If I'm being completely honest, I'd have to say the days when I can't stand my job outnumber the days when I can. If I'm being really and truly completely honest, I'd have to admit that condition has more to do with me than with the job itself.

But then something happens like yesterday when a girl came to the front of my classroom after I'd dismissed class with a friend for moral support. She read haltingly from notes she had written on a piece of paper, "Have you ever been to Los Angeles?" I said I had, and held a miniature conversation on the subject of Los Angeles and Disneyland. When the two girls left to go to lunch, the one who had spoken to me was so proud of herself she was literally jumping. I was proud of her too. Hardly anyone in my school attempts even the most basic of sentences like that.

Today another student caught me in the hallway and announced she'd been accepted into a foreign language high school. I don't pretend I had anything to do with that, but I was touched that she felt it was important enough to tell me about.

So maybe my efforts around here don't go completely unnoticed. That's something I guess.

***

I'm off to a slow start on the novel thing. In fact I almost gave up yesterday. I had written about 300 words, and I hated every single one of them. Fiction is hard. These self-indulgent musing about my own life come much easier.

Despite my misgivings, I plowed on ahead last night, and it did get easier. Word wars are the key. That's how I got my novel written last year and it looks like it will be the same story this time too. I just need something to make me write like hell without thinking too much. Maybe I'll even get caught up before the weekend is over.

Labels: EFL teaching, life in Korea, Nanowrimo