OK.  So there was that one day where I thought I lost my credit card, and I travelled all over Seoul trying to find it and it turned out it was in my back pocket.

Then, somewhere between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning I LOST THE TEACHER’S TEXTBOOK I borowed from my co-teacher to see what level of reading the children were at.  Yesterday, I retraced my steps pointing out Lost and Book from my phrase book to different places I had gone, and nothing.  As a result, I was late arriving to the area of the adoption protest I was going to join and went the wrong direction and by the time I got pointed in the right direction, there was only about a half hour of it left and I still had to walk twenty minutes towards it, so gave up.  Afterwards, I went to go pick up the phone I had reserved to borrow in another section of the city.  I and some other adoptees ate lunch with a Korean volunteer, and then we all got lost trying to find the subway station upon leaving the restaurant.  I was supposed to go back to the school, but by the time I got home school was closed for the day.  Sigh.

Yesterday, I met Art from Texas and he met me to go salsa dancing.  I downed a bottle of soju first and off we went.  (all by myself, since Art doesn’t drink, compliments of Art.  For some reasonI have always been able to down a lot without much backlash)  The club was small, the music pretty good – a mix of bachata, regular salsa, and Cuban salsa.  The dancers were all intermediate.  Not real or natural dancers, but also rock solid on what they knew and at least on the beat. It was nice that there were no competative world class dancers there.  All in all, a decent experience, but also not exciting enough to want to do more than once every couple of months.  Anyway, the subways stop at midnights, so Art had us stay at the house of a Philippino lady “friend.”  She bent over backward to be hospitable – probably the only hospitality I’ve received in Korea thus far.  Her friend and daughter said if they had downed a whole bottle of soju by themselves they wouldn’t be able to walk, much less dance.  It must be the Korean blood…Woke up as I always do, same time no matter what, and had to watch t.v. for about four hours until someone else got up.  It’s like being trapped on a boat – note to myself not to spend the night anywhere anymore, as this always happens – killing time at someone else’s place by yourself is such a drag.  It was then I realized I’d left my black long hoodie at the club.  God damn it – I am LOSING EVERYTHING.  I have suddenly become the most absent-minded, irresponsible person ever!

By the time Art got up and around, and he had shown me around Itaewon and taken me to coffee and pastry and shown me some tourist resources, helped me try and figure out my phone, etc., etc., etc., it was 2 pm.  (Art, btw, has been awesome – let me have a memory card for my phone, purchased the soju the night before,  the breakfast, and lend me money for a book)  But on the subway I of course fall asleep one stop before my home stop – and of course I miss my stop and have to double back.  The thing is, once you are outside of Seoul, if you double back the other direction, then you have to pay 900 won AGAIN.  The seats on the subway are heated, and the motion of the train is like a giant cradle, putting you to sleep.  I think from now on, as much as my feet hurt, I will get up and stand when I am near my stop.  It’s just stupid to pay twice for the subway like I did today.

So I called the salsa club called Gachi, and asked them to hold onto my jacket if they find it.  It’s 4:30 pm, and I have to turn around in about two hours to go get it, and then I have to come back again.  It’s about 45 minutes each way.  I’ve just wasted half my day on the subway.  Again.

Tomorrow – must write lesson plans.  The following day is D day.  Hope I don’t do something stupid like leave my brain at home.

At least the dryer works.  Takes about three hours to wash and dry one tiny load, though, so at some point soon I will purchase a drying rack anyway.

So I mentioned the cops standing sentry in front of the donut shop to Pat, and she also concurred that they don’t do anything all day.  I told her donuts must be pretty valuable in Korea, for the cops to guard them.  Gotta keep those donuts safe.”Don’t you have phoney jobs in America too?”  No, I told her.  I should have explained that nobody would be willing to pay for such decoration.  I told her about the greeters at Walmart.  There are greeters here in most of the major stores.  They say thank you for coming to our store and bow to you.  They also serve as preemptive shoplifting agents and stopped me to tape up a shopping bag I was bringing in.  Never mind that the sling type messenger bag I bought can hold a zillion items, but that doesn’t get checked.  At the Emart, when you check out, you are expected to box items or bring your own shopping bags.  They will give you a shopping bag for points from your Point Card, but you have to pay for them if you don’t have points.  I asked about the point card, and I guess it is like a Target Card, but for free like a Safeway Club Card, where your shopping adds up points and you can eventually purchase some featured item with the points.  But since I can never know what those things are since I don’t know Korean, it’s kind of pointless to get a Point card!

