All Is Fair In Love And War

After having nearly a week off for Korean Thanksgiving (Chuseok) I was left with a quandry. I hadn't shaved in a week, and I kind of liked the scruffy look. I knew my school would hate it. On days when I had gone to school after not shaving I would hear from the other teachers "Oh, you didn't shave today. Why didn't you shave today? I think you should shave." Well, this left me with an idea. Beard warfare.

So, I went to school with facial hair and they hate it.... so I love it. The students like it. The teachers don't. My co-teacher while driving me home friday said "Please shave." I said no. Then he said "some people look dirty with a beard." I said "but I'm clean." I think that if anyone says anything else my response is going to be "Jesus had a beard." I mean, how do you come back from that? You pretty much can't.

Am I being petty? No. Far from it. This is passive resistance. Didn't Gahndi preach that? I am like a modern Gahndi... but in Korea... and not really fighting injustice. But, it's nice to needle my school with something that they can't really change. I can't wait until my demo lesson approaches at the end of October. I'm sure they will "suggest" that I shave. It ain't gonna happen.

I'm a rebel with absolutely no cause.

Happy Birthday To Me

Monday was my birthday. Now, I turned 30... but that's in Korean age. Everywhere else in the world I'm considered to be 29 years old. I'll cross that 30 bridge next year. To celebrate my birthday Victoria invited me over to her place for dinner. Now, she was in the hospital last week for chest pains, and had an angioplasty, so for her to do anything was just beyond amazing. She was feeling very good though. So, for dinner she mad spring rolls, salad (one without tomatoes for me, she knows me so well), bagette with black olive spread from her recent trip to Italy, spaghetti with shrimp (she thought they were real shrimp when she bought it, but they were in fact made from flour, they're good though). For dessert she bought a cheese cake. It was just so great of her to do this for me. I've been feeling so burned out and anti-social lately, so this was more appreciated than you can imagine. She also got me a couple of small things. Here are the highlights.

Punishment?

There are several students being "punished" right now. They are squatting in the office, waiting to talk to their teacher that is punishing them. However, they still have their cell phones and are just text messaging. Is that really a punishment? We have kids frequently who are in a kind of "in school suspension" where their desks are in the hall outside of the teacher's office. However, the kids have their phones and mp3 players, and are usually just sleeping all day. How is this a type of punishment? I don't get it. Doesn't seem to teach anything to me. Doesn't seem to make them behave any better. Doesn't stop anything.

Careers

I took an online career planner survey thing. After answering the questions it suggests careers that are best suited to your skills and personality and such. Here are the results. I hate the first suggestion. I like number 24. What do you think?

1.
ESL Teacher

2.
Foreign Language Instructor

3.
Special Effects Technician

4.
Actor

5.
Corporate Trainer

6.
Computer Trainer

7.
Director of Photography

8.
Driving Instructor

9.
Director

10.
Professor

11.
Set Designer

12.
Costume Designer

13.
Producer

14.
Casting Director

15.
Musician

16.
Comedian

17.
Composer

18.
Occupational Therapist

19.
Arts Administrator

20.
Makeup Artist

21.
Magician

22.
Foreign Service Officer

23.
Economic Development Officer

24.
Taxidermist

25.
Customer Service Representative

26.
Association Manager

27.
Industrial Designer

28.
Industrial-Organizational Psychologist

29.
Technical Writer

30.
Recreation Director

31.
Interior Designer

32.
Home Inspector

33.
Exhibit Designer

34.
Desktop Publisher

35.
Editor

36.
Librarian

37.
Human Resources Specialist

38.
Wedding Planner

39.
Office Machine Repairer

40.
Potter

Sick Student

Whenever a student is tired, they say "I'm sick." This is how they let get the teacher to let them sleep at their desk with their head down. It's pretty annoying. Well, this morning a girl told me she was sick. My answer was "so am I." She said she had a cold. I said "so do I." This didn't make her happy. So, she put her head down. Fine, I don't really feel like arguing this point anymore. I mean, the kids that want to sleep during class, it's better if they're asleep, then they're not disrupting class. Well, next thing I know she has her mp3 player headphones on. I Make her take them off... she's sick. A few minutes later she was talking to her classmate next to her. I yelled at her and told her to stop talking to people... she's sick. Basically I took away all the fun from being "sick." I didn't let her listen to music, talk to people, play with the girl's hair in front of her. She had to sit at her desk with her head down. It was pretty awesome. Next time a student plays this "I'm sick" game with me, I might just move their desk to the front of the classroom... because they're sick.

