Cliche #604: Emotional Roller-Coaster

It's trite, but there's a reason cliches are cliche. What better image is there to describe extreme emotional highs and lows in a short period?

Two Fridays ago, I was happy and excited about my life here in Korea. Hapkido was going well, I had received an e-mail saying my book (Manga Studio for Dummies) would arrive within two days, and a new term was coming with a new schedule showing fewer hours and new classes, all of them late elementary to early middle school, the group of kids I seem, based on the past term, to get on with best. A friend told me she'd be arriving in Korea to teach not too far away by subway. I was thinking about my comic. Things looked good.

Then on Monday, we had a meeting, in which we were given yet another revision of the schedule, with my awesome classes going to a new teacher and me getting two classes of the second-lowest level and age they have at this school, as well as one each of the next two levels. Young children. Yikes. I've never really understood young children, and the youngest groups in my previous term were the ones I'd had the most trouble with. Surely my head instructor had noticed this when going over our CCTVs? Surely there was some mistake? But after some questioning and nagging and a promise he'd look into changes, I was told that it was too late and there was no way to revise the schedule.

Happiness and anticipation move out of the way. Dread settles in comfortably.

I had gotten into an absolute funk. No energy, except in hapkido class. My favourite classes felt like they were dragging. Even the new material I was teaching, which was actually exciting compared to the stuff we'd had, felt like suck. I was half-convinced I would hate it and not be able to get through the coming three months. It's amazing what one little twist can do. Ah, and also, Manga Studio for Dummies, though the e-mail had said it shipped, was not in my hands. All week.

A little over three hours ago I was still filled with dread. My first class was to be my youngest group. Couple that with the usual dread of having to make the first impression on a new pile of people, and things weren't feeling nice. But I tried to make the best of it, tried to convince myself that I'd have a good crop of students, and went in with as much energy as I could muster and as much smiliness and excitement as I could inject.

Damn, was I surprised.

Not only did the material not completely suck (a major problem I'd had with the level above this one last term), but the kids were (mostly) respectful and paid attention. They listened, they interacted, they laughed at my silly drawings, and it was actually, dare I say it... fun.

So to those who had to deal with my dread, my apologies.

I'm excited once again. Tomorrow I have another class of the same level of kids... hopefully, if I do things the same as today, the rest of the term will be good. The key, I've learned, is to start out strict, establish your rules, call them on it when they break 'em, and force the timid ones to interact... and at the same time, relate yourself to the kids. I opened the class with an attendance check in which I called the kids' names - then asked each one to talk about him or herself for a bit. I occasionally interjected some - like when a girl said she liked to draw dragons, I mentioned my own monster-drawing.

It was good.

Let's hope things go well tomorrow.

Ah, yes. My book had apparently delivered, but the ajosshi who "guards" the building had mistaken my room number on the package (1413). I looked into his office and saw a book-shaped box with 413 on it, and took some initiative and walked in. He was confused, but I pointed to my name on the box, pointed to myself a few times, and he seemed to get it. At least, I thought so, but then I got a buzz on my intercom saying, "Box - four-one-three, you one-four-one-three! Wrong box! Four-one-three! Four-one-three!" Happily, it was remedied easily enough once I had him put on his glasses.

Time to plan out some comic-drawing practice!