Putting my cantankerous pants on one leg at a time...

Since I know this is going to be a bit of a controversial topic, I'm just going to go ahead and rant about it anyway since it's something that severely annoys me and what the hey, this is my blog anyway.

Ok, so I know that people who say this mean well, but seriously, don't bless me or offer to pray for me. If I don't share your beliefs it has no positive effect on me and in fact it's a bit insulting - it's almost like a threat sometimes and feels like you're forcing them on me, in the vein of "I'm going to do it whether you like it or not!" I know people often say it because they either don't know what else to say or do, or possibly that they genuinely believe that it works, although even as someone who respects belief in other people if not what they actually believe in I still wonder how often that situation could really be claimed to be entirely true. Maybe it's a way for them to still their own doubts. Or looking at things cynically, a way for them to relieve their own feelings of guilt about not actually wanting to do anything to help. But really, if I was a Satanist and said "the devil be with you" or "may you rot in hell as an eternal reward for your good works" I doubt people would take it as gracefully, even if I genuinely believed in Satan (or let's say Hades to try and avoid negative associations) as the creator of life and mediator of eternal justice. Even though if you're Christian you should at least know that God originally created Satan as an angel, who (like humanity) chose his own path and actually looking at it from a human perspective did pretty well out of it, becoming his own boss and owning his own Realm of Darkness compared to the other chump angels who stayed in Heaven. I'd say he's pretty happy with how his Eternal Reward is paying out. And if I said that to the average kind of person who tries to bless other people they'd be very upset.

Anyway, that digression aside, I can't fault hope and sympathy, but I can fault the hypocritical approach to respect that many religious people take, regardless of what that religion is - respect is something you have to give if you want to demand it. And sometimes I feel like people trying to bless one or pray for one who doesn't share their beliefs is kind of like a smoker blowing their second hand smoke into your face just because they want to share the lovely tar-filled joy of their habit with you. If you feel like the other person is in a hard or hopeless situation and want to lend your sympathy or even if, being honest with yourself, you are loathe to actually do anything to help, what's wrong with just saying "I'll be thinking of you" or "I'm here for you if you need to talk" or even offering to do something with them that will help distract them from their troubles for a while? Save the sanctimonious stuff for someone who will appreciate it much more or at least just say it quietly to yourself. Or at least don't act offended if you offer to pray for me and I tell you not to bother because there's no such thing as God and people only believe in him because they don't want to accept that this one life is the only chance they might have and they're probably worried that they've already blown it, but if you want to really help me you can buy me a Belgian dark hot chocolate from Holly's coffee anytime you like. You believe what you want and I'll believe what I want - I'm sure each of us is secretly pitying the other for it.

And hmm, thinking back I really should have tried to learn to say this all in Korean so the damn Evangelists downtown would stop harassing me when I'm trying to get somewhere. It's freezing cold! If I didn't want to stop and talk to you when the weather was fine why the hell would I want to do it now when it's -11 degrees??? That's not what sparked this off by the way, it's just an observation :)

And yes, this is also the same thing I feel about those stupid Facebook "repost if you support OOO" chain letter things. Sure it worked that one time when it was still a new concept but now they do nothing to help and the only thing they raise awareness for is for whatever gimmick they are running. If you want to help get off your arse and do something, even if it's just opening your wallet and donating $5.

Anyway, if this offends anyone, well you know how to close the window or unsubscribe from updates so I might as well go ahead and rub it in - suck it! ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Twice in one day? Phwoar!

.. you can tell I'm stuck at school deskwarming^^ Anyway the first was just pictures of random fat animals so I figure you can deal with it. And this might actually have some content - it's a reblog of a post by Burndog giving some credit to GEPIK (Gyeonggi-do EPIK) co-ordinators and telling everyone to give them some much deserved slack instead of getting their panties in a twist over mini-crises they don't have the common sense or mental wherewithal to deal with themselves. Now fair enough, there are some real problems that many teachers, both Korean and NESTs, run into in these jobs that require not only teaching skills but interpersonal skills and not a bit of cross-cultural understanding, but let's face it, a lot of the "horror stories" you hear from people teaching overseas are either greatly exaggerated, extremely biased and likely selectively told, or come about mostly because people are selfish idiots incapable of seeing things from someone else's point of view or because they have never lived away from home or by themselves before (and often certainly not together) and are just not at the stage where they can deal with problems on their own. And fair enough - we all run into problems like this in our daily lives, but it's a whole 'nother thing to take it beyond whinging to your friends (or the uncaring cyber world, hehe) and create such a fuss that it makes further problems for yourself and everyone else you drag into it, as well as making a bad reputation for other people in your situation who have managed to do ok.

