flat hunting.

I've had enough of this house. I need to move. I've been looking at rooms for the last four days. Hence not posting yesterday out of utter exhaustion. I still haven't found the perfect place, but have seen some decent flats.

Most of the nice ones are a lot more expensive and at the upper levels of my budget, but might be worth the extra money.

A few of the places felt like going back in time 150 years.

One of them had a loo that was covered wall to wall, ceiling to floor in pictures of Jesus. Another had showers in each of the rooms and wallpaper reminiscent of a time when Victoria was in power.

A couple had promise, but the flat mates would be ten years younger than me and I don't need to play mommy to anyone.

Finding a flat in London is tiring and difficult. That's all I can say right now. Hopefully I'll find something soon... More on all of this to come, right now I'm catching up on my Sunday post. Apologies if you came looking and found nothing...

a break from the tales of thailand

I'm sorry, dear reader, but I must take a break from Thailand and come back to reality here in Korea for a moment. I apologize in advance for the negative tone this post is bound to assume, but this blog has been so much about my life in Korea, and that hasn't ended yet.

Another payday came and went with no transfer into my account. It was four days late again. The reason I was given was that there was extra paperwork to be done since it was my last pay. This led me to believe that the extra paperwork was due to my severance - makes sense, doesn't it? Well, I have now been informed that I will only be getting my severance in late September or early October, which makes it pretty useless as it's meant to help me get by until I find another job.

I can't wait to say good riddance to all of the bullshit that the Korean education system has dealt me, but I suppose that will have to wait yet another month. That is, of course, if I get the money. They didn't even ask me for my account number in Canada, so how were they planning on paying it to me? I can only assume that they would have deposited it (or tried to) into my Korean account, which, as of tomorrow will be closed.

I have finally received my pay for the after school program that I worked at last semester - the semester that finished six weeks ago. At least I've been told that it's in my account, I'll know for sure tomorrow when I go to close it.

I should have known that I wouldn't get out of here without any more problems, and I suppose I was stupid and naive to think that I would... but this place has become the height of ridicule for me. I really don't want to be mean, but the work ethic here is terrible, nothing gets done on time, people are lazy and stupid, sexist and racist, and discriminatory against foreigners.

I will be relieved and happy to be back in a country where women are respected, where contracts are adhered to (and if they're not, there is recourse), where I am not treated as a lesser being, and where you can usually count on getting what's due, on time. Good riddance Korea. I thought I might be a little sad to see you go, and I thought I might get a little nostalgic, but the Gimhae Office of Education has tainted and destroyed any good feelings I had. Canada, home of my heart, get ready, cause here I come!

not so cool school

you have to read the previous post "is it friday already" for this to have full impact... so go do that.

now, isn't school #2 so cool? i swear that thirty seconds after posting that my co-teacher from school #2 called. i shouldn't have answered. keep in mind it's 8PM here... turns out that the principal decided today that i should actually go to school and sit around and do nothing all day!!! WTF??!?!?! my co-teacher told him there is nothing for me to do, that the computer doesn't even work, and that i'd already been told not to come in, but NO, he insisted that i have to be there. so i told her that i'm taking a sick day - which is no lie, i am sick... and that i'm going to the doctor tomorrow... which i was planning on doing anyway... along with going to the bank etc...

i told her to make sure that i don't have to go in next week when everyone else in the entire school will be away on a field trip... since that's when i'm supposed to be going to japan. fuckers. i'm so pissed.

this is one of the biggest problems with foreign teachers in korean public schools - they don't understand that a little bit of leeway with the foreign teachers goes a long way. that we don't have the same work load as the koreans and spend half of our day sitting around doing nothing to begin with... so why not let us enjoy korea a little more and give us that time off? it wouldn't bother me so much if there weren't so much disparity in the system... like i said at winter vacation about people going to thailand for a month or more... and i was at school every day. anyway... i digress...

co-teacher just called back and said that it's ok for me to "take a rest" tomorrow. she also asked about next week and he said that if i wanted to go to school that i could, but if i didn't want to then i didn't have to. what does that mean? is it some kind of passive aggressive attempt to get me to go sit there all day? when she said goodbye, she told me to have a nice trip... i mean it's pretty obvious, isn't it? sit around with nothing to do? or go to japan? let me see... ...

