I'm so sorry... but I love you.

The title of this entry comes from my new favorite Korean popsong. It's called "Lies," and that sentence is pretty much the only English in it. Plus, it's amazing. I'm listening to it on Youtube right now. I'm posting, because I'm not ready to go to bed and I happen to have the computer all to myself still at 10:14 at night, which is a rarety, although I can't imagine how much longer it will last, so I'm going to make this quick.

My mood's been really up and down lately, but thankfully it's on the upswing at the moment thanks to some of my students friending me on Cyworld (Korean MySpace). I've been stressed out basically since Sunday for several reasons. I had a really nice time with like 10 of my kids on Sunday. We went to Noraebang, and lunch, and DVD Bang. Although my favorite boy CJ's dad called during the movie and I suspected bawled him out, though I don't know for sure. It was odd, they passed the phone around, and then even gave me the phone, and Dad was clearly drunk. At 4:30pm. I found out from my co-teacher that that was Dad's wedding day (what?).

Side note: I taught my family lesson today. It was interesting for several reasons. I started out my telling them about my family history as a listening/vocabulary practice activity. I told them how I'd been adopted, and my parents are divorced and re-married. This was actually all just an excuse to teach the song "Daughters" by John Mayer in class, because I love it. And I thought it might be good for some of the kids to hear how in America being a child of divorce doesn't make you a bad person with a huge stigma, and you can in fact still succeed in life (or at least be a Fulbright grantee). The kids were really cute. Because of the huge culture difference I didn't get past the first slide where I said I was adopted before they were like "Wait, wait... co-teach... is this real?" I do incorporate stories into a lot of lessons, so I can understand, and they were just shocked that I would speak so frankly and unashamedly about such Korea-taboo issues. (Especially adoption. Although the problem in Korea is more international adoption, which IS a source of big shame for them.)

So yeah, my poor boy with his crazy family problems. Co-teacher told me he scored the highest of all the students on the IQ test they took in 1st grade, but.. he never studies. Because his family is bad. Sigh. And yesterday he broke my heart again saying "Miss Camp... I cold." So I let him wear my jacket, since I had two, although it was laughably large on him, but he wore it proudly all day. And at one point he was playing with a huge scary Korean grasshopper, and I was like "CJ... your friend?" He was like, "yeah." So I said... "No, my boyfriend!" At which point he pretended to stomp on it in a jealous rage. Sigh.

But he was pissy today... I think because I told co-teach about Sunday's craziness because I was worried, and she asked him about it. Alas, all is probably forgiven... we're now Cyworld friends, and he created our respective nicknames as "sexy" and "handsome." (I prefer not to think it's because "sexy" and "handsome" are the only words I've successfully taught the students.) But yeah, he's one of the reasons I wish I knew Korean. I feel like I'd be more successful as an ambassador of American culture if I did, and that I could do better for the students. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not unduly berating myself--I know I try really hard.) It's just sad that I can't really get close to them, given the language barrier. I was discussing it with my host mom, and she was advising me to take him under my wing, which I'd gladly do, but I can't do it very effectively. I can give them hugs and say in Korean "What's wrong?" when they look sad, but they know they can't answer me and have me understand, so that roughly ends our successful relationship-building.

One of my other favorite students was really sad last week too, and then he was still quiet and sad yesterday. Which makes me sad, because I count on him to answer my questions in class and give me non-I-hate-you looks when things are boring, so yesterday was rough. He recently got a pretty ridiculous haircut, which is pretty excellent. It's the same haircut I saw in Ireland all the time, inspired I guess by David Beckham a few years ago. It's adorable on him, because he's cute anyway, but the teachers apparently gave him a lot of hell for it. Apparently he was sad yesterday because his midterm grades weren't very good. (At least he cares! That's way more than I could say for most other boys!)

He was better today though, despite constant ribbing from his classmates about his hair. They kept pointing at him and saying "Soldier! America soldier!" for my benefit. So I threatened them in Korean that if they teased him, they'd die. He's the most popular boy in second grade anyway, so he doesn't need my support, but he seemed to appreciate it nonetheless. Then I started talking shit after lunch about how good I am at basketball, so the boys let me play. I've all but given up on soccer, because I'm terrible, but basketball was an amazing success.

I played in my long black skirt and knee-high boots, because it was an impromptu decision to do it, but I rocked nonetheless. Koreans just aren't naturals at basketball the way they are at soccer. Most of them can't shoot, and I'm taller than most of them, so it worked out well, even though I'm no better than I was in middle school when they chose me for the team solely to bring up the GPA. My favorite boy managed to hit me in the face with the ball in the first minute, slicing open my lip, which led to severe mortification for him. But my team of ballers defeated the larger boys soundly, and I earned mad street cred amonst the second years. I'm pretty sure my favorite student entirely accidentally touched me somewhat inappropriately during an attempted rebound (he's the only one near my height, so he was the only one who had a chance against me at the net), because he turned red and started apologizing profusely again, but I didn't know, so when I asked him why, he was like... nothing!

It was a nice bright spot for the day, although my lip still hurts. Other bright spots: an excellent conversation with one of my shy-er boys via the Cyworld messenger, and discovering that one of my favorite girls made "Daughters" her MySpace music.