Back to Five things

So, the longer you go without blogging, the harder it is to come back to. All the stuff you haven't written kind of log-jams up the river of blog! So, I'm going to forget about trying to get caught up, and instead try to return to the original purpose of the blog: 5 things each day that have made me happy (or smile at the very least).

Living in another country certainly has its ups and downs, and this week has been a bit of a down. The constant cold is really wearing, the pointless and badly organised work environment is battering me mentally, and senseless worrying about my 'future' has me with knots in my tummy, clenched jaws, and a headache. So, alongside plans to get more active and more social (running and weekly Korean classes, respectively), I want to get back to five things.

So, here it goes:

1) It is a beautiful day! Cold, but clear and sunny. In a bid to spend some time outside, I have organised an English Language scavenger hunt for my 'Spring Camp' class today.

2) I am going to buy a new pair of running shoes tonight after work.

3) Tomorrow is a public holiday and I'm going to catch the bus and explore a bit of Seoul for the day. I'd like a new picture to hang in my apartment.

4) The new school term starts on Friday, which means the return of school lunches. My days at school have not been the same without lunch to look forward to :) And I've especially learned some Korean phrases so I can talk to the lunch ladies. I can ask what something is, say it's delicious, or that I don't like it.

5) Last night I managed to speak Korean to some actual Koreans :) I was with a couple of friends, and we liked the look of what the table beside us were eating. I said to them in Korean: "Sorry. What is that there?", and they told me, and showed me on the menu, and I thanked them... all in Korean :) Next time we go out, we might have the tasty looking pork and kimchi stew thing :)

What a week...Friday

So, they made me go to school for four days this week and do absolutely nothing. By yesterday afternoon I was feeling so bored and isolated I felt like I'd go mad. I am definitely not one of those people who can do a job just for money and be happy with it. I feel a bit really pathetic for finding having nothing to do so bad when there are people out in the world with problems and lived unimaginably worse, but there you go. 

On Wednesday, five minutes before my finish time, Mr Baek tells me they need to cancel my upcoming holidays because they've decided to run more "spring camps". Yeah, two days before my holiday starts, they tried to cancel it. I was really polite and apologetic, but firm. I said I'd already booked tickets to Taiwan, so there was no way I could work. After about the third time, the message got through, and poor Mr Baek just looked really confused, and like 'oh crap... what do I do now'. So, me being the helpful person that I am helped him solve these problems that were so stumping him. Seriously - does the man have NO lateral thinking ability? He said that they needed three weeks of spring camp, two weeks for 2nd grade and one week for third. I asked how many students were in the 2nd grade groups. He said seven each. I was like, well why don't I just teach a class of 14 then, and cut it down by a week, then it all fits. At first he said no, that 14 was too many students. Then he just sat there for a minute, and then changed his mind and said that was a good idea. I also offered to work a Saturday afternoon. God knows why - I am too helpful for my own good. Hopefully my willingness to help earns me some points. So, I ended up having Friday off, my week for Taiwan, and then three days more holiday cancelled so I can teach two weeks of spring camp before the new school year starts of Friday March 2nd. Yeah, the new term starts on a Friday. I am bewildered. 

Anyway I *thought* my kindness in working on a Saturday had paid off, as Mr Baek told me that for spring camp I'd only have to come to school for the hours I had to teach - which was awesome! Seriously, I have MONTHS worth of after school classes planned. There's only so far ahead you can get. So desk time feels very fruitless at the moment.  So, I was happy with this deal. However, he tells me last thing yesterday that the principal says no, that it's the rules that I come in for eight hours every day. This is super frustrating, and really disappointing for me, but it's ok. If they're going to pay me for an eight hour day, that's totally fine that they want me at work for it. However, Mr Baek gives me my timetable, and neither of the weeks are actually made up of eight hour days... one is 7 and the next week is 7.5 hours a day. Soooo, if you can cut me down by an hour, why not make it two of three and save my sanity? God only knows.

The two weeks of class I have to teach are one 'smart class' and one 'horrible ugly class', Mr Baek tells me. Super. The 'ugly class', as he calls them, failed something or other, so have an extra week of English. Not sure what for - there's no curriculum or aim for this extra week, and one week of English class is not really going to improve their skills much. And the poor buggers have to be in class for five hours. Five hours of English class for kids who can't speak English? This is *not* a good idea.

