GET IT IN WRITING

I knew…. I KNEW better than to just take a ‘yea that’s ok’ as an answer. But I did. Because I really, really wanted that to be the answer. Friends/family/stalkers (hello there!) may remember a few months ago I had to raise a bit of a stink with my main middle school because they wanted me to come in on Saturdays to teach English camps. I tried to compromise with them-
A) Why not do the English camps in the summer like it’s ALWAYS done? My contract gives me Saturdays free.
CT’s answer: impossible summer camp.
ok fine, so how about B) I’ll teach the Saturday camps, but for every 2 half-days I come, I get a compensatory day off in the summer break- when no one is at school anyway.
CT’s answer: impossible give day off.

I said well fine, if you can’t compromise, then you can’t compromise. They found another NET to cover the camps (the number of which, by the way, magically changed to only 2 half-days instead of a dozen half-Saturdays).

Come end of first semester. High school camp lined up, Gibuk camp lined up- which is AWESOME. I am/was SO stoked to be able to do a camp with my gibuk kids. We’re gonna have a blast. I figured though, that the Gibuk camp was there to make up for the lack of Gigye MS camp, since, you know, she’d told me summer classes were ‘impossible’.

Come AWESOME opportunity: 2-week camp in another city. I signed up straight away on the win-win of not spending money on a summer holiday and earning money on the summer holiday.

I ask my head co-teacher, and inform her that last year I was able to help out camps at other schools no problem. (Technically on EPIK contracts, it’s illegal to have ANY source of income outside our school. However, if the principal approves, we can be ‘loaned out’, basically, to other public schools.) She said no problem. Said she’d ask the VP. Said again, no problem.

Lo and behold, appear other co-teacher! Head co comes up to be a bit later- “middle school co teacher is asking about your summer schedule to plan English classes.”

me: WTF?

MS co-teacher is now insisting that I fulfill my contract to the letter- 22 teaching hours, 8:30-4:30 days, even (especially?)  in the summer. She has reminded me no fewer than 5 times that once the high school, gibuk, and middle school camps finish (around 12:30), I must remain at school until 4:30. Fulfilling the contract doesn’t bother me- I agreed to it, duh. What bothers me is that SHE is insisting on it. And that I have the sneaking feeling that if I had agreed to give up my Saturdays (and seriously- if I had known it were only the two, I wouldn’t have made a fuss at all), she wouldn’t me giving me this crap now.

The scheduling conflict is thus: There are 4 weeks and 2 days in our summer recess. 1 of those days (plus the last day of school) is a Teacher Trip that I have agreed to go on (dear God, please keep me safe, sober, and moderately well-fed). I have two days of High school camps, 4 days of Gibuk camps. One day is a Korean holiday. That leaves 2 weeks, 4 days of possible vacation time for me. 2 of those weeks was dedicated to this extra camp. 4 of those days (only two of which are consecutive) were to be contracted vacation days. Co-teach is now insisting that I must teach 5 days of middle school camp (oh sorry, this was my favorite part- they’re not ‘camps’, they’re ‘classes’. There were always going to be summer ‘classes’, but impossible to do summer ‘camps’.)

Fought with her a bit about dates, and I reminded her that Saturdays exist as well (doesn’t she remember trying to force me to come in Saturdays??). We went to the classroom and asked the students who would come to camp on XYZ days. They were all keen- even the one class that would have to have a Friday-Saturday camp (2 grades, 2-day camp, 1 grade a 1-day camp; 5 days of camp). Alas, now she’s saying, nevermind, I cannot teach on Saturday in the summer, so I must do the camps on a Monday-Tuesday, and thus miss an entire day of the extra camp, which makes me a lot less appealing/useful to them, not to mention (like I’m doing now) completely letting them down at the, well, maybe only the 10th hour. The 11th hour would be day before the camp.

In the end: I apologize for this sounding like a semi-whiny (or very whiny) rant. It is a rant. I’m more apologizing about the whiny part though. I’m rather upset about all this. And worse scheduling conflicts have happened with other NETs (eg conflicts involving already-purchased, non-refundable plane tickets). But let this be a lesson to my future self and any NETs in Korea: always, ALWAYS get it in writing. Also, be wary of the petty co-teacher. Far too many exist. And don’t stoop to their level. I’m tempted to respond in, well, when it comes down to it, a very ‘tit for tat’, dishonorable manner. Instead I’m going to pray that I get to do this extra camp still, attempt to look on the bright side if I don’t, apologize like mad to the coordinator whom I was supposed to email today with the completed content for the 10.5 hours of camp lessons, and eat half a bar of chocolate when I get home. I’m also thinking about asking my head co-teacher to go to bat for me….

