It’s no great insight to note that the music of Elliott Smith is better suited for rainy bus rides and other rain-based activities than anything else. Getting to listen to him again was the only boon of today’s miserable and uncertain weather, which, like the past few days, has been ideal mopey folk weather and not ideal for anything else.
I’ve been listening to “From A Basement On A Hill” more in the past two days than I have since my sophomore year of college. Perversely, this is a sign of good mental health; when I’m actually sad, I want to listen to something that has no emotion to it whatsoever. The cold comfort of the inbetween, indeed. Which is a phrase that could just as easily apply to my imminent departure and my persistent lack of job offers.
Saturday the weather was the same, and I went with HM and her posse of Man Friends to 추자도, which is halfway between here and Jeollanam-do. It was lovely in a Wales-ish sort of way, as our affection for it was necessarily masked by the freezing mist that continually surrounded us. A list of things that Omma forgot to tell me to bring: $20 for the ferry, closed-toed shoes, a jacket, my passport, anti-nausea medicine for the second-worst ferry ride of my life. I discovered this when we got to the ferry terminal and three different Man Friends came up to me and said, “Why are you wearing slippers?” and, when I told them that I had worn them with HM’s blessing, turned to her and said, “Why did you let her wear slippers?”
Yesterday was better, with yogurt eaten in a park with Oregon and Arkansas. And today would have been fine, except that the Konglish Jeopardy lesson leaves me with the feeling I thought I’d shaken, that of being a beleaguered Will Ferrell trying constantly to keep up with Sean Connery’s moronic antics. Unfortunately, the test used to split the first graders into levels was too easy, and as a result, there are maybe five to ten advanced kids in each low-level class, and some really, really slow kids in the high classes. Nonetheless, my low-levels are pretty reliably slow, and on more than one occasion I found myself intoning into the microphone, “Do you understand? Does anyone understand? …Anyone?”
My day improved, however, with the viewing of “Forever the Moment,” a totally inspiring movie about the Korean Olympic women’s handball team. Are you still listening? Good. This movie combines the best of the inspirational sports-movie genre with uniquely Korean issues.
A few examples:
TEAM OFFICIAL, FIRING FEMALE COACH Why didn’t you tell us…that you were DIVORCED?
YOUNGER MAN TO OLDER MAN: Shut up!
OLDER MAN: How can you be so insolent!
Interestingly enough, whenever I ask ACT about a problem kid’s family, she looks around and goes, “Well, you know, his parents are divorced,” like that explains everything.* Bear in mind that ACT is no Puritan. As previously mentioned, I’m pretty sure she’s a registered Socialist. I always have to look really serious and nod and resist the urge to point out that in America, that’s usually only the beginning.
*A little bit of context: Because divorce is so stigmatized here, I suppose it’s possible that usually when people get divorced here, it means that things are REALLY bad. I’m not sure how that applies on Jeju, however, where the divorce rate is well above the national average.
Would you believe me if I told you that I’m so excited about the prospect of MSYDP that I actually can’t sleep? How on Earth could it be possible to love something that has apparently sucked all of the life force out of my limp, exhausted body? Would you buy that I’m almost delirious thinking about it?
Well, BELIEVE IT, suckers.
I’m not even joking about this. This program - which at times I have believed to actually be sucking the blood out of my body - is coming up in two days and we are on a roll. Except for Scooter, who is convinced that his kids have no idea what’s going on. The rest of us have seen the future, and its name is MSYDP. Hallim met with her team today and apparently they solved Japan’s energy problems. I love this.*
Other noteworthy things that have happened this week:
Started emailing with three of my favorite girls, all of whom are friends and in the same class. They’re wildly enthusiastic about everything and super funny. I almost feel this sense of relief, too, because I’ve been wanting to have contact with my kids all year, but most of them haven’t seemed comfortable talking to me outside of class until now. Which makes me sad, obviously, because The Other Kids In The Program get lots of outside time, and I’m not sure why my kids are only comfortable with me now, but I’ll take what I can get.
