RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

We have a portable microphone salesman in the teacher office right now and he is not hesitant to sample his wares. Bother it all.

I am convinced that co-teaching would work much better if our salaries were kept private. 

If I were a Korean teacher, I probably could not help becoming envious and resentful if I knew someone who was not my superior, and did not have my training, was making more money than myself.   No matter how much I liked them or approved of their job performance, there would always be that resentment and working together would always be difficult.

Korean teachers will not consider their bonuses, income growth potential, and the sacrifices we have to make to live in a foreign culture away from our families.  If I was in their position, I would probably feel the same way.   

I am so sick of passive aggressive jabs at my income! 
I can see where salary transparency can help a company increase productivity and competitiveness - but in the case of teaching ESL, I think it's the main cause of problems with coworkers.   It has nothing to do with culture.  It's human nature.   

Koreans in general seem to think we get paid a lot more than we do. At a meetup with Americans and Koreans, one of the Americans offered to pay for the whole meal because it was one of the Koreans' birthday. The other was surprised, and birthday Korean said to her friend "oh, well, it's because foreign English teachers make a lot of money. 3mil won a month"

I wish!!!

whooo after 3 days of relatively little/no nausea, I was really hoping somehow I was magically cured! Nope. Taking dramamine 3x a day certainly did effectively create the illusion that I was doing better though. Currently feeling full-body nausea and no idea why. I've only been sitting at the computer for half an hour, too.

I was already planning on going to the clinic doctor in my apartment building to check out my lymph nodes, which aren't as swollen as usual but still very much apparent if you touch them, but now I'm wondering if I should just go to the big hospital instead because the clinic doctor doesn't know about my nausea and was going to refer me to a larger hospital if my nodes were still swollen after 9 days of antibiotics

Clinic or hospital? Vote?

I'm a mess. Totally falling apart. I even have a cold

fff

Koreans in general seem to think we get paid a lot more than we do. At a meetup with Americans and Koreans, one of the Americans offered to pay for the whole meal because it was one of the Koreans' birthday. The other was surprised, and birthday Korean said to her friend "oh, well, it's because foreign English teachers make a lot of money. 3mil won a month"

I wish!!!

even if you only make 2.5m a month, you still get a free apartment. if you took the housing allowance, you'd be on 3m

I only make 2m a month

I did find it kind of annoying that everyone knew what I was making, but on the bright side, everyone makes more than me so nobody feels affronted. Lol

First rant here.

Okay, so I'm at the school where kids are pretty unmotivated. I've successfully combated that by spending as little time in the book as possible, then playing a game where they'll get plenty of repetition of the target phrase.

So, today I'm teaching the 3rd grade middle school students, and they had a lot of fun with the game for the first phrase, and I just finished explaining the second phrase we would learn this week. I have only 10 minutes left, but that's fine, we should get through a couple of rounds of the game today and play it a couple of times.

But apparently one of the boys is acting up so much (admittedly, this student is usually half asleep, but I prefer that to disruptive), so my CoT proceeds to yell at him. In front of everyone. For the last ten minutes of class.

So now, the entire class is behind on the phrase, so I either have to cut it or cut off part of the next chapter to get some practice in.

That happens to me every single class with one of my CTs.  She gets really emotional and yells at the students over the smallest things.  When a student is a few seconds late she'll play a song on youtube and make them noraebang it for the first 5 minutes... and it takes about 5 minutes to get them to actually do it.  Then when I'm going through my ppt she'll pull students in the hallway and yell at them for 5/10 minutes rather than assisting me in explaining the grammatical point.  So by punishing one student, she's punishing everyone.

First rant here.

Okay, so I'm at the school where kids are pretty unmotivated. I've successfully combated that by spending as little time in the book as possible, then playing a game where they'll get plenty of repetition of the target phrase.

So, today I'm teaching the 3rd grade middle school students, and they had a lot of fun with the game for the first phrase, and I just finished explaining the second phrase we would learn this week. I have only 10 minutes left, but that's fine, we should get through a couple of rounds of the game today and play it a couple of times.

But apparently one of the boys is acting up so much (admittedly, this student is usually half asleep, but I prefer that to disruptive), so my CoT proceeds to yell at him. In front of everyone. For the last ten minutes of class.

So now, the entire class is behind on the phrase, so I either have to cut it or cut off part of the next chapter to get some practice in.

