First, today’s lunch was absolutely amazing and free. Thank you, tall hat chef who has not in the past year and a half ceased to be amazed at my ability to be simultaneously white and capable of enjoying kimchi. JK, I love you, tall hat chef. Just make that cheesy potato thing again!!! 

I arrived at school at 8:00 on the dot, pleased with myself for arriving 20 minutes before the weekly meeting should start. I was then informed that I didn’t even have to be at work until 10:00, a fact which I was expected to magically learn myself without anyone telling me. Whatever, that was fine, plenty of time to clean and reorganize my new desk and start making a PPT. 

Eventually the teachers started drifting in and everyone was really nice and friendly to me. Four teachers left and six new ones arrived. The former English teacher who had once called me a liar in Korean, not knowing I could understand her, has been replaced by a new teacher. I actually liked her, despite her having a very low opinion of me (which I can’t understand because we were always chummy and our classes together always went really well.) However, the new English teacher is positively angelic. She is the cutest, most baby-faced Korean probably-lesbian I have ever seen. She is also 23, and there is another Korean teacher who is 22, thereby making me older than two people! I am no longer the youngest person at my school. I want them to call me unni. They are both really adorable. They also both live in my apartment building. I want to hang out with them 24/7.

I no longer teach first grade, which makes me sad, because the first grade students were so smart last semester. I only teach eight classes of second and third grades, so I have 16 teaching hours a week (which ends up being more like 12 if you count the fact that classes are only really 45 minutes long.) I will get to see some first graders, however, in after school classes. I really hate after school classes, and I didn’t have any last semester. This semester, I have 4, and will have to be at work until 6PM on Tuesday and Wednesday. This is because my school has gotten rid of it Saturday classes and moved them all to Tuesday and Thursday.

Speaking of changes, there seem to be a lot of new nation-wide policies for public schools. For example, each homeroom class now has to have two homeroom teachers, to help with bullying and suicide. From what my co-worker told me, bullying isn’t really a problem at our school (no stupid boys) but suicide is, and a significant enough number of our graduates end up killing themselves in high school. So that’s a problem. 

The books are the same as last year so I can just re-use all of the lessons that were successful. I only have three classes with my useless co-worker (who has still not shown up to work! It is 1PM! What the heck! How is she not fired for her habitual lateness and also severe inability to speak or understand English?!) so the semester will be bearable. I was hoping for none, but three classes is fine. After school class will suck, but there’s nothing I can do about it. All in all, everything worked out fine. I’m sad that this will have to be my last semester here. ㅠㅠ

I have no idea what’s going on at my school 99% of the time. When I do know what’s going on, it’s pretty weird. Here are three recent memories of weird things that have happened to me, or that I have been told by my students and co-workers. Every day in Korea is entertaining.

1. I had an interim substitute co-teacher while my normal, fatherly head teacher was out for a few months to get throat surgery. (We visited him in the hospital and his wife gave us watermelon. Her shirt had a sequined zebra.) She was a very, very sweet pregnant woman. I gave her lotion and she always told me she would invite me over to her house for dinner but I think that’s going to end up being one of those ‘Korean Promises’ (like, ‘My friend is one of Big Bang’s managers! I will arrange a meeting.’ At least three people have promised me this in my life. Or, ‘I am friends with Dalmatian. We can go to their concert together. I have the backstage pass.’ Never heard from that guy again. Also, who likes Dalmatian?) She randomly told me this one day, and I thought it was adorable. She said, “Do you know that American husbands and wives give each other pet names, like honey and darling? I did not know it was not a real pet name. So for many years my husband and I were calling each other “dog” and “cat.” OMG precious.

2. On the school trip to the mountainside Buddhist temple, my fatherly CT and some of the other office ajussi bros were joking around about whether they had small faces or not. My CT acknowledged that he has a pretty ‘big’ face and said “KFC. Kentucky Fried Chicken? No. I am a member of ‘King Face Club.’” Did he just make that up or is that a real thing Korean people with big faces say? Either way I still laugh at that.

3. A few days ago two of my (totally unbiased) favorite girls (the fan club girls; probably the only students who come to talk to me every day) were chatting with me at my office and told me that my face looked yellow and asked if I needed to ‘poo.’ I said no, but I kind of did. The next day, they did the same thing (and I kind of had to again! That’s the best part.) No, actually, the best part is that they were practically screaming this in the office, and everyone heard. Usually they get so out of control a male teacher gets up and just sweeps them out the sliding door with his arm and yells “SHUT UP! GO AWAY!” It is really quite amusing. So, if a Korean person ever tells you that your face looks yellow, that is not a good thing.

Nothing much has happened recently, although my second graders were screaming like hyenas during the scene in the move Elf in which Buddy gives his father a ‘special’ gift of lingerie. There were so many tears.

Finally sent an email to my buddy/head teacher about my ‘problem coworker.’ After our last class when they just screamed the whole time, never listened to me, she never said a word to them to make them be quiet, and she just left in the middle without telling me, leaving me really confused and angry. 

I think I was fairly mature. I said that I would like to have more classes with the other teachers, instead of saying I never want to talk to her again in my life. I attempted to emphasize how much I liked them and did not mention that I kind of want to see her get hit by a bus like Regina George. I did not mention all the stress and crying and suicidal thoughts working with her has caused me. I did not mention how she is always late, sometimes never comes, sometimes sleeps, doesn’t do anything in the classroom other than purse her lips and stare into space with her arms crossed, lets the kids act like animals (crawling all over the desks, etc.), just listens to me scolding them without reinforcing, and all that. Or how she smells like poop. Because she totally does. But that is not relevant.

This is what I sent, via Cool Messenger:

Hello,

I have a question about the next semester schedule. I am wondering if it is possible for me to teach all of the third grade classes with you, and all of the second grade classes with XXX teacher. In third grade, I think that our classes work really well together and the students are always very respectful for you (same with XXX teacher.) I think that the students learn a lot in our classes and we also have fun. But the other 3rd or 2nd grade students don’t learn much (or anything!) in the classes because they are so noisy. They never listen to me and are always talking, and most of them don’t do any work. In each class, maybe 5 students listen and answer questions. After teaching many of my classes I have a really sore throat and feel very sad because no one cared about my lesson. Is it possible for us to teach all the third grade classes together next semester? I hope that the schedule can be arranged that way because I would feel a lot happier teaching the students here if they listened to me.

Let me know if this is possible! Because I really want to teach the students lots of English and help them!