But, aside from all that confusion and craziness - I'm going to Taiwan tomorrow! Woohoo!

G-Bra Tuesday

Just now one of my favourite students (B-C I'll call him) brought me his holiday homework essay to check. I taught him for a week during winter camp, and he's a lovely kid. When I first arrived I remember thinking maybe there was something a bit wrong with him. He acted pretty out of it, and when I had to ask the class questions, I was steered away from getting him to answer. I thought it was because everyone just thought he was hopelessly bad at English, or was a bit *special*. I thought 'well, he's not going to get any better at English if we ignore him', but obviously I didn't know any details, and wanted to be sensitive of the situation, so I left him well alone, but was just really friendly and encouraging whenever I got the chance to interact with him. I am so glad I was.

          His extremely well written essay told me about how his mother had recently died of diabetes and how he was struggling with his need to cry and his feelings of loneliness. Turns out he's actually very good with English. His mother must have died very close to when I arrived here. I am so, so glad that even though I didn't know or understand his situation that I was nice to him, and gentle and kind. He is so much that way himself. Poor kid. I really wish someone had told me. Well, maybe I don't. Perhaps if I had known before it would have made me awkward with the enormity of what he was going through. As it was I was able to treat him normally. He seems to respond to me really well - he always seems very pleased to see me, comes over and has a chat. From the outside and my very limited observation, he has a close set of friends helping him through. He is such a sweety. I hope he's in my after-school cases this year.

          However, I think it's a bit rough that no one gave me the heads up about this kid. If he'd struck me the wrong way, or I was a different kind of teacher I could have taken his behavior as insolence, unwillingness, or decided he 'just needed to work harder' and commenced pushing him, or picking him out, or something. Because I didn't know. No one gave me the chance to know or understand. I'm not sure of the reason, it could be anything, but I still think it was a delicate situation that I'm very lucky I handled correctly by chance. Good lesson here for me.

          As for B-C, he says things are starting to get better and that when he grows up he wants to go into sports massage. Awesome kid.

          In other, less weighty news, I made chocolate coated strawberries out of my big bowl of red deliciousness. I brought some to work to snack on. Helps make my day just a little bit brighter. Also, along with the return of the students comes … dun, dun, duuuuun….. *school lunches*! Oh yes! Every cloud does have a silver liningJ. Also, Taiwan on Saturday - hooray! And a small leaving party for Jen on Friday night (not so hooray about the leaving part, but I am adopting her cute as a button rabbit, Kyle). Also, after Taiwan, I have another week of work (possibly teaching some mysterious thing called "spring camp"?), and then a few days more holiday! I was going to try and cancel those last few days to use in summer, but I figure I'm having so much fun playing Star Wars, I'll just take some unpaid vacation in summer if I can and if I want/need to. I want to do a trip to Japan in summer.

          I swear I can almost feel spring around the corner. It's still cold. Google tells me it was actually -9 degrees again this morning, but I'm sure it was warmer. I can almost *smell* spring. Possibly just wishful thinking, but if the strength of my will can make the warmth come any sooner, I will use it. I am SO over huge jackets, scarves, hats, gloves. Dresses and shorts sound like heaven. When the heat does get here I am definitely going on another Forever 21 shopping trip. Just the thought of all the cute dresses and cardigans has me drooling.

          Dinner last night with the girls was great! Courtney's workmate Mike came too. He's a good guy, but my goodness he has a different way of doing things than me! I find some of his actions and conversation so strange. Like, he'll state something as fact, you know, like he knows about this thing for real. You'll discuss it a bit, and then he'll change his mind and state a different view as a fact. Where I'm from (ok, really just in my family and close friends) you use the words 'I think', or 'maybe', or 'In my opinion' to express something you don't actually *KNOW*. If you go around saying things as a fact, and either change the facts or I find out you are continuously and massively wrong, I'll just think you're an idiot. Not that I think Mike's an idiot, he's only reached the 'slightly ignorant' on the over-all scale so far. There's still chance for redemption J Mike, if you ever read this, I think you're an awesome bloke, but for goodness sake, stop stating your opinion as fact!

