For reasons that will become apparent by
the time that I finish this blog, I have been a very busy person. The planets had aligned into those all too
vexing patterns where I was forced to offer a number of my weekends to the gods
of work. Now, I have mentioned that I
have been working every other weekend doing catch-up classes. This was all well-known and expected, as
painful as they are. This month, however,
I had yet another conference wedged in-between these catch-up classes.
With the leaving of our old boss, the
school’s tone has changed dramatically.
The level of pressure has vanished, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t
working hard. One thing that has ebbed
and flowed is the effectiveness of the communication. This isn’t anyone’s fault, as we’re all
trying to figure out how to manage everything.
Consequently, I was told that I had to go to another conference, and I
was so tired of these things that I really contemplated skipping out on this
one. This one, however, turned out to be
something mandated by Korean immigration.
As it turns out there is a new rule, as of a few years ago, that anyone
that comes to Korea to teach and work for their first year must attend this
conference, and if you don’t show up, immigration will find you. Now unlike previous conferences this one was
actually useful, or at least it would have been more useful should I not already
have had some experience with Korean culture, language, history, and other
teaching experiences. I am not saying
that I didn’t learn anything, far from it.
But I am saying that Emma got a lot more out of it than I did. There is something amusing that I find about
the slow responsivness. There were a
small number of teachers that were at this introduction conference that had
been there for more than a year, and a smaller number that had been there for 4
years or longer.
Some things that I did take away from
the conference were more of the cultural things. There was some interesting music played and a
performance of some traditional theater, or at least it was completely traditional
until a particular moment (you’ll know which one). Now I apologize about the film quality, but I
was recording this on my phone and my arm is not exactly the best tripod. I hope that you’ll enjoy them.
Now this is all important because the
conference I was close to one of the massive street markets. Finding an awesome woman after the conference
(whom I had met before), we set out for the market with the intention of
finding materials that I needed to make my Halloween costume. After some delicious Chinese soup, we managed
to find the cloth that I needed to make my costume. Nancy was awesome enough to help me out and
purchase the cloth that I needed. I was
a little short of cash at that moment, and I paid her back 10 minutes later,
but still she is an awesome person. Now
I had everything that I needed to make my wizard costume…well not everything. Earlier
in the week, Rachel and I had gone down to a costume shop that was quite well
stocked. I picked up a nice outfit and
some things that made up a few cool effects of the costume, and overall I think
it worked out well. I originally tried
to go for an evil Time Lord (such as the Master or the Valeyard), but it didn’t
really work out as well as I had thought.
But it did make for an awesome wizard.
The school was in full holiday
mode. We spent hours and hours blowing balloons. I mean hundreds and hundreds of
balloons. One of the activities that we
had to do was making balloon animals, and we needed to prepare at least 2 for
each of our students. We had scores of
cutout characters (bats, ghosts, and such) to tape to the walls. I wouldn’t say that it was a nightmare
experience, but it was hard and very long.
Honestly, it reminded me a great deal of high school. I had my ipad, playing music, as I prepared
for a show. We were working long hours,
it was tedious, and I loved it.
Each of us had an activity that we were
in charge of for the holiday. Mine was
to teach the kids a Halloween song. Now,
my co-teacher Jade was also responsible for the same activity, as we took on
different groups of students. This
worked out quite well for the younger students, but the older students… not so
much. My two songs were the Monster Mash
and Spooky Loo. For anyone that has not
heard either song, they are not really something that a teenager would really
enjoy. Well, maybe one from the 1950’s, but definitely not one from
contemporary Korea. Acting quickly, I
put on Michael Jackson’s Thriller,
and the kids were enthralled by dancing zombies. The Walking Dead is huge here, as well as a
number of other zombie related shows, so I knew that they would enjoy it.
The sad thing was that I did have to
teach a few classes. They weren’t that
difficult, but it was a bit of a drag when some of the kids saw that others
were having fun and not them. Most of them
got their turn, but the oldest kids were left without any holiday celebration,
although they demanded that I teach in my costume, so at least someone really
liked it. Overall it was a fun time, but
2 days of it was very draining. By the
time that we got done with everything and headed out for drinks afterwards we
were all completely exhausted.
The best thing about it was that it was
a 3 day week, and I was allowed a nice rest and for Thursday and Friday to be
added to my weekend. So here I am while
writing this, enjoying the end of my break.
Strangely I haven’t done much, and I am dreading Monday as I am sure many of my
students are. Oh well, back to the
grindstone.
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