All in a Day's 'Work'

So you want to be a rock star? Come to Korea. Today after class students lined up to get my autograph. One special boy asked me to write 'terrorist' on his pencil case. When I say special I don't mean that he was a unique individual. In Korean special means mentally challenged and teachers say it in a half whisper with their face slightly squinched. "Oh him? He's special." Oh and ADD is considered mentally challenged. They must think North American children are so, so very special.

Yesterday two seperate parents asked me to name their children. I haven't met either of these children and only one of the parents but they heard I speak English and thus I should be the one to give them English names. Never mind that I can't begin to imagine what kind of names they might like or that my western political correctness makes me pretty uncomfortable with a white person coming into another culture and assigning new names to the children. Nevertheless, they insisted so we decided on Jaiden for the first kid because his mother wanted something that started with j. The other mother asked only for a 'beautiful' name, so that rules out Bertha but leaves basically everything else. I think I'll call her Pocahontas.

One of my co-teachers sent me the powerpoint slides for the next lesson on the weather and this was the photo she chose for raining:



I can probably garantee that none of these kids have seen a woman in a hijab, so I'm really not sure what she's going for. Maybe it's some hilarious cultural joke I don't get, which might also be the case for the slide she chose for thunder and lightning:



Did he get hit by lightning?? Wouldn't an actual picture of lightning be more educational? In a twisted way I kind of hope some kid thinks that 'thunder and lightning' means 'got the crap kicked out of him.' Back off dude or I'll thunder and lightning all over your face. Hey, aren't Chuck Norris' fists named Thunder and Lightning?