RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

Day 3 of English camp is today.
Day 1 - one student. 
Day 2- two students at beginning.  I start them on a craft activity.  30 minutes later, two more students arrive.  One hour later, all three of them have to leave-or so they say.  I'm not going to argue with them or force the issue.  So, for the rest of the day it's me and the same student from day one.

I see no point in going today. The only good thing is that the new vice principal lets us leave the school for lunch. 

This is the first camp I've taught alone at this school.  My previous coT was great and taught with me, and the kids loved her.  I taught winter camp with my new coT, but it wasn't anything great. 

This year she told me the school didn't have the budget for her to be there.

I just feel this week is a waste of the budget (we bought supplies) and time.

Counting today, 3 more days to go.  Weekend, please come quickly!

Happiness: my camp supplies have just arrived (the ones I requested 3 weeks ago so they're a little late).

Sadness: Things are missing, things are the wrong quantity/size/item so I'm going to have to change a lot of my camp.

(he gave me his measurements in his first message)

ALL his measurements? 

That's a bold strategy.

We have big ****s. I guess I'm pretty lucky."

I don't agree with that based on the 8 people who have no curtains in the apartment building opposite mine, and the 2 pieces of shit who thought it would be funny to piss on the tree next to my car while I was still in it.

Seriously, what is it with people in this country and their hate of window curtains? I don't want to be drinking my tea on my balcony and see your little tiny wang slopping about as you get the clothes off your drying rack.

I wasn't invited to the summer vacation ceremony 

My Co-T acts disappointed when I leave extra blank slides  (at the end) on my PPTs that I make. hahaha

Literally nothing bad can happen.

My Co-T acts disappointed when I leave extra blank slides  (at the end) on my PPTs that I make. hahaha

Literally nothing bad can happen.

I always purposefully start and end up PPts with at least one blank slide. It's easier to control what the kids see and when they see it, it makes for smoother transitions between activities, and it signals the end of the slideshow without closing out the program. I often leaves slides with my 'raw material' of images after a couple blank slides at the end of the file, as well.

last night, I was approached by a Korean guy looking for a hook up on a certain dating app. He then proceeded to tell me he's scared to meet foreigners and that I could be a "strange person" because of all the sexual assaults done by foreigners he hears about in the news.

....this 184cm 80kg man (he gave me his measurements in his first message) was scared of lil' ol' me because biased news reporting.. I can't believe it. I don't know one single foreign woman who hasn't had some negative or scary interaction with some gross Korean guy but the news never reports on that (and I told him so) but yeah... I'M the scary one 


Don't get alone with me in a motel room guys, I'm a scary one!

But at the end of the day... he still wanted to get it in 

There is an animated commercial currently running on TV ( i can't find a copy online to link) that teaches Korean kids about stranger danger.  It is done in the style of "Little red riding hood".  The girl is walking along and is followed.  She remembers seeing information about a bad person (who morphs into a huge wolf) and we see an info sheet about a known offender.  The sheet has the silhouette of a man that doesn't look Korean, (looks caucasian).  if you look carefully at the writing on the paper, it reads: "Wayggokin".  Really, the biggest danger to kids regarding their safety is white males? 

Maybe if the government addessed the domestic criminality, rather than targetting foreigners, the perspectives of the population may change somewhat.

The sad thing is that the tactics are working so well... to the point where a man much bigger than me, asking ME to meet him in a motel, is scared of me simply because I'm a foreigner. As a small woman in a country where I don't speak the language, I am the one who would be at the most risk in this situation but he didn't even realize it.

Something tells me this guy was playing coy. Perhaps to make you to feel like the pursuer and to get you to lower *your* defenses, and get you into said motel?

About your Korean friend and the Englishman, yeah, my wife felt strange holding hands with me in public early on in our relationship, especially around children. The horror!

She finally came around, though!

That reminds me of this incident I was sort of part of a couple of months ago, and it still pisses me off just thinking about it.

