When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong (I gotta learn to shut my damn mouth...)

Yup, imagine that. After last week's concern over fucking it up in the interview with the recruiter, I went....and fucked it up in the interview. Dohhhhhhh. Yes, yet again I lost out on a possible job because I simply don't know when to shut my big fucking mouth and smile. Maybe someday I'll learn, but just not yet. I had the interview with the recruiter last Wednesday and it went....not well. She called me using Skype and I had forgotten that my status on Skype read, and I quote, "I hate my f#$kin' computer more than I hate the Korean education system...and that's saying something." Well, I obviously forgot about this and what should be the first thing the interviewer says once we connect but, "So I see you don't like the Korean education system." Mooooother fucker. Already cornered, I truthfully explained my frustrations and problems with the education system and my co-teacher in general, all legit hurdles and obstacles in the way of the children learning English, but not like that mattered. Logic has a way of being discarded like that. She naturally asked what I expected to be different in Seoul, since that is where I am applying to go to. I told her that I didn't expect much to be different, but I wanted to take my chances with a new "whitey wrangler" at my new school. I explained that my primary reasons for moving to Seoul deal with maintaining my sanity and my health. Presently I exist in a bit of a Catch 22, as I go to Seoul 5 times a week to maintain my sanity/have something to do, but I sacrifice sleep and food at times, as I average about 5 hours of sleep from Tuesday-Thursday and consume my dinners past midnight. Were I to quit going to Seoul and capoeira, I would be well-rested, but I would go insane from boredom and inability to blow off steam. I chose to be tired. Sadly, the interviewer saw no merit to this, as she responded rather gruffly "Well, lots of people wanna move to Seoul". I guess the idea of a happy and sane and rested teacher is a good teacher is a load of crap. So regardless of all my credentials and experience and the fact that I'm presently here in Korea and haven't pulled a midnight run yet, despite my issues, I'm not SMOE material, according to this recruiter. Fuck them. I just moved on to the next SMOE recruiter.

Otherwise, last week wasn't too bad, as I got several trips all shored up and squared away. The ticket for the Philippines trip finally came, not without a fair amount of drama (We are in Korea, its just the protocol). The ticket was originally delayed because the travel agent screwed something up with the name on the ticket. All I know is that once I emailed her my passport, she sent some frentic and nonsensical email about the name on the ticket being wrong. I won't be surprised if there is drama when we leave in August and there are issues because the ticket name doesn't match the passport name. The DMZ trip got officially paid for so if you hear nothing from me after May 23, you'll know what happened. Either I got shot/kidnapped by the North Koreans, died from a bungee jumping accident, or got shot by the North Koreans. Actually, the last one seems like a pretty XXXXtreme way to die. I could do worse. The only loose end to tie up is working out my vacation days with the co-teacher. I emailed the GEPIK coordinator in hopes that she would call the school, shout at them, and then I would magically have the vacation days, without me being involved in any shouting. Sadly, the coordinator told me to have the coteacher call. I'm in the midst of finding a subdued and gentle way of saying, "Hey lady, you fucked up big time. I get 25 vacation days, not 19. You are full of shit and a liar. Call this number and have the coordinator tell you how full of shit you are." This one may require more tact that I possess. I really want to call her out to her face on this fuckup, but obviously, with all the confusist bullshit running through Korea's veins, being publically brought to task for you fuckups doesn't work. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate Confusianism.

