Co-teachers are funny, too

I have been cutting it pretty close with death lately. I swear the reaper is following me around like a little Korean student on your first day. Just as obsessed with me but with a more sinister intent (shitstabs can be pretty brutal, too). So, let's get away from that. And let's talk about something else. Let's laugh at my co-teachers' amusing antics and sayings!!!!

Your co-teachers can be a lot of things. Bitter, sweet, blunt, very blunt, helpful, useless, understanding (maybe not that so much) and funny. Really funny. Most of the time they may not even know they are funny. Sometimes, they laugh at you. Sometimes, you can laugh together. Personally, I got a pretty good deal. I know I complain about my weekly verbal abuse but I have a pretty good relationship with my co-teachers. Particularly, the ones I share the office with. Michelle, Mii Sun, and Ms. Yoo.

They are each very funny in their own way. Michelle is very intelligent and very kind. She loves to talk to me. (Her and MS. Yoo were the ones complaining about my Facebook use) She always talks about her kids. They are a couple of pretty amusing sons, too. The youngest wants to play me in Starcraft. I tried to get her to tell him that I am awful at Starcraft. And that he would beat me. Badly. She speaks excellent English. She laughs at most of my jokes.

Mii Sun is the most intelligent and the only one who really understand sarcasm and caustic humor. And she's good at it. Very good at it. When I ask her questions. She likes to slip in a little two faced sarcasm behind the comment. She has that cold, calculating humor that laces every sentence like a spider's web. It subtly encases you. Unless she wants to make you feel it. But she understands almost all of my jokes. She is on top of it whenever I tease Ms. Yoo.

Ah, Yoo Eun Sook, Ms. Yoo. The name itself is funny. She is my favorite patsy. Because she is a lot like my Mom. In the case that they both are fun and easy to tease. And they take it really well. She has the hardest time catching up to some of my humor. I feel kind of bad. But Ms. Yoo is really catching on to giving me a hard time, too. She says I am inseparable from the internet. It's my 'wife or more like your lover.' And she likes to poke fun at my Korean pronunciations. For example, today, she told me my 'thank you' in Korean sounds more like the word for 'chip.' I already know I am going to call somebody important like my principal a 'MR. STICKY FISH FACE.' Or Principal Salty Chip in this case. But that's only half the reason about why I think she is the funniest.

The other half is that she is the most unintentionally humorous person I know. Her meticulous nature mixed with her ajuma (the most used name for a middle aged to senior Korean woman) absent minded tendencies makes her an absolute riot. My favorite being this one:

She was speaking in English to Michelle in the office the other day telling her about students who were going back and forth telling Ms. Yoo that this girl takes a shower once a year. And that girl only takes a shower maybe every 10 years. That's not even the funny part. Ms. Yoo then stopped to ask me what the difference was between a shower and a bath. I told her a shower is when the water is poured on you from above. And a bath is when you soak in a bathtub. She let out the 'Ms. Yoo Sigh,' the one she lets out when Mii Sun translates my teasing jokes to her or when she realizes she made a mistake. She explained that she had told her students that a shower was when you washed in only water without soap. And a bath was when you washed with soap.

The three of us, Michelle, Mii Sun, and I, all start laughing. Ms. Yoo sits there perplexed and worried about her students. She asks Michelle how she taught her students about the words shower and bath. Michelle tells her she told them my way. Ms. Yoo lets out that patented 'Ms. Yoo sigh.' And she exclaims that she must check with all the teachers to learn if they did it her way like it was a common misconception. (I told you she was meticulous) None of the other teachers made the same funny mistake. But in all fairness you will find there are common misconceptions.

In example, somehow we got talking about hips. I was talking about my hip and pointing to it on my front side. And all my co-teachers are looking at me like I'm crazy. 'Hip?? That's not your hip.'

Hip right? H-I-P? Hip?

'Yeah, you're Hip(puh) is back here.' They grab their butts

Noooo, that's not your hip. That's your butt. Your hips are up here. You know, where you rest your pants.

We went back and forth a couple times over this. Particularly, since I am outnumbered 6 to 1. It can be very difficult to teach against a united front of myBUTTismyHIP. I had to end up googling a picture to show them. Once they were convinced, they had to spread the word of where your HIP was.

All in all my co-teachers can be a riot. I have meshed pretty well with them. My personality definitely goes a long way here. And I gotta admit I have a pretty sweet set up.


NOTES:

Shout out to all the people who read this in the Campus Point office. Although, it's probably just Suzie reading this. She is a huge facebook perv. :D