thieves

somebody STOLE my umbrella at school today. f*!%ing kids!!!! i mean, WTF? it was in my 'shoe box' which means that someone opened the door (which has my name on it) and took it out. i didn't leave it lying around, it was IN my shoe box... what's next? my shoes? no one at school seemed to think it was a very big deal. but i do. i just bought it. not to mention that this means there are thiefs at our school... you'd think someone would be at least slightly concerned about that. but, no! it's just the waegooks umbrella. i bet if a korean teacher had something stolen they'd be searching every kids house. argh. just pisses me off.

i have been offered the opportunity to teach extra classes at another middle school for ten weeks. it'll be two classes on monday afternoon from 3:30 to 5:15. they're going to pay me very well for it, so that makes me happy. though it will be a lot of work - four days with five classes!!! and i'm already complaining about having three! but it's only ten weeks and the money is too good to say no. i can teach them whatever i like and apparently they're pretty good. grade three... but i'll deal. they want to take the classes, so maybe they'll actually be really good... anyway, starts next monday, will let you all know!

signing off. happy monday!

it's only tuesday

all day the one thought that continued to run through my head was that it is only tuesday. for some reason i felt like it was at least wednesday... but no... my first five class day of the week and it went on forever.

my first two classes of the day were great - well-behaved, attentive, and smart. i had third period off and went for a little walk. fourth class was pretty bad. they kept pretending like they didn't know anything - i don't know if they just don't understand me, or if they just really don't know the answers, but we're doing some pretty basic stuff that other classes already had a great handle on. anyway, it wasn't the best... but it wasn't the worst.

my lunch break was destroyed by a "meeting" of some group that i'm a member of just because of where i sit in the office. of course, no one speaks english, so the conversation was lost on me for over an hour. not to mention that i couldn't eat most of what was available at the restaurant. i managed to eat some fish and brocolli and a little soup, but when the main part of the meal is rice, i'm screwed. it did nothing to put in a good mood. i've taken to going for a twenty minute walk at lunch as well, it gets my blood flowing, gives me some time away from all the korean and the kids - but today there was no walk - which put me in an even worse mood. we got back to school four minutes before class started - not even enough time to check email, let alone gain some composure - and i still had two classes to go.

i have made it very clear to all of my classes that they have to be in their teams and ready to go when i arrive. since i go to each class, they have plenty of time to get ready for me, but of course they weren't. no skin off my back, right? they'll just lose a sticker. but i expect them to at least settle down once i arrive. but no. they just kept on acting like the crazy little monsters they are. my korean "co-teacher" didn't do anything to make matters better. she did nothing, actually. i have specific instructions from the doctor to use my voice as little as possible... yet, i had already taught three classes that day. i wasn't feeling great. she was still under the impression that i just have a "sore" throat and not a serious throat infection. anyway, she didn't do anything to calm the class down and i had to take control.

one girl wouldn't stop chatting with her friend so i sent her to the back of class to stand with her hands in the air. that didn't deter any of them. i asked them a simple question - "what are the days of the week?" they are in first grade middle school - this is easy stuff that they learned a long time ago - we were doing a refresher. but not a single one of them answered. they just kept on chatting with eachother in kroean and fooling around. so i stopped the lesson. i told them if they didn't want to learn, then we could do something else - and then had the entire class raise their hands above their heads. a few minutes later i asked them what they liked better... learning english or being punished. of course they said learning, so we continued the lesson (hands down). i re-asked them for the days of the week and got all the answers in seconds... so what was wrong the first time around? anyway, i eventually had to make one of the teams stand up and raise their hands - about ten minutes to the end of class. and they stayed that way til the end. i need them to know that i'm serious and they need to give me the respect that they would their korean teachers... this is an on-going theme, is it not?

anyway, it was a really bad class, my throat was killing me, but sixth period made up for it. i was still with the same co-teacher, but now she was mad at me because i punished the previous class! WTF??? anyway, sixth went really well, then my co-teacher (not the good one) says, "we need to have a meeting about that class."

so what does she tell me? that she thinks i shouldn't punish them at all and that i was wrong and she's very angry about it. well, what does she expect, i say. she's the one who is supposed to be dealing out the punishments and keeping them in line... so where was she when i needed her? not to mention that i shouldn't even be speaking and that i didn't get a lunch break, and that i always do everything for all the classes, when i'm supposed to be assisting... not creating lesson plans and doing it all on my own. she was speechless - almost - finally after ten minutes of her trying to make me feel bad for punishing the rotten buggers, she decides to try and make me feel bad about being sick and her going to class without me yesterday! will it NEVER end with that? like i'm making myself sick on purpose. what does she think i am a middle school student? so then i get pissed and tell her that there is no way i'm having this conversation with her, that i don't need to justify my illness to her and that if she felt so rotten yesterday then why did she insist that i stay behind and rest. i offered several times yesterday to go to class anyway, and she always said no... don't come back a day later and try to make me feel bad about it. argh! anyway, sorry this is such a rant... i just really need to vent somewhere, and where better than here?