And this is where my problem is - our EPIK co-ordinators and the staff at our Office of Education here in Cheongju for the whole of the Chungbuk province work really hard to help us and try and give us a good start to our lives here, probably more than they might feel obligated to were we not in Korea. And yes, that isn't always the case - you might be really unlucky and have a crappy co-teacher who has no interest in helping you and in fact hates and resents you (which is quite common) but there are most certainly also a good number of lazy bums working as NESTs with a huge sense of self-entitlement who are only here for the money because they couldn't get a job at home. And frankly, that's the major reason I came here when I did too, as did a lot of my friends, but the major difference there is that we all also had at least some vestige of a positive attitude and tried to make some adjustments to living here in another country and enjoy the things that worked for us, beyond soju and samgyopsal. Even those who never managed to learn more than "kamsahamnida" or get beyond trying soondae that one time they didn't really know what it was, the people I've actually stayed friends with have all done at least a year and stuck it out with varying degrees of success, and problems and crying and drunken rants aside, we've all had a generally positive view of some aspect or another of the experience in common. So there is a lot less thankfulness out there than is deserved, and people always seem much quicker to bitch rather than laud, so maybe if you haven't done it yet and are still teaching, you should take the time to write a quick thankyou email to your co-ordinator.

Not to gloat but personally, I think I've actually been really lucky and had a good school with supportive teachers. Sure there have been minor problems (14 hour teaching day anyone?), but nothing to blow out of proportion that I had to run crying to my mummy (the Office of Education/POE) about. I know this has been helped by the fact that I do speak some Korean, and the teachers here like that I can at least understand them a bit, which I think has also made them more forgiving of my quieter personality (i.e. why not all foreigners are as loud as most North American teachers), peanut allergy (a surefire topic for conversation at any meal featuring the dreaded nut) and inability to drink soju in large quantities. I've also had a great EPIK co-ordinator (by this I mean the head of the NEST liason office-y person), Mary Hahn, who I'm pretty certain is asked to do everything and anything involving English or English speakers at the POE rather than just what her job description says, and who has always done her best to help us resolve our issues and questions here, no matter how trivial. Case in point at our Orientation - someone asking why they didn't have an oven in their place and when the POE would be buying one for us (yes, I'm serious). Even though Korean apartments generally don't have ovens, we have more than enough money to spare to spring for a small one on our own and no-one has the room for a real one anyway. Mary calmly explained that our school sets up our apartments for us (which we had just been talking about) and recommended a few places we could go to buy one. Or the person who asked the same thing but about an air conditioner who seemed to think it was a life necessity rather than a luxury.

Well anyway, organising going home has made me think about all of this, as there is a new teacher coming in to replace me that I'm going to write a letter to (ala Lara-style! which I know Edithe was very grateful for) who I hope at least appreciates the teachers at the school and the things she has easy, as I know she's probably not going to be able to appreciate the students.
  
Anyway, this is the reblog - sorry for the rant :) I actually went off ole Burndog a bit and actually unsubscribed from his now main Tumblr blog as he apparently got a new smartphone or discovered Instagram or something because he started filling his blog with slightly wanky Instagrammed photos of pretty much nothing anyone else but him would have any interest in seeing (and even then I can't imagine him being thrilled to look at those pictures more than once), rather than the bile-filled but well written rants I quite enjoy reading, but hey, it's his blog. I'm sure there are people out there who rolled their eyes and instantly closed my blog page after finding more pictures of fat animals eating this morning too :)

Thank-you GEPIK co-ordinators!

Hello Burnchums...the below is a re-post of something I posted over on Tumblr...BUT...I decided that it's worth posting here too. For your reading joy.

Howdy Burnfans!

Today, I'm gonna re-post a Facebook status update that I wrote...and I'm going to add some shit to what I wrote. Anyways...here's what I wrote -

"As we enter the final stretch of the current school year...how about all of my GEPIK teaching friends spare a moment of their time to think of the great work that our GEPIK co-ordinators do. They get served shit sandwiches all day, generally dealing with the worst kind of teachers (both domestic and imported) and their stupid demands...YET...they always do their best to help us, train us, and make sure that we still have jobs! So...let's all say something that we humble teachers never seem to say...thank-you GEPIK co-ordinators...you're a bunch of champions and we'd all be fucked without you!

Sorry...but sick of the sea of negativity toward everything lately...especially when most of it is based on rumours, innuendo, or ignorance!"

Now...I'm horribly biased...I've been in Korea for almost four years...and I've only ever worked for one GEPIK school. When I first arrived at my school…I was very worried. I wasn’t told a lot about what was going to happen or how I was going to do my job, and to make matters worse, I had no co-teacher. When I decided to come to Korea, one of the great perks of the job was that an experienced and dedicated Korean teacher would be available to help me plan and teach every lesson. So, when I realized that my school had gone a different road, I freaked out. I spent most of my first morning looking for flights home, and most of my first afternoon on the phone to GEPIK. I was frightened. I was freaking out. GEPIK couldn't do shit to help me. The bottom line is that they can talk to the school and suggest that the school follow the more conventional model...but at the end of the day, the Principal decides how shit works.

