Barbie Teacher and the Short Bus Chronicles

You really shouldn’t need a reason to be happy. And if you insist on being sad, there really ought to be a damn good reason for it. My own default is such that it’s painfully easy to wallow in self pity; it’s a lot harder to put on my happy hat and sing a happy tune. The truth is I used to be completely unable to do so. Reality, should we chose to accept it, changes everything. Knowing that the world has lost somebody who never needed a reason to smile or put others before him makes me want to be more like my friend; I’ll never do it quite as well as he did, but a little bit of effort goes a long way. Or so I keep telling myself. In my last week I may have swallowed bottle after bottle in search of the end to my own insecurities, and I’m probably going to follow this up with more of the same. Yet, rather than write about my struggle towards self love, I’m going to ramble about something amusing that happened in class a while back, if for no other reason than the hope that it might make somebody else smile.

Tuesdays and Thursday end with one of my most advanced classes. Given that my most advanced class can almost have conversations with me, this isn't exactly saying a whole lot. That being said, from time to time I have rather enjoyable banters with these students. The load of suck is that I have to stay an extra hour to do it. I regularly debate whether or not this is worth it, with mixed results. On this particular Thursday, Rhea Student decided to be cute and show up 20 minutes late. I love it when they do that. In the same way that I love Fran Drescher’s laugh. Or rough anal sex. In other words, call me a prude, but I’d really rather that they not show up at all at that point. In spite of my annoyance, as it turns out, the ridiculous banter that was about to hand wrapped for me could not have happened had Rhea Student not stumbled in late.

Rhea Student has a penchant for punctuality, so her tardiness drew the attention of Kevin Student. After allowing 30 seconds of what sounded like light hearted Korean mockery, Rhea Student threw her book at Kevin Student. Confused, I asked Kevin Student what he had just told her. He calmly explains to me that Rhea Student was late because she “took the short bus to school”. Rhea Student promptly throws another book at him. At this juncture I had two options: I could either tell Kevin Student that he’s not being nice and to cut it out, or I could play dumb and ask what this whole “short bus” deal was all about. Consummate professional that I am, I chose the latter. Frankly, I was so surprised to hear that “short bus” as a euphemism for retard might translate similarly to Korean, that the former option didn’t even cross my mind. I had to get to the bottom of this. The result was more or less as follows:

Barbie Teacher: Kevin Student, what does “short bus” mean?
Kevin Student: *naïve face* Rhea took a taxi to school! Short bus is taxi!
Rhea Student: *throws pencil at Kevin Student* No! NO! That’s not what it means!
Barbie Teacher: *innocent face* Is it a bad thing? Is he insulting you?
Kevin Student: No! Taxi man!
Rhea Student: Yes! *looks sad that she has run out of items to throw*
Barbie Teacher: Well, how is it an insult? What does it mean?
Kevin Teacher: No, not an isult! *smirk* *insert three minute conversation, complete with illustrations, about how some busses just happen to be shorter than others*
Rhea Student: Teacher! He lies! He's calling me... like stupid!
Barbie Teacher: *chortling* Kevin Student, tell Rhea you’re sorry.
Kevin Student: Rhea Student… I’m sorry that you rode the short bus.
Rhea Student: *pouty face*

In other words, 5 minutes of awesome later and neither of them definitively confirmed my assumption that “short bus” serves a similar purpose in Korean as it does English. Later, I naively asked my boss what “short bus” meant. For a split second he appeared to be thoroughly embarrassed for me, before concealing his pity with a puzzled look and shrug of the shoulders. Either way, I walked away happy.