Day 39: Cheep-Cheep for Cheap-Cheap

I was on my own for the entire day today, as Steven was busy at the regional educational office doing whatever it is he does there on his ever-crazy busy days. I actually kinda like the days when I'm all on my own cause that means I get to set the agenda and decide what we're gonna learn about/discuss/play today.

Overall it was a really good day, and most of my students were well-behaved today. However, I still had a few challenges to deal with though, including my (not-so) favourite Grade 1 pulling a random tamper-tantrum during the singing of BINGO and ripping down all the newspaper covering a broken window in the classroom. (He was later disciplined by Susan and had to kneel down on the floor, head down, butt in the air, arms stretched out, and stay like that in silence for 15 minutes - quite an unusual punishment if I ever saw one, but hey it seemed to work!)

And later one of my younger students fell off the table and landed quite hard on the floor. She cried, seriously, for like A FULL HALF HOUR STRAIGHT!!! Like we're talking non-stop bawling here, which is a long fucking time to cry, believe you me! I had little sympathy for her as I've told her a million times not to climb on top of the tables because it's dangerous, but I still felt bad for her, of course. I deal with crying students on a fairly regular basis due to a variety of causes - a stolen cookie, hair-pulling or biting, or harsh words exchanged amongst the young Koreans - and so am fairly familiar with having to comfort crying children and rectifying whatever situation caused it. Hell, many a times in a week does a student get a ball in the head, or falls down from the very top of the jungle-gym or something, but usually they cry for like 3 minutes or less and then they're fine. But his chick, holy fuck, she would NOT STOP CRYING!! She had no broken bones or sprains, no cuts, broken skin, or bleeding anywhere, so she wasn't critically injured or anything. But with the volume and duration of her screaming and crying you'd swear she just had her whole leg chewed off by a velociraptor!

As much fun as all that was, the most memorable thing that happened today was during my one-hour coffee break in the afternoon. I was sitting in the office reading, like I always do, when out of nowhere I heard this "Cheep! Cheep!" coming from the hallway... It sounded like...a bird??? I poked my head out into the hall and saw one of my students, with a plastic box in his hands. And inside this box, surrounded by a cushion of ripped-up newspaper, was a little yellow baby chick! Oh boy I thought....

My friend Gavin (who's place I crashed at Saturday night) had warned me about how the coming spring would mean my students would soon start bringing baby animals to school. Apparently a popular trick is for children to be bought a baby chick or bunny as a pet, who then bring it to school every day to show their friends. (Actually he said most of the time they buy the animal themselves as they cost about the same amount as buying a chocolate bar!) But, he also said, they invariably always only last a few days as the kids don't take very good care of them, in fact they treat the baby animals like toys, and the pet ends up having an untimely premature death.

I didn't really believe him at first, but it's happening already. This baby chick is probably just the beginning. I shouldn't be surprised at all - just the other day in the subway I saw this old lady sitting on the stairwell with a basket of bunnies in her lap. I passed her and thought "Oh dear God I hope she's selling them as pets and not as meat!" (in Korea you just never know!) Now it's all too clear what she was selling - temporary pets to young Korean children - a trend that sweeps across the nation every single spring here.

As cute as the baby chick was, the kids completely swarmed it as everybody *HAD* to pet it! And no, they can't wait their turn, they all have to pet it NOW! I lectured them a few times about treating the baby chick better, and told them "Don't yell - the baby's sleeping!" and this actually seemed to help them in treating the chick more carefully. I definitely don't want to see this baby chick getting smothered or crushed or neglected to death, but I keep thinking "What the hell is this kid gonna do with this chick if it actually does survive the next few weeks and grows up? Are his parents gonna be cool with having a full-grown CHICKEN running around their little high-rise apartment?" This must happen once in a while - the baby animal survives into adulthood. Do they still keep it as a pet or do they give it away, or...cook it for dinner? I have no idea, but am nervous to find out...