"YOUR COMMENTS AREN'T LONG ENOUGH. YOU NEED TO TELL THEM THEY ARE GREAT MORE."

Since I've never been good at coming up with titles (I'm almost positive every paper I wrote in college was entitled "The and then whatever the paper was about", i.e., "The Flat Tax", "The Book of Job", "The Electoral College") I've decided my blog titles will now be random quotes.  I may explain the quotes or I may just leave the what, where, when, why, and who up in the air.  You can come up with your own stories surrounding them if you want, or you can just ignore them, either one is fine.

Want to know the top five answers I received when I asked one of my middle school, female students to name some American singers and I would see if I had them on my IPod, and then play them during class?

1. Black Eyed Peas

2. Mariah Carey

3. Justin Timberlake

4. 3OH3

5. India.Arie

Lucky for her I did have 3 out of the 5.  If she had requested someone like Dean Martin, or Johnny Cash, or Sonny and Cher, instead of Mariah Carey and Justin Timberlake, then we would have been in luck.  

Want to know the top three reasons why a couple girls in one of my classes didn't like the book we just finished about a girl named Yoon who moves from Korea to America?

1. Yoon is ugly.

2. Yoon's mother looks like a man.

3. The pictures are bad.

Want to know the top five things I repeat the most I'm pretty sure?

1. Andy don't touch my basket.

2. Andy get off the floor and sit in your chair.  

3. YOUR CHAIR, ANDY!

4. Andy stop punching me.

5. ANDY DON'T TOUCH ME, GET A TISSUE!

In a 40 minute class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I'm pretty sure I spend half the time yelling at Andy.

Want to know the top five things I've learned while being here?

1. I love Korean food, for the most part, but my bowels, unfortunately, do not.

2. Life would be a whole heck of a lot easier if I knew Korean.  Must try harder.

3. I'm decent at squatting.

4. Bob Seger is amazing, and I love him.

5. You live in a world of opposites when you work with kids.  Some days are awesome.  Some days are horrible.  Some times kids are cute, and sometimes they make you want to rip your hair out.  Some times kids will laugh at your antics, and some times they will just look at you blankly.  Some days you feel like you are really making progress, only to come back a day later and feel like you are trying to hammer a nail into a cement wall.  Some times kids are sweet, and some times they will give you brutal honesty.  The good part is that the positive outweighs the negative.  This job has its moments of total frustration, but every time I walk down the hallway and one of my kids comes running up to me smiling, wanting to tell me about their day and such, it makes it all worth it.