When All You Can Do Is Laugh

Last week was a mixed bag of learning about how to use and how not to use my sense of humor, and probably in the opposite order. I went on a trip with colleagues and felt like I was misunderstood when I was trying to be sarcastic about something. That trail followed me when I apparently misused the expression, "So you all sat there like bumps on a log" to make my point that we always use a method in teaching. And of course I was less serious than Sinae needed me to be about something that was bothering her (Little did I know that the subject at hand was bothering her).

These circumstances brought to mind the counsel that one friend of mine gave me several years ago, to consider stop joking around since it can easily become a tool we use to hide from others or use it against others in some way.

Thankfully, there was one situation (and perhaps others that I overlooked at the time) where having a sense of humor got me through a situation (as I think is the case with a lot of situations throughout my life). It was in the middle of one of my classes when I would normally have gotten upset because students weren't participating in class. And I will be giving them less points for participation, but the experience itself may be the funniest I've seen in the three years I've been teaching in the classroom in South Korea.

There were five students who were about as detached from the classroom as they could be. Two students, one female and one male, were just sitting there saying nothing to each other. After much prodding, the male student told me the reason they weren't speaking was because of "cold war". Two male students who were supposed to be working together on drawing up a healthy lifestyle were making flowers out of some type of artistic material (i.e. foam) rather than talking to each other. The third scenario was with a female student who was sitting by herself, taking pictures of people with her cell phone.

The rest of the class seemed to be talking to each other (two students, one person talking to the other) about how to have a healthy lifestyle. But when I asked them what they came up with, they gave me one word answers. So here is what the class came up with altogether, with some revision on my part.

1. Life can be stressful to the point that we think we are in a cold war.
2. That's when we need to change our actions and start by making flowers out of paper.
3. And after making flowers, we would do well to enjoy them by taking pictures.
4. And after looking at the pictures we can take a minute just to smile.
5. Then we need a moment to do nothing...
6. At which time we can do some stretching...
7. and relieve the excess mental stress by going jogging.