The Desk Against the Dark Arts

I sit at a desk.  It’s a very nice, square thing.  My coffee stained mug sits close to my mouse pad, while my phone is covered up with alphabet flashcards.  I have a little candy jar, appropriately labeled: “Danger” and “Poison” sitting on top of some ESL games for most occasions.  To my left is Emma G.  (the new Emma).  To my right sits nobody. 

            This desk has not always been empty.  Indeed, it has seen many visitors over the course of my time here, but none have stayed long.  It has gotten so bad that I have begun to think that either there is something about my body odor or that the desk is cursed.  To my delight however, I am told that I smell great.  Thanks be for a steady cash flow for cologne, deodorant, and after shave lotions.  Since the beginning of this new semester, the desk has had 3 korean teachers come and go.  Consider at the time that I have written this (12/20/12), less than 3 weeks have passed in the semester.  This means that the desk has gone through a new relationship a week. 

            First there was The Man with No Name.  He was a quiet, reserved fellow.  He looked shy, and more than a little nervous sitting at the desk, almost as if he was afraid something would bite him.  He lasted for 2 days before learning that he was required to teach primarily in English.  Next came Hanna.  She was young, bright, and had lived in Melbourne for a few years.  She had personality, a strong smile, and was willing to converse with me.  She lasted 3 days. Finally I come to Jenny.  I am not sure what to say about her because she was gone within 2 hours of sitting at the desk.  2 hours! 

            When three things happen in sequence, science tells us that there may be a pattern emerging.  Now, I consider myself a rational person.  I am well educated and read big, important sounding books.  I am analytical and overly critical at times.  So I have come to only one possible conclusion about what is happening.  The desk is cursed.  Magic and sorcery is the only possible explanation.  The Dark Lord desires my neighboring desk and has cursed it until the day he can take that desk for himself.  Either that or the new head teacher is a real hard ass.  But I like magic as an explanation better.  

Revenge of the Blog!

I know that it has been a very, very long time since I have put myself in front of the warm glow of my laptop screen, no doubt leaving many of my good friends and family (Rachel’s included ) thinking that I am dead in a gutter somewhere, or just lazy.  I would like to think that the latter has nothing to do with my delay, but most who know me know that that would be a lie. I am not completely blameless, however.  I do have a small backlog of blogs that will be published in due time, but in the meantime allow me  to detail the very awkward 2 months that has been my life. 

When last we left our heroes, we were in the process of moving from one apartment to another.  Our lease was for some mysterious reason only 9 months long.  Even several weeks after the move, I am not sure if it was worth all the confusion and anguish that it caused.  Don’t get me wrong, our new place has its nice qualities.  It isn’t a coffin shaped rat hole, nor does it have a strange musty odor to it.  It’s new, clean, spacious and in its own apartment building in a residential area and not above a KFC.  The good along with the bad were wrapped up together, however.  Now, there are a number of details that I have elected to omit for sake of brevity and frustration.  I had an earlier draft of this particular section of the blog that somehow ended up being deleted or lost. 

Now, our move was one of many.  Indeed, like Alice’s tea party, some jerk in a fancy hat screamed “CHANGE PLACES!” and chaos ensued.  A new teacher was on her way from Scotland, Rachel and I were moving into our new place, and John was moving into a new place as well, a few days later.  Not trusting in the competence of the CEO to give us adequate aid, I took it upon myself to start moving stuff in the night before our last day.  I can only imagine the look on the few locals that were awake that late at night as I made trip after trip down the street, once with luggage, and again with bed sheets filled with pillows like some blending of Santa Clause and a tramp.  With little sleep (and a great deal of preparation for the lack of foresight on the part of my employers) we were moved in with few issues.  We were, however, denied a number of contractually guaranteed comforts such as a TV, a table, or a chair.  You may be thinking, why couldn’t we have just taken the ones from our last apartment?  Well those belonged to that apartment and not us, so no we couldn’t take them.  I just about flipped the table over in my boss’s office when I was denied a chair…A CHAIR!  More often that I would care to admit I have had a facepalm moment as consequence to these events.  An example was when my boss texted me saying “Oh hey, do you know who the Wachowski’s are?”  I said yes.  “Well they’re on channel 10 and it’s a really heartwarming story…” “That sounds nice, I would really like to watch it but as you know I don’t have a TV…” I am not sure if my sarcasm was detected through the text, but the point still stands. 

