Blackout

Just a brief note here, I promise.

At school Tuesday morning I was surprised by Joseph bursting into the Native room with a dolly full of large cardboard boxes. The boxes contained new electric fans/heaters for all the classrooms, including our 'office,' yippie! This was especially nice news as the heater that Cleo had donated to Nate and I upon her departure had suddenly vanished from our room only a few days later.

Well, no sooner than the new heaters had been distributed throughout the building did our little heater, from Cleo, magically reappear in our room. Apparently someone had only 'borrowed' it until a better option came along. . . thanks for returning it. . .I guess.

The reason for swapping out all the heaters is apparently because a single LPG tank that fueled the old 'stoves,' and had to be replaced frequently, was just about as expensive as a newfangled electric heater. Thus, the switch was made.

Unfortunately, someone most have either overlooked or care not to acknowledge the power sucking capacity of a dozen commercial sized electric heating machines. After minor power flickers in one of Nate's classrooms, we were warned that Nate and I were not to use our heater while Anna, in the room next door, had hers running. Great, so now we have heat. . .but have to ask our boss permission to turn it on. . . that's, um, not awkward!

On Wednesday morning, wrapping up the last of one of my classes, I was treated to the power surges that Nate had just told me about. The lights in our classroom went out for a brief moment the gently flickered on before returning to their darkened state. After about a minute of this back and forth tease the electricity-Gods eventually made up their mind to settle in the 'off' position.

Throwing open the door to salvage what little light I could from the hallway, I noticed that it was not only Anna's room that was dark but the main office and at least a half dozen other classrooms in our corner of the 'school.' (I use quotes here because we actually occupy the eighth floor of a pretty decent sized commercial center that one would never refer to as a 'school' less they knew none other than the inside of a Korean Hogwan.)

With a new class set to begin I recognized an opportunity to escape from under Anna's watchful eyes and quickly suggested to my students that we move class into the Native Room. With a wall of windows that looked out on to Bulamsan, we needed no artificial light to write by. Thus I cranked the heat on a salvaged gas stove and sat down around what normally serves as my and Nate's desk with three of my better students: Albert (the curious, questioning, too rich for his own good but doesn't really know it yet student with the attention span of a . . .oh, I dunno, me), Lena (one of Nate's better students that I thieved during her, I'm way taller than all the boys so I feel pretty awkward that not only can I outsmart them but beat them up too, phase) and Diane (who is simply Lena's sidekick as far as I can tell).

The three of us wasted no time digging right into the lesson and getting to work. . . just kidding, that's a terrible lie! With the better students, meaning those that I can actually converse with, I have no problem burning up the first part of an hour just shooting the breeze with them as I find that unstructured conversation is not only more interesting but actually more useful to their grasping of the language. Don't get me wrong, they have plenty of time to study grammar, sentence structure and 'rules' that I have never heard of, but with me, it's 'speaking' and 'writing', so I figure the more talking, the better, right!?!

We did eventually get down into the material which was surprisingly interesting for once as the students were prompted to discuss where they would rather live; in the mountains, or by the ocean. (Note that I say 'the students were prompted,' not 'I prompted the students' as the majority of what I do is simply read the prompts that are already in the textbook to them, which, with the better classes, means they are usually writing before I'm done 'teaching.') Annnyywhooo, what a perfect setting for discussing such an issue as right out the window sits one of northern-Seoul's beautiful alpine gems.

During the discussion it dawned on me that I had actually spent some time living 'near the ocean,' and no, I'm not talking about in the Dirty Dirty. . . that's only near the Gulf! Hearing the kids talk about palm trees reminded me that I once had the amazing privilege, thank you Aunt Barbie, of spending some time 'living' on a Caribbean Island! Telling my kids about my experience I couldn't tell who was more surprised; them, or me! Just talking about it brought up so many fantastic memories that I soon realized why I used to swear to myself that I would one day end up on an island similar to St. Thomas, for good! With the power back on, and our Native computer at hand, I dove at the opportunity to share with them my pictures from that summer that I had essentially forgotten in their entirety, assuming that they went up in flames with 1006. Not until they requested photos did I realize that I had an album, hidden away on this world wide interweb, that can still be accessed HERE!

by fromdaisland

So, even after the power came back on, Albert, Diane, Lena and I all elected to remain in our rather cozy newly adopted classroom. They students even agreed with me that natural light was best as Anna flicked the fluorescent on when coming to check in on everything!

All 'n all it was a pretty good day. . .despite being forced to hold a debate in a class of only one student! Maybe all I need to feel comfortable is a bit more of a natural setting, a couple students who are actually interested in learning and some natural lighting. Now, that's not too much to ask for is it!? It certainly isn't if you're in St. Thomas, Ghana or even New Orleans! Throw Korea into that group and you shouldn't have a hard time picking the 'odd one out,' on a number of different indices!

Happy Weekend, I'll tell you about the prison museum later though the post will likely show up below this one as I have already uploaded the pictures. . .hope you had a great first week of the year!