HOW TILL SPAKE NORN IRON

Every Saturday morning I teach a businessman called JC. We have a one to one class in a study room in my neighbourhood. He's a great guy, a successful entrepreneur and someone I learn a lot from.
Despite it being useless to his future business plans, JC is always keen to learn Northern Irish expressions and slang. In our last class, I spent the full two hours teaching him "how till spake Norn Iron". It was hilarious! JC's English is pretty good and he doesn't have a very noticeable Korean accent. But to look this Asian man in the eye as he greeted me with "Bout ye big lad', was very unusual. And even more strange and funny as he assaulted me with a barrage of insults - minger, melter, munter. He told me stories of firing stones at the peelers and getting lamped by his ma when he was wee.
I can't wait for the next class when he has learned all these expressions. His homework is to tell me about his childhood using Norn Iron. It should be interesting.

IT'S A SAXOPHONE

I started a new private class last night. It's in one of the fanciest buildings in Seoul, the Gangnam Finance Center. My new student seems to have a status on par with the building in which he works. Mr Park oversees the construction of power plants. In March he'll move to India to build natural gas power plant. I was contacted to get his English ready for dealing with his Indian partners and staff.
Our first class was a little stiff, as it usually is when I'm attempting to teach business English to people who know much more about business, and often more about English, than me.
About thirty minutes into class I heard a loud beep. And then a boop. And then a bope. I ignored the beep and the boop, but the bope grabbed my attention. I looked at Mr Park inquisitively. "A trumpet", I think he said. "A what", I said. "Oh, no, not a trumpet," he said. I smiled. "It's a saxophone!", "My boss is learning".
And for the remaining thirty minutes of the class we both tried to keep serious faces. Discussing reverse discrimination and workplace glass ceilings as his boss slowly, methodically went up and down the saxophone scale, I had to bite my inside lip a few times to prevent an outburst of laughter.
Once in a while I accidentally smiled. Probably not very professional, but I think we broke the ice.

OUT THE WINDOW

One of my students just told me a funny story. When he was a baby, he was in his pram/stroller at home. Held in by the straps, we was unhappy and tried to get out. Shaking back and forth, back and forth, the pram picked up speed and moved across the room to the open window. The window was big, but there was a plastic guard to protect "stuff" from falling out. The pram smashed the plastic guard, fell out through the open window, sailed two stories down to the ground and smashed. With my student still in it! He was totally fine and uninjured. Wow!

THANKS I THINK

Tonight at the boxing gym I was in the ring stretching. There was only a handful of people training on this icy Friday night. The professional boxer, who doesn't speak English, seems (seemed) to like me a lot, came into the ring with me. He pointed at me sitting on the ring floor stretching and said "Ma-ku (Mark), you". He then pointed to his iPhone. The English dictionary was open and a bunch of results related to alone, lonesome, solitude, etc were shown. I must have looked confused because he pointed at one specific definition and then touched the audio icon. iPhone's robotic, but attractive female voice dictated, "LEADS A SOLITARY LIFE", as my coach pointed at me once again and said "Ma-ku". We both burst out laughing, though I'm not sure that I get it. He then climbed out of the ring, came back a minute later and give me a bottle of orange juice.
Thanks, I think.

MOSCOW STATION

I arrived alone, clueless and Russianless. I found my way to a ticket counter. Of course she couldn’t speak any English, but I was prepared. I showed her my note in Russian that said 'I need to go to Germany. This train goes to Germany, but I could only buy a ticket to Poland. Can I please exchange my ticket? Can I please stay on the train all the way to German?. Please', or something like that.
She read the note and left her cubicle. She came back shaking her head ‘Neitze!’
‘Really?' I asked, 'But, but, but I HAVE to get to Germany’ (puppy dog eyes). She left again and came back with her supervisor. She could speak a little English and understood my problem. Unfortunately I couldn’t understand a word she said. But soon everyone around us was laughing at our terrible communication attempts.
Nothing was resolved and my ticket wasn't changed, but I felt better after a good laugh. Deciding 'I'll sort it out in Poland', I went off to buy ice-cream and Guinness instead.