Made In Korea

I'm going to start buying some nicer things from Korea for my home when I move back to the U.S. The plan is to buy one thing per month and have it shipped home. This is the first thing that I bought. It is a traditional paper craft here. The figures are 3 traditional dancers. It's very 3-dimensional.

Chiro And Crafts

Yesterday I made a trip to Songtan to visit a chiropractor, which is a very rare find in Korea. I find it odd that they embrace all kinds of alternative medicine here but not chiropractic. Anyway, it turns out that the chiropractor is from Farmington, Michigan. A local boy! He adjusted me and eleviated my major sciatica pain, which is really bad lately due to some elevated stress levels in my life. I will visit him three times a week for a while. It's good to know that I can get a native English speaker to help me out.

After the adjustment, I met with Jude, who lives in Songtan. We went to a nice little Italian restaurant. Now, Italian food here in Korea is generally speaking quite bad. As a rule the sauce is incredibly runny and watery. Many times I eat the pasta and just think "If you left this on the stove for 2 more minutes, it wouldn't be half bad."

After eating we discovered that the restaurant had a section of paint-it-yourself cups. Feeling rather capricious, we both took some time to decorate cups. We will get them back in a week or so after they are glazed and fired. It was actually a really nice way to spend an afternoon. Here are some pics of my cup. I'll post the after shots when I get it back.

Gifts

My last class was meeting for an extra English class. So, with this being their second English class of the day, they really didn't want to do anything. I had them play pictionary for candy. When I was passing out the candy to the winning team, one of them said they were tired of candy, and how about chocolate next time? I said "how about nothing next time." Never look a gift horse in the mouth. I can't believe complaining about free candy. Crazy kids.

Tourguide

Last night I met a new teacher here in town. She just arrived in Korea on Friday. Victoria and I took her to dinner and for a coffee at Soda Star. We also took her to the market and showed her arround for a bit. It was refreshing to show someone around. I showed her the good things here, which is helping to change my negativity around a bit. She seems like a very nice woman.

Nice Teachers

Yesterday was my first day back since having my nervous breakdown here at work. It went surprisingly well. I'm very certain that the teachers understand how bad it's been for me and how frustrated and upset I've been. One teacher gave me a bag of candy. Another gave me a piece of candy. Best of all, no one has bothered me with paperwork about the pay change or anything. I think they must understand that my sanity is hanging on by a thread. I should have breakdowns more often. They're very cleansing.

Pink Eye

I don't understand this but it's pink eye season in Korea. How does pink eye have a season? I understand seasonal things like allergies since mold and pollen and things follow seasonal levels, but pink eye? I just don't get it. Anyway, my kids have fallen like flies to this itchy puffy fate. In my first class this week there were only 7 students that showed up. That's 7 out of 36. That was the most dramatic reduction, but all the classes are missing at least 10 students. The crazy thing is that the Korean teachers told me that many of the kids want to get pink eye, so they purposefully itch their sick friends' eyes and then try to infect themselves. It apparently works. So far this week it has been pointless for me to be here. Out of 4 classes we only did work with one of them. The rest were just given some free time since it is pointless to press on when you will have to repeat it in a few days. I reminded my kids to wash their hands frequently with hot water and soap. I'm not going to let anyone touch me.

Survival Strategy

Well, after all the stress of Thursday, I did not go to school on Friday. I'm still not 100% sure what I'm going to do about my school. I'm going to try and stick it out as long as possible. How will I survive? That's going to involve me listening to my mp3 player a lot at work, since headphones are the universal "leave me alone" symbol. Other than that, I need my school to understand how frustrated and really hurt I am. Unfortunately, I do not want to discuss these things with my school. I don't need to hear another empty "I'm sorry." They're not sorry. They're sorry that everything didn't work out to their advantage.