Friday

My last two classes on Friday night are with one student. She is not a good student, either. I had her in another class with other students before we were put into Friday night perdition together and she was bad. She does not want to be there. She is a 'scarf talker' - girls who have a massive scarf wrapped around their neck and mouth and mumble inaudibly into the scarf when called upon. This girl is one of the scarf talkers.

So it's just her and I from 6:30 to 8:30 on Friday night. The class I have before that has two kids in it, and one asked me about her. 'You have class with one after this?' she asked me. The girl that asked me is a good student (for me, I've heard from other teachers that she's bad with them). 'Yeah, I have Jaime, just her for the last two classes.' The girl started giggling, 'She only speak Korean, no English.'

It's incredibly quiet, boring and tiresome. She sits struggling through material that is way past her level, me trying to get her through it. Both of us trying to not become totally frustrated and enraged. I want to tell her that this sucks for me too, but she doesn't understand me when I ask her to 'Read please'. So I sit and think - at least I'll be home and having a drink soon.

This is makgeolli - milky Korean rice wine - it's sweet and tasty with about 7% alcohol - very enjoyable: