You Teached Me Very Well

I might…be going crazy.

While my beloved therapist is mourning the loss of not one, but two very important people in her life, I am mourning over the indefinitely temporary loss of her.  While she is down and out, I have realized that the only thing I can do for her is to not need her for a while.  Therefore I am under a lot of pressure to maintain sanity and suffer no dangerous slip of the imagination!  I’ve been doing an excellent job, too…

But my imagination has found a loophole.  Because it’s on lockdown all day, it has been running wild at night.  I’ve been having the kind of nightmares that really seem real…where you are able to not only see and hear, but also to feel, taste, and smell…the kind that give you that creepy feeling which lingers all day long.  If I wrote them out for you, I’d have to put one of those “Warning—this blog contains graphic material” buttons on my blog before you enter…

A couple of them aren't too bad to tell, though.  Two nights ago I dreamt I was badly poisoned, and I could feel it and everything.  Last night I dreamt I had all these lovely pet lizards and snakes but I forgot to feed them and give them water, so when I looked in their cages, they were suffering as they died and it was too late to help them.  And I really love reptiles, so this was a complete breakdown.

I know my mind’s slipping when I can hear totally obscure song lyrics and they make perfect, absolute sense to me, in a lamentingly beautiful way.  I guess the pressure to “be at peace and lay” might be starting to get to me.   I’ll always think that the 8^th wonder of the world is that kind of person to whom sanity comes very easily.

They’ve changed my kindergarten position at school again.  I was the gym teacher for less than a month.  I really liked it, too.  Now I’m a Music teacher again…and an Art teacher!  I am pretty happy about this but I don’t want to get too attached…for we all know it may soon again change.  It’s okay though because I think I am actually addicted to change on a certain level. 

But even addicts get stressed out. 

This new schedule is funny, though.  The reason they changed everything again is because a lot of the mothers were pretty pissed off that the new Music and Art teachers are Korean.  They pay big bucks to have their kids taught in English by native speakers like me.  So my school is trying to keep ALL the mothers happy by letting them choose whom they wish their child to be taught Music and Art by.  Do they want the teachers who are actually trained in those subjects, but who are Korean (who do speak English, by the way)?  Or would they rather have their children taught by a wide-eyed Caucasian woman who has no training in those subjects whatsoever, but who speaks English natively? 

The result is that some classes are now actually being split for the first time ever.  A couple of the classes I have all of the kids, and the other teachers have all of the kids in a couple of other classes.  But some classes are split up.  I’ll only see half of the Dolphin class, for example, and only one of the Grizzly Bears!  Poor Jenny, having to take art all alone with me while her classmates go to another room.  And the Dolphins are 5 years old and get very jealous when other members of their class have a different color in something entirely irrelevant, for example.   How long do YOU think this arrangement will last?  We should place bets!

I run around all day during Kindergarten…teaching gym here and there, visiting the Nemo class in the mornings and afternoons, writing tests for the older kids, and watching the Activity Room.  Today “Teacher’s Day” was celebrated.  Apparently in Korea it’s a pretty big deal, because parents will send lots of wonderful gifts in with their kids to give to their teachers.  All morning, all the teachers were getting lotions, handmade soaps, roses, cookies, $100 gift certificates…all of them, that is, except for me.  I don’t have my own class so even though I know all the kids by name and they all love me to death, I was forgotten.  I tried not to take it personally, but I felt pretty invisible.  At lunchtime I wondered what my face would look like with turquoise mascara running down my cheeks.  But I made a decision that if even one of my afternoon boys gave me something—anything—I would be as happy as a lark. 

Well, they didn’t fail to disappoint.  When I walked into my classroom at 3:00, they all said enthusiastically, “Teacher!  There are 3 cards hidden in the classroom and you have to search for them!”  I automatically assumed they meant UNO cards, which I leave out for them so that they are occupied before I arrive from the Activity Room.  They didn’t.  They had written cards for me themselves!  It wasn’t even from their mothers—it was from them.  Here is the best one, and I’ll type it out verbatim (spelling errors fully intact):

To:  Annie Teacher

Happy Teachers Day!!!

Thank you for teaching me hard.  I like you because you are kind to all of us.  I am more good at English know because you teached me very well.  Thank you teacher. 

You favorite stutent, 

Owen  (and there’s a little heart drawn by his name)

I mean, is that not the greatest thing you’ve ever heard in your life?  I’m not sure how well I’ve “teached” him since he is mixing up the spelling of “know” and “now,” and he does tend to get his t’s and d’s mixed up sometimes…but, then again, he is only 7 years old. 

I love being a teacher.  

Worth more than $100 gift certificate...