The Halfway Point
Posted by Afrojew2 | | Posted On Friday, December 25, 2009 at 5:22 PM
Well, ladies and gentlemen, a milestone has been reached: the halfway point. Of my job in Korea, that is. Unless something drastic changes, I’ve decided to hit the road earlier than expected. My contract is for one year, Sept. 23rd ’09 – Sept 22nd ’10, and I had every intention of completing that contract upon its signature. Now I sing a different tune, which speaks nothing of the country or of how much I am enjoying myself. It speaks of my own realizations that have taken place in the brief time I’ve been here. Realizations like “what did you do this weekend?” can not be the most intelligent conversation I have on any given day. Like finding out I don’t have the time or the energy to care about my job and more importantly my student’s education because of how much I teach in a given week. Like the fact that I was planning on giving myself three months off between college and work because I was burnt out on both, and I’m doing a lot more working here than traveling. I guess I knew that was going to be the case when I came here, but I didn’t realize just how much I needed some time off. And possibly the most important realization of all, because of the overtime that I’m working I can save in 6 months what I was expecting to save in a year.
I made this decision a while ago, but haven’t spoken of it for a few reasons. First, nothing is in stone until I tell my manager, and I’m not going to do that until 60 days before I leave as per my contract. Second, I wanted to give myself as long as possible to make up my mind and to allow any errors in judgment to be removed over the course of time. Every day is different. Every day brings on a new perspective on my environment and on life overall. Some days I wake up loving life and go to bed wishing I was somewhere else. Other days I wake up hating the world and lie down at night with a whole new respect for it. That mental rollercoaster has pretty much subsided as I’ve carved out a nice life for myself here, but what ups and downs still do exist come by week and weekend.
Weekends are wonderful. I used to be a tourist on the weekends, but now I have enough of a social network where that is no longer necessary. Late nights with beer, friends, and good television is how it usually turns out, and I go to bed wanting to stay here forever. Then Monday comes with a renewed sense of discomfort. First up, teaching a 10 minute lesson on “What school do you go to?” “I go to Cheoncheon Elementary School,” or other various five-six word dialogues, on camera in front of the entire school. With my day already completely ruined, I arrive late to class due to the principal’s ridiculously long morning speech on the announcements before my “lesson”, and jump headfirst into a new lesson plan which inevitably fails in one way or another. Thirty or so classes and countless repetitions of “Is this your cap?” “That’s too bad” or “What do you want to do?” later, I finish the week with only enough time to walk myself through what the god-awful textbook has planned for my next embarrassing week. The material is absolutely horrific, and I like to think I would make my own lesson plans if I had the time. All of this by now has become routine and much less painful, but it’s a routine I still dread every Sunday night. I’ve got eighteen days off starting on Dec. 31st and I sorely need all of them.
Unfortunately, because I’m leaving early, I need to save all my money for the big trip that I’ve been planning for three years, which is to start when I leave Korea. Therefore I can’t really afford to go anywhere over the break. That could change if I can find a ridiculously cheap flight to someplace warm, or get so bored I don’t care about money and hop a ferry to Japan. Regardless, I’ll be leaving Korea for good on March 23rd, or a week or two later (depending on if I can squeeze out a few more weeks of salary + overtime). That makes January 23rd my notification date. I’m really dreading telling my manager because she’s been great to me, and so has everyone else at my school, but sometimes I have to do what’s best for me.
It’s not all bad, though. I’m a celebrity at my school and in my neighborhood as well (mostly because that’s where all my kids live). I can’t walk two steps without someone yelling out “Hello, teacher!” or “Engel teacher!” I thought that would get old after a while, but it really hasn’t. Provided I’m not out of breath from walking up 5 flights of stairs and grumpy from my morning fog, I love it. And these are kids who usually bow respectfully to their Korean teachers, hoping they won’t really be noticed. I think they like me. Some kids come by just to talk, which I’m not great at, but learning to enjoy. I have to walk through a neighborhood of 15-story apartment buildings to get from my apartment to the shopping center, and I rarely make it one way without being accosted by one of my kids, amazed that I’m a person who exists outside of school. I remember the feeling. If they have food, they always offer it to me, and I never turn down free food. On the other hand, sometimes six of them ambush me walking home with a pizza and demand some. I often think I’m heartless because I don’t give them any, but then I remember I’m hungry.
More reasons for leaving early… You just can’t beat April, May, and June as months for travel. My step-sister will be studying abroad in Beijing, which is where I’ll be heading immediately. Both my mom and my dad want to take trips abroad in the spring, and I’ll hopefully be meeting up with them in Europe at some point. It’s freakin’ cold here now, and in the summer it’s going to be freakin’ hot and my apartment has heat but not air conditioning. Having a routine here makes me miss my old routines on the homestead. I miss my family.
Reasons for staying… I have a lot of friends here, more so than I did back in college. Funny, I also drink more here than in college. I hope that’s a correlation and not causation. Anyways. The money is incredible. I mean incredible. And good luck to me finding a job when I get back home. There’s a lot of Korea I haven’t seen yet. Public transportation is GREAT! I really do enjoy some of my kids, when I don’t have to teach them.
