Just now one of my favourite students (B-C
I'll call him) brought me his holiday homework essay to check. I taught him for
a week during winter camp, and he's a lovely kid. When I first arrived I remember
thinking maybe there was something a bit wrong with him. He acted pretty out of
it, and when I had to ask the class questions, I was steered away from getting
him to answer. I thought it was because everyone just thought he was hopelessly
bad at English, or was a bit *special*. I thought 'well, he's not going to get
any better at English if we ignore him', but obviously I didn't know any
details, and wanted to be sensitive of the situation, so I left him well alone,
but was just really friendly and encouraging whenever I got the chance to
interact with him. I am so glad I was.
His
extremely well written essay told me about how his mother had recently died of
diabetes and how he was struggling with his need to cry and his feelings of loneliness.
Turns out he's actually very good with English. His mother must have died very
close to when I arrived here. I am so, so glad that even though I didn't know
or understand his situation that I was nice to him, and gentle and kind. He is
so much that way himself. Poor kid. I really wish someone had told me. Well,
maybe I don't. Perhaps if I had known before it would have made me awkward with
the enormity of what he was going through. As it was I was able to treat him
normally. He seems to respond to me really well - he always seems very pleased
to see me, comes over and has a chat. From the outside and my very limited
observation, he has a close set of friends helping him through. He is such a
sweety. I hope he's in my after-school cases this year.
However,
I think it's a bit rough that no one gave me the heads up about this kid. If
he'd struck me the wrong way, or I was a different kind of teacher I could have
taken his behavior as insolence, unwillingness, or decided he 'just needed to
work harder' and commenced pushing him, or picking him out, or something.
Because I didn't know. No one gave me the chance to know or understand. I'm not
sure of the reason, it could be anything, but I still think it was a delicate
situation that I'm very lucky I handled correctly by chance. Good lesson here
for me.
As
for B-C, he says things are starting to get better and that when he grows up he
wants to go into sports massage. Awesome kid.
In
other, less weighty news, I made chocolate coated strawberries out of my big
bowl of red deliciousness. I brought some to work to snack on. Helps make my
day just a little bit brighter. Also, along with the return of the students
comes … dun, dun, duuuuun….. *school lunches*! Oh yes! Every cloud does have a
silver liningJ. Also, Taiwan on Saturday - hooray! And a small leaving party for
Jen on Friday night (not so hooray about the leaving part, but I am adopting
her cute as a button rabbit, Kyle). Also, after Taiwan, I have another week of
work (possibly teaching some mysterious thing called "spring camp"?),
and then a few days more holiday! I was going to try and cancel those last few
days to use in summer, but I figure I'm having so much fun playing Star Wars,
I'll just take some unpaid vacation in summer if I can and if I want/need to. I
want to do a trip to Japan in summer.
I
swear I can almost feel spring around the corner. It's still cold. Google tells
me it was actually -9 degrees again this morning, but I'm sure it was warmer. I
can almost *smell* spring. Possibly just wishful thinking, but if the strength
of my will can make the warmth come any sooner, I will use it. I am SO over
huge jackets, scarves, hats, gloves. Dresses and shorts sound like heaven. When
the heat does get here I am definitely going on another Forever 21 shopping
trip. Just the thought of all the cute dresses and cardigans has me drooling.
Dinner
last night with the girls was great! Courtney's workmate Mike came too. He's a
good guy, but my goodness he has a different way of doing things than me! I
find some of his actions and conversation so strange. Like, he'll state
something as fact, you know, like he knows about this thing for real. You'll
discuss it a bit, and then he'll change his mind and state a different view as
a fact. Where I'm from (ok, really just in my family and close friends) you use
the words 'I think', or 'maybe', or 'In my opinion' to express something you
don't actually *KNOW*. If you go around saying things as a fact, and either
change the facts or I find out you are continuously and massively wrong,
I'll just think you're an idiot. Not that I think Mike's an idiot, he's only
reached the 'slightly ignorant' on the over-all scale so far. There's still
chance for redemption J Mike,
if you ever read this, I think you're an awesome bloke, but for goodness sake,
stop stating your opinion as fact!
Anything
else? Well, I got my Jedi Sentinel to level 36 last night. I'm sad because by
the time I get back from Taiwan both Mum and Dad will have advanced way beyond
me, so I won't get to team up with them anymore. It was lots of fun while it
lasted. But, I guess since the level cap if 50, I'll catch up eventually and
there an chance of us being able to do end-game stuff together. It was such a
neat way to feel connected to them J.
Tonight
I want to stop off at the glasses store on the way home to find out about
getting some prescription sunglasses, and then have some dinner and do a
flashpoint in SWTOR. Sadly, I'll have to do it with a pick-up group, so it'll
be probably much messier than when I was with mum and dad L.
*
* *
Haha, I got told I was teaching one class
today. What I actually got to do was read a list of words to the students for
10 minutes at the end. Bummer! It's so hard to make that fun, for me or them. I
just try to smile and sound happy while I do it. Kind of not why I want to be a
teacher. I'm afraid that if/when things pick up where they left off before I
got to do all my own teaching (which was ages ago now, what with my holidays,
winter camp, and the two full weeks of Christmas lessons I got to teach before
that) that I am going to start resenting my job, or even worse, losing respect
for it. The loss of respect is already well on its way.
The
kids are neat though. I wore my new grey blazer to work today, and one of the
girls in class goes "Teacher! Style…good!". Made my day a little bit,
right there J. Another one of my favourite students, a girl this time wanted to
tell me about her knitting. She was working on a scarf during winter camp, and
said that now she's finished that and has also made some mittens for her mum.
Nice J
And
on the way home I saw this. I'm pretty sure they mean Z-Bra, seeing as there's
a zebra. Korean's can't really say 'Zee" though, it comes out a
"Gee". This is pretty funny. Did no one even use a dictionary when
designing this campaign? Fail.
Also, I just got told I have no classes at all tomorrow. I may die at this desk.
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