a confirmation

My mother says that you always get what you expect, so you should try to only expect good things.  When bad things happen, I always wonder, fleetingly, if I have invited Karma to slap my glib face, so it cocks it arm and pops me a good one.

Like today, in class with Susan.

So yeah, maybe's its my fault. I expected her to be useless. I expected her to misunderstand, to hedge, to be afraid, to be lazy. And yet somehow, I wasn't expecting what happened.

Yesterday, I asked Susan to prepare two small things for today's lesson. First task: an introduction. She's never met the 6th graders, so I asked her to prepare to say a little something about herself so that she wouldn't have to awkwardly stand, silent, through my first class and then make a backhanded introduction later.

We chatted about it until I had made myself clear, so imagine my underwhelming surprise when I asked her to speak up and say hello to the class, and she shook her head no, waved awkwardly and backed away. In front of the students, who were watching her, completely puzzled.

I feel you, kiddies. I'm confused too.

"What do you mean, 'no'? Are you a adult or not? Introduce yourself and stop being such a creep!"

I didn't say that.


moving on.

Task two: a game. The teacher's guidebook is full of lots of information that I can never use because its written korean. You might think that it wouldn't be too much to ask for an English Teacher's Guide to be written in English.

You'd be wrong.

Because I can't understand most of it, I asked Susan to help.

"I would like you to play this game with the students." I said.

She blinked at the textbook. "What do you mean?"

I blinked at the textbook. "It's right here, in Korean. Just follow the instructions."

She blinked. I stifled a grimace.

"I want the students to play this game, but I don't know all of the instructions. I think it's a good game, but I can't explain it to them. I would like you to follow the instructions written here, and play this game."

She blinked.

"Here..." I pointed, "It's written in Korean."

"You mean" she said, "the students normally need me to tell them the game instructions...in Korean?"

If she had ever, EVER paid attention in my class, she would know the answer to that one already. Then again, because I know she flakes out and didn't pay attention, her classes never got instructions in Korean. Like I said, listening problem.

I shook my head. "I want you to do this. Just like it says in the book. I want you to do this game with the students."

"Aaah," she nodded, "ok, I will do."

Just to be sure that she got it, I searched through the 6th grade CD-ROM and left the instructions loaded and plainly visible on her desktop screen. Then I messaged her: "these are the instructions for the game! hope they're helpful! :)"

She wrote back "Thanks! :)"

We were totally all set. Except...

When I asked her to play the game in class, she gave me the doe-eyes and was all "wait...what do you want me to do?"

I know, I know. I put it out there. I made the crack about EPIC DISASTER being imminent. And yet, with some small corner of my soul, I had hope that she would prove me wrong. That Karma would help her hear, understand, and follow through.

"Should I speak to the students in...Korean?"

grlglpltz. phpwztt. AAAA!!