bowels of the beast

deery-lou.
previously on the e-list…

viagra, plastic surgery, & porn—just some of the subjects my students brought up in class. as many of you know by now, i have returned to the land of the working. while i continue my search for that "perfect" design job, i've secured a part-time gig teaching esl. it's not quite the same as when i taught in korea, but i'm enjoying it. gone are the days of nose pickers and art projects. most of the students are in their early twenties and are either college students or young professionals. it's quite a different experience to actually be able to elicit conversations from them. these guys love to ask questions. oddly enough the majority of my students hail from korea. japanese, thai, and one swiss girl make up the rest. it's great to see so many students coming to the u.s. to study the language. personally, i feel its the best way to learn since they are immersed into the culture. plus i'm able to give them advice as to where to go.

i've only been there two weeks and i'm already getting attached to them. i've gotten so use to teaching younger students that i often have to tell myself that they are adults. especially when they start talking about strip bars, porn, & viagra. topics like that never came up during my days at ils. what worries me most is their naivety. many of them act as if they are in their own country. i try to advise them that they should be conscious of their surroundings. you hope that they won't get taken advantage of while being here. unfortunately, that's not always the case. last week one of the students was mugged. they actually threatened to kill him. if that had been me, i would have been on the next plane out of here. not this student, he decided to stick it out. then there's a girl in my class who wrote that her host mother only fed her bread. what the fuck! i actually had to read the entry twice to make sure i was reading it correctly. she was smart enough to leave her host mother and found a new place to live. of course not every one's experiences are bad. for the most part they all seem to be enjoying their time in the city.



last friday i took a group of them to the golden gate bridge. what i thought was only 15 students going turned out to be 26. half of them i knew since they were in my class. the other half were fresh faces. it got to the point where i had to ask if they were from our school. hehe from downtown we had to take two buses to get to the bridge. trying to get 26 students onto a bus turned out to be a nightmare. i literally watched as one bus took off with ten students who had no idea where they were going. my first instinct was to chase it down but i couldn't leave the others behind. i could hope that someone had one of their cell numbers. on the second bus i could only get a handful of students on. i told them exactly where to get off and to wait for us there. i also made sure the bus driver knew to tell them when to get off. i managed to get on the third bus with the rest of the students. i was still pretty freaked out about how i was going to contact the first group of students. no one seemed to have anyone's number. before entering the stockton tunnel, the students from the first bus were waiting at the bus stop. they had been smart enough to get off and look for us. lucky for me, i didn't have to make that call to school saying i lost some students.

i was pretty excited about going to the bridge. sure, i've crossed it several time via car but i've never actually walked it. when i told them that they were pretty surprised. they seemed to have enjoyed themselves. they basically took pictures of anything and everything. we had a mini photo shoot at the half way mark. it got to the point where i was getting tired of smiling. we all know how much i like to do that. we didn't walk the whole bridge. it was far too cold and windy. before heading back i gave them some time to explore the park area and take yet more pictures. the next time i have to do an outing i'm going prep them beforehand with vital information. that way if we get separated at least they'll have some idea of where they are going.

pics from the field trip are here

stay gold & be well…