US Beef, Loca and Puppies

As a lot of people are aware, Korea has been caught up in anti-US beef protesting. Honestly, it doesn't bother me, the US exports beef elsewhere and if Korea doesn't want it because of Mad Cow Disease, thats fine by me. However, when an 8 year-old tried to tell me that the beef was ok, but in 20 years she would lose her mind it made me laugh and also a bit upset. I don't really know too much about the controversy and because I don't eat red meat it hasn't effected me in anyway. I know it has something to do with a bad cow awhile back and the president saying that they would not import US beef anymore. Like I said, I don't know much or even if what I know is true and to be perfectly honest, I don't want to spend time researching it as it has very little interest to me. The little girl who was adamant about "going crazy after eating cows from America," made me more patriotic than I have ever been. Of course I had to try to defend US beef and tell her she would not go crazy or die if she ate US beef, I assured her that Americans eat their own beef and are perfectly fine. I can't believe I had to defend America (myself) to an 8 year old!

I did redeem my uber-patriotic self an hour later by proclaiming that I would love to tell George W to shut up. This was after a 9 year old told me he wanted to tell Lee Myung-bak to shut up so I felt justified. It's no secret that I am not a fan of George W and this particular little boy likes to remind me how much he dislikes the American president, as you can tell, this student has a piece of my heart (he actually is one of my favorites). His class likes to call me Molly-loca after I told him one of my other students gave me that nickname. However, when the name was coined the student was unaware that "loca" is "crazy" in Spanish, but after telling him he was more than thrilled that he called me crazy. They also know that I worked at McDonald's and they love hearing stories and telling me how much they love McDonald's, "way more than Burger King."

I really like teaching the 2nd and 3rd graders, they are so fun and they know enough English that I can make jokes and they laugh. The kindergarteners don't quite understand jokes or sarcasm so it is a challenge to make them not feel bored in class, but then again, they run around and talk in Korean 30 of the 40 minutes I have them. Luckily they are cute or I'd probably be bald from all the hair pulling. Today, the newest kindergarteners (Earth Class) decided to be puppies in class and one of the girls was the master. Normally this would be annoying, but today we were learning the difference between give/gave and get/got so I just kept telling the "puppies" to give me their bones (pencils) and then they "barked" "I gave teacher my bone." The get and got was easy too because I made them get things from their cubbies and then I'd say "you got the (insert item here), thank you." Sometimes I have to improvise on the spot, but I actually find that those days are more effective for teaching and learning because it's like I'm making up a game as I go and all the kids love games.

Sometimes I see shirts with English on them and have to shake my head because I don't think people know what they actually say. One of my students had a shirt on today with an orange on the front and it said "Fresh B.S." on it. I have no idea if the B.S. was supposed to stand for what I figured it to stand for, but it made me laugh and all the other teachers as well. And I leave you with this, an Olympic cartoon portraying obesity in America from the Korea Times.