Pat asked about teaching in America.  I explained how teachers in America have to fix family problems, what little support they get from their administrations, and what low pay they have.  Teaching in Korea, she explained, is one of the most sought after jobs.  I wondered if this was out of respect for teachers and she said no.  The only reason is because they have reliable paychecks and job security.

She asked me how I discipline students.  Well, I told her, I’ve only taught briefly at workshops, so I’ve never had any students act up for me.   I tried to make her feel better by telling her that Spoken English classes don’t require homework and stress, and that the classes get to stand up and do fun things, so the students don’t feel the need to act up as much.  She said discipline is a problem.  “Do you hit the children?”  I explained how it was illegal in America, at least in the public schools.  “How do you get the children to behave then?”  she asked.  I explained that we address disorder before it gets out of hand.  “How?”  By splitting up groups, or making the lesson more interesting, or isolating the child, or giving extra work, and at last resort sending the child to the Vice Principal’s office.  I told her I had heard corporal punishment was now illegal in Korea too, and she said yes – but you can still hit the palms of their hands.  We make them hold their arms up all class.  If a child acts up, we make the entire class hold their arms up, so the entire class hates the child who acts up.  She says she had to do this the previous year when many students did not turn in a homework assignment.

I have been asked about a half dozen times what my teaching philosophy is and about my training and my classes in the past.  I am regarded as something of an expert in teaching spoken English.   All of which seems rather bizarre to me, since the Korean school system is generally hiring kids fresh out of college with zero teaching experience…I guess they missed the memo on this.

The emphasis on learning English is astounding.  Even to Koreans.  Even to Korean teachers.  It seems not long ago the Korean President made a decree that ALL SUBJECTS should be taught in English.  Teachers and parents alike revolted and the decree was rescinded.  I told Pat, “Gee, you might as well all just become American at that point…”

Fortunately, there are a lot of programs about pride in Korean culture, so it hopefully won’t be disappearing at the horrifically fast rate it has been.  But then there is the terrible brain drain going on.  They go to America to study and never come back.  People send their wives and children abroad so they can get immersion in English, and some don’t come back.  Maybe it is one of those – you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone things.  Me, I’ve been mourning the death of American culture most of my life, and yet of course there it was all around me, just in an evolving form.  Pat already asked me about the most sought after jobs in America, and I told her most people just want to work less.  I think my next conversation with Pat will have to be about the law of diminishing returns in regards to the stress factor in becoming a world economic power.

Oh.  Forgot that when I asked about my classroom, I was told that I have to travel from room to room.  I expressed disappointment, because that means I can’t put up permanent visual aids on the walls.  “Teachers travel in Korea.  You will just have to get used to that.”  I am dubious.  At least at the hogwan videos on youtube, the teachers all seemed to have their own classrooms…

The school body is actually 1,400 students.  The faculty bathroom is super posh.  The toilets even have washlet seats – you know – those Japanese electronic bidets that are incorporated into the toilet seat?  I tried it out, pushing the buttons, even though I couldn’t read what button was for what.  One button didn’t do anything – maybe it was broken?  maybe it was soap and empty?  The second button was a forward water jet (you have to position yourself over it) The third button was a rear water jet (the icon for this is hilarious) and the fourth button is air dry, which is REALLY COLD AIR.  (kind of miss the Thai wall-mount hand-held flexible sprayer ones they had EVERYWHERE in Thailand – wish I had one at the apartment)  The school is freezing cold, but the teacher’s rooms and the Vice Principal’s office are like saunas, they are so hot.  Uncomfortably hot.  All over Korea are little humidifiers about the size of rice cookers, spewing steam into the air.  I totally forgot about the nosebleeds that occur in cold climates that are artifically heated, due to the drying out of the air.  I can’t afford one right now, so I hope I don’t start getting nosebleeds.  Back at the cabin, on the rare occasion the gas stove was on for longer than a few days, (what – twice?) I just put a pan of water on the gas stove and that took care of itself.  Here, putting a pan on the heated floors wouldn’t do anything.  When I first moved in, I asked how high to set the floor thermostat, and I was told 28 degrees celcius.  I looked it up and that is 82 degrees!  Holy crap – no wonder the teacher offices are so damned hot.

