Three Months Later... Still Alive!

It has been a long time since I have added to my blog. Chalk it up to a cold winter. I know, you're thinking, "you should have had MORE time to blog." While that is true, I also had less to blog about. So here is everything that has happened since December.

I don't know if you're aware, but I actually have had three jobs the last few semesters. I taught all day at the elementary school... which is draining. Then I taught teachers from my district three nights a week for two hours each... which was draining. Two nights a week for 70 minutes each night I taught AP Psychology at a top tier high school that prepares students to study abroad... that was exhilarating, fun, and energizing... and draining. I was working so much that by the end of December all I could think about was not working. So Leighton and I ran on down to Boracay Island in The Philippines and laid on one of the top 10 beaches in the world for a week. I drank fresh coffee and ate toast with homemade (by our hotel manager) mango jam, real bacon, an egg, and usually a bit of garlic rice (sinangag) or some longaniza (like a Philippines style chorizo sausage). It was heaven. The beach was so pure, so amazing, that all I could do sometimes was stare at it. Truly an island paradise.

We ate a different meal for dinner every night, the best of which was also the cheapest. It was just a little fast food style place that sold Philippino food... but man was it good.

Then I came back to Seoul and worked "winter camp" which is basically summer school in January. I also taught a month-long session of psychology which doubled my salary (I make in 70 minutes at the high school what I do for a day at the elementary school).

Then there were two weeks of school which mostly consisted of half-days and no English class.
Then I had my "spring break" the last two weeks of February, which is funny because that's when I had it during college... only in Korea that is the time between school years and not an actual spring break. In fact, I wasn't even planning on taking those two weeks off. I was going to let them slip by and save the extra 10 days of vacation time for the end of my contract. But I sort of got caught trying to be sneaky and so I was told to use my vacation days. I didn't want to blow an extra $600-700 booking flights and hotels last minute somewhere like Bali or Guam, so I just stayed in Seoul and slept a lot. Which was fantastic. It gave me time to catch up on all the books I'd been buying but never had time to read.

Then the new school year started March 2nd. Since then I've met a new batch of 5th graders that couldn't be any more annoying and I have seen my old 5th graders move up to 6th grade and still act like they're in 2nd grade. There are days I can barely muster the courage to go to school. That's how it is the first few weeks though. Last semester it took me almost a month to get the 6th graders to act like 12-year-olds.

The kids here are just different. They're coddled little babies that have no free will in the presence of their mothers and are simultaneously expected to study at private academies after school until at least 9pm (sometimes 11). These poor kids spend all day everyday studying and almost never have the time nor the opportunity to run around with their friends or do what they want to do. Their only recreation is when they go to Taekwondo academy which is more like military training than you'd imagine. So they come to English class and act like fools and none of the Korean teachers wants to say anything because "they're just kids" all the while I'm standing their confused how they're simultaneously immature and too mature for their age.

So next year I'm going to teach adults, I hope. I'll be heading to Thailand to get a CELTA certificate and then taking at least a month off to backpack around and see more of SE Asia. Then I'm going to find a job where children aren't allowed in the building. Maybe after a year of that I'll be ready to face them again.