Biking in Seosan

A few years ago, I never would have believed that I'd one day make my way halfway across the world to South Korea. Even less than one year ago, it never even would have crossed my mind to leave sprawling Seoul for a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere called Seosan. But I did it, and I love it.

S.O.S Marin ...gouins!

Y'a beaucoup de maringouins chez-nous. Y'en a tellement, même, que le sport estival préféré de mes jeunes étudiants en vacances est de flâner devant la télé, sous l'air climatisé.

Raison no. 1: protéger sa peau contre le soleil.

Raison no. 2: la voracité maringouine.

Voici donc la solution:

La motocyclette dégage des pesticides destinés à l'annihilation des maringouins.

Moi, la santé, ça va mais...mon voisin a un 3ème bras qui lui pousse au front.

I Play With Myself

Teaching English has its moments. Students come in all shapes and sizes, with matching attitudes. I teach spright young things, aged 13 to 17 years old. From the outwardly taciturn to the bubbly airhead, I love them all. I get excited when I see them walking in, and I thrive on the challenge of getting them to participate. And, let me tell you, for some, that’s –C.h.a.l.l.e.n.g.e-, with a capital C).

For the most part, my students can carry on extended conversations, be it by enunciating complex sentences or by grunting out one word here and there. I’m fairly persistent on building up their confidence, though, and try to get them to speak as much as I can. As they come in, the students are asked to share something about their week. They can tell us about something that’s happened or about an interesting event they’ve heard about. It took a while to get things going but, recently, even the really shy ones have started to come out of their shells.

This week, though, I was thrown for a loop and caught completely off guard. Ricky (fake name, of course) came into the classroom yawning so hard I thought I caught a glimpse of his lung. “Hi teacher!” Yawn. LOUD stretch.

-“Ricky!”, I said. “Hi! Wow! That’s some yawn. Tell me why you’re so tired? Did you do something interesting last night? You must have been up quite late… It looks as though you’re pretty sleepy!”
-“Teacher! I tired because I can’t sleep.”

-“Really? You couldn’t sleep last night? What do you do when you can’t sleep?”

-“I, um, I play with myself.”

- …

- “I play with myself a lot… really late when I can’t sleep.”

-Ummm…. Ricky, I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to say. What do you mean, you play WITH yourself? Do you play alone? (Don’t ask me why I said that…Oh God, this can’t be happening…)

Ricky is looking at me very seriously, with bright, innocent brown eyes.

-"Teacher, I… "
HERE, RICKY WAVES HIS HAND QUICKLY UP AND DOWN IN THE AIR, MUCH TO MY DISMAY AND UTTER CONFUSION. What?!? What.do.I.do?

-Ricky, do you mean to say you play ALONE, BY yourself when you can’t sleep?

-Yes! Teacher! Yesterday, I can’t sleep so I (again with the helpful up-down hand motion in the air)…. I play computer games with myself.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was what a young Korean boy did this week when he couldn’t sleep. It was also, I should say, the basis for today’s quick review of the usage of WITH vs BY.

_______________________________
Another favorite recent moment of mine, as a student shared her favorite moment of the week:

-Teacher! I caught some crabs on the bitch! (…that's beach, most definitely. Beach.)

Say What?!?

A new class opened up a few weeks ago, and one of my new students submitted her first essay last Thursday. She had put a lot of effort into it but, unfortunately, it was so full of archaïc translations and run-un sentences that, in the end, I couldn't understand anything. Trust me, it wasn't for lack of trying. We went over her text together, and I gave her tips to keep her prose accessible to the common reader.

This week, the students were asked to discuss the reasons why people attend college or university. This is what she submitted.

My favorite parts are the following:

-"My mom and her friends say my sexual performance is compared with their friends. For these reasons motivated only want to boast too much because of the size of undergraduate education of their children seem to be trying to do."

-"Also fail because the ones through the University since. It's a lot of people fail to succeed, most often, people who have scoliosis."

Babelfish be damned.