The students were surprised, never having gone on a school trip wherein the foreign teacher tagged along. I was prepared for two scenarios: 1) the students would cling by my side and never leave me alone, shouting “hello” and “i’m fine thank you and you?” and whatever other English phrases they happen to know on repeat, or 2) the students would ignore me and give me a wide berth, unwilling to engage in anything remotely scholastic during their break time (I’m like a walking 영어 test). It turned out to be a mix of 1 and 2 at times, leaning a little more towards Scenario 1. I was a bit more concerned about rooming with the other teachers, who (aside from the few who can speak English) mostly view me with polite apprehension. Everyone is pleasant, but it’s definitely awkward and I put a burden on my co-teachers, who tire of translating everything that is happening for my benefit. Luckily, I was laid out for both nights with a massive headache and went to bed early, so everyone could hang out and party without having to interact with me much. Win-win?

The trip entailed lots of hiking and walking around in the sunshine, which is anathema to Korean students (vampires, the whole lot of ‘em). Every five minutes, a student would grumble: “why are we here?” “When can we go back to the bus?” “Oh, this is difficult / boring!” I could certainly empathize with their complaints, even though I didn’t necessarily agree. The itinerary, which had obviously not been planned by a Korean teenager, included such hits as a sheep farm and an honest to god gramophone museum, which is as scintillating as it sounds. (I think I actually might have enjoyed the museum, had I not been in the company of 400 sullen and stinky adolescents). The students just wanted to get back on the bus and go to the hotel, where they could run around and wreak havoc. The hotel specifically caters to these school trips, so they have staff on hand to help babysit so that the teachers can chill out in the rooms, or go drinking at the on-site noraebang (karaoke room), or whatever.

Apparently the only sheep farm in Korea. They were cute, fluffy, and delicious when roasted on skewers.

Mt. Seorak, gorgeous and largely unperturbed by teenage whining.

Despite the extra help, there were still some major student-induced headaches for the teachers. A girl’s fancy DSLR camera was stolen from her room, so we had to spend a lot of time searching people’s bags in the event that another student was the culprit. It never turned up, which probably means that some rando from another school wandering around unsupervised had taken it. (Am I just a total overprotective fuddy duddy, or does the idea of a massive group of hormonal middle schoolers wandering around without monitoring bracelets seem totally nuts?)

And then there was the plot by the 9th graders to smuggle alcohol into the youth hotel. Those involved: Annie, a chunky girl who wears way too much makeup; Jenny and Heather, two popular girls with very loud voices and strong wills; and Annie’s apparently psychotic mother. Here is the terribly confusing story, as far as I know it through my co-teacher’s translation:

Before arriving at the hotel, Annie called her mother. “Can you drive here and bring us some alcohol?” she asked. Annie’s mother blew up at her over the phone: “What are you doing there? What are your horrible friends making you do?” So Annie’s mother got in her car and made the four hour drive to where we were staying.

(Here’s where the story slowly starts to unravel into Nonsense Territory, and I realize that I simply don’t understand the motivations of anyone involved, except maybe the dumb kids who wanted booze, cause sometimes I am that dumb kid who wants booze and goes to stupid lengths to acquire it. Don’t hate.)

Annie’s mother met the homeroom teacher outside the hotel, and declared her intention to take her daughter home, due to her concern about the influence of some bad kids at the camp. The homeroom teacher relented – it’s the woman’s daughter, after all – so Annie got in the car with her mother. The homeroom teacher then went back into the hotel, at which point Annie called her friend Jenny on the phone: “come out and meet us in front.” There, Annie’s mother proceeded to give Jenny several bottles of liquor.

Jenny ran back inside. At this point, possibly spurred on by some spidey-sense, the homeroom teacher turned around and looked out the window, to see Jenny running away from Annie’s mother’s car. From this limited information, and ninja-like intuition, the homeroom teacher grew suspicious and deduced the plot right away. Homeroom teacher called up Annie’s mother. “Did you just give our student alcohol?” Annie’s mother: “Yes.”

