A Little Nitty-Gritty Day to Day

Six weeks down and it’s still freezing here in the castle. The weeks have been absolutely flying by and one weekend runs directly into the next in a blink of an eye. Perhaps routine has something to do with that and I have little to report this week. What is routine for me however, would be of possible interest to those who haven’t worked in a private high school next to a mountain in Korea… are there any of those out there? While there is no linear storyline this week or coherent thought I thought I’d share some random happenings that are the kinds of things that make this typical procedure… uhhhh, atypical?

The students here are so overwhelmed with homework it’s astonishing. It’s not just this school but commonplace for high school students all over Korea. My pupils are zombies, plain and simple.

Typical conversation:
“How are you?”
“I’m tired (or sleepy)”.
“Why so sleepy?”
“So many homeworks.”
“So….. MUCH homeWORK. Homework is like rice, water, paper, or cheese. It’s a non-count noun and is never pluralized.”
[BLINK BLINK, BLINK BLINK]
“Nevermind, carry on.”

An atypical conversation:
“How are you?”
“I’m great!”
“REALLY? Great! How come?”
[BLINK BLINK, BLINK BLINK]
“Why?”
“Teacher today I feel no stress because I blow off my homework!”
“Well said!! I’m very glad you used a phrase I taught you! Just remember I taught you to SAY that, not to DO that! AND use the past ‘blew off’!”
Next phrase I teach that kid is “down-low”, as in to keep that blow off your homework stuff on. Dear lord, what am I teaching these kids??!! Good thing they love it.

While these “conversation” classes take up about 12 hours out of my 40 hour work week the rest of the time is spent diligently preparing lesson plans. This requires countless hours of research where I scour the news for interesting stories, watch online television shows searching for new phrases, download music in hope of finding a useful song for the classroom and doing the random stumbleupon for hours on end waiting for that perfect lesson plan to pop up. When I’m not steadfastly working on the perfect lesson plan I am able to find a little time to check my e-mail, facebook, MLB box scores, and read a few movie reviews… nice to be able to surf the internet a little bit at work.

When I finish in the evening at five there’s little to do in the neighborhood. Luckily I have a full fitness center and weight room on premises which is completely empty in the evenings and free for me to use. I’ll work out four or five evenings a week and go to bed after a long day of grueling lesson planning. The only evening that is different is Wednesday, when I go into the city for soccer practice and beers and food afterward, which is the perfect way to break up the week. Monday and Tuesday is the usual routine looking forward to Wednesday. Thursday is a blur because of the after practice festivities and then Friday comes where I teach two classes and write the blog. Last thing to happen during the week is the teachers meeting, where I sit in a room and lesson plan on my laptop while a bunch of people speak Korean. Then, just like that, another weekend is staring me right in the face and another week went by faster than the time it took the six of you to read this.