Sunday School

Cara and I teach Sunday School at Mission Baptist Church. Its pretty fun, and at times it can be pretty interesting. We teach the 4&5 year olds and, in my opinion, these are the cutest kids because they're getting pretty intelligent at this point and are just fun to talk to. Today we mentioned to a woman named 'Nita that we taught 4&5 yr olds, and she was like "I guess it'll make you guys wanna not have kids for a while huh?" Cara and I looked at each other and laughed, and 'Nita picked up on it (it = Cara is pregnant) pretty quick.

Anyway, one of the first things that makes it so interesting is that our class has both American and Korean kids. The Korean kids don't speak English very well (if they even speak cause some are shy), but they are 4&5 and speak it better than I speak Korean. But it helps that I can read and write Hangeul! Its actually come in handy a few times. For instance, today, we had done our craft, story and activity time, and had to think of something else for the kids to do. Well, the Korean kids are the better artists of the group and they enjoy making crafts and coloring pictures, so I decided to draw their names in Hangeul blocks. Boy that worked! One kid, Jae Ho (재호), wanted two of them! Sweet. But, nonetheless, we still had too much time left, so that didn't work too well. Now where was I? Oh yeah, Korean and English kids. Right. So I don't speak korean, and they always speak korean to me. So, I generally try and guess whats going on. I sometimes get it, sometimes don't. Also, I borrowed a friends book and looked up a few phrases. Guess what the first phrase I looked up was? "Sit Down!" Though they are good at crafts, boys will be boys, and boys like to run around and hit peeps/things. Well, I can't say much Korean, but "anjeuseyo" [앉으세요] worked like a charm.

The American kids are definitely a handful. You put certain combinations together and madness ensues. Today was probably the worst. Instead of 1 set of friends we had 2. (three actually, but the third set of friends behaved wonderfully) Some of the children who sat together play off each other and things would get progressively louder and more obnoxious. Cara could hear some of them in the bathroom across the hall from our classroom. So when story time came around, we separated them. However, some of the ones we separated would just stop dead in their tracks and not do anything cause they were sad and mad I suppose. Then crayons start getting thrown around, along with paper getting ripped, and random things getting water colors on them. One of the more annoying things the kids can do is when you say something like "let's stand up!" or "lets clean such and such!" they say "no!" I'm thinking "You don't have a choice kiddo..." but obviously a.) they're not my kids and b.) its truly not that serious. So i find another way to convince them pick it up, or they come up with an alternative. Fine by me, as long as you pick up those crayons ;-).

Well, I have a 0600 swim workout with a co-worker, so we'll see how much swimming i remember from USAFA. probably not too much, but, I'll get a work-out none the less.