School Attire

Some of you have asked what I wear at school, when teaching. So, for a week or two I’m going to take a shot while I’m at school, to show you.

Here’s last Friday’s:

School Attire - Sept. 5th

 

The only thing inaccurate (in terms of being atypical) in this shot is my shoes. Generally I wear a pair of indoor-only flats that I carry around in my storage compartment on my bike, as in Korea, you don’t wear “outside shoes” when you’re in a school/non-western restaurant/house. However, that day I had forgotten them, and all the “loaner” sandals that were even remotely my size had been already taken, so I was allowed to wear my own shoes for the day.

Stuff.

Today was a school holiday, so I decided to drive the scootercycle to Mokpo.  The drive to Mokpo was fine. Driving around the city was a bit challenging, as I had no clue where I was going, but the drive there was fine. As predicted, it took about 45 minutes to get there, a full half-hour less than the bus. Most of the drive was at 80-90kph, which is generally about as fast as I’m comfortable with on the twisty roads here in Korea. I have a crate on the bike now though, and when it has weight in it, it really helps with turning and wind gusts, so I may just keep my bag of dog food in there permanently from now on, since I am always forgetting my tupperware containers of the food anyway. I think I’m just too light to really make the bike behave well. I get blown around a *lot*.

I went to E-Mart (Korea’s answer to Target, or a “HyperMarche” in France) and bought another rug (I have 5 now. Korea doesn’t do anything other than like, doormat-sized rugs, so I have them all over the house), more dog food and treats (half the price they are here in Jindo. Ironic considering this is “the dog island”), a shirt and skirt, an anti-bacterial cutting board, and some more nice wooden chopsticks (Korea uses metal ones, which conduct heat). I was going to go to HomePlus to buy a second one of the skirt I got there last week that I like, but I couldn’t figure out how to get there, so after half an hour of driving around aimlessly, I went back to E-Mart and got a burger from the McDonalds there, before heading home.

Got home, and found that my co-teacher emailed me asking for a document and photo I have given them 4 separate times (Korea is chronically disorganized). The document was a format my computer (and, for that matter, pretty much any western computer) can’t read, and she wanted a new photo taken as well. She says she wants this tomorrow, and yet she sent the email at 6pm, after the photo studio had closed. Korea is notorious for informing people of things and asking for things at the absolute last minute, and it is one of the things that I find truly frustrating. They seem to have major problems with thinking about the future at all, and it really, really shows.

Okay, no more griping. Time for dinner.

Here, have a photo:

 

3 minutes from my house...

Some recent videos…

So, I figured I’d post some of the video clips I made this weekend.  Enjoy.

 

This is the village I live in.  That video shows the main (only?) road.

 

That’s part of one of the ways I can get home from work.

 

This was video taken on a sidestreet in Jindo Eup, the county seat and main/biggest town on the island.

 

Some footage while driving near my house.  This starts off about 3 minutes from my house, and is of a road I drive all the time.

 

These videos were taken by putting my camera around my neck/shoulder and resting it on my camera bag, behind me, as I drove, hence why it looks “backwards”.

Stuff.

Today was pretty lazy, other than the irritating incidents this morning.  I hung around the apartment until the afternoon, and then I went and drove my circuit of Jindo dogs that I like to visit (2 breeders and 2 solitary dogs).  I try to socialize and sometimes feed the some of the less-than-cared-for Jindos on the island, and it feels like it gives me a purpose.  Plus, some of my students have given me some sort of highly unflattering Korean nickname that I believe translates approximately as “dog-girl”, and so if they’re going to call me that, I might as well live up to it.

I went to the grocery store and got some dish soap and another bag of dog food, and then headed back home to Gunnae.  I went for a walk just a little while ago in the dark, as it means that nobody’s outside to point and stare.  I don’t mind it most of the time, but it does get a little old sometimes to be a constant spectacle.

Tomorrow I may go to Jodo.  I wanted to go today, but the weather didn’t shape up until later in the afternoon.  It takes me about 40 minutes to drive to the ferry, and I don’t particularly want to get up hugely early, so I’ll have to check the schedule.  I emailed the high school teacher (who speaks essentially fluent English and is really friendly), since she said she wanted to hang out sometime, but I haven’t heard back from her yet.

For now, have another Jindo photo:

Mommy, why does George look different?...

I promise there will be less Korea-Hate soon…

So, this morning I got woken up at 6am by a knock on my door. It was a teacher from Gunnae (the school I live at) telling me that I needed to move my bike, as they were going to be digging up the parking lot in a few minutes.