The school is much the same as ever. English classes with coteacher: mind numbing for the student and myself and nobody is really learning anything. English classes I teach solo: enjoyable, but frustrating due to inability to punish the children, thus they do not obey my authority. I've got on student in particular that I have no idea what to do with. This is the same student that I was told was "stupid" a while back. While I don't wanna call her stupid, she is by no means hauling in MENSA awards or genius grants. The problem is that she is most certainly emotionally and maturity level-wise delayed. In one class last week, I spent most of the hour pulling a comb out of my beltloop, as she spent the whole time trying to covertly lodge a small comb in my pants' beltloops. It wasn't even like she would just do it when I walked by. She actually would get up from her seat and wander around the classroom, trying to sneak up behind me. She makes no attempt to even look like she is doing work. While the other low level or lazy students are wily enough to simply cheat off their smarter peers (another issue, but less bothersome), she makes no attempt to even cheat. In another un-related incident, I took away her cell phone in class and she spent the rest of class whining and nearly crying about it. Then after class she simply followed me around and repeatedly asked for the phone. It got so bad that students from the next class started yelling at her to just bugger off, but to no avail. Eventually she got so desperate that she actually physicaly dove (just her hand....well they are small people, so I thought I should clarify) into my pants' pocket to retrieve her phone by force. I was shocked and freaked out to no end, as this violated so many rules of teacher and student conduct. I obviously had to get her out of my pocket post haste, lest she find another "handheld device" that I keep in my pants, so I actually had to forcibly remove her arm from my pants. I don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do with her. I don't know why students like her are in my classes, probably so the other teachers don't have to fucking bother with her. It's students and encounters like these that make many foreign teachers feel much more like babysitters or day-care providers, rather than actual students. We spend alot of our time making sure the students are fed, happy, awake, and changed, as opposed to simply teaching. Ohhh well.

For the most part, though, the kids are great. To add to my already hefty legend in their eyes, they begged me into giving a capoeira demo during gym class. It was shitty, naturally as I'm no good, but it was enough to bring them to hysterics. So the kids (in their eyes obviously) have an awesome foreigner that can do handstands and crazy b-boy shit, can dunk, is really tall, is really cool and funny, and is really handsome. I'm assuming they think this is what 하느님 (God) is like. And they would be right. A God does walk among them (pauses to bask in his own greatness). It's amazing how talkative most of the kids are now, as opposed to how what they were like when I got here. They are so comfortable with me, that today one student who is as timid as human beings, nay mice, come, actually came up behind when I wasn't looking and tried to scare me by shoving me in the back. Had I been 3'2" and 26 pounds like her, I probably would have gone flying from the shove, but obviously I didn't. It was just amazing that this student, who looked like she was gonna pee and poop herself if I asked her to say the most basic thing in English when I arrived, now is doing stuff like this. How far they have come.

The weekend offered new sights and sounds, but mostly the same smells, as all of Seoul carries the same weird funk. The crew journeyed to World Cup Stadium to take in a FC Seoul soccer match. A good time was had by all. The stadium and surrounding complex was gorgeous, at it was constructed for the World Cup back in 2002. Shame the current product and attendance isn't befitting such a grand structure. The stadium holds around 63,000 people and obviously they aren't gonna fill that for on a weekly basis, since the Korean league falls kinda low on the cultural chart as far as sports go, but they didn't even get close. Now I already knew that attendance was bad from the Seongnam game I attended last fall, but attendance of 5,000 or so looks a lot better in a stadium of 12,000, as opposed to a 63,000 seater stadium. Empty seats aside, the game was great fun. 8,000 won (about 6.50 dollars) for an endline seat, 12,000 (10 dollars or so) for sideline tickets and 3,000 won (2 bucks) for big 32 oz beer cups makes it a economical, and possibly quite drunk, time. Plus the few fans that were there were all into it, cheering and chanting all game. Just great energy all around. Too bad FC Seoul is pretty mediocre and could only manage a 0-0 tie. I could talk for hours about their poor play, but lets just leave at the fact that their main offensive strategy of "boot ball" (just dribbling the ball around and then booting it into the box, hoping and praying that the one striker can out head two or more defenders and a goalie to score) was frowned on by my high school coaches. Either way, a good time was had, and more good times will soon be had as Jamie and I will be back in 2 weeks for the next home game, with a baseball game somewhere in between. I walked away from the stadium with an FC Seoul jersey for my brother (finally!!! been searching all over Seoul for one...if I wanted a Man U jersey, I could have chosen color, year, sponser, etc, but home town team....uhhh, nothing). With the jersey in hand, I can finally send home the last bundle of...gulp...Christmas presents. Shut up. It's all the time zone stuff. It's still like Jan 1st or something over here. I don't know. Just shut up.