the pain, the agony

So sick, so weak, so anxious to die. OK, slight exaggeration. Grand designs to write many delightful posts over the weekend faded along with my strength and energy. What I at first thought was a severe cold has, I believe, morphed into a severe case of the flu instead. Oh, for a cold. Or for a mild case of leprosy.

Language/culture clash

While studying my beginning Korean textbook at the school this afternoon during a break between classes, the Director walked into the room. When he noticed what I was doing, he was impressed ("Oooh!" "Aaah!"). In what then must have been a desire to test my abilities, he wrote a simple question in Korean for me on the white board. I was semi-confident I knew the answer so I blurted it out.

I was wrong. Obviously I jumbled the vocabulary because he immediately laughed, heartily, at my mistake and proceeded to share my blunder with several Korean teachers standing nearby.

Let me say as I proceed that I like this Director. He is kind, thoughtful (though perpetually late in paying his employees), relaxed, and he has a great sense of humor. I can only guess he was tapping into this "sense of humor" by laughing at me because I can find no other plausible explanation.

Normally I wouldn't be put out by such a response; learning a new language is challenging at best and everyone knows the best way to accelerate the process is by practicing in real world situations. But when I consider the plethora of mistakes I hear when every Korean speaks English, especially those made by this Director and the other Koreans working at the hagwon, I'm primarily angry that they would laugh at my mistakes when I am instead kind, supportive, and more inclined to focus on their language strengths rather than their missteps.

What aggravated this event was the Director's reaction to my reaction. He launched into a speech about how we foreign teachers are too sensitive, that laughing as he did is not offensive in the Korean culture, and that by being offended I was showing my failure to adapt to the culture of the land in which I was living. (My response to THIS preposterous accusations is fodder for another blog entry.)

This is not a colossal problem (though it did degenerate into an "us vs. them" debate for 15 minutes between the Korean and foreign teachers). I am a bit discouraged though that I must now selectively choose where and with whom to practice my budding language skills.

book report

Though it's still a jumbled, incomplete mess, I've now linked to my already existent book report blog.

Korean Folk Village

I finally made it to the folk village!

daily.picture.post

Try as I do, I have lately failed to submit daily posts. Between teaching at the hagwon, teaching private lessons, attending my Beginning Korean class at Kangwon University, language exchanging with Little Richard, educating my political self at Rush Limbaugh.com, and indulging my guilty pleasure of listening to The Phil Hendrie Show, the time passes too quickly. Writing, I'm ashamed to say, gets displaced by other, often lesser priorities.

So to boost my output by 1,000 words a day, I've created a daily picture post page. Visit it often and you'll have another (or at least one) reason to get out of bed each morning.

15 hours a week is work?

The new school schedule is hot off the presses! I've dropped precipitously from teaching 28 hours a week to a mere 15 hours a week. It's likely to skyrocket to 17 hours when the long anticipated writing class begins in a week or two, but come on!

As of this day I no longer work in Korea; I live and play in Korea with a few brief moments per week of something that other people call work. Sheesh!

The end of an ice age?

To what do I owe this shocking about face? The coworker who was the target of my "b" word rant appears to have grown up a couple decades and joined the world of the mature. I think it's thanks to our raving Halloween party and the arrival of the new teachers yesterday in that it's forced her to act normal or get left out of the loop. Two of my other coworkers who had recently commented about her odd behavior also noticed the change and wondered aloud to me what could have produced this miracle.

I know enough to not expect this improvement to be permanent or long-lasting. And oh that I could make her see and feel the effects of her wildly inconsistent behavior.