Moving on, I am sad to report a number of failures to organize all of these moves was not unexpected.  There was even a period of time where we were under the impression that the newest teacher wouldn’t be given a bed on time of her landing.  There is nothing that says welcome to your new home like, I know that you’re jetlagged and probably half –delirious from sleep deprivation, mixed with a little culture shock, but here, sleep on this bare hardwood floor, your bed isn’t going to be here for another 2 weeks.   Fortunately, things worked out for Emma G.  (the Scottish one, not the Canadian one, who is Emma L.).  The landlords had a bed in place (conveniently saving the school’s backside) and she was able to get some sleep that night. 

Time has passed since then and both Rachel and I are thinking about the future.  It may come as no surprise to anyone who has kept abreast of my sojourn here that I have decided not to renew my contract at Avalon.  This whole process, which is still going on at the moment, has left my head shaking.  First it was how I was offered (unofficially I might add) a month long break in between contracts to go home and see my family.  Yes, I turned it down.  Wait! Stop!  Put down the (insert fragile object here)(insert family member’s name here). I have a very good reason.   First, I would get a free ticket home and not Rachel.  Second, I knew that this was a sham, because I know their calendar cycle, and there is no room for a month long holiday period that I could have taken advantage of.  Finally, the place sucked.  My suspicions were confirmed as that offer never made again during our negotiations.  Indeed, much of what you could call negotiations was more of a guilt trip trying to get me to sign on for a few months more. 

It’s not as if this is where I have been spending most of my time these last few weeks or anything.  Since the end of Christmas, I have been working what was called the “Winter Intensive period”.  That basically means that I have been working 10 hour days and been getting less sleep than normal.  The one thing that I was really looking forward to was teaching an introduction to music class.  I thought, cool!  What fun it will be to go over what the difference is between an oboe and a clarinet… seriously I thought this was going to be a lot of fun.  The problem was that my students were far too young to appreciate the material.  Also not being given any support material that worked, like music, was problematic.  I ended up teaching Tchaikovsky via Fantasia and Tiny Toons.  The pleasant parts aside though, this last month has been a very long march of drudgery and constant work.  Homework books have been lost, papers have been lost, and more classes were added.  It has sucked.  

So we are in the process of looking for new gigs.  We have sent out a number of resumes and even heard back from one, but nothing solid yet.  Our fingers are crossed.  I thought that it might be best to get back down to safer and less stressful country, like Busan.  It’s warmer, less stressful, and I have even found my old recruiter from my first job.  I choose to remain hopeful.  On a side note it appears that my talent has not gone unnoticed.  I got a phone call a few days ago from none other than Marie A.  Yes, she’s back in the blog.  She has a new school that she is in charge of (don’t ask me how), and offered me a job.  Yes, that was the same reaction that I had too. 

Right so on to the parts that will have people worried.  First of all as I am writing this I am recovering from a case of stomach flu.  It was a moment of “are you fucking serious?”  when I called my boss, explained what was wrong, told her that I had already been to the doctor, and didn’t think that the risk of vomiting on the students or being covered in offending pools was worth the effort of me coming in to work, and she responded “Are you really sure you can’t come in?  Because I don’t know if I can change the schedule with so little notice.” It is moments like this that made me positive that the whole month off thing was really a sales pitch and not in the real deal.  Sad as it is, as soon as I got better, I passed it along to Rachel.  We’re both fine now, but oh what a fun weekend that was…

For now we are back to the usual routine of getting out late at night and sharing dinner.  I don’t feel nearly as tired as I was, and I have been able to even get some work done on other projects that I have been working on.  Still, we are waiting for more news about where we will be going next, and we will keep you posted out there in the ether.  

Robespierre and the Reign of Terror

With recent events being of such importance to our lives here in Korea, I felt it imperative to come back to my keyboard and type a brief summary of the days since Adam’s departure, culminating in the departure of my boss. 