Meanwhile, Jenny had run to one of the 8th grader’s rooms, and deposited the stash there. She swore the younger kid to secrecy. When the homeroom teacher, who seriously must never be crossed because she can obviously read minds, interrogated the junior classmate later, the kid said she knew nothing and had no idea how the alcohol magically appeared in her room. (Kid has learned not to cross Jenny or any of the other upperclassmen).

The plot, which had apparently been in the makings for months, took a manner of minutes to fall apart. Both Jenny and Heather presented themselves for questioning, nervous and super scared about repercussions from their parents. They did their best to try and pin the whole thing on Annie, saying all of it was her idea. In the past, Annie’s mother has accused Jenny and Heather of being bad influences on Annie, persuading her to spend lots of money on them, and do bad things. The truth is probably a little bit of both. Annie’s obviously a girl with very little self-esteem, and such girls are easily to manipulate.

I can understand where the girls are coming from, though I am an Old from a foreign culture and all. What I absolutely can’t understand, and what none of the other teachers understand either, is what the hell was Annie’s mother thinking?! She not only supplied minors with alcohol, she drove four hours out of her way to do so. She obviously doesn’t object to students drinking, but for some reason was still upset enough by the potential for student behavior that she felt compelled to remove her daughter from the camp?! Yet she here she was, aiding and abetting student misbehavior. Basically, none of her actions in this sequence of events make any kind of sense at all.

The other teachers suspect that Annie’s mother has some kind of mental problem. My co-teacher then filled me in on another incident that had involved Annie’s mom, which had happened last year. Apparently Joe, one of Annie’s classmates, had prank-called Annie’s house. He cursed out both Annie and her mother – again, not wonderful behavior for a middle school student, but not exactly out of the ordinary. Back home, the thing to do would be to call up his dad and complain. Annie’s mother did exactly that, but went one step further. This woman actually blackmailed Joe’s dad, arguing that the stress of Joe’s cursing sent her into so much shock that she had to be institutionalized. ! Furthermore, her daughter couldn’t bear to go to school, due to the shame of having been cursed out via prank call. and If Joe’s dad wanted to rectify this situation, he should give money. Persuaded by this argument, Joe’s father did end up giving her money for “damages” – a ridiculously large sum of money, maybe like the equivalent of $500 or maybe even $5,000; I’m not sure (my CT sometimes gets tripped up converting monetary sums to English). At any rate, it turned out to be one expensive phone call.

Again, I am galled by the total lack of shame on the part of the mother, engaging in such blatant extortion. I’m also appalled that the other kid’s father just rolled with it. Maybe I should study the juvenile legal system here more in depth, but it’s not like you can toss a kid in jail for making a prank call, can you?

During the trip, one of the teachers lamented, regarding the students: “I can’t understand their generation.” I guess in many ways I understand them better than the teachers do, though I come from a different culture – one that is quickly engulfing Korean traditions, sadly. Yeah, they’d rather stay inside than get Vitamin-D or breathe fresh air. They’d rather watch a movie filmed on a mountain in 1080p HD, as opposed to actually be on the mountain. I give the kids a mental pass for their behavior, because they’re growing up and it’s confusing as hell, and they’re struggling to figure it out. Some day, hopefully, they’ll get it. I find the minds of the adults here far more inscrutable. Shouldn’t they have their shit together by now?

Of course, I’m certainly a fine one to talk about adulthood and shit-together-havingness. Though never in my wildest drunken-binges would I ever consider giving booze and god knows what else to school children. Call me Prudence the Prude, I guess.

Apart from those incidents, and my ear-splitting headache, it was a good trip. We all got back in one piece and nobody fell off the mountain or got left behind at a rest stop. And I got to experience a Korean school field trip for the first time ever. Success!

