I was the Walter Cronkite of My Middle School!

I have about three months left in Korea. I’m out of here at the end of February.  School is winding down. I no longer teach the third grade students, so my schedule is wide open.  The semester ends sometime in December. I don’t know when, which should speak to the level of responsibility I have at my job.

The speaking tests are horrendous though. Because third graders take their final tests and have to apply (you heard me, apply) to high schools, they’ve already taken their English speaking tests. But I’m in the middle of correcting and grading the speaking tests of the first and second graders. For me it’s a herculean task.  Repetitive and boring and time consuming.  Especially the part where I have to correct the dialogues they’ve written. Some of them are quite funny, but mostly it’s drudgery.

This week I had my last Friday morning English broadcast. I started out loathing it, but I’ve come to appreciate it, begrudgingly. I do like being a nerd and telling the students about NASA and volcanoes. When will I ever have a job that has been do a broadcast again?  I guess my journalist days are over.

Broadcast equipment

Ms. Choi preparing for the broadcast

Broadcast room - Ms. Choi, broadcast students and me shamelessly taking photos of myself on the TVs

That blurry, dark image on the TV is me. My God! I'm famous.

Me and my brave student cohost for that week

Ha! Ms. Choi's expression cracks me up.

I’ve lived in Korea for two years and some change and still I don’t really speak the language. Oh sure, I can order food and drinks (poorly). I can get places in a taxi.  I can also give some classroom directions, though usually my pronunciation causes a bigger disturbance than the one which I was trying to control in the first place.  I’m a teacher, and I spend a lot of my time giving directions and explanations that the students can’t understand and therefore don’t follow.  There is a feeling of frustration and yes, on occasion, madness, that comes from repeating behavior that is ineffectual.  Please understand, I know it isn’t my student’s fault, and if the blame rests with anyone it rests with me.  But that doesn’t stop the madness, oh no.

The months of October and November mean speaking tests.  I get to test every student in the school and correct a thousand papers.  I love my job though, no joke.

This weekend the G-20 is meeting in Seoul.  Will North Korea exploit the international attention on South Korea and get up to some shenanigans?  Here’s to hoping that no, no they won’t.

Last weekend I visited my new, dear friend Kristin. She lives in a city just south of Seoul but still on the Seoul subway line.  I took a train though, not a subway, because it saves an hour.  My ticket was for standing room only. I was grumpy (female hormones + Molly has left Korea + being harassed by some student in my neighborhood) and I kept stepping on this boar of a tween who was sitting near me. He was playing a hand held video game where the object was to crack an egg and get the yolk into a bowl.  What sort of escapism is that?  He deserved to be stepped on.

We had a lovely evening. Lots of laughs. We ate kalgooksoo, which is a seafood soup. There were also many bottles of beer.  Between the beer at the restuarant and the beer at the bar Kristin bought some extra bedding.  The bar was what they call a Western bar.  That entails American decorations (cowboys and Indians) and a wide beer selection.  We met, as Kristin said, some salty guys.   One was American and the other, his boss, was Korean. They were engineers?  They harassed us, but at least Kristin had the gumption to pawn off our bill on them, which believe me, they deserved to pay.  If there was anything attractive about them I might have felt flattered instead of pestered and demeaned.  Nothing like boring, rude men with their assumptions to make me question my own attractiveness.  If these guys think they have a chance, what on Earth do I project?  The Korean guy was particularly rude. He thrust his cell phone at me within seconds seconds of meeting me and asked for my number.  He also kept pulling my arm hard to get my attention every other breath.  He had to be yelled at, loudly, twice, to finally stop it.  Fucker was going to give me a bruise. His salty American employee laughed at him and at me and he said  that I must be weak for a Korean man (who is obviously weak too) to bruise me.  The racism and sexism was just so deep at that table.  We were sitting by a window and a feral cat climbed up a tree.  Kristin and I did enjoy laughing at them though, which we did. We laughed a lot.

The next day, Sunday, was a difficult day.  A combination of my magic time (a euphemism my female students have used) and some beer ruined my sleep.  That Kristin is still my friend after that night is a testament to her fortitude and kindness.

The ginkgo trees are a bright yellow.  So lovely. If only they could be fixed that way all winter.

An escapee from a hospital with his IV bag on his head.

Shopping for gaudy Korean bedding. The only kind of Korean bedding.

The arm grabber and me. Intentional horrified face.

Kritin's coworker May, Salty American, Grabby Korean

Kristin and May

Autumn is nice! I was so worked up about the approaching winter that I distracted myself from fall’s comforts.  The temperature is mild and it’s sunny and dry.  And the foliage is still green.  It’s only blushing with a little red and yellow.  It’s chilly enough to even get me to drink my first hot coffee in ages.  I’m a cold coffee kinda gal.

