More Tales of Stagnation

Well here we are into December, and it is exam week at the school.  Again this week I am not doing much.  I might have classes on Friday, but no one every tells me anything around here so I am not sure.  All of the teachers went to an island near Incheon today.  Of course, I was only informed of this plan one hour before the scheduled departure time so I didn't have enough time to finish my work to go.  I also have a class that I teach to under privledged students every Tues/Wed tonight.  They always seem to forget about this class.

To tell the truth I am really not interested in attending school events anymore.  They never inform me of anything and in my opinion their behaviour has moved from lacking forsight, to negligent, to now - just plain impolite.  Also, I don't enjoy the strained conversations and banal topics at the dinners.  I don't enjoy the old maintenance men trying to fight with me.  I don't enjoy people staring at me as I eat.  All in all, after a day at work I would much rather just go and and be left in peace....just as I would in Canada.

It seems that my SO (significant other) is not longer able to go to Canada for Christmas.  I understand her reasoning, but nonetheless I do feel some slight disappointment.  She is very busy with her studies, and as her job has recently fired several employees as a cost cutting measure, she is working more than she has in the past.  I teach about 29 classes a week, and in comparison, she is now teaching around 50.  She works every weekend, and comes home after midnight every night mentally exhausted but unable to sleep.  I do understand her decision to change her job which will unfortunately start around Dec 15., thus not allowing her to attend Christmas festivities in my home town.  Oh well, there is always next year.

Of course, I need to decide should I go home for a week to enjoy time with my family. The plane ticket is starting to become expensive. I desperately need a vacation, and not because I have been working too much; it is rather both the strain of the work culture around here and the growing sense of isolation that I feel at my job.

I have been doing something at least uplifiting and productive lately.  I have started my M.Ed application.  I should have that finished in the next week or so.

Another note of interest, I have been running into an older Korean gentleman on my way to work every morning.  He always has a smile on his face, an even friendlier dog, and a few kind (albeit scrambled) words of English on his lips.  Today, he said "you look accompolished today".  I walked the rest of the way to school with a smile this morning.

Cheers,
Adam