Just when I thought I was figuring this place out, it turns out…....I wasn’t

Yep, the last week here has been, in a word, hectic. I’m pretty sure there is an expletive or four letter word that could better describe the last week, but I’ll keep it PG for the time being. Yes, in regards to the title, I have actually been trying to get a handle on how shit works here. After my first 6 months here and innumerable rants about this shit or that shit (course, it wasn’t like I had no reason…my first job did suck a lot), I was tired of being angry all the time, so I decided to try a different tactic: more patience and maybe even a bit of understanding. I mean, its not like America doesn’t have its own shit that is fucked up beyond belief (hell, a half dozen or so just to mind straight away), so perhaps there is a method to Korea’s madness. However, after last week’s events, I can now say that I will never truly understand it (You win Korea! You were right, I “can’t possibly understand Korean culture”.). While my early rages about how all Koreans are lying, cheating, back-stabbing blubbering idiots were most certainly not true, I can however say that all Koreans in positions of authority, most specifically in schools, are in fact blubbering idiots who do their fair share of lying. But really, is that exclusive to Korea? I’m pretty sure that the job prerequisites for any position of power in any place or country is to be so incredibly out of touch that meaningful interaction with the peons below them is all but impossible. I should have expected this….I did not.

As for the actual events, they started well, normally. On Wednesday, I was tasked with going to the SMOE office to sign the new contract for my final year here. Simple enough. Sure, the coordinator got grumpy and snippy on the phone, wondering why I hadn’t come in earlier and why I hadn’t stayed in touch. Why I didn’t do it earlier? Maybe cuz I haven’t seen my co-teacher in 4-5 weeks. Would be kind of hard to arrange leaving school early and meeting with the SMOE reps without her help. Anyways, I get to the office and shit takes a turn. I’m only supposed to come in, talk with the coordinator briefly, sign the new contract and leave. Easy. No drama. Man, am I dumb. The coordinator comes over, but brings with her 2 of her higher up supervisors. This seems completely unnecessary, but whatever. The supervisors sit down and calmly explain to me that I received a bad review from my school and they want to discuss it. WHAT?????????????????????????????????????????????????? I get along swimmingly with my co-teachers, my office mates and all the kids. I do all my work and do what is asked of me. No problems. Sure, I’ve had the disagreements with the vice-principal, but she is a huge knob and everybody has disagreements with her (as evidenced by the fact that most of the gossip round the water cooler is about her). Well, what are my crimes, I’m curious to know. I don’t talk enough. ……………………………………………………………………………………………Yeah. I don’t talk enough. You the reader, I hope, realize how ludicrous of an accusation that is in a country and school environment, where I am the only person who can’t fully express themselves in the language that every other person speaks. I say hi and wave and talk to my students whenever they say hello every single day. And since I have some several hundred students, it feels like I say hi a hundred or so times a day. It gets quite tiring and I would like to stop, but I do not. I talk whenever conversations arise with my office mates, but naturally I don’t spend all my time chatting them up, as we both obviously have work to do and I don’t want to be a burden on them, asking them for help with every fucking little thing that happens. I don’t spend all of my free time with my fellow workers, but obviously I have my own life outside of school and frankly, middle aged Korean women (of which my school is composed) and I have nothing in common in which to bond over. Case and point, the office mates and I went out for lunch last week. For 20 minutes or so, the ladies discussed purses and how they are less expensive in America. I however, stared at the ceiling and wondered what shade of white they used to paint the ceiling. Egg shell? Taupe? Plain ordinary white?

The other complaint leveled against me was that I don’t teach enough, that the co-teachers do all the work. Ummm, that’s kind of strange, cuz according to SMOE policy, I must teach with a co-teacher during the semester. Also, I don’t think you could find a better example of actual cooperative teaching then what I had last semester. She taught a part, I taught a part. We prepped and prepared together. Everything, in cooperation.

To their credit, the supervisors listened to my side of the story and seemed sympathetic to my situation. Their expressions seemed to say “Wow, that vice principal surely is a nut job and full of shit.” Which she certainly is. Ohhh, I forgot to mention, it was the vice principal that submitted the bad review. Not a surprise. For a while I tried to see where she might be coming from, but then I realized she was just making shit up because we have had disagreements and she doesn’t like me and she wants me gone.

That brought me to the next issue, that of a new school. SMOE, to their credit, didn’t think it would be a great idea to have me stick around in a situation where it appears that I was unwanted. Course, that would mean moving to another school, which might not even be better than the current school. Worst of all, it would mean I would have to change apartments, which I really, really don’t want to do. I know for sure that I won’t get a better apartment or location than I have now. As you might imagine, I was really fucking steamed about my entire life/job/home life being at the whims of such an intolerable woman as my vice principal. The supervisors told me they would discuss the situation and call me back with their decision the next day. It was out of my hands, so all I could do was wait.

On the bus ride home, they called me to let me know they were leaning towards moving me, so I was all but certain that my nice situation would not be so nice in 2 weeks. Shit like that tends to not make someone too pleased about working in Korea and Korea (as stuff like this seems to keep happening), so I contemplated bailing after seeing how the new job played out. Once at home, I was excited to see that a package had arrived, presumably from my mother, which would mean things that would cheer me up. It was in fact, the package I had sent to Stephen many months ago and he had been too damn lazy to pick up from the post office. The 30 or 40 bucks I spent on shipping it? Wasted. Fucking Stephen. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve said that in my life, I wouldn’t need to be working in Korea saving cash. Kinda like “Seriously, what the fuck Rounds?” and “You are a sick bastard Jason”. Those would have made me pretty rich too.