i just hope she gets over it and doesn't give me any more trouble... i teach more than half my classes with her... but i've been at the school longer than her, and she doesn't know me at all. she hasn't even tried to get to know me. hasn't asked me a single question about myself or anything... so who's really got the problem? i think she just doesn't like me cause i speak english and hers sucks and i make her realize that... anyway, will update with more as it becomes available... probably tomorrow... for now, have a great tuesday...

because i LOOOOOVE laryngitis SO much!

i can't believe it.

as you probably know i have laryngitis. i spent the weekend (for the most part) resting my voice and taking care of my throat. but today it was still bad, and the doctor told me on friday to go back today regardless... so i did. he said that it's looking a little better, but that i need to continue to rest my voice and take more medication until it's better. when i told him i'm a teacher and i can't rest my voice he looked worried. so did i. i was sure that the school doesn't really believe that i'm sick, they think i just have a sore throat and that i'm making a big deal about it. so i got the doctor to write me note. i figured this would at least legitimize my not being able to talk in class.

well, of course not. this is korea where people get sick for three hours and then are better again. does no one in this country realize that my body is different from theirs? physiologically asians and caucasions have different reactions to different things, and i'm no exception - their drugs don't work on me. so after i returned to school with the note and told Jo she acted like it was all ok since it would (hopefully) be a few days... then she went to tell the other teachers that i work with and they were all angry that i was sick.

"can't you think of something to do in class where you don't need your voice?" she asked me.
ya, cause keeping my mouth shut keeps them in line. that's for sure. wtf? she started getting all "well you know how it makes us feel?" to which i said no because she hadn't told me. and then she starts going on about how all teachers get sore throats, and it's normal and there isn't really anything wrong with me... and can't i just go to class like normal?

basically i've been teaching their classes for them for the last six months and now i can't talk they can't return the favour! this is called "co-teaching" for a reason! it's not "let the foreigner do everything." i already make all the lesson plans, and then follow through in class, they never do anything - even discipline, which i found out i should not be doing at all! ie. no other foreign teachers have to do it, their koreans do it for them. so what's up with my school? and they have to make me feel guilty about having a throat infection that i couldn't have prevented! what if i broke my leg? or got hit by a car? what would they do then? bring the kids down to the hospital for their lesson? it's not like i'm saying that i'll stay home all day, i offered to go to class and be there, but that i can't project my voice or talk for long periods of time. of course, while i'm telling her all of this my voice is cracking and my throat is aching and she STILL can't see that this is real?? i'm just pissed off. all a person wants sometimes is a little understanding and compassion - two things that don't exist in korea... and they wonder why i'm not staying for another year.

anyway, hopefully this stupid laryngitis will go away and things can go back to normal... maybe i'll tell them all about how other foreign teachers only teach for half the class... see how they like that... god! find something where i don't need my voice... ya... right.

late again...

well, there go any plans i might have had for the weekend. i was planning a trip to teongyeong with kat, chris, and angela but decided earlier this week that i wasn't feeling up to it. good thing i cancelled before. i didn't get paid again.

i spoke to the guy from the provincial office of education and he told me that there is a new supervisor in gimhae. she forgot to pay us. when i asked what would happen if i forgot to go to school, he told me i would be fired. but this woman is allowed to forget to pay me. WTF??!?!?! this is the third, maybe fourth (i'll have to check) time that this has happened now. every time i tell them the same thing - you must pay me on time, i have a contract and you are breaking it. they don't ever seem to get the message. i'm so angry right now and there is nothing i can do. nothing.

anyway, i told the guy that if i wasn't paid by monday at four that i was going to the labour board. i guess i can do my research over the weekend since i have nothing else to do now. i can always take money from my canadian accounts, if i feel like paying upwards of 20$ in fees, which i don't. why should i have to pay for their mistake? it's the same thing every time, and they just never have an answer for that one. the crazy part is that it's such a simple thing to do. i don't know why they can't just set it up to pay me every month. you can go to any bank machine in korea and transfer money to another korean account, so why can't they just do that? Answer: it's the end of the week and now there isn't time. it's always one story after another. how can the koreans expect to continue to attract foreigners to their schools if the ability to pay on time is ignored. i've said it before and i'll say it again, anyone who wants to teach in korea, don't come to the gimhae public school system.

162 days til i can say goodbye to this crap.