What I got out of this situation was an understanding of how shit actually works, and exactly where GEPIK's responsibilities start and finish.

So...near the end of my first year, Dain Bae asked for people to volunteer to become GEPIK Reps...which was basically a system where people who have been with GEPIK for a year or more, make themselves available to new starters who need help. I wasn't keen to do it...but my best mate John wanted to give it a go...so I jumped on board! Now...the GEPIK Reps have been replaced by GEPIK co-ordinators...but here's an example of the kind of emails that I would get when I was repping -

"I am a ESL teacher in Suwon. I have problems with my Korean co-teacher, and not a soul to talk to about how to deal with them. In the recent past I have spoken to my Principal and Vice-Principal, but as far as I can see they just want to sweep the problems under the nearest rug. I am angry and depressed over my situation here; and feel so alone that I wish I could sprout wings and fly across the ocean. I asked the Vice Principal of my school to please provide me with someone I can go to, but I have heard nothing from anyone. I know they just wish I would just stop "being a problem". Unbeknowest to them I am not the problem, but she is Korean and I am not so to me that pretty much says it all. My Korean co-teacher has many people to discuss what she sees as the problem. I have no one, and I fantasize about just packing up and leaving.
I don't know what to do. Any suggestions?"

Now...that's just one email. Most of the emails were a LOT less dramatic. The above email doesn't really contain any information...the person asks for suggestions...but doesn't explain what the problems are...aside from the fact that the co-teacher is Korean. I ended up giving up an entire Sunday to go and have coffee with this teacher...and the problem was that they had told their co-teacher to 'shut the fuck up' in front of an entire class...and then when the co-teacher spoke...they slapped her (not very hard!) across the face. Suggestions? Well...going home seems a good one...or at the very least moving to a different job. Once you slap your co...there's no coming back.

Now...that's an example of an email that I received as a GEPIK Rep...here's an email that was sent to the blog a year or so ago...when I mentioned that I was going to be giving a speech at GEPIK Orientation -

"I am currently having a very hard time with the replacement Korean English teacher. She replaced a Korean teacher that I was working with for six months. She told me to my face how the Korean language is more important than the English language. Well, that is fine, but not in the English classroom. In an English classroom, English should be the dominant language.

I actually had to raise my voice and shout. I have spoken to not only the Vice Principal but also the Principal of my school with her and without her. Along with a hard copy writing about what she did. She is more than mean and she said that I do not even know how to do word processing. That was more than a problem comment. My old job was in the computer industry and my fiance is a computer developer. He does not like how she has been treating me also. Along with, the computer that she made me have is in all Korean (since she has the computer with the English programming and words that I use to have). I can not read Korean. I have had to ask her for simple things regarding the computer and I feel as though it was not fair at all. Her bad flow is now starting to affect/effect my fiance's work. I do not want that to continue. That is not fair for either of our futures.

Lastly, she knows that I might be pregnant. The doctor told me to wait until August to come back in until then. Since having this new Korean teacher (she only has a year of teaching under her belt before here), I have been sick a lot more than usual. How much abuse do I have to put up with? Her actions make me sick. I am bi-polar and am being treated for it. She did cause it to act up after being stable with high fluctuations. That is not a joke. That means loss of money somewhere. Along with, she definitely loves to feed off my cousin who was a Vice Principal in Illinois and my other cousin who was born in South Africa. Oh, plus my family members who actually do have a lot more than she will ever make. Know what, that is fine if she wouldn't be such a for real bitch. She even used a ruler on the students right in front of me in class. Who is going to pay for all the backlashes from that? The school district?

She decided that she wanted my room painted and wanted me to move everything. Well, for real I don't feel like I should be moving everything. Should I be pregnant, it is considered high risk since I am over the age of 35. She does not seem to understand that since she already had a child at an age of 24. Some of us were not so lucky at that age. She continuously smirks and is not even close to being nice.

Please respond when you have a chance. Oh, I can not always remember here either since she definitely does not watch the flow like I have always had to.

Lastly, someone stole $1,800 out of my bank account. Magically, it disappeared and within one week - my Dad did have a heart attack. Oopsy, that money would of covered him to not have the heart attack.
Not exactly fair, administrators from South Korea even. Not even nailed down to Gyeonggi Province since the Principals wife had cancer. That cancer might spread somewhere not good if that Korean teacher doesn't start behaving. That I did learn from the doctors in my family and from the other doctors that I am required to assist. Don't really want to help her anymore at all. Not even a little bit. I did hold my tongue for four months also with her."
Now, if a humble blogger can receive an email as loopy as that, can you even begin to imagine the sort of shit that the GEPIK co-ordinators get every single day? See...the trouble is...when we think of GEPIK co-ordinators and the questions that they must be asked...we think of the perfectly reasonable shit that we think about. For example...I don't know whether or not I'm gonna need a TESL or TEFL or TESOL or whatever it is, next time I renew. I have NO IDEA! I don't even know who to ask. The question that I have...is perfectly reasonable...so I imagine that everyone else is reasonable...BUT...they're not. There are a lot of nutjobs out there...and the GEPIK co-ordinators get calls from foreign teachers, Korean teachers, and recruiters and administrators...all with questions, queries and complaints. What a fucking life hey?