One of those girls actually likes Jeff Buckley. She also actively blogs and likes Korean punk music. I think she might be the only one in this school of 1500 that falls under these categories. I feel like I did when I was teaching at Summerbridge and I met Amara, the only camper who wasn’t a Rihanna fan. (This is also “Besame Mucho”/sloth girl.)
I wish I could write in more detail about my students, for writing purposes, but this blog is supposed to be anonymous and I’m still trying to figure out how to balance detail and anonymity.
Went to a festival with Soccer and two Book Club girls. (Note: Also found out that one of my favorite boy students is widely perceived to be arrogant and unkind. Whatever. I still like him. Also, he has never behaved that way towards me, which is more than I can say for a lot of my other students.)
Saw some B-Boys and like ten more of my students at aforementioned festival.
Saw “Iron Man” again with HB and HBBFF and another HB Friend.
Someone told me the desks had been changed in one of my classrooms and Monkey started singing “Changes” by David Bowie.
Rediscovered the Pretenders and “Back on the Chain Gang.”
During “Would You Rather” lesson, offered Korea winning World Cup vs. Japan giving up Dokdo. CTF was like, “But that’s not a valid question, because Dokdo belongs to Korea.” I responded that I agreed, but that Japan continued to claim Dokdo. To which he told me, “Well, that’s kind of like China and Tibet. Maybe soon an earthquake will hit Japan, just like it hit China.” Open Response Question of the Day: readers, how would you have responded?
*So when I was at this festival on Saturday, as I mentioned, I was with one of my girls from Book Club who goes to My School and who is incredibly smart and pretty and sweet and also really shy and doesn’t have that many friends. The girls I ran into are good students for me - participatory, skilled at English - but also widely perceived to be running with The Wrong Crowd, i.e. the crowd that wears too much eyeliner and dates older boys. That crowd. At the time, I was torn between hanging out with my book club student, whom I wanted to know was respected and valued despite her lack of social success in the middle school arena, and these other girls, whom I wanted to sort of watch over and encourage to at least keep studying. Which is sort of the dilemma I face with my intense joy re: the MSYDP kids. They’re brilliant. I love working with them. I see them doing incredible things. But then I’m like, these kids don’t need me. And my elation at working with these kids is definitely equaled by the excitement I get when I actually engage some kid’s attention who doesn’t usually care. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I wish I had more time in the day to hang out with all of my kids.
In which we take a break from our regularly scheduled programming of constant complaining about all the stress in my life and examine a few things that I really, really love. It’s a special Super Size version of IGR Recommends.
When we were in Japan, I discovered a heretofore unknown fact about Soccer: given any iteration of the game “Would You Rather,” wherein one option is anything in the world and the other option involves Billy Crystal, she will always choose the one featuring Billy Crystal. This is a rule I like to think of as “Soccer’s Law.” At first I thought she was crazy. I’m not going to say that I suddenly had some sort of epiphany about my feelings towards Billy Crystal - they still remain in the indifferent-to-occasionally-annoying range - but I do, now, understand where she’s coming from.
I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull* with some of the Jeju crew and Co-Teacher D, and I was trying to explain to CTD how adorable I find Shia LaBeouf and why. As it happens, I had also been discussing my love of the show “Cupid” with Oregon and Arkansas earlier, which is another relatively obscure thing about which I am passionate. I’ve also been listening to more Korean psychedelia lately. These three seemingly unrelated occurrences helped me to realize that I, too, have a lot of things I don’t necessarily think are the best in the world, but, given the option, will always choose for whatever reason. These strange little obsessions are itemized for the first time here.
Note: the following list doesn’t include obvious concepts like “favorite artist,” and it’s not comprehensive. Also, most of these do not reflect very well on me.
Note 2: if you have known me for longer than six months, you have probably heard me talk about at least one of these.
Note 3: My sister shares a lot of these. I’m not sure why.
