Working away in an empty library in an empty school leaves you talking to yourself a lot of the time about things even you find boring. Once summer camp is over at noon the halls are silent. For half an hour I'm just reflecting on lessons and preparing for the next day. After that the silence gets eerie until I decide to leave.
Today was different though. One of my students from my after school classes came by to see a friend in my camp. She's pretty with it English-wise and then she blew off her friend to hang out in the library with me. It was weird to say the least. I asked her about what she's been up to (mine aren't exactly elementary school appropriate) and she talked on and on for a good chunk of time while walking around the library flipping through picture books. Then she told me there's a game with too many dice in it. When I found out she was talking about Boggle (a new found way to entertain myself while deskwarming) I taught her how to play. She was impressed that I could see 5 letter words and decided by tomorrow she'll be a better Boggle player than me. I wouldn't be surprised she's got a knack for a lot of things. Currently she's taking care of her little brother after his camp stuff is over until her parents (a high school teacher and a doctor) come home. Apparently there's a dog in this place too. She's destined for some awesome achievements in life.
After 10 minutes she was bored with Boggle and started rummaging through the books I'm reorganizing. She's a really good talker but she doesn't catch inferences when she reads so she's on the verge of level 2 in my book ranking system. My ears perked up when I remembered her reading level. Now I have a pile of books that are easy for her to read with the correct sticker on them. Her last words before leaving were "See you tomorrow, teacher." This is big for two reasons: a) I have someone to talk and fill the silent school and sort books with me b) a LOT of Koreans just say "See you" including my co-teachers and its one of my foreigner pet peeves and I'm happy she's got that basic sentence down.
I remember helping my mom during a few summers in her office believing that my tedious chores were just a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things. However, when there's a huge daunting task ahead of one person every bit of help from the outside counts. So there's my internet-wide shout-out to my new little helper.
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