Trips to the field

I've realized that while I have a pretty good memory of my time here, the order of events has been jumbled in my mind. So, I will be grouping events with similar themes rather than posting in entirely chronological order.

*Swimming Pool: This was a pretty good trip for the kids. It had me immensely worried, since I knew I'd be responsible for keeping ten five year olds from drowning, but we ended up at the wading pool and it wasn't a problem.

The trip started off a little oddly for me. I had to help all of the boys in two kindergarten classes get changed into their swimming suits. I know I come from a prude puritan country, but I feel really weird seeing my students naked and helping them into their bathing suits.

We go out to the swimming pool, and I kept an eye on the kids, making sure there was no splashing or any other tomfoolery going on. After a while, the director calls the kids out of the pool for lunch. Ted gets out of the pool.

Ted is a special boy. He was always very well behaved. He was very easy going. He never got into fights with the other students. He never had trouble finishing his lunch. He never wet himself. He never cried, and he never forgot to bring his stuff to school. He also never spoke a word of English or learned any of the letters of the alphabet. He would stare blankly into space during the entire lesson. He was pretty much a vegetable.

So Ted gets out of the pool. All the other kids go and grab their picnic mats and get their lunch boxes out. Ted takes off his bathing suit and stares blankly at me. I point to the other kids and try to explain that it's lunch time, not naked time. I help him back into his swimsuit and take out his lunch and picnic mat. At the end of the day, when all the kids get out to go back to the locker room, he takes off his bathing suit again. I say "screw it" and walk his naked ass over to the locker room to get his clothes.

Then, I was given a very uncomfortable job. Before the kids put on their clothes, they have to take a shower. It was my job to scrub them down with soap and a loofah. I explained to my director that I felt really uncomfortable rubbing naked five year olds and that we don't have skinship in America, so he took over the job and I just sprayed them with the shower head.

*Trip to the zoo: This was a regular trip, but my Canadian coworker and I had a bit too much to drink the night before and were not in pristine condition this morning. My 3rd year students and his 2nd year students were on the same bus. I was sitting behind one of my students, Cathy who was simply amazing. She wasn't a great speller or mathematician, but she could talk about any subject non-stop and at a rate of about 60 words per second.

She turned around to tell me about a conversation she had with another student about two members of Girl's Generation. "So, I was like, NO! She's not as beautiful. But then she was like, Yes she is. So I told her she was stupid. Then she told me I was stupid. Then we laughed...." At this point my head was throbbing, and I told her "Greedybones teacher and Canada teacher are sick today. We need some quiet time, okay?" She nodded her head and turned around.

At some point on the bus ride to the zoo, the Canadian teacher and I both fell asleep. I was woken up by Cathy screaming "Be quiet! Greedybones teacher and Canada teacher are trying to sleep!" I realized at this point that I was not the most professional of teachers.

*The horse museum: This was possibly the worst idea for a field trip ever. We spent 3 hours in a museum the size of an officetel apartment. There were old horse shoes. There were some statues of horses. There were some bowls with horses painted on them. There were some photos of horses. I did what I could to make the trip more interesting, but one can only stretch out a story about the magical goblin king and the enchanted horse shoe for so long.