EDIT: Decided to edit out the details because I remembered I'd told a couple of coTs about it, lol. Long-story short, I ended up having to call the police over a questionable situation but found myself considered more suspicious and dangerous than a Korean man who had been behaving like a predator/potential pedophile. Lack of investigative and critical thinking skills from the police who responded to the call lead to massive amounts of frustration for me. It all worked out in the end, but street smarts is not really as much of a thing here as it should be.

The sad thing is that the tactics are working so well... to the point where a man much bigger than me, asking ME to meet him in a motel, is scared of me simply because I'm a foreigner. As a small woman in a country where I don't speak the language, I am the one who would be at the most risk in this situation but he didn't even realize it.

Something tells me this guy was playing coy. Perhaps to make you to feel like the pursuer and to get you to lower *your* defenses, and get you into said motel?

About your Korean friend and the Englishman, yeah, my wife felt strange holding hands with me in public early on in our relationship, especially around children. The horror!

She finally came around, though!

Hey, you're all a bunch of rapists right? Wanna bang??

You'll come around!

All the teachers are walking around with big smiles on their faces because school ended today, and they keep asking, "Aren't you happy school is over?" Well I might be except I have summer camp for the next 10 days, so my vacation doesn't start until August 10th. 

I have always spent a little of my own money on camp, I don't mind at all. My schools are generally on the poor end of the budget spectrum. So for this school I bought colour pens and crayons and glue sticks and stickers and pencils and erasers for prizes, I made camp "textbooks" and workbooks. I bought new markers and made laminated type whiteboards, I really prepped. 

MY DAY: Get to my travel school at 8am to prep for camp at 9, and no one can let me in until 8:55. (45 minute bus ride so...... )

I grab my after school/camp file out of the admin office and I see that behind my attendance sheets I have report forms (normal at this school) of how the lesson went, and I note that there is one stark difference.................. the camp form has a section labelled "Snack/Treat", and just to make sure that I know what this means they attach a report form from the old teacher, which says "pizza" for every day of camp.  Wow awesome Pizza. Every Day. Wicked I was so happy!

I realised at about 9:30 that my CT is clearly not actually doing camp with me, but I wasn't too concerned. So I am thinking, maybe they just bring the pizza. No pizza arrived * I check all the cupboards - there are no snacks. I rush to the admin office during a 5 minute break... nope, no snacks for students.

I message the English head teacher, to ask. I am advised "no problem, I will ask one of the daycare teachers to sit with your students, you can go to the CU store and get snacks"...... For 21 students (1st class) and 8 students (2nd class)**. I must buy this. ***

I am not happy about this at all. I am keeping receipts and will be giving those to the admin office. I hope this is a misunderstanding. Truly. I cannot afford to buy all the  students pizza for a week! Holy hell!

* I have just found out that my CT is on vacation.

** only one student arrived for 2nd class

*** I bought chocopies and fanta orange

Camp has been going really well so far and today I was really excited because it was a art focused day. It's Elem. Grade 3&4 with a few special needs students who are really into anything art related. 

I have the students doing those paintings where you draw on white paper with white (and coloured) crayon and then paint over it, usually with black paint.  The kids love seeing the white crayon suddenly appear.
Anyways, the activity is going great and the paintings are turning out incredibly.  It's a huge success and then my CoT steps in.  She starts painting on the kids' papers the way SHE thinks it should look like-completely defeating the purpose of using the crayons. It was so frustrating!

So now I have 15 almost identical paintings that were mostly done by a teacher instead of 15 unique student creations.
I'm pissed.

I have always spent a little of my own money on camp, I don't mind at all. My schools are generally on the poor end of the budget spectrum. So for this school I bought colour pens and crayons and glue sticks and stickers and pencils and erasers for prizes, I made camp "textbooks" and workbooks. I bought new markers and made laminated type whiteboards, I really prepped. 

