Intensives... sleepy... a new hangout

Okay, so, intensives have that name for a reason.
Teaching 8 classes a day is intense. I get home every day exhausted. Literally. I can barely concentrate enough to watch TV. I did manage to make some mediocre cookies on monday night, something that I don't think will be repeated for a while. I finished them tonight... I didn't share, because they really weren't that good. The oven keeps shutting itself off, so they became pretty dry.
The classes are going well. I've been pretty hard on my older students, not so much in terms of what I expect them to do (in one class, we rewrote two sentences - in a 45 minutes class) but I am really cracking down on things like lateness and forgetting homework. It was getting to the point where I was starting some of my classes almost fifteen minutes late every day, because I was waiting for students to arrive. They're being kept late by the teachers at the math academy, which is really disrespectful to the foreign English teachers. They'll hold students late into our class, but not the Korean teachers. So I penalize the students if they are late, and I told them that they have to get a letter of apology from their math teacher if they want to avoid the penalty. I'm not actually taking marks off students who are late because of math, but I'm letting them think that I am so that they will pass the message to their math teachers. Since I can't speak Korean, this is the only way to let the math teachers know what is going on. Basically, that I'm pissed.
I'm actually having fun, and my only real complaint is that now I have to see my "wonderful" grade sixes every week. I was told that they were advanced and would be a joy to teach, but they are honestly my least favourite class... they have no desire to learn English, and I can tell that they expect to just coast, so they don't like me, because I make them do some work.
Anyways, I'm plowing through. I'm tired, but other than that I have nothing to complain about. I like all of my classes, and I'm even finding ways to work with the really apathetic ones. Actually, last week, and yesterday, I've just had incredible feeling of admiration coming from my students. I think that just the amount of time we are spending together is making them bond to me a little. I've almost started crying a few times, when they do things like pass me a note that says "Matt is babo!" (crazy) on it, and then laugh and chase me around for a bit. Or when they just pop in to say hello when I'm getting ready to leave after class.
Another thing that is making it easier is the little coffee shop that I discovered (well, that Brooke introduced me to) called "Cafe Provence". I've been spending most of my 1:40 long lunch periods there, planning, and trying to do some marking. It's a really cool little place, and I'm totally in love with it. Tonight I went in after work, and the two young guys who had been playing guitar there last weekend were there. I sat at the bar with them, and we chatted a bit, and I wound up getting invited out to a rock concert with them tomorrow night. It's apparently an "invite only" concert, which is pretty cool, but I don't know what that really means what it means. It's "underground" rock, so I'm excited, actually, really excited, to go and hear what it is all about. These guys have pretty good English, and I haven't laughed so hard with anyone new in a long time. So, I'm looking forward to getting to know them better. We talked about books and music for about an hour, and then I took off.
The best comment of the night by far came in response to me asking the younger guy how he found this little cafe. He said "My senior told me about it. He said that it would be filled with beauties. But when I got here, I was disappoint. Even the mistress is no."
I laughed so hard that the "mistress", a wonderfully cute lady who just seems to be one of the nicest people that I have met, stopped what she was doing and just laughed back at me. It's so neat, just to sit at the counter, listen to the incredibly eclectic music selection (french folk, Damien Rice, classic rock, current indy and rock tracks) and have coffee (hand-ground) prepared for you, along with a nearly endless supply of bread and cookies that is replaced as you sit there.
Anyways, I can't believe how awesome this place is. I'm super excited about it.

And... the concert! How exciting is that?

I hope that everyone is discovering their own little treasures out there.

Man, I'm happy.