A hole knew the world

Not exactly the title that Disney had in mind but the EFL teachers might get a kick out of it. It has been 5 years since I have genuinely lived stateside and the need to branch out and touch someone has finally sprouted. Never one to do much digitally, I have recently joined Facebook, started this blog, and reconnected with my family and friends. Out of sight out of mind just doesn't seem to cut it anymore.

So, what better subject for my first blog than the students that I have been teaching for the past half-decade? As a "professor" of English at a small village for University students, I get the pleasure of spending my day with students whose grasp of language has allowed mine to deteriorate to the level of a high school freshman. Where I once reveled in the acquisition of new words and phrases, I now find myself stumbling over simple syntax situations. What once was English has become Englishee with a humorous mix of Konglish thrown in for good measure.

I found myself sending a card boasting a photocopied image of a 2-cushioned couch. The caption read "Is it a couch?" Inside the joke read, "NO, it's a love seat!" And hilarity ensued. Have I lost the ability to judge actual humor because the funniest thing in my world is to add an extra the article where totally unnecessary? Even the title of this, my first entry, needed some pseudo-humorous spelling errors. As if the notion of me being entranced by Disney were not interesting enough.
A common classroom warm-up activity is to talk about what happened over the weekend. My students' answers are usually filled with short - though we often plead for longer- stories of dinners with their families and drinking with their friends. I have no choice but to respond that I played Catch Phrase until I was too drunk to speak in coherent sentences. As confusion fills their faces, I then spend the next 3 minutes explaining that I spent the bulk of my Friday night playing word games that are no different from those that we use in class. Disappointment on their faces, I soon realize that a frequent activity amongst my peers is to correct each other's grammar and then use textbooks and dictionaries to back up our various verbal claims. Should I be surprised that they think that I am a bit of a square?

Is this the Brave Knew Whirrled that I have made for myself? Or, have I just been wearing the row z coloured glasses of the ex-pat EFL teacher? And, will the two ever meet in relative harmony? I guess we shall see whether the title is correct and an absence of matter can actually become acquainted with our planet...