Korea rant

I wake up at 7:35, say “Ah fuck” and get out of bed. I turn on the hot water, and take a piss and brush my teeth as it heats up. Finally I use the hose in my bathroom to clean myself, dry off, and pick out one of the five outfits that I can safely wear to work without getting comments from several teachers. I walk out of the door to the bus stop at 7:55.

At the bus stop there are usually a lot of students, and sometimes a few teachers from my school. I nod and say annyeong haseyo to them and they do the same and then I just stand next to them since communicating is exhausting and pointless for either of us, but still, we feel obligated to at least stand next to each other because we work in the same place. Eventually the bus comes and people stream off of it. Then I squeeze my way on and, unless it’s an unusual day and there’s no one there, I have to stand.

Once we get to school, I walk into my office and nervously smile, bow, and mutter annyeong haseyo to a room full of teachers who I don’t talk to for the rest of the day.

I turn on my shitty too-slow computer and wait for a few minutes as it boots up. Meanwhile, my shins are scraping up against the shelves under my desk. I open my email and download the lessons for the day. This takes more time again. Finally I download it, look it over, and print it. I tiptoe to the printer behind the chairs of the older Korean teachers in our too-small office to retrieve the paper, then take it upstairs to photocopy. In the main office I keep my head down and make a bee-line straight to the copier, dodging other teachers and hopefully avoiding painful small talk with other teachers. This attitude is sometimes chided by the vice-principle, who expects me to greet him every time I walk into the office. I take the copies back downstairs and waste time on the internet to distract me from the fact that I have to teach in 5 minutes.
The class bell rings and I think to myself, “Ah fuck, alright let’s just do this.”

I leave the office and students are running around, bowing to the Korean teachers, waving and stupidly yelling “Hello!” to me, or maybe making some kind of dumb joke about me. I have to put up with it since I feel awkward disciplining them.

Then I get to class. Maybe my co-teacher is with me, but either way, it takes awhile for them all to finally settle down. I’m yelling and banging on the desk, adding more noise to the din. Finally, somehow, even though they’re probably not paying attention to me, the kids at least get quiet. Then I start to teach my lesson to blank stares.

My classes usually consist of a powerpoint that no one pays attention to, a worksheet that never gets filled out and is usually crumpled and thrown on the ground, and maybe a game that takes too long to set up and usually is just a way for kids to yell and scream some more.

Since the kids don’t get a grade in my class, it’s just a period to relax and have fun. And I’m supposed to be understanding, since I’m the foreigner.

After a few classes, and maybe a break where I sit like a zombie in front of my computer trying to forget where I am, it’s lunchtime. I never go with anyone, always alone. And I usually sit alone and no one tries to talk to me anymore, which is actually relieving. Still, I feel awkward, and look down at my food without hardly ever looking up, and eat too fast so I can leave quickly. The lunch room is just as crowded as the office, so it is always awkward to try to squeeze my way out from between chairs. I wonder what will happen if Sunduck gets an obese person as a teacher next year.

The next classes go about the same. Sometimes co-teachers will come to my office on my 10 minute breaks and ask me what the difference between “shadow” and “shade” is, or between “ornament” and “decoration” and I give the best explanation I can without simply saying “Go look in a fucking dictionary. They hardly pay attention to my carefully thought-out, painfully slow, and sufficiently thorough explanation about the completely banal subject they bring to me, because they always somehow bring up some counter-argument that is completely unrelated to what I just said, to which I usually concede just so they go the fuck away and I say “OK bye!” with an ever-increasingly fake smile.

Soon it’s time for my after-school class which I’ve shoddily prepared for. The class is half the size of my normal ones, which is good, but among the students there is a wide range of intelligence and motivation. There’s always a few kids who play on their cell phones, and if I ignore them to teach a lesson, the vice principle will see them through the window of my classroom, come in and take away the cell phone, and then remind me that they can’t have cell phones in class and that I should take them away.

Finally school is over and I either take the bus or walk home.

If I have to prepare a lesson the next day, I might start at 7 or 10, but I usually finish around 11:30, my bedtime. This is because I don’t have a curriculum or any directions to follow. There is no point for me in the classroom, so I’m left to let my own neuroticisms decide what I should be teaching. This leads to a lot of carefully planned lessons, and many lessons that have been planned twice.