Yes, Marie A. is no more.  As no doubt by now dear reader, you have noticed that I have chosen to continue with the metaphor that I established in Viva La Revolution.  Perhaps not, but then I am an eccentric hobby historian, so if I force some people to go to Wikipedia and look something up then I can at least say that I made someone learn something.  For everyone else who knows about French History, I know it isn’t a perfect metaphor, sue me. 

Alright, so let me go back to the beginning.  The Chuseok vacation was over and we had been told that Rachel’s replacement was going to be landing that Monday.  It had been pressing on my mind for some time that this was going to be someone who may possibly have no idea where anything was, who anyone is, or what to do.

In re-reading my first entry, I failed to describe the amount of terror and anxiety that can come with your first few days in Korea.  I have, since moving back here, gotten a few requests from old friends and new acquaintances for advice and info on coming to Korea, so for any of you who are searching the far corners of the internet for help, here are a few tips for you.  I got lucky my first time, and the second time I knew exactly what to expect, so Rachel got lucky.  There are a lot of people who are not as lucky.  For example, for anyone who is reading this and thinking of making a trip to Korea yourself, let me give you some survival tips.

• Your apartment will more than likely be empty when you get there.  So expect to go shopping immediately before you pass out from your flight. 
• You will need to get very basic things- bottled water, toilet paper, and even pillows were not provided our first day. 
• You may have the luxury of being put in a “love motel” for the first few days. This is not as bad as it sounds, but it can scare off people who are not prepared. 
• To find these things, find a major street and walk down it.  On a long enough timeline, you’ll find something that you’ll need, i.e. a McDonalds, E-Mart, HomePlus, or any number of convenience stores, where you can get a quick meal, water, or even paper supplies. 
• Most of these places are 24 hour and can help you in that “just landed” first night or two.

Fortunately, Emma did not have to suffer any of this.  Oh, our newest employee is a lovely person named Emma, who hails from Canada.  It was especially amusing to me, to see that Rachel had a fellow non-goy in the school, for a few days at least. 

What was unfortunate was the pressure that came from the reign of terror that was Marie A. Over the past few days since coming back to work, this issue of wanting to know when Emma was going to be flying in was of great concern to me.  I had heard that she had been here for a few days already, and as I have already talked about, it can be bloody scary.  After being told several different times for when her plane was landing, I was called into our Glorious Leader’s office and told to back off, because I was sounding pushy.  Forgive me for sounding pushy when I have been told contradictory information about when a new person will be joining our staff and I want to avoid such problems as I have already talked about.    But finally Emma arrived, and everything was well…for a whole few minutes at least.  Then the reign of terror began. 

OK so this was less of a reign of terror and more like a series of bothersome events, as opposed to, say, a real terror.  First, there were the observations.  Now as a teacher, observations are part of the job.  You have to let people watch, judge, and critique what you do.  There is a difference however, between constructive feedback and what we generally got.  I was lucky enough to get only one observation, which I’ll talk about soon.  Emma had been under nearly constant scrutiny since she arrived.  What struck me as strange is just how many observations we were being given.  By the time my turn came around, most of the others had been through one or two already, either with Marie A, or our new head teacher, who is a wonderful person.  She is open to new ideas, humorous, and most importantly gives a damn about her students. 

This brings me to my observation.  Technical problems and other issues forced me to adapt the lesson I was being observed in, so that the students could still learn everything that they needed to do their work and I could still cover all the material that I needed to go over.  Specifically in this writing class (keep that in mind, I’ll bring that up again later) I had to teach material about Myths and Legends, and cover some important editing skills.  Now to accomplish this, I was supposed to print off student essays from the website, and teach why various mistakes were made and how to correct them.  Well, there was a problem with the website (again) and so I typed up an example essay for them to edit instead, to teach them to apply specific skills that I had covered that day.  This was wrong.  What I should have done was magically produce the essays in question and do exactly what the curriculum demanded.  After explaining the technical errors, Marie was convinced that I didn’t know how to do the prescribed lessons and proceeded to talk at me for a while about how to do what I should have done.  Now there was one thing in particular that was said during this conversation, that underscored the serious difference between Marie’s and my approach to teaching.  It went something like this- “the students should never be looking down at their book, because if they are, then they are not respecting me as a teacher.”  Remember when I mentioned that this was a writing class?  Yeah, I thought the same thing.  This went along with forcing the kids to remain seated when the bell rang, until I had dismissed them.  Fair, however given the fact that it was the last hour of Friday and the kids were undoubtedly really tired and hungry, I thought that they could get up and leave as fast as they want.  They earned it.  Perhaps this is a byproduct of my own education or just a personal philosophy, but the students come first.  If they are engaged in the material, if they are learning something, and if they want to come back (not just drag themselves in because their parents are forcing them) then I have done my job, and everything else is dross. 

