Put me in coach. I'm Ready to PLAY.

Somehow, a Unisom induced great night led me into yet another optimistic morning. It just felt like a clean slate. I was refreshed, refueled and ready (how's that for alliteration?) for some petite dejeuner to start my second day. Breakfast was leftovers from the dinner we weren't invited to last night. It was pretty tasty, but I couldn't help thinking that if there were enough leftovers to feed 2 people, why didnt we get any last night? Obviously they thought we were eating too much of their bread for breakfast. I wonder if it would move the apartment situation forward if we tried eating them out of house and home.

So, looking forward and looking good (dress code: check.) I was ready to try again. I was told to follow Miss Honey today and Miami tomorrow. Okay. So today I'll do whatever it was they thought they asked me to do yesterday. Its almost like a re-do. And actually, it was.

Sitting in Miss Honey's classes I understood where the problems started. The woman is very soft-spoken and sweet, but she is BORING AS HELL. Oh man. It was hard for me to sit still in that class. I couldn't help fidgeting and yawning. I'm almost positive the kids were counting how many times I changed position or covered my mouth for a yawn. I'm yawning now just thinking about it. Oh man, it was 5 hours of this. I needed a nap so bad and I could only imagine what the kids were thinking. Calif told me later that apparently they weren't bored at all. They were too engrossed in what Rainbow Sock Teacher was doing and wearing to be bored with Miss Honey.

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, thats me. I am Rainbow Sock Teacher. As far as I can tell its the best nickname so far. Miss Honey is Scary Teacher and Calif. is Wedding Dress. Miami's name is still in the brainstorming phase after a failed attempt to make Black Teacher stick. Poor Miami. He said he would've settled for brown, but they need to go back to the drawing board. Unfortunate to be sure, but I was really glad he had a horror story to entertain us. I absolutely laughed out loud. A lot. We probably should've been worried about offending them, but it was just so nice to laugh at someone else's misfortunes. Jenn and I were pretty upfront with our personalities when we first met them, so we say and act with them the way we act with each other. They haven't run for the hills yet, so success! Of course, it is still early.

I digress. So while sitting in Miss Honey's class I had Centerfield by John C. Fogerty running through my head. When was I going to get my chance to shine?! Jenn was already on day 2 of private tutoring and I was still stuck in Shadow Phase. This was so LAME! So when Ruby came in at 7:30 offering Jenn a session at 7:45 with a new boy, I grabbed it. No way was I going to stay awake for anymore shadowing today. I could hardly contain my nerves while I waited for this kid to show.

No, I did not have a panic attack. He is just one kid after all. Ruby told me to do some grammar and then make a lot of conversation. No real guidelines, sooo.... since I was using the same book as Jenn for the tutoring I figured I would just try to follow along with what she had been doing with her kids.

I thought I did great! I didnt want to get ahead of myself, cause there's always the risk of falling when you get up too high, but I couldn't help myself. This kid, Kid 1, was fun. Shy at first, but once he started talking he wouldn't shut up. He loved my Beatles journal, he practically memorized the plot from A Christmas Carol and by the end of the lesson he was talking politics. Uh oh... maybe we should've gone farther in the grammar book... I didn't want to overload the kid, but once they start talking politics you know you've got to step up your game. I sensed the potential for a misunderstanding....

Not that I'd let it deter me from getting my turn. I figured I'd have to hear about it at home later anyway, might as well enjoy my night out with the foreign teachers. And I did enjoy it. We went for Korean barbeque and everyone split the beef option. There was food all over this table. For just $30 what a great deal. They treated us like royalty. We got beef that you cook at the table, a fish tail, garlic, dipping sauces, mushrooms, peppers, onions, lettuce, salads and soups. Rice, congealed blood cubes, pickled all kinds of stuff, and of course, Kimchi. I assured everyone I have no problem eating at the same table as pork eaters. There was plenty of other stuff at the table to enjoy, but they went beef anyway and it was heaavennnlyyyy.

And $30 EACH?!?! What the H?! There was a lot of food but certainly not $120 worth of food. Ridiculous. Of course, when you consider its the first real meal we've had in days, Its just a minor setback. It's 3 days of meals for $30. Sure sounds like a silver lining to me...

We ended up back at E-Mart for our daily hangout time. Jenn had some more stuff to buy and some returns to make. Erin-Mart was fabulous, as always. If I had to choose, E-mart is way better than Lotte Mart, though maybe just because there's that great big E on the front of the building.

California and Miami shared their first impressions of us as well.

C: "You guys were just so happy and giddy."
M: "Yeah like there was so much energy and it was like I felt kinda guilty, you know."
C: "Oooh yeaahh... Cause we just knew you were gonna hate life in like 2 days. It was kinda sad, but we couldn't say anything cause the director was Right There... and you were so happy taking pictures of the Pizza Hut box..."

Humor is quite the effective coping mechanism and has certainly gotten us through some rough times. And that pizza box was really cute.


Next came the big talk with Ruby. She started out strong with some talk about how the lessons have to be harder because private lesson students pay 5 times as much as group session students and the school has a very good reputation and the reputation is already hard to keep up and she made an excuse for us that made her look bad etc etc. Bottom Line: Make Kid 1 really work himself out. Whatever that kid says he can do, add at least 2 pages to it. She probably would've gone on and on, but Jenn came in at that point and talk shifted towards what we both can do to improve our lessons to make them more fulfilling for the students. Then it kind of ran a tangent around how she dislikes certain teachers. A topic we could NOT seem to get past.

Three hours later we got her back on topic and asked a ton of questions. I've been told I'm allowed to be loud and yell at the students. Which is great. I'm a big fan of volume. Oh! She also apologized for yelling at me over the phone! Apparently when she heard I didn't understand she had flashbacks to some traumatizing moment between her and Miss Honey. I imagine there will be similar moments in the not so distant future.

She was ridiculously nice and normal. Her acting normal scares me, just sends my heart racing. I was almost sucked into trusting this woman. Befriending her or whatever. But I just couldn't. I feel like I should be loyal to the other teachers, cause you just can't trust crazy.