People

Here's the thing about TV. It shows the interesting parts of life. And what are the interesting parts of life? Not the daily routine, the walk to and from work, the time I spend refilling my water cup, the yell-at-the-class-to-be-quiet count, what I eat for lunch...

TV shows the outskirts of real life. The hours at the bar bitching about the routine, the hours at coffee shops giggling over shared pasts, the late night talks that spontaneously eat away the hours you should be sleeping. I haven't had too much of that yet. I'm still too new to this whole full-time job thing that people do. Tonight, though, I got a taste of it, and it's the perfect seasoning to life. Cliched, I know. But it's true. The things that depressed me a few hours ago seem more manageable now.

All it took was a 20 minute subway ride, a walk through the sketchiest part of Seoul I have seen to date (red-lit "tea rooms" that reek of pot??) and the unwanted attention of some business suit from Samsung whose opening line was "Ban Ki Moon went to my high school."

It's really all about the people. And my day is full of them. Little ones. Thus the introductions begin. It's late and I'm tired, so I'm gonna try to get through some of my favorites.

Here's a run-down of my classes. Every day from 9:10 until 1:40 I teach my main class of kindergartners - the Cherry Class. This is the class that requires all the work, the lesson plans, the parental placation etc. After 1:40 I teach 3 more classes:

M, W, F: "Yellow Class" grammar/"White Class" grammar/awkward preteen boy "drama class"

T, Th: one-on-one tutoring with one of the Cherries/Yellow writing/White writing

My top favorite kids (I know, I'm a bad teacher...I swear I don't let on to them)

Kimmy

In the Yellow class (which is by far my favorite class). Nobody else at C&C has heard her speak. But she speaks to me. She has tiny little voice and adorable dimples, and she does this weird thing with her eyes where she looks everywhere except where she's supposed to focus, but in a "I don't feel like looking at you" way. She's still the best in the class academically, and she's got a deeply hidden but awesome silly streak. For instance, in our writing class, she keeps addressing her letters to "pig." Is this your pet, Kimmy? No. Is pig a friend of yours? No. Does it have a name? No? It's just, pig? Yep, pretty much.

Brian

My absolute favorite Cherry. He is soooooo cute. He's the most mellow of the boys, and while he's a good student, he's not irritatingly fast at completing all his work. He's extremely helpful and never, ever fails to answer a question I throw out to the whole class. I can look out at that class when they're all being complete demons and I can know that Brian will smile back at me.

Leo

Ok, sometimes he drives me crazy. But you can't not love a kid with hair like Leo's. Its this weird, super-full-bodied, pseudo-mullet his mother gets re-permed every few months. He's tiny and really into the physical comedy. He's also scarily flexible and will just sit on the ground with his legs splayed open at odd angles. He's just a really happy kid, definitely the Cherry class clown. By a long shot the first kid I learned the name of. He kind of stands out from the crowd.

Katie

Also a Cherry. She's quiet, gets every answer right, and basically just sits there being angelic all day. She has bucketfuls of hugs that she brings to school every day and unloads them onto me whenever she's out of her seat. She's also just one of the cuter-looking kids in the class. My predecessor Maria said it best: the word to describe Katie is "love." She loves to love people.

Ok, that's my top four. More will follow, hopefully tomorrow, but in this life everything is mood-permitting. Good night, people!