All that being said, I think its time to move on. I’m three months in and I’m already itching for the next leg of my big trip. The fact that there are seven huge world maps around my classroom that I have to look at every day does not placate my wander lust in the least. Still, I have another month yet to decide, so any input would be helpful (THAT MEANS LEAVE COMMENTS PLEASE).
Merry Christmas and a Happy Passover, everyone. It’s been 4 months to the day since I left Charlottesville. I’ve traveled a lot, seen a lot, done a lot, and learned a lot, but I’ve also missed a lot. And I’m still missing. You.
Oh, and if you happen upon any teachers from my school, please don’t mention any of this.
I made this decision a while ago, but haven’t spoken of it for a few reasons. First, nothing is in stone until I tell my manager, and I’m not going to do that until 60 days before I leave as per my contract. Second, I wanted to give myself as long as possible to make up my mind and to allow any errors in judgment to be removed over the course of time. Every day is different. Every day brings on a new perspective on my environment and on life overall. Some days I wake up loving life and go to bed wishing I was somewhere else. Other days I wake up hating the world and lie down at night with a whole new respect for it. That mental rollercoaster has pretty much subsided as I’ve carved out a nice life for myself here, but what ups and downs still do exist come by week and weekend.
Weekends are wonderful. I used to be a tourist on the weekends, but now I have enough of a social network where that is no longer necessary. Late nights with beer, friends, and good television is how it usually turns out, and I go to bed wanting to stay here forever. Then Monday comes with a renewed sense of discomfort. First up, teaching a 10 minute lesson on “What school do you go to?” “I go to Cheoncheon Elementary School,” or other various five-six word dialogues, on camera in front of the entire school. With my day already completely ruined, I arrive late to class due to the principal’s ridiculously long morning speech on the announcements before my “lesson”, and jump headfirst into a new lesson plan which inevitably fails in one way or another. Thirty or so classes and countless repetitions of “Is this your cap?” “That’s too bad” or “What do you want to do?” later, I finish the week with only enough time to walk myself through what the god-awful textbook has planned for my next embarrassing week. The material is absolutely horrific, and I like to think I would make my own lesson plans if I had the time. All of this by now has become routine and much less painful, but it’s a routine I still dread every Sunday night. I’ve got eighteen days off starting on Dec. 31st and I sorely need all of them.
Unfortunately, because I’m leaving early, I need to save all my money for the big trip that I’ve been planning for three years, which is to start when I leave Korea. Therefore I can’t really afford to go anywhere over the break. That could change if I can find a ridiculously cheap flight to someplace warm, or get so bored I don’t care about money and hop a ferry to Japan. Regardless, I’ll be leaving Korea for good on March 23rd, or a week or two later (depending on if I can squeeze out a few more weeks of salary + overtime). That makes January 23rd my notification date. I’m really dreading telling my manager because she’s been great to me, and so has everyone else at my school, but sometimes I have to do what’s best for me.
It’s not all bad, though. I’m a celebrity at my school and in my neighborhood as well (mostly because that’s where all my kids live). I can’t walk two steps without someone yelling out “Hello, teacher!” or “Engel teacher!” I thought that would get old after a while, but it really hasn’t. Provided I’m not out of breath from walking up 5 flights of stairs and grumpy from my morning fog, I love it. And these are kids who usually bow respectfully to their Korean teachers, hoping they won’t really be noticed. I think they like me. Some kids come by just to talk, which I’m not great at, but learning to enjoy. I have to walk through a neighborhood of 15-story apartment buildings to get from my apartment to the shopping center, and I rarely make it one way without being accosted by one of my kids, amazed that I’m a person who exists outside of school. I remember the feeling. If they have food, they always offer it to me, and I never turn down free food. On the other hand, sometimes six of them ambush me walking home with a pizza and demand some. I often think I’m heartless because I don’t give them any, but then I remember I’m hungry.
More reasons for leaving early… You just can’t beat April, May, and June as months for travel. My step-sister will be studying abroad in Beijing, which is where I’ll be heading immediately. Both my mom and my dad want to take trips abroad in the spring, and I’ll hopefully be meeting up with them in Europe at some point. It’s freakin’ cold here now, and in the summer it’s going to be freakin’ hot and my apartment has heat but not air conditioning. Having a routine here makes me miss my old routines on the homestead. I miss my family.
Reasons for staying… I have a lot of friends here, more so than I did back in college. Funny, I also drink more here than in college. I hope that’s a correlation and not causation. Anyways. The money is incredible. I mean incredible. And good luck to me finding a job when I get back home. There’s a lot of Korea I haven’t seen yet. Public transportation is GREAT! I really do enjoy some of my kids, when I don’t have to teach them.
All that being said, I think its time to move on. I’m three months in and I’m already itching for the next leg of my big trip. The fact that there are seven huge world maps around my classroom that I have to look at every day does not placate my wander lust in the least. Still, I have another month yet to decide, so any input would be helpful (THAT MEANS LEAVE COMMENTS PLEASE).
Merry Christmas and a Happy Passover, everyone. It’s been 4 months to the day since I left Charlottesville. I’ve traveled a lot, seen a lot, done a lot, and learned a lot, but I’ve also missed a lot. And I’m still missing. You.
Oh, and if you happen upon any teachers from my school, please don’t mention any of this.
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