They'll never make good housewives and they'll always mess your lives up.

Today I had two of my badass classes with no coteacher again. I can't believe she had the nerve not to show up this week after what happened last week. Not that her presence makes a whole hell of a lot of difference -- they don't listen to her either. Thing is, I feel bad, because their behavior has gotten significantly better, but I feel like my standards for their behavior just keep getting higher. Instead of being totally ignored now, they quiet down completely but only after thirty seconds or a minute or so have gone by with me standing there looking really pissed off.

The trouble is, I have a hard time getting genuinely pissed off at these classes, because they aren't pure bad, like the one kid in Monday's coteacherless class. They're just loud and easily distracted thirteen year old boys. And I'm afraid unless I'm genuinely angry, I have a hard time being scary.

Nonetheless, today I got a lot of laughs by confiscating a whole table's slippers. They have a habit of sliding into the midst of a slipper stealing war while I'm in the middle of trying to lecture, and so today when they came in, I told them to take them off and give them to me. The other boys thought this was a riot. A little line of sixteen slippers up in front of my desk. "But teacher, floor dirty!"

"Yeah? The floor is dirty when you steal someone else's slippers, too. Hand them over."

There's the one kid in my second period who always has to be the center of attention. If I'm talking to him or looking at him, he's a perfect angel. But if my attention turns to anything else for too long, he'll do something to get it back on him. Today I was walking around from table to table with the drawing we were recreating getting the English contributions from the boys, when he got up out of his seat and interrupted me in the middle of this to tell me something. He said whatever it was in pure Korean and I couldn't catch any of it. More of them assuming that because I sometimes understand now, they can say anything at any speed. When I didn't understand, he shouted at the South African kid to translate. By this point, we had the entire class's devout attention. The South African kid said, "He says that kid is bothering him."

"Yeah?" I turned to the attention seeker. "Well, you are bothering me."

Hysterical laughter throughout the classroom. It's amazing what they can understand in English when they want to.

Today Mr. Kwan informed me that, because exams are next week and his workload will lighten significantly, we will have dinner together. I like to think his habit of stating things this way, matter-of-factly, literally, "Next week we will have dinner together," -- no question mark -- is just a matter of one of the harder things to learn in a language, which is tone. But I think it's just the way that he is. I resisted the urge to ask him if he was asking me or telling me. I've made use of my smart mouth to him before, and it gets quite a shocked reaction. I'll hold my tongue for now, but I am definitely taking note of these things. He's really pissed me off with this kicking a student thing, and now he's on probation.

Plus, the realization that I really like him has got me nitpicking.

When I told him I cooked Korean last night (which came out amazingly well -- I'm fucking well proud of myself), he asked how much I cooked. I said the recipe was for four portions, and after all that work, I wasn't that hungry, so there was quite a bit left over -- which is the problem with cooking for one. When he said, again matter-of-factly, that he wanted some of the leftover, I told him, matter-of-factly, that it was for Mike. It isn't -- I don't feel like taking stew on the train. But it annoys me that he's taken such a keen interest in me learning to cook (I am not a potential housewife, thank you), and again, I'm just being a bitch.

Which is, ultimately, what I'm good at. Wahey.