RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

Today is my co teacher's last day of her contract at my school. She was only hired on for about six months. Now that she will be leaving, they are interviewing new teachers to fill her position. It's sad because she was a great teacher and more like a good friend. Hoping that the next co teacher is cool too and doesn't mind sneaking off to buy snacks during the middle of the day too. 

Why does every single person that comes to look at my apartment leave the door open upon entering?  It's not like the air conditioning is on or anything, but let me just go ahead and try to cool down that stairwell as you make your way back down.  I would also like to thank you for letting the flies and mosquitos that were also outside, in.  I was getting mighty lonely with only the dog here to keep me company.  I know most people will say well why don't you just close it after they come in, but my medium sized dog seems to freak out about half the people who come by so I try to keep him away from them the whole time they're here (even though all he really wants to do is sniff them).

Well, considering how most pet "owners" become acclimated to the unpleasant odors of their pet, I'm sure these visitors are simply trying to survive.

A valid point but this doesn't explain why I'm also closing the door after Korean teachers coming in and out of my classroom.

Could be the fox and his own hole story...

I don't like people. Especially before 9 am.

My CT never talks to me. I enjoy this. It's a wonderful working relationship on par with my college room mate whom I never spoke to. 

This morning she felt the need to break this relationship.

I don't care about your hangover or that you're tired. I want to read the news paper before my classes.

If you didn't catch it, my 1 word answer was an indication that I don't want to talk.

OMFG, okay how was your night?

(Insert random answer.)

That's great. Back to the paper.

I survive on coffee before 9am. I'm really not a morning person either. It's tough to go into school with extremely energetic students everyday.

Last week of elementary school, so I thought we'll just do movie class. I don't like doing movie classes, but when every other Korean teacher does them, and I come in, the first thing the kids say is "teacher movie".

So I thought Mars needs moms would be great. The first 3 teachers loved it.

The last teacher who is male (I am also male) hated it and stopped it half way though when the "boy babies" where being thrown in to the rubbish. He told me that this movie is very bad because the women throw the men in the rubbish dump and it's not good for our male students to see something so unrealistic as that.

It's the gender roles that are unrealistic. Never mind the movie has f*****g space ships and aliens living on another planet.

So why don't we just take these AWESOME workbooks that I have made for camp, print every page in black and white(when it is essential some need to be colour), copy them at a really low quality and then tape them together at the corners instead of binding them.

F*%k sakes. Lesson learned. Winter camp will be barren and effortless.....

Your coteacher may have done you a favour MataHari. The lack of colour sucks, but if your school, like mine, lacks a lever arm stapler, manual binding with whatever is on hand can be a difficult process. I've come out of it with bloody fingers most times.

I bought my own lever arm stapler for school.  I allow no-one else to use it, and my fingers remain un-lacerated.

Your coteacher may have done you a favour MataHari. The lack of colour sucks, but if your school, like mine, lacks a lever arm stapler, manual binding with whatever is on hand can be a difficult process. I've come out of it with bloody fingers most times.

... but we have a binding machine thingy and they aren't very thick 

Ugh I'm so angry and I know this might be a strong response because I'm tired of a bunch of things right now but 

I was trying to come up with a way to get the students to yell and swear less in class. I decided to do a point system for every single class and the class with the most points will get some kind of prize at the end. I mentioned this to the head teacher and she said it sounded good, except that for the really poorly behaved students they'll just become discouraged because they know they can't reach the top and act out even more. I thought, ok, so maybe the lowest-ranked team can have some kind of minimal punishment at the end of the year like washing all the desks or washing all the drawings and crap off the wall. I suggested it to her and she said "yeah, well, that's a nice idea but they won't do it. You don't have any power to make them do it. And even if their homeroom teacher or me tells them to do it they won't listen."

Me: "ok, then why don't I tell them there's a punishment but then just not enforce it?"
Her: "But they won't do it. they won't listen."
Me: "I know, that's why I'm saying I won't actually try to make them do it I'll just tell them to in the hopes it makes them not want to be the lowest-ranked class"
Her: "They won't listen to you, they don't care"
Me: "I'm saying.... nevermind"

I think I'll just put the points up on the board but have it be a mystery what they get or won't get. I won't tell them anything about the points system. I'll just keep it up on the board and hope that the pure motivation of not losing points keeps them at least marginally more quiet than they've been so far.