Well...why not add into the mix the constant shit pouring downstream from the government reducing funding, demanding more training hours, changing paygrades, and altering hiring requirements (all of which GEPIK gets criticised for by NETs who somehow think that GEPIK hates NETs)? Why not throw in teachers who do selfish and stupid shit like midnight runs, that have a huge negative impact on the students and teachers at the schools that are left behind? Well...it's a lot of shit to deal with isn't it?

Now...I'm not entirely sure why I decided to write this. I mean...I'm out of here in the not too distant future...so there's no real reason for me to care about this stuff...but...I guess that I feel like there's a lot of shit that gets said about GEPIK, and there's not much that gets said on GEPIK's behalf...so this rant is my way of trying to get people to understand why it might be difficult to get their GEPIK co-ordinator on the phone whenever they want to, and why the co-ordinator might sound a little wary when you do get hold of them!

Let's all just be nice to one another hey?
I seriously could barely even understand what that bi-polar woman was talking about. It makes me annoyed that people who can't even write coherently are English teachersㅠㅠ

Less Happy but still...

So I didn't want to once again follow up a rather chirpy post with a downer yesterday, ruining my whole e-outlook for the day, but I ended up having to spend all of lunch listening to the teacher sitting next to me rant about how ungrateful we foreign teachers were. I don't know if she realised that I actually speak Korean or just didn't care, but my co-teacher knows and I think the other teacher sitting across from me definitely picked it up by the expression on my face, and they were looking a little uncomfortable by the end of lunch. Apparently this teacher had been at a school with a NEST (Native English Speaking Teacher) before, a Korean-American gyopo, and had not been left with a good impression. I don't think she had actually taught with her as this teacher is a Maths teacher, but the NEST had apparently made quite an impression on her. Obviously as the foreigner, any NEST is going to be subject to much more scrutiny than they are aware of by all the teachers in the school regardless of actual direct contact, and according to Ms Ranty, this one had been very arrogant about their status as a foreigner in Korea but because they were also Korean, this meant a lot of bitching very loudly in Korean about being forced to do stuff that teachers in America wouldn't be expected to do and calling in sick a lot. I don't know how much of it was exactly true and based on repeated behaviour or it was just once and the NEST had been a arse about it and it had stuck, but I guess that kind of thing does happen. The ranting co-teacher also had a lot to say about foreigners only wanting to teach in Japan - don't know if this was also based on the other NEST - and only picking Korea as a second choice, which kind of sounded like she thought the ones in Korea were the losers that couldn't get into the JET program. By this point I had stopped paying attention to the silly woman, but my co-teacher told me about it later and when I told her that that certainly wasn't true, especially in my case, and lots of people choose Korea because it has better working conditions (slightly) she said she would correct the other lady. Which is going to go down well I'm sure.

But it's ironic really that this teacher was so uppity about the whole thing and so prejudiced against foreigners, because she's sure to be the type that would make a big deal about knowing a foreigner if she was friends with one (unlikely) or staring at one in the street or trying to touch their hair/skin. I'm sure she's also the type that would make no effort to learn or use any English if she ever went overseas to an English speaking country, and then would rant about how racist people were there against her. Anyway, it was a bit odd. I'm assuming she did in fact know that I speak Korean as even most of the new teachers know by now, and was just on her soapbox blithely bitching away in the manner of someone brave enough to say it when they don't have to directly look at the person they're going on about and "subtly" complaining by using an example of someone else. And no, she didn't look at me once during this tirade, even though I'm sure she noticed that I was sure as hell looking at her with my "what ARE you on about you mad cow?" face a few times. Anyhoo, for the most part the other teachers are nice and realise that I don't speak during lunch much because a) I don't want to speak Korean in front of the kids, b) my Korean isn't top notch as it is so I can't really just chime into conversations like the other teachers do and c) I'm the foreigner so it's quite daunting. So I'm not going to let one person spoil my week. I hope she isn't on the 2nd grade trip though because that would be a pain in the butt.

In other news, Spring is finally yawning and emerging from its den, so the weather is getting warmer and I'm turning down my ondol heating more and more every week. The yellow gaenari (개나리) flowers - real name "Forsythia" I think, but lots of Koreans call them "Rape flower" which can be a bit weird if they ask you if you've seen them or want to go see them - are out and the cherry blossoms won't be far behind. I'm also going to a strawberry picking festival on Sunday at Sangju which should be fun and of course also strawberrilicious :) Huzzah for Spring!

Welcome to the Korean school system...