5 easy “cultural” foods that your coworkers will love

Anybody who’s been here (and working at a school) knows that the quickest way to your officemates’ good sides is a box of fruit or juice bottles, and a cheery 안녕하세요/annyeonghaseyo every morning. The second part is easy, but what if you’re like me, and think that buying a box of fruit is sort of a cheap (and yet surprisingly expensive) way out if you actually care about the gesture? For you, I present some ‘dishes’ I’ve offered to my coworkers with lovely success. (Note: do your best to offer a portion personally (two hands!!) to your VP and P, or director, as the case may be.)
Note: In case anyone wants some direction, I did my best to jot down how I made everything. Take note: baked things were baked in a toaster oven. That means a lower temperature. Timing is only sometimes affected.

STUFFING

Last Thanksgiving me, some waegs (short for ‘waygookins’, or ‘foreigners’), and a couple koreans had a full meal for the holiday, and I actually brought in portions of all the leftovers we had- turkey, mashed taters, sweet potato casserole (they loved that too), cranberry sauce, and the stuffing. They really liked the stuffing, so I made more a couple weeks later and brought it in again. I used:
~1/4c chicken broth (bullion+water)      ~10 slices shredded stale/toasted bread
2 stalks diced celery                                         1c dried cranberries
1 egg                                                                         ~1/2c diced shrooms
1/2 cup butter                                                      1/2 onion (diced)
oregano, salt, black/white pepper, sage, thyme
Instructions: Lightly cook the shrooms, onion, and celery in the butter in a sauce pan on medium heat. When those are cooked, turn heat to low (or just off), and add chicken broth, egg (crack first) and spices. Put bread and cranberries in oven-safe dish and carefully pour everything that’s in your pot over it. Stir gently mix- don’t crush the bread.  Bake at at 325F (375F in a real oven, perhaps)- covered– until warm through (use a knife or fork to check), then remove foil/lid and keep baking until it’s a lovely golden brown on top.

CRANBERRY WALNUT COOKIES

OK, so really I only made these because I had dried cranberries left over from the stuffing, and I don’t like dried cranberries. But that’s alright. I used:
1 1/2c flour                     1/2c sugar
1/4tsp baking soda      1/2tsp baking powder
1/2c brown sugar         1/4tsp salt
1/4c butter                      1 egg
2Tbsp milk                      1tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla                1/2c chopped walnuts
1/3c cranberries
Instructions: mix ingredients. bake 6 minutes at 350F in a toaster oven; try 375F  in a real oven.

PASTA SALAD

Due to all the bitter and sour and spicy flavors in Korean cuisine, I thought a pasta salad would be well-received in my office, and, dear me, I was right. I used:
~2 1/2c uncooked elbows        1 large onion
2 potatoes (cubed)                      ~3c cooked pinto beans
1 carrot                                             1 1/2c corn
1 1/2c corn                                     1Tbsp minced garlic
2 green bells                                   ~1 1/2c chopped shrooms
lots of Italian dressing, fair couple splurts of white wine vinegar, dash EVOO, and a few splashes of lemon juice
lots of oregano,  lots of black and white pepper, extra sage, thyme, dash of rosemary, dash of paprika, and some dried gochu (think cayenne pepper powder). oh and salt of course.
Instructions: cook the things that need cooking, mix together, stick in the fridge, serve.

Banana Splits

This was my smaller school, so it was a bit easier (only like 10 teachers). We were having a summer ‘cultural’ picnic, and afterwards, the students and I made extra mini banana splits for all the faculty. I used:
1/2 scoop chocolate        chocolate syrup
1/2 scoop vanilla               whipped cream
1/2 scoop strawberry      walnuts
1/2 banana                            sprinkles
1 cherry
Instructions: make banana split

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Believe it or not, pb&j is as as exotic as you can get. This crazy mystery food from another country! Beyond belief or comprehension! I used:
2 sliced of bread              1 1/2Tbsp jelly
2Tbsp peanut putter
Instructions: make a sandwich (if you’re still reading the ingredients and instructions by this point that’s just sad. you should be ashamed of yourself.*)

*unless you are a completely unwesternized/unamericanized Korean with absolutely NO exposure to anything western or English, in which case, how are you reading this??

