Heart of Glass

One of my middle school girls was wearing a t-shirt today with a large, gaudy picture of Debbie Harry and the name "BLONDIE" underneath. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she had never heard of Debbie Harry or Blondie.

Still, I really wonder where she got this shirt:

My Class Hates Pat Boone

We are continuing with the "Roots of Rock and Roll" book, and today we read the chapter on Pat Boone's cultural piracy. In fairly blunt detail, the book describes how he took Black songs, Bowdlerized the lyrics, sucked the soul out of the music, and got rich. Fortunately, my class recognized that Boone's rendition of "Ain't That a Shame" was infinitely inferior to the Fats Domino original. They also took great delight in defacing his picture in the book. I was especially pleased when one student raised his hand and said "Teacher! Pat Boone is a right-wing, Christofascist hate monger!"

OK, I made the last part up.

The Tae Gi Pyo Revolution

While in Jeonju a couple of weeks ago, my soccer buddies and I stumbled upon a political rally outside one of the major historical landmarks in the city. The two dozen or so supporters of Mr. Tae Gi Pyo may have been small in number, but they made up for it in fervor. All of them were wearing sky blue Tae Gi Pyo jerseys as they watched him deliver a speech from what can best be described as a mobile soapbox/projector.

The best part of this was that the vehicle was showing some kind of bizzare video with Mr. Tae's head superimposed on a cartoon body, performing various civic duties and feats of political competence. This has to be seen to be believed. I think if John McCain had produced one of these we'd have a Republican in the White House.

Sino-Korean Relations

In preparation for the level-up test today, my kids borrowed erasers from one of my fellow teachers. I just now noticed one of the erasers has "CHINA SUCKS" written at least four times on it.

Sadly, that's one of the more grammatically correct sentences to come out of my classroom.

Pictures!

Recently, I had a class where nearly all of my students were absent, and the one who showed up was 45 minutes late. While sitting there waiting, I went on a photo uploading binge. I also found out that you can access my Facebook photo albums, even if you don't have a Facebook account. Enjoy!

First Seoul Trip:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2380589&id=10712264&l=b84222f65c

Gwangju Trip:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2415924&id=10712264&l=e2c2dabaf1

Seoul Zoo:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2415957&id=10712264&l=45f0dbd007

Portrait of Yours Truly by a Student

I like the sideburns.

The Roots of Rock and Roll

My kids have just started reading a book called The Roots of Rock and Roll. This is fun because I get to introduce them to the different types of music we read about. So far, they love Little Richard, like John Lee Hooker and Ray Charles, tolerate Louis Armstrong and Fats Domino, and don't care for Robert Johnson at all.

Also, they couldn't identify the singer of "Jailhouse Rock." I bet they would know Big Bang though. Ugh.