Halloween and scarier things... Korean moms!

First of all, I'd like to apologize for my radio silence this past week. I now realize taking a break from writing after foreshadowing my trip to the DMZ was poor planning, but this has been the most hectic week yet. (I will definitely be writing about that experience as soon as possible.) From what I hear, in fact, this might be the busiest, most stressful week of the school year for us.

It's a bit of a perfect storm around here as two major events and a handful of deadlines all fell in the same week. First of all, as you probably know, Halloween was this Wednesday.  Besides the foreign teachers dressing up in costumes, we were also put in charge of all decorating and celebration-planning.

For the actual kindergarten classes, we had a regular day; but the extra kindergarten classes in the afternoon were combined for Halloween festivities. We had about 25 six year olds together to make masks, ghosts, and pumpkin crafts; play party games, and go mock trick or treating. These special classes are usually the most stressful of the day because there are no Korean teachers around to help with discipline or explaining things that are confusing. This craziness was amplified exponentially by the number of students, the party atmosphere, and the outrageous sugar intake. It was fun, yes, but the planning and execution was very taxing for myself and my co-teacher.

Immediately after the special kindergarten class, the elementary kids began to arrive. It's tradition that these kids come in costume and they've been buzzing about it all week. The same co-teacher and I split the first graders into two groups for regular class, but for Halloween, we combined them for crafts and decorating their candy bags....

After settling in and finishing their projects, we headed down to the auditorium to join the second and third graders for games with all the elementary classes. I was told the other teachers were in charge of these games. The control freak in me (which, let's be real, is the dominant part) absolutely hated this. I had no idea what we were doing or what to tell my students. This anxiety increased exponentially with each second as the other teachers faltered: missing equipment, poor planning, lackluster execution, and a generally low level of energy all reminded me why I used to take over group projects in high school.

Anyway, we made it through the games and then taxied the kids upstairs for a group picture and food (pizza and chicken!). This was as fun as serving 40 kids food can be, but I was thankful we separated the first graders from the other classes.

For the remaining 30 minutes, we held a mini-carnival of sorts with each teacher hosting a game. The kids cashed in their school dollars to play and were awarded either consolation candy or some way better candy for winning. My game was pretty simple -- I put a ball under and cup and mixed them up, then the kids would guess which cup the ball was under. Despite my stellar showmanship and distraction tactics (Look over there! Is that your Mom?!), I only stumped a few kids. I really enjoyed playing with the students and getting to have little moments with each one. Overall, I think they had a great time.

When the kids had all left, we took some candy to all the Korean teachers, who were in freak out mode because today (Friday) is Mothers' Participation Day. They made a bee-line for the chocolate. Now, two days later, more than 300 Korean mothers are descending on the school to scrutinize every last corner and criticize every single word they see and hear. We having been preparing for this day for weeks now, but this past week the tension was palpable (as it tends to be). Now, I have to go face the Tiger Moms, who just might be scarier than the North Korean soldiers from this weekend... I'll let you know if/when I make it out alive.