Etc.

Answer to question posed... awhile ago:

According to a couple concerned mothers who have approached me to write middle school acceptance letters for their children, middle schools in Seoul are becoming increasingly more competitive. The reason for this isn't, however, "because [I] touch [myself] at night." This is a bizarre outcome of the Virginia Tech shootings. The incident sent the whole country into mania, and front-page stories in the Korean media ran the spectrum from "U.S. shooting prompts concerns of racial backlash" to official presidential apologies. Random people on the subway offered their condolences and my sixth grade students wouldn't stop talking about it. All this, apparently, has culminated in several wealthy parents' decisions not to send their children off to US boarding schools for middle school, as is otherwise typical within that demographic.

There was a fieldtrip last Friday, to an island of some historical significance. It was cool to see Korea's answer to Stonehenge - and it's always nice to get out of Seoul for awhile and get some fresh air - but I was kinda bored at one point and thumbing around at this one temple. I saw this gaggle of females not too far away, stopping to refresh themselves at one of the communal drinking fountains that are present at every Buddhist temple I've been to. Hands in pockets, I shrugged and saddled up: "A couple of them look to have somewhat disproportionately large faces, but this will help occupy a couple minutes." I doffed my invisible cap and said a few pleasantries to these lasses. Right away, it was apparent from the spit bubbles forming at the corner of their mouths - as well as the elongated vowels of their reciprocal pleasantries - that I was just spitting game at what we in the business refer to as "special needs [high school] students." In a Buddhist temple. Bad karma?

As for the job, it's decidedly a step up from where I've been. It's a great gig, actually, it's just that the sixth grade aspect is what one would expect. I'm still trying to figure them out - and to get them to stop swearing in my class. They're learned ways to circumvent my no-swearing policy.

For example, sixth grade joke of last week:
Q: What starts with F and ends with U-C-K?
A: Firetruck.

Other variations include "flexible duck" and "five bucks." Clever I suppose, but I still hear my students casually say "oh shit!" when they drop their pencil or dislike the school's lunch offerings for the day - something of an overreaction.

In less than two months I'll be joining the entire sixth grade class for a week-long fieldtrip to Japan. Then immediately afterwards I'll be enjoying five hard-earned weeks off. I'm still thinking where to go.

Any ideas - memorable assignments or course projects from your own 4th to 8th grade years, however major or minute - that would be good to implement in my classroom? Let me know, as the school gives lots of room for creativity.