My Day At The Bank

I went to the bank today. Last time I went, it ended up with a shouting match. This time I was resolved to remain calm at all times. So' I spent the entire time LiveMessaging my beautiful fiancé . Fiancée? Which one is the girl? Anyway.....

I Have Enough Friends

I just sat down to eat at Burnham's Burgers for my lunch today.  I was alone but quite happy to watch YouTube as I ate my egg mushroom burger.  As I am munching on my food,  I see someone I know who is alone as well.  We have known each other a long time.  We exchanged pleasantries and he sat down away from me with his back turned.  When I finished I said goodbye and he said goodbye and that was  it.
I reflected as I walked away,  shuffling with fake confidence on my still improving right knee.  What was I to that person? What was that person to myself?  Friends? Friends would sit down and eat together. We would enquire into each other's lives.  We would talk about minutiae, or deep thoughts. I felt no such compulsion to be at the same table in the same way he felt no desire to share with me his innermost secrets.

But we are not enemies.  At least,  I don't think we are.  I know he is part of a group of people who regard me with emotions ranging from disdain to indifference.  Bit he has always been cordial and polite.  I have never heard of him saying a bad word to anyone,  much less about me.  He doesn't roll like that.

So what exactly are we to each  other?  Colleagues?  The TESOL Community is now far too large to be friends just because you're both foreigners in a strange land trying to do an unappreciated job. Acquaintances? We have both been part of sports leagues and dramatic events.  And yet, we never hung out.

We are Facebook friends,  that number you can either  choose to let define you or not.  People you have known your whole life,  or people you met at a bar last night are giving the same station.  Yes,  you can partition your friend groups in Facebook.  No,  I don't do that.  Who has the time and the inclination to breakdown their association?

And yet.  What am I to that guy? Probably nothing important. If I was,  I reason,  he would try to get to know me better.  The fact he hasn't tells me he has no pressing desire or need.  He has enough friends.  Good for him.

If you asked a younger version if me if you could have a finite number of friends,  he would have scrunched up his face and snuffed the suddenly confusing air. Too many friends,  are you kidding me? Nowadays,  I can say I have enough friends.

I am confident with my picks.  I have multiple circles that are interwoven and autonomous.  I have different interests represented.  I have respect and love and joy and connection.  I can lose touch without fear of losing friendship.  I have colleagyes and Acquaintances as well.  But really,  I don't worry about being just another Facebook friend in the crowd.

I have enough friends.

Pacific Rim's Guide To ELT

Continuing the theme of using movies to help improve English Language, I give you ...Pacific Rim.

Asia is the place for ridiculously big monsters and giant robots. FACT. That a movie about such things could lend itself to English learning is of course, utterly sensible. The Kaiju/Jaeger dynamic is is almost identical to the student/teacher dynamic. Confrontation of ever learning, ever growing alien beings, who never stop coming at you? I call that Kindergarten.  Use of Plasma cannons and Giant swords? Teaching tols if ever I heard of them? Grabbing a battleship and using it as an impromptu baseball bat? Flexible use of the teaching environment.

Read on and learn why your teaching will cancel the apocalypse....

Raleigh Becket: Wait. I think this guy's dead. But let's check for a pulse.
Mako Mori: Okay.
[They turn the Jaeger around and fire the Jaeger's plasma cannon into the kaiju four more times,exploding its chest]
Raleigh Becket: No pulse. 

Sometimes, in a lesson, we are in a rush and just push on with the lesson plan. Let's always remember to make sure there is comprehension. Do the kids understand the principles you just explained? Do they actually get the new vocabulary? Don't just ask, "Do you understand?" Elicit responses that show they know how to use the new information. Otherwise, you're not teaching them, you're shooting them with a plasma cannon. Don't do that!

This is a Bad Teacher moment. a Bad Ass Teacher moment, amirite? Seriously, don't hit kids.

Raleigh Becket:  To fight monsters, we created monsters of our own.

Some kids are nasty animals who need to be put down, garrotted and strung  up as a warning to others. Nope, that was a trick I pulled on you just then!Don't feel sheepish, I'm sneaky like that. But, in a classroom, sometimes a persona develops as the teacher tries to instil a level of management. This character can sometimes not be so pleasant. Remember, any character can change from bad to good and vice versa. If you don't like the monster you created for yourself, let it go and start afresh. You may be surprised at how the students respond and soon there may be no monsters at all.

"So, uh, no monsters, eh? Fancy a coffee?"
"...."

Stacker Pentecost: One: don't you ever touch me again. Two: don't you ever touch me again. 

We come from a society where students touching and teacher touching is taboo. In Korea, kids will want to touch you, especially if you have awesome facial hair. Before you flare up at your kids about the no go zone, here's a little note from my youth worker days. Are you yelling at your kids because they are doing something bad, or because they are doing something annoying? Kid want to touch beards. Let it happen, don't let it happen, but don't make your kids feel bad for being curious for once in their life.

Is it wrong I want them both to have the same beard?

Stacker Pentecost: I do not need your sympathy or your admiration. All I need is your compliance and your fighting skills. And if I can't get that, then you can go back to the wall that I found you crawling on. Do I make myself clear? 

You're a teacher. So, do your job. Your job is flexible, far more than anything else you have probably done.  It's something that teachers often try to translate to their students. If I am teaching, then you better study. I don't want any of your crap.The only problem with hthis is, their crap is part of your responsibility. Wnting to put slow learning children down a level is all wel and good, but until that moment, you probably should take the time to try and teach them something. Some kids don't need to go back to their crawling wall.

Populated Exclusively by Kids who don't put their hands up.

Hannibal Chau: Are you funnin' me, son? 

