Thursday, September 11, 2008

Score

Today at the start of one of my classes, one of the kids gave me a small box wrapped in black paper. This is not the first time something like this has happened, and as I usually do in this situation I thanked the student in Korean and put it aside to look at later. When I opened the box I found that it contained two pairs of socks. Certainly better than a kick in the pants.

Previous scores from students include some hankies from a student in Japan when the kids school was closing down, a box of tea from a student who recently went to China for a month (that's going to be shipped home to my mother and grandmother (I'm pretty sure my student won't find out)), various snacks and candy, and once an elaborate decorative egg bauble thingy, which again is something I doubt I'd ever get for myself, but in all of these cases it's more the sentiment of it than the actual item.

There's actually a teachers day over here, where students and parents used to give gifts to the teachers. It mainly applies to regular school teachers, but it does overflow a bit into the English academies. However, people went quite overboard in trying to get the teachers to give the most attention to their children (I've heard of cases of teachers getting new cars or huge amounts of cash) to the point where the Government has actually made teachers day a day off for school children, so they can't go to school and give their exorbitant gifts to their teachers (although why they can't give them a day later I don't quite get).

End Post
Writing time: 12 minutes
Time since last post: an hour or so
Current media: Still Star Trek Voyager

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