My laptop’s keyboard remains fucked, though it’s been scanned for viruses. Someone suggested that its not a virus, but a hardware problem. I don’t know of any Apple stores in Seoul, though. Grumble. I dislike being unable to write well and work on it, especially now that my interests lie outside of youtube and facebook. I’m currently starting the behemoth Peace Corps application process. Not to mention researching every other damned idea I have for my next step.
Last weekend I went on the teacher’s trip. We took a fancy bus down to a southern island in Korea. It was beautiful, but our alcoholic and condescending principal insisted that we tour a children’s museum about space exploration, instead of taking a boat tour of the amazing coastline. The musum could fit in a toilet stall in the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. At the end of July Korea will join the ranks of the US, China, Isreal and Japan in having satelite launching capabilities. A big step, surely, and we certainly were near the launch site, even if we weren’t learning anything about it. And, as I kept telling some of my English co-teachers, why did you take me here? I’m an American, we have NASA. They thought it was funny. Theywere equally displeased at being denied the treat of natural beauty.
Our Principal’s douchebagery aside, I did have a good time. The older, female teachers were universally welcoming, inclusive, attentive, fun, and, even if they had very very limited experience with English, went out of their way to communicate with me.
This week, it is difficult to put the Principal’s douchebagery aside, because he has been blaming the Korean teachers in the English department for the poor enrollment in the English summer camp they are in charge of, and I am to teach. Only four middle school students had signed up for the camp, and the minimum number is twelve. The principal punished the English department by denying us money in our budget for an English department meeting and end of semester dinner, and has in general been insulting and assigning blame to the Korean English teachers.
Korea, and Asia in general, isn’t known for its frankness, but finally my main English co-teacher, Mrs. Lee, said that the reason the enrollment in camp is so small this year is because instead of having a two week camp, we are having a three week camp, and students will not want to spend half of their vacation in school from Monday until Friday. What a revelation! Of course that is why enrollment was low. And whose decision was it to make the English summer camp three weeks long?
The douchebag.
What an anal wart.