Yes, yes I am. Pacific Rim is a movie about a war to survive. There is absolutely no parallel between that situation and the classroom. If you think something is a battle zone, you bend your body and soul into it and grit your teeth. If you act like you're in a war, soon the kids will as well. Shift your perspective. Adjust your expectation level. Think of other teaching styles which may be more positive and may lead to a more positive result.

They may even take you out of this world. Where you can then slice it with a sword that up until that point you had not used at all. Even though it could have saved your brother and countless other people. But no, you're right, using it now when you are a gazillion miles from the ground, that's the move. 

 

 

Seriously. This movie is Awesome Sauce Stupid.

A Bad Day Spiral.

Some days really suck. You are in the middle of your pay schedule so you do not have a lot of funds and you have far, far too long to the next pay cheque. You know you should not be living pay cheque to pay cheque and you castigate yourself over that because you are not the offspring of your responsible parents.  You are halfway through the teaching schedule for Winter Camp and the combination of sleep deprivation, mismanaged course schedules and kids high on life has you going slightly crazy.  And you have other shit going on. Deep, mysterious shit no one else could possibly understand nor process more successfully than you.

Life is super tough.

You go through the day picking at all the things going wrong for you. The bus did not wait for you. You were too heavy for the building lift and were unceremoniously kicked out by a grumpy ajumma. Your co worker is all sweetness and light then tells you she wants you to make a test for the class in the enxt ten minutes. Your phone falls into a cup of coffee. A kid kicks you in the shins. The subway charges your passcard twice for the same journey. Your friends and family seem to have got their entire act together and you don't even know your lines half the time. People getting engaged, married, having kids, buying houses, being *successful*. And you are not.

Well now hang on a minute.

You have a job. You have a house. You are eminently employable. You have friends. You have family. You have food in the fridge. You have clothes. You have heating and light. You're not doing too bad.

This day is like any other. Yes, some bad stuff happened. You missed that bus but another one will come along soon. Your co worker may have trouble explaining when you have to do things. Your levels of preparedness are increasing even as we speak and you certainly should not get stressed over their mistake. Yes, Winter Camp is hard for some people. Yes, Mid month is  shitty time, especially after Xmas and New Year's.  But you are going to make it. You always do.

I have a busted knee and thought I was going to have no way of paying for it. My school has since set me up with insurance and I have a charitable benfactor to help me out. My school has been super lovely to me and it is going to all work out. Something happens. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes, that thing has to be from you, and that is the hardest thing. Digging deep, finding the energy to fix your situation. Finding the ability to ask for help when you normally would not. FInding the skill to act indepeneedntly when you normally wouldn't.

However, your problem is solved, you know it will not be the end of your world. It will, in time, be a footnote. So do not let it get you down. This, like eveyrthing else, will pass.

But seriously, some days really do suck.

On the subway, on the bus, we ride the journey of missed opportunity.

I'm a foreigner in a Korean city who spends two hours every day on public transportation. As soon as I sit down on a subway the whole bank of seats becomes clear within three stops.  I reckon I could clear a whole carriage if I stayed on the subway long enough.  It is the same on the bus.  Every other seat could be occupied and people would rather stand in increasingly more confining spaces than be sat next to me.  

Somewhere on here, there's a space next to me.  

This is surely a missed opportunity.  Koreans spend lots of money on their English education. Talking to me is a free English lesson.  I'm happy to respond to anyone asking me questions.  Hell, they can even ask me questions about places I've been and things I've seen.  I'm a dictionary, a travel guide and Wikipedia all rolled into one.  I'm the freaking Internet with a smile and minus the virus.  I would also like to meet new people and give what Tyler Durden refers to as 'single serving' friends.  

"Oh no, you didn't just use a 14 year old reference!"

Although, lets be honest, that doesn't always apply to me.  Sometimes I do want to be left alone.  Sometimes I want to just stare out of the window and think deep thoughts, normally what I want to eat, where I want to eat it, and how quickly I wish that to happen.  Sometimes I want to not talk to a stranger.  It's nothing personal. I mean it can't be;you're a stranger. It's not like celebrities are clamoring for my attention on public transport. 

Rihanna may be a multitalented entertainer with millions in the bank, but all she really wants is to talk to you, then take your seat. Stay back, Rihanna!   

If only there was a simple way to let people know that you're approachable.  Students have traffic light parties where the choice of colour worn indicated their level of sexual availability.  Perhaps something could be worn by people who want to have conversations on public transport on buses.  Some bright orange armband.  Then other people wearing the same armband could recognize a kindred spirit and join them.  No, wait. I see what I've done here. That's Jews and homosexuals  in Nazi germany.  Damn.  

               I'm an idiot, sometimes.    

The fact is we are all social creatures living in an increasingly sociable sterile environment.  I can say this knowing those hermits who wish to argue with me would be, by their very actions, acting sociable.  Sociable and ornery, certainly, but still sociable. Maybe we should accept that and turn round to the person next to you and say 'hey'. Maybe when the person next to you says 'hello', say hello back. You may find you have a lot in common.  I'm sat next to a woman right now as I'm typing this.  I know she keeps looking over my shoulder and is reading this.  I just looked over at her after I typed that and she closed her yes, feigning sleep.  Don't fake a coma, lil' lady. Point out my typos and tell me what you think.  Nope.  She is actually asleep.  Bad example.  

There were clues.  

Be excellent to one another. Chicks dig scars.  Movie quotes starring Keanu Reeves aside, they have wonderful points.  I am here to show you guys that are inching your way on the freeways in your  metal coffins that the human sprit is still alive. 

'Dude, I'm not doing the Point Break remake. Patrick Swayze's dead now. Show some respect.'

Your public transport journey is a part of your life.  Get busy living.  Or do the other thing.