I know it's pretty rare (and demanding) to write two posts in one day but this is a special occasion. Lots of people write or rant about how inefficient Korea is, especially the bureacracy - and there's a lot of bureacracy - so I'm not going to bother going into details about that. I'm just going to launch straight into a rant of my own.

First things first: as you may have gathered from an earlier post, things got a bit stressed last year with my old vice-principal, and all in all I was rather glad this year to find that a) he went to a new school and b) I'm no longer in the same office as the new one. I was also all happy that I only have 17 regular teaching hours, and 6 after school classes (I was expecting 8). Lesson of the day: DUHHHHHHHHHH! I should have touched wood. I should have thrown salt over my shoulder. I should have spent the entire week looking for black cats and dyeing them any other colour (purple or green for preference) and hunting down four leaf clovers. They say pride comes before a fall and although it's more like relief comes before a big kick in the pants, it's still much the case here. Because the new VP isn't just demanding.

He's.

Frickin'.

Crazy.

So yes, the old VP was a bit pushy, and wanted the school to do well (they all do), but we got on pretty well and he was pretty nice to me on the whole. My new co-teacher Paige said he was really awful to her, and last night one of my new co-workers who is also new to the school said that he'd heard the old VP was comparable to Gaddafi, so I imagine that there were a few others who also had problems with him, but really, that wasn't my problem and why he was like that to them wasn't either. I evaluate people on my own impressions and interactions with them, both for good and bad, and although there were some bad moments between me and him, things could have been a lot worse.

Well now they are. This new guy is completely and utterly committed to results, no matter how they're achieved. Not only is he likely to piss off the entire staff with this attitude, he's also likely to wipe out his entire student body because they're going to have to spend so much time studying that they aren't going to have any to do little things like eat, sleep and bathe. Last year, the Principal signed our school up for a Mentoring Program (and the attendant funding) without consulting ANY of the teachers first, which is pretty much meant to compete with the hagwon ('Academy' or tutoring) system that kids are usually stuffed into straight after school and pretty much in any spare time they might have. A Korean middle school student has it comparatively easy compared to high school students, but can still expect to have to spend a good 2 or 3 hours a day having English, Math, Science, piano, baseball, violin, taekwondo, drawing or anything else you'd care to think of lessons after school which is 8.30 - 4.30. I have seen my students walking home at night at 9.30 in the evening. Our mentoring program was designed to provide the same thing from 7 - 9 pm, but only for subjects taught at school that kids needed extra help with, and be more accessible by being cheaper than the usual hagwon fees. Good idea, right? Wrong. Because the thing about hagwons is that even though they are usually afternoon/evening classes, the teachers still usually only work a regular day (for Korea) workshift. So who teaches our mentoring program? Yep, the teachers. Which means that most of them have a work day of between 9 - 12 hours, which they obviously love.
Hooray for someone signing everyone but themselves up for extra work!

Luckily there are plenty of teachers not working insane schedules already or at least want the money more than I do who are keen for some tutoring so I don't have to do it. Which is lucky because there are three classes this year rather than one.

So we get to my gripe and why I think my VP is psychotic. He has just informed me that I'm expected to run a four hour class from 6 - 10pm (hopefully only once a week) for students to practice everything from conversation to presentations to whatever. This was not a request. What the fudge. First of all, never mind me, but what kind of ...person.... thinks that that kind of thing is going to be productive for the kids?? They're only 15 at oldest, and even though yes, they're used to studying for long hours and working hard, do you really think that making them go to a class after even a regular school day for four hours is going to do anything? It's not even going to be in their native tongue, so all they are going to end up doing is either not attending after the first couple of weeks or falling asleep. Oh and how about "what about the teacher who's going to have to teach at least 9 hours of her 14 hour working day"??????? Although I live in a pretty safe area, I also don't particularly like the idea of walking home by myself at 10pm at night.

I'm slightly pissed off. This is the whole parents winter conversation class over again. I suggested that we at least run it as two two-hour classes instead of one huge chunk, but that didn't seem to go down very well. I really don't care about the money - I'd rather have the free time - so I'm hoping that the VP will let me find someone else to do it because he doesn't really seem to understand what "refusing point blank" means, probably because it doesn't really happen in Korea. I told him that if he wants me to do it, I'm not doing it until at least the 25th of March so I can at least finish my TESOL coursework first and that was tricky enough.

Something weird is also happening with our exam preparation class intended to help students prepare for English language contests like the Ban Ki Moon essay/speech contest. But hey, it's not like the students have a choice about entering this so I guess it's only fair that I get forced to do it too. The weirdness is that apparently the head English teacher (who isn't great at classroom management and handling students to begin with, or at least in my classes anyway) really wants the students to do well, so only the absolute top students are going to be allowed in the class, but nevertheless she's putting FIRST graders in as well as seconds. Which to me just sounds stupid since there is only one test for everyone who enters with no distinction for different ages/grades but there you go. Unfortunately, Yong-Seo, one of the students who's been vetted from entering the class was one of my favourites last year as apparently he only did well in his English speaking test and bombed the rest, and one of the girls, Yeong-Ji was vetted out too because she doesn't have the right attitude or something.

