Chapter Twelve: Seoulja Boys and Girls

With my halfway point officially in the rearview mirror, I still have so much to do and see in Seoul and in Korea. Many of my friends are leaving now; their contracts are up. It's weird seeing them leave, as they were the seasoned veterans I relied on both for advice and funny stories. And it's weirder thinking that I'm now where they were when I got here.

I am now the longest tenured teacher at my school--counting the Korean teachers, which is rare. (And a sign of how poorly our school is run.) We now have two teachers doing the work of three, and our boss thinks we are her servants, to the point of commanding us to spend time with her on weekends. It can be unpleasant. The best thing about the job, by far, is the kids. While they still can and do hit, lick, spit, and cry, seeing kids who 6 months ago didn't know their English names ask questions using complete sentences is pretty amazing.

I try to make English as fun as I can, so I have taught them a couple of things not in the course books. (I have spent the last week trying to make a video of this all compiled but Windows Movie Maker has crashed on me every time. So the following videos are raw and uncut, just the way my readers like it.)

The first is a line from Bill and Ted they are learning, the second is part of their Princess Bride education, and in the third they show off their ninja moves.