Day 216 "You have new hair. Its fantastic"

July 21 Tuesday

3 days till vacation!

So my mom shipped my laptop on Saturday the 18th. She sent it by international express since its suppose to be a fast way. Its suppose to take 3-5 business days. She got a message today saying that the delivery date was suppose to be July 27th. Why wil it take so long? She could have just sent it by regular mail for it to get here on that day. Maybe it will get here sooner. I hope so. I keep checking the tracking but there haven't been any updates since Saturday. All I know is it left the processing center on Saturday and is on its way to its destination. So far its been 2 business days. or 3 if Saturday counts..

I saw one of my kids on the subway today. He came over to say hi and asked me where I was going. Its funny how they call me "Valerie teacher". He came over and said "Valerie teacher. Are you going to Gusan?" I was headed to school in Gusan. He's in my Wed/Friday classes.

I wore my hair a different way today and everyone seemed to like it. I usually just wear it down and wear a headband. I can't really do anything with it because its too short. Today I wore it half up and half down. I wore the barette that my student from Avalon gave to me.

In my 2nd class one of the girls said "you changed your hair". In my 3rd class one of the boys said "You have new hair. Its fantastic". He was so enthusiastic about it. it was quite funny. The girls in my 4th class liked it also.

I was told that my new schedule doesn't start until I am on vacation. So maybe I dont have to get up early this week! I have to make my monthly tests for the kids to take while I'm gone.

My first class was okay. None of them did their homework. They all told me they didnt write it down so I assigned it again. 3 of the kids didnt bring their essay. One of them told me I didnt give her a paper. I think I did but I gave her a new one anyway. They were good in class but one student kept getting out of his seat and turning around to talk to the person behind him.We were talking about Halloween in that class today. They dont really celebrate Halloween here. I was telling them what we did in the USA about going trick or treating.

I have a new student in my 2nd class. She's really quiet. I couldnt get her to participate in class. I told them to talk to a partner and she wouldn't do it. When i was assigning partners the boy didnt want to be partners with the new girl. he wanted me to be his partner. The new girl needed a partner so I told him to talk to her. When she wouldnt participate I asked her if she would talk to him but she wouldnt. Today we were talking about illnesses like fever, cold, toothache, stomachache, headache. Their speaking assignment was to look at their vocab and ask "What's wrong?". The person would answer "I have a fever.""I have a cold", etc.Its frustrating to have an odd number of students and one who wont cooperate. She doesn't have an English name. I gave her a list of names if she wanted to choose one but she just gave it back to me. I hate it when they don't choose an English name and I dont know what to call them. I can't force them to choose a name. I saw her crying some during class. Maybe she won't participate bc its her first day and she's shy. Maybe it will get better once she gets to know everyone.

My 3rd class was pretty good. 2 of them had their essays but I gave them back because they didn't write in complete sentences. I can't grade an essay when all they wrote was one word. One of the questions was "What do you eat for breakfast?" and one student wrote "yummy food". That student is hilarious. He's the same one who loves unicorns. We finished the unit and then I let them play a game.

In my last class 2 of my students were absent. Of the 3 that were there only 1 of them did their essay and homework. The other 2 didnt do the essay or their homework. We covered a lot of material today. They were actually very quiet in class today and they did the activities the correct way. When you get all 5 of them together thats when they want to act up. We were talking about "must and mustn't". Who even uses 'mustn't'? I don't think I've ever used that in a conversation. "You mustn't drink cold water" the better response would be "dont drink cold water." The ESL books are crazy! Sometimes the korean teachers ask for my help on answers in their books and sometimes their books are crazy too!

I finished my class, packed up my things and I was out right after my last class. I don't want to stay any longer than I have to. Then I got all the way to the subway stairs and I realized I left my phone. I had to go back. I'm always forgetting something. So far this session i've left my pocketbook,check card, and phone. I'm surprised I haven't lost any items yet!

I keep putting off making my monthly tests! Yuck! I hate it. I'm going to have to make myself come up with half of them on Wed night and half on thursday night.