Warning: This Sad Tale Is Not Safe For Children

You'd like to think, hey, it's been a couple of weeks. I bet Steve has an exciting story to tell us about his worldly travels. And, you'd be half correct. I do have a story, but it's not mine and it has nothing to do with worldly travels...or does it?

You may have noticed that there was a YouTube video (perhaps part of the video box is cut off depending on your browser/computer/OS/attitude) located directly above my free poetry. This is a song the students listened to today in my 6th grade class. Watch it first and let me tell you why this is a bad video unfit for childrens' eyes. I'll wait. It's only 1:06. You can handle it.

Are you done? Ok, so, yes, the lyrics (I always considered lyrics to contain some semblence of coherent word choice)are atrocious. That's beside the point. The point is that, in the spand of 30 seconds, this song manages to weave a sad tale of love and deceit that no one should ever experience.

First, imagine, as a mother, you're with your daughter at an amusement park. For all my Virginia peeps, let's say you're at Busch Gardens. You're rocking out, maybe you're in the Germany section, waiting in line for your sixth beer. Your daughter has racked up a few toys and things that cost money you so lovingly spent. You realize the time, that the new season of Survivor starts tonight and you need to get home pretty quickly (does that show even come on anymore?).
     "Nami, (your bastard ex-husband insisted on that traditional Korean name, eventhough he's never even been to Korea and only dated a Korean girl once for a month in college) come here. It's time to go home."  
     You realize that your daughter has more of her indignant father's personality in her than yours when she snaps back, "What time is it?"
     You suppress a tear from the memories and say in a motherly tone, "Four forty. It's four forty."
     You barely finish pronouncing the final "ee" syllable when your whole universe unravels before your very eyes.
     "Not now! No way!" she screams and immediately runs off.
     You feel like you're dreaming...or too drunk to function when you find yourself slurring, "Come back!" instead of chasing after her as any decent mother would do. Your limbs don't work, and all you can do is watch awestruck.
     As you follow her with your eyes, you lose her as three fat yokels choking on a Reese's Pieces Ice-Cream Blast coupled with a strawberry syrupped Belgian waffle block your view of your only child, the reason you survived the divorce, your sun and your stars.  Your heart sinks.
     After three eternities of hopelessness, after you were pretty sure she was halfway to Cairo by now, you see her, but she's not looking where she's going.  Her attention was caught by either the Ice-Cream Blast or the waffle, you don't know, but she's headed for inevitable danger and you can't stop from blurting, "Watch out!" just as she turns to see where she's going. 
     The adrenaline and the fear turn everything to a blur, but you can make out your daughter, stopping just before her face was deep fried in a food stand fryer.  She was literally centimeters away from having a face filet for dinner and she doesn't even realize what she's done.  She's single-handedly destroyed a build up of trust that was a lifetime in the making.  You only took her off her leash three months ago.  How could she be so brash and impulsive?  Would she ever wrap her head around why you will eventually stop going outside, why the TV says only scary things, and why you associate her with the feeling of lies and deceit your cheating husband caringly cultivated from mere seedlings years ago?  Can she even grasp it?  Probably not but suddenly you haven't had enough to drink.

This is the story I was forced to teach my 6th graders today.  A story that probably would have melted my students' faces as well but, like Nami, they were too naive to realize the danger they were in.  We had opened the Ark of the Covenant together, only my students managed to close their eyes before their souls were taken (or maybe they were asleep). 

Before, I was reluctant to say that Korean English education needed reform, but now...