6am.

JACKHAMMERING.

Could they have not started at a more sane hour?

Also, shortly afterward, the new principal for the school knocked and then opened my door, without even waiting for a response!  Thankfully I was showered and dressed at that point, but…damn, concept of privacy, anyone?  This is my house, not my office.  I understand that yes, I should meet the new principal, as I’m still living on school property for another week or two, but…did it have to be at 8am on a Saturday?  I mean really…

Today’s Heartbreakingly Cute but Sad Jindo Photo:

  

Grah.

This has probably been my most trying week here.  My most trying day was returning to Jindo from Seoul, having left Marc at the airport earlier that morning, but this week has just been, well, shitty.

My students, usually very happy to see me and excitable, have been taking out their frustration at having to come back to school on me by being virtually unresponsive in class.  Believe me, getting kids to talk is FAR more difficult than getting them to quiet down.  On Tuesday, I had a brain fart and thought I was teaching a different workshop than I was, and ended up arriving halfway through my teaching period, and then spent the next 1.5 hours getting not-so-subtle glares.  They were understandable (I had left them sitting there for an hour and a half), but made me feel like a crappy person.  Yesterday I had even more trouble with unmotivated students, and then during lunch, my co-teacher and co-workers were both talking about my scooter, and saying that I needed a license (I don’t, not really), even though they had never even seen so much as a picture.  It irritated me, and really raised my hackles.  My co-teacher actually at one point said “If I call the police and ask if you need a license, they will say yes.” I really wanted to say “Go ahead. If you take it away, I can’t come to teach at your school.” Instead, I just sat there angrily eating my rice.  I got up from the lunch table before everyone else, and I’m sure they were chittering away about it after I left.

The hardest thing about bad weeks like this is that I have a minimal support system.  I live a 15 minute drive from anyone else who speaks English, and even then, while I like the other foreigners here, I am not all that close to any of them.  Lisa, perhaps, but even then, I still remain relatively guarded.  If life isn’t going so well, the best I can generally do is blog about it.  So, here I am.

Hopefully this weekend will improve things.

Star of the Jindo Dog Circus

 

I promise there will be a real entry soon.

#@#$(*& Students!

So, I just had to discipline AN ENTIRE CLASS. Ironic that the first time I’ve actually had to punish a student (I had to isolate one last week, but it wasn’t what I, and the Korean system, consider punishment) I actually had to punish an entire class.

They didn’t like my lesson, so they were being silent. So, I asked them if it was too difficult. Silence. I told them that if it was, I would do an easier activity. Silence. I had my Korean co-teacher translate. Still silence. After 10 minutes of trying to get them to say something, anything, I told them that if they were going to be silent, they were going to do so uncomfortably. I made them all stand up from their desks and stand with their arms outstretched. Silent. For the entire period. Believe me, after 15 minutes, it starts to hurt.

I’m vaguely worried about retribution, however. Last week a teacher punished a few students, and they broke 7 windows in the teachers office in response. I told my co-teacher that in America, those students would be expelled, or at least suspended. These were the 8th graders, who apparently are a reasonably violent and vengeful bunch, so I do have to be careful about what I do with them. After the bell, I asked them “Did you enjoy that?” “No…” “Will you speak when I ask you a question, in the future?” “Yes…”.

Apparently they think I should only play games with them. I told them that I would play a game with them the last week of every month, but if I *only* play games with them, they will not learn anything from me, and they will never get off the island, that they will not get into university (a halfway decent knowledge of English is generally required), and that they will end up as farmers (and the Korean word for farmer is the same word for “peasant”). Harsh, yes, but they really pissed me off. They were completely disrespectful to both me and the co-teacher, and the other Korean teacher who was brought in to help. They were disrespectful by American standards, and *extremely* disrespectful by Korean standards.

It’s early in the year, and I do *not* want to start off the year seeming like a pushover. I really hope this has some effect. As a friend of mine says, if I continue with the same, all I will do is achieve compliance through force, which is not a productive form of classroom management.

Oops.

So, when I left Gunnae this morning it was merely cloudy. About 5 minutes into my 15 minute scooter drive to Goseong, it started pouring down rain. I now get to teach while drenched (mental note: leave a shirt here in case this happens in the future), and was just introduced to the new principal and vice principal while soaked. >.< Not the best first impression of a foreign teacher.

I really need to buy a raincoat. Really, really do.