Wed Dec 24, 2003
Well, today was one crazy day with the kids. Even though I begged and pleaded with just about everybody at work, and even outside of work, to play Santa, I was the one saddled with the duty of being ‘the evil one’. Yes, friends, I’ve been decidedly anti-Santa of late. Yesterday, I was so mad that nobody was respecting my sensitivities to the omniscient old man in red, especially our dear D, that I was quite curt and short-tempered with everybody. But then I felt bad and wrote them all really nice Christmas cards (Of course they were all horrified that they’d overlooked this ‘western custom’ and all ran out to buy Christmas cards for me. You can never win at this time of year, there’s always some guilt involved).
Then I played the best damn Santa I could for the kids, all for the kids, I’d hate for them to be disappointed by a visit from a dorky, lame Santa. I pranced around to their Christmas carols, spoke in the big booming voice, rubbed my pillow-bolstered tummy and bellowed ho ho ho, all the usual crowd-pleasers. Good thing I took “speech and drama” in high school. When they came and sat on my knee and received their presents I asked them stupid questions like “Did you listen to the teachers?”, “Did you speak Korean in the classroom?” I asked the one little guy if he’d been fighting with his brother and sister and he looked most crestfallen and answered a sad ‘yes’. So I told him I appreciated his honesty and gave him a big fat present. It turned out ok in the end I guess, D was thrilled with my sterling performance of course. The best thing though is that I had half the kids absolutely convinced I was the real deal. Even though some of them were like “Antoine-teacher was Santa! He’s wearing the same shoes!!!”, they dig Santa so much that they didn’t care. It’s quite sick really, but I didn’t lie to them, I told them all it was just me. I had to put on the show again two more times after that for the afternoon students, albeit more briefly. It was a tiring day to say the least, I even had to stay late and finish up some work. I don’t care though, whatever, it’s Christmas, no time to whine. Hope y’all are in good spirits!
Yesterday we went out with the adult students for their end-of-year outing. It was ok, but I was dead tired, and when they get drunk they completely lose their ability to speak what little English they know, and become convinced you can understand Korean perfectly! As usual when they wanted to play rock-star in the Norae-bang I took off and they howled in (mock) (at least I hope it was mock) disappointment.