A Silly Girl's Odyssey Around Town

A few Fridays ago I came into school and I had a few things to ask Jinsook (main Co-T) before the weekend.  After an hour of empty office, a few students came in to ask me to look at their writing assignment.   Happy for the company, we talked a while.  When they got up to leave, "Nice to meet you, teacher."

"Nice to SEEEEE you.  Nice to SEE you," I corrected.  "See you this afternoon."
"No, teacher.  No class today.  School ovah."
"Seriously?"
"Yes, teacher."

JF text to main co-T: Hi, sorry to bother you! Are you coming in today?
Jinsook: I don't have classes today. My summer classes are finished. Do you need something?
JF: Well all my students say we don't have class today. Should I stay?
Jinsook: I'm so sorry! I just checked. They are right! It's up to you if you stay :)


One of the most talked about "issues with Korea", in working with Co-Ts specifically, is the ol' "oops I forgot tell you."  This story turned out well because the result was a free day off, but some do not; they feel like little paper cuts, and how teachers deal with it can make or break their time here.  

"Oops, I forgot tell you there is a trip to Daemyeong today after school."  Which turns into a 6 hour trip, complete with a karaoke mic, trivia, and prizes--obviously not the end of the world, but say you had a date.  And, three hours in a bus with a bunch of trivia and games and jokes in Korean can only be so fun.    

"Oops, I forgot tell you we are hiking today. Those shoes maybe no good."  Not to mention the dress I'm wearing?

For people who are naturally laid-back, these kinds of things can slide with no resentment, but for some teachers, this is a big source of frustration.  The co-teaching relationships are tricky--this is not something they were trained for, so it all depends on their personalities, when it comes to how much information you will get ahead of time.  Some of us get calendars immediately, with all the dates of holidays, test days, vacation days, etc.  I have yet to know when my first Open Parents' Day is, where the parents come into my class and observe.  "It probably some time in October or September."  Paper cut.   

I, some might say, am a version of Sally in "When Harry Met Sally."  Harry and Sally have this articulate conversation about high-maintenance and low-maintenance women.

Harry Burns: There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.
Sally Albright: Which one am I?
Harry Burns: You're the worst kind; you're high maintenance but you think you're low maintenance.
Sally Albright: I don't see that.
Harry Burns: You don't see that? Waiter, I'll begin with a house salad, but I don't want the regular dressing. I'll have the balsamic vinegar and oil, but on the side. And then the salmon with the mustard sauce, but I want the mustard sauce on the side. "On the side" is a very big thing for you.
Sally Albright: Well, I just want it the way I want it.
Harry Burns: I know; high maintenance.

Others would just say I'm kind of a control freak; which it totally true, but I'm trying like hell to cover it up so I seem like I'm low-maintenance.

Co-workers: "Let's go to lunch today.  Sang-mu."
JF: Graciously, I respond, "Absolutely.  That sounds great."  In my mind, I'm thinking I wish we would've planned this so I wouldn't have eaten 2 bowls of cereal this morning; which was 2.5 hours ago.  Now, I'm not hungry and if I say no, then on some weird American diet, or blowing them off.  Both rude and inappropriate. 
JF: "What will we have?"
Co-T: "That so cute.  You always wanta to know stuff.  Shabu shabu.  Seafoodah shabu shabu."
JF:  "Sounds amazing."  Sounds delicious--as 8 big bowls of sodium yumminess should, until you're stuffing my face with "takah more" and "try this" and I'm rolling home sweating with 90 degrees and his good friend 100% humidity.   



The only (albeit wavering) thing I have going for me here my excuse: it's not because I'm an ignorant and entitled waygook prick, it's because I'm older and experience has made me this way.  I used to be an uber-"go with the flow" kind of person (Type B).  I was justifiably voted Class Procrastinator my senior year in high school, and always had the house where people showed up unannounced all hours of everyday; and, I was always willing to "do whatever", even if I knew I had a test the next day.  Then a year after college, I went back to school for post-bach work; I actually wanted good grades, had to keep a job, "life" things to do--that's when The Move began.  I look back now and think, of course living that way was awesome; I just never got anything done.  

Graduate school fostered my straying far, far away from my Type B-land.  I found a new home, nestled neatly on the corner of Make-Plans Street and To-Do-List Avenue.  That way, I could do everything, keep everyone happy--take a full-time class load, do my research assistantship, still see my friends, make it to my little sister's birthday party an hour away, work out, and buy/cook healthy groceries; and in my spare time, plug away at all the literature my peers had read during undergrad, that I missed during Textiles I & II.  I actually had 24 usable hours if I just planned it right.  And drank enough caffeine. 

