Pretty big day Tuesday

Phew, what a day! And it's not over yet. I had to teach three regular classes alone today, because my co-teacher was really busy with something else. It was nice to get some teaching totally to myself, and things went well, but the class sizes are well beyond what I'm used to dealing with, so things got noisy. The kids were mostly very well behaved, and I had fun. I'm quite tired from having to constantly speak so loudly though. I jokingly told Mr Baek I was tired from all that work and he was like "Oh, well why don't you take next week off work?". He wasn't joking! I told him that if I did that, I'd have no holiday days left to take in summer, and he seemed to understand. I'll bet the prinicpal wouldn't have actually let me take days off anyway. Mr Baek has offered me things like that before and then had to re-neg because of the principal.

Anyway, halfway through today I'm told I have two hours of after-school class to teach today. Ok, thanks for all the notice. I asked Mr Baek how many kids and what level, and he just said... maybe 10, and maybe low or middle level (whatever THAT means?!?). Haha... oh dear. So, I pick a nice, easily adapted lesson plan I'm familiar with to get me through this first day. I assumed class would run at the time I was used to 3.40-5pm. Well, in Korea, assuming just makes an ass out of ME and no one else. The after-school lady comes and tells me I have 14 students, one from 1st grade, about seven from 2nd grade, and six-ish from 3rd grade. Yeah, three grade levels in one class... crap-sticks. What's more, these classes run from 4.40-6.20pm. Yeah, without warning, they want me to stay at school until after 6 :( It just keeps getting better.

It's in my contract that I only work 8 hours a day though, and I've been at work since before 9am. The school is a real stickler for the rules (sometimes luckily, sometimes not). I just innocently asked Mr Baek what time I was supposed to be coming to work, and he realised the problem. He cut tonight's lesson short by an hour, and told me that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I only come to work at 10am. The rest of the week is regular old 9-5. So, that's all ok, I guess. Now I only have 4 hours of after-school classes, which means I'll have to be in 18 hours of regular classes. Scheduling nightmare for whoever get's that job... and I think it's Mr Baek. No wonder he was so busy today.

OK, today's 5:

1) I have a new fruit that I like: the kumquat. It's like a tiny citrus fruit that you can eat the skin of. Yummy.

2) I managed not to work nine hours today :)

3) I'm going out to dinner again, with Courtney and Nyasha.

4) I had fun teaching the classes solo.

5) Lunch today was better. Beef stirfry - pretty good :)