Advice concerning contracts

I know its only been, what, 2 days since I last posted, but I'm pretty bored and I had a pretty eventual day yesterday, so I feel like retelling it. Prepare yourselves for a tale of Odyssey-esque proportions, the details of which shall not cease to amaze children the world over for countless generations. Without further ado, I give you...my Tuesday (bum bum bum).....

The day began with my "parents" class, and by parents I mean grandparents, and by grandparents, I mean grandparent, singular. She's a nice enough lady, but an absolute beginner at English, which is a welcome challenge for me. And after several weeks of working with her, her English counting is a million times better than most of my students. Take that Korean education system! Working solely in English does work better. Someday Korea will get that. Not too soon I hope, as I'll be out of a job. Anyways, she began class by offering me a Coke and some prepackaged sandwiches from the convenience store. I refused, as I had just eaten breakfast and really wasn't hungry. Obviously, to be polite, I should have just taken the sandwich and drink without a fuss, but since when have I ever given a damn about being polite or nice. Exactly. Never. Plus, I really don't like to take gifts from students. Class continued as normal until the co-teacher wandered in to check on our progress and then we got back to the sandwich issue. The co-teacher asked why I hadn't taken the food and I told her I wasn't hungry. She then explained that the student's daughter, the mother of my student, runs a convenience store and had "made" them herself. Now I was obviously a little skeptical as to the "making" of a 20 oz Coke and prepackaged sandwiches (unless my understanding of convenience stores is way, way off), but then I realized that my area of Korea is one of the poorer areas around and this gift was probably a major contribution, so I relented and took the gifts. The co-teacher explained the situation to the student, probably explaining that foreigners prefer to steal and covet without asking, rather than simply being given the same objects. Which is probably true. Had that Coke and sandwich been for her, I would have annexed that shit so fast, she wouldn't have even had time to enact tariffs or trade restrictions.

Lunch found me experiencing a first for Korea: the delicacy that is dog meat. All the male teachers went out for lunch at a local restaurant and the menu item of choice was dog soup. The final verdict: it was exactly as advertised. It was stringy, tough, bland and generally not worth the time of day. Some animals are meant for eating, so aren't. No knock against dogs, they just make better pets. Maybe the dogs that I ate weren't beaten with a stick enough to tenderize the meat properly. I'll have to ask for extra beatings next time.

The meat of the afternoon was the volleyball game. Yes, I did say volleyball game. But Eric, you ask, aren't you a teacher? Why aren't you teaching? Hahahahah. You clearly have never "taught" in Korea. Today's diversion was in the form of school vs. school volleyball. I'm told there is a massive Yangpyeong country wide volleyball tourney between the teachers in June, so I'm assuming yesterday was a tune-up game. I had no idea about yesterday's game until that morning when they asked if I had clothes for exercising. Luckily I did, as I have to bring my capoeira stuff to school. I guess the teachers really take this tourney seriously, which is too bad since I don't give a damn about volleyball. But I do give a damn about winning, thus my interest, at least now. Once everyone was dressed, the game could begin. And seeing this is Korea, everyone had to be decked out for the game. Had you been back home in the US, the teachers would have probably thrown on a t-shirt and some gym/basketball shorts and sneakers. Done. But here they were rocking tennis polos and windpants, some of which I guarantee are simply volleyball attire, purchased solely for this purpose. And then there were the matching track suits. Yes, yes and more yes. After we had introductions between our school and the town's elementary school (our foe) and words of inspiration from each school's principal (of course there was gonna be a speech...that's a given), we were ready to play. But wait, we still have to warm up and get in some touches before the match. Yep, this shit is officially serious. Game on. 9 versus 9. No sooner had the game begun then my suspicions were confirmed: nearly everybody is pretty god damn awful at volleyball. The women as expected, ran away screaming whenever a ball came near (I feel like there is a sexual innuendo in there somewhere ...have at it) and were routinely unable to muster up enough strength to even get the ball over the net on the serve. Yikes. The men were mostly not much different, a little more active sure, but they couldn't hit a ball for shit and had little to no coordination. But given how bad the elementary school was, I don't feel as bad about my team. We actually have 2 female teachers who used to play volleyball, meaning that they were still terrible, but they weren't afraid of the ball and they could serve, which is all I can realistically ask for. After I hit the ball once or twice, the school was convinced I was the second coming of _______ (insert famous volleyball player...since I don't really know any). I had told the school that I wasn't very good, which is true because I'm not, just tall and fairly coordinated. That's good enough for god status here though, I guess. The gym teacher, being a man that takes everything much too seriously, soon directed me where to stand when the other team serves. Move back from the net Eric. Keep going. A little more. A little more. A little more. That's good. Meaning I'm now standing at basically dead center on the court, with about a quarter of the court to cover. Remember, we are playing with 9 players. The gym teacher had decided to use the time tested strategy of having the people that suck do nothing and the people that can do stuff, do everything. So everyone besides the vice-principal, gym teacher and myself are to stand as far back as possible, literally on the out-of-bounds line, and are to not interfere with us or hit the ball unless absolutely necessary. We even were prepped enough to set up the routine of having the vice principal bumping or setting to the gym teacher, who sets it for me, who obviously is supposed to spike it home with authority. Ohhh boy. I was content to just play my position at first, but after shit got going, I remembered how much I loving winning against someone/anyone in something/anything. It's been too long since I've played competitive anything. To make matters even more enjoyable for me, they had me playing against the elementary school's foreigner, whom I know pretty well. I feel bad for Deon now, as I stuffed him several times and generally made him look bad. Good thing he's got his contract all squared away, otherwise they may not have wanted to renew. Next time his school needs a foreigner, they'll have to be more discerning in regards to height and volleyball skill. I'm only half joking on this shit. In allusion to the title, I have learned two things in this country regarding being asked to renew at one's school for more years: 1) Be white, young and pretty (at least by their definition). I haven't seen this one myself, but I hear that schools like to have beautiful Aryans to show off to the parents or random officials to prove how good their English education is. 2) Be good (enough) at whatever random competitions/tournaments that your school asks (and by ask, I mean forces) you to compete in. I'm pretty sure that even if my students didn't like me and the school thought I was a lousy teacher, I would have still been asked to renew, just on the back of yesterday's volleyball showing. I can't even imagine the kickbacks if we bring home the hardware come June. I'm glad somebody in this crazy world finally has their priorities straight.