Two things happen at school

The other day, one of my first graders says to me "Teacher, you are funny and dark." I am not making this up.

So I wanted to write an entry about Sauna Park and the amazing "Precious Stone Kiln" where you sweat your face off encased in quartz, but such material ephemera seems insignificant compared to my yesterday...

...it was OPEN CLASS DAY! And I was expected to teach math to kindergartners in front of their parents. Isn't that a classic Jungian nightmare archetype? Like showing up to your first day of high school naked? Having to teach math to Korean children in front of their mothers?

It ended up going extremely well. I made a game out of drawing letters from a bag and determining the resulting probability of the next draw yielding a consonant versus a vowel. These kindergartners can reduce fractions, by the way. I am not making this up.

Something else happened a couple days ago. During a class, one of my students began behaving strangely, losing control of their arms and slurring words more than usual. They dropped to their knees and I caught one arm and the head and lowered the child slowly onto the ground. Straight up seizure. I told the other kids to go tell the Korean Teachers to get medical help while I lay on the ground next to my seizing student, holding a clenching hand and supporting a head, which was in danger of smacking into the bookshelf.

The kid is okay. I was pretty shaken up. Real life.

This weekend I was planning on going to hike some east coast trails leading up to ancient Buddhist monuments. Given the knee situation, instead I think I'll sit in the park and play guitar. I'm working on some Korean pop songs...