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Today was Cooking Day for the kindergartners, some half-baked event we whipped up to waste time until Christmas comes out of the oven. Notice how many crappy cooking related terms I crammed into that first sentence, I should be shot in the face.

Anyways, my awe-inspiring contribution for the day was Nachos - yes, nachos and I even made them in the microwave - and Chef Mike championed pizza buns. Together we constructed a devilish kitchen in the school gym with only one discernable purpose: to make these poor children as fat and malnourished as university students. I think we did a pretty good job too, under the guise of an 'Italian/Mexican Restaurant'. The pizza buns were assembled handily: "Okay, now add THREE pieces of pineapple! How many pieces? Five? Seven? No, three. No, Peter, stop eating the ham you pig!"

I threw together the nachos with some unnecessary theatricality, screaming in mock anguish with every tomato and green pepper I sliced open: "Noooo... don't eat me children... why are you cutting me... NOOOOOO!" The kids had no sympathy for the slaughtered vegetables, giggling through every death throe. They were fearless with innocence, plunging their fingers into the path of the chopping knife to grab tiny pieces of tomato to add to the nacho heap. Just think: I very nearly had a fine collection of five-year old pinkies. They would've made a cool necklace.

The knife also came in handy for deterring would-be chip thieves. I brandished it fiercely at offenders, and Mike led the class in a rousing game of "How many pieces should Chris-teacher cut Peter into?" The consensus was five. If you couldn't tell, we desensitize our children to violence in addition to teaching them English here at Herald.

But, as an aside, Peter really is a fat-ass... this kid is obsessed with food and I am sad to tell you that when he shoveled his handful of cheese into his mouth instead of neatly sprinkling it on his pizza bun, as the other kids were doing, I wasn't at all surprised. When he started licking cheese off the table, I was disgusted but still not surprised. When Mike held the back of his shirt while the other kids started in on the freshly microwaved nachos, and he ran in place like a hamster on a wheel, eyes on the prize, I laughed long and hard but - you guessed it - still wasn't surprised. This kid is pretty fat and if I carved him up with my knife, he would've fed the entire school for two days, maybe three. I suppose we should've felt bad for feeding him fatty trash-food, but - surprise! - I have no conscience. I do have a keen sense of cruelty though. Ha ha!

Moving onwards... here is a picture of the kids devouring nachos like starving immigrants. The deer-in-the-headlights, the girl with salsa all over her face, is Sarah and one of the strangest kindergartners. She is consequentially one of my favourites. I don't think Sarah's ever said a word of English to me - I don't teach her class - but every once in a while she'll come into the teacher's lounge for Masterpiece Puppet Theatre. She'll have a bunny puppet and I'll have a duck puppet and she'll make the bunny hop around and make strange high-pitched noises - "Meep meep meep!" - and I'll sit, fascinated with how fucking weird the whole thing is, and try to keep up with the duck. Sometimes the duck and bunny are friends, and sometimes they aren't. Sometimes the bunny can fly and sometimes it burrows into my armpit. I never quite know what each performance of Masterpiece Puppet Theatre will bring, and I don't think she does either. Every episode closes when the bell eventually rings and Sarah goes prancing off into the great unknown, sans bunny and singing to herself with wide-eyed abandon.

There are places in Korea where a plate of nachos costs SIXTY BUCKS. And other, more reasonable, places where a plate of nachos costs TEN BUCKS. Wait, that's not reasonable at all, it's a cultural travesty. They ('They' being The Man - The Korean Man) must really not want nachos to infiltrate this country.

I'm gonna be in trouble. Save me, mysterious bunny puppet!

Posted by Chris at 11:00 AM >> Commentations (2)