Mondays: Am I Supposed To Pay Attention?

Ah, mondays. It's the same the world around. The return to the daily grind from the sweet release of the weekend. Time to put that suit back on, get back on the expressway for gridlock, and time for those dang meetings.

Every monday morning in Korea, we have a meeting for all teachers. The meeting begins with everyone standing up, looking at the flag and then sitting back down. This is the only part of the meeting that makes sense to me. The rest of the meeting, which can last for over 30 minutes, is made up of different teachers speaking Korean and the vice principle speaking Korean. To help break up the monotony, there are hand-outs... in Korean.

Now, I have quite a pile of these handouts in Korean. For those of you who forgot, I do not speak or read or write Korean. So why do I need these handouts? No one translates them for me. No one interprets for the speakers in the meeting. I just sit here, on-line, catching up on my email. It's strange to me, that no on has ever offered to interpret for me. I hope it's nothing important like the emergency evacuation practices or what to do in case of Soviet invasion.