A not-so-average day in the life of a NET

My Thursday was not the typical example of Thursdays. This is only partially a good thing, but really it was a great day overall, so it’s a shame I can’t have more like it- in some aspects. Point being, these are some things you could expect to be able to be involved in if you move to Korea and teach English. (or point being: here’s an anecdote from me. enjoy!)

We’ll start with the ‘free’ time. Of course the day began with school/work, if you’re at a public school. Yesterday, I was graciously able to leave 10 minutes early to go to the bank and pay my utility bills. I’ve heard you can pay bills at special ATMs, but I still haven’t figured it out. And it’s literally impossible for me to go to the bank without leaving early.  After the bank, I ran to the bus stop, caught my normal bus back into the city (hour’s ride), and waited around for my dentist appointment.

If you need to have dental work done, get it in Korea. Way cheaper, and still solid work.

After the dentist, I bought dehumidifiers from Homeplus (Korea=humid, so this is a very practical event to include in my narrative), and managed to catch just the right bus the rest of the way to my area. Changed out of my work clothes into clothes suitable for futsal, and walked back to where I just was (or most of the way there anyway) for a worship weekly thing that a foreigner here started. Left early to cab it the rest of the way across town down to near our city hall to play said futsal, which is also maintained by a foreigner here (ie he’s responsible for booking the pitch every week). I pretty much always love going to futsal, but this Thursday I was especially glad, as I had missed two previous days of frisbee practice for the RoK Ultimate League- a rather large organization, frisbee league, also spearheaded by a foreigner here. This ‘club’ though extends well into other cities and reaches half of Korea (the Seoul area has their own league).

Two of the futsalers and I had an appointment for scrabble shenanigans, so that was another taxi back up to my end of town. During the scrabbling, due to our rather present post-futsal smell, I had lit a candle. It was a tea candle in a ceramic holder with a well on top for fragrant oils (diluted with water of course). I looked over later that evening, to see that the entire candle seemed to be aflame, instead of just the wick. Now, when I say ‘later that evening’, I really mean somewhere around 3:30-4:00am.  My first reaction was to attempt to carefully extinguish it by blowing it out. Instead, it went, with a rather marvelous FWOOSH, straight into my face. Along the same route, it burned/melted some items nearby, none of monetary value, and only one of sentimental value (and it’s still mostly intact and perfectly usable). We squished those fires out with a rag in half a second, and so I picked up the piece from the well (the well on this is attached, obviously), and put it in the sink to extinguish beyond all question. However, I managed to spill a fair about on my leg during transportation, and now have rather a splotchy burn pattern on my right thigh. Thank goodness that it did splatter though, otherwise I think the burn would have been a lot worse.

After all this (I did take a shower), I got changed and went to work, as usual. Oh if they knew that teachers and faculty actually have a private lives, and what sort of going-ons they entail!

A new challenge

This does in no way refer to my previous post about my friends who just got married, however much of a new challenge they are beginning. This one is about moi, and has nothing to do with getting married. I am about to embark upon an exciting, terrifying, completely new journey- unlike anything I’ve ever done before. What is it? I already learned how to ride a bike (although, that did take me awhile, I’ll admit), I passed drivers ed, graduated high school, went to college and graduated that, and then moved to a completely foreign country, whose language I didn’t (and still mostly don’t) speak, and whose culture I didn’t (and still mostly don’t) understand, to begin a new job I had barely any experience in. What on earth is left?

So, so much.

This little gem though, is a mostly spur-of-the-moment choice to attempt to help myself be a bit more disciplined about my free time. For 40 days, I will forgo all movies, TV shows, cartoons. There shall be no comics, webcomics, manga, or manhwa. There will be music. Probably lots and lots of music. And books. As long as they’re not comic books. Two of which sit on my shelf right now, one of which might be arriving in the mail for my birthday (some friends always give spoilers, you know?). That latter one will be an exception however. Not because it’s my birthday, but because the book ends, and there’s no ‘next chapter’ button a mouse click away.

