A Progression

With a large influx of new students for the summer, I feel even more thankful for my 'big kids' of Orion Class.  Teaching the eldest of the Kindergarten kiddos has its perks, which sometimes slip from my mind when I'm trying to teach the tougher classes such as Speech and Composition (yes I am trying to teach little kids to write speeches, essays, and poems).   

If the start of the year was the adjustment period of our arranged year-long marriage (I wouldn't call it a honeymoon), then now things have developed nicely and we have a good bond and understanding.  We have good days and tough moments, but we depend on each other and have grown fond of what we share.  If this marriage analogy is to continue, maybe by winter we'll be an old married couple- but the good kind that is still fun and funny and has grown a lot, not the kind that just stares at each other sadly at Cracker Barrel over pancakes.




At first arrival I was hesitant, my kid's love and devotion was not instantaneous like my students on the island. They did not love me and want to talk to me just because I was foreign and new and different.  They didn't tell me I was beautiful all the time, nor coo when I spoke a few words in my sub-par Korean.  But what I had my first year is far from normal,  I won't be treated like a rock star just for showing up at my job, although it doesn't keep me from wishing I did.  It's just another way that this year feels a lot more like real teaching than the English lessons/performances of my first year (for better or worse).  



As the months fly by I get more cards and princess pictures, as well as more respect and earned admiration (or at least toleration)- but I guess that's how it should be.

From Busan with Love,
Jenna


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