Eli was shocked at this transformation, having largely occured while he was still off in Germany. Sometimes we run together, but not really together. For short legs and years of sedentariness are hard to overcome, and even though I’ve caught the running bug, I’m still quite slow. So Eli will run on ahead, and then the nice warm feeling that comes with running goes away and the ugly, critical and obsessive aspect of me is so loud, in my head. It launches me right back to middle school P.E. class, where I was always either dead last or the penultimate when it was time to run the mile. Even the chunkiest girl in school whizzed past me on occasion.

I’m worried that putting myself into a race situation, a natural step for anyone into running, is just going to totally ruin it for me. What’s worse is that for both races, I am part of a team. The friends I’m running with are totally cool, and would never intentionally make me feel bad for slowing everybody down or anything. Eli reassures me, with his hippie sensibilities, that it’s not about being the fastest – everyone goes at their own pace. But I will still notice when my pace is slower than anyone else’s.  I will feel bad and resentful and weird. That part of me is just less malleable than my exercise habits.

I don’t know why I’m so slow. (Well, besides the whole “not being in shape” detail). I feel this urgent squeeze in every part of my life right now: I want so desperately for time to catch my breath, process all I am taking in, enjoy and rage and cry or whatever it is I need to feel at the moment. 시간 없어. The world spins so fast and I can’t call a timeout. I have trouble with the question “how old are you?” – an important question in Korean society, because that number determines the very nature of how people talk to you. I still think I’m twenty-six. But that was years ago.  What happened in all that time? What have I done, exactly?

I was recently talking with a good friend of mine about the evils of Facebook. Facebook is the absolute worst invention for self-obsessive, critical types (save, perhaps, blogs). A person who had been in my creative writing workshop classes has now published her second book. I downloaded it and burned through it in a day, hating the book and tallying all its flaws. Confusing perspective, obvious Mary Sue-ism, and cliches too numerous to count. I really think I can write a lot better than this girl, and yes, I know, I am catty and awful. Also, I have zero books and no author page. While I waste time hate-reading and quietly snarking, she is writing and networking, being published and recognized, winning the race.

I’m not sure what it is, but this awful nagging, critical monster in me has intensified as of late. I lash out against people, against (poor) Eli, against myself. I can’t stop my brain from obsessing, analyzing, measuring and comparing. Oddly enough, the only times I feel free from that craziness in my brain is when I run. Alone, that is. Just me and pavement, dirt, rocks and wind. There aren’t many runners at all in my town, so I rarely encounter anyone else that will make me wonder if I’m running fast enough, if my form looks bad, etc. Some of the old villagers will see me and sometimes cheer me on, and that feels good.  Otherwise, the only thing I’m thinking is, should I take this path or that one? Watch out for that little pile of fertilizer.  The immediate physical decisions demanded by a run feel much more solvable than the long-term intangible ones.

I do want to evolve into the type of runner that can handle it, that sense of humanity, which to me can be oppressive and scary. The catalyst that sparked my interest in running was the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, a book that has inspired so many people to just drop whatever it is they are doing and run out the front door. In the book, McDougall describes a tribe of super-runners called the Tarahumara, who run ultramarathon distances. He talks about what separates the Tarahumara from competitive runners who do it for competition and glory. When the Tarahumara run, it’s not out of a compulsion to beat the guy (or girl) in front of them. They run out of love for running, and for each other, too. It’s a social glue for the Tarahumara – everybody runs, the men, the elderly, the women with babies on their backs. It’s not a contest; it’s a celebration.
 
With luck, someday I can learn to run freely with the rest of the world.