That happens to me every single class with one of my CTs.  She gets really emotional and yells at the students over the smallest things.  When a student is a few seconds late she'll play a song on youtube and make them noraebang it for the first 5 minutes... and it takes about 5 minutes to get them to actually do it.  Then when I'm going through my ppt she'll pull students in the hallway and yell at them for 5/10 minutes rather than assisting me in explaining the grammatical point.  So by punishing one student, she's punishing everyone.

Yeah there is literally no consistency in public school in regards to how you can run your class. That's why, when I see people spouting off about how they are good teachers, and better than everyone else, because their classes are this and that, and they do this and that... it's like  Yeah come try that at my school so I can watch it drastically fail.

Koreans in general seem to think we get paid a lot more than we do. At a meetup with Americans and Koreans, one of the Americans offered to pay for the whole meal because it was one of the Koreans' birthday. The other was surprised, and birthday Korean said to her friend "oh, well, it's because foreign English teachers make a lot of money. 3mil won a month"

I wish!!!

even if you only make 2.5m a month, you still get a free apartment. if you took the housing allowance, you'd be on 3m

2.5m is now the top of the payscale in most places in korea (public school). so you'd have to be here around 3 years or more to get that. the housing allowance is also pretty much a pittance these days, and hasn't increased for ages, while rent has continued to rise. and we might get housing but we don't get the huge chuseok and seollal bonuses the korean teachers do. and if you put those bonuses together, for even the junior korean teachers they will exceed what our housing allowance is every year.

not only that but korean teachers also get 300,000 Won per year of 'well-being' money. they can use that for pretty much anything that helps with their 'well-being'. massages, bus/train tickets to visit their relatives, etc.

Edit: I found this great reaction image but then waygook user "I don't remember his name because he only had 34 posts" deleted his post

sad

- They throw half of it away
- This is probably the largest meal they'll eat of the day... sometimes the only one
- They diet/starve themselves
- You'll notice that whilst being thin, muscle is almost non-existent, their bodies keep breaking
  down muscle tissue since glycogen stores are perpetually low.
- Some will do regular cardio

The fast and slow metabolism excuse is... well... BS.
'Natural' metabolic speeds are only really 5% faster than normal, for people with fast metabolisms and 5% slower than normal for folks with slower metabolisms.
The thing that really slows down or kicks up your metabolic speeds is the amount of muscle your body carries. More muscle = faster metabolism and vice versa.

Korean woman, in particular, are starving themselves to look thinner.

i would agree with this. from speaking to the female teachers at my school, the vast majority of them don't eat breakfast. and when i ask them what they have for dinner they'll most often say something like "ramyeon" or "rice and seaweed soup" or something like that.

our school lunches are around 450-600 calories, and those types of dinners aren't more than 500 calories. i would say a lot of the female teachers at my school are only eating 1,000-1,500 calories per day. ANYONE will be skinny eating so few calories.

- They throw half of it away
- This is probably the largest meal they'll eat of the day... sometimes the only one
- They diet/starve themselves
- You'll notice that whilst being thin, muscle is almost non-existent, their bodies keep breaking
  down muscle tissue since glycogen stores are perpetually low.
- Some will do regular cardio

The fast and slow metabolism excuse is... well... BS.
'Natural' metabolic speeds are only really 5% faster than normal, for people with fast metabolisms and 5% slower than normal for folks with slower metabolisms.
The thing that really slows down or kicks up your metabolic speeds is the amount of muscle your body carries. More muscle = faster metabolism and vice versa.

Korean woman, in particular, are starving themselves to look thinner.

i would agree with this. from speaking to the female teachers at my school, the vast majority of them don't eat breakfast. and when i ask them what they have for dinner they'll most often say something like "ramyeon" or "rice and seaweed soup" or something like that.

our school lunches are around 450-600 calories, and those types of dinners aren't more than 500 calories. i would say a lot of the female teachers at my school are only eating 1,000-1,500 calories per day. ANYONE will be skinny eating so few calories.

To be fair, it's pretty healthy to make lunch your largest meal in the day and just have some vegetables and maybe a little brown rice for dinner. Maybe some meat or something if it's a special occasion.

a) it's easier than cooking a big elaborate meal.
b) it's healthier.
c) it's cheaper.
d) you don't go to bed with a bunch of calories just waiting to be converted to fat tissue while you sleep


1500 calories is a perfectly reasonable and healthy amount of calories to have in a day.

Personally I'd rather have a bigger lunch and then a smaller supper. Caloric intake needs depend on your lifestyle. If one expends a lot of energy then one should probably intake more than the average person. If one doesn't really exercise much, one could do with less.