I am so upset about not being in the same environment as the other teachers, I just don’t know what to do.  I came here to be part of Korean culture, but am going to be segregated.  I want to see how they are with their hair down, not how they are when they have to go out of their way (next to their boss, no less) to talk to me.  Grrrr…

Enough for now.  Maybe I will have to spend the next year in the company of other foreigners (waygooks) afterall, and maybe I will have to just move on to another assignment and make my choice of schools conditional upon NOT being segregated.  If I embrace this isolation, it could make me focus on studying Korean better, but then I won’t get any practice using Korean.  Maybe I am what-if’g too much.  I’ve been here a week and been alone the whole time though, and only foresee more of the same.  I wonder if all the Korean teachers are hired based upon their religious faith or not.  If so, that will also put a damper on the kind of socializing that is done.  Maybe if I can talk to Jane for a minute tomorrow, she will have some advice for me.  I wonder what the school will do if their new English teacher is seen on t.v. holding a protest sign?  I wonder what the school will think if KBS decides to exploit my being abused on air?

Right now, I am running my first load of clothing.  Hopefully the dryer actually works, otherwise I will have to buy a drying rack.  I have to put a deposit down on a temporary phone already, and that may chew into David’s student loan payment. Depends on if I really do get my alien registration card as soon as they say and I can open a bank account and cash this small check I have.  I tried to take a photo of the translation Pat did of the washer controls, but the camera’s 2 gig memory card I bought in Thailand keeps crapping out on me.  I think it is time to trash it, as it is always creating errors, even though I’ve reformatted it over and over again.  What a waste of money.  Except for some gifts I bought in Thailand, and the teacher coat,  and going out ONLY THREE TIMES while in Thailand, I’ve been really frugal, yet still have burned through almost all of the money I brought.  The domestic trip from Chiang Mai to Bangkok cost much more than expected (I shoulda taken the 12 hour bus ride) and the over weight fees were a huge blow.  Oh well, it was all necessary.  Next month is going to be a bitch, though.  I only get paid pro-rated for 17 days of work, despite all these pre-contract obligations I have had to fulfil, and then 300,000 won gets taken out as part of my apartment deposit.  And THAT must last me for another full month, which really won’t cover food plus all my stateside bills.  And the f*$%#g recruiters won’t answer my emails about plane fare reimbursement – how or when and what is this “no unnecessary stops” will be reimbursed b.s.?  That was not what we were told to begin with.  I am thinking they are going to pull a bait and switch on us.  At any rate, I will get back almost $500.  But when?  Okay.  Just have to make it through the first month, and then things will be okay.  Right now, I’m just praying the dryer actually dries.  Please God, let the dryer actually dry!

I hate Korea.

I went to dye my hair and I had no developer, so I went and bought some box stuff.  They must use some really strong developer, because my hair was like straw afterwards, and it is three times darker than the color pictured. I hate it.

Went to my school to get my photo taken for the Alien registration card, and the laptop arrived.  They insist my mac won’t work with their AV equipment, which is pure hogwash, so they had to go buy a new laptop for me.  OK, if that is what they want to do, I told them, as long as the windows portion is in English.  Of course it wasn’t, so who knows what they are doing right now to find an English version of the operating system.  Meanwhiile, I mention my ISOLATION problem with my co-teacher.  She mentions it to the Vice Principal, who tells her there isn’t room for me with the other teachers.  (never mind that they already know how to speak Korean and aren’t in a foreign country and aren’t living by themselves and god forbid one of them should have to sit by themselves next to the Vice Principal’s office)  She says sorry, and hands me a candy she got for free from yesterday’s teacher orientation. This is huge.  This is enough to make me want to ditch the place.

Later, Pat introduces me to the home economics teacher, who speaks very good English.  Pat describes how the school has provided EVERYTHING for me.  And also Pat describes how the other teachers get used laptops while I get a new one.  I explain to her that the schools are given a budget of up to 2 million won to spend on the new teacher, and that the accommodations are, from what I’ve seen on youtube, pretty standard.  There were some nice personal touches that I appreciated, though, I tell her.

