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I've discovered that I can only write for myself as a diversion from something more pressing. That something, on this eve, is the formulation of many sycophantic comments for the parents of outgoing kindergartners, so they can beam with joy at how far their babies have come. Or at least they would beam, except most of them can't read English so I feel like I'm wasting my time. I guess they can beam at all the unnecessarily long words I've been using. Bigger is better, right?

I'm sad to see them leave though (the kindys, not the parents). I suppose I'll even be sad to see some of the parents go, such as Sue's mom who I've had frequent weekly battles with through the Role Book. She never responds to my formulaic banter, so for a while I started writing absolute trash for my own personal amusement. Stuff like: "Sue is a Valkyrie of the true Nordic soul, a pioneer down the long dry path of Role Play achievement and a sassy character to boot!" So then we get in a drawn-out mock-fight over how I don't make any sense and who's sassier, me or Sue, and Sue's mom writes me a tongue-in-cheek poem about how Eastern wisdom kicks the shit out of Western wisdom. A few weeks later I have a super busy week and scribble out my comments with my monkey handwriting, and she writes back asking me if I had to go to the bathroom or something and insinuates that her kid writes better than I do. This is all in Korean, by the way, translated by a snickering Cindy or Elisa. So I respond to Sue's mom's grave accusations with gigantic penciled letters and infantile sentences about DID YOU HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND? and our scrap continues with winking happy faces and the occasional jab or two. I enjoy it very much and now it's going away.

And I still have to write these awful parent conference comments. Like I said, I'll be sad to see these children go - the graduating kids are pretty much my kids. My entire homeroom is rushing on to bigger and better things in the looming world of elementary school. I suppose it's nice to have a job where things are changing so constantly - keeps you out of the formidable clutches of Routine - but still.

I feel that I should inform the external world about the atrocity known in the blackest circles as dong shim. This, my friends, is a rather Korean phenomenon whereby a small child will take their index fingers, put them together, and ram them up a teacher's ass as hard as they can. Yes, you read correctly. The kids have a name for forced anal intrusion, and it is a name which can strike fear into the hearts of even the most seasoned ESL teachers. I, myself, have been fairly lucky in evading this fate: the children at Herald are mostly discouraged from such practices and I can only remember a couple times when I was violated. I'm told that it means the kid likes you, but I really don't know if I can believe in a culture where fingers go in the ass as a sign of respect and admiration and love. Except maybe Amsterdam, I dunno.

So yeah, the dong shim hasn't been much of a factor for me but Chad has quite a few humorous sob-stories. The best I've heard so far was a brutal victimization of Matt who, until that fateful day, had largely escaped the probing of students' happy fingers. It was an orchestrated effort, a gang-rape, and as one boy feigned intellectual ignorance and Matt leaned over to help him, two more lads pinioned his hands to the desk and a fourth gleefully ran up behind, pointed fingers a-jabbin'. Once! Twice! Three times an invasion! The dong shim had struck again, and Matt spent the rest of the day crying in the bathroom and the rest of the week wearing an extra-chunky diaper for protection. Incoming ignorants to Korea, beware the dong shim!

Posted by Chris at 09:33 AM >> Commentations (2)