This was not the worst of it by far, but the only thing that I can say is that John had a few minutes left over in his writing class and gave the time to the students to use for getting their homework done.  Marie A. decided that this was not only against the curriculum, but she also felt an ethical duty to force the kids to erase the work that they had done during this time, telling them that “homework must be done at home”.  After I heard this, Marie entered a new level of cartoonish, adolescent literature villain,like Miss Trunchbull or Aunt Spiker… read a book!  Or watch the movies… whichever, they’re both pretty good.

Going back to this observation meeting that I had with Marie A, I was also given details about a conference that I had to attend on Saturday.  Now, if there is one thing that working in Korea has taught me, it is to be adaptable.  What I mean by adaptable, is to know that plans can and do change regularly, and with some degree of severity.  For example, we had thought that Mr. Kim (our finance guy) would drive us to the conference in one of the school vans.  However, his wife just gave birth to their first child, so he was (understandably so) unable to come.  This made Marie very upset.  She then requested that we take the train down to the conference ourselves, and she would pick us up and drive us the rest of the way to the University where the conference was being held.  The next morning, after a 50 minute train ride, I asked Glorious Leader how soon she would be there, only to receive the news that she wasn’t coming and that we needed to take a cab the rest of the way.  This would have been fine, if I’d had any more information other than the name of a college.  So just like your average Freshman wandering campus for the first time, we stumbled around the campus, looking for signs of where to go, hoping that some of the locals could offer help if we needed it.  We finally managed to get there safe and sound.  What followed was 6 hours of some of the most boring demo lessons that I have ever seen.  As it turns out, this was less of a demonstration, and more of a “look how awesome these teachers from other campuses are, and in fact they are so awesome that we are going to give them a large shiny award” thing.   OK, it didn’t make much sense to me, either.  But it was eventually over.  We looked around for a taxi to take us back to the train station, and failed miserably.  We started walking back.  I’ll admit that I thought that this was rather pleasant.  It was a cool fall afternoon, the sun was out, and the air was lovely.  About 20 minutes into our walk, we got a phone call from the Glorious Leader, who said that we should have waited longer for her to get out of her part of the conference.  Now I, like you just now, had no idea that she was even there.  Moreover, I am not sure when she was under the impression that I had developed the psychic powers to know that she wanted me to stay. 

Now we come to Monday morning.  The first day that Rachel was officially off from work.  So it was hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go.  Within 20 minutes of me being in the building, I heard the news that Marie A had been fired.  To say that it was a shock would be more than an understatement.  What’s more is the fact that I also learned that Mr. Kim, our finance guy, was also leaving the school (wither by choice or not is still under some speculation).  So like some who supported the revolution in the early stages, they themselves were put to the guillotine.  What remain now are the people of Avalon.  The tone has visibly changed in the school.  The teachers are more relaxed, and despite the fact that we have all had to do more work, they seem happier.   However, this may all change. 

Something that one of my co-teachers mentioned reminded me about the revolution once again.  After all the terror, killings, and the push for freedom, this inevitably led to the rise of Napoleon and the return of the nobility.  While we are enjoying the peace of not having a thanocratic dictator (sorry… wrong… Glorious Leader) intolerable wicked witch, many of the other teachers are waiting for the other shoe to drop.  There was one small tidbit of information that I learned over the weekend that brings this point home.  My school is a publicly traded company.  I knew that hogwans like ours were private businesses, but I didn’t think that they had to answer to stockholders.  The CEO, therefore, may bring in business managers, and other people who may be fantastic at making sales, but they are the last thing that a school needs. 

Perhaps, dear readers, you will read a blog in the future about the failed second revolution of Avalon.  You know the one I’m talking about, right?  No…?  Well I suppose I’ll save the description for when the time comes.