Here in South Korea things with covid is finally cooling down to a point where we are slowly returning to work. I normally teach elementary and middle school students and for the time being we have been returning to our normal schedule with the middle school students. A sort of trial run before we go back to teaching all the levels.
Upon the first day back we were catching up a bit and talking about the self-quarantine and most of us agreed that sleeping in and chilling at home was nice, for a while... Then it got kind of boring and we wanted to return to normal.
I knew I missed my work, maybe not my work so much, but more the kids I deal with one daily basis. I missed their silliness and their quirky jokes. Being back was great!
Today I want to tell a little story about a middle school student that is extremely gifted when it comes to drawing and painting. Motivated and very mature for her age so it was always nice just talking to her about all kinds of random topics. She is one of those students who always doodle in her books and normally I would put an end to it, but with time I realized even though she is doodling she is still listening and taking in all the information we are talking about so I let it slide a little. Like when we work at home and need some background noise, some music or for me some tunes from Infected Mushroom, the perfect working tunes. For her it is kind of the opposite, she works hard and her doodling is kind of her background noise that makes her take in info a little better.
Anyway, back to the point. The fiancé and I both worked at the same academy for a while but we tried to keep it a secret that we are dating as to not make things strange at the workplace since kids will be kids and they love to joke around about couples and I would honestly never hear the end of it. This student knew though, she is an avid Instagram fan and found the fiancé's Insta profile. We didn't really mind as we know she will not go around telling the whole academy about us. The student never mentioned anything but we knew that she knew, this cute little unspoken secret.
So yesterday when I got to class I could see she was pretty excited about something and had some snacks and a card next to her. I didn't make much of it at first but right before class ended and as I was dismissing them she handed me the card and the snacks and told me happy birthday before hastily walking away. It was very special and as I flipped the card over there was the picture that was on the Instagram account around the time of my birthday. Since we were not having classes during that time she could not tell me happy birthday and only now had the chance to do so.
This was the card, it was so cute and I really feel thankful to have such good friendships with some of my students.
The Korean text says something like sorry for snooping on your Instagram. =P
Happy to be back to teaching and spending time with my students!
Thanks for reading, until next time!
