The Piggy Flu is coming for you!

Well, school has been pretty nutty this week (and its only Wednesday!!!), so I felt that a brief post would do a body good. Plus, I have absolutely nothing else to do at school today. Why? I’ll tell you.

Now, for the past few weeks I’ve heard and read rumblings about the piggy flu closing in, about schools and private academies being closed for several days to stop the spread of the disease, etc. Many other schools had been hit in Seoul, but up until this week it hadn’t hit us. As of last week when I asked the co-teach, we had one student sick with the flu and it hadn’t appeared to have spread.

As my luck would have it, things changed dramatically when I walked in on Monday. Three of my four classes were cancelled, as the porker had hit the 3rd grade hard and all their classes were shut down until Wednesday. Meaning I had very little to do on Monday and would also have very little to do on Tuesday, as 2 of my 4 classes would have been 3rd grade. The school also offered up a massive cock tease by saying that they would deliberate early Tuesday morning to decide whether to cancel all classes for the school. That’s the kind of stuff that gets this girl all wet downstairs. But alas, I would have to wait.

Tuesday: Freaking Christmas in November. The school decided during the day to cancel all classes for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Plus, for an extra tasty little treat, I found out that next Monday is some manner of school holiday, so I don’t have to come in. While I do have to come in and sit at the office for all of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, sitting at my desk doing whatever I want is ostensibly better than having to teach, regardless of how much I may enjoy teaching. And as for that observation thingy, where the people that have no right criticizing how I teach English will, in fact, criticize me on how I teach English? Postponed. Awesome. Obviously you can’t have a class observed without students to teach….or can you? Anyways, this whole thing brought up some more drama, as my co-teach got yelled at by our vice-principal for our laziness and lack of proper preparation. She reamed out the co-teacher yesterday because we hadn’t given her a detailed lesson plan for the class in question and hadn’t had a meeting with her about the proceedings. The co-teacher logically brought up the fact that we had no idea it was such a big deal, since its not an open lesson, just 2 observers coming to sit in, and thusly didn’t think all this prep was warranted. We also only heard about this shit 3 days ago ourselves, so forgive us if we don’t have it all wrapped up. Plus there’s that whole swine flu thing that may completely wipe out the class (this tongue-lashing was before the final verdict came down). These valid arguments didn’t do any good, as she got lectured none the less. After hearing a friend of mine tell me that her vice-principal told her, in regards to decorating and preparing the English classroom for a big, big open lesson, that “you should be able to smell the English in here”, I have to wonder: are all principals/school authorities this incredibly out of touch and nutty? Maybe I had a warped perception of my former principals, given I spent very little time with them and wasn’t a teacher, but I can’t imagine any of them being this…well…dumb. Is this just a Korean thing??? As a sidenote to the whole “smelling like English” thing, this teacher is being asked to completely glam up a classroom that previously had no English decorations at all and she has zero school budget to work with (all from pocket) AND she is doing it all herself. One word: Nutty.

It’s currently Wednesday afternoon and I have pretty much nothing to do. I spent the first three hours of school this morning sitting around with the office ladies, eating sweet potatoes and apples, drinking tea and eavesdropping on their Korean conversation (not really, as they know I can understand parts of it, but it sounds cooler than just being the weirdo in the corner who doesn’t talk). I guess I’ll probably study for tomorrow night’s final exam, but I really, really don’t feel worried at all. While most of the class was freaking out about the shear amount of stuff to review, I was thinking “Fuck, I knew this shit months ago.” The test consists of an interview and the standard writing stuff. Some classmates were complaining that we were only given the possible interview questions last night and that’s not enough time to study. Me, being the asshole I am, thought “Ummmm, they did give us the questions 3 months ago…they’re called ‘our textbook’.” I however did not say this, as somebody probably would have hit me, and all the class love I got for telling the one douche student to stop asking dumbass questions and let us learn would have vanished. On a brighter note, said dumbass student apparently left the class and went back to teach English in China. Good riddance. China is more than welcome to keep that fucker for a long, long time.

Quickly, before I leave, I would like to say one thing: I’m VERY VERY VERY tired of rice. I’m done with it. If I never have to eat that tasteless suppository for simple starches ever again, I will be a damn happy man. You wanna know how I know I eat way too much rice? Let’s take a look at today’s menu. Breakfast at home: normal, no rice, good. Snack at school: sweet potatoes (also damn sick those buggers, but that’s a whole other thing), apples, tea….and rice cakes. With a packaged rice cake given as a treat (I haven’t eaten mine yet, surprise, surprise). Today’s lunch: kimchi (ugggggggggggggggggggg), weird pickled veggies, rice and soup…….with rice cakes in it. I’m surprised my body just hasn’t shut down, in protest of the junk I’m tossing into it. But that’s not to say I’ve completely sworn off rice of all kinds. In fact, I just found a Rice that I wouldn’t mind eating for a long, long time. Stephanie Rice to be exact.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/specialevents/blog/Stephanie%20Rice.jpg
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200808/r281591_1195874.jpg
http://i.cdn.turner.com/sivault/multimedia/photo_gallery/0810/did.you.see.that.1010/images/stephanie-rice.jpg


Yum.


P.S. Just got back from a teachers meeting about swine flu. I got the rock star treatment when entered. Why? Cuz I was wearing short sleeves and everyone was shocked that I hadn’t died of hypothermia. Seriously, its like I’m living in Wisconsin, but all the citizens are from Florida (love you too mom). It does this every year, so you imagine they would have grown a proverbial pair sometime in their history….guess not. Especially given that not so many years ago most didn’t have the luxury of massive room heaters, modern insulation, and the like.