact with bugs. Their first few days living in the Philippines are spent complaining about mosquitoes and shrieking about cockroaches hunkering along peacefully five meters away. I imagine the living conditions in a third-world country come to them as a shock. You could also call it an enlightening experience. They get used to all the bugs eventually and retaliate with mosquito-bite ointment and physical violence. Fear leads to suffering. Suffering leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Yoda was wise. Their fear brings them to cruel heights, burying ants in clay and waiting in gleeful anticipation for the ant's violent demise. Imagine your nose getting plugged with clay. They also capture the noble baka-baka with the notion of keeping him as a pet. The poor dung beetle walks along with multicolored string tired around its head and thorax, miserable in captivity. In a Korean kid's room, the possibility of finding yummy detritus is slim. The beetle is starved and weak, but has to remain interesting lest it find one of its legs across the table. For these kids, I wish them a fate where they get reincarnated as ants in a Korean school.

My blog is in the process of being beautified. That sounded a little bit like my high school principal on a day before some eminent DECS official was supposed to come to our school. "Let's beautify our surroundings!" Anyway, please pardon the mess. And I'm sorry that all your links are missing. They'll all be back soon. I've got Lei helping me out with the HTML. Thanks Lei!