1. “Sesame Street”
I love “Sesame Street.” I have always loved “Sesame Street,” and I probably always will. It still makes me laugh, and not in the “oh that’s so cute way,” more in the “Grover why did you bring out a grapefruit on a hot dog bun” kind of way. I love that it doesn’t talk down to kids, that it features characters who aren’t always sugary sweet to each other, that it takes on Hemingway and Hitchcock. If I create something with as wide an impact - if I even created something nearly as entertaining - I will be very, very proud.
Arrivederci, frog.
2. Shia LaBeouf
When I was in high school, I used to watch “Even Stevens” with my sister specifically for the purpose of seeing Shia LaBeouf. If “Even Stevens” was interrupted by “Lizzie McGuire,” I would complain loudly until that Hilary Duff monstrosity had ended and “Even Stevens” was back on again.
I totally want to hang out with him. I think he is absolutely adorable. I thought so when I thought he was like six years younger than me and he seemed to be the kind of kid I would have loved if he were my age, and I think so now that I realize that he is, in fact, my age. I like the fact that he broke into the movie business in an unconventional way and that he chooses a wide variety of movies. Also, he seems to have trouble with women, which if you know me at ALL you will realize that this, to me, makes him even more endearing. I would date him as well as hang out with him. Just saying.
3. Korean psychedelia/folk
I bought an album by Shin Jung Hyeon yesterday and it’s really good. I also want to listen to more Kim Jung Mi. I can’t believe I didn’t know about this stuff before. Don’t get me wrong, I still like Big Bang okay, but this is a total scene that apparently disappeared and was replaced by NOTHING.
4. My Co-Teacher, ACT
ACT is the most awesome woman on the planet. She hugs me and listens to me rant about things she can’t do anything about. Right now she is in Seoul protesting the Lee Myung Bak administration. I asked her what they were going to do in the demonstration and she said, “Shouting.”
No one ever knows who Jeremy Piven is. Which is too bad, because I love Jeremy Piven. I have loved him ever since I watched “Ellen” with my mother when I was in elementary school. I loved him in “Cupid” (see below), and I love him in “Entourage.” (Note: this is a key distinction between the items on this list and actual normal things I find attractive. Adrian Grenier is much, much more attractive than Jeremy Piven. I realize this. I find Adrian Grenier incredibly beautiful. But I would not necessarily go see a terrible movie featuring Adrian Grenier. I would do this for Jeremy Piven.) I think that I associate him in part with this sort of nostalgia for the mid-90s, when I was first starting to imagine myself as something more than what I was then, and the media I consumed featured adults living these lives that were possibilities for me. Also, I watched these things with my parents, and that was fun.
7. “Cupid”
“Cupid” was canceled prematurely. “Cupid” is one of the cutest shows ever, and I mean that in the most positive possible way. Jeremy Piven played this guy who was convinced he was Cupid, and Paula Marshall played this psychiatrist who was convinced he wasn’t and that love was all about science, and they wrestled with it as he tried to hook up every single person in the city, and I was twelve and really wanted to fall in love. Theme song by the Pretenders, which added to the awesome, as I also wanted to be tough like Chrissie Hynde.
8. My father’s boss and his wife
They ply us with delicious baked goods and have really adorable Nova Scotian accents. They are older and, we are sure, make wonderful grandparents. Cute dogs round out the package.
Highly recommended. Totally different from the movie, as previously discussed.
11. Blessid Union of Souls
Again from the mid-90s. Lyrically terrible and incredibly catchy.
12. Men’s style magazines
Esquire and Details feature authors I actually like reading outside of magazines (ex. Chuck Klosterman, Nick Hornby). They also write as though they are speaking to an audience older than tenth grade. While I’m not a fan of the way the dating articles occasionally veer into misogyny, they are far more entertaining than their female counterparts. The only comparable women’s mag would probably be Jane, but Jane was a) a little full of itself, b) targeted towards women who wanted to make it known that they read Jane, and c) halted sometime last year, which means I can no longer subscribe.
