This job.

Dak galbi and grocery shopping with Magnes always puts an abrupt end to a bad day. And just to be sure, I bought myself a brownie.

I have strong opinions about English Zones. Mostly that they're a scandalous, ostentatious waste of money. And they bring out the absolute worst behavior you could expect from students, unless you were to place a beer keg in the middle of the classroom.

On the upside, about halfway through the day I started to feel a lot better. I think the illness has been sufficiently nipped in the bud, and it won't turn into two months of bronchitis hell. Hooray for yogurt and staying inside to read.

Also, I've semi-decided to stop letting the old hag English teacher's criticism bother me, due partially to the fact that she doesn't actually speak any English, so I don't feel too shabby compared to her. But due mostly to the fact that I saw today that all of the control that her classes were under, pre-English Zone shenanigans, was actually my control. She wasn't able to make them shut up at all today. And I saw a student laughing in her face while she was lecturing him. Also, absolutely every last one of the students I've had any trouble out of so far have been hers in the first place.

Apparently she put in a request with my main co-teacher that we continue having the second grade classes in the classrooms, because the English Zone is too far away for the students to walk. I'm calling bullshit on that right away and chocking it right up to the fact that she was embarrassed that I had to wrangle her students into control today, while she stood there helpless, after she told me two weeks ago that I should have better control over my after school class, after I reported some student names to her.

My other co-teachers swiftly jumped in during the nonsense today to explain to the students that if they couldn't handle themselves in the English Zone, they would simply lose their time with the native teacher. Perfect angels after that.

I saw my favorite group of third graders on the fifth floor after school today. They remind me sort of where we fell in middle school/high school, which was not with the "cool" kids, but not with the annoying over-achieving kids either -- a decent mix of brains amongst them, and various outside interests. Mostly they just keep to themselves and can't be bothered with anyone or anything else. The group includes Cassanova from winter camp, and one kid I got to know last year because he speaks remarkable English for his age. Apparently they're working on a dance routine for some ominous sounding school festival. These are literally some of the most serious sixteen year olds I've ever seen, so I was pretty surprised to hear what they were up to. I'm dead excited to see the end results, though.

Tomorrow's afternoon classes are canceled because it's apparently model airplane flying day or some such random nonsense.

This fucking job.