KLB - Inconsequential BS


I felt somewhat better after lunch. It helps to write down how you feel. I kept telling myself on the way back to the classroom that I only have to do this for three more weeks, then it's back to the normal schedule for less than a month and that's that. I'll never have to work with her again.

As I've mentioned numerous times now, it's really a shame. Even with the long classes, teaching the kids is a lot of fun. This must be the first job in my life I've actually liked. Certainly the first teaching job. All the kids are wonderful - really - and we have a great relationship. I have no discipline problems. I have at least 10 adorable little girls that are in love with me. That's a lot considering at my past jobs hardly any of the kids even liked me that much. That was because the miserable systems made me a miserable teacher and therefore nowhere near as motivated and energetic as I am now.

I really enjoy teaching these kids and they genuinely enjoy my class. They have learned and are learning a lot. It's too bad all the other people involved take away from that. It's not just Cathy either. She's deeply Korean and has been thoroughly brainwashed into kissing everyone's ass, and that ass-kissing is expected of her. This way of life is so embedded in her consciousness that she literally can't comprehend not working hard. That is why such things as me being a few minutes late (and not rushing through the door full of apologies) or reading the paper during break-time (instead of preparing something) shocks her.

That reminds me. Yesterday, Sahan, a little girl who can't leave me alone and asks me a zillion questions everyday, gave me a box of peppero sticks (chocolate crackers). While the kids were taking a test, I ate one. I really thought nothing of this, actually. Cathy was standing next to me, at the whiteboard, watching the kids (I told you she never sits down). Somebody walked by and looked in the window and kept walking. Cathy flipped. "Oh, my God! So many people walking by our room and looking in here."

"What? Really? Who?"

"The guy from the computer room, another teacher, sometimes parents."

"Oh," I said, chomping down the peppero stick. "That's OK."

"So, we have to worry about that."

I looked at her curiously. "I really don't get it, Cathy. Why are we worrying?" (chomp chomp)

"So, we (and I'm sure she's only referring to me) can't looking at cell phone, reading the newspaper or eating."

Now, she's the only one who uses the phone during class - to call the parents. We have cake and snack parties once a month where all the kids eat junk food during class. And I never read the newspaper except on breaks. I don't even keep it on the desk anymore, just to appease her.

"Cathy, you worry too much."

"But we have to worry about that."

I thought about it for a minute, still eating the peppero sticks - not smugly or arrogantly, just eating them like normal. They were very good, by the way. Thanks, Sahan! "OK, Cathy. I think I see what you mean. Whenever someone looks in the window, it looks like we're not doing anything, right?"

"It's make me worried."

"Well, Cathy. I'm sorry, but I'm just not worried about that at all. These kids speak English because of us and we're doing a good job."

"But we have to worry about others thinking. We can lose our jobs."

"What? We're going to get fired because I'm eating a peppero stick?"

"No, but if too many complaints about us."

"Wait a minute. Has somebody complained about us?"

"No."

"Then stop worrying about it."

So I realized that's part of why she's so diligent and busy. It's not because she genuinely cares about professionalism (if she did she might wear something besides jeans, a sweatshirt and those workboots she still wears). She's afraid of possibly looking bad to others and/or losing her job. That's awful, I think, for a teacher. Teachers should only have to worry about their students, not anyone/anything else.

As for me, I've never cared about getting fired (and amazingly I never have been) and I'm never going to worry about it either. If I lose my job, for me, that means I will have some time off to enjoy. When the time comes, if I run out of money, I will get another job. I have no fear of starving to death or living on the street. Let me quote Henry Miller:

"...it wasn't optimism, it was the deep realization that, even though the world was busy digging its grave, there was still time to enjoy life, to be merry, carefree, to work or not to work." (Quiet Days in Clichy)

I'm not about to teach for people who might be looking in the window, either. If a parent walks by at a less than idealistic time, that's just too bad. Go and complain to the principal. Well, guess what, I've been doing a terrific job teaching your kid how to speak English and it's a damn pity that you think otherwise because at some random time you popped your face in the window and there I was eating a cracker, God forbid.


Today I casually mentioned to Cathy that I need a new black marker. She scuttled out of the room and was back in 2 minutes huffing and panting, waving the marker in the air. After handing it to me, she leaned against the board to catch her breath.

"Why did you run?" I asked her.

(out of breath) "Because you need marker."

"Don't do that, Cathy. It makes me feel bad."

These are the kind of cultural differences that make these American-Korean team teaching programs usually end up a disaster. Take a closer look. Cathy thought that by hurrying, she was doing a good job and that she is expected to hurry. On the other hand, I felt uncomfortable and awkward that she hurried so fast. What am I supposed to say while she's gasping for air and handing me the marker? - "Wow, thanks for hurrying. You're so helpful." That just encourages the madness. But my reaction wasn't appropriate either. I simply confused her and made her feel bad, I'm sure.