Last weekend I, as usual, spent a hefty sum on some books.  Just this afternoon I finished The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.  Blarg. It’s a cloying parable.  It’s some super cheese.  Follow your heart, God gives you omens on how to fulfill your dreams, everything happens because that’s God’s will.  Just sickly full of quotable, uplifting things about life and God.  Lots of capitalized, flouncy nouns like Language of the World and Personal Legend and, I mean, just not the kind of thing for an atheist, would-be story telling snob.  Anyone want to read it? I’ll give you my copy with pleasure. And not just sarcastic pleasure.  I hadn’t heard of the author before a few months ago.  My co-worker Ms. Choi was reading it in the summer and we talked about a place name from the novel (though now I am not sure why she wanted to know where the city of Santiago was – to which I replied, I am sure there are a lot of cities with that name – because though the author is Brazilian, the book took place in Spain and Africa, and the main character’s name was Santiago and he didn’t go off and found his own city or anything.) After talking with Ms. Choi about the book I started to notice other people reading him, and a lot of his books on display.  Anyway, screw you, Paulo.  You want people to think there is only one person in the world they can love? I know it’s a popular sentiment, but how depressing.  Sounds like the kind of thinking about the world I’d expect from people with their head in the sand.  Yeah.

I need another novel to cleanse my pallet.  (I should probably stop eating my books, huh?)

Actually, before that I read I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe.  Hmm.  I am Charlotte Simmons is pretty much the opposite of The Alchemist in every way.  In Wolfe’s novel your personal goals are shitty and make you become a shitty person.  Plus it was a study of people’s pyschology and the culture of a certain kind of collegiate.  And the writing was good.  And, in the end, romantic relationships don’t save you, they further the girl’s journey in becoming an image-obsessed social climber.

At work I’m testing all eleven of my third grade classes.  It’s a lot of paperwork.  Our Halloween party was scheduled for tomorrow, and thank goodness they moved the day because this lady is not prepared.  My English teachers were really generous with our budget and bought me a really nice Halloween costume.  What will I be wearing?  I’ll be wearing a hanbok.  That’s traditional Korean women’s garb.  Isn’t that thoughtful of them?  Yes, yes it is.

I have an ear infection. This afternoon Shin Minyoung went with me to a nearby clinic so I could get antibiotics.  They stuck things deep into my ear which tickled and hurt too.  Afterwards they sat me in a chair in the lobby and before I knew it the nurse has thrust two things that look like blow driers over my ears.  I had to hold them there.  It felt as ridiculous as it sounds.

Photos!

This ginkgo tree at my school turned yellow before most trees even got a hint of it.

Look-they stare at me all of the time. So I can photograph them doing laundry or washing veggies.

On the train going over the Han River

I'm a millionaire. In won. (Hey Kristi, do these bills look familiar?)

Language and Cultural Barrier at Work Strikes Again

Late last night I got it into my head that I should start stringing together the little videos I made in Ireland last summer because it would be fun and something kind of creative for me to do.  I didn’t get to sleep till past three a.m, so I was ragged and glazed for work today.

Some of my Korean co-teachers want me to give my students a chance to take the speaking test even if they missed my test without an excuse.  (Hell, I’m not even sure what sort of system they have concerning absences.  Are the students accountable for their absences?  I keep posing that question to them.  Do they have a legitimate excuse for missing our class?  What is the system?  And I never get an answer because I’m constantly misunderstood.  Are my co-worker’s English skills not strong enough to interface with a native English speaker?  Am I failing to persistently and clearly ask the questions I need to ask? I mean, am I failing at communication and not understanding my coworker’s needs?  What are the questions I even need to ask?) I’ve already put my foot down and refused to grant make-up tests to students without legitimate excuses, but since Ms. Yoon got the backing of the older English teachers, do I then have to grant make-up tests for other classes?  I’m  just hoping it all fades away soon so I won’t have to deal with this behemoth of nonsense.

I’m much less satisfied with the job and with my performance as a teacher.  I’m tired of being a teacher without having any formal education on how to be an effective teacher.  At least my frustration indicates that I do care about doing this job well, if I’m to look on the bright side. (I love this NPR show Radiolab.  A recent rebroadcasted show was about deception and talked about the work of some folks who were showing how self-deception can lead to a happier and more successful person.  For instance, they asked all of these very biologically and psychologically explicit questions to a group of swimmers.  The questions were along the lines of “Do you enjoy shitting?”, “Have you ever had a fantasy where you want to be raped or rape someone?” etc etc. The assumption that they were making, and I agree with, is that everyone, if they were honest with themselves, would answer in the affirmative.  The swimmers who denied these natures did statistically significantly better in competitions than the swimmers who were self-aware and honest.  The idea is that while they are psyching themselves up before a race the self-deceivers can inflate their own confidence much more effectively.  Their conclusion is that realists are pretty much doomed.   I thought I should deserve a prize for seeing shit as it is, instead of being more prone to depression.  Apparently honesty isn’t the best policy.)  So, why the tremendous tangent?  Firstly, I felt like it, but secondly because I don’t think my frustration proves I care about doing a good job.  If I cared about doing a real quality job I’d be doing a real quality job.  But I’m throwing in the towel. They’ve invested under two weeks of training in me, and it’s all been incredibly useless.  It was a good idea that suffered in the extreme from lack of organization and content.  Well, any NSET in a public school system knows what I’m talking about. At one of the last training seminars I went to there was a lot of talk about what a joke the whole thing was.  (And I’m serious about education and training.  My God I wanted it.  I was so looking forward to it when my school told me I was going to a two-day training for NSETs.)