We stop back at my place and she translates my washing machine for me.  I mention the isolation thing again, and she just says sorry.  I can see I will not get any help from anyone on this.  This makes me want to cry.  This is why I was so miserable at Weber Thompson from day one, shoved in a corner by myself with no one to talk to.  Pat says she will make a point to visit.  Big deal.  How natural is that?  How am I supposed to remember any of the 90 teachers if I never see them or get to speak to them?  I ask if I need all my documents, or just my passport while in the elevator. Pat presses forward, so the documents stay in the apartment.

We go to immigration to get my card, Pat, me, and the Chief Officer of the school.  It’s a long drive in his car, we’re running late, there is a traffic jam.  Of course they need my documents.  Must fax to them.  I will get my card on Wednesday.  I will be able to get a phone sooner than I thought.

We take the subway back, and Pat picks my brain about racism in America, Koreans in America, Raising kids in America, and what I think about Koreans learning English.  My bag is full of almonds, which have fallen out of their bag and all over.  I eat them anyway, because I haven’t even had breakfast yet, and it is after 6 pm.

I rush home to find out where to meet two of the teachers from Thailand – but there is no answer from them (probably already left) I have no phone, and they didn’t tell me where to meet them.  Poop.

Bad hair, a year of working in isolation, my never-ending period, and why did my classmates not tell me where to meet them?

Tomorrow -should I hold the extra classes ransom for a desk around other people?  Must go to the school to fax my documents, then meet my hero Jane Jeong Trenka and help her protest new adoption laws being researched and made without consulting adoptees, and then attend a lecture on Korean culture at the National Museum.

Will these days never slow down one bit?

Try to plant a seed that my desk ALL ALONE in the separate alcove in front of the Vice Principal’s office KIND OF MAKES GETTING TO KNOW THE OTHER TEACHERS DIFFICULT.  Jeesh, reminds me of the nightmare of working at Weber Thompson, where my desk was by itself behind the goddamned copy machine.

Add FIVE MINUTES for each subway stop instead of two as I was told, just to be safe.  and TEN MINUTES to every transfer instead of five as I was told, just to be extra safe.  Better to be twenty minutes early than late…

Smash my stupid alarm clock – it’s losing time every day.  I swear to God, I didn’t know it was made in China until I’d opened the package.  Never buy small electronics from China…

Sans kids, but met a lot of teachers.

Don’t even ask me to remember anyone’s names.  One very fashionable guy asked me my name and I told him Leanne Leith, and he said, “Oh!  That’s hard to remember!”  And then he told me his name, in Korean, and I said, “No, THAT’s hard to remember!”

There were about 80 teachers there.  I’d say it was about a 60/40 mix of females & males, respectively.  About half of them were my age, about ten were older, and the rest were all under 30.  In fact, there were about a dozen new teachers, and I suspect they were all fresh out of college.  The guys were predominantly in full suit and tie, and the girls were all in very conservative (yet stylish) wear.  The building wasn’t being heated, so everyone had their coats on.  A sea of black coats for the most part.

Had to sit through a half hour of hyms, then a benediction and list of twenty meditations, half hour of the Vice Principal giving an address, then the Principal, and then a two and a half hour long sermon by a minister.  He must have been really good, because he talked without a break and without notes for the entire thing.  He was using different voices and I could tell his jokes were good because everyone was cracking up.

They put out a big catered spread in the cafeteria, and part of lunch the Vice Principal, the co-teacher and I tried to hammer out what my job was going to be.  “The Vice Principal wants to know what your lesson is.”  I tried to explain I couldn’t possibly know what my lesson is for the whole year.  Then we narrowed it down to the first lesson, and I explained that I couldn’t possibly know what the first lesson would be, since I didn’t even know what level of English the students were reading at. Could I PLEASE have a textbook?

