Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Bread Teacher




Pics:
1-Breakfast
2-My 15 Minutes in Korea
3-A very cool fancy towel (belated b-day gift from Lisa)



Greetings...

Yesterday, the students from my first semester after school class FINALLY got to see themselves on the big screen. During lunch, we gathered them into our private screening room (a.k.a. classroom), dropped the shades and turned off the lights. I was instructed to police the 3 doors in and out of the classroom against any outsider who tried to get a peek. Let's just say I was busy. There was a strict "for our own eyes policy" that was agreed upon even before we started filming this thing.

They got a real kick out of watching themselves and I received applause at the end but I gave it right back to them because they did such a good job. So, after we had a few minutes of laughing, excited discussion and general merriment, the brown stuff hit the fan. One student, So Eun (starring as one of the parents), is definitely a leader of the group and she simply stuck out her hand and demanded a copy of the movie. You see, she is in charge of our school's broadcasting room in which daily announcements, principal's messages, etc. are delivered through video to all the classrooms. On Wednesdays, they play a short English cartoon or instructional video as part of Korea's desperate plot to squeeze as much English education into their minds as possible. So Eun wanted to play our movie instead and the other students lost their minds. "Protest" might be an understatement--I was expecting molotov cocktails and riot gear any second. The screaming Korean children rivaled any concert I've been to and when the verbal dust settled, I tried to reason with them. In my opinion, none of the actors did anything embarrassing at all but when you're a 12 year old girl, "embarrassment" is a very fine line.

They left the class pretty rattled and two girls in particular seemed genuinely steamed about it. I felt bad because I understand their position--not many kids can get up in front of the entire school and perform at a talent show and that's basically what would be done if we broadcasted it. My conscience was sufficiently busy for the next few hours until walking home, I ran into Ju Eun (Steamed Girl #2). She basically asked for her parts to be "audio only" when I rejected her first idea to simply re-edit her out of the entire video. I told her I would try to do that which was a little white lie because I didn't think it was possible. Plus she seemed in a better mood about it anyways so I knew the aftermath wouldn't be as disastrous as I previously had thought.

This morning, I arrived at school a few minutes early to meet So Eun and help her get the file from my USB card. I also wanted to watch this process so I went to the broadcasting room to see how it all worked. I was actually very impressed--here are 5 6th grade girls running a very tiny TV studio (mixing board, cameras on tripods, monitors for switching back and forth) and they made it seem like "ho hum, just creating live TV again." So Eun did a little on-camera intro and away we went. When she announced that we'd be showing the film, cries of either excitement or terror (I couldn't tell) came from other parts of the school.

This was before school actually began and so after it was done, I walked back up to the classroom. We had 4th grade and 3rd grade today and as soon as that first 4th grade class came in, it was like my first month all over again (Rockstar!). They all mobbed me, calling me "Killer!" or "Killer Teacher!" and re-enacting their favorite death scenes. It was great. They demanded a second viewing and I didn't think Mrs. Lee was going to allow it but she did. So we watched it again--in fact, we had to watch it 4 more times for every class today.

In other words, today was pretty cool. Mrs. Lee is going to upload the film to the school's homepage. Hopefully, this will satisfy the students so we don't have to keep watching it before class with the other grades.

A couple weeks ago, I was dubbed "Bread Teacher" by some 6th grade girls during my after school class. I'm sure you're wondering how they came up with this charming pet name and here it goes. Not only does my name rhyme with "bread" but my body shape apparently resembles the topography of a loaf of bread...you know, lots of bulges and curves, peaks and valleys. Great. I've needed a thick skin my entire life (Hey, Dad, remember your classic "Belly Bra" idea?) but living in the land of rice and kimchi has proved to be a brand new challenge.

In case you were wondering, here's my latest favorite k-pop song: click (gotta love the finger-wag)

I forgot to mention this but better late than never. As you can see from the picture above, I've successfully infiltrated Korean History. I will live on forever in archives and microfilm in a Korean newspaper. Some college student 50 years from now will be doing research on English Education in Korea and come across that article and think, "Wow, I didn't know they hired such attractive foreign teachers." If you recall from a post some months ago, I volunteered at this one-day English camp. I remember photographers being there but I had no idea they actually got me in one. A couple days after volunteering, I was leaving school when the school's handyman stopped me kind of urgently. He made me wait while he brought out this newspaper and there I was. It was such a funny moment. I cut the article out and it's now hanging proudly on my fridge.

It's much cooler these days and I have been thoroughly enjoying sweaters outside and an open window instead of AC.

4...more...months...

Stay tuned...

-Bread Teacher

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Death List: The List of Death



Greetings...

The video I made with my after school has finally emerged from post-production to make its debut for all to see.

It turned out better than I expected but I also spent HOURS on this thing making it so. I used black and white to help disguise all the random continuity errors; I re-recorded almost all of the dialogue because what we recorded during filming was a complete mess; I added some music effects which really help.

So, enjoy it for what it is!

A proper blog will soon follow.

Stay tuned...

-Brent