the sound of lightning (part 2)

Okay, I know teachers aren't supposed to play favorites but that's never the case. These are a couple of my favorite students from my week of teaching elementary school (and coincidentally they are the only two that wanted to have their photo taken)


This is Sye-Jin. Perhaps the smallest student in the class of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. She is a 6th grader this year and quite mischievous.


Sye-Jin on the left and Eun-Su on the right. If the students at A-cheon were to make a Matt Fan Club, I'm pretty sure these two would co-found it. Is that a gun?


Eun-Su doesn't seem to mind that Sye-Jin is always attacking her, so long as the camera is pointed in her direction.


The infamous rebel, Sye-Jin.

There are more pictures that were taken on the A-Cheon school camera so hopefully I can get those soon. I had 4 or 5 favorite students, but they aren't all in the photos. Some of them were really quiet and so I never got to learn their names. And some were always talking to me and asking me questions (sometimes the same question every day).

I really want to teach at A-cheon next year, but I know it wouldn't be the same students. Sye-Jin and Eun-Seung will be in middle school. And there will be 200 students, only 15 of which I know. So maybe its kind of silly to want to work there next year. But teaching these kids for 20 hours, I've really grown attached to them. I've never taught the same students for more than 4 hours in a week before this.

On Saturday I'm going to TOKYO. I hope its half as fun as teaching my elementary students. I'm so glad Yuriko got on my case for me to plan my trip. So far I have a list of things I want to do, and my schedule of when I'll be in which city, and my reservations for the hostel and capsule hotel that I will be staying at. Also, I figured out how to get to Incheon Airport. So, I still need to figure out how to get from Tokyo airport to my hotel (and the downtown area). And I need to figure out how I will travel between cities. And I need to get Japanese Yen (worst case scenario i should be able to do this at the airport). Other than that, I just want to print out some maps and directions so I can find the places that I want to get to.

I'm so excited that I will see Yuriko again. I might be able to visit Megan from my TESL class, as she has vacation the same week that I do. Other than that, Yuriko's friends might keep me company on some days and I'll probably be flying solo in Kyoto and Osaka. I have the phone numbers of both Yuriko and Megan in case anything happens to me in Japan, and they can both speak Japanese so please dont worry about me !