Anyway, I've also just been told that I'm doing two more conversation classes, this time in 8th and 9th period on the two afternoons I had free, and since I usually get here at 8am, it looks like I'll have a few 10 hour days. I'm hoping that this means that I don't have to do the ridiculous 4 hour thing but who knows. Apparently this is also different from the 2 hour conversation class I'll have that's 1st 2nd AND 3rd year on Mondays and poor Paige has about as much idea as I do why that has to be different from the 1st year and 2nd year classes and can't just be changed so that there are three separate conversation classes, one for each grade so I can use some sort of teaching aide like a textbook and don't have to make the whole damn thing up myself. But no. So a fair prediction for the mixed Monday class is that we'll be watching a lot of movies. (I teach all of these classes by myself without a co-teacher by the way).

*sigh* Poor kids. Some of them are going to be mighty sick of seeing me every single day every week by the end of the semester.

Only two more days to go...

Two more days of class that is, and then only three more of non-class (which I shall enjoy significantly more!) and then I'm home! Glorious, glorious home!

So this has been a bit of a sucky week, for all sorts of little reasons, but not really any big ones, and with many little happy moments to keep me uplifted and to stop it from being a REALLY sucky week.

One of these such moments was samgyetang (삼계탕, a sort of spring chicken soup where you get a whole little chicken thing in a stone hot pot stuffed with rice and cooked in a delicious soup), photo stickers and a strawberry ice-cream sundae at Love Story (a cafe) with Lara. The food was delicious of course (the samgyetang restaurant we go to ALL the time is awesome) although it was weird to get cherry tomatoes as part of the fruit in our sundae and cornflakes too, and taking sticker photos with lots and lots of glitter was an excellent way to burn off some energy between courses. Here is one of the results! Sorry for the awful webcam quality - still without a real camera. Looking at some of the features on cameras I am considering buying, I figured out that it might have actually frozen on the day of our teachers' trip since apparently "freeze-resistance" is something that Korean camera makers consider important.

Another thing that made me happy this week was newspaper that my second year kids made during our winter camp. We did activities for articles for it each day, like making up their own country (which the girls promptly decided to name after their favourite drama "Dream High"), and telling each other's fortunes, and then they had to write another 'newspapery' piece as well, so I gave them 20 minutes at the end of each two hour class to work on what they had. I'm not going to sugar-coat it, my kids aren't the most brilliant in Korea, and it wasn't anything that's going to rock the world, but I was really proud of how well they did, and how they all helped each other out to get everything done on time, and in the end I really didn't have that much editing to do to put it all together. My co-teacher Paige took some photos so everyone was in it or contributed at least two or three things, even if it was just a few sentences. So it was great, and I was really happy, and they've seemed pretty impressed with it themselves as they've picked up their copies this week.

However, I then did something really stupid - I gave our Vice-Principal and Principal each a copy, because I thought they might like to see what the kids had been doing (even though most of the kids undoubtedly have better English and the VP and P probably couldn't even read the whole thing without a dictionary). First came the VP, who grunted non-committedly and immediately pointed out that we were infringing copyright by using a picture of Kim Yuna and a movie poster. Fair enough. Then the Principal. Before he even opened it, out came the red pen, and he started nagging my co-teacher about how it didn't look professional enough because the margins were wrong (I'd basically just printed everything out back to back and then stapled it down one side). Next, flicking through it, he complained that I should have written the date on it and I hadn't put in page numbers - ok, fair enough too, shame on me for not taking a four day project seriously enough. Then came the kicker - he told us to fix it up because he wanted to distribute as a school product to show off our English program. BIG WTF moment. Never mind that half of it is something that will ONLY make sense to the people who actually went to the class, since half the articles are about an imaginary country. Oh and he complained that the puzzle page that Dae-Ho had done was too hard to do because it was too small.

Pain. In. The. Butt.

So anyway, I escaped at that point because I had a class to go to, but my poor co-teacher had to stay and listen. Actually, I guess it's karmic irony really, because earlier in the year the VP had told me that he expected me to write an English newspaper for the school and waved one from another school (that he had clearly not read himself) in my face that had turned out to not actually be written by a teacher, but by the students of a very prestigious girl's high school with a rigourous English language program, which I had docilely agreed to and then forgotten as quickly as possible, as it was a ridiculous demand and I already had been volunteered into running the Super Duper English club every week. But still. So I did a bit more editing, and sent it off to Paige, but I have no idea what she can do about the puzzle (which we don't even have an electronic copy of) so I guess she's got a busy few days ahead of her until she leaves (very thankfully I'm sure!) on her much-needed holiday.