13. Reusing and making stuff
My father is a pack rat. So am I. He and my mother are also both bargain hunters, a trait I have inherited. Also, I have always liked making things, as my mother can attest, when she used to take me to the craft store as a treat. As a result, my rooms wherever I live are always cluttered with projects in process.
14. Social marketing
I did my thesis on this. I love good marketing. I’d rather be convinced than preached at.
15. Thomas Haden Church
There was a summer when I was moving and everything I owned was in a box, which meant that the only thing I had available as entertainment was USAm, the USA network’s feeble attempt to recycle old programming for the unemployed. I got really into “Ned and Stacey.”
Look at those crazy antics!
I actually think that “Ned and Stacey” was a good show for what it was - the writing may not have been top-notch, but Debra Messing is kind of endearing. More importantly, Thomas Haden Church is both full of himself and completely unashamed of being crazy, which seems to be the role he fits in the best. (Also, I’m a fan of mid-90s sitcoms that weren’t very good. Don’t even ask me about Caroline in the City.)
My sister understands this, as she watched a lot of Nick at Nite during this time and went through a similar phase with “Wings.” We also both enjoyed “Sideways.” Thomas Haden Church seems to be crazy in the same way we are, which is to say that I suspect that if we played “Would You Rather” with him long enough, we would find his Billy Crystal, so to speak. And isn’t someone we can play such games with what we all want, in the end?
*SPOILER: I briefly entertained the notion that the UFO was there, and looked incredibly cliche, as a sort of tribute to these sci-fi movies of the time period when IJ is set, but Oregon disagrees with me here, and I think she might be right. It’s difficult for me to say, anyway, because I’ve never seen the rest of the movies (don’t start on me). Also, CTE is lots of fun.
I forgot to mention this: so my former boss at the Embassy, who was a PC volunteer here in the 1970s, was talking today about a woman named Yang Hee Eun. Apparently, according to her, Yang Hee Eun was the Joan Baez of Korea. A little Googling reveals this:
A little more Googling reveals that apparently Korea had a burgeoning psychedelia/folk/rock scene in the 1970s, and the only people who seem to care enough about it to write about it in English for me are Belgian DJs. In the country of Big Bang, the possibility of this culture seems almost preposterous. I have a new quest.*
I spent less than twenty-four hours in Seoul this weekend, tracing the path of our future MSYDP superstars and ensuring that they will have enough speakers to keep them entertained and enough jjajangmyun (ew) to keep them fed. It’s exhilarating now that all of this is starting to coalesce, that we’ll be able to take these kids and let them dream about a better world together. A couple of our friends/allies at the Embassy were gracious enough to spend their Sunday out in the city in the rain with us, helping us make sure that everything was going according to plan, and they even talked a little bit about the possibilities for next year. I’m not even sure if I’m prepared to hope for that possibility yet.
On the subject of possibility, though, here’s an editorial from the NYT that offers some rather sober food for thought, if nothing terribly new:
…voting for Clinton does not make a person sexist - there are other reasons to reject her.
The subject of sexism and Ms. Clinton, of course, isn’t anything that hasn’t been covered before, and the statistics the author cites are hardly surprising. Still, the fact that this article needs to be written at all, that there are still statistics to cite, is indicative of the issues that the girls of MSYDP, at least, will someday face. In one of the few advantages that my school has to offer, they had a gender studies program last year for the students - one that I would ordinarily have dismissed as repetitive, old news, perhaps replacing material of actual substance. But now I’m not so sure. Aside from the fact that a few of the boys at my school have obviously not learned to respect women (or maybe people, for that matter), most of my students seem reasonably aware of the actual, as opposed to societal, limitations placed upon them. But Jeju, with something like 65% of its women involved in the workforce, still outpaces the other provinces here by a good deal. And those women are still cleaning and cooking in addition to teachering and lawyering. Sometimes the girl power message feels repetitive, but I suppose we’re the first real generation to have it hammered into our heads repeatedly, and whether or not it works to change those numbers - and to create candidates who aren’t hated for their gender, as opposed to their tactics - remains to be seen.
