goodbye, SWU

It's the end of a glorious era.

No, I'm not talking about the return of my schlong to its proper place behind a closed zipper. Today, I had my final class at SWU. As endings go it was more whimper than bang; the four jjong-p'atis were fairly quiet, even a bit sad, as we did the usual thing and talked about the future while munching away on goodies. Some students will be registering for the next level of the program; others will be participating in the famous (or so it's said) SWELL English program, which will be available on campus to SWU students. Still others feel too snowed under with other classes to continue right away (or maybe they were too polite to tell me they hated my class).

One student in my noon class told me all about herself; she's got two brothers and gets accused of "acting like a guy" by her male friends. She says she can rip out belches with the best of them, and has been known to hit guys (you read that right). She gave me a little thank-you note at the end of class. It reads:

Kevin (with little cartoon sparkles drawn on either side of my name),

thanks a lot!

I ate well. (This is a reference to the pile of bakery goods and drinks I brought to class.)

See you later!!

There's a cartoon of a rosy-cheeked smiling face; the rosy marks are heart-shaped. The note also includes my student's name in three writing systems (hanja, hangeul, and Roman letters), her email address... and a phone number.

I should mention this student's kinda cute.

I looked at the note for a bit after the student left, then my fingers started to smoke and wither, making a horrible hissing noise. I flipped the note over and-- sure enough-- it was Hello Kitty stationery.

I'll miss my students. All in all, they were quite good, even though I had a few bad apples. Luckily, those bad apples showed their badness mainly through absenteeism; the ULS-sanctioned course offered no tests, quizzes, or attendance policy, leaving it up to the teachers to keep bums on seats. I expect a certain amount of student attrition in such cases, having taught at hagwons that offer similar curricula (i.e., test-free, with no attendance requirements). I've seen a couple of my SWU dropouts; they never look me in the eye.

I don't know whether ULS (the placement agency that gave me this gig) will be requiring my services for the summer term. I haven't heard anything from the ULS bigwig. I still need to drop off a resume with the SWU folks; I have a long list of errands to do on Friday, so maybe I'll try and squeeze a resume-drop in.

Still no news from Ehwa, and I suspect that no news is bad news.

Au revoir, SWU. It's been fun, ladies.

_