Well, enough about this. It's Friday and time to put work out of my mind for the weekend.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

KLB - Human Robot


I'm at work. It's break time. As I write, the human robot, known as Cathy, is inside the classroom working diligently. She never stops. She never relaxes. She is nuts.

At exactly 10:00 to the second, she started class today. Every day at 10:00 to the second, she calls attendance then makes the kids say, "Hello, Shawn Teacher, how are you?" At that point, she makes them be quiet and then walks away while telling me they are ready to study now. "Yes, I can see that Cathy," I say. And I want to go on to say, "Unfortunately, I'm not ready yet. I just traveled for 90 minutes to get here, can you just calm down and let me relax before I jump into teaching for two hours? Some of the kids aren't even here yet." Instead I just sigh and ignore her and an awkward silence fills the room as I fiddle and fumble to get ready.

Everything is exact with her. She times the 10 minute breaks on her watch. As soon as those ten minutes are up, she starts class again - whether I'm ready or not. Yesterday I ran off for lunch to a small restaurant. The restaurant was busy and it took awhile for my food to come out. I was exactly 2 minutes late coming back. Cathy had started the class and was standing there at the front board, the students dead quiet, waiting for me. When I came in she said, "OK, kids, Shawn teacher is here. Time to study." I hadn't even removed my jacket. I almost erupted, really, but somehow I calmed down. However, I told her from now on not to start class until I come back from lunch.

There would be no problem if she just relaxed a little and stopped worrying about everything. She's my assistant, but you wouldn't know it the way she tries to control everything, including me. Agh! Here she is now, with that angry look on her face, telling me it's time to teach. Ugh. More to come later.

I'm back. Now it's lunch time. I'm eating a sandwich, but I need to vent more. After the break, I reviewed today's phonics again and then we played team-bingo. Each of the four teams gets a bingo card with the letters on it. Then I say the sound and they put a chip on the appropriate letter. Great. Fun. It's Friday. Let's have fun and play this for the rest of the class (30 minutes), I thought. The kids were loving it, because they could rack up the plus points towards stickers with every bingo. It was a lot of fun.

Well, I was about to play the 3rd round when Cathy, lo and behold, interrupted me and said I have to teach the book now. I saw red. I took several deeps breaths, but I still couldn't hold back the rage. "Cathy, it's Friday. The kids have done very well this week and it's game time, OK." I mean, come on, these poor kids have to study English 2 hours a day during their winter vacation now and then rush off to hagwons and whatnot afterward.

"But you have to teach the book. When do you teach that?" She walked over and found the book syllabus on my desk. "See," she said and pointed.

(By the way, the new book is a joke - it's basically a bound collection of printed worksheets from the web with very little thought to continuity or ability levels of the kids, so I've been teaching what's important - phonics phonic phonics and more phonics instead).

Yes, there it is, page 75, conversation time. I sneer and turn to page 75 (while the students are watching this interaction) and see: "I'm hungry. Can I have a hamburger please?" For crying out loud, I didn't want to stop the game to teach that for 10 minutes - but I also didn't know what to say to her without exploding. So, I stopped the fun game, on Friday, after having studied almost two hours, and made the kids repeat that stupid bit of dialogue over and over and...

Well, lunch time is over. I'd better hurry back to Cathy's classroom, lest she get upset I'm late.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

KLB - Apple

Had this come out just a few days earlier, I may have held off on buying the laptop. This is just a really cool deal. You can also plug it into a PC monitor.
Who knows, at that price I still may consider getting one down the road. I've always missed the iBook I used to have.

Julie has wanted a Mac for ages but always considered them too expensive (especially in Korea), but maybe now she will get one...hehe, and I can use it when she's not here!



I do know I will be finally buying an iPod! I had been waiting for them to come out with one for around $100 and they have. I mean, being able to store 4000 songs would be nice, or 2000, but to be honest I only listen to around 100 songs on a regular basis and have no need for that much storage. This deal is perfect. Hope it arrives in Korea soon.



By the way, you can visit the apple store in Korea here: Apple Korea. They have a store in Technomart and in Yongsan. I believe they also have one somewhere in the labrynth of the massive Coex shopping center.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

KLB - Shocking Revelation


In case you haven't read my book, my mother and grandfather live together. My grandfather is quite the chef and takes a lot of pride in his "American style" cooking - usually some form of meat and potatoes. When I went home the last time (over a year and a half ago) he got a little offensive and possibly hurt when I talked about how much I love Korean food, and especially when I cooked it. My mother, however, openly enjoyed it - except for a few things.

