Last day at elementary school!

Yesterday was my last day at the elementary school.
The first pleasant surprise was that Eunok had arranged it so that my last class was 6-5. SWEET! That pretty much ensured a good day, because no matter how bad things got, I would have that to look forward to.
But it never really got bad. I had prepared two versions of the game for the day, because the first version seemed like it might be too difficult. It was the same matching game, but now there were 24 pairs, instead of 12 like before, so there were a lot more words for them to hear and understand why they did or did not match… problem!
So for the first class I did a really simplified versions where they had to match verbs to things those verbs could act on. It turned out to be way too easy, and only took about half the class. So I asked the kids what they thought was best about Korea so that I could talk about those things to my friends and family when I got back to Canada.
Here are some highlights: (words are theirs, descriptions are mine)
· Food
o kimchi and soju, mainly. Yeah, the two foods that foreigners dislike the most are apparently the best in Korea. So I will warn you, they are proud, and if you come here, they will make you eat them. They will hold you down and pour them down your throat. Luckily, I don’t mind either of them (I like kimchi again now)
o vegetables. That’s right, one of the best things about Korea, the COUNTRY, is vegetables.
o Squid. Yep, another of the highlights.
o Bulgogi – yeah, this is true. Korea does meat very well.
· Locales
o Jeju – that little island paradise OF COURSE made their list. Nevermind that any child I have ever spoken to who had gone to Jeju only talked about being bored out of their minds, all these children insisted that it was the best place to be ever, anywhere.
o Mountains – well, I’ll give them that one. They are beautiful mountains.
o Dokdo – probably even fewer of you have heard about this any of the other “world famous” attractions that Korea has to offer. This is a disputed island between Korea and Japan. Jessie looked it up, and it is described as “two rocky islets”. Now, there is no way that the kids are actually proud of this. Most probably only have only passing knowledge of what it even is.
· Jindogae – the dog breed that was declared a national monument. As with most national monuments, it was quickly tied to a three foot chain at the end of a driveway with a small shelter made of cinder blocks and fed a diet of leftovers.
· History and culture – I suggested this because I was tired of hearing about food.
o Hanbok – this traditional clothing, apparently designed to hide all women under a bell-shaped, bow-adorned silk dress. It either works as a one or a zero, it’s a binary dress. It either makes a woman look magically beautiful, or like the most frumpy and unattractive thing ever dreamed up.

For the next three classes, I used the long, difficult version of the game. It meant that it crawled in the beginning, but eventually, the kids got all the answers, and got some candy. Hey, what else are foreign teachers for?
6-6 was an amazing surprise! They were so good, and they didn’t leave me feeling “tired and alone” at all. They were participating, and even the especially bad ones were really trying, and being really nice!
My last class was good, it was 6-5, so of course it was good. It was even BETTER, because I taught in their classroom, and it is one of the only classrooms with an air conditioner. It was also the class where Eunok finally caught on to how I was choosing the strange nicknames that I had for all of the students. I just call them by whatever their shirts say.
“Yes, Vintage Designs!”
“Yes. Are you ready to rock?”
“Your turn, tank top!”
I caught her snickering in the corner after the third or fourth time that I called on “Ready to Rock”.
After class, I had a bunch of candy left, so I just opened the bag and let them take one each until it was gone. Well… tat had been my idea. Unfortunately, it turned into a mob scene, with kids crawling on top of eachother and grabbing handfuls at a time. I felt bad, because some of the good kids who restrained themselves wound up not getting any.
I felt bad, but not too bad, because I was done.
Woohoo!After lunch, it was a little awkward saying goodbye to Eunok. I will miss her, but I was just way too happy to be done to act sad. She gave me a nice little gift of ginseng candy, and some bookmarks. Also, her e-mail. She was really nice to me this year, and did so much to improve her English so that she could help me. Also, she’s a great English teacher! She’ll be so good for the program at the elementary school.