Today is day 1, and I’m not going to bother looking at a particular end date on the calendar, but stick with my little prison-style tick marks on my notepad by my computer. I know other people have done similar things, for similar periods of time (no facebook for 2 weeks, no twitter for 3 months, basically any kind of nutritional diet, whatever). Good for them. Truly- giving things up for periods of time helps us, IMHO, practice and maintain discipline.But just like some people all too easily reach for the oreos when they’re hungry instead of the carrot sticks, I’m ready to admit that I have started to way too easily pop on a movie or some episodes of Korra, MASH, or Burn Notice, when I could be doing something ever so slightly more productive.

I challenge other people to take a step back from their lives, pick the one thing that’s distracting them from living well the most, and set a number of days on the table. 40, 100, 5. Maybe now, maybe 6 months from now. But at some point, set yourself up a challenge, and see if you learn anything from it. If you manage your time perfectly, then kudos to you; here writes a lesser mortal.

Heeeeere we go! 화이팅!

Digital Weddings

Really there was just one. (Although I did attend the end bit of a non-digital Korean wedding a few weeks ago….) But it was lovely. Some very dear friends of mine got married yesterday. Well, today. Well, their today, my yesterday. Well, technically since it started at 00:30, it was also my today as well… You can already see the problem. They are there, I am here, I cannot teleport (still working on it though), and between the grand for a plane ticket, and the unpleasantness that would have resulted with my school, I remained here.

But thank heavens for technology and people who know how to utilize it. The wedding- taking place in one of my hometowns in the rather small CT of the US of A- was streamed for me and about 6 others. Between Korea, Australia, and Japan, I can only guess that this was the most globally RT viewed non-royal wedding. Even if it was only 6.

Congratulations guys, if for not getting married, then for staying in the center of attention so long 😉 Love you both and I’m so sad that I wasn’t able to celebrate with you in person. Although I am glad I got to wear my pjs for the event. The hall was beautiful, the flowers were beautiful, rock on Pastor, and Love, you’re my hero for having your groomsmen wear swords. That wedding could not have been more *you* two, and in such a wonderful way. Wish I could have been at the reception- I can’t say if it looked fun, because I had to go to bed at that point. Can’t wait to see you again, but know that I won’t be able to call you Mrs. [last name]. I just can’t bring myself to call close friends by such a formal address. Don’t worry though, I’m brainstorming on a temporary nickname to recognize your new nuptial status. I’m so happy for you guys, and if you’re up for it, we can have a second belated reception upon my eventual return, cause I really would love to celebrate with you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PS: PICTURES PICTURES PICTURES PICTURES!!!!!!!!!

AtM: I just felt like writing really… (and another note on Korean open classes)

And that’s about that. I feel like I haven’t written much, and when someone tells me they enjoy reading my blog, well, I get all warm and fuzzy inside and think ‘hey! maybe I can be funny and clever!’ That’s only half true though. I know I’m funny and clever.

But, to be serious, I simply haven’t had that much to write about (from my perspective anyway). We had our Open Classes yesterday- about which I actually got like 2 weeks of warning. I’ll admit, at first I thought it must bit a translation error, and the classes were really the next day. But nope, two full weeks. I was to teach only two- first grade middle school, and first grade high school.

Now, as I’ve recently said, I’ve been having better luck with that 1-1 HS class, who previously were second-worst scourge of my teaching life. Plus, this was actually going to be a ‘co’ class- I was going to teach with my co-teacher (imagine that!) However…. the students’ overall attitudes apparently cannot change that much that quickly, and nothing can make up for the simple lack of English that half the class has. Her portion of the class was taught entirely in Korean, and I was to prepare a game/activity. Since the story they were reading discussed identity, and their vocab was all personality characteristics, I went with the ‘Who am I?’ game. I even made a whole list of questions and traits in English and Korean as a cheat sheet for them. But, apparently, that was still far too difficult, and explaining the rules in Korean (‘wait your turn.’ is that so hard??) didn’t cut it either. In the end, I was happy no parents showed up.

My 1-1 middle school class, in a stark difference, are one of the joys of my teaching life. I could ask them to write lines, and they’d say ‘ok teacher!!’ smile bigger than their own heads, and then search frantically for a pencil and piece of paper. Brief back note: probably the average number of parents to show up to any given class is 3-5. I got to their classroom, however, to see ~15+ mothers (and a veeeery little brother or sister, who caused us some amusement later on). The computer wasn’t turned on, my flash drive didn’t work. Bad start, but I got class rolling eventually to my bunch of jazzed up energetic…. what? Why are you guys DEAD? This is practically the same lesson we did last class, on Monday. You KNOW this stuff. You… you’re always so perky, and… and… WHERE DID YOUR SOULS GO????

