Power trip

I have a strange feeling of exhilaration tonight. Perhaps I’m savouring the last moments of being twenty eight. Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I’ve been shouting orders in Korean at big sweaty men for the last two hours... Yes, I think it’s the latter actually.

The instructor who I usually train with came to my training session today with another man, a red belt, so they could work on their technique. It was a bit of a strange feeling, little ol’ five foot me barking orders at these huge blokes. (I usually only teach beginners who are easily impressed by my high kicks and who I don’t feel I need to prove anything to) But these fellas seemed to take me seriously anyway. AND they understood my French. So despite my constant fears to the contrary I think it really must be improving.

I’m teaching the children fruits this week. They think the way I say banana is hilarious although I have no idea why. But every class independently completely cracked up when I said it. It just must sound funny to French ears. And when I showed them a picture of a pineapple and they tried to use logic to work out what side splittingly funny English sound that word would make, I was faced with a chorus of ‘aNAH-nas!’. ...I felt rather sad to have to tell them they were completely wrong.

One teacher, the one that doesn’t like my handwriting, asked me on Monday why I don’t make the children do any written assessments. I told her I’m not qualified to, which is a lie. I just, a) can’t be bothered to mark them all, b) feel that since most of the work I do is oral work and listening exercises, it doesn’t really seem fair to give them a written test and, c) don't like her to think it's ok to interrupt my lesson to tell me how I could, in her opinion, be doing it better. She went on to ask me why I wasn’t teaching them the words for fruits that they have here, because, "the word strawberry is no use to them". I tried to explain that the word guava would have little use to them if they were ever in England but I don't think she really cares. She just likes arguing with me. Or maybe she feels threatened by my presence.

Or maybe all this shouting at big men has gone to my head...