My first visit to the Beauty High School, and life metaphors...

This is the end of day 3 of the New Organized Life, and I'm still feeling pretty good. Knocked out my whole to-do list three days in a row, without too much trouble. I'm in Dunkin Donuts again, and I just finished my PDL devotional.

I should be going home in about 15 minutes, half an hour at the latest, but I want to make a substantive entry, so we'll see how this goes. Tomorrow is actually one of my two rest days for weight training, so I don't have to get up at 5:30. I could, in fact, sleep in until as late as 7:00. Maybe I will. This morning was the same, with my alarm set for a respectable 6:15, but I woke up at 5:50 and made the mistake of checking my email rather than forcing myself to go immediately back to sleep. Still, I got about 7 hours of sleep, so that was plenty. I was a little drained by the day and laid down when I came home, but one of the new ETAs called and woke me up 10 minutes after I fell asleep. I felt like I'd slept a lot longer, so I gave up the nap and ate an apple while getting ready to go jogging.

I get to go to better school tomorrow for the first time since I came back, which I'm kind of excited about. I'm also completely lesson-planned for it, which is an accomplishment. I did get on my email more than 3 times today during school, which wasn't good, and it did decrease my productivity (I didn't quite finish the lesson plan I was working on), but it's for Friday, so there's time to get it done. It's really amazing to me how wonderfully the third graders at less-good school turned out. These were the second graders last year that made me cry on multiple occasions. It was mostly the boys who caused the tears, with their adamant refusal to listen and stop chattering. But now they're angels. I taught them today, and it kills me. They just listen to what I say, and repeat when I tell them. Even the dumb kids who have no idea what I'm saying stay quiet. I call on them and they read or answer my question. They actually work on the worksheets when I give them groupwork. They're actually even better than last year's third graders, who I loved to pieces. It's a pretty unbelievable change. But... it makes me sad that I only get to teach them once a week. During most of spring semester I had them twice, then co-teacher stole one class away before finals. I hoped I'd get it back, but no dice.

After classes today I went with my co-teacher to the Beauty High School to meet the principal. It's about 10 minutes away by bus, plus a 5 or 10 minute walk, which really isn't that bad. And I'm only going twice (or sometimes three) Saturdays a month. The principal was a woman, and she was really nice, I think. They pretty much just sat there speaking Korean for 15 minutes and urging me to eat more grapes. My co-teacher kept saying great things about me, including how good I am at Korean, so I hope expectations aren't raised too high. I now know much more about what I'm getting into though, at least...

The Beauty High School is a technical high school where students can learn beautician skills, presumably while still completing a somewhat abbreviated version of the regular high school curriculum. There's a lot of mannequin heads with crazy hairstyles in the hallways, and decorated nails. The areas of focus seem to be hair styling, makeup, and possibly clothing. There's a hair shop (that's what they call it) attached to the school. Not sure if it does business, or if it's just for training. I probably won't be hitting it up anyway. There's about 280 students, and, if I remember correctly, maybe 20 of them are boys. I'm teaching a class of 20 students: 19 girls and 1 boy. Ha. I heard mixed reviews.

The English teacher told me that the students don't really care about English, but these students did choose this class (as an elective, maybe). He says they're really nice, but I'm a little skeptical. They seemed rambunctious. The best part of the meeting was when the English teacher gave me a handbook that an old English teacher had created, with Beauty-Related English. There's loads of dialogues that are completely ludicrous. I mean, they're not completely grammatically incorrect usually, but they're really advanced, with convoluted grammar patterns. And I sort of feel like it's not useful even to have students memorize complex sentences like that if they don't actually comprehend on that level. Then a foreigner will think they're actually much more proficient than they are, which won't work. They asked me to please try to use some things out of the handbook when I can. (Man, I really wish I had it with me so that I could give you some examples. Well, next time.)

So I'm torn. I mean, sure, I could make them recite the dialogues and correct their pronunciation as they do it. At least there's translations so they'll know what they're saying. But they're not actually going to memorize these complex phrases and remember it in a few years when they're working. But it's also not too useful for me to teach them English that's not beauty-related, because they don't have much use for it. I guess I'll try to simplify the dialogues they gave me and drill them on vocabulary. Then I'll pick out some simple grammar pattern and have them practice that in other contexts. They do have non-beauty-related English class, presumably, so hopefully that might benefit them in that respect. It'll be hard to come up with fun, game-like activities, but at least I only have to see them 8 times. That way even if we played the same game every time they won't get as tired of it as my students I see every week twice.