.
.
.
Aside from the article, there are a few other things I’m sharing here. The first is this poem, which I found in a rather roundabout way. I’ve only read one other William Logan poem, and it also used meter and rhyme in a manner that most of the modern poets I’ve read seem to eschew. Guess I should have taken that class on Poetic Forms in college.
For an Old Girlfriend, Long Dead
Lying on that blanket, nights on the seventh green—
in the dry air the faint scent of gasoline,
nothing above us but the ragged moon,
nothing between but a whispered soon…
Well, such was romance in the seventies.
Watergate and Cambodia, the public lies,
made our love seem, somehow, more true.
Of the few things I wanted then, I needed you.
I remember our last arguments, my angry calls,
then the long silence, those northern falls
we drifted toward our newly manufactured lives.
Does anything else of us survive?
That day in Paris, perhaps, when you swore
our crummy hotel was all you were looking for—
each cobbled Paris street, each dry baguette,
even the worthless sous nothing you’d forget.
Outside, a block away, the endless Seine
flowed roughly, then brightly, then…
Then nothing. Nothing later went quite that far.
I remember that Spring. Those breasts. That car.
- William Logan
I’m also going to plug the newest Beirut album, The Flying Cup Club, which isn’t actually new at all, but is if you’re me and just got around to listening to it:
These are all in .m4a format, but you should probably already have iTunes anyway, and if you don’t, well, not being able to listen to this album is your punishment.
I probably like it mostly because I was listening to it today when it was nasty and rainy out, just like part of the reason I like the Police’s “Spirits in the Material World” is because I first heard it when I had a tiny part in a perfectly awful play we did at My College called “The Beloved Community,” and while the play itself wasn’t worth much, I liked contemplating the ideas of community and how much it’s worth - how beloved it should be. If you will. It gave me this weird feeling of naivete and optimism that, for unknown reasons, I associate with the late 80s and early 90s, probably because that was when I was first contemplating these ideas. It was also the first time I had heard the Police, although certainly not the last time, as I was also listening to that song fairly recently. And so will you, because it’s right here.
do they not want to shower me with compliments? investigate
1K - Break it Up
absolutely awful (why? testing/rain?)
better attitude from the kid in the Carlton sweater today
struggled with vowels
did NOT get to Sudoku wksht
I’m doing a lot of side projects right now, including applying for jobs (does that count as a side project?), so I’m a little stressed. Therefore, today’s entry is going to consist entirely of recommendations.
1. Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. My only real dream in life is to be a contestant on this show. Living in Korea, this is my primary source of news (I am not joking). And while no week is ever a bad week to start listening, I highly recommend this week’s podcast, which features none other than - you guessed it - Neil Patrick Harris, along with Mo Rocca as a panelist and a story about our very own Quagmire’s much-beloved hometown, Scranton, Pennsylvania. (The story involves cat litter.) My primary reasons for loving NPH were his roles in Doogie Howser and Harold and Kumar (please see below), but it turns out that he’s also really funny, and he starred in Cabaret on Broadway. Miley Cyrus, I hope you’re paying attention. (Note: the best shows feature any of the following panelists: Mo Rocca, Roy Blount Jr., PJ O’Rourke. Actually, anyone who’s not Paula Poundstone.)
2. Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life. I am only on song #6, but I am already wondering how I have never listened to this album before. Fun fact: Stevie Wonder’s real name is Steveland.
3. Changing Cleveland, Ohio’s name to Steveland, Ohio.
4. Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. Widely perceived to be a dumb stoner movie, H&KGTWC is actually rife with absurdist humor and sharp racial commentary, while at the same time presenting two ethnic characters as real people from real (okay slightly exaggerated) backgrounds. It also has a lot of dumb stoner moments. AND a sublime bit part by NPH. Sequel coming soon.