My new 'visa'

Oh and yes, this was right after the lovely day I had on Tuesday, which constituted of my VP calling me a bitch (I think he meant to say "busy"), walking out on my flabberghasted face when I didn't respond, then telling me ten minutes later that he expects me to tutor him one on one once the new semester starts which I flatly told him he would then have to either pay me extra or take it out of my teaching hours because that's not my job. Oh and then I ended up having to cancel my afternoon class (which on the upside at least meant I got to the gym) because I spent my whole lunch break waiting at the Office of Immigration for two hours and fifteen minutes to get my visa extended. Which turned out to constitute writing on the back of my ARC (alien rego card) with a texta and covering it with sellotape. Yes, sellotape. Thankyou for justifying the 30 000 won and more than three hours getting to and waiting in your ridiculous office.

Anyway, basically, I have now learned to keep things to myself, and after a really pointless day yesterday, the silliness of sticker photos and good food with a good friend was much appreciated ^_^ Thankyou Lala chingu~~~!

Another GREAT day in snowy Korea!

Yep, it's great. GRRRREEEAAAAT. In the completely sarcastic non-great kind of way. First of all, there were no parents in my parents class today, so my Vice Principal got irritated and although he quite likes me and so didn't segue into the full-blown angry yelling boss, he was still being an arse about it. Apparently my co-teacher Paige (who doesn't even come to the classes with me because she has her own at the same time) should be calling all of the parents every day to make sure they come and basically harassing them into attending, because their own busy schedhules are not sufficient excuse enough to miss a class most of them don't want to come to anyway. Why we can't just cancel them entirely and run something more worthwhile I don't know - say like an extra conversation class, perhaps for the 3rd years that I don't teach and so don't see all year anyway, some of whom would probably be interested in taking it before they go to high school next year and the hardwork really starts. I tried suggesting that to him but I don't think he was listening, because he just looked at me, nodded vaguely, and then answered an incoming call on his mobile. This also means grief for Paige, because he's sure to nag her about it.

So anyway, that part of the day sucks. The other part that sucks, or perhaps makes the sucky things more sucky, is that I currently have no cold water in my apartment. Although I'm very grateful that it's the cold water that's out and not the hot, it's still a pain in the butt, especially because I came home to discover this last night after I'd already used my toilet, only to find that it wouldn't flush because there was no water in the cistern. Don't worry - it was only a number one, but it was still annoying that I had to fill up the cistern by hand with a bucket to flush my loo, and because I didn't get home until about 2am, it was too late to call my neighbour to call our landlord to see if it could be fixed. Luckily he came by today so he now knows about the problem and is hopefully getting it fixed. I guess I'm just going to have to use the nasty toilet in the lobby of my building for a while until then. Apparently it's only our floor though so at least there'll only be the five of us (or possibly six since I'm still convinced my weird neighbour with the weird OCD light switch flicking habit has his girlfriend living with him) queueing in the lobby. It's kind of weird though - even though the cold water is out, my tap keeps dripping if I leave it in the off position over cold, and occasionally streaming water late at night, so I've taken to tying a dishcloth around it in a kind of washerwoman's bandanna to soak up the water and stop the noise. Ever wondered what a faucet with a toothache looks like? I'd like to imagine it looks something like mine does right now.

There are also another couple of reasons why I'm so irritated today but there's enough negativity here so I'll leave it as is and instead move onto my eternal fountain of entertainment - my students. We've been making a newspaper in our conversation class this week, and yesterday we did fortune telling and paper chatterboxes (with some stupid answers - explaining why "your mama" is funny to a bunch of Korean teenagers was hard but totally worth it), so I asked them to write predictions for each other. Here are some of the results (I tidied them up a little):

Ji-Soo will be taller than me - Yes

Sunny’s teeth will be healthy this year. -For sure

Soyeong will have a boyfriend -your mama!

Hyeon-Jeong will eat mushrooms - No way!

Won-Min will meet a handsome boyfriend - you smell!

Amy teacher will maybe go back to Australia. But Amy should stay in Korea because Korea is super good than Australia.

And my favourite (and the best) by Dae-Ho.
Paige Teacher's luck this year:

She will meet a good boyfriend in Europe this year. Paige and her boyfriend will fall in love very quickly so Paige will want to only date for 5 years and then get married, because she doesn’t have any money. However her boyfriend will have lots of money. So they will get married in Europe. They won’t want to have children. However they will travel to very beautiful sites and will live happily ever after.

Oh and a picture of the costumes they made for each other when they had to invent a country and come up with some public holidays, traditions, a flag and clothes.

Sunny and Dae-Ho

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Goddamnit.

It's snowing. I don't like snow. It's very pretty, when you're sitting inside somewhere warm and cosy, and there's nothing making you have to go outside in it, but when it's something you actually have to experience, it's cold, wet, makes everything slippery and dangerous and honestly, it's just bits of ice falling out of the sky. What's so magical about that? I get that some people find it enchanting and whatnot, but I'm not one of them. Unless I'm actually at a snowfield for the specific purpose of playing in the snow (fun for about 10 minutes until you get soaked) or snowboarding, etc, I can't see snow as fun.

