RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

I get ignored, but not left out. Two of my coTs are very good about sitting with me so that I'm not sitting in total silence during dinners, though.

@Savant: Do you think your MIL is that dense (I say this because it's pretty dense to assume someone hates all seafood just because they state they don't like one thing) and forgetful, or do you think it's a case of passive-aggressive needling to try to get you to not be "picky" about your food? Or is it possible that she was just using it as an excuse for the rest of the table so that they don't bother you with your own food choices?

I get ignored, but not left out. Two of my coTs are very good about sitting with me so that I'm not sitting in total silence during dinners, though.

@Savant: Do you think your MIL is that dense (I say this because it's pretty dense to assume someone hates all seafood just because they state they don't like one thing) and forgetful, or do you think it's a case of passive-aggressive needling to try to get you to not be "picky" about your food? Or is it possible that she was just using it as an excuse for the rest of the table so that they don't bother you with your own food choices?

She's just one of those Koreans who assumes every Korean dish is delicious and for someone to not want to eat one such dish means that you don't like all Korean food. So yeah, maybe, dense.

It's why I find eating any food with her in the same room/restaurant such a tedious task.

She's just one of those Koreans who assumes every Korean dish is delicious and for someone to not want to eat one such dish means that you don't like all Korean food. So yeah, maybe, dense.

Are you saying she's an idiot, Savant?

I hear stories like this and am glad that my partner's parents aren't difficult.

I hear stories like this and am glad that my partner's parents aren't difficult.

Right? My GF has a kid and it seems to be less stress free than some of this stuff.

When you reach a certain age, you're probably going to order whatever and if your picky son-in-law doesn't like it, tough for him. He has an extra 30 years on this planet more than you. I mean if my Korean son-in-law had a problem with cheese or gravy or lamb or cilantro or pesto, there might come a point where I just said "Eff it, I'm going to order whatever I damn well please. He can eat it or not. I didn't come out to a restaurant to eat spaghetti marinara for the 20th time in a row." So I get the ordering something else. There could well be more cases of something beyond just cilantro/baby octopus. The negatives can stand out over the many times there's no problem.

On the other hand, if she chose a baby octopus restaurant and that's what the primary menu item is, yeah that's a knob move on her part. I don't care for baby octopus at all and that's a hard sell. As for mentioning it to everyone, I guess it depends on how it was said on how picky you are. If it was sneering, yeah that's an asshat move in front of company. If it's ignorance, whatever. Your actions will show her to be either right or wrong and people can see. And I can definitely see that crap getting really irritating after the 80th time. 

Being proactive can help. Be the one that either suggests or declares which Korean restaurant you're going to. Don't let the baby octopus option ever happen. We're going to the jjimdalk or kamjahtang place and that's that. Another good way to beat that perception is to have a few "hardcore oldschool" places on your favorites list. The holes in the wall that have been there for 40 years that get the "How do you know this place?" reaction or certain hardcore dishes.  That usually shuts that crowd the eff up. Maybe a few belts of traditional soju, you know, the varnishy stuff.

Or just order another bottle of soj and go to the happy place in your mind of old college football highlights and scenes from Casino or some old war movie.

I am banned from r/pics forever cuz someone was talking about the Avengers in my thread and I said something that was a spoiler.

FFS

Not a good start to my day so far, I'm in such a foul mood right now.

I had another bad kakao taxi experience this morning. This time the driver's phone ended up crashing, and after rebooting he couldn't get the kakao app to work. That's fine, we can work with that. I can give him directions. Except, he refuses to listen to me. He insists on bringing up a different GPS/navigation app and using that. Fine. But then he can't seem to understand where I want to go. Apparently, he didn't look at the destination on his kakao taxi app before it crashed, and he keeps "mishearing" what I'm telling him after the fact, and asking me over and over again if I want to go to a completely different location -- despite me telling him 'no' each and every single time, he seems to think I don't know what I'm saying and that he's right and that I REALLY want to go to this other place on the complete opposite side of town. He finally gives me his phone so that I can type the destination in myself, only he doesn't let me finish typing and snatches the phone back from me while I'm only halfway done. Then he ****** wipes the whole thing out because he thinks I mistyped it since what I had typed didn't start with the characters indicating the location he kept insisting I wanted to go. Clearly, I was fumbling around too much on his phone and didn't really know how to spell things out.