5. The Office. I cannot believe I am not back in America to watch this.
I love my second graders more. I’m not even going to front here. Maybe it’s because I know some of their names now, but I look forward - I even get excited about - seeing them. The first graders are fine and cute and all, but with the exception of 1K, whom I see every week, I don’t know them all that well, and I find myself caring less.
My affinity for these classes is only strengthened after days like today, in which I taught 4 classes of first graders, only one of which could be said to be listening. And I am prouder still of them when I think of last Wednesday, when a small cadre of drama-loving girls staged a minor revolt against Co-Teacher F.
I like Co-Teacher F, personally, but apparently he hits too much for some students’ tastes. As a result, he made two of my better-behaved students cry quietly all through class Wednesday, which dampened the mood, as you might imagine. On the opposite side of the room, girls kept trying to call my attention to the situation by writing me notes that said things like “Teacher hit.” We were still studying the subjunctive, so I got sample sentences like “I wish teacher is fired.” When I told them that that wouldn’t fly, they changed it to “I wish she or he is fired” and pointing, rather unsubtly, to the hitter in question. As a result, I had to drag two of the crying girls and one of the protesters to the gyomushil and foist them off on ACT, who discussed the issue with them and promised to intervene so that Co-Teacher F does not hit them anymore.
My pride is mitigated a little bit by my shame in not having intervened, but, of course, here’s the thing: I don’t think any students should be hit, but I see corporal punishment being inflicted literally every day. While I may privately judge this, I still feel that this is a different culture and educational system, one of which I’m not part, and one I don’t always understand, so I’m not really qualified to or justified in stepping in. But I guess girl students aren’t hit that often - there are all these nuances to the punishment system that I don’t get - so when one is hit, it’s a big deal. But I’ve become so used to turning away that it didn’t occur to me that something might be wrong with what was going on. So I suppose I’m proud of my girls, even though I know part of their motivation was attention, simply because they gave me something of a wake-up call. In addition to stepping in for their friend.
And for the record, Co-Teacher F came to me later, apologized, assured me that if I ever had a problem I should talk to him directly, and informed me that he used to hit a lot more, but had become much better about it. Well, good for him.
Soccer and I were discussing Neutral Milk Hotel the other day, and Jeff Mangum’s obsession with Anne Frank came up. I told her that he wasn’t the only one obsessed with Anne. Here’s a Ryan Adams bootleg and perhaps one of NMH’s best-known songs, “Holland, 1945.” They both take very different approaches to the subject.
I’m currently trying to plan what appears to be the only ESL lesson in existence based on Skee-Lo’s “I Wish.” The plan is to teach my students a) the construction “I wish,” b) how to rhyme, and c) the word “baller.” I suspect, however, I’m going to end up using Nina Simone’s “I Wish I Knew How It Feels To Be Free,” which is also a good song, but one which mentions neither ballers nor Impalas.
In the meantime, I’ll try to post the Price is Right lesson soon. The election lesson needs some pretty serious modification before it can be put up.
And since I’m on the subject of Ms. Simone, I’ll go ahead and Recommend one of my favorite songs of hers:
You can download most of the rest of that album here. I’m not sure why I don’t have all the songs.
EDIT: I went to Mass today in short sleeves, because it was the only remotely springlike outfit I could find, and HM asked me three different times if I was going to be cold. People at church asked me if I was cold. Complete strangers came up to me, rubbed my arms, and asked me if I was cold. HM had HB call me to ask if I was cold later. When I came home, HM asked me if I was cold. And now that it is 11:11 PM and I am wearing pants and a sweatshirt, HD just came in and asked me if I was cold today. I GET IT. Isn’t there a point in your life where how cold you are becomes no one’s business but your own?
I live within Itaewon now, which is disgusting - full of foreigners and knockoffs and garbage. It smells of badly cooked eggs. I am, however, quickly learning to enjoy the rest of Seoul, although I still don’t know it well enough to feel truly oriented or settled. At least not yet.
