Happy Peroro Day!

Today (11/11) is Peroro Day!  It's a holiday made up by Lotte Mart to sell peroro sticks (just like pocky sticks in Japan, only even less tasty).  The holiday is supposed to be a bit like Valentine's Day and it's on 11/11 because the four ones are supposed to look like peroro sticks.  All day my students were giving me peroro sticks and I didn't remember the "holiday" until the end of the day.  One student gave me a whole box.

Peroro! (That's what the box says, btw.)

My day was good.  I had students giving me crappy stick cookies all day and I Skyped with Rob and Danie a bit during work.

Ian's day was not as great.  Julia was at the Goam school when Ian got there today.  She told him that she wanted to teach one of his classes, his Essential 2, to be exact.  Then she asked him to help her with some parts of the Essential 2 that book she didn't understand.  Ian spent every one of his ten minute breaks pretending to enjoy Julia's obligatory company.  When his Essential 2 finally came around, Ian took notes during the class so that I could give you a "first" hand account.

Ian could only write fragmented notes, but I think he painted a pretty clear picture:

The first thing Julia said to Ian's class was "Ian says you sometimes speak Korean to each other and he not understand."  Ian's never had a specific problem with this class, Julia was pulling Ian's foreigner card to enforce her "no Korean" rule.  Then she proceeded to begin the lesson on the wrong page (the middle of the unit instead of the beginning).  Julia had a lot of difficulty getting the class to understand her.  Ian made eye contact with one of his students during a particularly awkward incidence of Julia's attempted explaining and they had a laugh, she is Ian's new favorite student.  Ian's students continue to look at him throughout the class in confusion and distess at Julia's teaching.  She knocked some of the students' papers on the ground and then left them there.  A few of Julia's failed lessons included matching food to the containers they go in; some of the answers Julia accepted were: "bars of cheese," a "carton of soda," and "glasses of chocolate."  I'm pretty sure the students were messing with her.  She also wrote the following sentence on the board: "What cold/hot drink in you house?"

At least Ian found humor in a terrible day.

After classes, Chun wha's husband had some Hotoek for the teachers.  I ate one and brought some home for Ian.  Ian was greeted by Julia outside of Goam and she said she was giving him  ride home. She also had a cake for him/us.  I don' know if the cake is supposed to smooth things over about the report cards or if she was thanking Ian for being her buddy for a day.  Either way, it was a nice gesture, but a terrible cake.

Cake!

Tomatoes are not proper cake fare! All the (old) fruit was covered in some sort of sugar glaze.  And there was fruit cocktail inside it.

It seems that E-Mart may be opening on the 26th; so, we may be celebrating Thanksgiving with a bit of consumerism.

Well, we're over halfway to the weekend!  We'll be up doing lesson plans tomorrow before we go running, so chat us up!  Good night!