Third Rock From The Sun

Hello family and friends

Greetings from hot and sticky Korea.

The heat is really making teaching difficult. The students slouch over their desks and almost none of them have the energy to really participate. I’m going to have to adjust my lessons so that I don’t have to walk to much around the class room, otherwise I am not going to last either. The really scary thing is that those weigooks (foreigners) who have been here keep saying this only the beginning.

Jess and I are using our aircon more frequently, and we intend buying a fan this evening. The evenings cool down, but we can’t open the windows as the mosquitoes are becoming problematic. If you look out the window you see them swarming against the outside pane. All the apartments here have mosquito netting, but the mosquitoes are so damn small that they get through.

Anyways, it’s Friday afternoon and I’m tired. The heat is sapping me of energy. Generally the teaching is going well and things have been going fine for me at school outside the class room as well. So no moans from me.

Jess probably has one or two gripes at the moment. For example her headmaster received a letter saying that no NET’s (native English teachers) could go home for the summer holiday, so he promptly declared that Jess is not allowed to go home. This was after Jess and I had paid for our international flights. We were speechless, and then we got arguing between ourselves. Jess was going on about ‘we are asking’, and I was getting hacked off as I kept repeating ‘we asked, we are not asking, we have an agreement.’ I guess it was easier for me to put things in absolute terms as I was not on the receiving end of the madness.

In the end Jess phoned a woman at the POE (provincial office of education) who we had originally spoken to about going home, as we are actually contracted to the POE, she also said that we have an agreement and that we shouldn’t worry. So this woman is going to sort things out. I think she might be a super heroine in disguise. I love the fact that she is a woman, the headmaster is really going to chafe at her putting an end to his silly theatrics.

The only headache in my life is that all the schools were recently sent a directive instructing them to ensure that we NETs teach during the school holidays. I can’t complain as my contract provides for a shorter holiday than the school holidays. The only thing is, who am I going to teach since the kids are on holiday? The kids? This is causing a bit of a headache for my co-teachers as they now have to find ways to keep me occupied. I don’t really like the idea teaching in the school holiday, the kids are entitled to a break from my mug. So the chances are I will have one or two classes and then spend the rest of the school hols producing materials. This ain’t that bad, hopefully I can plan a couple of classes before leaving for SA.

The good news: We have another South African in town. He’s Afrikaans, through and through, and has been asked by his hagwon (private academy) to develop a US accent. They are busy coaching him. I hope he manages, he wouldn’t be the first person to lose their job for not speaking English with a sufficiently good US accent. (I didn’t tell him this, hey let’s give him some time to settle in first.) Many Koreans, and especially the hagwons, are fixated on learning to speak English in a US accent. Jess and I think this absurd, after all English is spoken all over the world in 101 different accents. Students should be exposed to as wide a variety as possible.

The first time we phoned the new South African he told us he was unsure where his apartment is, but that it has electric doors. Jess and I had a good laugh, and are definitely going to tease him about this at a later point: electric doors are two a penny over here.

Jess and I have been invited to talk at a workshop this coming week. We were asked as one of the speakers fell through, but we were pretty chuffed nevertheless. We surmise that we have a good rep in town.

Things are on the up here in Korea. Classes are going ok, and school in general is fine. I’m really proud of how well Jess and I have adjusted to life here. Other foreigners spend their lives cursing. The less of an attempt one makes to build relationships, understand Koreans and fit in with the Korean way of doing things, the harder things are. In general the loud and brash - and they are loud and brash - US foreigners are the worst in terms of fitting in. Everything is compared back to something similar at home and invariably found wanting. This said one of the nicest foreigners in town happens to be a US citizen, he was in the marines and everything.

Oh and I signed my second contract this week. Now I am formally committed to returning. Arriving in Korea once again is going to be so much easier. We are going to arrive back to our fully kitted out apartment ready to go once again. Once we get back it will soon turn autumn, and then it is winter and I am going skiing and snow boarding as often as possible. “Oh yeah, Julian’s going to be tearing up the slopes! Beginners beware!”