I have a tendency, anyway, to not appreciate things for their full value at first glance, which means that I’ll probably love Seoul more later, just as I love Queen now more than I ever did as a child, when my father used to play their albums (and air guitar along) for me. I went with a group of Program Kids over to the Seongnam Arts Center, on the far end of the Yellow Line, to see “We Will Rock You” last night - a musical I had specifically advised my family not to see during their time in London, due to poor reviews. The reviewers were wrong. I was wrong. My family is not happy. I never thought a hybrid of “Rent” and “Rocky Horror” set three hundred years in the future could be so very successful.
Other highlights of the past few days: headed over to Butterfinger Pancakes in Apgujeong…twice. Didn’t realize how much I missed pancakes. Also, have clothes that are not stiff and cold. ALSO also, took advantage of the library on base, finished The Emperor of Scent, about Luca Turin, a scientist working to create a new theory on how we smell. Although Soccer points out that “you would think we would have figured it out by now,” the book is well written and a fascinating exploration of both the politics of science and the things we smell every day. It also had the effect, at least for me, of making me want to go to the perfume counter at the nearest department store.IGR RECOMMENDS, for sure.
Going to Jungangro after the festival proved fruitless, as it turns out that you can’t really return things in Korea, at least not when those things are cheap and you don’t speak the language. So basically I spent cab fare to and from the rotary to buy two separate wafers of my favorite burnt-sugar candy and four pairs of Muhan Dojeon socks.
The futility of my afternoon, however, was compensated for by the complete and total reward that is the Korean school festival, which included the following.
rap
rap with beatboxing
rap with live piano
rap with the phrase “hey yo” and various directional commands (”to the left, to the right”)
booty dancing
booty dancing in plaid
an all-teacher cover band with a vaguely Blue Oyster Cult feel
a student band that offered three Green Day covers
these students were borrowed from another school
six robots dancing in unison to opera
ninth-graders continuously hitting on Oregon
Notes:
1) The beatboxing explains the inexplicable behavior change on the part of one of my former best students. Previously kind, enthusiastic and funny, his recent too-cool-for-school attitude made me think that maybe I had done something. Nope. He just fancies himself a beatbox celebrity. Well, I’ve got news for you, friend: beatboxing won’t teach you English.
2) My students are TERRIBLE booty dancers. Also one of the dances looked a little like the Tootsie Roll.
3) I am SO JEALOUS that Quagmire’s school has this Green Day-based student cover band. Why does my school have to suck?*
*where “suck” = “not having a Green Day-based student cover band”
4) While I didn’t get quite as much attention as Oregon, it is quite clear that most of the ninth-grade boys have NO idea that I am a teacher at their school. What they do see me as is a foreign girl who would potentially date a ninth-grade Korean boy. I can’t even begin to parse the flaws in this perception. The lone exception to this rule is a boy I don’t know who has, on multiple occasions, gone to great pains to inform me that he has a girlfriend, presumably in an attempt to apply some sort of reverse-psychology tactic. Sample sentence: “My girlfriend, these socks, give me.”
Now it’s midnight and I’m still finishing up my personal statement and debating whether or not to download the Sheryl Crow album where she looks like the Crow on the cover. The serendipity present in that statement was not apparent until I typed it. I’m waffling not because I see it as a guilty pleasure, but because if I don’t put it on there I will listen to other things, things I don’t know, things that will make me feel and think different things than I did when I listened to that album in high school. In other words, it’s constricting me, and yet I have this inexplicable desire to listen to “Redemption Day” on repeat. Maybe it’s because I’m returning to the land of country, the land where the blood runneth orange. (See: “Ten I See,” Silver Jews.)
Which brings me to today’s IGR Recommends: Chuck Klosterman on guilty pleasures. This makes me feel a lot better about some of the terrible quality things that I love. Although since listening to Sheryl Crow actually would be preventing me from listening to something else, thus somewhat qualifying it as a guilty pleasure under Klosterman’s definition, it is not a guilty pleasure because her later albums were terrible, because her songs in commercials were inescapable, or because she dated Lance Armstrong. I like it. I like her voice, I remember liking the sadness when I first heard it, and that is that.
