You can drop a horse into water, but you can't filter all the hair out afterwards -----Scott Christiansen

Sometimes I get the feeling that when I say "readers" I mean "my mother". I hope not. The blog counter doesn't say so, unless she checks the blog 30 times a day (re-opening the browser each time).

Anyway, my mother has asked me to tell everyone that the advertising goal has been reached. I made a small notice and stopped posting the donation button, but apparently no one noticed.

I need advice. Last time I said that I got four comments. I'm going to wish for.... six this time. The junior class is driving me insane. I spend about two hours a day preparing for it, and they treat me like dirt. Today one of the students spent five minutes on her cell phone translator just to look up the word "incompetent" and use it to insult me. It means less to me because she will never pay attention in class anyway, but still.

Actually, the junior class has mostly just made me annoyed with Korean kids. Granted, I've only had about a dozen Korean students, but SHEESH! They pay attention long enough to find a fault, or a perceived fault (most of the time it's really their lack of understanding) and then spend the rest of the class badmouthing me (for existing) and the Mongolian students (for not being Korean).

When I give them an assignment, about 50% of the time they respond with "no". The rest of the time they tell me exactly how the assignment will be done, as if I were expected to obey their orders. I've managed to make them do almost all of the assignments anyway, but it's extremely tiring. Where did they get this idea?

Meanwhile the Mongolian students sit quietly in the corner, reading when asked to, doing their homework, asking questions when they need help, and ignoring the Koreans, who call them stupid ignorant pigs.

-edit- I think what I'm actually pissed at is spoiled rich kids. The Korean kids are children of diplomats and businessmen. The Mongolian kids can be, but not usually on the same level.

Is it possible to not be partial in this situation? The most I'm able to do is completely ignore the Mongolian students, which is fairly easy since they don't require attention anyway.

Just now I tried to say < / venting > without the spaces, and the HTML editor obediently tucked it away behind the page as a command. In any case, I'll try to stop.

Right, so the actual question is, how do I regain control of a class like this? I managed to do it for two weeks by creating questions, activities and stories MYSELF every night, instead of going by the school's book (which is boring)... but now they've forgotten the fact that I spend two hours a day preparing for their class and are back to calling me an ignorant twit.

In the short term, are there any activities I can use? For the long term, short of talking to their parents (who are, for the most part, exactly the same, only louder) how the heck can I get some respect?

Oh, and by the way, the previous post wasn't about pizza. I was struggling with an emotional issue, when my thought process was interupted by a strong urge to eat a slice of pizza. It was supposed to be mildly confusing, but it wasn't supposed to completely mislead... my mother. dang.