RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

The principal has taken it upon herself to replace my usual summer week of desk-warming with teaching 10 돌봄 (essentially free daycare at school) classes to 17 1st and 2nd graders with an old contract teacher who can't speak English.  The class had already been set up as a daycare, subscribed to with no reference to English and staffed accordingly. Now I've got to take responsibility, make the 10 lesson plans and lead the classes.

That is really sh*t.  Any chance of refusing?

I've put some thought into it but it doesn't seem so. I contacted the go-between at our office of education because I wanted to check if teaching 1st and 2nd grade is kosher and was told it's fine because it's not in the regular semester.

Real-time update: looking at the calendar I'm considering booking the week as vacation instead. Hopefully it's not too late...

*A phone-call is happening* I completely blanked on the fact that I have 13 days vacation in Summer to spend in stead of the old 9! Fingers crossed...

The principal has taken it upon herself to replace my usual summer week of desk-warming with teaching 10 돌봄 (essentially free daycare at school) classes to 17 1st and 2nd graders with an old contract teacher who can't speak English.  The class had already been set up as a daycare, subscribed to with no reference to English and staffed accordingly. Now I've got to take responsibility, make the 10 lesson plans and lead the classes.

I've had to do that most vacation periods at my school without a coteacher. I don't mind it so much to be honest. 5 mins of teaching, 30 of activities.  The 돌봄 teachers (0 English) are pretty good at keeping them well behaved.

so i went to "goose island" in gangnam last night. we sat down, the waiter brought us a menu. the first page is a bottle of beer called "bourbon beer". the guy said it's half price, and even though there wasn't a price on it, we ordered a bottle each. i mean, it's beer, right? how expensive can a bottle of beer be? yeah, so...

so we got the receipt a couple of minutes later... the beer was 110,000won a bottle, reduced to 55,000won. wtf? of course we canceled the order immediately, but **** that guy for not mentioning it. legitimately felt like i was being scammed

then we ordered normal beer (after carefully checking the price), but, despite the place being a tap house, they were "out of large sized glasses" so we had to order the smaller, more expensive sized glasses.

**** that place

so i went to "goose island" in gangnam last night.

Always go to Art Monster. Always.

https://bartrekseoul.com/2019/01/13/art-monster-gangnam/

oh nice. looks like tap public in itaewon. i'll go next time i'm (unfortunately) in gangnam. nice one

I honestly and truly hate the foreign community in my town.

They are the just the absolute ****** worst.

I know so many folks who've moved from here just because they got tired of having to deal with the bullshit from both inside and outside of their schools, and I get it. Every time I try to mingle with anyone outside of my established circle, I end up feeling like I'm in high school again. One guy had warned me that they were a bunch of irl trolls, and at the time I'd thought he was just exaggerating, but honestly he hadn't emphasized this fact enough. I don't understand how these people manage to function at all.

Makes me all the more grateful that I have a circle of friends, and that I'm introverted so don't need a lot of social interaction.

so i went to "goose island" in gangnam last night. we sat down, the waiter brought us a menu. the first page is a bottle of beer called "bourbon beer". the guy said it's half price, and even though there wasn't a price on it, we ordered a bottle each. i mean, it's beer, right? how expensive can a bottle of beer be? yeah, so...

so we got the receipt a couple of minutes later... the beer was 110,000won a bottle, reduced to 55,000won. wtf? of course we canceled the order immediately, but **** that guy for not mentioning it. legitimately felt like i was being scammed

then we ordered normal beer (after carefully checking the price), but, despite the place being a tap house, they were "out of large sized glasses" so we had to order the smaller, more expensive sized glasses.

**** that place

That place is objectively garbage. Also Goose Island is owned by AB-inBev, I believe, so it's not even like a fancy craft brew anymore. And that Gangnam location is the epitome of style over substance. Their beers were tiny, poorly poured, extortionately priced, and the staff didn't know what the heck they were serving when I asked questions.

I honestly and truly hate the foreign community in my town.

They are the just the absolute ****** worst.

What town?

I honestly and truly hate the foreign community in my town.

They are the just the absolute ****** worst.

What town?

Yeah, dish.

I honestly and truly hate the foreign community in my town.

They are the just the absolute ****** worst.

I know so many folks who've moved from here just because they got tired of having to deal with the bullshit from both inside and outside of their schools, and I get it. Every time I try to mingle with anyone outside of my established circle, I end up feeling like I'm in high school again. One guy had warned me that they were a bunch of irl trolls, and at the time I'd thought he was just exaggerating, but honestly he hadn't emphasized this fact enough. I don't understand how these people manage to function at all.