Mind, this is all while we're still moving on a busy road, with the meter running, and with him going slow enough that people can walk past us, and then only stopping AT GREEN LIGHTS knowing that they are green lights. I begin to insist on making him follow my directions again, but he refuses, and he finally pulls the car over. He hands me his phone again so that I can type in the destination name, only, as he passes the phone off to me, he accidentally hits some button on the app and closes it out, and I have no idea which app it is. Before I can ask him to bring it up again, he gets out of the car and runs off to take a piss.

I got out of the car while he was doing that and flagged down another taxi.

And now one of my new coTs is being an asshole. He's like that with me, and only me, whenever he's loaded down with a lot of work. He's been showing red flags for a while, now, and his level of disrespect has been growing. Today was not a good day for him to test me, and I'm planning on having words with him, but I don't expect that to go well.

I also really ****** hate how some of my coTs will be all, "Well, we discussed and planned the semester's schedule at the beginning of the semester, didn't we?" whenever I ask if there's going to be any changes during a day or week that has certain situations that I have been conditioned to know could bring changes to the schedule... as if we have NEVER ****** changed the schedule before, as if THEY HAVE NEVER ****** changed the schedule before based on where they are with their own classes. Whenever I point that out to them, they give nervous chuckles, like they don't want to argue with me, but then they say the same shit later... unless there is an expected change.

It's so ****** stupid.

I also really ****** hate how some of my coTs will be all, "Well, we discussed and planned the semester's schedule at the beginning of the semester, didn't we?" whenever I ask if there's going to be any changes during a day or week that has certain situations that I have been conditioned to know could bring changes to the schedule... as if we have NEVER ****** changed the schedule before, as if THEY HAVE NEVER ****** changed the schedule before based on where they are with their own classes. Whenever I point that out to them, they give nervous chuckles, like they don't want to argue with me, but then they say the same shit later... unless there is an expected change.
It's so ****** stupid.

    Just sharpen up your I-*******-knew-it-grin so that next time you ask the question and there is a change, you can absolutely annihilate everybody in the office with that grin.
    I work at a handful of different schools so I always start my day with questions about schedules and nobody thinks anything of it. It's so routine that it's now basically like saying good morning. Works out well for me.

    Just sharpen up your I-*******-knew-it-grin so that next time you ask the question and there is a change, you can absolutely annihilate everybody in the office with that grin.
    I work at a handful of different schools so I always start my day with questions about schedules and nobody thinks anything of it. It's so routine that it's now basically like saying good morning. Works out well for me.

Yeah, I probably should work on that grin, I admit that I'm really bad at it. I'm a lot better at throwing daggers, but that doesn't always get the best results.

I've tried checking in daily with my schools before, but it tends to exasperate most of my coTs because they don't usually see Korean surprises from the perspective of an often not-informed foreigner. They always think that someone is going to let me know if something changes, and they don't usually understand that this doesn't happen as often as they think it does, lol. They just think I don't trust them.

Which is fair, because I don't. xD But that's their own faults.

They just think I don't trust them.
Which is fair, because I don't. xD But that's their own faults.

Doveryai, no proveryai.  

I reaaally don't like the common Korean question of "Which do you like better? Your home or here?"

It's such a trap question. Say your home, and it's an insult. Say Korea, and you're giving them that satisfaction that they want so badly.

I often just end up telling them "I dunno..." Since I truly am on the fence.

I reaaally don't like the common Korean question of "Which do you like better? Your home or here?"

It's such a trap question. Say your home, and it's an insult. Say Korea, and you're giving them that satisfaction that they want so badly.

I often just end up telling them "I dunno..." Since I truly am on the fence.

"Me? Oh, I think Japan is the best but I got a job here instead. I'm not the best teacher in the world so they sent me here."

Watch the fireworks.

I reaaally don't like common Korean question of "Which do you like better? Your home or here?"

It's such a trap question. Say your home, and it's an insult. Say Korea, and you're giving them that satisfaction that they want so badly.

I often just end up telling them "I dunno..." Since I truly am on the fence.

Oh yeah that's a really tough question.  Similar to "So, when are you going home?" or "Will you stay here in Korea?"

If you haven't already made up your mind (like me) I've found it impossible to have a conversation about the topic.  I don't know if it's the language barrier or what but I've never been given any advice from anyone.  I feel like I'm expected to either say "I'm going home in _____ or "I'm staying here forever".  No in between allowed and no chance of discussing pros and cons of staying/leaving.  So I always have to come to Waygook for that 

503 SERVICE UNAVAILABLE...AAAAA AAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHH HHHH

I reaaally don't like the common Korean question of "Which do you like better? Your home or here?"