          Anything else? Well, I got my Jedi Sentinel to level 36 last night. I'm sad because by the time I get back from Taiwan both Mum and Dad will have advanced way beyond me, so I won't get to team up with them anymore. It was lots of fun while it lasted. But, I guess since the level cap if 50, I'll catch up eventually and there an chance of us being able to do end-game stuff together. It was such a neat way to feel connected to them J.

          Tonight I want to stop off at the glasses store on the way home to find out about getting some prescription sunglasses, and then have some dinner and do a flashpoint in SWTOR. Sadly, I'll have to do it with a pick-up group, so it'll be probably much messier than when I was with mum and dad L.

*         *             *

Haha, I got told I was teaching one class today. What I actually got to do was read a list of words to the students for 10 minutes at the end. Bummer! It's so hard to make that fun, for me or them. I just try to smile and sound happy while I do it. Kind of not why I want to be a teacher. I'm afraid that if/when things pick up where they left off before I got to do all my own teaching (which was ages ago now, what with my holidays, winter camp, and the two full weeks of Christmas lessons I got to teach before that) that I am going to start resenting my job, or even worse, losing respect for it. The loss of respect is already well on its way.

          The kids are neat though. I wore my new grey blazer to work today, and one of the girls in class goes "Teacher! Style…good!". Made my day a little bit, right there J. Another one of my favourite students, a girl this time wanted to tell me about her knitting. She was working on a scarf during winter camp, and said that now she's finished that and has also made some mittens for her mum. Nice J

          And on the way home I saw this. I'm pretty sure they mean Z-Bra, seeing as there's a zebra. Korean's can't really say 'Zee" though, it comes out a "Gee". This is pretty funny. Did no one even use a dictionary when designing this campaign? Fail. 

Also, I just got told I have no classes at all tomorrow. I may die at this desk.

Back to work Monday

Another long gap in posting. Doesn't really matter though, since pretty much the only person who reads this is my mum, and I've been able to talk to her lots J.

          So, my two weeks of holiday is sadly over and I'm back at work today. What did I do with my holiday time? I had a totally blast playing Star Wars! Bit bummed I have to go earn money and don't get to play all day, but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do :D. In the middle weekend of my two weeks off I went to the Taebaek snow festival, about 4 hours east of Seoul. I only went on the day trip version of the tour because I didn't want to ski the next day. I'm glad I did because the only people who did stay overnight made me super uncomfortable! Anyway, the day only group was a neat bunch of mainly Americans. The festival itself was not really worth the 8+ hours of bus trip involved in the trip, but the sculptures were pretty cool. And we had a nice lunch. Which we almost didn't get. Our trip leader wasn't very organized. We arrived at the festival (which was PACKED!) and all the restaurants were full up. There was a big area of outdoor food tents though. I said "why don't we eat there", and he was like "Oh no, you won't like that food". I said "What food won't I like", and he replied "weird food". Luckily the whole group was pretty gung-ho and so we got to go to the tents. And it wasn't 'weird food' at all. Not sure what the guy was on. I hate it how people assume what I will and won't eat based on the fact I'm white. Just 'cos the rest are picky eaters! Anywho, it was a good day out.

          What else? Not much. Just hanging out by myself and with the girls occasionally. We're going out for BBQ tonight, actually. I LOVE Korean BBQ! I asked if we could to try and counter the suck-y-ness of being back at work. All the students and teachers are back in today - doing what I have no idea, but I have nothing to do. I spent the morning making some after school class stuff, and then this afternoon researching things to do in Taipei. I'm excited about the Zoo and the food mostly. And that the temperature won't be below 0. Actually, I think I'm acclimatising. Any time the temperature is above freezing, I walk out the door and think "oh, it's warm today". And by 'warm' I mean like 3 degrees J. It's all relative. And I reckon winter is on its slow way out. Spring is keeping me going.

          For some reason there's a barrage of strawberries in Korea (or where I am anyway) at the moment. They a bit watery and not very strawberry-ish, but I'm enjoying my HUGE EXPENSIVE bowl of them. And have become a bit addicted to these strawberry tarts at Paris Baguette. Yum!