The Daily Dose, Vol. 1
So here I am, fulfilling my promise to myself that I'd write here every day. Nothing terribly exciting to report, really. Classes were pretty normal, with the exception of the fact that I more or less inadvertently made one of my students cry. Now granted, I had help, but still, I felt bad about it for a few minutes. See, she had called me stupid for the second time in about ten minutes, and since this is a student that occasionally needs to be brought in because she likes to think of herself as a bit of a badass, I thought I'd set an example and send her out of the class to talk to our school director (and yes, "talk to" means "get yelled at by."). Only, like all the other students at our academy, she is absolutely terrified of the director, so she was flatly refusing to move. I think she even thought I was joking at first, since I'm fairly certain she was joking by calling me stupid in the first place.
One of the other teachers asked me a little incredulously if I'd had my feelings hurt by a student calling me stupid, but it's not really that. It's more irritating than hurtful, especially given the fact that she's only eleven. But I guess because of who I am, that really is the one insult that I can't abide. There are very, very few things that I'm proud of, to be honest, but my intelligence is one of them, and I respond incredibly badly when people seem to be suggesting that I lack it. Call me fat, call me a pig, call me ugly, whatever; I am at least two of those things and often wonder about the third. But my intelligence is one of the two focal points of what little confidence and self-worth I have, and I really have a very hard time tolerating people calling it into question. Aside from that, though, I can almost guarantee that the FIRST instance of calling a teacher "stupid" in her public school would get her spanked soundly, or at the very least yelled at liek woah. But that's neither here nor there. Especially since the entire paragraph completely REEKS of defensive justification, when there probably isn't really any need for it.
At any rate, I was about to relent and let her have one last chance, because I'm a giant teddy bear and kind of a pushover, but one of our secretaries had heard me say (quite loudly, I must admit, though not even close to yelling) "I'm not stupid, I'm your teacher, now get out." She came to investigate, because she's awesome, and it turned into a bit of a scene. My student hadn't moved in the face of repeated demands in Korean of what I can only assume was something like "fcome follow me and get what's coming to you," so the secretary tried to actually physically pull out her chair and drag her away, which she also resisted. The secretary said something very sharply, and my student's face basically just crumpled and she started completely bawling. After a very tearful conversation with the secretary, I guess it was established that she'd suffered enough and wouldn't have to talk to the director until the class break, so the secretary went back to her desk and class resumed, although my student stayed at her desk sobbing for a good five or ten minutes after that. After the class break half an hour later or so, she came back late accompanied by our school director and apologized, and seemed more or less fine for the rest of class. She wasn't even upset when I called her up after class and told her not to call me stupid anymore, so I'm assuming the talk was probably something along the lines of "Don't call Teacher Brian stupid anymore, as you can see he goes a little crazy." But maybe that's just my paranoia talking. Whatever.
Anyway, that was probably the biggest event of the day. Went to see Harry Potter last night between work and insomnia, and I thought it was pretty good. My favorite part, I think, was how the liquid luck potion apparently affected more or less like cocaine laced with Valium, and my least favorite part was the removal of ambiguity when Dumbledore says "Please" to Snape at the end. It was not at all clear in the book exactly what he was asking Snape for, but it seemed to me that in the movie it was really clear. But maybe that's just my own awareness of what happens in the last book talking, and perhaps it wasn't that blatant. Allan hasn't read the books and seemed to realize what was going on, yes, but Allan is also an English major and smart enough to recognize the pattern of the first five books setting Snape up as a straw man Every Single Bloody Time and having it come out in the end that oh, no, he's not actually evil after all. So more data would be needed to see if I'm actually right or not.
Wow, that got off track quickly. Impressive. Anyway, not much else to talk about tonight. Allan and I had dinner at the samgyeopsal place we call the Happy Cow, and as always their BBQ sauce was just about the most delicious condiment I've yet found in this country. Then I came home and played a bit of poker. I lost $10 on Cake Poker, which doesn't really bother me since even afterwards I've still got $74 of the $100 I put in, and since I won $1.41 or something like that in a $0.25 tournament on PokerStars. If I keep winning on Stars, I may well end up with a decent bankroll, and all from the $2.30 I won for participating in a Guiss World Record tournament last weekend.
But again, I digress. It's 3:15 in the morning, I still have to take a shower before bed, and I want to be getting up in seven hours or so to take another one. These two-a-day showers really suck since in the heat and humidity my bathroom floor is never, EVER dry, but that selfsame heat and humidity really give me no choice. And I am DEFINITELY not going into work tomorrow to teach for nine hours straight without taking a nice shower first. My room has enough odd smells in it as it is, and what with the students bitching every time I take the AC down below 77, I have no desire at all to add to said odd smells.
