Kids Say the Darndest Things

What better way to start off the week than receiving a random present from one of my students? He just walked up to me and handed me a calendar, saying, “here teacher, a calendar,” and wandered back to his seat. This act was not that surprising to me considering that during break time, a handful of kids always come straight to my desk to offer me food. I mean, it would be rude to decline, right? One of the guidelines for eating here in Korea is sharing with everyone, which works out really well for people like myself and Beth Rahn, constantly asking “can I try that?”
Besides sharing food with me, there are a number of other quirks that my students have such as the obsession with creating love matches between people within the academy. For example, my one co-worker and I have shared a lot of the same students because we teach similar levels. Because he is male, automatically he is my boyfriend, according to them. Moreover, him and I get off work early on Fridays. I usually will wait for him at his door so we can walk out together (keep in mind this is before most of the students have left). Some of our mutual students saw me waiting and literally went nuts...in their minds he had pretty much given me a promise ring.
This week, they have apparently gotten sick of saying that I love my co-worker and moved onto someone else. My student, Cleo, said in class today, “Jamie teacher loves (mumble mumble).” I finally deciphered the words to be Carl Flint, who is an evil American character who hit a dolphin with his boat in the story that we’re currently reading (implications about Americans? not so sure). I laughed out loud and thought that it was so completely clever that every time we discussed the character during our reading comprehension section, I referred to him as my husband. This was one joke that they laughed at. Most other jokes fall on deaf ears. Joking toward the class is simply a way to entertain myself...in other words....I crack myself up quite often.