The top 3 English phrases that are incorrectly taught in Korea and are slowly driving me insane.

3. So-So. If I hear, "Teacher, I am so-so," one more time, I'm going to puke. The correct phrase should be "I'm okay," or "I'm alright," but for some reason the word "so-so" caught on and EVERYONE knows it.

2. Just because. This one is just infuriating. "How are you today?" "I'm fine." "Why?" "Just because." The sad fact is I know who teaches this. Mr. Kim and his Ivy League educated son, Hee-duk. They talk like this at Columbia do they, Mr. Kim? It's just a rotten, lazy answer to a question.

1. Not delicious. When you say something is NOT delicious that means its just okay or "so-so," but this phrase means "doesn't taste very good," in Korea. Su-Jin and I make fun of this whenever we can. If we walk past someone wearing a ridiculous t-shirt, we say, "Wow. Not delicious."

Honorable mention: "I will explain in the paragraphs to follow." If I have a student write this in an essay, I tear it up. Maybe I'm a hardass, but that is painfully lazy writing and it doesn't fly in Mattu Teacher's essay class. I try to get my kids to be a little more creative than the paint-by-numbers method of essay writing taught by the Kim's.

I woke up this morning and I felt like a bad teacher. I have no idea why. Yesterday was fairly tame and most of my classes were actually a lot of fun. There were a few problems that caused a couple of classes to start late and I did recieve a complaint, but other than that, the day was fine. The complaint was that I didn't let a late student into class. This bozo shows up twenty minutes late and told me that he was eating. If the kid wasn't a complete brat, I might've let him in, but he is a complete brat. The only reason he comes to class is to speak Korean with his friends. His mother claims that the reason that he's late is because his math academy goes until 6pm. My class starts at 6pm. If he would knock and my door and apologize for being late, I wouldn't have a problem, but he comes into my class and is disruptive as soon as he steps through the door. Whatever. The kid and the parent can go fucking scratch as far as I'm concerned.