bfg on being baffeled

View of the class from my position

So The Shys hit me today.

Many people, most of them "friends", think I am outgoing because I am loud and move my hands a lot.

This, my friends, is a misconception one that baffles me that people assume loud + extreme gesturing bordering on an epileptic attack + eyes wide in expression = an outgoing person.

Don't get me wrong - I have done some pretty "outgoing" things but most of that has been by the standards of the people who see me, your average Joe Canadian. But I hate introducing myself to people. Ask me to meet someone off the street and start talking no problem. Formally introduce me and the blushes and tongue twisting begins.

Now, that didn't quite happen with my first lesson. I spoke clearly and loudly. Hell, I would even say the kids thought I was confident but inside ball-of-nerves (please read with extreme dramatic pauses). It was a relief to just cry it out after class - a good cry not the bad kind.

Its not that it was horrible. Thirty-three kids though standing up and doing nothing after you just explained an activity - kindof a horrible feeling. Some of the kids really wanted to try but I was being called left and right and trying to manage the 4 rowdy kids who tried to sneak out of class. That was unacceptable and after the JTE failed to control them I grabbed those boys by their shirts brought them to the board and made them do the lesson. It turns out that two of them were way better than I gave them credit for which is a nice but I couldn't help but feel guilty that the ones willing to put in the effort were not getting the feedback and "teacher love" they deserved.

View From Students point

It turns out the language Lab (LL Room) is the hottest in the whole school. Can you believe it?

I can. In fact, as I was helping a student the teacher tapped my shoulder and said, "Vanessa, you are sweating too much." Thanks. Thanks a lot. Point out my disgustingness - like I don't feel it already. In all honestly, she was probably just trying to be nice, saying out of concern but boy I just wanted the floor to swallow me right there or a wild pig to come get me.

The good news is that I reformatted my lesson so that the kids move around LESS so next week when I do my self-intro a gazillion + one times I can move around the class and "dictate the space" rather than letting the younglings go wild. I think that is the issue with any and all of the advice I have taken which was to always keep the kids moving. Or maybe I just take things a bit too literally like when people say "Gullible isn't in the dictionary". Thirty-three kids can't be moving around. Sorry - I can't do it and did a piss poor job of it today.

Not a complete failure. At lunch, I went down to the Bread Lady who stinks like shit but makes a mother-fucking good sandwich, I was walking the halls and, admittedly, playing Scrabble on Elphaba, my iphone, when someone grabbed my arm.

"Please. I want to talk to you."

Her name is Li- and she rocks. Firstly, drop dead beautiful. Like perfect Japanese girl she took my breath away. But when I realized what she said I put the smile on and said, "Yeah! Hey! Lets talk now." I was dying of hunger and technically this was my lunch time. But this was something categorized as precious moment and I couldn't give in to human needs.

It turns out her parents sent her to an International School in Santa Barbara, California for the summer to improve her English and though she makes errors she is pretty god-dam good! It makes me wonder if it would not be better to take the JET Program money and invest it in sending students abroad. Happily, once I am done but yeah...

We chatted for about thirty minutes and she asked if she could come during lunch time sometimes. I almost died with happiness. "Of course. If I am here, I would love to have lunch."

And in general I am just meeting more students  which I adore. The face-to-face time is worth the misery of a bad first lesson. Anyways, I have to do it 15 more times so... time to refine!


****

PS: SophieW as promised a picture of the pipe I thought was a wild pig.

Rusty Pipe. I named him Wilbur.
But Honestly, Doesn't it look like a wild pig?!