halloween

Today was Halloween, my least favorite day of the year. I've never liked it, since I was, ya know, 11 probably. My recent career as an ESL teacher in South Korea has only increased my disdain of it.

Halloween is a Western holiday, so naturally the types of places I work embrace it. All things English-related are promoted, so when a kooky holiday pops up my employers play it up. I think the last two sentences I wrote are pretty much identical to one another. Hopefully the point has been made.

So Halloween is the worst day of work of the year, and it's because of the dreaded "Halloween Party". We as teachers are tasked with organizing games and activities for these kids. Two problems immediately become evident. First, "organized fun" does not exist. These things can feel forced and stale, like we're trying to imitate some generic interpretation of "fun". If you're not careful, you'll find yourself monitoring a party where groups of ten children rotate from station to station at the sound of a whistle, playing poorly-fashioned games such as "bowling", which consists of languidly rolling a small ball 10 feet at 3 empty water bottles, or some sort of magnetic dart board game which doesn't function properly and eventually deteriorates into haphazardly hurling winged magnets at a wall which they bounce off of and fall to the floor, as onlookers can muster neither the will to care nor the resolution to quit. And just when you think it can't get any worse someone tells you that the first grader in the frog costume just shit himself. That was how the party went my first year here.

On the other end of this spectrum there's another dangerous path to take. Without regimented supervision things can get out of hand quickly. In this case, you're just loading kids up with sugar and carbohydrates, and unleashing them on yourself. Their most primordial instincts take over as they surge toward a frenzied, insatiable zeal for more candy, more soda, more madness. At this point, your best bet is probably locking them all in a room and periodically lowering from the ceiling a lamb or yak for them to dissever and feast upon. However, that's most likely out of the question, so instead you get the bright idea to play musical chairs with them, which quickly morphs to a swirling mass of manic children, which swells and pulsates and becomes one indistinguishable blur, as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is barely audible above their distempered cacophony.  That was year two.

I approached this year with a "pick your poison" mindset. Given that most students are middle school, I envisioned apathetic stares and an unwillingness to give a damn. Thankfully it would only be three hours. Yet I must say that this year was the least worst of them all. Sure there was the indifference of a pack of 13 year old girls, as well as the violence of a couple of 10 year old boys trying to bludgeon each other with balloons, but some genuine fun was had, even by me. The bulk of the time was spent lining them up 5 at a table, and seeing which of them could eat the most cookies in one minute. Sure a couple kids almost choked, and the place was a disaster afterward, but it was entertaining. There was also a competition where kids were given an English word that they had to get me to say, either by acting it out or explaining it to me in English. At the end we handed out some prizes, swept up a little, and said goodbye. Tomorrow we'll go back to teaching them English.