Episode 47: In Which DFM Teaches The Children To Be More Like Hank Hill And Has A Practical Joke Played On Him By One Of His Students

It was raining pretty hard today, so all the children were excited to tell me how their hair got wet.  It could not have been that bad though, because they only had to make it from the bus to the school - about a five meter walk.

When it rains in Korea everyone has an umbrella.  I don't have an umbrella, but then I don't mind getting wet either.  Ji-Hyeun told me that I probably should get one because "there might be something in the rain that is not good for you."  She's referring to the acid rain that is prevalent here - caused once again by Chinese industrialization, although I'm sure Korea is partially to blame for it too.

At school, all the classes tried to use a fun looking contraption called an "ExerBug."  It works by cranking the handles from side to side, which inches you along forwards on the two front, narrowly separated wheels.  I watched a man move a barn across a field, by himself and with no equipment, using this exact same principle.  The children couldn't really grasp the concept though and so it did not work quite as well for them.

This picture makes me think of Hank Hill on his Mason 1500.

Often Woojin and myself had to help the students operate the handles.  After seven classes in a row of helping every child move his/her arms, I became rather tired.  On the way home I nearly fell asleep on the subway.

These girls are comparing scabs on their knees.  So much for sugar and spice...

This guy on the right has watched too many '60s Batman episodes (click here or here).

Lew tries to play "pose and run," but no one escapes the long arm of DFM's camera.

I don't know what's going on here, but it looked funny so I shot it.

In special art class I went over the parts of a tree, and then had the children draw a forest.  Sticker Girl took the caps from two markers and stacked them on top of each other to make a lollipop.  

She's turned into a bit of a prankster now.  One time she took one of her "coloured pencils" and turned it upside down to show me the identical top end.  She then made a motion to show me that the crayon inside was missing, but when I went to investigate I found out that she was just playing a trick on me.  It got quite a few laughs, and rightfully so, because it was pretty clever I thought.

Some of the children had made butterflies out of clothespins and were showing them to me after school.  I forgot what it was that they made and later called it a flower.  A girl spent a great deal of effort trying to mime to me that it wasn't a flower because it had eyes.  Pretty hard to do without talking, but I'll give her an A for effort.