Just, seriously, so sparkling. Really.

So, today during one of my afterschool classes, I was handed back a signed report card. We had to do report cards for all of our elementary students, which I actually spent time and thought on. The kids who did well did well, and the kids who did poorly might've received less-than-the-best grades, but with thoughtful explanations.

The report card I was handed back today was in the grumpy, non-cooperative little hands of one of my worst students, who responds to questions with a "hmph" and crossed arms. I've taught her since day once. She still asks "Teacher, what?" to any collection of syllables that might spill out of my mouth. Zero progess for sure.

Imagine my surprise when I opened up her report card to find a string of 4's out of 5's. I sure as hell didn't give her those.

In short: Grades that I put on a report card were changed and bumped way up because they were scared of a parent withdrawing their student from the school. The owner of the school and the head Korean teacher just did this without asking me, or even letting me know it was going to happen. It was assumed I wouldn't find out.

Now, thankfully, I bought a very cute Little Big Planet T-shirt for myself at Uniqlo last weekend. I taught the kids the word "sackboy" while wearing it today, and enjoyed them parroting the word back to me ("I love your sackboy!" "He is a happy sackboy on a little planet!" "What is a sack?"), and that prevented me from completely losing my collectedness.

Most business owners, when confronted with what boils down to falsifying paperwork, do a few things. If they're American business owners, they deny it until the economy blows up. If they're Japanese, they kill themselves. If they're Korean, they call me into a conference with the other teacher who decided this'd be a good idea, throw about the word "cultural difference" like that excuses their behavior, and then cry about it in the kitchen after hugging me for five minutes and apologizing.

This marks a sea change for me, which blows a bit, considering I've been here for only five months. They don't respect me? Then hoo boy, I'm not gonna respect them right back. Time to get my lazy on just a bit.