God This Place Sucks!!

This is surely the worst place I have ever been in my life. Yesterday I hid out in my house to avoid the dirt, noise, traffic, dangerous drivers, squealing women, etc. On the weekends one really wants to get away from Korea. It is impossible to find peace and quiet unless it is in your house. Thank the Universe for my cozy apartment.

Today when I came in to work I tried to turn the frown upside down. Think positive!

The lesson I was to teach is in a unit entitled "What's This?". Good idea, it is important to know what things are. Well, at a closer look today's focal point is "I'm sorry". Hmmm..... What does that have to do with What's This? "What's this?" "It's a ruler", "Oh, I'm sorry." Well that's bloody brilliant!

I have done lots of things here that I would not normally do, but today I simply could not march into class and do that lesson. Sing an entire song with the only words being "I'm sorry" and "It's ok". It is sooooooooooooo ridculous. They want me to teach the lessons in the book and my teaching method of using Bingo (which indeed is a wonderful learning tool, as every teacher knows) was not seen as a good idea by some non English speaking parent, so I was asked to not do it. Bah! It fit perfectly with today's lesson, so that is what I did.

Mira, my passive aggressive, unhelpful, defiant, martyr of a co teacher surely did not like it. However, she is a miserable cow every day, so that is nothing new. I ask her to help the children, she says they don't need help. I ask her to translate something so they will understand, she says they understand. A child is crying, so I ask her to come over, and she asks "Why?" I could crack her in the head sometimes. She dismisses the class when I am trying to organize clean up, and in general drives me right round the bend!

Whew! That felt good. When I think about 70 more teaching days, then vacation, a smile creeps to my face. I am singing little songs to myself, "oh, you are a cow, only 70 days left!" How people can resign is beyond me.

I will not miss Korea! I will be happy to say goodbye to:
The stonefaces
the lack of soap and toilet paper
the crappy curriculum
the noisy out of control classes
the horrible food
the lack of available good food
the lack of logic
the lack of respect
feeling like a zoo animal
being less than the men
being less because I am white
nearly getting run down on a regular basis
told that I am fat every day
being hit by a child
the lack of support and guidance at school
the idiotic rules
I really could go on and on

However, I will miss Calbi!!!!!

Must go start planning my vacation...