It's such a trap question. Say your home, and it's an insult. Say Korea, and you're giving them that satisfaction that they want so badly.

I often just end up telling them "I dunno..." Since I truly am on the fence.

I'm all about that fire and brimstone, so I'll tell them "home," lol. But I might phrase it like, "Korea has a lot of good qualities and I do enjoy living here, but home is where I grew up, so of course I prefer home." They usually just nod their heads in acceptance. If they're offended, they hide it. Except for this one time.

I'm not actually much of a homebody, but I don't like loaded or narcissistic questions, so I will pretty much always give them an unsatisfactory answer, regardless of how I really feel.

Giving a neutral non-answer is a pretty good strategy, though. xD

I reaaally don't like common Korean question of "Which do you like better? Your home or here?"

"At five o'clock. Why?" *blank stare*

I just don't get the incessant need to be friends with the foreign teacher. If it looks like I'm busy, sleeping or just doing literally anything else, why force a conversation? Why do you need to know everything? Does it even look/sound like I want to be a part of the conversation when we start talking???

Especially today with a substitute who's only going to be here for like two days.

I get it. Culture of having to know all the details, but some days I would just like to have my conversations limited only to my students and CT in class time. Too tired for this *sigh*

I mean I have the opposite problem in my latest school. I'm literally a ghost. NO ONE makes any effort to talk to me. If I make a conversation I get an answer but that's it. They aren't busy, they sit and INCESSANTLY chat to each other all day. They're all English teachers in my office but I get nothing. Usually on a Monday I will ask how their weekends were...one will say "Good, thanks" then turn to the other teacher and tell her all about her weekend in Korean LOL...like it was my question but sure.

I feel bad for my new main CoT he's not really aware that I have the plague and that no one includes me. One day he happily informs me that we're going to a restaurant for lunch, only to have one of the others rush out on her phone suddenly. He awkwardly tells me that she didn't make a reservation for me so quickly had to go do it.

I can think of two explanations:

Was chatting to someone who runs a small hagwon. The mother (lets call her KoKaren) of one of the students took it upon herself to form a clique with another group of mothers who sent their kids to the same hagwon and at the behest of KoKaren,  threatened to pull their kids from the hagwon if the owner didn't get rid of one of the students, whose mother KoKaren didn't like. Call me what you want, but over the years, time and time again, I've witnessed that Koreans LOVE to form cliques. There's safety in numbers and security when you have the leader of the clique telling you what to do. There's also a sense of satisfaction when actively or passively excluding others from your clique, in this case you. This is why bullying is absolutely rampant over here.

The other explanation, nobody wants to begin an English conversation which potentially leads to their English skills, or lack thereof, coming out.

A few months ago, I decided to get some treatment for a few sun spots on my face, so I went to a local dermatologist. I was sure there'd be better dermatologists in the neighbouring city, but an hour drive for every appointment isn't something I'm really really thrilled about.

The place seemed legit, plenty of other patients, and I was convinced to undergo 3 months of IPL laser treatment, of about 6 sessions, at 500 bucks.

- 6 session later, very little improvement. Dermatologist claims it's because I have different skin to Koreans, but will continue till they sort things out... for "free".
- After my 6th treatment, I'm told to come in anytime after 30days (time let my skin heal) to assess what to do next. I explain that I want an appointment, I don't want to sit in the waiting room for 40min
  for a slot. Apparently, the appointment book might as well be the menu for the restaurant down the road, completely pointless.
- 30days later, I get there after work and wait 40min.
- Dermatologist wants to see how this whitening ointment will work and I get a prescription.  Receptionist wants me to PAY for a prescription page (the actual printout not the prescription), which the
  dermatologist prescribed as part of my treatment package. Am told to, AGAIN, come in "anytime" after 30days. I tell her absolutely f*cking not, I don't have time to sit in receptions. Give me a time slot and
  I'll be there. I get a time slot for 3pm on Friday (knew I'd be able to sneak out school early).
- After sneaking out, I get there at 3, and I'm told they're too busy. I should come back next week... "anytime". I'm f*cking livid! I told them I'm coming there next Wednesday at 2pm, whether they have an
  opening or not to tell the dermatologist I'm cancelling my treatment and get my money back.

wondered why i sweating even though the aircon was on. checked the remote control...wife had turned it to 27 degrees

what's even the point of having it on if you set it to 27 degrees..? that's hotter than outside!