Case in point: I have this new pet Mindy, who is a bit of a Hot Mess. She’s a 7th grader, but apparently doesn’t get along with her classmates. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that she’s really tall and developed for her age. Rumors, maybe true, spread quickly about how she used to (maybe still does?) smoke cigarettes, and that contributed to her outcast status. Now she mostly hangs out with the 8th graders, whom she met in my afterschool class. My afterschool class has descended into a Hot Mess itself – the inmates are totally running the show, which is slightly exasperating as I still occasionally have aspirations towards being a “good teacher,” but that’s for another post. Anyway, it’s more like “The Breakfast Club” instead of a “class,” as they are mostly using it to socialize (80% in Korean, 20% Konglish. Sigh).

Earlier, Mindy confided in me that she has a huge crush on an 8th grade boy, Josh, who doesn’t like her back – he likes her best friend, another 8th grader named Marie. Apparently Josh and Marie dated back in elementary school, so you know, it’s like, totally serious. Today, for some reason, Josh decided to join the afterschool class, and – oh yeah – Marie also happens to be in the class. OMG DRAMZ. Yes, it was that bad. The kids were playing a strange combination of dodgeball and truth or dare in the class – if you get hit, the thrower can ask the victim any question and they must respond with the truth. Mindy sat out, and in a hushed tone of voice, confessed to me that she was feeling sad.

“Because of him, right?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. And then it came tumbling out, mixed up due to emotions rather than language barrier, I think – he doesn’t like her, he likes her best friend, and “teacher – I’m fat.” I think maybe one of the boys in her classroom had put that idea in her head, or at the very least, reinforced it. She burst into tears and was inconsolable for much of the “class.”

Ah, the pain of being a girl in middle school. At least that much is universal. I think she comes to me to talk about her feelings, rather than a Korean teacher with whom she could maybe communicate better, because I’m young and kind* and could maybe relate better than some old ajumma. I feel bad that I’m not quite up to the task, though – shit, I still don’t know how to deal with being a girl. What does one say to a girl with girly problems? I’ve always been one of those girls who had mostly guy and tomboy friends. Even if the both of us spoke fluent English or Korean, I think I’d be a loss as to what to say that would dissuade a thirteen year old girl from feeling like shit. Even though I’ve been there myself. Especially since I’ve been there.

A Korean ulzzang, or super beauty. Honestly, if I saw this reflected in the mirror my instinct would be to scream and maybe smash it with a bat.

I am not eloquent in either Korean or English, so this is what I did — I let her cry, hugged her, plied her with snacks and tried to keep some of the nosier kids away from her during her sob session. (At one point, Josh came down and sat right next to us – ! – I banished him to the other side of the room on some teacher-ish pretext). I actually happened to have a cutesy stationery sticker in my desk that reads “YOU ARE NOT UGLY” with a cartoon girl on it, and maybe (yes) this was a really stupid idea, but I gave it to her and of course that made her cry even harder***. Ultimately, I kind of just did what I would want done for me if I were crying my heart out in public, barring mint-chocolate ice cream delivery and banning everyone else on the planet from witnessing my ugly-sobs. I hope she’ll be okay.

* – a little too kind, if I’m letting them play freakin’ DODGEBALL in my CLASSROOM, I know.
** – dumb statement from a blogger, I also know.
*** – hey, but how else am I gonna use these stickers?

Ringleader: “Teacha! Today, we not Electric Fan. We team name is ELECTRIC GAY.”

Other boys: “NO!”

Me: “Really? G-A-Y?”

Ringleader: “Yes.”

Me: “Uhh, why?”

Ringleader: “We must Electric GAY.”

Scene: the current lesson for the 8th graders is about food, giving me an excuse to torment the students with pictures of cakes and desserts right before lunchtime.

Me: “People who don’t eat meat are called…”

Student 1: “Vegetarians!”

Me: “Correct! People who don’t eat meat, cheese, butter, milk, or anything made from an animal – not even honey! – are called…”

Student 1: “Suckers!”

Student 2: “Strange?”

Student 3: “Abnormal persons?”

With all due respect to my vegan friends – I do love my job sometimes.

Whatever you call it, it gets the job done.