MY DAY: Get to my travel school at 8am to prep for camp at 9, and no one can let me in until 8:55. (45 minute bus ride so...... )

I grab my after school/camp file out of the admin office and I see that behind my attendance sheets I have report forms (normal at this school) of how the lesson went, and I note that there is one stark difference.................. the camp form has a section labelled "Snack/Treat", and just to make sure that I know what this means they attach a report form from the old teacher, which says "pizza" for every day of camp.  Wow awesome Pizza. Every Day. Wicked I was so happy!

I realised at about 9:30 that my CT is clearly not actually doing camp with me, but I wasn't too concerned. So I am thinking, maybe they just bring the pizza. No pizza arrived * I check all the cupboards - there are no snacks. I rush to the admin office during a 5 minute break... nope, no snacks for students.

I message the English head teacher, to ask. I am advised "no problem, I will ask one of the daycare teachers to sit with your students, you can go to the CU store and get snacks"...... For 21 students (1st class) and 8 students (2nd class)**. I must buy this. ***

I am not happy about this at all. I am keeping receipts and will be giving those to the admin office. I hope this is a misunderstanding. Truly. I cannot afford to buy all the  students pizza for a week! Holy hell!

* I have just found out that my CT is on vacation.

** only one student arrived for 2nd class

*** I bought chocopies and fanta orange

I buy stuff for my AS students sometimes (small cheap things like candy) for end of school parties etc

but if my school ever expected it or told me I had to I would be so frickin mad. It's horrible.  I'm mad for you!

"Forget your card" tomorrow.

You're a mug if you do this. Soz.

Hope you get it back!

Camp's been going great, except my CT seems to be living on another planet. After endless nagging, asking me what materials to get for camp, she forgets the most basic essentials.

For cooking day (we just made sandwiches), she brings one loaf of bread for 20 students! She doesn't bring any plates and no knives... the students had to spread their butter, PB, jam and Nutella with a plastic Baskin Robbins spoon.

Nobody needs to tell her it's going to be crazy hot and with a few outdoor activities, we're definitely going to need a lot of soft-drinks and/or water, I reminded her anyway... according to my CT, "a lot" means 2... 2 bottles of juice for 20 students over 5 days!

Today, we made cardboard smore ovens and while she got too few 'crackers' to put the smores on, that wasn't the cherry on top. After a long 3 periods of making the ovens placing our ovens outside, waiting for 20min and bringing them back in, the students were literally begging for something cold to wash their smores down with.
My CT starts pouring paper cups with a thimble full of juice so there's enough to go around.
While the students are sipping, she hands me a carton of juice from her private stock and opens one for herself. This woman watches a bunch of parched students sip on their meagre rations while she sucks away at her juice.
Since I'm not a complete bastard, I go to some of the younger students and pour the contents of my juice into their cups. My CT sees this and gives me a sly dirty look... Well f*ck you too you selfish c**t.

Random rant- S'mores are disgusting. Diabetes between two graham crackers that turns into a goopy pile of crap that makes everyone sticky and messy. You're already out camping and haven't properly bathed for 24 hours with piss poor hygiene, now you want to add sticky sugar to your hands and wash it off with a few splashes of Aquafina?

Right up there with other disgusting trash foods like peanut butter cups, Doritos, Snickers pie, and frosting on cake.

Random rant- S'mores are disgusting. Diabetes between two graham crackers that turns into a goopy pile of crap that makes everyone sticky and messy. You're already out camping and haven't properly bathed for 24 hours with piss poor hygiene, now you want to add sticky sugar to your hands and wash it off with a few splashes of Aquafina?

Right up there with other disgusting trash foods like peanut butter cups, Doritos, Snickers pie, and frosting on cake.

Not really random when Aristocrat mentioned it in the prior post.

I'd kill for real Doritos. The ones here suck.

Random rant- S'mores are disgusting. Diabetes between two graham crackers that turns into a goopy pile of crap that makes everyone sticky and messy. You're already out camping and haven't properly bathed for 24 hours with piss poor hygiene, now you want to add sticky sugar to your hands and wash it off with a few splashes of Aquafina?

Right up there with other disgusting trash foods like peanut butter cups, Doritos, Snickers pie, and frosting on cake.

You must be a bundle of joy on a camping trip.