Angry Birds

Now, in the U.S., people have spoken of the Angry Bird craze.  People love to play it.  They might even get caught playing it at work instead of actually working.  People are addicted to the game.

But you people have no idea.  NO idea.  In the U.S. Angry Birds is a craze, in Korea, it's an OBSESSION.  An obsession, I dare say, more severe and intense than perhaps The Spice Girls or Pokemon.  Or even Beanie Babies.  Yeah I said it.

Let me give you an idea.  I teach eleven classes at E-World.  Eleven classes of varying ages between six and thirteen.  Not a day or even a class has gone by where the words "Angry Birds" has not been mentioned at least one time.  NOT ONCE.

There are Angry Bird pencil cases, Angry Bird apparel, Angry Bird backpacks, pencils, erasers, phone cases, must I go on....

But that's not all.  I have asked each of my classes to split into two teams and come up with a team name.  Mind you, this would make 22 teams in total.  Now, let me list the team names I have.  Let's see, there's "Team Angry Birds," "Team Angry Bird,"  "Team Angry Birds,"  "Team Angry Birds,"  "Team Angry Birds,"  "Team Angry Birds,"  "Team Angry Birds," "Team Angry Birds,"  "Team Angry Birds," and my favorite: "Team Angry-Bird-Chicken-Dog."

Now can you say originality?

When I ask my young classes what their favorite animal is, about half of them say "My favorite animal is...Angry Bird!"  And I don't know how to tell them that it's not a real animal.  Mostly because there no way to explain this to a group of screaming children who only know how to recite colors, shapes, and animals.  But also, I can't break hearts like that.

They draw Angry Birds in all of their workbooks, and all over my board when I'm not in the room.  EVERY SINGLE DAY I walk into my room and there are Angry Birds all over my board.

My favorite incident involving Angry Birds, however, was the time I had one of my classes playing Pictionary with animals.  Of course I got the expected Angry Bird drawing, but then Nick, the class clown, came up to the board and began to draw an Angry Chicken.  But he was laughing so hard because the thought of an Angry Chicken was so funny to him that he drew about half of it and then ended up on the floor laughing so hard that he couldn't catch his breath.  It was so contagious.  Needless to say, that was the end of Pictionary for that day, and there was no getting that class to focus for the rest of the period.  So I let them draw Angry Birds.

Now, as for someone who has never even played Angry Birds, I don't understand it.  But I'm starting to think I'm really missing out on something here...