Turns out that I will only be teaching about 500 kids, and they will all be freshman. 7 classes of boys and 7 classes of girls.  For the boys, I have a male co-teacher named Lee (who I can not understand his English AT ALL) and my female co-teacher Pat, for the girls.  Wow.  I have no idea how boyfriend/girlfriend things work in such a segregated scenario.  Won’t have to worry about mixing up the boy and girl groups here!  (as we were told they are too shy to mix at TESOL training)

I asked about incentives for learning, because I’m kind of disturbed that English speaking classes are not graded.  This seems to be a concept they can not comprehend.  What?  I asked, What is their motivation to particiate without any incentives?  You must provide the incentives in the classroom.  Great.  I’m not into bribing, and there’s only so much encouragement I can do.  Hopefully, as freshman they have not totally lost their interest in learning English.  Unfortunately, I really have more in common with the older students.

I asked the co-teacher what level of speaking the students were, if they spoke as well as her.  “Better,” she said, “these kids have been taking classes since kindergarten.  I finally got a hold of a sophomore text book, so I at least know where they are at reading, writing, and grammer.  It’s surprisingly high.  It turns out there are 12 English teachers at this high school.  Crazy.

Two scarey things:

One – The class for teachers already has four people signed up, and one of them is the Vice Principal!

Two – The overtime after school class I agreed to teach is for NINETY MINUTES !!!  Holy crap – how am I going to fill ninety minutes?  And when I realized that, I no longer wanted it to be a supplementary class for freshman.  Turns out the after school classes the students pay extra for.  So this is a cash cow for them, and my measly overtime pay and pressure to teach it is probably how they justify the expense for the officetel apartment I have…

I discussed the difficulty of both filling a 90 minute class and how I didn’t feel kids who’d been to school all day could possibly remain interested in studying that long, or even be able to learn anything after so much time.  I explained that maybe a more advanced class with some reading comprehension might be able to fill the time, and I suggested a college survival class.  But even then, I will be hard pressed to fill ninety minutes.  I think this “extra” class is going to be much, much harder to plan than the regular class I am contracted to work.  Fortunately, I don’t have to submit a lesson plan for this or the teacher’s class.  But, I DO have to figure out a syllabus of sorts and a way to make this class sound attractive to students so they can sell it to them…

So that’s the task for the evening.  Then dye my roots – why the hell does my hair grow so fast?  It’s really ridiculous how I have to dye my hair every two weeks, and the rest of the planet can go a month…

After lunch we listened to something like a business plan and how the school was or wasn’t meeting it.  Followed by some sort of provincial minister of education, at which the teachers paid a lot of attention and fielded serious questions to.  Then, I got to go and address all the teachers and I joked about not being as foreign as they expected.  Then I went on to explain that I was a returning adoptee, that Korea didn’t like to hire us because we weren’t foreign enough, but that fortunately times were changing.  I then explained what a great resource returning adoptees are:  because all we know is western thought, western culture, and in my case, the English language; and that there is more advantage to hiring us over just foreigners, because by way of our skin and eyes, we have been forced to represent Asia our entire lives and are therefore more personally interested in promoting Asia, more empathetic to Asians, and more interested in helping Asian students suceed in understanding the west.  I thanked them for the opportunity to be a bridge between two cultures, and I asked them all for help learning about my culture, as well as appreciative over the school assignment and happy to work by their side.

Holy crap – the building PA system is going off AGAIN.  That is twice tonight.  That could SERIOUSLY inhibit romance, if that were going on…

-I found out today I teach at a co-ed school, but all the classes are taught segregated…

-Three chimes and a voice from on high which starts talking…

Big brother is not watching (I don’t think) but he IS talking to me!  Maybe that’s the flip side to the benefits of living in a high tech machine – unsolicited announcements from the building manager, in a language you don’t understand.

I hope to hell it wasn’t about the fire escape plan…though every room is sprinklered, I’m still worried…

-Flipping through the channels the other day, I caught the tail end of…drumroll please…PROJECT RUNWAY KOREA!!!

I hope I can catch it again at the right time and the right channel!  I’d ask someone for a tv guide, only I wouldn’t be able to read it.  Damn, it’s like being two years old in an almost 45 year old body!

-Flipping through the channels the other day, I caught a news report showing closed circuit t.v of women alone getting acosted.  And HOLY CRAP – there’s a psycho leg slasher on the loose!  He gets his jollies by running up behind lone women and just swiping at their legs with a box cutter!  I am NEVER walking alone in Seoul!

No.  wait.  I’m single and I have to always walk alone.  Crap.  Okay.  I only walk in crowds.  I can do that…