Anyway, my mother casually mentioned that they came back "again" from the Korean store yesterday (there are two in downtown Syracuse, NY) with several bags of groceries. Apparently, they've been sneaking down there on a regular basis. This is the first time my mom told me but she's been eating Kimchi mandu (dumplings) a few times a week since I make them for her and that my grandfather regularly uses rice wine, vinegar-oyster sauce and sesame seed oil which he buys there.

As my Mom was telling me this over Yahoo messenger, I couldn't stop laughing. This is just part of what she said:

"I love the sauces. Some of them are completely in Korean. Not even sure what they are really...it's all gobbly-gook and what they tell you in the store - by the way, they are a friendy bunch there and know us by name now."

My grandfather then came on and tried to cover up saying my mother's been making him go there because SHE loves all that food. But then my mom came back on and said my grandfather loves going there and really chats it up with the Korean ajumma that runs the place - and that he eats all the food too. I'm still laughing here.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

KLB - Wireless


I bought the Averatec laptop computer I wanted but no camera yet. I may hold off on that for a bit. I really didn't expect to sell the Minolta so quickly, to be truthful. Then again, I didn't think I'd sell the computer that quickly either. However, the deals were fair and I have an advantage that I can advertise on my website.

The computer is pretty nice for the money. I'd take a picture of it but I have no camera, heh. I won't bore everyone about it anyway, but I will say that it has built in wireless. Now I can hang out at Starbucks across the street and look like a hip, post modern foreign intellectual (or just another pretentious schmuck). OK - here it is exactly for those who may be wondering. You can figure out the specs even if you can't read Korean. The only difference is we had the memory doubled.





We called our internet provider, KT, today and the guy came with the wireless modem. This service, called Nespot, costs the same ($30/month) as the regular DSL service and the speed is just as fast. I can't believe it really. The internet service in Korea is nothing short of amazing.

I felt kind of bad for the KT guy. He was having a bit of trouble with something and the English Windows version was making it more difficult. Also, Julie was at work and so he struggled (unnecessarily) to explain how to use the set-up. Actually, it was kind of ridiculous:

"This is power button," he said. (on computer)

"Um, really? I see."

"Computer on, light here."

"Great."

"Wireless internet button...um, uh, mmm, uh, push! - push on."

(how much more obvious can you get - the button clearly says wireless on/off)

"Computer boot now. Internet start. Password saved. Auto connect." (at this point it didn't connect because of the problem I mentioned he had. He spent the next 15 minutes mumbling to himself before figuring out. Then we went through all of the above conversation starting with "power button" again).

Anyway, it's not rocket science. I start the computer and poof, I'm connected wirelessly to the internet. Still, I thanked him for trying so hard to speak English for me.

This week started pretty well at the school. It's taking a bit of getting used to teaching for 100 minutes/class, but so far so good. Luckily I have mastered the art of teaching effectively by teaching slowly - so I can make limited resources last a long time. When I first started teaching in Korea I had no idea what I was doing and would nervously zip through 4-5 pages of a book in one class. The kids learned nothing that way, of course, and the book didn't last long enough. Now I can make even just one page last several days by employing a variety of teaching techniques with the material. Also, I've decided to start from scratch with the first two classes by teaching phonics so that everyone can read, not just 60-70% of them. I have mostly the same kids too, minus a handful and plus some new ones. The news kids are pretty good...not too bright but quiet anyway.

Cathy had to watch another class at another school on her day off last week. Though she was annoyed about that, she did come back with a few good ideas. As you know, I had been dreading working with her so long everyday, and conflict is bound to arise, but it really would be a lot harder without her there with the long classes. Her preseence does keep some of the kids, especially the younger ones, in line. I don't think I could control Class A for 2 hours by myself. She's even been teaching a bit, to my surprise - mostly games. She is really good at teaching games, to be truthful - though it helps that she can explain the directions in Korean, which she has been doing despite her nervousness. As long as she can help out a bit like that the month should go well. In any case, no matter how hard it may be, it's definitely worth the money for one month. It's like working a regular full time job but for twice the pay.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

KLB - Sunday


I sold the camera last night as advertised to Willie G. Me John and Julie met him at Yongsan Station and we had dinner together. Yongsan Station is really nice. I should have taken some pics of it before selling the camera. There are a lot of unique foreign style restaurants there including Vietnamese and Thai.

Anyway, by the time we ate, the electronics stores were closed, so I didn't have a chance to shop - but it doesn't matter. The notebook computer I'm going to buy later today is available at the computer shop across the street from our building and also at Walmart. Same with the camera I've been looking at. We thought they both would be cheaper at Yongsan, but we checked there before and suprisingly the computer is the same and the camera is actually more expensive even with Julie's relentless pleads for a discount at several shops. So, we may as well buy them nearby in case we have a problem...

Well, we're off to the CGV theater in Hyundai Department store to see National Treasure. I should be online later tonight with at least the new laptop. See you then.

written by shawn matthews    -|link