In High Form

Today I am tired and stressed and wondering if I can possibly make it through a year of this gong-show school. The boss/owner here is all money and no discussion. Some kids didn't show up today because of a swine flu scare and now I am supposed to phone teach them all for 10 minutes on wed. thurs. and fri.! That is 50 min. a night plus, my monthly phone teaching is due on Friday, and I have another five classes to do for that. This means I have aprox. 10 hours of phone teaching to do in the next 3 nights. I will be here at the school from 9 in the morning to 9 or even 10 at night! I do not know why the heck I thought I wanted to teach kids! I don't even like kids, and now all I see are their snotty little faces staring (or yelling) at me for 8 hours a day! AHHHHH!!!

Other than that I am fine. I guess life is about making money so that you can stop working and actually enjoy life. A little (or a lot) or pain for a little gain. I already can't wait to go back to school. What a life of luxury. Time to think and write and contemplate.

The boss lady doesn't speak much English so we can't really even talk to her, but everyone says she is like a tyrant, and so far I would have to agree. If she actually looked at the amount of time I am required to be here she would have to say something! 30 hour work week? That idea is history. What a bummer. So much for finding an easy way to make money.

I think Nash and I will just have to come up with really great (but cheap) ways of making our time off sooooo great that we forget all this zaney school stuff.

I think the worst of it is class management. This kids are always yelling, and the Korean ideal for a classroom is everyone sitting at their best behavior, and there are cameras watching the classroom, so I always have to be on patrol to ensure no kids are leaning on their hands or up off their chairs. This is a no no to our boss lady. Two teachers got 'warnings' in the last week or so. The words "What is she trying to do, fire everybody?" are said a lot in the teachers room.

Sorry I don't have nice stuff to write. I guess I just needed to vent about this school business. I don't think it is my pot of tea. I have to make this all worth it some how.

I think of these kids lives sometimes though, I find my days long, but a lot of these kids have just as long of days. They are expected to know sooo much and in a foreign language at that! I teach 4,7,9,11, and maybe 12 year olds. The age thing is really different in Korea, so I never really know how old the kids are.

Well, I guess I should go. I have a double block next with some class called P8 3-3 whatever that means, I will teach some random ciriculum and have them repeat words. I don't even believe in their education philosophy here. The kids are all aces at filling out worksheets, but can't even understand when I issue commands like "write" and "copy the sentence" What a Crock!!


Yes, yes, pessimism is in high form today.
Maybe the sun will come out tomorrow.

Katelyn.