Blank Stares

Completed Day 2 of the week! Now I have had the opportunity to teach all the students I will have for the next year. I wasn't really planning on writing on this every day but I figured I would share this second day's activities with you while I wait on my laundry to finish then I can hang it all up on my fancy-dancy drying rack! So, a rather rainy day today, I started the morning off by breaking the laminating machine...oops. Tina Teacher was very surprised to hear that we have laminating machines in the US that automatically come with laminating plastic inside. I decided to try and work the machine without help (I'm a big girl gosh darn it!) and after making some terrifying noises I turned to Tina Teacher and asked for help with puppy dog eyes. After taking the entire machine apart with the help of Jasmine Teacher and a screw driver, my pictures for the "Sir Small and the Dragonfly" book (see yesterday's post) were salvaged and I was hence forth banned from using the machine! Na just kidding, but seriously...those noises will haunt my dreams forever.

Anyways- the day went uphill from there! Sang a song about mailing a letter with my first class, then had journal with my Texas class! I really do enjoy reading the student's journal entries. This past topic was "My teacher usually...". Some of my favorites were "My teacher usually looks at snakes" and "My teacher usually dances the hula hula". Well, my students know me through and through already! I'm all about snakes and hula hula dancing.

They were all very excited that I brought my camera with me today! I think my favorite stance is definitely Jane (tippy-toes and leaning against the board). She is also known for reading her journal upside-down while bending over backwards. Hey, whatever works right?

I got through the day without any major slip-ups! I suppose now is when I tell you about the title of the post. I finish my Tuesdays and Thursdays with a super super beginner class of 6 students. I have them twice on these days. I walk into the room and say
"Hello everyone! How are you?"
...*blank stares*...
"Are you good? Or bad?
...*nothing*...
"Thumbs up?"
...*uh...*
"Alright then did you bring your homework?"
And suddenly they knew exactly what I was talking about! Homework is the magic word apparently? There were several other times where I would say something and every student would stare at me like I had a third eye on my forehead. I felt a little like Squirt from Finding Nemo when he is explaining the jump from the East Australian Current, "It's like she's trying to speak to me, I know it!"

So after that first session, Alex (their Korean teacher), comes up to me and says "Laura Teacher, the students say you need to slow down, you talk to fast!". oooOOOoooh now I get it. The second session I slowed down a lot and I think they caught in a bit better? Who knows, they could have just been smiling and nodding which is one of my favorite tactics.

Last but not least, the repair man came today to check out my freezer. Katrina, the previous resident, had some difficulty with it freezing over so Solomon was nice enough to call someone about it. When the man came in to look at it I opened the door to show him my freezer...

Another blank stare to add to my list today haha he just laughed and called Solomon to say that this was a bigger job than expected (all in Korean of course, he could have been saying something else...). He will be back another time to tackle the tundra that is my freezer.

AAaaaannnddd there's the bell for my laundry! Thanks for distracting me for a bit-

Korean word of the post:도와주세요 (to-wa-ju-se-yo)!: Help!

Bye! xoxox