To start off I had to explain to Kiwi kids their drawing assignment; basically this picture of a boat that was cut in half with a big space in between the halves. They were supposed to fold the paper in such a way that it made it look like the boat was whole, then draw something surprising in the middle so that when they opened it, it would be...well.... a surprise. I could barely explain that coherently to you, my English speaking readers. How do you think I fared with a bunch of 5 year old Korean children?
Yeah, about that well.
As a side note, I have recently rediscovered crayons as a medium. Have you tried coloring with crayons lately? 'Cause, let me tell, its a blast. I often spend more time on my coloring than the kids do. I put so much effort into one drawing that my co-teacher, Lynn, asked if she could have it for her son's wall because it was of a boat (a not on-fire one) and he loves transportation.
Anyway, I ended up trying to demonstrate by making it look like the boat turned into a snake in the middle which confused them further. They all copied my drawing at first then some of them got it when I was finished mine (it ended up being a snake that was on fire because little kids like fire). This was more frustrating then weird but it went down the rabbit hole from there.
Then this dude came in with huge Paris Hilton sun-glasses on (in doors) and walked up to Will very purposefully. The conversation went a little something like this:
Man: I am going to have a child
Will: ...
Man: I want him to have a school.
Will:...
Man: You work here?
Will: Yes...
Man: Where are you from?
Will: America.
Man: Where in America?
Will: Washington D.C.
Man: Oh good.
And he left. Without another word. Debbie came in later and told us that he was going to send his child (who is already born) to our school but wanted to know if any of the English teachers had a 'Mexican accent'. Because, he said - and I quote - "English with a Mexican accent isn't English at all".
Discarding all the many things wrong with that statement, lets focus on the fact that Will is not even a little Hispanic. He is half-black and half-Korean, but if you saw him on the street you would just think he was a rather dark Korean guy (I think there is a picture of him in the cooking day post). But apparently the guy wanted to make sure he didn't have a 'Mexican accent'. Will thought for the first minute or two of the conversation that the guy was going to start a fight with him. That's how intense this guy's body language was.
Also to be noted here is that Will is not actually from D.C., he, like many people, prefers to name D.C. instead of Hagerstown because no one know where the heck Hagerstown is.
Anyway, The strangeness continued when one of my students told me I have a small face. Apparently, this is not an uncommon occurrence. I think its a good thing.
I spent the rest of that same class trying to explain the different between a barracuda and a shark. One of the students made the mistake of saying that Nemo's mom (from Finding Nemo) was eaten by a shark. Of course, I had to set the record straight:
Me: No, it wasn't a shark, it was a barracuda
Student: Teacher, barracuda is what?
Me: ... its long and skinny and has sharp teeth
Student: like a shark?
Me: Well, yes, teeth like a shark but its small and has stripes. Its not even in the same family
(Pause here for looking the word up on various cell phones. Turns out the word for barracuda in Korean is 'barracuda'. Thanks, Korea. Big help you are.)
Student: They eat humans?
Me: No, no. They wouldn't be able to eat a human. But they could bite you. (I pantomime something biting me, which, I realize in retrospect, really could have been any number of things)
Me: Its long like an eel. Sort of. And a lot smaller than a shark.
Student: ...Is shark?
Me: No! Its not a shark!
I gave up. Hopefully I will be able to find footage of some barracudas being distinctly un-shark-like.
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