Yesterday, the weather finally made up and begrudgingly admitted that it is supposed to be springtime. I quickly stitched together this thingy, pictured above, to hold my belongings so that I could go for a nice long run. I cut off and stitched up an old pant leg from a pair of corduroys. I looped a cute belt around it, but sewed it in such a way that I can still use the belt sans pouch. Finished it off with iron-on velcro – how did I never use this stuff before coming to Korea? Amazing.

“Fanny pack” is such a terrible name. Who says “fanny” any more in the U.S.? The only place where they say “fanny” with any regularity is over in the U.K., and it refers to another anatomical part. A part that is nice and all, but one in which I don’t necessarily want to be stuffing my keys.*

Other alternatives: my friend and her friends call it a “chaos pouch,” which sounds cool but doesn’t quite work for my purposes. (My real chaos pouch is my purse, which contains everything I have ever owned or looked at in my life). Maybe “belt bag”? “Butt banger,” because of how it swings when I’m jogging? (stupid giant clunker phone).

At some point I think I’ll put a bird on it, Portlandia style:

* not that I’d be wanting to stuff my keys up my tailpipe, either. Let’s just reiterate – “fanny pack” is a terrible name for a thing.

I took it to an Apple repair dude down by the Yongsan military base in Seoul. I had to basically slay a dragon and solve miscellaneous quests to get to this damned place, and I went there because I thought the dude there would be most likely out of anywhere else to speak English. He does not, but through my co-teacher’s assistance over the phone, I was able to ascertain that changing the keyboard will be expensive – as in more than I want to pay for my stupid mistake – but not as expensive as Eli, in his Apple wisdom / nerdery, thinks it should be. Plus, I’ll be getting a new keyboard with 한글 characters on it, which will be useful when I want to hunt and peck in a language I don’t even know, versus type like a normal person in a language I sorta kinda know.

Moral of the story: though it is healthy and way good for you, running does not indeed solve everything. Especially if you are specifically running away from your problems.

Me: Have you ever read Hamlet? (Student shakes her head no). Well, long story short, Hamlet was a prince who wanted to kill the man who killed his father, but didn’t know what to do.

Student: Kill him! Why not?

Me: And then there was this girl whose name was Ophelia, who fell in love with Hamlet, but he was really mean to her, so she killed herself.

Student: She’s stupid! Why would she do that?

- 9th grade cleaning girls armed with brooms and mops, scrubbing away the magical dirt pile that had appeared during 5th period.

- 7th grade tiny cleaning boys, trying to tiptoe in and out of the room unnoticed by the comparatively gargantuan upperclassmen.

- girls sitting perched on the tables, avoiding the brooms, composing pen pal letters.

- boys rummaging through my office when I’m not looking, unearthing some old corn syrup and ancient grape juice, and chasing me around the classroom trying to get me to drink it.

- girls drawing various hybrid creatures (“lion / snake,” “tiger / octopus,” etc) farting on the whiteboard.

It feels good to be teaching again.

This American Life had a relatively recent episode about the chilling effect of immigration policies around the country. In general, I am still a strong backer of President Obama – and should I be back State-side during campaign season, I will be knocking on doors. One major disappointment has been the administration’s handling of immigration policies. More people have been deported in the first term of Obama’s administration, than in the entire eight years that Bush (43) was in office. It does appear to be a mix of state policies and federal incentives, but still, this was something pretty unexpected. I’m hoping to put the pressure on the President to ameliorate some of the worst effects of this during his second term.

The episode of This American Life is called Reap What You Sow.

My parents were immigrants, and they were lucky enough to be from a country where immigration to the U.S. was strongly encouraged for political reasons (thanks, commies!). I hope for the same opportunities for others, especially since Mexico (well, certain parts anyways) seem to be descending into nightmare territory. I’ll bear in mind the woman who pulled her son out of a good preschool where he’d been thriving, and the woman house-ridden with fear, the next time I start bitching and moaning about something trivial.