I realise as I type that I sound like an awful sourpuss about it all, and I'm sorry to be making my first post in a long while so down, but really, I don't know why the snow is depressing me so much today of all days, but it is. Maybe it's because of the cold (this week we have had an average of minus 14 degree days). Maybe it's because I'm not a morning person at the best of times, and after seeing the latest Harry Potter film last night (which was awesome!!!!) and then making myself shower and wash my hair because I knew there was no way I was going to actually get up and out of bed in the morning at 6.30 when it's not even light outside to do it then meant that I didn't get to bed until 1am, so am very tired. Maybe it's because I have five regular classes today in our seven period day, one after-school class and have not really voluntarily given up my lunchtime to help the English club make paper decorations (which is my own fault for getting them started on it on Wednesday when I actually had the energy to be excited in a serious lack of foresight). And even though two of those classes are some of my sweetest first year girls, and we're only watching a movie in the others, the sheer number of students I will have seen today is an exhausting thought. Plus I've already watched the first 40 minutes of Home Alone 2 seven times this week and really can't be excited about either the prospect of watching it three more times or studying my TESOL coursework instead. But really, more than anything, or maybe in combination with the utter exhaustion I face the rest of today with, I think the snow is making me feel down simply because it's yet another reminder of how far away I am from home. It should be summer now dammnit!

Even though I've been here before around the same time and been in cold countries over (their) winter, I still don't really have the hang of dressing properly for cold, so I usually end up freezing, then slowly cooking in the over-heated classroom to a chorus of whiny teenagers whingeing "쌤!추워~~~~~ (teacher, it's cold!)" with a "쌤! 너무 뜨겁다! (teacher! too hot!)" accompaniement from the few kids sitting right under the heating air flow. I know it's cold, and I've already turned the heating on and it's at 30 degrees so what else do you want me to do??? Maybe if you don't want to be cold you shouldn't be outside having snowfights and stealing each other's shoes in the break. You can either enjoy the magic and wonder of being a kid or you can be warm and sensible and stay inside, not both.

Anyway, so students aside (usually they are more or less great, but sometimes they just drive me up the wall) the snow has more or less stopped for a break about now. I'll post photos later when I get home so you can see for yourself how utterly negative or spot on (depending on your point of view) I'm being about the whole thing. It's cold, it's weird, it's not home. Therefore I am sad. Actually, not sad, just in a bit of a black mood. Also, I think snow doesn't make me feel particularly happy because in Australia, when you see white stuff floating in the air during December, it's usually ashes from a bushfire. Bit hard to explain that one in Korean to my co-teachers when they ask why I'm not gushing about the pretty snowflakes. Also, seeing it now makes me think that I'll be doing this all over again at the same time next year too. Another black thought on a day that makes me homesick that also makes me wonder why the hell I signed up for a second year. Hopefully my trip home and quality time Down Undah will help me through this :)

Ok, so I guess I should try and end my rant on a positive note. Things that I'm looking forward to today that will make me feel calmer if not happier:

• class 2-8. Although they are also something that I am not looking forward to because they are so noisy and exhausting, they are also my last regular class for the day and they always say something offbeat to make me laugh.
• going home after school, knowing that I have a whole two glorious days before I have to be back again (even though I'm not really going to have any free time to actually appreciate them).
• having a drink tonight with my mate Sueji at a friend's place. And then another. And then maybe a few more.
• sleeping in tomorrow. I am a bit of a masochist in that on days I can actually sleep in, I like to set my alarm for 7 (the usual time I get up) just so I can wake up, look outside and see it's still dark and cold, then turn it off and go back to sleep.
• going to the gym tomorrow because it will be in actual daylight. Haven't been in a week because it's cold and dark by the time I get home and now I feel like a slug.
• going to Busan to celebrate my lovely friend Natalie's birthday!! Yay!!!!! ^_^ oh and crashing at Christy's because she actually gives me a pillow to sleep with as opposed to SOME! lol~
• zipping up to Seoul on the KTX (there is no super fast train between Cheongju and Busan so I always have to bus it) to see my favourite Gokhale girls Hema and Sonali! DOUBLE YAY! Hopefully I won't be too hungover from Saturday night to appreciate them, although if Natalie is even conscious by the time I leave Busan I will be sorely disappointed :)

So yes, although there is also a list of other things that I have to get done that I don't face with any particular relish, and although today is a bit of a bummer, it heralds good things as well as bad. Namely, the miraculous ability of friends and a little alcohol to make you feel better :)


**edit: snow photos. eurrrrrrrkkkkkk.

starting to snow (actually the first snow about a week before this post)... grrrrr

about 3 minutes later

yes, those white things are snow. that's how big the flakes were.

the kids having their P.E. lesson in the snow on the actual day of posting while i take sneaky photos from a warm staffroom. hehe~