Saw a really cool movie.

So I saw this movie a couple weekends ago. . . I think it's also out in N. America these days. It's called "Bridge to Terabithia" and it's about an imaginative kid who's a bit of a loner, and I don't know when was the last time a movie managed to touch as many nerves all in such a short space.

Really enjoyed it -- don't want to say too much about what happens and how it kept tossing its darts right through me, bone-deep if you will, because I'll give away some of the film's surprises, twists and turns, but. . . touching, wonderful film. If you ever played "let's pretend" in a forest by your house, if you ever invented a new country in your imagination, if you ever had a best friend when you were a kid, or didn't get along with the other kids in your class, or got bullied, or fought with your sister, or lived in, or knew somebody who lived in a small North American town, and went to a small-town North American elementary school, well, you might relate to parts of it.

Maybe part of the reason I related so much to it was because of its rural, N. American setting, and the way I've been away from that for so long -- urban Seoul is about as different as you can get from rural N. America without being on a space station, but it sure got the texture and the details bang-on.

I saw it with a friend, who was disappointed that it was closer to real life, and not as deep into the fantasy world as "Chronicles of Narnia", but when a film is as true to life and true to its characters, as compassionate and honest as this (it's from a Newberry Award Winning book: no surprise there) I'll forgive that.

So, if you are, or ever were, 13 years old, go see this movie. Worthwhile. Plus, Disney just gave me a free wristwatch for writing this blog post! (I wish.)

(PS: While I worked at POLY School, which had a large library of English books for young readers, I got a chance to read a bunch of books for young adults, and gained a serious respect for writers of that genre. It's difficult to get it right, to relate to that age but also add grains of learning and truth. If you ever see a book with a "Newberry Award" sticker on its front, read it, or give it to the nearest 13-year-old you know. Just awesome.)

Holy Cow my student almost died last weekend!

So I came into class on Tuesday, the 20th, the first morning after a three day weekend. Here in Korea, Lunar new year is the second biggest family holiday of the year, kind of Thanksgiving to Chusok's Christmas. (Chusok is the Korean harvest festival, and it's amazing: EVERYBODY goes to their ancestral home/town/grandparents' house, offers up special foods and dishes to the ancestors in the old way, dressed up in the traditional hanbok clothes. I've seen the ceremony at a friend's girlfriend's house, and it's quite impressive.) The city empties out -- it's almost eerie. Even the street food stands are closed up! Then, at the end of the weekend, everybody returns to Seoul, and the gridlock begins fifty kilometers outside of the greater Seoul area, all the way into town.

{Tangential story alert: Once I travelled on a holiday weekend, and the trip took four hours out by bus, and twelve hours back, because of seventy kilometers (no joke) of stop and go traffic. Even better, the tour organizer had rented three movies to watch on the trip: X-men (not bad) Black Hawk Down, and Saving Private Ryan. That's comic book action movies: 1, Gory gory war movies: 2. Being trapped on a bus, in stop and go traffic, hung over (as most of the group was), with "Oh GOD IT HURTS" "I can't stop the bleeding Ty!" "You're gonna be okay, Eddie. You're gonna be okay. What's your daughter's name? You'll see her again, Eddie, I promise." "I feel cold Ty. I feel cold" for two hours is just hard to manage. So after Black Hawk Down (the noisiest, most overwhelming war movie I've ever seen: long and just gross), the guy was about to put on Saving Private Ryan (the second noisiest, most overwhelming war movie I've seen) on, and the entire bus vetoed the choice. At the next rest stop, somebody went to the DVD stand and bought "When Harry Met Sally" or "You've God Mail" or some Sandra Bullock romantic comedy, and the travellers were placated. End of tangential story.}

Well, some people go into the mountains, to see their ancestral gravesite, as did my student Lucas. As I asked about the students' weekends, this story came out, piecemeal, as Lucas remembered different impressions of his adventure. The total innocence in his eyes matched my own sheer disbelief at how close this kid came to being hospitalized, at least.

He saw a snake, and decided he didn't like having that snake in that spot. So, being a kid, innocent as all Eden, he chose to move that snake along by prodding it with his foot. "Teacher and then the tail is up and," he held his hand up and moved it side-to-side to copy a tail's shaking. Shaking a raised tail is a common warning signal for poisonous snakes (not just rattlesnakes, as I learned by research). He poked it again, and "teacher, it biting me in the pants" and he pointed to the cuff of his pants, right behind his ankle. Because it was February, and cold, the snake was slow; had he poked it in June, it probably would have had the speed and wherewithal bite him properly, but as it was, the thing missed his ankle. By then his father had spotted Lucas, and saw what was happening. His dad ran over and punted the snake, kickin it far clear of his son, but I don't think he saw the whole scene, because Lucas never mentioned an extremely angry father in the jumbled account of his story.