Makes me all the more grateful that I have a circle of friends, and that I'm introverted so don't need a lot of social interaction.

Do you mean the native English teachers or just foreigners in general comprising many careers? It sounds like they are into their little clique and don't mix well with new comers. 

my wife casually mentioned to my MIL that we don't eat rice every day for dinner.. they had a big argument about it

my wife casually mentioned to my MIL that we don't eat rice every day for dinner.. they had a big argument about it

I can only imagine MIL:

  But, but................ .........BUT! HOW? I'll bet you eat bread instead.

my wife casually mentioned to my MIL that we don't eat rice every day for dinner.. they had a big argument about it

Do you at least eat kimchi with every meal? Please tell me you eat kimchi with every meal.

my wife casually mentioned to my MIL that we don't eat rice every day for dinner.. they had a big argument about it

Do you at least eat kimchi with every meal? Please tell me you eat kimchi with every meal.

that's how it started

"have some more kimchi"
"it's ok. we have some and also we don't eat rice every day"
<intense arguing>

I did a world cuisine speaking lesson with an an adult class yesterday afternoon.
One of the ladies had done a few of those 10 day/10 country Euro package tours and so she was the self professed expert.

A few of her assertions:
-Most Europeans hate rice and refuse to eat it.
-Seafood is unavailable continent wide.
-Korean bread is more delicious than anything she ate over there(i guess that's a personal feeling)
-Overall Europe is a deeply unhealthy place food wise.
-She felt disappointed, as in Gwangju she can eat so much variety, such as Sundae, Kimchi Jiggae, Samgyopsal, etc
But in Europe she could only eat European food. With most of what she said i just let her talk, but i asked her what she expected to be eating. She just rambled about variety, so I'm not exactly sure what she was expecting.

I stopped arguing or countering in situations like this years ago. But all her classmates just nodded and gave lots of oohhhs and ahhhs to her claims.
It's weird. Koreans travel so much now days. Look at vistor stats for any country and they are usually high up on the list. Yet i still hear things like the above relatively regularly. They aren't all going on package tours either. Plenty travel independently.

"There's no variety in France, all they have is French food."

"There's no variety in France, all they have is French food."

French wa nkers

I did a world cuisine speaking lesson with an an adult class yesterday afternoon.
One of the ladies had done a few of those 10 day/10 country Euro package tours and so she was the self professed expert.

A few of her assertions:
-Most Europeans hate rice and refuse to eat it.
-Seafood is unavailable continent wide.
-Korean bread is more delicious than anything she ate over there(i guess that's a personal feeling)
-Overall Europe is a deeply unhealthy place food wise.
-She felt disappointed, as in Gwangju she can eat so much variety, such as Sundae, Kimchi Jiggae, Samgyopsal, etc
But in Europe she could only eat European food. With most of what she said i just let her talk, but i asked her what she expected to be eating. She just rambled about variety, so I'm not exactly sure what she was expecting.

I stopped arguing or countering in situations like this years ago. But all her classmates just nodded and gave lots of oohhhs and ahhhs to her claims.
It's weird. Koreans travel so much now days. Look at vistor stats for any country and they are usually high up on the list. Yet i still hear things like the above relatively regularly. They aren't all going on package tours either. Plenty travel independently.

Remember spotting one of my HR teachers in Lotte Mart a while ago, was right before the holidays. We exchanged pleasantries and she said she was shopping for her trip to Europe. I noticed she'd basically filled her entire trolley with instant noodles. She confirmed that she bought it for her trip as European food was "too salty".

Plenty of Korean and Chinese tourists simply travel to gain status, hence the 10 countries and 10 days tour. Bragging that you've been to 10 countries sounds more impressive than 1.

Plenty of Korean and Chinese tourists simply travel to gain status, hence the 10 countries and 10 days tour. Bragging that you've been to 10 countries sounds more impressive than 1.

What an incredibly vain waste of money.

You'd be travelling half the time anyway. I'd rather experience London and Paris than say I've been to ten countries.

I can't wait until someone tells me that they've been to ten countries in ten days so I can tell them what a waste of money that seems like.

While I agree that 10 countries in 10 days and traveling simply for status or 'likes' or attention is pretty dumb. This phenomenon is not exclusive to Chinese or Korean tourists.