Intrepid Girl Reporter

Sample titles for more personal ads today:

“I am so lonely”

“You will be my boyfriend”

“Do you want a girl?”

1C (girls) personal ad (part 1)

• unresponsive but not bad
• quiz: what holiday was last week?
• WotD: “ideal”
• next week: finish PAs

1A (girls) personal ad (part 2)

• quiz: describe your ideal boyfriend
• no WotD
• reviewed adjectives
• practiced titles
• each girl made ad, some read
• more high-level girls

1D (girls) personal ads (part 2)

• see 1C (same work)
• significant progress: Field Trip*, Orphanage**
  • now volunteering ^^
• Canada brilliant***

2D (girls) movie reviews (part 1)

• mixed now (thanks)
• made up lesson as I went along
• discussed: why do we like movies?
• got about 20 minutes into “You’ve Got Mail”

1B (girls) personal ads (part 1)

• usually Tuesdays, got switched bc of conference
• Eun Jeong and Mi Yeon came to class EARLY so I gave them the sarang hand sign (hands in the shape of a heart)
• overall pretty good

It appears that all my second grade (read: eighth grade) classes are combined until the end of the year, which is a good thing in that it will allow the low-level students to work with the high-level students and stop them from being paralyzed by these ridiculously low expectations, and bad in that I JUST HAD LOW LEVEL STUDENTS and they made me want to pull out my hair piece by piece. Also, I had no lesson plan for a combined class; in addition to the fact that the high-level lesson I had ready was way too hard (um, making a new Mayflower Compact?), the low-level girls did Thanksgiving last week. Naturally, PCT didn’t tell me about all this until, oh, today, which meant that I had to make something up. I was going to let them watch a movie, out of spite, but I caved at the last minute and sort of improvised a movie-review lesson. I should have stuck to my vengeful guns, but fortunately for PCT, my nagging neuroses that I am actually a very bad and lazy teacher made me turn it into a Real Lesson. (Note: PCT also failed to tell me that I had an extra class today due to the workshop I’m attending tomorrow. DOES she do this on purpose?)

Anyway I made it to the post office but not in time to meet Soccer; we were supposed to meet to start writing a grant addressed to the Program, requesting money for the after-school program, but then I fell asleep on the bus (note: I also slept through my alarm this morning) and ended up near Soccer’s school, but several bus stops past Soccer herself, who was getting up to leave Holly’s just as I was arriving. The PO, of course, took forever, and I was not inclined to think favorably of Korea, but then, as always, I found myself across the table from Soccer and then later Scooter, eating doughnut holes and giggling. I hope that when I come back my friends are somewhere near as good as the ones I have here.

Africa came with me to yoga, where the teacher gave us a bag of kiwis for no reason - she always seems to have boxes of produce around - and then we went to a dive and ate, and I came home and talked to Oma. There’s this Tupperware of these Korean snacks next to me - the snacks are like Smacks, stuck into bars - and I swear I can hear them snapping, crackling, and popping. I may not have people here bending over backwards to tell me I’m beautiful, or even to behave in my class, but I think I get enough gifts.

*Field Trip: I was paired with her on the school picnic, after which she started talking to me (v. shy)

**Orphanage: I met her at the orphanage - at first in class wouldn’t/couldn’t even write name

***Canada: just got back from studying in Canada

TODAY’S THING I LIKE: this list. I sent it out to the J-crew a while ago, but then I forgot about it until one of the Program kids forwarded it today. Nothing describes my life better.