I did my best to animate the silent and stiff students (woah, alliteration sneak!), but they were just too dead on our activity, so I said ‘finished!’ and whipped out the taboo for the last 7 minutes. Taboo is almost ALWAYS a win.

Which brings me to what’s really on my mind right now. Being dead tired of constantly attempting to create my own curriculum, and teach it to students who couldn’t care about the one they ARE graded for. This morning, I’m tired, sore, and not really feeling ‘Korea’. I came in fully intending to continue the lesson I’d been working on. But due to the being abnormally sore from yesterday (perhaps on top of previous days), and just plain not-really-caring, I’ve made two decisions.

1) Today, in each of my 3 high school classes (have I ever mentioned that Fridays for me SUCK?), we will be playing taboo. I will not give them any candy, but they can have a stamp if they have their name cards. We will not study, we will play taboo, (at least every student will go once though- they still must practice English *shakefist*), and we will end early, so that I can just chill they can study.

2) Starting next week (what better way to start a week than a Monday?), I will be ‘coolmessenger’ing my high school co-teacher. Every. Single. Moday. Morning. I will MAKE her tell me what lesson they’re on, the topic, and what the vocab is. I’ve only recently (ie last week) acquired the first grade text book for high school, so I have that at my disposal if I can know where they are in it. But NO LONGER will I just flail about in these eastern winds. Nope. She’s giving me lesson content, whether she likes it or not. She already told me this week that her Monday mornings are slow. She definitely has time to chuck the books over to my desk so I can skim through the current chapter.

Whelp, bell’s about to ring to start my day. Now that I got all this distraction out of the way, I can get down to business later and sort my middle school lessons for next week. Cheers, dear reader! (I mean, you must be at least a little bored too if you’re reading the off-hand, mostly irrelevant musings of a foreign English teacher in Korea…)

So that’s what it takes to be respected.

It’s no surprise to anyone who’s read this before that my students can have…. challenging attitude/behavioral issues. Despite that (or perhaps because of it), my school’s always seemed pretty laid back when it comes to discipline. The students get away with loads that would never fly ‘back home’, or in other Korean schools, although you will see a line of yoga positions outside the teachers’ office from time to time.

However, this morning, after almost a year and a half here, as I was standing in front of the copier waiting for it to finish churning out my worksheets, I witnessed something new. I heard a teacher out in the hall yelling at some student (that part’s not new), and he jammed his finger towards the ground, probably yelling at him to get down with the yoga.  And that was when I saw something I simply didn’t believe at first. The teacher kicked the student. Now, I’m not talking a superbowl field goal, but still, we’re not talking a love tap on the butt out of fun either. He solidly kicked the student. I should also mention that (in addition to the already dehumanizing act that it is to quite literally kick a person while he’s down), Koreans and probably a lot of other easterners have this thing about feet and shoes. They’re always dirty. Even if they’re clean. It’s just considered a dirty part of the body, and you don’t really put your feet near something of any significance. But here this kid is, being kicked like a dog.

So I’m standing by the copier still, stunned, and the student gets kicked a few more times. The teacher is still yelling at him, and the student stands up and the both come into the teachers’ office where, this time, the student gets slapped clear across the face. Again, not a gentle slap. Still yelling. Teacher raises his hand again, and the student tries to shield his face. More yelling, the student lowers his hands, and gets his ears boxed. Eventually, after a bit more yelling, the student is sent into the hallway in the normal yoga position.

I have heard that this happens at Korean schools, but this is my first time to witness physical punishment as excessive as this. And yea, I’m sure (sadly sure) that it happens much, much worse elsewhere. I’ve seen yelling here. I’ve seen some hitting. And I’ve probably seen enough yoga to open my own studio. But this was my first time seeing a teacher strike a student in such apparent anger. No surprise though, that not one of the other teachers blinked an eye.

By the way, to wrap this up, I also know this student. Know of him, I suppose- I don’t know him nearly as well as most, but unless he’s seriously hiding his inner-rebel, I don’t really see him mouthing off to a teacher, or getting nabbed for smoking in the bathroom. But who knows what prompted the ‘discipline’. My only conclusion is this:

If that’s what it takes to be respected around here by all the students, I forfeit that claim as a ‘teacher’ figure.