Once again, when the Peace Corps seemed on the horizon, dealing with the cultural and professional conflicts here seemed more like a safe testing ground for the future, but the Peace Corps doesn’t seem to be in my future now.  I’m pretty sure Vincent Wickes in the Peace Corps’ New York offices hates me.  I’ve sent him my appeal letter three times, and on the third time I asked for an email confirming that he’d received my documents.  It’s been a couple of days and I haven’t heard a word.  I definitely have the right email address this time because he very unhelpfully sent me an email, responding to a follow up email I sent asking if he’d received my documents, saying that he hadn’t.  No wonder my afternoon snack consists of impotent rage.

Speaking of learning emotional maturity, an English speaking couple were sitting behind me at a coffee shop last night and they were breaking up.  I loved them both immediately because she was Korean and he was of African heritage, but I couldn’t place his accent.  Maybe English, or maybe from an African country. It was a nice accent, anyway.  They were so stoic, plus they had the honorable audacity to be a mixed race couple in a country that aggressively dislikes it.  At work I nearly cried while dumping my lunch in the bins because I was sitting with some English teachers and they didn’t fully understand what I was saying.

I found the major reason why the Peace Corps never got back to me.  I had the wrong email addresses.  I forwarded them yesterday, and I know I got at least one of the email addresses correct because I received an automated “out of the office until” message.  So cross your fingers that they reaffirm my rejection quickly.

At work I’ve been steadily plowing through testing all of my twenty-seven classes.  The principal bought all of these dried bamboo sticks for the teachers.  Thems for hittin’.  Good thing I brought mine to my last class of the day.  First grade boys, with the infamous sexually aggressive Subin, and only seven of 33 did the preparation work for the test that they’d been assigned.  Little MK took the ones without the work into the hall and whacked their palms with my new bamboo stick and reprimanded them verbally.  At one point Subin kept saying “boobs” to me, and I told him to shut it, though all I actually said was “that’s not funny” and looked away.  After coming back from being punished he walked past me at the podium and blew into my ear.  Jesus!  Seriously, how has this 12 year old kid learned to sexually harass the female teachers?  Little MK says that he is a major problem and that, in her years of teaching (maybe 7 years?  I’m not sure) she has never had a kid who behaved this way.  If he persists, he is one the track to become a sexual predator or having the shit kicked out of him – well, only if he goes to Itaewon, the foreigner district.  I’m considering taking him out of the next class if he pulls this kind of shit again and yelling at him until he cries.  But it’s also hard to make myself care enough, either.  Like I’ve said, Korean women are so permissive to creeps.  I hope it’s just some demented stage that’ll he get out of in a few months.  Or that it isn’t even demented and that I can read about it in a child development book, and he’ll grow out of it and be a normal dude.

So, why did this class perform so so poorly?  Of all of the classes doing this work, they were by far the worst.  As I’ve said before, if you have consistent trouble with kids performing an assignment, as a teacher you have to look to yourself.  Have I not prepared them?  Is the work over their heads?  But the Korean educational system throws a major kink into the works by passing students no matter what their grade.  You heard me.  No matter what their grade.  I think they will have trouble getting accepted into a high school, but that isn’t a reasonable goal for students.  How can an elementary student understand that?  That’s a really long term goal.  I think they are doing their population a huge disservice.  While I’m giving them their grades, I can take a gander at their midterm grades.  Students fail, abysmally fail, like below 50′s, very very often.  It’s horrendous, and all systems are flawed, I definitely haven’t worked in the American educational system so I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but I can tell you that not holding students accountable for their work is fucking the students over.  They also are sort of tip toeing around another thing.  I think they are trying to tell me that I can’t give students zeroes.  If they don’t do one iota of the work – don’t finish the worksheet, hell, don’t even try to answer a single question,  and can’t perform the dialogue or answer one question, why do they get any points?

Screw this peninsula.

Nude Student Strikes Again

Subin (the nudist) predictably spent my entire lesson, where I explained the test, asleep.  But luckily I still had a male student in that class pull his shirt up twice and show me his nipples.  My God, why?  This class has gratuitous, teenaged boy nipples.

I’m in the process of testing twenty-seven classes.  Twenty-seven!  I only had one planning period today, plus another solid hour of extra-curricular English Cafe and make-up speaking tests, so I was pretty much shot.  Ms. Choi was breathing down my neck for me to chose and rewrite a news article for the English morning broadcast.  I’d asked her to confirm that we were indeed doing the broadcast on Monday, but she said it was cancelled.  I didn’t find that we did have to do it until Tuesday afternoon.

Speaking Test

The easiest speaking tests to grade are for the students who didn’t do any of the work.  Your zeros save my time.