Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Mark Your Calendars!

An epic event is coming to KISQ this September 18th! Don't miss out on Fork Day!


Rejoice in the glory of the greatest utensil ever invented!

Play fun games like Hit The Teacher With The Fork and Musical Forks!

Eat food WITH A FORK!!!

And best of all, everyone will receive a shirt that says "Fork You!"

Wait...what? What's that you say, Eun Ah?
You meant to write "Folk" instead of "Fork?"
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Yes, yes, and of course you're sorry you didn't ask me to proofread your English first before you went to the trouble of printing out the signs, just like you did last year too.
Well, I guess Folk Day will be fun enough, huh? Can we still order those shirts at least?

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Engrish At Its' Best

This will be short and sweet. Jeremy has a friend visiting our fair city, along with the throngs of other August tourists, and we've been showing her and her son around. I'm beat. I just started back to work this week. I will say that now that my class size went from 20 to 14, and one of the children that left was a tantrum-throwing instigator, school is wonderfully pleasant.

It becomes even more lovely when you walk right into something like this though:
Take off your shoeses.
Yes.
Lovely.
I'd like to point out that the Korean portion says "please" in it. This is a very rough translation into English. The "shoeses" is especially amusing to me because I can picture Eun Ah, the Korean teacher guilty of this Engrish infraction, trying to think really hard about what it should say in English. Shoes. Is that singular or plural? And hey, if I'm talking about everyone's shoes, wouldn't I add another "es" to it? Yeah! That MUST be right! I don't need to ask an English teacher about that! Ha!

It totally reminds me of Mr. Jinks from the old Pixie and Dixie cartoons. "You miserable meeces! I'll tear you to pieces!"
 I always find it funny that each semester, there is some new Engrish plastered up on the walls. Engrish that they just have to take down and correct after they find me doubled over with laughter snapping photos of it. Why they don't just consult me first is beyond me. I guess they like making signs twice.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

If Everyone's A Winner, We're All In Jeopardy!

I've been enjoying my summer vacation with my daughter, mostly inside with the A/C blasting away, far from the throngs of tourists that make the beaches here look like this:
It's been fun, but of course, all good things must come to an end. School starts next week and I have to admit, I'm really sad about going back. It's not a horrible job, mind you, it's just that I've really been enjoying being home with Raelynn. She's learned so much and now talks my ear off all day long. Plus, we've worked so hard on her terrible 2's tantrums. I'm sure my in-laws will fuck that all up when I go back to work but I am hopeful she'll remember what her Mommy has taught her.

I want to teach my daughter well. I want her to be happy, healthy and successful. Of course, I don't want to see her fail or be sad. But this is all part of life, isn't it? It's up to me (and Jeremy too) to teach her how to handle her disappointments with class and to learn from mistakes she makes.

That being said, I found this article about a boy who appeared on the TV show, Jeopardy!, to be completely disturbing. In case you're too lazy to click the link, an 8th grade boy competed on Jeopardy! and made a spelling error in his answer (or, question rather, as the game gives you the answers and you are to determine what the question should have been), thus rendering him incorrect. Now everyone is up in arms about this. And it makes me furious.

Here's why:
Some time after I finished school, before heading off to college, overly sensitive people who became parents became outraged when their children didn't win at something. Whether it was not getting one of the coveted spots on the football team or cheerleading squad, or not winning the spelling bee, these parents and their kids whined and cried until they got their way. This sad trend caught on until the Everyone's-A-Winner logic became the norm. Instead of children accepting defeat graciously, these folks taught them to act like sore losers. So what if you didn't deserve to win? Here's your trophy.

It's absolutely pathetic.

So now, we've got a boy who should be absolutely thrilled that he beat out thousands of other children to get the chance to compete on Jeopardy!. He gets to be on TV and he wins $2,000. Yet, here he and his family are, whining away about how unfair it is. Oh, poor YOU. I bet if the child who won first place on this show had made a spelling error and they let him pass with the answer as being correct, this very same boy and his family would be complaining that that child should be disqualified because they spelled it wrong.

In another article (which I cannot seem to find right now), they accuse the host, Alex Trebek, of being surly when relaying the news to the boy that he spelled his answer incorrectly. For real?!? Oh, poor YOU some more!

I feel so sorry for this boy. Not because he lost. But because his parents obviously never taught him the art of losing gracefully. While I will always hope my daughter wins in the things she competes for, I know that it's unrealistic, and cruel, to expect her to. And to set her up for that kind of failure is equally as cruel. If Raelynn wins, great! But win or lose, I want her to know I love her more than anything and I'm proud of her for trying. How sad that there are people out there that don't know this.