But this means 100 minutes straight. And at least the beauty portions will be extra lesson planning, which is not something I wanted. Hopefully I can incorporate stuff I've already done. And surely we can study some pop songs. I'll feel a lot better, I think, when I actually meet them and see what their level is. It sucks that I have to go in cold and teach 2 hours this Saturday, having no idea what they're actually like. I'm going to do a lot of introductions stuff, I guess, let them ask me questions. They've never had a native teacher before, and the few students who saw me today went "Oooooooooh," so I imagine they'll be curious. As I was leaving there were about 5 girls leaning out the window of the school shouting "HELLO!" Not sure what I'll do with the rest of the time. Gotta figure that out on Friday, I guess.

It's funny... I've been to hair shops in Korea, and it's always an adventure. No one speaks English, so there's just a lot of pulling me around, or speaking to me in rapid Korean. Most of the really crucial words are the same in Korea (cut, style, perm, color, bangs, bob), but I did run into some trouble with "shorter" "longer." At one point they sent over a younger girl (the hair-sweeper) to attempt to discuss something with me, and she was better than the older folks, but still. I guess it's her I'm teaching, or future hers. All I can really do, I guess, is focus on English that will be functional to them, make it somewhat engaging so that they'll actually try (maybe), and hope for the best. It is perplexing that I know (and presumably they know) that nothing they do in my class will affect their grades. There won't even be another teacher in the room. Which is actually good usually, because then students just look to the Korean teacher for translation and don't bother trying to understand me. But if I have discipline problems, or they won't listen, it'll be irritating. Some of these kids are high school seniors, only four years younger than me. I don't really want to face them down, especially punk-ass girls. But whatever. I'll just act like more of a hardass in the beginning than I did with my middle schoolers. It's only 8 times. And who knows? It could be awesome. I'll let you know on Saturday.

So you might have noticed that I changed the title of the blog again. I liked "Organize Me" as a play on "Supersize Me," but this actually comes from one of my favorite Bible verses: "Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies." (1 Corinthians 8:1). Fitting for me, as I've made my fortune (as they say) on being smart and studying. But I'm not the most sensitive, loving person on earth, so this is a good reminder that knowledge is cool and all, and it does "puff you up," but it's love that really teaches. Actually, I love this post for geeky etymological reasons too. "Edify" is such a telling word choice for this translation, because it has the dual meaning of literally "constructing or building" as well as "instructing." So it's love that supports and builds us up, but also that teaches us. That's important for a teacher to remember, I think.

One more thing. Whether you're religious or not there's a lot of really thought-provoking questions in this book, and today's was particularly good. The main idea was about how our view of life really affects how we live it. It talks about our respective "life metaphors" - what image we use to understand the nature and purpose of life. At first this seemed weird and esoteric to me, but then he gave examples. People who call life a game will think in very competitive terms, with winning as the ultimate goal. Those who see life as a party will focus on having fun. Those who see it as a marathon will value endurance.

The book suggests three life metaphors that were inspired by the Bible, but I realized that my own personal life metaphor actually meshes quite well with the ones he offers. Are you ready? I view life as a refinery. I have always felt that the purpose of life was to improve oneself, which is, of course, what a refinery does to oil, or sugar. The operative verb is refine - to remove impurities. The actually process may be harsh, as life often is, but the end result is better, purer. The author's major life metaphor is that life is a series of tests. That, in fact, no moment is insignificant. We're always being observed and tested by Santa Claus God. They seem conducive to me.

In conclusion...

I was listening to that really stupid song "Lolli Lolli (Pop that Body)" by Three Six Mafia, and I heard a line that literally made me stop jogging and laugh out loud. I have no idea what the other lyrics of this song are, except for the lists of lollipop flavors, but this is all I need.

"There's a whole lot of room in front of the range.

Like Barack Obama said: 'It's time for a change!'"