I was so incredulous I immediately went to the next class to tell Caleb about what had just happened. The kid never even realized how close he was to serious danger.

(Side note: there are four species of poisonous snake in Korea, in the viper/asp category. None are as deadly as the cobra, the black mamba, or the dreaded snakes of Australia, but none are to be trifled with either. Lucas being a child, the poison would have been more dangerous because he has a smaller body mass than say, me. Of the snakes in Korea, the one with the coolest name is called (in Japan) the mamushi. Just say that together with me one time. Mamushi.)

I'm glad Lucas made it through honouring his ancestors, without joining them. He's a sweet kid. Except when he isn't.

These video clips made me laugh.

Deb, I think you'll especially enjoy the second one.

This one is short. And funny.

You might recognize the thin, silly one as Hugh Laurie, now most famous as the abrasive star of the TV series "House". He actually has a background in comedy that goes all the way back to "Black Adder", the early '80s sitcom that also gave Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) his first big break, and is FAR superior to Mr. Bean in every way. I also like Hugh Laurie's comedy stuff far better than the TV show house. . . what's with all the medical and crime investigative dramas on TV these days? Here in Korea there are only three or four channels that regularly play English programming, and at any given time, one of them is playing a Jean-Claude VanDamme movie (which cease to be entertaining even ironically after two watchings) and another is playing CSI, or one of its spinoffs, rife with grotesque modes of death and gratuitous autopsy scenes.

Sigh.

Oh well. At least it's weaned me off watching TV.

But THESE clips are funny. You should watch them.





This one plays around with actors, lines, and scene setups. It makes me smile, having acted on stage myself.



This third one. . . I think they're making fun of flag-waving singers. I'm not sure though.

Valentine's Day. . . meet a friend of mine.

I have a friend named Zooey. Here's a picture of him, partaking in a vice. . . usually he's not that bad. Really. Upstanding, even. (And let's give him a break: Leffe is a really good quality beer.)






Even though he sometimes drinks beer (he swears it was only that once), he also really likes to come to school with me and meet my students. He lives an adventurous life: adventurous enough that he often appears in the stories I tell to my students. He's a bit of a rennaisance elephant: he speaks tiger, bear, octopus, English, Korean, and a handful of other useful languages (not to mention African elephant, as well as Indian elephant).

When Sally the genius' family was struck by a tragedy that shall go unmentioned, I introduced Sally to Rhonda, the only other known mini-elephant. Here's Rhonda. (Un?)surpringly, Zooey and Rhonda hit it off when they met, and have been courting in the traditional mammothian way. Rhonda's even helping Zooey with his addiction to peanut butter.

Here's Rhonda.




My students love Zooey, and love to hear stories about Zooey. One day, after visiting Sally, I accidentally left Zooey at her house, and Zooey and Rhonda spent that whole week together. After that, Sally asked if Rhonda wanted to come to my house for a few days. I agreed, so that Rhonda could meet my students. My students loved her, and wanted to hear all about Zooey and Rhonda.

Then, two months after her appearance at SLP, on Valentine's day, Arooh made valentines for all her classmates, including me, and even one for Zooey. However, she couldn't remember Rhonda's English name, so she had to write her Elephant name.

Here is the card she wrote for Zooey and Rhonda.








It made me smile a lot.

I will be teaching adults next month: my contract with SLP is up, and I just couldn't imagine another year of teaching little kids, and mediating conflicts like "Kevin hit me." "James hit me first." "No, Zach pushing me so I hit you accident." However, I'll miss the sweetness of Arooh trying to sound out an elephant's trumpet.

For sure.

Kevin's Really Funny.

On February 26th, we have a graduation show: my preschool class is finishing their two year preschool program, and graduating to elementary school. This is nice. The graduation show, though, is stressful. We have to put on a big old show to prove to the parents that their money was worth it and their kids now kick butt in English. As the preschool director, it falls upon my head to make sure everything comes off well.

Today, during gym class, we practiced with the six-year-olds. That was as cute as you would ever believe. It's such an easy job directing a performance of six-year-olds: if the kids get it all right, it's really impressive. If they get it wrong and somebody turns the wrong way, it's really cute. You just can't lose! Anyway, the kids did a really good job, considering the graduation show is almost two weeks away.

The seven-year-old kids are working really hard to do a good job, of course.

Well, I was practicing the lines with my class of seven-year-olds during phone teaching today, and the kids really impressed me: they really have their lines down cold! (With one or two exceptions.) The thing about phone teaching, though, is that it's really repetitive and a bit tedious: it's my least favourite afternoon of the month (other than the month when I actually lost my temper at Tom because he was standing in the corner, with his hands over his head and his eyes closed, and still giggling and speaking Korean to Peter). In order to keep myself from shoving a pencil in my ear just to spice things up a bit, I play around with the students on the phone. When I call them, instead of saying "This is Rob teacher," I say, "This is Ashley teacher," and argue with the students about how they know I'm Rob, for sure. Well, today, I had to phone Kevin. "Is this Kevin?"
"Yes."
"No, it isn't. This is Kevin's grandfather."
"No teacher, it's Kevin."
"No. It's Kevin's grandfather!"
"Teacher!"
"Nice to meet you Kevin's grandfather!"
"Teacher!"
"Can I please talk to Kevin now?"
Without missing a beat, Kevin says, "OK," waits for five seconds in silence, and then says, "Hello this is Kevin!"

