what are you sorry for?

Ellen and Jason (from my Elementary) continue to have problems. I came upstairs to class today and Ellen had Jason in a headlock - it was actually pretty funny, but I had to get all teacher-y adult-like and break them up. Ellen had tears streaming down her cheeks and rage in her eyes. After I separated them she kicked him not once but three times. "Ellen!" I scolded, but she just glared and cried. "What is your problem?!" and then, "Jason. What did you say or do to her today?" Silence from both of them, of course. I said I wasn't going to start class until I found out what was going on, but that was probably a dumb threat on my part seeing as how we had a spelling test today and, well, it's Friday, so come on. Anyway, after five or so minutes of prompting, I found out that Jason said something about killing Ellen on the bus on the way to school. For real!? Why are all my boys threatening all my girls that they are going to kill them!? But then Ellen started to explain more about what it was that Jason said to her, and it was something involving a king and how she was less than a king and he was going to kill her... huh? Maybe he was trying to teach her poker or some other card game. I don't know. It was hard not to laugh as I forced them into apologizing to each other - Jason for what he said and Ellen for taking matters into her own hands and beating him up. Man, these kids!

And then, to top it off, Jason made a gun out of rolled up paper and taped handles and extra cartridges on it and everything. Oh my gosh! These kids. I don't even know. Yesterday, Jennie's kid Leo threw a temper-tantrum and pushed her multiple times, all the while screaming and crying. I remember a day, not so long ago, when I thought that teaching Korean children would be a breeze compared to Statesiders. Oh, how wrong, how completely, horribly wrong I was. I suppose they have their moments, but they're pretty shocking a lot of the time. Another example, kind of irrelevant, but just to show you what a punk David is. Last week, David was eating this candy called, "Hi-Chew" in class, equivalent to a "Mamba" back home, but only one flavor per package. He's playing with the candy more than he's eating it, so I tell him to put his "candy" away, but then he says, "Teacher, it's jelly, it's not candy." And I say, "Yeah, it's candy." And then he says, "No, candy hard." And I say, "No, candy can be soft or hard, and jelly is jelly, not candy. In America, we call it gummy candy." And then the little smartass says, "Teacher. This Korea. This not America." And he won after that because I couldn't say what I wanted to say because I'm a teacher now. Just sayin'. TGIF, eh?