Have asked my handler about making arrangements to use a computer lab for camp twice in the last two weeks.
Today is the last full day of class before camp and I just asked her for a third time.
Her response, "Ahhh, ok." Continues doing other shit.
F*ck em

NEIS is a complete misnomer for what it is. There is absolutely nothing nice about NEIS. It's draconian nonsense! Who on Earth needs a day-by-day record of what I do during my days off? What possible use does anyone have for this information? On top of the blatant privacy invasion is an absolutely terrible user interface straight out of 1997. Not even good 1997 either, bad 1997. Every time I'm forced to use this "service", I die a little more inside. Thank whatever-deity that my co-teacher lets me just put "personal business" in the reason-for-day-off field. She also let me omit my 4-day trip to Jeju because it would be too complicated to put it in legitimately!

I have just been told that today we will have a meeting regarding feedback for my open classes. Given the state of my relationship with my main CT I am an absolute mess waiting to hear once again how useless I am and how everything I do is wrong. Irritates me considering that I know I will get negative feedback and yet there are waiting lists of students for my summer camps (so how awful a teacher could I possibly be?).

Knotted stomach of dread.

My school is going to be under construction during summer vacation, so we're going to have a temporary office...in the cafeteria

Even though it's only going to be 6 days, I'm seriously, seriously dreading deskwarming. Probably I'll just sit outside and read all day or something.... so much for getting work done. I at least got permission to move my comfy desk chair to the caf, because there's NO way I'm sitting in the cafeteria chairs all day

NEIS is a complete misnomer for what it is. There is absolutely nothing nice about NEIS. It's draconian nonsense! Who on Earth needs a day-by-day record of what I do during my days off? What possible use does anyone have for this information? On top of the blatant privacy invasion is an absolutely terrible user interface straight out of 1997. Not even good 1997 either, bad 1997. Every time I'm forced to use this "service", I die a little more inside. Thank whatever-deity that my co-teacher lets me just put "personal business" in the reason-for-day-off field. She also let me omit my 4-day trip to Jeju because it would be too complicated to put it in legitimately!

The beauty of Korea's lumping the entire rest of the world together is that merely sticking '외국' down can sometimes suffice. Or even better, if you're not sure whether you're even leaving the country, there's this wonderful place called '해외' that also encompasses Jeju.

Best regards, a fellow citizen of the Heyway Empire.

Why must there be references to all things Korean in the textbooks? Future tense with a vacation theme. Where will you go? What will you do?/I will X.

I will go to Busan by train. I will go to the Busan Sea festival and eat sushi (hoe).

I will go to Jeonju by bus. I will see the hanok village and eat bibimbap.

Don't the kids get enough crap about their own culture in EVERY OTHER class they have? The English class is the perfect place to introduce stuff that isn't Korean.

I learned a lot about French culture in my French classes. We didn't focus on Toronto shit, we learned about the language we were learning.   

It's also a poor choice of context. Its one thing to not get into the nitty gritty of nuance with the students, but at least proof the books so they can lead by example with natural contexts!

The sixth grade book we use actually has one chapter where the videos get so deep into the Korean heritage stuff that they forgot to actually include any of the target language whatsoever.

Me: Did you order the materials for camp?

Ct: No. The rest of the students who are not taking ur class are taking TOEIC, and they don't need any materials.

Me: ???????

One more semester.

Why must there be references to all things Korean in the textbooks? Future tense with a vacation theme. Where will you go? What will you do?/I will X.

I will go to Busan by train. I will go to the Busan Sea festival and eat sushi (hoe).
...
...
...
I learned a lot about French culture in my French classes. We didn't focus on Toronto shit, we learned about the language we were learning.

To be fair, the train ride to Busan is so awesome that there's a movie coming out about it that I'm definitely planning on watching!

Also, I remember that when I was young(er) my French textbooks featured a group of four music playing aliens (Zip,Zap, Zop, and Zoup) who crash landed in a French speaking city. For three entire years, we followed their crazy French speaking shenanigans as they learned about their new home.
Talk about authenticity!

Why must there be references to all things Korean in the textbooks? Future tense with a vacation theme. Where will you go? What will you do?/I will X.

I will go to Busan by train. I will go to the Busan Sea festival and eat sushi (hoe).

I will go to Jeonju by bus. I will see the hanok village and eat bibimbap.

Don't the kids get enough crap about their own culture in EVERY OTHER class they have? The English class is the perfect place to introduce stuff that isn't Korean.

I learned a lot about French culture in my French classes. We didn't focus on Toronto shit, we learned about the language we were learning.

Are you using Daekyo? "How do you say 'Hello' in Korean?" ... Don't you already know how to say that? "Do you know about 'hangwa'? It's a traditional korean cookie." ...

Even during the week..you can't escape the lack of etiquette in supermarkets here. So, the aisle is busy and jammed with carts. I move my out of the way so that this beetch can go(we were facing each other). And what does she do? She decides to take one of the samples and block the aisle with her cart and making me just wait for her to finish. You are welcome, beetch.  Damn...idiots.