Quick wit, that one. To play along as subtly as that, with a purely verbal joke, over the phone, at seven years old, in his second language, is pretty impressive to me. I laughed out loud. Kevin's awesome. He has these squirrely bright eyes and a face whose entire shape seems to have been created for the express purpose of laughing. He's great.

At lunchtime today, David broke my heart.

During my first four months at SLP, David was in my homeroom class, and he was like one of those tempestuous days when you never know whether, five minutes later, there will be a downpour or a sunny break in the clouds. He was moody, and his bad moods were awful. Few kids manage to sulk on a par with David's epic glowers. He's the smallest kid in the class, asthmatic, with pale skin and eyes that crinkle when he smiles.

Then, in March, a new student joined, named Belle. She was a nice girl, and she and David became best friends. They played together, sat beside each other, and were really sweet. David always picked her when we played name games, and openly told people that he loved her. Their parents became friends, and they played together after school. When Belle broke her collarbone in August, she missed a month, and then came back to school sooner than the doctor's recommendation, so the doctor told her she had to stay in the classroom during lunch and breaktimes, for about four or six weeks after she returned. Every breaktime, David stayed in the classroom with her, colouring or making paper crafts, to keep her company. David's one of my favourite kids because of that kind of stuff: an absolute sweetheart.

Well, over the last two months, Belle has fallen under the spell of Willy, the most charismatic student in the class. He's bright and sociable, he has good ideas for games, and he's funny as anything. Arooh (the other girl in the class) has taken to following him around like a puppy (while Lucas follows her around like a puppy, saying things like "Arooh I love you. I want to give you a present and chocolate and everything!") For the last two weeks, David, always a slow and somewhat picky eater, has been eating even more slowly than before.

Today, as he mulled over his honeyed sweet potatoes, poking them and contemplating them, instead of eating them, I said, "Davarino? Why are you eating so slowly?"

He looked up at me and said "Teacher, in the playtime Belle is say 'don't play' and everyday 'don't play' to me," and his sweet little eyes had this forlorn helplessness that just about melted me right then and there. He was a really sweet kid, and Belle's been spurning him to be another of Willy's groupies. Silly girl doesn't recognize loyalty and sweetness when she sees it. I hope she figures it out before she grows up, that she doesn't become just another of those young ladies who shunts aside the sweet, generous boys who'll take good care of them, for the charismatic guy who attracts people into his group, but then (as Willy does) plays a bit of a tease, never quite letting a person know whether they're really in the group or not, so that they're never sure if they're in or not, so they have to keep working at the guy's approval (and stroke his ego along the way). (Arooh's had some days when he's made her feel totally rejected. . . but then other days Willy can be a really sweet kid.)

Willy has good parents (I've met them). And I've told them point blank about Willy's ability to do this, and Willy's a sweet kid by nature: he'll figure out, between his parents' guidance and his own innate sweetness, that there's a better way to treat his friends, but for now, it's sure sad to see little broken-hearted David's devotion totally ignored.

So, in summary:

Kevin's funny
David's sweet
Belle's inconstant
Willy's charismatic and charming but unaware just how much influence he has over his classmates
And I'm going to teach adults next month (found a new job) so I don't have to worry so much about issues like that between students, because I know that my students will be adults who can figure such things out on their own.

(Just to show willy's usually a good kid: two stories.

1. Caleb's wife, Heather, brought their baby, Kylie to school to meet the students. The students get so excited to see the baby, they run the risk of mauling her, so Caleb and Heather have to set clear limits on how much they can bug her. Paul reached over, once, and touched Kylie on the nose. To head off a swarm of hands that would follow, Caleb said, "Paul, please don't touch her."
Willy commented, "Yeah. When they're little they die really easily."

2. During the same phone teaching afternoon when Kevin cut me up, I asked Willy, "What special day is it tomorrow?"
"Valentine's day."
"What will you do for Valentine's day?"
"Give chocolate to the teachers."
"Will you give chocolate to Ellen teacher?"
"Of course, teacher." (He's taken to saying, "of course," lately).
"Will you give Ellen teacher a lot of chocolate?"
"Of course."
"How much chocolate will you bring for Ellen teacher?"
"Maybe she will die."

He's not a bad kid. He just doesn't realize how much he influences his group of friends.)

OK. Enough for now.

Love you all! Take care.

Rob