1500 calories has been my average intake before but I never starved myself. I just ate really simply-- like eggs and veggies.

...Caloric intake needs depend on your lifestyle. If one expends a lot of energy then one should probably intake more than the average person. If one doesn't really exercise much, one could do with less.

1500 calories has been my average intake before but I never starved myself. I just ate really simply-- like eggs and veggies.

This is why former-athletes are often fat.

Look at most NFL or CFL football coaches.

That's my excuse anyway - I have never been a an athlete but my activity level is much less than it was in younger years.  My eating, however is about the same.

...Caloric intake needs depend on your lifestyle. If one expends a lot of energy then one should probably intake more than the average person. If one doesn't really exercise much, one could do with less.

1500 calories has been my average intake before but I never starved myself. I just ate really simply-- like eggs and veggies.

This is why former-athletes are often fat.

Look at most NFL or CFL football coaches.

That's my excuse anyway - I have never been a an athlete but my activity level is much less than it was in younger years.  My eating, however is about the same.

Yup. Post-college I definitely gained more squish around my middle because the job I got after graduating was very sedentary. As I'm not prone to exercising, I try to balance it out with watching my portion consumption and so far I haven't gained a terrible amount of weight. I could definitely do with losing a few pounds and building some muscle though.

This is why former-athletes are often fat.

Look at most NFL or CFL football coaches.

‘A common complaint is that older people have to work twice as hard with their diets and exercise to get half of the results of younger people,’ said Dr Gerald Weissmann, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal which published the study.

‘Now we have a much better idea why this is the case - our brown fat stops working as we age.

‘Unfortunately, until a way to turn it back on is developed, we'll have to be prepared to eat more salads and lean proteins, while logging more miles on the treadmill than our younger counterparts.’

As I'm not prone to exercising...

Try exercising prone.

Koreans in general seem to think we get paid a lot more than we do. At a meetup with Americans and Koreans, one of the Americans offered to pay for the whole meal because it was one of the Koreans' birthday. The other was surprised, and birthday Korean said to her friend "oh, well, it's because foreign English teachers make a lot of money. 3mil won a month"

I wish!!!

even if you only make 2.5m a month, you still get a free apartment. if you took the housing allowance, you'd be on 3m

2.5m is now the top of the payscale in most places in korea (public school). so you'd have to be here around 3 years or more to get that. the housing allowance is also pretty much a pittance these days, and hasn't increased for ages, while rent has continued to rise. and we might get housing but we don't get the huge chuseok and seollal bonuses the korean teachers do. and if you put those bonuses together, for even the junior korean teachers they will exceed what our housing allowance is every year.

not only that but korean teachers also get 300,000 Won per year of 'well-being' money. they can use that for pretty much anything that helps with their 'well-being'. massages, bus/train tickets to visit their relatives, etc.

Do you know how much their bonuses are?

- They throw half of it away
- This is probably the largest meal they'll eat of the day... sometimes the only one
- They diet/starve themselves
- You'll notice that whilst being thin, muscle is almost non-existent, their bodies keep breaking
  down muscle tissue since glycogen stores are perpetually low.
- Some will do regular cardio

The fast and slow metabolism excuse is... well... BS.
'Natural' metabolic speeds are only really 5% faster than normal, for people with fast metabolisms and 5% slower than normal for folks with slower metabolisms.
The thing that really slows down or kicks up your metabolic speeds is the amount of muscle your body carries. More muscle = faster metabolism and vice versa.

Korean woman, in particular, are starving themselves to look thinner.

i would agree with this. from speaking to the female teachers at my school, the vast majority of them don't eat breakfast. and when i ask them what they have for dinner they'll most often say something like "ramyeon" or "rice and seaweed soup" or something like that.

our school lunches are around 450-600 calories, and those types of dinners aren't more than 500 calories. i would say a lot of the female teachers at my school are only eating 1,000-1,500 calories per day. ANYONE will be skinny eating so few calories.

To be fair, it's pretty healthy to make lunch your largest meal in the day and just have some vegetables and maybe a little brown rice for dinner. Maybe some meat or something if it's a special occasion.

a) it's easier than cooking a big elaborate meal.
b) it's healthier.
c) it's cheaper.
d) you don't go to bed with a bunch of calories just waiting to be converted to fat tissue while you sleep


1500 calories is a perfectly reasonable and healthy amount of calories to have in a day.

That's not how that works

As I'm not prone to exercising...

Try exercising prone.

 

Prone, pronto!