It’s Friday, week 2. Just taught first period and have my next class at 2:00. First period is at 8:00 by the way. So I have the next five hours to come up with a lesson plan for my next class.

Wait, got it. Done.

Now what do I do to kill time at my desk? Yesterday I watched Lost when I wasn’t downloading music or chatting with friends. Now I’m slaving away on the blog while simultaneously chatting with my old buddy Hoki, a carry-over from the Suwonville days. This work schedule of 8-5 Monday through Friday with 12 classes a week is a nice change from the old grind of the hogwan.

Not that the hogwan I worked at was a difficult job—far from it. Our American boss, Haji, saw to it that my job was as easy and stress free as possible compared to other academies. For those not in the know hogwans are private after-school academies where native English speaking trained monkeys “teach English” to children of various ages, abilities, and levels of interest. I had run the gauntlet of teaching small kids abc’s to teaching adults business English. Some classes were rewarding, some challenging, some ridiculous and others downright infuriating.

The crux of the hogwan position is the fact that the students (or in most cases, their parents) are paying customers and there is always pressure to entertain so as not to draw complaints. While Talkster (the uber-gay name that Haji gave our academy in Suwon) was relatively supportive of the teachers and tended to take their side there was still a touch of the pins and needles sensation of needing to please the unpleasable. Some students just didn’t want to be there and weren’t going to learn English no matter what. At too many academies these students can go home and complain to their parents, who are paying for the services of a foreigner force-feeding their unwilling child English. Too often the hogwan owner (the person making money from the paying customers) takes the side of the unhappy student. As for me, my complaint department was located a couple of feet south of my face around the corner.

It feels good to not teach for a business these days. Yes, I’m sure I can and will find something about this gig that gets my proverbial goat but I won’t have to worry about motivation from the students or complaints from parents. One, the students went through a rigorous application process to get the opportunity to study here thus they are very serious and driven to succeed. Two, the students live in dormitories here and rarely see their parents. Our mission is education here, not making a buck. After all, we’re funded by one of the biggest banks in Korea so money is not a big concern. And if a student is unhappy and wants to leave there will be another eager to take his or her spot.

Earlier I mentioned the grind of the hogwan. Typically I worked 5-6 hours every evening Monday through Friday which is a light load for most academies. These hours consisted of teaching consecutive classes of various levels with ten minute breaks between. Along with several other teachers we would finish at 9:00 and typically get dinner and drinks. This devolved into a cycle of staying up until 3am or later most evenings and sleeping until 1 the next day. After a few years of this my health had spiraled to a point where, well, basically I had turned into a big fat f**k. I had decided that if I ever returned to Korea, and when I left that was a HUGE if, I wanted to work a normal schedule where I have evenings off and work in the mornings to keep me out of trouble during the week.

Well, I did return… to the surprise of most of my friends. I got the schedule I wanted and so far, so good. Yes, it’s a little boring going to bed before 11 every evening but boring these days is good. As Frankenstein so eloquently put one time: “Boring GOOD. Fire BAD.” I still have the weekends to stir up trouble and find things of interest around Seoul. I have already found a new soccer team (more on that later, of course) and will get my old bike back soon. Spring will eventually arrive and there will be pictures and much rejoicing.

It is now 1:45 and nearly time for my second and last class of the day. For those keeping score, that’s eight hours and two classes. If I slack on the blog this time around you all have my permission to fly to Korea and smack me over the head with a big stinky fish, which can be purchased at the outdoor market right down the street. Being in the situation I’m in now, I’m not afraid of that happening any time soon. Until next time, my four readers…