The proposal

How to keep your sanity at a boys high-school

1. Wear two layers of tights 
   
2. Stow a secret hip flask of coffee in said tights
3. Keep cough sweets on hand at all times
4. Keep sugary bribes on hand at all times
5. Abandon your dignity indefinitely
6. Abandon logic
7. Prepare to be alarmed
8. Prepare to be confused
9. Prepare to remain (visibly) unmoved by fart jokes
10. Prepare to remain (visibly) unmoved by farts
11. Employ restraint and do not clothesline students when they make wise-cracks in Korean
12. Employ restraint and do not embrace students when they speak actual English words with their mouths
13. Smuggle in Emma Watson
14. (NEW ENTRY AS OF TODAY) Give a lesson based solely on zombies

Oh Happy Day

Eager to to prove I’m an indispensable member of the faculty I recently elected to take on some extra work. 

What I envisioned was not unlike Whoopi’s band of misunderstood miscreants from the classic, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. Like Whoopi I would manage to reach out to my charges through the power of education and, via a turn of events both comedic and heart-warming, we’d ultimately go on to win the South Korean National English Speaking Competition. 

As usual my imagination and reality didn’t quite tally up.

Ah what high jinks

It seems I’m going to have to get over the fact that I’m not a Las Vegas showgirl masquerading as a nun and in the absence of an uplifting montage win them over with actual time and dedication.

Gaga for Granger

I’ve been teaching now for 5 weeks and though I still can’t always tell Kim Jun Min from Park Sung Sing I feel a bond is beginning to blossom between me and the 900 odd boys I oversee.

We have developed routines and systems that aren’t all based on the acquisition of candy, and, even though I do not know all of their names (which some would argue is crucial to a person’s identity) I feel as if I’m really getting to know them –

Things teenage Korean boys rate

– League of Legends

– Sleeping

– Candy

– The word ‘sexy’ pronounced ‘shexy’

–  Rock, paper, scissors – used to settle all of life’s important questions

– Big glasses and bouffant hairstyles

 

But there is one thing that teenage Korean boys covet above all of the candies in candy land. Something that no amount of perms or lie ins can hope to compete with. The one thing that is becoming increasingly fundamental to my lesson planning…

 

 

That thing is Emma Watson.

 

Let me tell you, teenage Korean boys go gaga for Granger. Their love for her is truly unparalleled and a sight to behold. If I ever need to get their attention all I need do is flash a picture of EW looking cute up on the screen and their jaws go slack, their eyes glassy, their lips dry – they clutch at their chests as if their hearts might pop, and beat their fists on the desktops in anguished longing.

 

 

So forceful is their lust that some of them are actually propelled from their seats onto the desktops in a bid to be just that bit closer to EW’s lovely likeness.

 

So yes, the bond that has been established is that between the dealer and the addict, but you know I’m ok with it.

 

My students are the best.