Well, it turns out SMOE never called me back (and its now been a week), so presumably my co-teacher discussed it with them and I’m staying put and all the drama is behind me. I mean, that’s the only conclusion I can come to. Otherwise they should and would have called me. Course, even if they did move me, I could just play the “dumb foreigner” card and keep coming to this school and saying “What?? What new school? I don’t understand. Nobody told me. Korean culture is too much for my little foreign mind to grasp.” I’m sure it will work. They especially love the last part, makes ‘em all tingly and fuzzy feeling inside.

As for the rest of the week, we had a graduation and some staff shakeups. As for the graduation, I didn’t think I was going to be involved simply because I was told I wouldn't be during the graduation meeting earlier in the week. No biggie, I just go and watch the graduation. I guess I was supposed to wear black for the graduation, since everybody else was, but I didn't know, so I didn't. Ooops. The graduation itself was a really, really big deal. A legitimate presentation, which I didn't understand since its only elementary school. I know they take education seriously here, but its still elementary school like anywhere else. The kids can't fail, they don't do much work, and its more day-care than anything. Don't really see the point in having an elaborate celebration with musical performances by other students, awards, and speeches, but it wasn't my decision. I did like that one of the musical performances was a group of boys playing harmonicas while wearing bandannas on their heads. That was surely different.

The staff shakeups were very strange, at least to me (probably cuz I can't understand Korean culture). I know teachers switch schools all the time, but switch subjects? My co-teacher casually explained that for a change of pace, she and the other co-teacher won't be teaching English this year, but will instead be homeroom teachers in the 3rd and 4th grade. Seriously??? All those additional English enrichment classes she took, her incredible English speaking ability, not to mention her general teaching ability? Wasted. I know the teacher that will be replacing her, as she was my only regular student during the class discussion, and she will probably be fine, but that's not the point. If they really care so much about education and giving their children the best one possible, shouldn't it stand to reason that the people most qualified to teach the subjects should teach the subjects? I mean, we will spend over 10,000 dollars on a new fancy English lab and multimedia touch screen 63in monitor to better the English classes, but we don't give a shit who teaches the classes? If it matters so little who teaches, why are they all over my ass for what I am or am not teaching them. I just don't understand it. How can bringing in an inferior English teacher possibly be in the best interest of the students? Outside of the whole go back to school for 2 weeks, do nothing, waste the students and teachers time, then go back on vacation for 2 weeks thing, this might be the dumbest thing to be rolled out in the schools yet. Course, I may not even be there to see this through.

As you have just read, my previous week was filled with considerable frustration at the educational establishment here in Korea (and the crusty old cow of a vice principal). Well, with a 3 day weekend coming up, with no travel plans and capoeira canceled, what does one do? I've been reading the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and from it I learned that the only tried and true (and probably the best) way to deal with things that make your head hurt (and there are lots of them in the universe) is to drink heavily. So I did. 3 straight days. Hadn't done that since college. As you might expect, I was out of shape. On Saturday night, I met up with Jamie and we explained our adventures of the last 2 months to the other. We also ate greasy sausages and fried chicken. It was good. As a pleasant side result, I learned that the British fellows we met in the Philippines, who live in Istanbul, have invited us to a crazy bachelor party in Budapest for one of the fellows who is getting married to his Turkish girlfriend. Unfortunately, we won't be able to make it, as it is in May, right in the middle of our contracts. However, they have invited us to come visit whenever possible and it appears Jamie and I might make an appearance this summer. Istanbul this summer? That probably wouldn't suck.

On Sunday night, I met up with Amy and new friend she met on the train. He works for LG in their mobile phone software division (I knew there were foreigners that didn't teach English!) and is from India. As you can imagine, I was excited. I asked him if he knew Salman Rushdie, cuz all Indians are related or know each other or something, but he said he didn't. Weird. Also, I didn't actually ask him that. I was supposed to meet them at the noraebang and needed to grab some grub along the way, but since this was the Lunar New Year weekend, most stuff was closed. However, just like the 3 wise men found their way to baby Jesus all those years ago, the stars led me to my most revered destination: a open Papa John's. How did I know this place was the one? Well, it was the first Papa John's in all of Korea and it had a signed pizza box from famed soccer manager Guus Hiddink, who has acquired god-like status in Korea for taking the 2002 team to the semifinals. This was it. With a chicken BBQ pizza in hand, I headed off to the noraebang. It certainly was unusual, as everybody just has their shit delivered here. Man, everybody delivers. Even McDonalds and Burger King deliver. Once at the noraebang, I ate my pizza quickly with the solid vocal stylings of Amy as accompaniment. Once I finished my food we moved back to the Crazy Wine Bar for well, wine. We drank wine, we drank beer, we chatted with the goofy wait staff, we played darts and eventually we went to bed.

Monday saw the group getting together for lunch at the Vietnamese restaurant, then off for cake in honor of Jamie's 35th birthday. And since it was still the weekend, we followed up the cake with beer drinking starting at....5pm. You know, so you can finish earlier in the evening. Well, once the beer started flowing everybody got all emotional and weepy thinking about how we only have a few months left together before we all disband and go our separate ways (and by everybody I mean...me). Yeah, the gang is coming to the end now, with only 6 months left. Man, has it gone fast. We did promise to reunite in Sydney (you know, the one in Australia) in August of 2011. So in regards to planning my future globetrotting and vacations, I think I did pretty go this last weekend.

As a result of an entire weekend of drinking, pretty much everyone felt like crap on Tuesday. Let that be a lesson to you folks. Always, always, always practice moderation. On the flip side, all that drinking certainly made me forget the BS of last week. At least until I decided to write about it today.