Anyway, I think I've left my water heater on (yes, in this energy- and more or less environment-conscious country you actually have to turn on the water heater) for long enough to take a shower, so I'm gonna go do that and then head to bed.
One of the other teachers asked me a little incredulously if I'd had my feelings hurt by a student calling me stupid, but it's not really that. It's more irritating than hurtful, especially given the fact that she's only eleven. But I guess because of who I am, that really is the one insult that I can't abide. There are very, very few things that I'm proud of, to be honest, but my intelligence is one of them, and I respond incredibly badly when people seem to be suggesting that I lack it. Call me fat, call me a pig, call me ugly, whatever; I am at least two of those things and often wonder about the third. But my intelligence is one of the two focal points of what little confidence and self-worth I have, and I really have a very hard time tolerating people calling it into question. Aside from that, though, I can almost guarantee that the FIRST instance of calling a teacher "stupid" in her public school would get her spanked soundly, or at the very least yelled at liek woah. But that's neither here nor there. Especially since the entire paragraph completely REEKS of defensive justification, when there probably isn't really any need for it.
At any rate, I was about to relent and let her have one last chance, because I'm a giant teddy bear and kind of a pushover, but one of our secretaries had heard me say (quite loudly, I must admit, though not even close to yelling) "I'm not stupid, I'm your teacher, now get out." She came to investigate, because she's awesome, and it turned into a bit of a scene. My student hadn't moved in the face of repeated demands in Korean of what I can only assume was something like "fcome follow me and get what's coming to you," so the secretary tried to actually physically pull out her chair and drag her away, which she also resisted. The secretary said something very sharply, and my student's face basically just crumpled and she started completely bawling. After a very tearful conversation with the secretary, I guess it was established that she'd suffered enough and wouldn't have to talk to the director until the class break, so the secretary went back to her desk and class resumed, although my student stayed at her desk sobbing for a good five or ten minutes after that. After the class break half an hour later or so, she came back late accompanied by our school director and apologized, and seemed more or less fine for the rest of class. She wasn't even upset when I called her up after class and told her not to call me stupid anymore, so I'm assuming the talk was probably something along the lines of "Don't call Teacher Brian stupid anymore, as you can see he goes a little crazy." But maybe that's just my paranoia talking. Whatever.
Anyway, that was probably the biggest event of the day. Went to see Harry Potter last night between work and insomnia, and I thought it was pretty good. My favorite part, I think, was how the liquid luck potion apparently affected more or less like cocaine laced with Valium, and my least favorite part was the removal of ambiguity when Dumbledore says "Please" to Snape at the end. It was not at all clear in the book exactly what he was asking Snape for, but it seemed to me that in the movie it was really clear. But maybe that's just my own awareness of what happens in the last book talking, and perhaps it wasn't that blatant. Allan hasn't read the books and seemed to realize what was going on, yes, but Allan is also an English major and smart enough to recognize the pattern of the first five books setting Snape up as a straw man Every Single Bloody Time and having it come out in the end that oh, no, he's not actually evil after all. So more data would be needed to see if I'm actually right or not.
Wow, that got off track quickly. Impressive. Anyway, not much else to talk about tonight. Allan and I had dinner at the samgyeopsal place we call the Happy Cow, and as always their BBQ sauce was just about the most delicious condiment I've yet found in this country. Then I came home and played a bit of poker. I lost $10 on Cake Poker, which doesn't really bother me since even afterwards I've still got $74 of the $100 I put in, and since I won $1.41 or something like that in a $0.25 tournament on PokerStars. If I keep winning on Stars, I may well end up with a decent bankroll, and all from the $2.30 I won for participating in a Guiss World Record tournament last weekend.
But again, I digress. It's 3:15 in the morning, I still have to take a shower before bed, and I want to be getting up in seven hours or so to take another one. These two-a-day showers really suck since in the heat and humidity my bathroom floor is never, EVER dry, but that selfsame heat and humidity really give me no choice. And I am DEFINITELY not going into work tomorrow to teach for nine hours straight without taking a nice shower first. My room has enough odd smells in it as it is, and what with the students bitching every time I take the AC down below 77, I have no desire at all to add to said odd smells.
Anyway, I think I've left my water heater on (yes, in this energy- and more or less environment-conscious country you actually have to turn on the water heater) for long enough to take a shower, so I'm gonna go do that and then head to bed.