CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

I’m warm. This is my first summer in I don’t know how long without air conditioning. It’s muggy. It’s almost uncomfortable in my apartment. I will survive this but I must admit I wasn’t prepared for it. It’s not Texas hot, but hot is hot. Sticky is sticky. Yuck.

I watched a movie tonight called “Dot the I”. I bought it here in Korea at a legitimate place. The story sounded interesting. It’s a small film I had never heard of, and it was different. It basically starts out that a girl is out on her last night out with friends before she gets married. They are eating dinner in a French restaurant. The maitre d comes over to their table and announces a French tradition that says a girl at her “hen” party has to kiss a strange man as her last kiss as a single woman before marriage. She chooses a man in the restaurant and the kiss is more than a simple kiss. Sounds like a simple love story, right? It was much more than that. You start out thinking you’re watching one kind of movie and it morphs into another. I really liked it although the last bit I thought was a touch over the top. If you want a movie you know nothing about to see, then this is a good one. It’s different and it’s not easy to find movies that you haven’t seen in one form or another in the past.

I didn’t feel great today, but better than yesterday. I was tired again but my body didn’t feel beat up which was good. I wasn’t dwelling about the negative and the things I don’t have and want. I gave them some thought, which is okay, but not dwelling. My friend Mee Kyung phoned me last night and I told her how crappy I was feeling. She then called me tonight to see how I was. I thought that was very thoughtful of her.

At my first class today many of the students were late. The home room teacher was standing outside the classroom and she would hit each child who was late on the back as he came into class. It’s hard to concentrate when you see things like that. What’s the point? Do they really think that if they hit the kid, the kid will be on time from now on? Don’t they think about what they’re doing? I guess not.

Min Kyung was disciplining some boys today. There were four of them in the teachers room kneeling. The kids are always kneeling during the punishment phase. She wasn’t hitting them, but talking to them. Then she came back to her desk and I asked what their crime was. Apparently some boys were jumping out the window from their classroom. Their classroom is on the 2nd floor. She was appalled by this as it’s dangerous. I agree with her. The fall isn’t far but anything can happen when you jump out of a 2nd floor window. She said she thought 3 of the boys understood that they shouldn’t, but one of the boys just didn’t get it. She said he uses rude language in front of the teachers, and he said he didn’t want to live at home. She suspects that this boy has some serious issues.

She was getting them to write why they shouldn’t do this. She spent a great deal of time talking to them. I congratulated her on not hitting them. To be honest, I have no idea what you can do to stop this kind of behavior.

Later on in the day there were 6 boys outside the teachers room being yelled at by the physical education teacher and being made to do some sort of strenuous exercise. I went into the teacher’s room and inquired into their crime. It seems they were also jumping out the 2nd floor window. It’s an epidemic. It’s crazy. When I left school the vice-principal had taken over from the physical education teacher. He wasn’t yelling but talking. I have no idea what he was saying, and I don’t know what I would say in a similar situation.

Min Kyung thinks the kids are going crazy because it’s close to vacation. She could be right. Sometimes I can’t get over how ignorant I was (and I believe many westerner’s are). I thought Oriental children would be well behaved. They’d sit at their desks with their hands neatly folded, paying strict attention to the teacher. Hell, they’re kids. I suppose it doesn’t matter where the kids are from, noisiness and bad behavior are universal.

One of my classes kept getting a little too noisy for my taste. During a quiet moment I asked them if I was “too” nice. They said I was. I asked them if they liked me being nice, or would it be better if I yelled at them and hit them. They said they liked the nice me. I said, ”if I’m nice, then you be nice and not talk when I’m talking”. They agreed. It lasted a minute and a half and then yak, yak, yak.

One girl just wouldn’t stop talking. I’d ask her to stop, she’d say, “sorry, teacher”, and then go back to talking. I took the electrical cord from the portable CD player I use in class and walked up to her and wrapped the cord around her throat lightly and pretended to strangle her. I love getting a cheap laugh. I really hope that it makes the point that I’m good natured, but enough is enough. I guess this quiet/noisy cycle will go on forever.

I’ve gotten much more hours this week. I know Min Kyung said I’d be having more hours with the 2nd year students, but I also have more with the 3rd year students. I don’t know the final schedule because she’s been giving me the schedule day by day. I’m using the same text book in all classes. That makes it kind of boring for me, but they are all basically at the same low level. I still don’t know what I’m going to do about the really poor students. I’m sort of ignoring them now. If I give the class work to do, I go around and they aren’t doing anything. I ask them if I can help. They smile at me, pick up their paper and pretend to start working. I walk away and the paper is put away.

I think I’d like to try teaching, but not the English language. I wonder what it would be like to teach a real subject, where we all spoke the same language? I’ll never find out, but I wonder about it.