To answer Franklin’s earlier question: yes, I deal out push-ups. I also embarrass students by making them recite the class rules to the rest of the class. I have made one girl cry-but I wasn’t punishing her. She just didn’t want to speak English. An easy go-to is to make the unruly students stand in the front or back of the room holding books above their heads. I have also forced students to switch seats so they have to sit next to someone they don’t like.
My voice is dying. I sound like Mick Jagger. I’ve realized that I just can’t raise my voice. Sometimes speaking quietly works anyway, but certain classes respond best to a big loud belt. If I keep doing that, though, I am going to become voiceless…and then I don’t know what profession I’m going to go into…painting? Copywriting?
Anyone have any suggestions for not losing one’s voice?
While we’re counting:So I’ve made one girl cry, I have one Korean father, and I seem to have two teacher boyfriends/potential suitors/protectors. I also have a few aunts and uncles, I’d say. I bathed in the nude with strangers again, this time in Seoul. And Busan. And then I joined a gym last week, so tack another 3 times. So that’s six displays of public nudity. I’m also pretty sure I’ve trespassed. John and I went looking for this lighthouse park and rock outcrop on the beach, and we just followed the shore up from our neighborhood for about 40 minutes or so. There were a few cottages smattered right on the water’s edge, and I am pretty sure some of our walk was right through people’s backyards. The Saturday after receiving my first paycheck I bought THREE pairs of shoes. I think it is fairly certain that shoes are to be my final downfall. If I were a tragic hero, I would undergo death by shoe. The interesting question to me is: would it be an obvious fate, like a stiletto to the head? Or something more surreptitious, like a moccasin-footed ninja strangling me with a shoelace?
