A second success story

Today 7 of our elementary school students participated in Mokpo's municipal English speaking competition. Unbelievably my boss permitted me to skip my first class so that I could attend the event and support our competitors. It was amazing to sit there in the audience amongst all the parents and teachers, most of whom only had one student to support, and cheer on my 7 spectacular students. After 2 weeks of daily extra classes, I was as nervous as they were, sitting in the auditorium listening to the other speeches. In the end I had to rush back to the Hagwon before the competition finished, to teach my regularly scheduled classes of the day, but that was not before I saw all of my students mount the stage and speak their hearts out. I was so proud. They did so well!

Incidentally, there were a number of other foreign teachers at the competition, however all of them work in the middle schools and have sweet-ass curse-kindling public school jobs (which means they teach maybe 15 classes a week with a full-fledged Korean teacher assisting them every step of the way, they get all the benefits I do and more, and they work from 9am to 3pm every day. Yes, I do hate most of them. No, I don't think its irrational.). When they approached me to find out why I was attending the event, a competitive air immediately arose as I gushed about my 7 students. The teachers also seemed put-off by the fact that I knew each of my pupils by their real names, rather than by the stupidly arbitrary English names they are forced to adopt when studying ESL in school. Probably the funniest part, for me, was the fact that all of my students came running to me to check their pronunciation, or review their introductions, or to be congratulated after they had finished. Despite the fact that the public school foreign English teachers were required to attend the competition just because their students were there, each child all but ignored them in favor of Yours Truly. I know I sound arrogant, but it was honestly very funny. And I do care a whole hell of a lot for my students, and wanted to be there for them today. I certainly don't care for the job or for my boss, but I can honestly say I love most of my pupils.

Later this evening the results arrived that 6 of our 7 had received prizes. One girl even made it to 2nd place! I couldn't believe their luck and couldn't help beaming like a bleeding idiot for the rest of the day. Even though hugging is a BIG "no no" here I honestly couldn't help myself when the first students returned to the academy. Yes, I hugged them. No, I don't regret it. They deserved it, just like they deserve the ice cream I'll be treating them to on Friday. Certainly nothing is sweeter than success, but Baskin-Robbin's sure does come close!

(From Left to Right we are: Gun-Joo, Myung-Ju, You-Jung, June-Young, Hyun-Jae, Yours-Truly, and Eun-Jin.)

(Seul-Bin was doing her interview at the time, so she missed the photo.)