Post-grad school teaching at a for-profit, private (corporatized) college had me teaching four to five essay-based-grading courses; then there were the meetings, committees, and mentoring other teachers; not to mention they were paying me less than they were advertizing as the minimum salary for their associate's degree graduates.  The campus director's unconstructive criticisms basically ran a bull-dozer through any trips to Rejuvenation.  I soon I had a double mortgage in the Control Freak neighborhood.

I think my friends would say they were at least a little rewarded by this: it makes me a good party planner--the logisitics manager of our social lives.  I always took charge of reservations, times, venues, and planned based on the highest statistic of everyone's happiness, and the lowest chances of failure of someone being left out, unhappy, etc.  I brought it on myself, but it became too much.    

My former self and present self finally stopped arguing and sat down to a nice dinner and worked it out the best plan of evacuation--step 1: quit job.  Step 2: move to Korea.



"Oops, I forgot to tell you the principal and vice-principal want to join your class on Friday.  Need detail lesson plan by tomodow."

No matter how appropriate the request is, I have to admit, hearing it extinguishes the happiness from the last "oops" day-off.  A salty paper cut.  A whiny thing to say?  Probably; but it is difficult, truly and genuinely difficult to go back to letting anything and everything roll off your back, once you've had to start "listing", so as to make your life work properly.  For some it's a string of battles--they plan lessons that never get used, are drastically changed, or condescendingly dismissed, and swear profusely they'll never re-sign again (but do).  Some have two separate schools, a long commute, and drink until they fall asleep waiting for the subway, at the end of a long frustrating week.  And put a smile back on the next day.  It's just a paper cut after all.   

I actually believe that I'm okay with these kinds of "oops" and the world of Unplanners, but that I am just much much more attracted to making plans.  Tis true though, that Korea has been integral in my meandering back toward the person I see as the actual Me--hopefully a good mix of AB.  I think the sleep and lack of stress has opened the doors.  These days, I'm contentedly trying to just be hanging with my homies and some Hite, even if swollen in the blistering sun, on the corner of Relax and Shut the Fuck Up.   

Chicken Soup for the Cynic's Soul

Working in the public schools (EPIK) versus the hagwons (private language schools), the major difference is that we have to have co-teachers. It's illegal for us to teach in a classroom on our own, so we must have a Korean certified teacher. It can be a great and helpful thing or a terrible thing. Some get 1, some get 15; some get passive ones, some get aggressive ones. Number 1 thing we learned at orientation: your co-teachers will make or break your year.

In terms of showing respect, age is a very very big deal--it's very common to ask how old someone is upon meeting them. Knowing this, and the fact that most of my peers at orientation were college grads or mid-twenty-somethings (though of course, there were older folks too), being 31 I asked, "what if we are older than our co-teacher?"

This is coming from a place where I'm empathetic with their plight--foreign teacher, probably gets paid just as much, for much much less work (some teachers have to stay at school until 11pm). Add me and my needs into the mix, and I'd be a little annoyed, too. Have me be older than her too? Ugh...I didn't want it; and, with Koreans graduating a bit younger than westerners, fresh teachers were absolutely a possibility.

"Obviously, you won't have to worry about that, really," he said, more than slightly dismissive and moved on to the next question.

A few days later at our lunch meet-n-greet, I met my main co-teacher, JinSook Yang--she is one of 5. As with everything in Korea, she's cute--soft spoken, nice, helpful, and easy going. After 5 minutes of "what we should do today" stuff, she politely commented, "We were born in the same year. Actually, your birthday is before mine, a couple months." We both smiled and proceeded eating through the awkwardness.

Twenty-seven hours into our relationship--met the English department, the principal, my office and classroom, house fully stocked with gas, water and goodies from E-mart, internet--she's still smiling. My to-do list was a mile long, all of which of course needed communicative help, but I did (and still doing) my part to not overwhelm her. I would only tell her 2 things at a time, and they always came with a disclaimer, "Just point me in the right direction, and I'll try. I don't want you to go out of your way, just tell me what to do."

Sitting for a few moments, "Thank you. I really appreciate that." The next day she helped me get my medical exam and ARC card. The next, a gym membership. My address in English, next (which was tricky knowing where to actually send the package on campus). Then, she sent an email confronting the other co-teachers about classroom management (esp for the boys' teachers). Yesterday, she helped me with alphabet on my Korean homework. Tomorrow, online banking. AND, she gives me oranges. Everyday.

I covered the phrase "to go out of one's way" in class this week.

SCORE: Hagwon-0 vs EPIK-10